His Unidentified & Untouchable Mate

About Your Rescue...

Rowan POV

I’d always intended to tell her. It was her business, of course, why would I keep it from her?

But as a child, she’d been so fragile. She cried over everything – and within good reason. She was in a new territory, surrounded by people that were less than kind. We’d had trouble placing her with a good family – the Kemps were her third.

And she kept crying to me – every time she saw me. She’d try to clam up and fake a stiff upper lip, but it would always end with her in tears. I’d solved every problem she put before me as best I could, as an eleven-year-old apprenticing with the alpha – and of course I had. I loved the way it felt, having someone rely on me, not my position, not my family, me.

As the years went on, my window to tell her was narrowing – and I began questioning whether or not I should. Would it do any good, telling her now? She might think it a solid lead, when it’s nothing more than a whisper of possibility – especially after all these years.

I couldn’t put the cat back in the bag now. She already had the release form – already knew about a lead that I hadn’t told another soul about. So I steeled myself, trying to turn on the part of my mind that had to tell families bad news. And I started recounting something that had been missed by the prior alpha – something I only knew about because I was young, and so very good at catching people with loose tongues.

“Your case file will say that your case was closed, that all the offenders were apprehended, tried and punished. But the thing is I’m not so sure,” I said. The way she jerked in her seat, worked her jaw, everything about her body language was pure shock, but something more. Something worse.

Terror.

“There were no people there except for humans. There were no signs of anyone else’s involvement – but the thing about humans is that they are easily enthralled. Their memories could’ve been altered by a strong enough vampire. And that’s what we thought it was back then – vampires.”

I stood and moved to the window, throwing the curtains open wider to show the span of our empire – the pack my family had been building since Europeans were still only just settling the Americas. “But there are a lot of supernaturals in Los Angeles, Zahraa. With a lot of different capabilities. There are even vampires that will come in and use their power for a price – the seedy underbelly of this city is such a tangled mess, we’d have no way of knowing if that had happened.” I cast a look at her over my shoulder, “But that’s my theory. Someone hired a vampire to enthrall a bunch of humans to act as a cover for their operation. There’s no way humans could’ve wrangled werewolves, vampires. Hell, there were sirens and nymphs in there. There’s just no way.”

I returned to my seat in front of her. “There are three prominent supernatural-run gangs in LA right now. Only one was around when you were enslaved.” I paused, “You’ve never been able to give us a clear statement of your life before the day we met, as if that was the first day of your life. But if we try hypnotherapy, I think we might be able to draw out a memory of who captured you – and they might know where you came from.”

She sat there for a while, and I could see the gears turning in her mind. She was working on drawing the strings together, piecing together a puzzle no one had been able to solve. And sure, it was a lot to put together.

But I wasn’t ready for the next question.

“What if there is no gang? What if there is no memory?” she asked, “Is this really the last lead?”

I didn’t want to say it, but I knew it needed to be said. With a sigh, I sank lower in my chair. “Yes,” I breathed. “This is honestly the last avenue I have to test. We’ve tried everything else, we just had to wait until you were eighteen – old enough to consent – for this one test.” I paused again, “It could be very… draining for you. To remember the past. You might not know how you got where you were, but I’m sure having those memories returned to will weigh on your spirit.”

I really didn’t want to say what I had to next, but I choked it out. “You may want Jacob there with you. For… support.”

I could be support.

“I’ll think on that,” she said, looking askance.

So, they were still fighting. Good.

“But I’d very much like to set up the appointment,” she continued, eyes wandering back to me. “If it’s distressing, I’ll just have to be distressed. I want to find out where I came from.”

She got a faraway look in her eyes, as she sometimes did. I expected her to come back to reality quickly, but she didn’t. I cleared my throat. “Zahraa? What’s wrong?”

Her eyes refocused, and turned their amber gaze on me. “Rowan, can I tell you something crazy?”

“You come into my office claiming that I gave you a paper to follow a lead in a conversation we did not have, and you’re only just now asking?” I snorted a laugh. “Go ahead.”

She looked relieved, and then took a deep breath. “After I realized that the challenge ‘hadn’t happened,’” she spoke with emphasis, as if it had and we were the ones remembering incorrectly, “there was a mirror left in my entry way. It didn’t react like they normally do, so I went closer – and something grabbed me. And when it did, I felt something – a lot of things – but one of them… one of them was a woman’s embrace. It smelled like cloves and jasmine. It was so intimate, like – like…” she hesitated, as if she hated to say the next words. “…like a mother’s embrace.”

My eyes widened. “So you think you remembered something about your mother?”

She shook her head. “I couldn’t say. But in that moment… I would’ve told you with complete confidence that I had.”