Shenaya’s POV
The days he dragged on with an ache that settled deep into my bones. Every morning, I woke in an empty bed, my hand instinctively reaching out to the space Aiden should have filled but he wasn’t there. He was in a coma, lying in the infirmary, his once formidable strength now silent and still. The doctor had said his wolf, Smoke, had sacrificed himself to save Aiden’s human side. The blow was heavy, but I knew it was what Smoke would have wanted-to keep Aiden here with me, even if only in part. But without his wolf, Aiden was more vulnerable than ever, and the emptiness gnawed at me with each passing day.
My, Lily, had fallen silent in grief, her sorrow mingling with my nominee’s loss of her mate had hit her hard, and now, in the long hours I spent patrolling the pack grounds and handling pack business, I felt her absence as acutely as Aiden’s.
In Aiden’s stead, I had taken charge of the pack, managing the day-to-day challenges of leadership while also keeping a wary eye on the cells that held Alenjro and Andrew in the deepest recesses of the dungeons. Both of them were dangerous and volatile, and while Lucy had wanted Alenjro dead, she had found a way to make him suffer without taking his life.
One afternoon, I descended into the dungeons to check on the prisoners, my steps echoing through the cold, dim corridors. The air was thick with the stench of damp stone and the faint, metallic tang of blood. I found Lucy crouched beside Alenjro’s cell, her face cold and merciless as she held a red-hot iron rod. Without flinching, she pressed it into Alenjro’s back, eliciting a scream that bounced off the stone walls like a twisted symphony of pain.
When she finally pulled the rod away, she reached for a bucket of wolfsbane-laced water and poured it over the burnt flesh. Alenjro’s scream became a guttural moan as his body convulsed, his strength sapped by the poison seeping into his bloodstream.
“Just… end it,” he rasped, barely able to speak as he looked up at Lucy with bloodshot eyes. “Please… just… let me die.”
Lucy’s eyes were hard, her lips curling into a grim smile I had never seen.
“You don’t get to choose that, Alenjro,” she whispered. “Not after what you did to me. You don’t get the mercy of death.”
A pang of unease washed over me as I watched her, seeing the same hatred in her eyes that I’d once held for Andrew but I couldn’t blame her. Alenjro had destroyed her spirit, stolen her freedom, and left her broken and alone in a foreign land. For Lucy, this was justice, even if it was hard to watch.
I turned my gaze toward Andrew’s cell across the hall, his form barely visible in the shadows as he sat hunched in the corner, silent and unmoving. He didn’t have the same scars or burns as Alenjro, but his punishment was etched on his face, worn deep in the hollow look in his eyes. Skylar had told me that Andrew’s wolf was gone, severed from him after he’d tried to sacrifice Zoey’s life in his pursuit of power. The story fully disillusioned and enraged me as the days passed by, but today, I couldn’t hold back any longer. I had some questions, which only he could answer, so I walked towards his cell, somewhat angry, my heartbeat rapid when I finally met the man who almost destroyed my life.
“Andrew,” I called out with the tone of the ice in the room, freezing.
He looked up, to continue staring into the middle distance without the slightest hint of defiance left in his eyes.
“Come to gloat?” he asked and now his voice was just bitter.
I ignored his tone, taking a step closer to the bars.
“Tell me the truth,” I demanded. “Why did you try to kill Zoey? She’s a child, your own daughter! She trusted you.”
Andrew’s expression remained impassive, his lips curling into a faint, mocking smile.
“She was a curse, a burden. I was ready to let her go if it meant I could have the power I deserved but I miscalculated. And now… here I am.”
My fists clenched at his words, anger flaring up like wildfire.
“You would have let your own child die, just for power?” The disgust in my voice was unmistakable, laced with an edge of rage that I struggled to keep in check. “You’re nothing but a coward, Andrew. A pathetic excuse for an Alpha.”
He leaned back, his gaze narrowing as he studied me with pure disdain.
“You think you’re better than me, Shenaya?” he taunted. “When I get out of here, I’ll make sure to kill every last one of you-Leo, Aiden… even you right after burning everything you love to the ground.”
Something inside me snapped. The cold rage I’d been holding back erupted like a storm, and before I could think twice, I shifted, letting Lily’s strength merge with mine as I reached through the bars and grabbed him by the throat. His eyes widened in surprise, but he didn’t struggle. He simply watched me, a flicker of satisfaction in his gaze, as if he’d been waiting for this moment.
“You want death, Andrew?” I snarled, my grip tightening around his throat. “Then let me be the one to give it to you.”
“Go ahead… kill me, Shenaya. Do it.” He gave a strained laugh, his voice hoarse as he choked out,
With a surge of fury, I felt my claws extend, sharp and lethal. In one fast stroke, I ripped his throat out and blood went down my arms. His relief seeped out of him all his strength and he fell, sitting heavily against the iron bars, his eyes become empty, expressionless again.
With heavy breathing, I found myself standing in front of her, my hands now covered in his blood. But as sobering kicked in and my anger was worn out, I felt nothing inside of me except an emptiness that was chilling. He wanted me to kill him, teased me and I hurt him in the worst way a person can ever be hurt. But there was no triumph here only the sour understanding that he had triumphed triumphantly in his own perverse style.
I froze for a second and nearly fell before catching my balance as Lucy spoke through the mind link.
Shenaya… Aiden’s awake!
Her words sounded like the orders of a doctor bringing me back from a twilight zone of bloodshed and brutality. I did not even think twice before spinning around and running out of the dungeon as fast as I could, my chest conflicting with both things that are usually fatal: fear and hope. Could it really be true? After weeks of no action, of inactivity, could Aiden truly be alert?!
The infirmary was alive with activity when I arrived, with nurses and pack members bustling around in hushed excitement. I pushed through the crowd, barely able to contain the surge of emotion welling up inside me as I approached Aiden’s bed.
And there he was-awake, his eyes half-lidded but alive, glistening with the familiar intensity I’d thought I might never see again.
“Aiden…” I breathed, my heart swelling with relief as I took his hand. But he didn’t look at me with recognition. Instead, he stared at me with a blank, almost cautious expression.
He looked at me then at others gathered around the room and then he slowly drifted his hand away from mine as though my touch no longer possessed any desired warmth.
“I…” He hesitated a moment, clearing his throat, ‘I don’t…’ “Who are you?”
The world crumbled as it stood before me and about his words, a darkness seemed to enshroud me from head to toe.
“Aiden… it’s me, Shenaya. Don’t you remember?”
I saw the moment of confusion get into his eyes, his eyes searched my face but there was no sign of recognition in him. “I’m… I’m sorry,” he said where the agony and the deep lines crossing his brow indicated an attempt at searching for something, anything. “I don’t remember you. I don’t remember… any of this.”
At that moment I thought the floor had opened and I was falling. Weeks of waiting for such a day in order to hold him only to look into his eyes and listen to a voice devoid of affection.
Lucy came to my side, her face pale with worry as she looked between me and Aiden.
“The doctor said there might be… side effects,” she whispered. “Memory loss was a possibility, especially after what his wolf sacrificed to save him.”
Aiden’s eyes wandered around the room, landing briefly on each face-Lucy, his mother, Ethan, Zoey-but there was no flicker of recognition, no sign that he knew any of us. He was lost, a stranger in his own world.
Aunt Belle stepped forward, her expression grim but determined, and tapped my shoulder gently.
“We can help him,” she said. “It is possible to reboot memories but it will require a lot of time ”
I nodded unable to speak a word and I tried not to cry as I looked deeply into his eyes.
“I’ll do whatever it takes. I just need him back.”
For a second, Aiden looked at me, and I could barely decipher the darkness within the whirl of his pupils.
“I’m trying to, but… it’s all just… blank,” he said in a low voice more to himself than to us.
I tried to grasp his hand a second time, the pulse was steady. I desperately tried to recall he was right here with me, his body was alive, although his mind was not. “Okay one step at a time,” I muttered to myself than to him. “I am not letting go of you Aiden. Not now, not ever.”
But even as I said the words, a tingling feeling of uneasiness rather lodged its way into my heart. Aiden was here, yes, but he was different probably due to the gunshot that caused his head injury, he had no memories of our relationship.