Forgotten Memory

DIANA’S EARS twitched upon hearing the growl behind the door when she was about to enter. Though her hearing and smelling senses were not as astounded as the alpha in her home, her ears were quite handy for certain dangers in her midst. As soon as she turned the knob, her beaten door – made of vines and tree trunks – groaned. Diana was forced to swallow the clog in her throat as her heart pounded – a familiar feeling whenever she was regretting something idiotic that she had done AKA last night’s incident.

Flicking her wrist, a trace of magic surrounded her face as she willed through her mind what she wanted.

She wanted to make her face unrecognizable for Dylan. And after leaving this place, he would forget this part of his experience as if it never happened.

Fully confident with her novice magic, Diana pushed forward.

“Are you awake, Alpha Cain?” Taking a peek, half of her face popped from the barely opened door. Diana glanced at what was transpiring inside her temporary room. Suddenly, the concept of concocting medicines was not as appealing as eating dinner at the pack house anymore.

“Your face and smell are both contradictory. Your face is unfamiliar, but your smell gives my wolf calmness I should only feel for my mate,” said a familiar guttural voice. A pair of glowing azure eyes welcomed her, hovering over the omega before his calloused hand pulled her arm as he shut the door – shaking the shelves of her home in which it earned a gasp filled with horror from Diana.

Diana’s ears twitched once more and her wolf whimpered when the raven-haired mate of hers sniffed her hair. “It is you. Not the ghastly flowerbed in this hole. You arouse me so. Is this one of your tricks? You are a damn witch, aren’t you? You want to tear my relationship with my mate, don’t you?”

Diana failed to notice how the werewolf tugged his hair as he looked up. Fixated to the scars around his naked torso and neck, her fingers decided to move on their own accord again.

‘He will forget this soon anyway. Might as well let myself free,’ Diana appeased herself.

Before her fingers could touch the slope of his right neck, a warm hand stopped her. “Stop it or I will snap your neck.” Holding her palm in a death grip, Alpha Dylan swatted her hand away – as if the mere thought of her hand on his body was something he abhorred.

Diana’s lower lip trembled, but this was an affirmation of her skill no matter how novice she was – even when this skill was technically a borrowed magic from her friend.

‘I will leave after I heal all of his wounds. His internal energy is still not stable,’ said Diana at the back of her mind. Her gaze lingered longer on his bare torso.

From his well-toned body, Diana’s gaze crawled to his neck. Her reddish brown eyes shook upon seeing him swallow. Diana’s gaze continued to his ashen face. Mistaking his sweat from pain, she asked again. “What does it feel like? Pain, I mean. You are supposed to be ‘the’ Alpha Dylan Cain of the Blood Claws Pack. Your name makes your enemy tremble upon the mention of it.”

Their gazes collided, eliciting a torrent of need and fear inside the small hut. Like a collision of black and white, never one without the other.

Diana’s gaze was now wholly drawn to the ethereal being before her. His rough palm on her chin ignited the ache – the need to satisfy her core. Her mouth was agape as his thumb traced her lips, parting them.

He answered with his eyes fixated on her lip. “Like losing prey after a long hunt. But so far, no prey has ever lived before me.” Caging Diana between his body and the wall, he inched his face closer to hers. He hunched down to even their faces. He continued in half a whisper. “But am I in pain really, witch? I think not. Not now when I locked a new prey of mine.”

“This omega is not anyone’s prey to be taken, alpha, so you have to move away and let me tend your wound. That way, we can go on our separate lives.”

Upon the mention of the reality that Diana willed with all her might to knock some senses in her restless mind, Dylan before her growled. A deep rumble vibrated from his chest and shook the stale air around them. Diana could not help but widen her eyes.

“You’re right, witch.” He tugged his hair as he took a step away from her, giving Diana room to breathe the air she was holding in. “Damn it!” He hissed as if he was admonishing himself, which Diana did not quite get.

The latter could only cock her head as she waited for him to calm down.

With a heaving chest and a distance of twice her arm’s length, Alpha Dylan finally looked back at her once more. “How long am I asleep?”

“Longer than those whose footsteps are long vanished, Alpha. Beta Seymor Tesan might be looking for you, so please sit down and let me heal you with these medicines,” said Diana. Gone was the tremble from her voice as she pummeled the reality in her mind.

On cue, Diana’s palms glowed to show him she meant no harm. But she did not get the trust she was expecting. Instead, she found herself caged between the bed and the werewolf looming over her for the nth time.

“You’re a damn witch indeed. You have to die.”

Before the alpha could go wolf again on her, Diana knocked him down.

Diana would make sure that the second time Dylan opened his eyes, he would be out of this place and he would never remember the events. This way, he could keep her trump card under wraps.

Why not trust her mate?

Diana had already learned the lesson the hard way from her first lifetime. In this life, other than revenge, everything was a matter of choice – not destiny.