Can't Be True - Valeria's POV

Can't Be True - Valeria's POV
For a moment, his words strike me as odd. It’s twisting somewhere between disbelief and a chill I can’t quite shake.

Why would Kendric be feral because of me?

What could I have done in our past life to cause that? The question gnaws at me, threading unease through my chest like a creeping vine.

“That can’t be true,” I murmur, my voice small and barely audible over the wind weaving through the barren trees.

Ramsey tilts his head slightly, looking down at me with an expression that doesn’t match the seriousness of the moment. It’s not quite a smirk. No, it’s too cold for that. But there’s something smug in the way his lips twitch, like he’s savoring a secret. His eyes shimmer with something darker. Possession? Triumph? A quiet glee at watching the pieces slowly begin to click into place in my mind.

“It is, though,” he says simply, like the answer should be obvious. “You just don’t remember. That is why we’re here.”

He lifts his gaze, looking over the top of my head at the world around us. I realize then that the landscape is shifting again, warping and folding in on itself like fabric pulled by invisible hands. The trees ripple like water and the ground beneath my feet seems to blur and tilt. I close my eyes for a moment, dizzy from the motion.

When I open them, I can’t focus on the horizon. It keeps moving. So I drop my gaze to the front of Ramsey’s shirt. The coarse weave of the fabric is just steady enough to ground me. My breaths come faster, fogging in front of my face in the frozen air.

Eventually, everything stops. The swirling motion ceases, and the cold steadies.

I lift my head and slowly turn.

And my heart nearly stops.

I know this place.

The camp sprawls before me like a half-buried memory comes to life. Smoke drifts from the tops of animal-skin tents, and flickering torch light glows dimly along the perimeter. I feel it in my bones. This moment burned itself into the deepest part of me, even if I hadn’t known it until now.

“This,” I whisper, “I remember. This is the day Kendric came in his former life. The day he came to stop the war.”

I can’t tear my eyes from the scene.

Across the clearing, standing rigid at the edge of a wide tent, is the man who had been my father in that life. He’s older here, hair streaked with silver, the lines of war etched deep into his face. He wears a long cloak of wolf pelts over his shoulders, the tribal sigil of my old clan painted in ash across his chest.

He’s speaking with someone. A tall man, broad and cloaked, but his back is to me. I squint, trying to place him. His stance, his voice, even though I can’t hear it. There’s something eerily familiar about the way he stands, how his arms move when he gestures. I feel a flicker of recognition, but I can’t grasp it.

“I can’t hear them,” I murmur.

Ramsey chuckles, low and amused, like a magician waiting to reveal the final turn of a trick.

Then, just like that, their voices rise as if a dial has been turned. I don’t see either of their mouths move differently, but the sound is suddenly clear, cutting through the cold air like a blade.

“She will never agree,” my past father is saying, voice tight with tension. “She’s wild, even now. Stubborn as the wind.”

“She doesn’t need to agree,” the other man responds, calm and measured. “She only needs to believe it’s her idea.”

The man turns slightly, and my stomach lurches.

It’s Kendric. A younger version, but unmistakable.

His face is clean-shaven, his hair slightly longer and tied back, his posture more regal than I’ve ever seen. There’s no anger in his expression. No feral rage. Just calculation.

The chill that races down my spine has nothing to do with the cold this time.

“I didn’t know…” I breathe.

Ramsey leans in closer, his voice quiet but sharp. “You didn’t want to know. That’s how memories work when you’ve been lied to in every life since.”

I shake my head slowly, eyes locked on the ghost of Kendric. “He wouldn’t do that.”

“Wouldn’t he?” Ramsey replies. “He came to your father, spun lies and half-truths, told him he could tame you. That he could control you. And when he won your hand, he made you think it was your choice.”

The truth, or the possibility of it, settles like lead in my gut.

Had everything I believed about Kendric been a well-crafted illusion?

Ramsey’s hand brushes mine, barely a touch, but it’s grounding. He leans close, his breath warm against my frozen skin.

His next words strike me as odd as another man from my father’s clan joins the conversation.

“If we don’t do this, then that other tribe is going to kill us all. I know she’s your daughter, but it’s best she is wed off to that man’s clan, so our forces will join together to defeat them.”

As soon as the words leave the man’s mouth, my jaw drops open. Ramsey didn’t lie.

“You were telling the truth, but I don’t remember this,” I whisper.

“Now that you believe me,” he murmurs, “do you want to see what happened after the wedding?”

“What? Why don’t I remember this?”

Ramsey grips my arm in his grasp and pulls me back to him. “Of course you wouldn’t. You weren’t here to hear this conversation, but in another tent, waiting for your new husband. Now listen closely to what they say next.”

I see the old Kendric walk off and only the two other remain.

I wait a moment with bated breath because the man who is my father doesn’t reply right away. He’s quiet, pondering over everything.

“Do you think she will be happy with him? I know it’s not uncommon to arrange mates, but I hoped she’d find her fated mate.”

The other man shrugs. “Maybe his son will be her fated mate. Who knows? What matters is that Cian is stopped. If he doesn’t finish the job, then his son will only take his place. That is why we must make the other clan our ally.”

My father looks so desperate to save his clan, but also worried about my wellbeing. It’s hard to swallow and tears line my eyes as I continue to watch the scene unfold.

“He wanted me to be happy.”

Ramsey exhales a long breath. “That he did, but he didn’t take into account that you were already happy. Let me show you.”

The scene changes again. This time more violently, like being ripped through fabric and stitched into another world. I barely register the pull of it before I land somewhere warmer, dimmer, more intimate.

A small tent.

Thick furs line the ground beneath me, and the space is bathed in the glow of a single oil lamp hanging near the center pole. Shadows stretch and sway against the canvas walls like ghosts of what’s about to happen.

In front of me, a young, light brown-haired woman sits with her back to me. She’s perched rigidly on a pile of cushions, her shoulders tense, her hands clenched in her lap. And in front of her, crouched low and imploring, is Ramsey.

Younger. Raw with emotion. Devastatingly beautiful, in a way heartbreak tends to carve into someone’s face.

“You’re in my tent,” I whisper aloud, as though saying it makes the impossible more real. The breath whooshes out of me as the truth sinks in. He wasn’t lying.

The past version of me trembles slightly, but she doesn’t move away from him. Her body is caught in that fragile middle place between retreat and surrender.

“Yes,” he says softly, his voice rasping with held-back emotion, “and as you now hear, I loved you.”

She closes her eyes for a beat, clearly straining to stay strong. Her whole body quivers with restraint. There’s a war raging outside, yes, but there’s a quieter, more dangerous battle happening here between duty and desire.

“I know what we said…” she murmurs, her voice thick with conflict, “but I can’t run away from my duty.”

Ramsey lifts his face to her like she’s sunlight breaking through clouds. And he’s crying, silent, unashamed tears slipping down his cheeks. The rawness in his expression grips something deep inside me.

“But I love you,” he says again, this time fiercer. “It doesn’t matter if our clans are warring. We said we’d find a way. Run away with me. Now.”

“I can’t,” she chokes out, almost sobbing. “My father has already arranged my marriage. If I flee now, he’ll hunt us both down.”

Ramsey surges forward, reaching for her like a man drowning. His hand cups her cheek gently, reverently, his thumb brushing along her skin. She leans into his touch, but only for a moment, as if afraid of how much she wants it.

“You’re a shapeshifter, Ramsey,” she whispers, voice hoarse. “Not a wolf. My father… he’ll never accept it. If he catches you here, he’ll mount your head on a pike.”

Ramsey moves closer still, lowering his voice until it’s nothing but breath against her mouth. “Then let him try. Once my father wins this war, it won’t matter. You and I will be free. But I can’t wait until then. I need you. Now.”

She shivers, torn, and the tears on her cheeks glisten in the firelight. His fingers trail down her neck, slow and deliberate, until they rest just above the pulse hammering at her collarbone.

“Come with me,” he pleads. “Before it’s too late.”

Then he kisses her.

Not like someone stealing a final moment, but like a man staking a claim on the soul that belongs to him. Their lips meet in a slow, desperate crush, and the air in the tent thickens instantly. Her hands, once frozen in her lap, now grip his arms tightly. She clings to him like she might fall apart if she lets go.

The kiss deepens, turning hungry. Passion laced with panic. Fire with the bitter edge of fate. Her body rises to meet his, mouth parted as if trying to breathe him in.

Outside, the wind howls and the horns begin to blow.

They break apart just enough for him to press his forehead to hers. “Please,” he whispers, voice cracking. “Don’t marry him. Don’t let them decide your life.”

And I, watching, whisper the only thing I can say.

“You loved me.”

The weight of it presses hard against my chest. Not a question. A truth, undeniable and devastating.

Ramsey tugs on my arm again to bring me back closer. I don’t remember moving, but there is more space between us than before. “Yes, I love you. You were meant to be mine. Even then, I was begging you. Can’t you see it with your own eyes?”

“Yes, I do. But I told you I had a duty to fulfill.”

I’m completely distracted as the horn blows again and the pair grow more impatient. Ramsey’s pleading becomes louder and demanding.

But the girl never budges. She claims it’s too late.

He leaves out the back of the tent right before Kendric shows up to take me away.

Oddly, once her eyes lock on him, something changes, and I realize it’s the bond forming.

The next thing I know, the scene is swirling again, and we’re back at the barren trees.

“What was that?”

“That was your past you just saw. Now do you believe me?” Ramsey turns me so I face him, but I can’t bear to look at him.

“Why can’t I remember it, then? I remember being married off to stop the war, but to my understanding, Kendric was my fated mate and I saw the look on my face. The bond formed as soon as he walked into my tent, so it would have been wrong to leave.”

Ramsey’s eyes shift away from me and it’s the first time he’s ever shown a sign of submission.