“Mera, shit, are you okay?” Jaxson asked, his voice coming from above me.

I couldn’t see him, of course, since I was too busy trying to lift myself up off the tree branch impaled through my right shoulder.

“Stay right there,” he said. “I’ll be down to help in about fifteen seconds.”

Literal bastard was there in fifteen on the dot, helping me tear myself free from the tree. It hurt like a fucking bitch, and I barely managed not to cry out as I waited for shifter healing to kick in and the pain to ease.

“What the hell were you thinking?” Jaxson growled, and it seemed less impressive than what I remembered. “You’re a shifter, but that doesn’t make you invincible. You can die, Mera, and then what are the rest of us supposed to do?”

A derisive snort escaped me. “Celebrate. You’ve been trying to kill me off for years; at this stage, you should be grateful that I’m taking myself out. Might be the only way you’ll succeed.”

The wound in my arm was finally knitting closed, which was no doubt why Jaxson felt entitled to shake the ever-loving shit out of me. “Mera, this is not a joke. You’re important to a lot of people and I need you to stop acting like a maniac for one minute. I need you to look after yourself.”

His words snapped something inside of me. “If I’m so damn important, then where the hell is my mom? Where is Simone? Are you trying to tell me that both of them took off the moment we were finally free of our punishment? What sort of moron would believe that? It’s not even a decent cover story. Firstly, my mom is broke and drunk all the time. Secondly, Simone and I planned to leave Torma together.”

“Yeah, but you’re the alpha-mate now,” Jaxson said. “You can’t leave, and she has dreams that don’t include you.”

That stung much more than the branch through my arm.

I mean, I wasn’t completely self-involved; I knew Simone had a life outside of me. It just didn’t sit right with me that she was completely uncontactable. “She wouldn’t go this long without calling me,” I finally said. “She just wouldn’t. I’ve phoned dozens of times and texted just as many, and there’s never any reply. You know how much she loves her phone. The thing is never out of her hand!”

Jaxson finally started to pay attention to what I was saying. “It’s really bothering you, isn’t it?”

Fuck, I wanted to punch his stupid face. “Of course it freaking is. Are you kidding me right now?”

He ignored that, nodding a few times as if he was sorting it all out in his head. “Tomorrow I’ll speak to her parents and find out exactly how they’re talking with her. She’s required to be contactable, so it won’t even be an odd request. How does that sound?”

I wanted to growl. “It sounds like you’re patronizing me, but in the small hope you discover something important, I would really appreciate you putting in maximum effort to find her.”

And if she was just drunk and shacked up with some man or woman in Bora Bora, I’d laugh at my paranoia while being super happy she was alive. Until I knew for sure, though, I couldn’t stop worrying.

“And your mom,” Jaxson continued, even though I’d already forgotten about her. Not that it wasn’t concerning, but her absence was basically the constant in my life. “Torin has not been that good at keeping track of shifters who leave Torma, but the last record of Lucinda was that she’d been given permission to leave with Alpha Shaw from the Alikta pack in Idaho. I’m sure she’ll surface again when he gets sick of her.”

I snorted, finally able to move my arms freely, as the last of my injuries healed. “Yeah, sounds a lot like her.” Getting permission to leave Torma was a hell of a lot easier under Torin than it had been with Victor. Of course, as per my usual luck, it was too late for that to be of use to me. Especially since I was the damn alpha-mate.

“Come on,” Jaxson said, attempting to capture my arm so he could lift me from the ravine. I didn’t need his help, though, so I shook him off.

Once we were out of the ditch and back on the main path, the unanswered questions in my head churned harder than ever at me. What had caused my brain to near explode, sending me into the ravine? Had it been those words in my head?

I tried to think about that phrase again, and before I even got three words in, pain slammed into me. Pressing my hands briefly to my temples, I breathed through the stabbing sensation, only able to relax when it faded away. And it only faded when I stopped trying to recall the complete sentence.

It seemed those words were connected to the missing parts of my life. Parts someone did not want me to uncover, but all they were doing was increasing my need to figure it all out.

Someone out there knew the truth. Even if that someone wasn’t Torin, there were plenty of other shifters in Torma, and my brain was not going to let me rest until I questioned every single member of the pack.

“You’re doing it again,” Jaxson said, cutting into my thoughts. “Disappearing into your mind. I’ve never seen you quite like this in our twenty-plus years of friendship.”

I blinked at him, forcing myself to focus on him. Twenty years? Yeah, okay pal. More like ten and then we were solid enemies.

“Memories were stolen from me,” I bit out. “I can’t let it rest, Jax. I know you’ve told me to just enjoy my blessings and position of prestige in the pack, but it’s—”

“Not in your nature,” he finished for me. “Yeah, I know. And… I think it’s best if I stop hindering you and start trying to help you. Maybe together we can unravel what caused your memory loss, and then you can finally be happy. Do you want me to speak with every pack member I run into and see if any of them remember anything odd happening around you in the last few months?”

To have him finally step up and support me, gave me a bizarre sense of being part of a pack. The moment I had that thought, a weird flutter hit my chest, followed by an itch on my hand. The combination of the two was so odd that I paused, staring down at my unmarked hand. It felt like bugs were crawling all over it, but they clearly weren’t.

“Are you okay?” Jaxson asked, noticing my newest confusion.

I shook my head. “I’m not sure… I just… Your support gave me this feeling of really being part of the pack.” A bitter laugh escaped me, for obvious reasons. “At the same time, there was also this unnatural flutter in my chest, and my palm is super itchy.”