The Wolf Who Forgot

MIRA POV

"Mira."

I didn't look up.

"Mira, that's the third time I've refilled your mug and you haven't touched it."

Dani was leaning against the doorframe of my office .. well, not my office, it was a shared room with two desks and a filing cabinet that didn't close properly, the bottom drawer forever stuck halfway open .. and she had that look on her face. The one she got when she'd been holding something back and was about to stop holding it.

"I'm fine," I said.

"You've been staring at that file for forty minutes."

"I'm reviewing it."

"Mira." She pushed off the frame and crossed the room and sat on the edge of the other desk with her arms folded. "It's a two-page file. What exactly are you reviewing?"

I put it down. Face down, so I didn't have to look at his name on the tab anymore.

"Nothing," I said. "I'm done."

She watched me for a second. Dani had been in the healer centre for eight years and she had a real talent for knowing when people were lying but also a talent for knowing when to leave it alone. She picked up my cold mug, swapped it out for the warm one she'd brought, and patted my shoulder once on her way back to the door.

"He came in yesterday, you know," she said, like it was nothing. Like she was just mentioning the weather. "For his post-mission check. He sat right there, exactly where you're sitting."

My chest did something tight and stupid and I did not react. I had gotten very good at not reacting.

"Good to know," I said.

"He's huge," she said. "Like, I knew Alphas were generally big but that man is genuinely.."

"Dani."

"Right. Sorry. I'm going."

She went. And I picked the file back up.

Caius Dray. Alpha of the Ashveil Pack. Age thirty-two. Returned from a five-year undercover infiltration mission three days ago. Physically healthy. No injuries beyond what the years had already left on him. Bloodwork clean. Wolf stable.

Memory gap: five years. Cause: unknown.

Unknown.

I pressed two fingers to my temple. The file was thin .. that was the thing that kept snagging me every time I looked at it. Two pages and a blood panel and a note from the senior healer that said further psychological evaluation recommended, underlined, like they'd pressed the pen down hard when they wrote it. Two pages for five missing years. Nobody had thought to look inside a Memory Wolf. Nobody knew to.

I knew. I was the reason the file was thin. I was the reason there was a gap at all.

He asked me to take everything. And I said yes. Because I loved him and he asked and it made sense at the time, the way things make sense when the person you love looks at you and says this is the only way and you believe them, because you do, because you always