Page 26 of Lost Fate

When she throws herself at me, I dodge slightly and throw out my arms. I catch her around her waist. While she’s slightly disoriented from the move, I slam her on the ground, knocking the wind out of her.

Fuck.

“I’m sorry,” I say as she pants. I grab her hands and pin them above her head, then put my knees over her legs. She kicks at me, landing a foot on my shin, and I groan. That’s going to bruise.

“Ember. I’m sorry. Please listen to me.”

“Why would I listen to you?” she says. There are tears in her tone.

“Because I was on the phone with your dad!”

The statement has just enough shock value to stop her from moving. Eyes wide, she looks up at me. Good.

“Ember. I’m sorry. Please just listen. Your dad is my alpha. He had a mate who passed away, and she kept a letter from your mom to my alpha a secret. Your mom wrote to him, your dad, to tell him about you. She wanted to know if he wanted to be part of your life. He never found it,” I add quickly. “His mate hid it from him.”

“How did?—”

“I think he found it when she died. I don’t know. When he found it, he sent me to find you. He wants you to come home,” I say.

Her chest is heaving. I can see confusion in her eyes, and her features look slack with shock. “What?”

“I know. It sounds crazy, but it’s true. I drove to your aunt’s house in Alaska. She’s a real bitch, by the way,” I add.

Ember doesn’t laugh, despite my terrible attempt to relieve the tension, but I keep going.

“I found you. I drove to fucking Alaska. Drove to Colorado?—”

“You know there is such thing as a plane, right?”

Oh, thank all the powers that be. She’s talking to me instead of trying to kill me, and that has to be a good thing.

I slowly let my knees off of her legs. Her hands, I keep pinned. Just in case.

“I drove to Colorado,” I finish softly. “Because I’m supposed to bring you back to your dad.”

She shakes her head. “Were you going to, like, kidnap me?”

“No. Of course not. I was going to convince you by telling you everything.” I mean, the kidnapping had crossed my mind when I was driving across the entire continent, but I never would have done that. And if I had tried, she would have kicked my ass.

Ember bites her lip and looks away. “How long have you… remembered?”

Her voice carries so much pain, and I realize that this is a problem.

She thinks I lied to her or hid this from her. Ah.

“I remembered a little bit of it a few days ago. Your dad showed me a picture of your mom so that I’d be able to recognize you.”

“Picture…” She breathes. She shuts her eyes. “What does the picture look like?”

“It’s like one you’d get from a photo booth. The bottom edge is torn off, like someone took the other one in the set.”

She gulps. “I have one, too. Mine is torn at the top.”

“My alpha—” I’m not sure if I should say ‘your dad,’ because that seems like something we’re still working on. “He said they went to the fair together. While she was visiting. They had a date before they, ah… it was a good date,” I finish.

She shakes her head slightly. “Good enough to go to a photo booth, I guess.”

“Yeah. That’s what I thought, too.”

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