Chapter Ten

Scott

Watching Terrick walk up the basement stairs with Dara made me ache. I wanted to throw myself up the steps and block the door. He needed to be looked at, but I needed to be there too. I wanted to rip myself in half to be everywhere at once. My wolf whined and I swallowed down the sound before my sorrow dripped all over the links I was on. The last thing I needed was one of the twins making a ‘funny’ video about my life right now.

Blithe was across the basement having a whispered conversation with one of our parents. I reached for my phone again eager to tell Dakota everything that had happened. Someone – anyone needed to be on our side.

“We are on your side,” Duke looked up from polishing his egg. “That video was shit. I’ve been poking around the family link. That was shit of them to do, Scott. I hope you know that.”

“I can’t even think about that right now,” I sighed. “Seriously. I know no one takes anything I do seriously. I get it. I’ve accepted it. Lesson learned.”

Liam frowned at me, and I wanted to yell at him and ask what the hell he was frowning at. Only I hated yelling. I hated loud people or at least hated when they were loud. I curled my legs under me on the sofa and waited for all these people who wanted to talk to me alone to start talking.

“They’re both coming as soon as they get someone to watch the littles,” Blithe said, climbing back into the nest and stroking the backs of his sleeping kittens with a single finger each. “You can come over here, Scott.”

“You can,” Duke added. “You’re family.”

“I’m okay here,” I said, wishing my parents would hurry up.

I was all grown up. Older than Blithe even, but here I was wanting them to come and save the day. They’d get here and they’d find a perfectly logical medical reason for Terrick’s amnesia, and we’d fly to Hemlock Mountain where they had more resources and this would all be over and I could live my life with my mate. Hell, maybe we’d go live with his family. Maybe they’d not be so much like sandpaper against everything I did.

Sighing, Blithe climbed back out of the nest and joined me on the sofa. He touched my bare foot with his hand and squeezed it.

“We do take you seriously,” Blithe offered. “We know you love to cook, and we like what you make.”

“You don’t even know what I make,” I sighed, “but that isn’t important right now. Did you ask me to stay just for that?”

“No,” he shook his head. “Partially,” he admitted a second later. “Not only that. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“I’m not okay,” I said, struggling to keep my voice level. “The twins are fucktwats and my true-mate probably has a traumatic brain injury!”

“Scott,” Blithe said my name in the low voice my family used whenever they thought I was getting too upset.

“Don’t do that. I’m not overreacting. I’m probably underreacting, in fact.”

“He probably is,” Liam nodded from his chair. “Scott, are you okay to talk about Terrick? Do you need to talk about Trista and Travis instead?”

“No,” I shook my head. “I don’t want to talk about them. They’re asshats and they hate me and I’m just done. I’m so fucking done.”

“What do you need us to do?” Duke glanced up from polishing his egg.

“I don’t know. I came here because --- even if you guys don’t get it, you’re less of asshats than they are about it,” I managed to say despite my voice cracking.

“Brother,” Blithe said, softly.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have called you guys that. I’m just ---” I stopped because I didn’t know what I was.

Frost damn it all. They could’ve put one of those stupid feeling wheels that live in every therapist office in the world in front of me and I still couldn’t have narrowed down what I was feeling to one thing.

“It’s okay. If we’re asshats, tell us,” Duke said. “Seriously.”

“I can’t deal with that right now,” I shook my head. “Liam, what do we need to do to help Terrick?”

“You’re not gonna like my answer. Do you have a friend or someone you want us to call?”

I thought about Dakota and then Adrian. Then I shook my head. I didn’t want my business spread around anymore than it had already been. I wanted to steal the blankets that made up the nest and hide under them until someone fixed this.

“Okay. I believe the lore. I could talk all day about why I believe it, but if we can skip that it may save us some valuable time. I’m not saying he’s bad. I’m not saying he’s anything. What I’m saying is there are too many parallels to the story to ignore. If we rule out medical causes for his memory loss we’re going to have to help him dive deep into who he used to be. We’ll use social media. I’ll have Bobby call the High Priestess of the Lost Fang Coven. We might want to do that anyway. She’s his mom and might be worried about him.”

“I think we should wait and find out how he feels about that,” I said.

“Okay. We can wait to call her. What I meant is the only one here who convinces him to do anything will be you. You’re his true-mate and it’s not fair that so much of this falls on you, but that’s what’s happening. If you want to save him, you’re going to have to be on his side in a way that will probably feel like you’re not. No one likes to have their flaws pointed out. I think that goes double when you can’t remember them, but if we can help him, you get to keep him. If you don’t, I think he goes to Frost.”

The blood drained from my face, and I held my breath until Blithe squeezed my toe. I exhaled and let Liam’s words sink into my brain. My wolf whined and I swallowed down the sound once again.

“Hey, our parents made it through worse stuff, right?” Blithe asked, trying to rally my spirits.

“Yeah, but I think they’re probably smarter than both of us,” I sighed.

“Maybe, but we have them and us,” Blithe said. “When all of this is said and done I want you to tell me how I’m an asshat and I mean that.”