“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said it like that.” He noticed she wasn’t sorry for having said it just the way she’d done it.
Az cleared his throat. “We’re a funny pair, aren’t we? You had access to all of my most horrendous memories and we can’t get anywhere near yours.”
“Apparently, we can.” She jumped off the table. “I’d say we’re a perfect pair.” She wrapped her arms around his waist, burying her head against his chest. “I can’t remember anything and even though you hate magic, you can give it back to me.”
She was right. “Okay.”
Her head jerked up. “Just like that? Okay?”
“You want it. For you, I would do anything.” As he said it, he realized he meant it. If Leah needed him to, he would walk through walls. “However, despite what my mom thinks, I’m going to have to speak to Tristan. The pack isn’t run that way anymore. We don’t hide things from the Alpha unless his life is in danger and we know he’d throw himself in front of the bullet. Then we might lie to keep him safe.”
“I like that idea better.”
He didn’t like anything about it, not one damn thing.
I do. I think it’s a great idea. His wolf danced around in his head.
Of course you do. Az rolled his eyes.
Az watched Tristan shake his head in wonder. All the Kanes were in the room with him and, of course, Cullen and Summer who might as well be Kanes these days. Leah had requested Malcolm and Jana be there too. In their brief contact, his mate had come to trust the other woman. Since he was doing this for her, he might as well indulge what she wanted in all things. The whole pack would know of his humiliation soon enough.
“Why did I never know you could do this?” Tristan turned on Cullen. “Did you know he could do it?”
“No, my Alpha, this is the first I’m hearing of it.” Cullen raised an eyebrow at Az in the infuriating way he did where it was like he believed you but he questioned everything you said at the same time.
Hit him. His wolf’s solution for everything.
Shut up.
“Jana, have you ever heard of a male member of the pack being able to perform this kind of magic?”
Malcolm’s mate shook her head. “No, my Alpha, but I would venture a guess that Az’s wolf must be very strong for this to work.”
“Dad beat it out of me by the time I was fourteen. Mom forbade me to speak of it. Frankly, I’m not even sure I can do it anymore, which is why I didn’t offer it up right away.” That was, at least, partially true. Leah knew all the circumstances. The rest of them didn’t have to.
From the corner of the room, Gabriel spoke. “I knew about it.”
Tristan turned around to look at him. “Why didn’t you ever say anything? Why didn’t either of you ever say anything?”
Gabriel shrugged. “Not my story to tell.”
“He tried to kill me as a baby because he had an inkling that I was ‘different’ and then again when I was a child because he thought I was a freak. In the pack, only women have magic. My existence and my ability to do what I can do goes against nature. I didn’t exactly feel like advertising it.”
Leah placed her hand on his back and he immediately felt better.
“Besides, memory walking is not exactly a useful talent. Most of the time when we forget things, it’s better if we can actually forget them.”
Cullen spoke up. “It would be extraordinarily useful in interrogation. You could just slip into their minds.”
Az shook his head. “Doesn’t work that way. It’s never that clear or that easy.”
Ashlee took a small step forward. “You know Braden sometimes does things that seem magical to me. I thought maybe it was just my imagination but now that I know that you can, and you’re his uncle, maybe I’m not hallucinating.”
Tristan looked at her sharply. “You never mentioned this to me.”
“He’s still so young, I didn’t think it warranted attention yet.”
There was a moment of silence in which Az became convinced Ash and Tristan were speaking telepathically.
He looked at Leah. It’s a personal nightmare for me to be standing here doing this. I think it would be much more useful to be in the basement figuring out a compound to break Dad’s hold on the wolves he’s creating. I had this idea about a vaccine…
She shook her head. First off, I still have to get used to the fact that you can speak to me like this. Second, you are not going to go run away to the lab. After we get my memories back, you can go hide there if you want. Everyone is acting just fine towards you. Kind of stunned but not weirded out or disgusted.
Was she right? Was he being too sensitive about the whole thing? It was so hard to give up a lifetime of believing what he could do was wrong based on a few minutes alone with his family.
I never told you that it was bad. I’ve wanted you to do it for years.
That was true. His wolf had only become hostile towards him when he’d stopped doing it.
“Alright.” Tristan nodded. “Do it.”
“It’s a little more complicated. I can’t just do it.”
“What do you need?”
“I guess I need quiet and time alone to give it a try.”
“Do you want my office?”
Az appreciated the offer. “No, thank you. Do I still have a room here?”
The room erupted in laughter. Az felt his face turn red. Tristan walked to him and placed his hand on his arm. “Yes, little brother, you still have a room here. We haven’t thrown you out of the house for lack of attendance.”
Placing his hand in Leah’s, Az led her from the room. The hallways were quiet; it was early in the morning, and other than the pack members he’d awaked from their beds no one was up and around just yet.
They arrived at his room and he turned the knob, opening it up. A quick cursory glance told him that the room was exactly as he’d left it. No one had been in it at all and it showed. The main sitting room had pillows thrown around everywhere—he could remember doing it, he’d not been able to settle down and relax, having wanted to be in his lab more than he wanted to be in the rooms—and he’d thrown things around in frustration. If they walked into the bedroom, it was likely that there wouldn’t even be sheets on the bed.
Feeling sheepish, he regarded Leah. “Um, I don’t stay here very much.”
She nodded, her eyes dancing. “I can tell.”
“I tried to tell you earlier. I’m not normal. I mean forgetting the fact that I can do what I’m about to do with the memories, sometimes I just forget to do basic things. I might disappear in the middle of the night and you’ll find me at four in the morning up to my elbows in chicken fat as I try to figure out if I can use the stuff to create a new way to fuel the compound.”
He really needed her to understand. The life she saw with Tristan and Ashlee or any of the other mated couples, it was never going to happen with him. Az had always suspected that the universe was going to curse his mate with a miserable existence. It might be better off for the woman if he never mated.
But now there was Leah and gods help him, he wanted her with every part of his soul. Wolf and man both needed her, desperately, except she needed to understand. It was pivotal that she really ‘get’ what she was buying into.
“I have to believe that a lot of these things will work themselves out. I’ll tell you what, if I find you missing in the middle of the night, I will come and find you and bring you back to bed.”
Gods, the idea of being in bed with Leah…
“Let’s focus on this so you can see if you actually like who I am, shall we?”
Was she worried about that? “I can almost guarantee that I’m going to like you. You’re like a dream, a gift from the universe.”