30. Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Drowning. That's what it felt like.

Remmus was suffocating under a layer of frozen water. The barrier above him was unbreakable, choking his consciousness. Heavy fog lay beyond his psychic prison, discouraging his attempts to break through. It felt futile, but he continued trying. He brought his fists against the surface, beating against it over and over with no effect.

More than once, he had felt the presence of another, but the ghost never lingered. Occasionally, the fog shifted slightly to allow him a better look at yet more fog.

Nothing had been more painful than when a force had attempted to drag him through the layer of ice. It'd been nothing more than brute force, with none of the empathy he'd sensed before.

Even that had failed, and Remmus still hadn't gotten out.

He was beginning to believe this would be his perpetual nightmare: suffocating below ice, alone and unable to surface, for the rest of his immortal life.

Until a crack thundered above his head.

A fracture in the ice had his heart hammering, the arctic waters that held him warming considerably. An odd pang of terror twisted in his chest. What was arguably more perplexing was what followed swiftly behind the break: wrath so potent it was malicious.

The alien sensations were not entirely his. It left one question: whose emotions were they?

At first, any movement toward the surface felt like shifting through sand, his limbs weighted. As he struggled, Remmus found it progressively easier to fight, the stranglehold constricting him finally loosening.

He didn't look the gift horse in the mouth.

Above him, the frosty surface was rapidly dissolving, a spiderweb of cracks networking across the ice. When his fist finally broke through, his world righted.

Remmus woke up.

Eyes opening to assess his surroundings, he sat bolt upright, then immediately wished he hadn't. Cutting pain seared through his mind, blazing his vision white. He froze while the room spun around him. The pain was temporary, the fleeting sensation withering to nothing in the span of seconds.

As his vision cleared, the traces of tension ebbed from his shoulders. He was in Nina's home; her guest bedroom on the first floor was immediately recognizable. Though he'd wandered by the room thousands of times, even used it every so often for a stray telepathic conversation, he'd never spent any decent amount of time here. He'd certainly never slept here.

Frowning, he shifted slightly to assess his condition. While his mind was a bit fuzzy, his body felt perfectly normal.

Remmus wasn't sure he wanted the answers. Searching for the truth, he attempted to recall the last memories he had before waking up. What his mind offered only frustrated him: it was currently winter. He'd been on a mission. He'd come home.

Otherwise, it was like hitting a brick wall. A block seemed to have solidified between his consciousness and any memories that'd recently formed, and the results of his attempts to clear it were startlingly deficient.

Failure.

Flinching, Remmus' blade teleported into his hand, and he cut a line across the opposite arm without any resistance. Just as quickly, he teleported it back to his armory.

Setting his jaw, he threw off the covers and summoned a sweater onto his naked upper half without looking. When his feet hit the floor, his balance wavered, but he shrugged it off as being too long without food. He immediately went in search of his sovereign.

On instinct, he shielded his mind when raised voices assaulted his ears, the instinct to protect himself far outweighing his need to announce his presence.

He knew that the room contained Nina and the majority of her lieutenants, Kaien, Zeke, and several werewolf minds.

What he didn't know was what they were arguing about. Pausing in the hallway outside of view, he listened to the voices that were raised in both anger and fear.

"—if she wanted us to follow her, she would've told us where she was going!"

That was Aidan's voice. It wasn't something he'd forget, especially not when he was upset. A sliver of trepidation skated down his spin, giving him the distinct impression that Aidan had threatened him recently. But, like everything else, Remmus couldn't recall what it was.

Frowning, he shook it off and continued to eavesdrop.

"She left him!" Growled Kaien in response. "Why would she do that? You saw it the same as I; she's half in love with the man already."

"And Luna just told her that he'd likely never wake up," came Nina's calm reply. "Think about it; what would you do if you just heard you'd likely never speak with your mate again?"

Grimacing, Remmus couldn't imagine. He had no clue who they were talking about, but it obviously wasn't him. Steeling himself with a breath, he turned the corner and leaned a shoulder against the doorframe.

"Who's gone missing now?"

Languid, his lopsided grin twisted into a frown as every inhabitant of the room froze. It was as if the temperature had dropped to subzero.

Suddenly, the casual laziness he'd adopted seemed inappropriate.

Kaien was the first to break their stunned silence. Catching the movement out of the corner of his eye, Remmus turned just in time to brace against the man's fiercest embrace. Kaien's open affection, especially from someone who barely kissed his mate in public, was the most startling development.

"Remmus." An apology deepened Kaien's voice. "Brother."

When the healer didn't let him go, Remmus lost every ounce of joviality. The embrace lasted several more seconds before he intentionally began to pull away. Retreating from the other man, his features tightened while he held Kaien at arm's length.

"Why are you acting like this? How did I get here?"

His friend's eyes held his for what seemed an eternity. It was almost as if Kaien was searching for something, but Remmus couldn't figure out what.

When Kaien's healer gifts latched onto him with a desperation he could barely entertain, Remmus knew that this wasn't merely another exercise in frivolity. Pointedly, he took a step back and away from his best friend.

"Kaien, answer me."

Remmus only caught guilt in his expression. Brow furrowing deeper, he shifted his attention to his sovereign, whose eyes were misted with tears. A jolt of panic tore through him at her display.

"Sovereign?"

Zeke cleared his throat. "Remmus. Welcome back."

"Welcome back from where?"

Nina stood, and his eyes dropped to the generous curve of her belly, the twins that were yet to be born. The last time he'd seen her, she had barely been showing.

Panic hit, fast and deep, as Nina slowly made her way toward him, all the while sending reassuring vibrations through their sovereign-clansman bond. And when she wrapped her arms around his waist, Remmus froze.

Over her head, he met the eyes of the werewolf alpha who'd shadowed her approach. For the first time ever, Remmus saw compassion.

If Nina's arms had not coiled protectively around him, he would've bolted. No one needed to know his past, and certainly not those he didn't trust. A quick scan of the room and he located Celeste, Xavier, and Mere.

But Celeste's eyes weren't on his face. They were on his neck.

Automatically, Remmus grasped for his transfiguration, endeavoring to haul it like a blanket over his skin, but it failed. A quick glance at his arm revealed the network of self-inflicted tracks against the grey-blue ink.

He was exposed, his past laid bare to the world around him. Everything he hated about himself was offered up to anyone who'd look. Their eyes scoured over him like the dirt he'd always believed himself to be.

He couldn't stop the abject terror that contorted his expression.

"Why isn't my transfiguration working?"

Pulse pounding in his ears, a shuffling step backward took him nearly into the hallway. For the first time in centuries, he felt like that golden-haired child once more, splayed open and defenseless.

"Remmus, you were psychically poisoned," Kaien explained. "The poison ran deep, deeper than I could have healed, and it nearly killed you."

Truth.

The odd sentiment reverberated through him, an offer from the source of his power as though it was a gift. Still wary, he snuck a glance in at the other faces around the room, weighing their responses. No one seemed to be in a mocking mood.

"Then how am I alive?"

"Zeke used psychic fire to burn it from your mind," Kaien answered. "Without him, it would've claimed your life."

Remmus was trying to grasp the severity of his situation and the debilitating need to thank his new sovereign.

Unfortunately, given the situation, shrugging off his appreciation for Zeke's lifesaving gift couldn't be condoned. Preparing himself for the reparations his mind would require, Remmus looked Zeke in the eye.

"Thank you, sovereign. I am indebted to you."

His hand clamped down at the admission, the familiar nuisance of nails pricking into his palm in their thirst for blood. Zeke gave him a simple nod, and for a moment, Remmus thought he'd passed whatever test fate had thrown his way this time.

Then, the unthinkable happened.

Kaien gently grasped his wrist, pulling it into sight and wrapping his fingers around Remmus' clenched fist.

"Let go, Remmus."

Anger, fear, and betrayal collided in a tangled web of emotions. Kaien had never revealed his secrets.

Flinching, Remmus' muscles corded in his forearm as he battled to unlock the tension and pry open his own fingers. With a grunt of effort, they released, but instead of feeling the coercion double down, it vanished.

Strange. It'd never behaved like that before.

Kaien's hands gently pressed into his now-bloody palm. The healing balm of power spread over his skin, instantly erasing the wounds from his flesh.

"Never again, Remmus. I won't let you weather this alone any longer."

Truth.

You're not worth it, his mind volunteered.

"No one thinks less of you, Remmus." Zeke's tone was decisive. "You've proven your mettle time and time again. We don't choose our parents, but we choose our path. And yours is straight as an arrow."

The sentiment confirmed that the sins of his past had been revealed while he slept. Now, Zeke and the others knew the lineage he hailed from. Remmus didn't know whether he should be horrified or relieved.

"What do you remember, Remmus?" Aidan asked. "About before you went to sleep?"

Aidan's keenness for him to remember something was unexplainable. To date, they'd always had an agreeable relationship, but Remmus wouldn't categorize them as good friends.

Focus turning inward, Remmus searched his mind with a newfound vigilance. Now that he knew what he was looking for, he found signs that all was not right within. The well of his power bore significant effects from the poison. It looked drastically altered with the influx of a new type of darkness, and he wouldn't be surprised if his psychic signature had altered.

More importantly, a whole section of his memory seemed charred and compromised. After searching once more, he'd still only come up with three flimsy fragments.

"Only snippets." Attempting a casual shrug, Remmus said, "I know its winter, I was off on an errand, and I returned home."

"You don't remember anything else?"

The horror in Riaz' russet brown eyes sent a ping of panic through Remmus' gut, and he read between the lines.

"What have I forgotten?"