“Has anyone ever given a proper single fuck about me?” My words were a sad, woe-is-me whisper, meant more for me than any other ears.

But, of course, one of the assholes in this car witnessing my breakdown had to answer. “Simone has always truly loved you,” Gerad said gruffly. “No matter how much it hurt her or our family, she would never turn her back on you.”

That knocked some sense into me, and I pulled myself from the dark thoughts that had been wrapping around my mind. “We have to find her,” I said, the emptiness falling from my voice as determination filled me. Fuck my parents and their bullshit that had been apparently ruining my life since birth. They would get no more energy from me.

It was time for me to focus on Simone. I had to save my one true friend and family, no matter the cost.

My palm itched and my chest fluttered at the thought, and this time, I was going with that being a positive sign that I was finally on the right path.

9

The rest of the drive to the pack house was done in silence. No doubt they were feeling sorry for poor little Mera, who was once again getting kicked in the guts even as the alpha-mate.

Despite my best effort to not think about my father, two words lingered just a little longer.

Demon power?

My father had thought I had a demon power. Were demons even a real thing? I mean, outside of the Shadow Beast, who was often referred to as the demon of the shifters, there was no other reference to them in our lore.

Staring down at my hands, I tried to remember ever setting anything alight. Had I been a secret pyro as a child, with a flame obsession that had scared my father to the point he’d truly believed me to be a creature from the depths of hell?

“Could my memory loss be related to what happened to my father?”

Thankfully, Gerad had already pulled up in front of the pack house, so my random question didn’t almost send us through the front window of the car this time.

“I know it happened years ago,” I continued, “but maybe it’s still all connected. Could I be more than a regular shifter, and that is part of what has caused my memory loss? What if my father was right?”

The enforcers exchanged a pitying stare, like they thought I’d finally cracked and were trying to figure out a way to break to it me. But I knew my truth, and there was more to be explored there. I’d been thinking too small, not correlating all of the bullshit in my life.

It was connected. I felt that deep down in my demon soul.

The Lewisons didn’t answer, so I pushed into my memories, both childhood and more recent, trying to connect the dots. Of course, the moment I did, a sharp pain slammed into my temples, but for the first time, I didn’t release the memories. Instead, I closed my eyes, gritted my teeth, and forced myself to push through. The pain was a barrier to whatever I wasn’t supposed to remember. I’d been shying away from it, but fuck, a little brain stabbing was nothing compared to having parts of my life stolen from me.

So I pressed harder, barely managing not to scream at the relentless and intense attack on my entire body. It got so bad that I had to blindly throw open the car door, falling out so I could vomit on the ground. Still, I did not release the hold on my memories, not even as I heaved and clawed at the grass.

I heard shouts, and no doubt Simone’s parents were about to be in trouble for seemingly hurting the alpha-mate, but I was too close now to lose focus of my goals. Memories were there—I felt them hovering below the surface. I just had to break through to the next level. Maybe then I would know what path to follow to claim back what had been stolen from me.

Come on! I screamed internally, my wolf howling with me as she rose to try to absorb some of my pain… but she couldn’t. This was my fight alone, and I was fighting like my life depended on it.

With a burst of light, I broke through the top layer of darkness, my mind’s eye slamming against a barrier woven with light and dark beams. As if rays of sunlight had been bonded to beams of moonlight. They wrapped around each other, crisscrossing until one was almost synonymous with the other.

This was the barrier.

This was what I had to destroy to reveal my memories.

When I mentally reached for it, I was blasted back by an intense heat, which took me by surprise since there hadn’t been an ounce of warmth until I’d gotten closer.

“Mera!” Torin’s voice was a deep roar as he yanked me up off the ground, and it was at that point that I had no choice but to release my hold on the pain, letting it fade away.

Feeling like a failure since I hadn’t broken through the barrier, I at least tried to console myself with the fact that I was still on the right path. Yesterday I hadn’t seen the barrier, so that was another step closer to the truth.

“What happened?” Torin shouted, his voice grating on my already aching brain as he pulled me closer. “Who did this to her?”

To an outsider, the alpha’s concern would appear genuine, but I knew it was less to do with caring about me and more about losing the mate who was essential to boosting his power base. The most damning evidence was the way he hadn’t even looked at me once, choosing instead to spend his time and energy throwing a tantrum because his toy was broken.

“I’m fine,” I croaked, tapping him—okay, it was more like a hard poke in the chest—so he would look down. “You can let me go.”

He finally registered that I was talking, and as his furious, half-shifted face turned toward me, I met his gaze.

“Mera?”

Who the fuck else would it be? “Clearly.”

His lips twitched, and fuck, if my smartass mouth wasn’t growing on him. About the last thing I wanted to happen. I wanted him to hate me and stay away from me, but no, he had to be all up in my shining star of a personality.

“What happened to you?”

I wiggled in his arms, reminding him that no one carried my ass around. Thankfully, he didn’t fight, placing me back on my feet. “I was trying to break through the barrier around my memory loss,” I said matter-of-factly, not missing the angry expression that creased his face.

He wasn’t a fan of me “opening past wounds,” as he put it.

Too fucking bad. Maybe he shouldn’t have inflicted wounds in the first place.

Mika stepped in, and I mentally applauded her bravery because Torin was fuming. Luckily for her, the new alpha wasn’t quite as cruel as his father yet.