56. Shadows of the Past
I dreamed I was in a room I didn’t recognize, in a house I had never been in before.
The bedroom was well furnished, with a king-size bed, a couch facing a beautiful wooden dresser with a large TV on top, two plush armchairs, and an expensive-looking Persian rug atop hardwood floors.
“Are my parents going to be here soon? Have you texted them yet?” I asked Ace.
He was lying on the bed next to me, his warm body surrounding mine completely as if he were trying to protect me from the world.
My head was pounding. It felt like someone had taken a sledgehammer to my skull and cracked it open.
I hid my face in Ace’s chest to avoid being exposed to any sort of light.
The room was pitch black thanks to the blackout curtains, but I had already spent far too many hours throwing up in the bathroom to chance being exposed to light and upsetting my concussion again.
Ace shifted against me as he massaged the back of my neck. “Yes. They’re on their way,” he replied.
His voice was so tense.
I wasn’t surprised. He hated it when I was in pain.
“Will you turn the TV down a little bit?” I requested.
To avoid making my head worse, Ace was blocking me from watching the TV but had put it on at a low volume. The cast of Friends was doing its best to distract me from the hellish pain I was in.
The world was spinning too much. Even the sound of my own voice was hard for me to bear.
Instead of turning down the volume, Ace just switched the TV off. I was extremely grateful for the silence.
“I’m so sorry, Doe,” Ace said for the millionth time.
I sighed and glanced up at him, just barely able to see him in the darkness. He met my gaze with exhausted, agonized eyes. He looked so young. He was probably only fifteen or sixteen years old.
“Please stop apologizing,” I begged. I tucked my head back into his chest with a wince. “It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t know Mitchell was going to react that way.”
“Doesn’t matter. I should have protected you. I’m never going to let anything bad happen to you again.
I promise.”
He was being too hard on himself. It made my heart clench. All the guilt he was carrying had to be crushing.
“You can’t promise that,” I said. “Sometimes things happen that are out of your control. It’s not fair that you’re blaming yourself for what happened.”
“No.” His tone was final. Decided. “I’m going to protect you. You have my word. No matter what it takes. You will never have to go through anything like that ever again.”
Someone knocked gently on the door. Whoever it was didn’t wait for a reply before swinging it open.
My hand flew up to protect my eyes from the unwelcome light coming in from the hallway.
I let out a breath of relief, thinking it was my parents finally coming to take me home.
But instead of seeing my mom and dad, I met the eyes of a tall, skinny, white-haired, old man. His disturbing appearance immediately made me alert.
He was dressed all in black, his long, hooded coat reaching his ankles, and his feet covered by dark
leather.
His cheekbones protruded morbidly from his face, and his skin was so pale and translucent, I was sure you would be able to see his veins in the right lighting.
He would have made a great extra in The Walking Dead.
“Alpha,” the man greeted with a low nod of his head.
“Just Ace is fine,” Ace replied in a stiff tone. “Thank you for coming.”
“Who…?” I looked between them, trying to decipher what was going on. I wasn’t in the mood for visitors, especially when those visitors were complete strangers. d cracked it open.
And someone who looked like they could take a job at a haunted house.
I just wanted to go home. I missed my own bed. I missed my parents and brothers.
“My name is Gulius Mallor,” the white-haired man said to me.
I’d never seen a man look so stoic while introducing himself. I briefly wondered if he had ever smiled before.
“And you must be Dorothy. Your mate asked me to be here.”
Ace helped me sit up with a gentle hand on my back. I moaned, my gut clenching in protest at the sudden movement.
I made sure to keep my eyes covered. I could barely look at the man, this Gulius.
His form was still backlit by the bright light coming from the hall behind him.
“Close the door,” Ace snapped, noticing my reaction. He looked down at me in worry and gently wiped my hair from my face. “She has a concussion.”
“Pity,” Gulius lamented. He swung the door shut behind him, shrouding us in darkness once again.
I deflated as some of the tension left my skull. “Ace? What’s going on?”
“The concussion might complicate things,” Gulius cut in. He leaned down to inspect me, then frowned as he took in the deep cut on the left side of my forehead, sewn up with stitches.e. “It wasn’t your I automatically moved closer to Ace. Gulius was so near that I could feel his breath against my face. It smelled of rotting leaves and burned matches.pen to you again.
A low growl came from Ace. “Complicate things how?”
Gulius shook his head. “There’s no way to be sure.”
“Will it cause her pain?” Ace demanded.
Cause me pain? What the hell?
“What are you talking about?” I asked once again. “What’s going to cause me pain?”
“Everything is okay, Doe,” Ace said. He ran one of his hands up and down my bicep.
“Gulius is going to help. He’s going to make sure no one can ever take you from me again.”
Alarm bells went off in my head. “How is he going to do that? There’s no way—”
“I have very little time here. We must make haste,” Gulius interrupted. He seemed very unconcerned by my questions. It was almost as if my worry greatly inconvenienced him.
His dark gaze traveled down my body. “The concussion may cause her pain. I’ve also never treated anyone so young before. How old is she?”
“She just turned fifteen,” Ace muttered.
Gulius hummed in contemplation. “I have no way of knowing how someone so young will react. Her mind is still developing.
“I can assure you, however, that it will not cause her any permanent damage. She may be uncomfortable though. Especially when she already has a head injury.”
“But it will still work, right?” Ace bit out. “I need it to work. I will not lose my mate.”
My eyes scrambled over Ace’s face, my heart dropping when he refused to meet my gaze. “Ace, whatever this is, whatever you’re thinking of doing, please don’t. You’re not going to lose me—”
“I can’t stop them from taking you from me unless this happens,” Ace cut me off in a clipped tone.
I tried to pull away from him—just so I could face him and try to talk some sense into him—but Ace tightened his hold so I couldn’t move.
“Let me go,” I ordered. “Ace, please—” I fought against his hold to no avail.
“The full process takes about twenty minutes,” Gulius said. “She won’t remember a thing afterward.”
Ace nodded, then easily adjusted so we were both sitting near the edge of the bed with me between his legs, still leaning against his chest.
I faced the standing Gulius with wide, terrified eyes. “Ace, I’m scared.”
I didn’t think Ace could get any stiffer, but he turned into complete stone when he heard me say those words. A pained whimper came from somewhere behind his rib cage.
“You don’t have to be,” he replied. “I’m not going to let anything bad happen.” His mouth was against and gently wipedthe back of my head. “I’m so sorry, Doe. This is going to fix everything, I promise.”
“Shall I begin?” Gulius asked.
Ace nodded, and Gulius put one knee on the edge of the mattress, causing me to dip toward him. He raised his hands.
“No!” I screamed, jerking my head back when he attempted to put them on either side of my face. My skull throbbed.
Gulius sighed in annoyance. “Please hold her still,” he reprimanded.
Ace slid his arms under my armpits and moved his hands up to grip both sides of my face, keeping me from moving my head. He pinned my kicking legs under his.
“Shh, Doe, it’s okay. I promise everything is going to be okay. You have to hold still.
Please.”
I had never heard Ace sound more desperate in all my life. It only fueled my panic.
“No, please don’t,” I begged. Tears pooled in my eyes as I gripped Ace’s arms, digging my nails into his skin, trying to pull them away from me so I could escape.
Nothing worked. He was too strong.
“Please, Ace…” y unconcerned byAce made a whining noise. “You’re going to hurt yourself, Doe. Please, just hold still.
Please.”
Gulius placed his hands back on my head. I cried out when he brushed over the raised bruise on my forehead.
Ace jerked me away from Gulius with a loud growl. “Be careful of her stitches!”
Gulius held up his hands. “Apologies.” He readjusted his hold, cautious of where he was touching me this time, and gazed down at me.
I gasped in horror. His eyes were pure white. His irises were barely visible. It was as if a blizzard was dancing in his gaze, impending and deadly.
Not human. Not human. Not human, my brain repeated over and over.
“Brace yourself, little omega,” he told me. His lips turned up in a malicious grin. “It will all be over soon.”
“I’m so sorry, Doe,” Ace whispered one last time.
Gulius pressed down on my skull. And the room filled with my screams. *** I woke up gasping for air, thrashing my arms and legs as I fought the imaginary people around me.
It took me several panic-filled moments to realize where I was: in Ace’s room, totally safe. No terrifying white-eyed man in sight.
My body shook as I sat up. I placed a hand over my racing heart. “It was just a dream,” I whispered to myself. “It was all just a dream.”
But it felt so vivid. Normally, when I awoke from a dream, I struggled to remember it. This time, though, it was fresh in my mind. Like it had actually happened.
I almost wondered if it did happen.
We were fifteen in my dream—around the same time I was in that terrible car accident that sent me through the windshield of my dad’s truck.
The event had been so traumatic that I couldn’t remember any of it, only waking up in a hospital a few hours later in horrible pain.
I supposed I could have seen Ace beforehand. Maybe the dream was my brain’s way of trying to remember?
I reached up and touched the scar spanning my forehead and disappearing into my hairline. No. It was just a dream. It had to be.
I looked to my side. Ace wasn’t in bed with me. I flicked on the bedside table lamp and searched the room. I was all by myself.
My chest still felt tight from the panic. After that bizarre nightmare, I wanted nothing more than to hear Ace reassure me that everything was okay. To comfort me and tell me my brain made it all up.
Because it didn’t feel made up. It felt very real.
I pulled myself out of bed and stood on shaky legs.
Maybe he went to the bathroom? Or to get a glass of water?
Wherever he was, I decided I wasn’t going to wait for him to come back. It was two a.m.
It wasn’t like him to disappear in the middle of the night, especially after we just had sex for the first time.
Somewhere inside me, I knew something was up. And I was going to figure out what it was.
more than to hear
