Remember Me, Mate

Chapter 7

TRISTAN

How f*****g unlucky can a man be?

After Circe brought me to my temporary suite, she called the pack doctor to check on me before leaving me to “rest.” My exhaustion eventually overtook my anger and I passed out, but my troubled mind could only be shut down for so long, and before I wanted to, I was back to my sad reality. As I laid on the bed of the room I had grown up in, staring at the ceiling in blind frustration, my heart ached for the love I was forced to leave behind.

I knew what I had done. I knew there would be consequences. The possible scenarios of how my long-awaited reunion with my mate would go played on my mind during my entire journey home. Even as I threw my arms around her, I expected her to be mad. f**k, I was ready for her to hate me; I wouldn’t mind living my whole life trying to make her love me again as long as I knew she would be safe. I just didn’t count on her not remembering me at all.

Zahra and I had gone through so much together. We fought side by side in many battles, we laughed and cried together; and by the time each day was done, I would spend the night making love to her. The memories we shared were the one thing that soothed my broken body and my tormented mind for the weeks - or years, as it seemed - I had been away. How could she have forgotten all of that? All of us?

“s**t!” I cried out. Both my hands pressed against my temples so tightly, I suspected my fingers wanted to dig into my skull in hopes of numbing the pain;

Maybe I shouldn’t have done this. If I had stayed, Zahra would remember me. She would still love me.

“We did what we had to do to keep her safe,” my wolf’s faint voice echoed in my mind.

Like me, Cypress was still weak from the hell we had gone through. Not only had he been fighting all this time, he was also constantly using his energy to heal me. Honestly, I didn’t yet know how we had managed to survive, but I knew it would take him a while to get back to his full strength. The pain of our mate not recognizing us didn’t seem to be helping either.

“We will find a way to make her remember. And if we don’t, we just have to make her fall in love with us again.” At least he remained positive. “She’s our fated partner, our moon-destined mate. Nothing will ever tear us apart.”

“I tore us apart,” I replied painfully, but he had already gone into hibernation again. The doctor had told me he would be blacking out from time to time until he managed to nurse himself back to full health.

Alone again, I forced myself to get up and out of bed. My body ached, screaming for me to rest more, but I knew my attempts to fall asleep would all fail. I had been away from my Luna for longer than any mates should be, and it never got easier as the days went by. Actually, knowing that she was in the same building as I was but not in my arms made it a lot harder. Moved solely by desperation, I marched out of the room in search of the one person who could put my mind at ease.

Hope filled my heart when I realized the sun had just set - Zahra should still be awake. My heightened senses weren’t at their best due to the state my wolf was in, but luckily, I didn’t need them to find her. A mate’s scent was stronger than anything else; even after my rejection, Zahra’s unique fragrance hadn’t changed. Her smell was still intensely green, intoxicatingly potent like a blooming flower in Spring. As warm and comforting as it was, it was also wild and spicy, with wet notes that reminded me of a perfect storm, burning as lightning bolts cut through the skies. It only took me a second to pick up on her scent.

After bee-lining all the way to the first floor, I found her sitting alone on one of the benches of the garden. My feet stopped moving as my eyes questioned if she was an illusion. On my darkest days, I fantasized about having her there with me, but it was never real. However, as I watched her tending to the flowers, like she used to do before I left, I didn’t have to pinch myself to realize she was truly there. And before I knew it, I was making my way towards her.

Distracted, she didn’t seem to notice my presence until my shadow blocked the light shining above her. Part of me hoped she would somehow recognize my scent, but I knew it was just one of my foolish fantasies. After a rejection vow, only the wolf who called for it is cursed with sensing their denied partner’s unique fragrance for the rest of their lives, while the other is entirely freed from the pull. Without her memories, I doubted she would even recall what I smelled like to her.

“Tristan?” Her innocent voice made my heart beat faster. She slowly rose back up, and if anything, I was relieved to sense she wasn’t afraid or careful around me anymore. “Have you been able to get some rest? Tyrone and Circe told me you have gone through a lot.”

Simply hearing her voice made me want to wrap her in my arms again; to claim her lips as I had done so many times in the past. There was nothing I wouldn’t do to feel her again. Containing my desires was harder than the last challenge I had to face, but worrying for her well-being, I decided to do as my brother said.

“Yeah. I’m feeling better now,” I lied, diving my hands into my pockets to make it easier to fight the urge to touch her.

“Is there anything I can help you with?”

Yes! a voice inside of me screamed.

“No, it’s alright. I just thought coming here would help me feel more at ease. It used to work every time before…” I couldn’t finish my sentence, because I didn’t know exactly what she had been told regarding my departure.

“Oh, right. I remember.” She smiled sweetly.

“She remembers…” Cypress chanted. Her words probably didn’t mean what he thought they did, but it was somewhat comforting to know my existence hadn’t been completely wiped from her mind. She seemed to still remember seeing me in the garden, although she probably didn’t recall being here with me.

“It’s nice to see the garden is still the same as it was. I was afraid the flowers would have died already.” I tried to keep a conversation going just to learn more about how she had been, hoping that I wasn’t sounding like a creep.

“I couldn’t allow that to happen. Your mother would have been so disappointed in me.” She returned to her seat, and as she glanced at the stars, I couldn’t help but admire her. Goddess, she looked even more stunning than I remembered with the moon bathing her porcelain skin. s**t! It hurt so much to be near her, acknowledging the fact that she didn’t know who I was. Still, it was better than being away from her.

“This was her proudest work. Thank you for keeping her memory alive,” I uttered without taking my eyes off hers. In them, I desperately searched for any signs that she still felt something towards me, whether it’d be love or hate. And my heart fell every time I failed to find anything at all.

She flashed me another one of her shining smiles before her expression was overcome with curiosity. “If I may ask, what exactly have you been doing all this time?”

I opened my mouth to reply, eager to tell her my side of the story, but before I could, the sound of footsteps caught my attention. My eyes darted to the entrance of the garden, and as soon as I noticed who had just arrived, I couldn’t help the frown in my face.