by Celeste Raye
The story for his was he was burned on the back by a poker from his cousin. He and his cousin had hurt each other rather frequently in their youth, so it had seemed possible enough. But now, he was starting to wonder, because hers looked just like his. Almost exactly. and now he was able to look at it even more closely, because it was hard to see his own through the mirror.
His hand came out to rub it, and he found himself comparing it to the one that he had touched for so many years. Like him, Freya did not have many marks on her body. But that one. How could that be a coincidence? He wanted to wake her up and ask her, but he was content to pull her closer and let his body do the waking up.
“Well, I guess sleeping in is going to be out of the question, huh?”
“If you are planning on sleeping like that and rubbing against me, I don't think either one of us is going to get any sleep.”
“Maybe I should get dressed now so that you will stop looking at me like I’m dinner.”
“Actually, I wanted to ask you about something.”
“What is it?”
“That mark on your shoulder. That scar that kind of looks like a brand. Where did you get it?”
“I don't know. I must have gotten burned or something. It is kind of weird. I guess living so long, you don't really remember much. Not stuff like that anyway.”
“I want to show you something. I don't think we were paying much attention last night.”
He sat up and turned his back to her so that she could see the same mark on his shoulder. It took her a minute to sit-up, but he finally had her attention.
“How crazy is that?”
“I don't think it's crazy. I think that there are too many coincidences going on here. Know what I mean?”
“So, what do you think it could be?”
Nik had been thinking about it a lot, but he still didn't have an answer to that question. He didn't know what it was he was looking for, just that something wasn’t right.
“I think I have an idea of how we can find out.”
“Do tell.”
“I think that we should pay a visit to the witches. I think they will know what is going on. I don't know exactly why I feel this way, but I feel like some kind of magic was done to us, and I want to know what.”
Nik did not want to sound like he was going insane, but when he heard himself, he had to question it. He didn't know what was going on or why there were so many coincidences with him and Freya. He didn't know why his family was fighting with hers. There were a lot of unanswered questions, and witches were very good at digging up the past that wanted to stay hidden.
It was time for things to get unburied. It was time for everything to be revealed.
Chapter Eighteen
Freya held Nik’s hand a little harder than she had to, but she needed him to stay anchored. Everything that was going on was getting too weird, and the identical brands were too hard to ignore. There wasn’t much else they could do within the walls anyway, so Nik pushed to see the witches after they got dressed. They didn’t work for him, but they were always willing to help for a good cause and a price.
“It’s going to be okay, Freya. I’m sure of it.”
“I hope that you’re right because I am freaking out inside, I mean, really bad. There are so many things that can go wrong. Aren’t you worried about what we might find out?”
Freya was far more nervous than she should have been. Her whole body was filled with anxiety, and the more she thought about what would be found out, the more her insides quaked. It wasn’t something that she was used to, being that scared, but she knew that she had to find out the truth. That was the whole reason that she had agreed to run away with him in the first place. Something was off, and she wanted to know what.
But now that she had the chance, what was supposed to happen next? What happened when she found out? There were too many questions, and the answers were rather short. It was all going to come down to something that she didn’t have a say in, and that bothered her. Freya liked to think that she had a say in her life, even if that was just wishful thinking.
“I know that whatever happens in there, Freya, it isn’t going to change anything. I am still going to be head over heels in love with you. You’re the only one I want to be with. It’s just that simple. So, I don’t care what these witches say, and if it bothers you too much, we can leave now.”
Freya smiled in his direction.
“Are you sure you want to do this?”
“I feel like we need to find out what is going on. I don't know what it is exactly, but I think it is something that we need to understand better. We both know that we have this connection and we know things that we shouldn’t know. Some of our memories are gone. There has to be a reason for that, don't you think?”
When it was all said like that, bundled up together like it was a big picture, it was easy for her to imagine that what he said was closer to the truth than she liked to imagine. There was something going on, and even though she didn't like to consider such conspiracies, it was rather difficult not to, when there was no other possible answer available.
“Yeah, there does have to be an answer for it all. I guess it is better to know what it is instead of hiding my head in the sand. I can't do it any longer.”
He squeezed the hand that he was holding a little bit harder, and she was thankful for the touch. Freya wanted to believe that she was above it all, but the fact of the matter was that she was scared. She was practically terrified of what she might find out.
The witches were in small houses by the cemetery. They were rather plain in style, and she wondered why they chose to live in such a place.
Freya turned to Nik and asked him again if he was sure. She certainly wasn't anymore. She still felt uneasy and fearful, and it was only intensifying as they got closer to the truth.
“You know these witches?”
“I do.”
Freya wanted to know more. She wanted to know why her insides were practically vibrating the closer she got to the house.
“Are you okay?”
“It just feels funny being close. Do you feel funny?”
Nik said that he didn’t, and that didn’t curb her anxiety at all. When he knocked on the door and a woman not much older than her answered, something passed between them.
“You didn’t tell me that she was a witch, Nik. Why don’t you just do this spell yourselves? She’s strong enough to.”
“No, I am sorry to be contrary, but I’m not a witch.”
Freya was shocked at the witch’s assumption. She was a dragon shifter, had been her whole life. Nothing more. Certainly not a witch.
“My name is Glenda, and I am glad to meet you. What did you say your name was?”
“Freya.”
“Domin?”
Freya agreed and hoped that it was Nik that had told her the last name. She didn’t want to think that the mystical woman already knew her. That was never good news.
“Well, good, then I guess we can get started. Show me the marks and we will see what we can do. It could be nothing, Nik.”
Nik agreed, but Freya knew that neither one of them thought that it was nothing. That could just be the witch’s way of getting out of giving them any real answers. She was already ready to walk out, not liking the assumptions and the general feel of the place. She was practically vibrating where she sat.
Glenda asked Freya to take her shirt off and to show her. Freya was feeling shy but she did it anyway, wanting the answers that the woman hopefully had. Just because she was wrong about the witch thing didn’t mean that she had to be wrong about it all. That’s what Freya hoped anyway.
“Ah, I see. This is definitely the result of magic. The original brand is not, but the one covering it seems to be a spell. I take it that you have chunks of your memory gone?”
Freya agreed and she could feel goosebumps rising. The idea that the woman knew that bothered her. Something had happened to the two of them, and they were fin
ally going to find out what. This is what they had been waiting for all along.
She watched Glenda touch the same mark on his back as well, and the witch had a smirk on her face. “Someone wanted you two to forget something very badly.”
A shiver ran up Freya’s spine. What were they made to forget?
Chapter Nineteen
Both Nik and Freya were naked, laying in a circle of white chalk, while several witches chanted and held hands above them. Nik tried not to focus on it, never really liking to delve too far into witchcraft and the like. All he was worried about was finding out what memories had been taken from him, so that he could find who had taken them and end them. It was a person’s most private thing and there was no way that he was going to let someone snatch it away from him, without him doing something about it.
He looked over at Freya and smiled at her, trying to tell her that everything was going to be fine without words. He didn't want to mess up what was going on around him.
Although it made him uncomfortable, it seemed Freya was even worse off than he was. She was practically shaking next to him and they linked hands. Something happened when their hands touched, and Nik felt a spark run from her to him. He also started to see flashes in his mind. Flashes that didn't make sense, but they were going so fast that he didn't have time to digest what he was seeing.
It was like a jolt was driven through his whole body, and he called out to the sky, just like Freya did next to him. He knew that she was getting the exact same images. He looked over at her for just a moment, and he could see a tear rolling down her cheeks. Her eyes were closed, but her face showed every emotion that was possible.
He knew suddenly what they had been made to forget. They had been made to forget each other. They were the subject of the stories about the family rivalry. It was because of them and their love for each other. But once that was understood, he had to wonder why. It didn't make much sense to him. Why would somebody try to take away their love?
It filled him with an anger that he had never felt before and he was surely not going to be able to control. It wreaked havoc on his body and his mind.
The chanting stopped, and the two of them were left in the middle of the circle. It was like he wanted to move, his brain was telling his body to make movement, but he couldn't. There was just no way. All he could think about was what was between them. When he finally looked over at her, their eyes met, and they both just knew.
“How could we forget?”
“I don’t know, Freya. I don’t know.”
A part of him hoped that it wasn’t going to be the coven near his home that betrayed him in such a way. Whoever it was, they had been able to get their hands on some pretty strong magic. He would have to find out where it came from.
“Who did this, witch?”
Glenda gave him a dirty look and sent the others away. It was quiet without the chanting and Nik was still reeling from all of the images. It was hard for him to feel like his mind was ever going to be right again, or if it was ever going to be his again.
One thing that he’d learned from all of it was that his love for Freya was long and deep-rooted. No wonder they knew such trivial things about each other. They were together for well over a year.
“Calm down, Nik. She was nice enough to help us.”
Nik ignored Freya. He would get to her in a bit. They had the rest of their lives to rediscover each other the way that they knew each other once before; this time, even better than before. What he was worried about now, was who the hell had done such a horrible thing to them. Why would anyone want to stop the two of them from being together?
“I am as calm as I am going to be. Tell me, witch, you know more, or there is more that got wiped. Let’s go again and rejog it one last time. I don’t want to miss a bit of it.”
“The only way that I can go deeper is if you let me jump off of your power and siphon it, Freya. That’s the only way.”
“Why can’t you bring your witch friends back?”
“It’s not enough. All I could get was what you both saw. I need more power.”
Freya shook her head and told the woman again that she was not a witch.
“You are, dear. I don’t know how you could go through life and not know that. You had to have felt the power that surges out of you. I could feel it as soon as I opened the door, maybe sooner, but I wasn’t paying as much attention.”
“You are wrong. I am sorry, but I am not a witch. I am a dragon shifter. I can shift into a dragon, read minds, I don’t age.”
“Well, you very well could be a dragon shifter, but that doesn’t mean that you are not a witch as well. I am not wrong. I know what I feel.”
“So, with her power, you can do it?”
“Nik…”
“We will work on the rest of it later; right now, let’s go back under. Don’t you want to see if there is anything else that we missed?”
The second time around brought more answers, but some of it was still fuzzy. They were told that it was most likely gone for good. Nik didn’t like the idea of that because he was sure that it was going to be the very information that he needed to find out who had dared do this to them. He wanted answers, but all he had was a lot of questions that could not be answered.
They left in silence and stayed that way for quite a while. Neither one of them knew what to say. Nik was reeling, and he just wanted to get back into bed and lay with her for a while. She was his, always had been, and now that they were back together and knew who they were to each other, the easiness that had been strange before made perfect sense. They were different now, because everything was different. The truth was out, and their love was the stuff of legends.
They literally were a legend.
Chapter Twenty
“You know, Nik, if our memory was erased, that means that someone in our lives, most likely very close to us, knows why. They know the truth, and they know what is between us. Who do you know that is trying to keep us apart? I bet all of the crap about our family warring is some false memory or one of our stolen memories that they wanted to get rid of.”
“What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking that it is someone close to us that caused all of this. Someone very close.”
“You think it was one of our parents?”
That was exactly what she was thinking, even though it didn’t make any sense. She knew that her family was always hiding secrets, and she didn’t know what they were about, but this was more than she could have imagined. The fact that she found out she had witch powers was something new. It was kept from her.
Her mother was a high-ranking witch, had to be, and that must have been lost through the years. Memory has a way of coming and going, she had said before. Now Freya was starting to see the truth behind that.
“I think it was my parents. Maybe yours. I don’t know. Do you think they could have worked together? I just remember in the flashes that we mated and then suddenly, everything had to stop. They told me to leave. I don’t know why, though. What did you get?”
Freya had learned that their memories were shared when they were together, but she’d lost a lot of memories and conversations that she’d had alone. Those were the ones that helped her to see that it was her parents that had done this to them. She almost would have felt better if she had known that his were in on it as well. Then she would be able to believe that it wasn’t all her fault.
“Mine is still fuzzy. Some of it is gone, and I know that there is something to see, but I can’t get to it. It’s very frustrating. We can try stronger witches that can piggyback off of you. The second time they did it, channeling you, the visions slowed down and started to make sense. It isn’t just a random blur of scenes. It was more cohesive.”
“Yes, I would agree. That’s how mine were as well. The ones with you are way more vivid now. We’ve been having great sex for over a century.”
“Well, had. We were torn apart, and I will not rest until I find out who di
d this to us.”
He wasn’t listening to her, but Freya wasn’t going to make a big deal of it. Her mind was exploding as well. It was a lot to take in. They were lying in bed and she never wanted him to let her go. It felt like they had already missed so much time together.
“All I know for certain is we are not going to give anyone another chance to break us up. I will not lose another moment with you.”
Nik pulled her closer, and she felt like she never wanted to leave.
“I am never going to let you go again. This is all going to work out somehow. Now we at least know what we’re dealing with.”
She sighed to herself. “Yeah, we’re dealing with my messed-up parents. They have kept so much, taken the rest. I don’t know what to say to them.”
“I think it’s time that you leave the walls. It’s time for you to speak to them. I will be close by when it happens, Freya. I think we both know that you’re right. You want to do this alone.”
She smiled at him and kissed him softly. “You know me too well.”
“No, Freya, I don’t know enough. You have a century to catch me up on.”
“Though I know a lot of what has happened with you. You didn’t keep a low profile.”
Nik ignored her look. “When you’re ready, I will walk you out there.”
Freya snuggled in closer. She wasn’t ready to leave him yet. A part of her never wanted to leave his side again, afraid that they would somehow be ripped apart.
“Not yet, Nik. I need more time.”
He kissed the top of her head, and Freya knew that she was finally back where she needed to be. Knowing why didn’t make it feel any righter than it had before, but it certainly made it easier for her not question it. She was meant to be with him, always.