A Curse of Shadows

My head spins with this information and my body hums with uncertainty that feels like a live wire, ready to unleash itself on the world. Worse—or maybe not—the urge to go to Asher, to let him touch me again, nearly consumes me. Yet a part of me still screams for restraint.

Just this morning, I was dead set against this man, certain he was nothing but a royal ass. But now, his confession about our shared legacy tugs at strings within my heart that I didn’t know existed. I can feel my resolve melting, slipping right through my fingers while my body buzzes with coiled tension that craves his nearness.

How can this be my life right now? Believing all this is real is one thing, but suddenly feeling as if I’m supposed to be part of something bigger, to accept that magic exists, but not only that. That me, the woman I am now, is a part of all this? That’s a leap of a different magnitude.

Images of Elodee flash through my mind, grounding me with a jolt of guilt. She’s my rock, the one constant in my life. How can I think of staying here, entangled in this new, alluring world, when she’s back in Seattle, all alone?

My heart hammers with a barrage of what-ifs. What if I embraced this bizarre truth? What if I let Asher show me everything he’s just confessed? What if I actually am a wolf shifter who’s been trapped on Earth for centuries?

What freaking if!

As Asher and I navigate through the lush forest, around mountains, and past a soothing river, the fresh, earthy air does little to calm my inner turmoil. I take several deep breaths and even shake out my arms, trying to physically remove the chaotic thoughts running rampant through me.

While the breathing and movements do help, it’s the profound sense of belonging that tells me nothing is ever going to be the same again. The soul-deep recognition—just like the first time I saw Grayson—that this is where I’m meant to be.

I don’t know if that means forever, but I do know, right now, in this moment, there’s no more fighting against what’s happened to me. No more not asking questions because the answers might be too intimidating.

If I was born in this world, if I’m not quite as human as I always believed, then there’s more to do here. Hiding in my room is no longer an option, especially when nobody seems to know what happened to me.

It’s time to start facing my new reality.

“Where are we going?” I ask, feeling only slightly guilty for ignoring the most romantic confession in history that he gave to me back there. One that still has my heart racing with the intensity of his words and makes me wish I could remember loving him just as fiercely.

Asher glances over at me, slowing his pace so that we’re now walking side by side. “There’s a cave just ahead that always felt like a secondary home of sorts to us. Even as kids, you and I found solace there.”

I can’t help but laugh. “We lived in a castle but made a home out of a cave?”

The idea seems absurd until his reply.

“You were never fond of the spotlight,” he says whimsically. “All you ever needed was your family and…me. That was enough, but we also had a duty, and you understood that, too. Or so I thought.”

The heartbreak that radiates from him as he says those last few words weighs heavily on me, like a boulder I can’t outrun.

“What do you mean?” I’m not sure I want the answer to this question, but I have a feeling that in order to understand who I am, I need to know who I was, even if that was a different lifetime.

He stops and faces me, grabbing both of my hands. My first instinct is to pull away, but as the heat from his palms seeps into me, I decide to stop fighting against the fantasy of this world. It’s only been three days and my mind is more than overwhelmed, but resisting all this isn’t going to help me. It’s like trying to stop a derailed train: completely pointless.

“I’m not sure because we don’t know all the pieces of information that we should,” he says, “but you disappeared right after I shared that my father was stepping down and I was to become king centuries sooner than either of us planned for.”

I blink, unsure what to say when I have no memory of this.

He continues. “You promised we’d get through whatever obstacles we were to face together and then, before that same evening’s dinner that you planned, you were gone, no trace of you left anywhere that we could find. You took nothing with you and no amount of magic could track you. It makes sense now if you went to Earth, but I still don’t understand how you continued to be reborn there.”

“Yeah, me, either,” I mutter, releasing his hold on my hands, then I begin walking again as I try not to be frustrated that I’ve been told so much yet still feel like I know nothing at all.

“But you’re here now,” Asher says with an elation that I don’t know how to match. “I know you’d rather be back on Earth and I’m sorry for forcing your hand, but in my defense, I was more desperate to keep you close than I’ve been in my entire life. I was wrong to go about things the way I did, but I wasn’t trying to intentionally hurt you. I just wanted more time to figure things out.”

Funny, Asher’s earlier romantic confessions made me forget that I was supposed to despise him for using Grayson’s life to control my choices. Yet even now, being reminded of what he did, there isn’t a part of my heart that still wants to blame him for what he did. Hell, after seeing this new side of him, I no longer believe that Asher would sit by and let Grayson die even if I chose to walk away.

Maybe it’s the magic of this world, or that I’m exhausted and it’s not even noon, but I’m okay with not hating him any longer. Asher holds answers that others won’t tell me and…even if I didn’t want to admit this before, there’s been an attraction to this man since the moment I first laid eyes on him.

Whether that’s from past me or current me or even both, I don’t know, but learning that we once shared such a strong connection makes me no longer care.

But I do have one very important question that can’t wait.

“Can humans live here?”

His head cocks to the side and his lips pinch together. “I don’t know. Nobody has ever asked that before, at least not that I know of. Are you not sure about whether or not you’re a wolf shifter in this life?”