Page 54 of Savage Torment

“What else did he hide from you?” Wylder asks, hands flexing at his sides, and she offers a tight smile.

“The bonding,” she offers with a light snicker.

There’s a hint of humor there, but I can't get a read on how she actually feels about that. Although, it makes sense why he would hide that. Even though it's confusing as hell, it explains why she's never been pulled in his direction knowingly, since the information was hidden, and why there was no inkling for us either.

What it doesn’t explain iswhyhe would compel her to forget, but the only person who can offer us that answer is the vampire in question, and I don’t think we’re quite ready for a conversation just yet. Acknowledging him is one thing, accepting him is another.

“Anything else?” I ask, and she drops her hands to her sides, releasing Tatum’s finger.

“Uh, when I was at Florentines, I was friends with Sian,” she starts, and Wylder holds up a hand.

“The vampire?”

“Yeah, Terence too,” she adds.

“The other vampire?” Wylder clarifies, and she nods. “The one that Sian girl was looking for at the hospital?”

Polaris shrugs. “I don't know.”

“The one I… had some fun with?” Lincoln interjects, and Polaris cocks her brow at him.

“You mean the one you beat the hell out of?” she corrects, and he shrugs.

“What about them?” Lincoln asks, distracting away from the finger being aimed at him.

“Well, Sian had a boyfriend, B, or Benjamin, sorry, and when we got here, he was declared a human by the chalice. But from the moment we left the assembly hall, I didn't see him again.”

I frown. Sure, there are four different factions on site, and it's not a small campus, but it's fairly easy to cross paths with the same people again and again. Especially when you're in the same age group, which leads to some of the same classes.

Polaris clears her throat, making it known there's still more to the story. “Well, not until I recently found him in my room, but at the time, none of it made sense. It was only when Blaze gave me my memories back that I could digest it.”

“What else was he hiding?” Wylder asks, impending rage brewing beneath the surface until Polaris offers him a soft, genuine smile.

“Nothing bad. Not about him, at least,” she states, slightly bewildered by that fact herself, more so than us. Lacing her hands together, she takes a deep breath. “The first memory he hid from me was of him taking me to the vampire dorms to see ifBenjamin was there. I don’t know whether it was a good thing or a bad thing that he was because he was chained to a bed on the edge of death, nearly drained of every ounce of blood.”

“Fuck,” Tatum curses under his breath and Polaris’s mouth sets in a thin line.

“He was chosen,” I murmur, and her gaze snaps to me.

She nods. “If that's what it's called, yeah.” Tatum reaches out to tuck a loose tendril of hair behind her ear and she tilts her face to look down at the floor. “What makes it worse is it was Sian who chose him.”

“What the fuck?” Wylder blurts, just as surprised as I am, and she nods.

“The third memory he hid from me was of him taking me back to the vampire dorms, only that time, he didn't lead me down into the basement. He took me to his bedroom.”

The tension immediately thickens, each wolf uncertain of where this is now leading, but if she senses it, she doesn't show it. “Ben was there, alive and… fine, just like he always was.”

Relief floods my veins at the fact that he hadn't stolen a memory of taking her back to his room to do fuck knows what with her, potentially against her will. That’s the kind of shit that shouldn’t be hidden by compulsion.

“But you can't take a chosen,” Lincoln grunts, interrupting my thoughts, and Polaris shrugs.

“He did, and he has.”

“For you,” Wylder states, and her eyes latch on his.

“Yeah.” Her heart races a little with the acknowledgment. As if it’s bewildering to her that someone would do something crazy for her, as if she’s undeserving, and I make a silent vow then and there to remove that self-doubt.

“Why?” Lincoln asks, eyebrows furrowed in confusion, and she gulps.

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