My King (Two Prince's Book 1) (19 page)

What she says next is lost on me because the door I’m leaning against quickly opens.

Gasping in shock I glance up into the glowing eyes of a stranger wrapped in a crimson robe.

“It is time for you to go home now.”

**
***

Ian

“She’s gone,” Collette murmurs quietly from behind me.

I don’t respond. I don’t need her to tell me what I already know. I felt it the moment Shayne left, like someone had taken a needle, poked holes into my lungs with it, and second by second, they were slowly filling with liquid making it hard for me to breathe properly.

“She’ll be back, I know it.”

I’m glad one of us does because right now I don’t know a goddamn thing. My entire world is upside down and I’ve no one to blame but myself.

Her face,
fuck
, if I live to be a hundred I will never forget the look on her face when I told her she had to go. I didn’t just hurt her feelings. I absolutely destroyed her, then I kicked her in the face when she was down.

Me.
I
fucking did it to her. Everything my father taught me about how a man was supposed to take care of his beloved mate, fucking everything, I threw out the window because the fucking Council told me it was the only way for me to claim the throne. Something that’s already mine by birthright.

Because Shayne’s an outsider they want to test her. Some bullshit I’ve never heard before. Trials of the old or whatever the fuck. The whole thing is bullshit and I went right along with it as if I was their damn puppet dancing to their tune as they pulled my strings.

A small part of me, the part that’s clearly an asshole, wanted to test her, too. I allowed someone to steal her memories from her and insert new ones of her being attacked by an animal to explain the scars on her body. I let that be done to her and I’d barely protested.

All because I’m an asshole. Straight up, I’m an asshole. But I wanted to know if she’d find her way back to me. If she’d be able to do it. I feel like if I mean to her what she means to me then she will be able to remember me and she will come back to me. That’s the only reason I let them go through with this.

“Ian?”

Collette’s hand lands on my shoulder and she squeezes.

I stand, shaking off her touch. “You grow too familiar, Vampire.”

“I am sorry, Ian.”

She and I both, but being sorry would bring my mate back to me any sooner and it wouldn’t solve any of my problems.

“What the fuck are you even doing here?” I snap.

“I thought that perhaps you might like some company.”

I know she’s trying to help. I fully understand this. But it doesn’t stop me from wanting to lash out at her for being intrusive and in my space when I want to be left alone to wallow in my misery.

“I don’t want your company get out.”

Restless, I pace back and forth across the carpet.

Why the hell is she still here?

“I want you to know that I’m here for-”

Cutting her off mid-sentence I stop pacing, turn to face her, and roar, “Get the fuck out!”

Shayne

One month later

“That’s it. I’ve had enough of this mopey bullshit. Either you’re coming out with me because you want to, or, I’m dragging you out. Those are your options. Pick one.”

Anna May stands in the doorway to my bedroom, bands on both hips, spitting attitude at me.

“Neither. Both options suck.” I tell her.

And they do suck. Terribly. I mean, what the hell kind of options are those? Not ones I’d ever pick on my own that’s for damn sure.

If it were up to me I would probably never leave the safety of my own apartment ever again.

“Ever since the attack you’ve been different. The only time you leave the apartment voluntarily is to go to work, and even then I can tell you’re not into it. Summer’s almost over. Before you know it you’ll be back in school. Then you’ll literally have no time to do anything even if you wanted to.”

She’s right. About all of it. Too bad I don’t care. Another thing I don’t care for is how she just glosses over the attack like it’s nothing. To me it’s a whole lot more than nothing. A whole blank slate
full
of nothing.

The whole thing is so utterly bizarre.

I woke up in a hospital bed not knowing how I’d gotten there. The last thing I remembered was getting out of my car after work and walking up to my apartment building. Everything after is an empty, gaping hole in my memory.

I’d been dead to the world for weeks, or so they tell me, and Anna May had been out of her mind with worry not knowing where I was. I had freshly healed scars on my body that I’ve got no recollection of receiving in the first damn place, not to mention what feels like a tear in my heart. No one could explain what had happened to me. I’d been told by the hospital staff that someone had found me like that by the side of the highway. Funny, no one seemed to know who the stranger was.

Nothing added up to me. The people around me went on acting as though everything that that’d happened to me (whatever the hell that actually was) was perfectly normal.

And nothing for me was normal. Absolutely nothing. Not one damn thing.

My world had been flipped upside down, and the kicker was that I’ve got no idea as to why. Or, how?

I used to wake up in the middle of the night filled with terror because I dreamed of my sick Aunt and a depraved priest. Now I dream of darkness and a different kind of pain, this one in my chest. In my chest exactly where my scar is. A scar whose origin I have no idea of. A pain in my face where I have another, albeit significantly smaller, scar.

But, I’m sure I dream of it. I know I do, I just can’t seem to remember what
it
is that I’m dreaming of. Or what. Or why. Or who. Or, freaking any damn thing for that matter.

The situation left me feeling extremely frustrated. And scared And a whole myriad of other not so good feelings.

“Maybe going out will be good for you. Maybe you’ll even meet a hot guy who’ll flirt shamelessly with your pretty ass and buy your drinks for the night. That’d perk me up. Hell, that’d probably perk any single girl in your situation up.”

Leave it to boy crazy Anna May to think that would be just the thing to drag me out of what she calls my funk.

For some unknown reason the thought of a strange man hitting on me and shamelessly flirting with me was not a pleasant thought. As a matter of fact, I find it downright repulsive. Which, if I’m being honest scares me even more. And I have no idea as to why.

Why would this repulse me so?

What had really happened to me and why can’t I remember?

I know I hadn’t been attacked by an animal. I don’t know how I know this, I just know that I do. I know it down to my bones.

If only I could just remember. This not knowing drives me crazy, it consumes my every waking thought.

“Shay?”

“I don’t want to go out,” I tell her honestly.

Normally my beloved roommate is a whole lot less persistent when it comes to me. Since my return from the hospital it’s like a switch has been flipped on her personality and I have no idea who this Anna May is. And, honestly, as much as I love her (and I do love her. A whole lot.) I don’t care much for this new development in her personality.

She’s never pushed me to do things I didn’t want to do before. Going out has never really been my thing. I’m not anti-social exactly, I just don’t make friends as easily as she does. And the meager friends I do have are ones I’ve made through her friendship with theme first. I’ve gone out to bars with them on the weekends, mostly Lush since it’s always been a favorite, and I’ve hung out with them when they’ve camped out in our living room to watch whatever crap tv show Anna May was obsessed with at the time.

But, I’ve never been able to form any lasting bonds with anyone other than Anna May. Mostly I never even tried because I’ve never really felt like I’ve fit in with anyone, or anywhere. Whenever the errant thoughts of one of our mutual friends’ creeps into my head it always serves as a reminder – I’m an outsider, different from them, and I’ll never be the same. No matter how hard I try to pretend to be normal, to pretend I’m like everyone else, I’m not and I never will be.

“Shay,” Anna May snaps at me from the doorway.

Sighing heavily I give in and agree to go out with her if for no other reason than to get her off my back.

I watch my beautiful, blonde bombshell of a best friend grin at me happily before she turns and strolls out of my room in triumph.

Seeing her walk away, so happy at bending me to her will, something inside me snaps, breaking apart and crumbling at the seams.

I’ve outgrown this place, outgrown her.

I don’t belong here. I belong somewhere else, with someone else.

You belong with him
.

That thought, not my own, slithers through my mind for what seems to be the hundredth time since coming home from the hospital.

If only I knew who the thought belonged too, or who it is I’m supposed to belong with.

Who are you, mystery man, and why do I feel so lost without you when I have no idea who you are in the first place?

Left with a whole slew of questions and no answers to them I sigh in frustration before getting up off my bed and head towards the bathroom to take a shower.

*****

“Let’s dance,” Anna May yells in my ear loud enough to be heard over the music and the room full of drunk, obnoxiously loud people.

This had been a monumentally bad idea, and wherever it is my backbone had run off to I needed to locate it immediately so I can scrape off my BFF, get the heck out of here, and go home to my quiet apartment.

“Shay, are you even listening to me?”

Great, now she’s annoyed with me. Just what I need right now.

“I don’t want to dance so I’m not going to. As a matter of fact, I think it’s time for me to head home.”

Ah, there it is, my backbone. Finally.

I never wanted to dance, which is why I never did it. Men always came along and ruined it by touching me and trying to rub their bodies up against mine.

Just thinking about it is enough to make my skin crawl. I hate it when people I don’t know touch me. Hell, I don’t much care for it when people I do know touch me. It makes me uncomfortable.

Anna May is very well aware of my feelings on the matter because she’s the only person I never hesitate to share my feelings with when it comes to all things.

“What’s your problem, Shayne?” She slurs at me.

Shit. Not good.

An intoxicated Anna May could be highly unpredictable. This one, the one with a brand new personality seems to be even more so. Still… enough is enough. She’d been extra pushy with me for damn near a month. And I’d let her be. I’d been lost inside my head, searching for something just outside of my grasp, completely consumed by memories lost to me. I’d done nothing, not one single freaking thing, to warrant her over the top aggressive behavior.

And, frankly, I’ve had more than enough of it.

“Right now you’re my problem.”

Her clear blue eyes frost into hard chips of ice before she snarls at me, “Excuse me?”

I desperately want to explain it to her. All of it. The disquiet I feel over not being able to remember what happened to me. The insane longing I feel whenever I see the scars on my neck and inside my thigh. Sometimes before I can stop my fingers, as if they have a mind of their own, I find myself gently tracing the outline of the scar on my neck. Gently and
lovingly
. Then I will catch sight of the scar running between my breasts and it has a polar opposite effect on me. A cold so bitter it’s bone numbing seeps into my skin, leaving me momentarily paralyzed and terrified.

I want to tell her how empty I feel, almost as if a huge part of me is missing and now that it’s gone I’m damaged beyond repair.

I want to tell her about my telepathy…

My telepathy.

Wait, my what?

I had never, not once, referred to it as telepathy before, never even considered it to be the same thing. Yet, when I think about it it’s almost natural for me to call it telepathy. Natural. Normal. Fucking bizarre.

No way can I tell her any of this, she’ll have me committed and when I get out I will go home to find she’s got boxes filled with all my shit waiting on the curb for me and all the locks will be changed.

“Forget about it,” I mutter. “I’m going to call it a night and head home.”

Maybe with her Debby Downer ass no longer at my side I will get laid tonight. God, Shayne, when did she become so freaking pathetic?

I flinch at her unspoken words. I can’t help it. They freaking
hurt
.

Without a word I climb off my barstool and walk away. She calls out after me and I quickly increase my pace.

When had I become so freaking pathetic?

Christ, the nerve of her.

I’m not the one who dropped out of school a year shy of graduation. I’m not the one relying on Mommy and Daddy to pay my bills while I go out to the bar every weekend to pick up strangers to have sex with. And the only reason she doesn’t go out and find random men to hook up with on the weekdays is because she recently started sleeping with her shit hot boss after she’s off the clock.

Up until this point I’ve never once judged her decisions. Worried about her, absolutely. But judged her for them, never. I’ve always, but
always
, accepted her with an open mind and an open heart.

And now, for what it’s been worth, she finds me pathetic.

Hell, maybe she’s right. Maybe I am pathetic.

I’ve spent the last month wallowing in a grief I don’t understand. I leave my apartment to go to work and that’s about it. And when I’m not working I lock myself up in my bedroom. I’ve lost weight. I’ve got dark circles under my eyes. I’m moody and I don’t even understand why because I can’t fucking remember.

If only I could remember. I know if I could just remember what had happened to me I would feel better about everything. Absolutely everything.

I wouldn’t feel so damn empty if I could just remember. I wouldn’t feel so lost, so bereft. Maybe knowing would make me feel whole again.

I want that. To feel whole. To feel like I’m not missing pieces of myself.

I make it to where I parked my Jeep and head home. Screw Anna May, she can find her own damn ride home. Maybe she can even find one with someone who’s not as pathetic as I am.

My own thoughts cause unease to fill me. I’m not a spiteful person. I’m not a mean person. I’m not a judgmental person. I’m not a bad person. I do not want to be this hatful person who thinks this way about their best friend.

I’ve heard her thoughts before a million times and they haven’t always been nice but I’ve always powered though it. Her private thoughts weren’t mine to have and even if I did not like hearing what she had to think I never once held it against her. I let it go and moved on. I never allowed myself to feel spiteful before, it would have been an unfair reaction from me when she doesn’t even know what I’m capable of. If she did she would probably be a whole lot more guarded around me. To say the least.

So why, all of a sudden, am I acting out on things I’ve always kept a tight hold on?

Not having an answer to my many questions and no longer wishing to speculate it I park my Jeep at the curb in front of my apartment building and climb out.

An orange and white U-Haul truck takes up most of the driveway. It had been there earlier when we left for the night but I’d been so lost in my own head I hadn’t paid it any notice.

We must be getting new neighbors.

The two other apartments in the old building besides our apartment are vacant and had been for some time. Guess one’s not anymore.

No, they haven’t. You have to remember.

Yes, they have.

Haven’t they?

No, wait. What?

Dammit.

Why would I think that? What’s wrong with me? Am I going crazy? What the hell is wrong with me?