Page 29 of Tempest

She hovered over a spot above his left hip, a furrow between her brows, then continued down his legs. Ore wasn’t sure he liked having to lie on his back on her couch as she “examined” him, but he kept that to himself. At least he’d been able to keep his clothes on for it. Still… he felt oddly vulnerable as his skin tingled wherever she moved her hands.

“Have you shifted?”

“A couple of times,” he said softly, though he wasn’t sure why he felt like it was a secret. Alpha Amato hadn’t told him he couldn’t shift—heck, he’d probably be relieved if Ore just flew away and took his problems with him—but Ore had felt a bit guilty when he’d done it, staying in the upstairs bathroom at Cash’s house. He couldn’t fly in there, but he could stretch his wings a bit. “Not for very long though.”

“That’s fine,” she murmured, moving to the end of the couch. She held her glowing hands to the soles of his feet for a long couple of minutes, and then the light began to dim, her eyes opening. “I can’t detect any foreign magic anywhere in you. Your healing did its job.”

He sat up and shrugged. “With your help.”

“With the coven’s help,” she corrected, plopping onto the coffee table right in front of him. Her big hazel eyes were a bit intense up close, and she reeked of magic so strongly it was making his nose itch.

“Still… thanks for not letting me die,” he said. He hadn’t thought to thank her the other day in Liam’s office, overwhelmed by everything she’d told him and the intimidating group in the room.

She grinned and waved a hand at him. “I don’t make a habit of letting folks die just because they weren’t born in the same place I was. How are your memories coming along?”

He made a face, and she laughed. “Terribly. All I’ve gotten is… I don’t know how to describe it. Impressions? Feelings? I’ll get like a blurry flash and a strong reaction, but it doesn’t make any sense. I still can’t remember any people or events of my life.”

“You need to be patient with yourself. You’re rebuilding the bridge to those memories, and that takes time. They’re in there though.”

“That’s what Pops said,” he admitted, sighing and running a hand through his hair. “It’s just really frustrating.”

“That’s understandable. I don’t know if this will make it worse or better,” she said, resituating into a crossed-leg position on the table, nearly knocking over an unlit candle. “I finished analyzing what I could of the spell that was used on the virus, and I believe your access to your memories was severed on purpose.”

Ore’s heart lurched in his chest, his eyes widening. “For real? Why would they do that and then try and kill me?”

She shrugged. “I have no proof of anything, but my suspicion is that they weren’t trying to kill you. They were testing you for something.”

“Testing me?”

“The use of the virus to deliver the spell is something I’ve never seen before, but it makes me think someone in some lab somewhere is doing some pretty fucked-up experiments on parahumans. For what end? I couldn’t say.” She glanced away, appearing lost in thought as her fingers tapped on her knees.

Ore tried to digest that information and the implications of it. “So you think there are others. That I wasn’t just a one-off.”

She met his eyes once more, anger flashing over her cherubic features. “I know you’re not. I don’t have any way to prove it yet, but I think you escaped the same place Liam’s brother’s mate did.”

His eyes just about bugged out of his head. “Wait, what?”

A throat cleared, and they both looked over to find Cash standing in the doorway of the living room, a scowl etched on his strong face. “Fern?—”

She stood and threw her hands up. “Don’t youFernme. Tell me I’m wrong.”

“I’m not saying?—”

She cut him off before he could answer, her fury burning his sinuses. “If he and Caden were being held at the same place, he deserves to know. And so do Caden and Quinten.”

Ore climbed to his feet but stayed back, not wanting to get in the middle of whatever fight was happening between the two. Caden had to be Liam’s brother’s mate. Had he been dosed with the virus thing too? Or just had his memories wiped?

“We don’t know that they were,” Cash said harshly. “And it isn’t our place to share what happened to him with an outsider.”

Ore stumbled back a step, devastation hitting him like a physical blow. Cash didn’t want her telling him about this Caden, sharing the details of what had happened to him.

Because he didn’ttrustOre. He would always just be an outsider to him.

Ice-blue eyes darted over to him, and Cash took a step into the room, inhaling deeply. “Ore, don’t?—”

“Don’t what? Don’t get upset?” He shook his head, tucking his chin into his chest and wrapping his arms around himself. “Cool, sure. No problem. I’ll just ignore the fact that you don’t trust me. Oh, and how there is apparently another person out there who may have gone through the same hell as me, but that’s not mybusiness, is it, Enforcer Lawson?”

Cash’s irises began to glow faintly, and he moved farther into the room. Without taking his eyes off Ore, he said, “Fern, will you give us a minute alone, please?”

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