‘What happened?’ Cassie looked up at him. Nate pulled Cassie close so that she could lay her head on him. She couldn’t see his face, but had a feeling that was exactly what he was doing it for.
‘I don’t know exactly. Right after you left town, I was outside my parents’ place, trying to track you with our bond. It happened then. My mother just disappeared. I mean vanished into thin air. Without her around to stabilize my dad, he turned into a tiger. I went into town to try to get help, but it was happening all around town. The witches were just gone.’
Cassie was able to see his memories as he talked, and it was like he was narrating a movie. His dad was a large tiger just like Nate. She watched him transform, and saw Nate running to open doors as his father found a way out of the house. Nate rushed into town and saw the animals pouring out of the houses.
‘I noticed that the teens without mates were not changing, so we rounded up everyone we could. Witchlings were still around. Only people pledged to a mate were missing. We hid at the school. Then I went to find your uncle when I saw it happen.’
The movie changed to her house, the one she was raised in, as it blew into pieces and a very angry bear ran out of it. It took only a blink, and anyone could have missed it, but Cassie saw it. Her aunt was riding her uncle as they ran away.
‘I went back to the school but was too late. All the young skinwalkers were changing into their full animal, too, and the wendigo were at the school rounding up the witchlings. It’s impossible to change without a full moon for the young skinwalkers. I have no clue how they did it. I only got close enough to hear your cousin promise them that they would be safe, but we see what safe means to him.’
The school was emptied of animals, and some were even trapped. Nate stayed in the shadows and watched. There was nothing he could do to help, and it was driving him crazy to just watch. But he was all alone. No one else was left. The older clan members had been the first to leave. Now the younger ones all changed also, and the witches were taken or disappeared. Nate had no clue where they were at all.
‘Everyone really is gone?’ Cassie asked. Her head was against his chest, and she could hear his heartbeat. It was reassuring that he wasn’t a dream and she wasn’t alone. Nate was with her.
‘I don’t know. I was standing there one minute watching, and then next twitching on the ground. I learned skinwalkers are susceptible to Tasers, and Tasers hurt worse than you can imagine.’
‘What do we do?’ Cassie asked, yawning. How in the world could she be tired? She just woke up.
‘We play their game until we know more of what’s going on. We can’t make a plan without getting more details.’ Nate rubbed her head as she closed her eyes. ‘I don’t know what’s going on, but we will find out. We just have to be patient.’
‘Why the heck am I sleepy?’
‘Sorry, my fault. When the bond opens up, we use each other’s energy. I must be lower than I thought. Sleep and you will feel better.’
‘And what about you?’ Cassie was struggling to keep her eyes open.
‘I’ll watch over you. And I’ll keep my ears open. There’s something going on here. The wendigo weren’t there when my mom disappeared, but I know they’re behind it. It’s almost like they knew that taking the witches would do this to us. Someone has been telling the enemy our secrets. Now I just need to find out theirs so that we can fight back.’
‘Agreed.’ Cassie couldn’t stay awake any longer. She drifted off to sleep without another thought.
Cassie didn’t need to open her eyes to know where she was this time. She felt the satin sheets again, and the dim purple color through her barely cracked eyelids let her know she was back in her prisoner room. She had hoped to wake up with Nate—he was all she had left, and she was more than worried about everything. But even she knew that would be a bad choice for the wendigo. They couldn’t leave the last two people who were looking for answers together. At least, they still didn’t know about the bonding. She could talk to Nate even if she couldn’t see him.
‘Are you okay?’ Cassie asked.
‘Yes, no visits from your cousin yet today,’ Nate replied.
He still sounded tired. It was going to be a while before he was back up to full strength. At least he was being left alone for now … she hoped. Nate was the kind to keep things like that from her if she would worry. As kids, he never told her anything he thought she would worry about. Old Nate seemed to be around a lot more than Than. Cassie had to take that into account. She momentarily looked through the bond. He seemed weak like he did before she fell asleep, but nothing more had changed.
‘Jared came in right after you dozed off. He took you back as quickly as he could,’ Nate continued. ‘There’s something strange about him. Make sure to keep an eye out.’
Strange was the least of it. Cassie wasn’t about to explain the predicament of sleeping in a room that only could be accessed via Jared’s bedroom. For some reason, she was quite sure Nate would be irate when he found out.
“Man, you day humans sleep a lot,” Ryder remarked, interrupting Cassie’s silent conversation.
Cassie sat up, and the air was cold on her arms. She wasn’t wearing her long-sleeved shirt from before. Now she was wearing a T-shirt she hadn’t put on. She pulled the covers against herself when she noticed it was just a T-shirt and no pants to go with them. She must have been really asleep to not feel someone changing her clothing. Then it hit her. Who changed my clothing? Her cheeks reddened.
Ryder stood against the far wall in the room, between the windows filled with fading light. His blond hair almost glowed as the setting sun touched it. He was completely different than his twin brother, and yet she didn’t feel the need to put up a protection spell from him. Something was different with him than the first time she met him. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but he was different.
He turned back to her like he could feel her assessing him.
“If you want to get dressed, I can give you a tour of this place,” he offered. He didn’t know what he was even offering her, and Cassie had to hide a grin.
That was a start. Cassie didn’t know what to look for, but she was plenty sure that Nate saw the images in her mind just like she could see his. He would need the information of the place to know how to get them out when the time came. Now all he needed to do was recover and then they could leave.
Sliding her legs out of the bed, Cassie noticed she wasn’t in chains this time. The chain hung empty from the bedpost.
“You’ll have to forgive my brother. He is the better one at following rules. Personally, I wouldn’t chain you up.” Ryder laughed. “Wouldn’t? No, rather I didn’t even though he told me to. Where are you going to run off to? We took over the whole city. He’s nuts to think you could escape and hide away from us, but then again, this isn’t the first time he’s been this close to winning you. The other time you were taken away before he even knew what was happening.” Ryder ran his hands through his long blond hair.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Cassie replied. She had met Jared a week ago, and while he was nice, she had no intention of staying or mating with him.
Ryder nodded and continued to stare at Cassie, like he was searching for something.
Cassie kept the blanket over her lap and stared back at him. “And while a tour sounds nice, I kind of don’t have anything with me to wear.”
Ryder pointed to the doorway next to the one that led downstairs.
“Bathroom and fully stocked closet. I think it’s all your size. One thing my brother is very thorough about is planning. Just keep the door cracked open. I don’t like following the rules that I think are stupid, like chaining you up, but I do need to keep an eye on you. Until you bond to Jared, it isn’t exactly safe around here for you. You smell too delicious to everyone.”
Cassie shivered at his last statement. He looked and even somewhat acted different, but his words still scared her. She had seen how much he wanted to feed on h
er before. She didn’t really need to experience that.
“So what you said before about Jared losing me. What did you mean by that?” Cassie inquired loudly from the bathroom, hoping to keep the conversation going so he didn’t feel the need to watch her change clothes. “I’ve never met you guys before last week, and I’m pretty sure I wasn’t about to be won over by him.”
“You really don’t remember? I was certain it was a joke. Man, now I owe him twice. First, you have to run to the woods and that cabin, and now you really don’t remember us? I’m out a hundred now. This sucks,” Ryder complained from his place in the bedroom. He hadn’t moved any closer.
She walked into the closet. Ryder was correct; it was fully stocked and better than she would have done herself. First off, she could have never afforded that many clothes, and second, she wouldn’t have had the time to organize it all. It must have taken Jared hours just to hang and put everything away—color coordinated and organized perfectly.
“I’m serious,” Cassie yelled out to Ryder. “What do you mean by know you? I’ve never met you before.”
Cassie snatched a pair of jeans, surprised to find her favorite kind in the right size, and slid into them quickly. She pulled out a T-shirt and sweater next, throwing them on just as quick. She didn’t know how long Ryder would leave her alone. Grabbing socks, she made her way back through the bathroom and into the bedroom. She paused by the bed and waited for an answer from him.
Ryder came over to her and looked straight into her eyes. He seemed like he was searching for an answer at first, but then Cassie realized he was giving her an open book. She looked at a memory he was playing in his mind for her. She was young, maybe only five at the time. She was at the park and running around with three boys. When the image cleared, she could tell one was a young Nate. The second boy turned to the one watching everyone play, and she was shocked to find it wasn’t Owen like she expected, but someone else. She would recognize those chocolate-brown eyes anywhere. It had to be Jared.
“We grew up with you, even if you can’t remember us. My dad said they would erase your memories, but I thought he was just mad. He was mad a lot back then after our mother died. I don’t know what changed, but my father joined the wendigo and then so did we. We had no choice. We were forced to leave, and obviously, they stripped everyone of their memories. I didn’t think they would actually take yours, and I refused to believe my dad. At first, I thought maybe you didn’t recognize us, but then I figured you were just as stuck up as the rest of the coven. Really, I thought you guys were just playing with us. Seems I should say I’m sorry. You’re just a pawn in all this also.”
Cassie regarded Ryder. He was completely serious even if she didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. She tried to will back memories with him in them. There was nothing. She couldn’t remember what he looked like as a kid or even having met him. How could he remember, but she couldn’t? Were they real memories, or was he just doing it to get her to like them more?
“I have that memory,” Cassie finally said as it came to her. “But you and Jared aren’t in it. It was of me and Nate playing with Owen. That’s when I fell off the slide and thought I broke my arm.”
“But Jared convinced you that if you broke your arm, you could never eat ice cream again,” Ryder finished the exact memory in his version.
“No, Owen did that. Owen’s always done stuff like that,” Cassie replied. She could see it clearly, and it was Owen. Ryder was wrong. Maybe he had some sort of spell he was using to try to change her memories. Witches could do that sort of thing; at least, they could in theory. It was against coven rules to do anything mind altering since you could hurt someone as easy as mess with them.
Ryder appeared saddened by Cassie’s comment.
“Owen didn’t move here until we left the clan eight years ago,” Ryder explained.
Cassie shook her head. That memory was almost ten years old. Owen had lived in town their whole lives. He wasn’t someone who had moved in. He couldn’t have. She had too many memories with him growing up. Owen, Nate, and she were the three besties of all her childhood memories. It was always the three of them together. Always.
“But that does explain a lot. They must have just overwritten your memories of us and put Owen in their place. No wonder he fit right in.” Ryder nodded as he talked.
She could feel that he was certain. He wasn’t lying. He had to be mistaken. Maybe his memories were messed with. But then again, maybe hers were. The coven hadn’t exactly been nice to her over the years. Could she really still trust them?
“They wouldn’t do that,” Cassie whispered as her whole childhood came into question. She didn’t trust Ryder or the wendigo, but she didn’t trust the coven. They had already shown her that they planned to strip her powers.
“I know it doesn’t seem true to you, but let me prove it,” Ryder suggested, motioning for her to follow him downstairs.
Ryder led the way down into his brother’s room. Instead of leaving the room, he turned and walked the opposite direction of the door. He stopped at the well-polished wooden desk. Pulling open drawers, he searched for something. He paused when he pulled out the top drawer and chuckled.
“Of course, he kept it right on top. Here I thought he had hidden it.” Ryder removed a folded up piece of paper. “Guess he knew the old man would never look in that obvious of a place.”
Ryder handed Cassie the paper and waited for her to open it. Cassie didn’t need to open it to know what it was. She recognized it right away. She had written that exact letter for Owen, but never went through giving it to him. She had lost it years ago. It was a letter where she told Owen that she loved him, but they could never be together. They were too close of friends, and she didn’t want to ruin that. Even at nine, Cassie knew how the world worked. If she told Owen she liked him and he didn’t like her, she would be out her best, and at the time, only friend. She kept all that to herself. She never told anyone about the letter.
“Go ahead and open it.” Ryder motioned to the paper.
“I already know what it says. Why does Jared have this? Did you guys stalk me or something? Jared seems to know all sorts of stuff about me,” Cassie commented, thinking back to the week before when Jared tried to prove that he knew her. How could someone she never met know that much? They must have stalked her.
“Just open it,” Ryder replied, not answering yes or no to Cassie’s accusations.
‘Dear Jared’ the letter began. Cassie stopped reading and glanced up at Ryder. It was her handwriting, but she was sure it was supposed to say ‘Dear Owen’. It was her letter to Owen, and she didn’t even know a Jared when she had written it.
“Is this some sort of trick?” she asked, getting a little more than creeped out. She was left with more questions floating around in her mind.
“Look at the photo if you don’t believe us,” Ryder added, pointing to the piece of paper that was face down in the letter.
Cassie turned the photo over. It was a picture Cassie had in a frame in her house. She always loved that picture, but never could exactly say why. Owen always laughed at it. He said that he hated how their parents made them all get dressed up for that day, but she never remembered it that way. She remembered a day where she wore a dress, and Uncle John was the kind of man she wished her father would have been. He had taken her to a coven party, and Owen and Nate were her dates. That was the last time the three of them were all friends. But now as she looked at the picture, she wasn’t sitting between Owen and Nate. She was sitting and holding onto Nate and someone else completely.
“That was the last time we saw you before the coven kicked us out. Our mother died two weeks before the party. It was really hard on my dad, but everything changed at that party. The seer for the coven met you that day. What we’ve figured out is that she was supposed to pass the job onto you, but instead she told Mikel you would tear the clan apart since you were fated to be bonded to both Nate and Jared. Mikel immediately kicked us ou
t of the clan and forbade Nate to have anything to do with you.” Ryder looked at the picture with Cassie. “I took that picture,” he said. “I remember that day exactly. I promise you, this isn’t a game. We have known you your whole life. We aren’t the monsters everyone says we are.”
The old picture was worn at the edges, but it was real. It wasn’t a fake and had been well-handled over the years. She looked back at the letter. She could vividly remember writing the letter, but she still couldn’t remember it being written to Jared.
“You don’t have to believe or trust me, but I’m telling you the truth. You were predicted to bond to both Nate and Jared. They are both your destiny, even if you don’t remember that much,” Ryder added, taking the picture and letter from Cassie and carefully folding it back up to put it back in its place. “Now how about that tour since you will be here a while? Might as well start finding your way around so I don’t have to babysit you.”
Cassie nodded and followed him to the door. She gave one last look back to the desk. She couldn’t deny it. She felt it, too. Something deep inside told her to trust Jared and that he was safe. How did she know that about someone she just met? It would make a lot more sense that her gut trusted Jared because even if she didn’t remember him, part of her did. It was possible and that complicated everything. How many more memories was she forgetting?
The tour took longer than she expected. She thought they were just in a small house from her only trip out of the place, but she was mistaken. The wendigo had made their home in the hills under the cover of the woods surrounding the town, but that didn’t mean they were isolated. All of the homes were strategically placed, and it was easy to go from one to the next. Each had a similar layout with bedrooms for the kids to one side of the house, a kitchen and living room in the middle, and the parents’ rooms to the other side. There was a large section off the side of the house Ryder said they didn’t need to see yet, and Cassie agreed. She got a dark feeling coming from behind the doors. Avoiding it was the best call.