Page 21 of Forget Me Not

“So maybe yes?” Cassandra went back to taking Ray’s pulse, although she already knew he was alarmed, so whatever she was reading was hardly a baseline. “Did you hear or smell anything odd? Out of place?”

“It was a filthy alley. I smelled trash cans and raccoons.” Ray didn’t feel like explaining all of this again. But Penn was glaring at him now and Cal was outside in the cold fretting and Benny had work in the morning, so he sighed. “There might have been something.” A fleeting, already gonesomething. “And the itch of magic, but those two were near.”

“Fairy magic doesn’t smell itchy to you,” Cassandra revealed casually, as if she and Ray had talked about this before. “Only human magic. So, you woke up to them being there?”

Ray could still hear the hummingbird beat of Cal’s heart, the press of his shoes on the pavement.

“You woke up to Cal,” Cassandra prompted.

“I don’t know that I was asleep,” Ray argued without heat, ignoring the other implied question.

“So.” Cassandra removed her hands from him. “You have no mate.”

Every muscle in Ray’s body locked. He didn’t move away. He looked up. Cassandra watched him work his jaw.

“Except that you do,” she continued evenly. She knew Ray wanted to get up. He had no way to do it without pushing her aside. She also knew he wouldn’t do that. “You don’t know who he is. But you smelled him and you recognized him. That’s what I’m getting from this.” She cocked her head toward Penn. “What did you do in the middle of the day? Detective Del Mar, was he with you?”

Penn cleared her throat. “Only until late morning. Then he went to get lunch and to see,” she hesitated, “Cal. Then he came back to the station and we did some paperwork before we headed down to the village. He wandered off, as he sometimes does, because he heard or smelled something.”

Ray frowned. Of course, he couldn’t remember that either.

“Maybe you did get a head injury,” Penn suggested. “People hit hard enough usually can’t remember the moments before. Doesn’t quite explain amnesia this selective though. Part of it, perhaps. But not this.”

Cassandra stepped back. “Okay. I think I understand the situation as much as anyone can at this moment. Now hold still.” Without waiting for Ray to actually do that, she waved her hand in front of his face. He felt the tingle in his nose a second before he sneezed, but at least he could smell again afterward. Cassandra gave him a proud smile. “That should at least help you feel stronger. But so would a good, long nap. Being or human, a nap does wonders.” She paused. “Hmm. Have you considered kissing him?”

She immediately raised her hands in innocence at the look Ray gave her.

“So yes, you have,” she remarked, unimpressed but sensible enough to cross over to her owl to give it a pet, out of reach of the werewolf. “No offense meant. Spells are cast by humans, by and large, and humans are influenced by stories are much as anyone. People have put kisses into spells as a condition before—usually intending to be the one getting kissed, which is a whole mess of consent issues and creepiness. Anyway. He’s your… Cal.” She glanced to Ray, aware, somehow, of his racing heart. “A kiss would be meaningless next to a bond like that.”

She moved on, now addressing Penn. “I have some teas for strength to help people fighting off curses and the like, but I have no idea what concentration would help a werewolf. And oh yes! After they called me, I realized there is someone I can ask who might know more, but that can wait until morning.”

“Is he cursed, then?” Penn wondered, regarding Ray with open concern. “That’s a pain.”

Cassandra rolled her shoulders. “A human curse would leave traces. A fairy curse, however, would not. That’s just an example, Detective Branigan. I don’t think a fairy cursed you, unless you pissed off some other fairy recently.”

Penn made a strangled sound. “Fairies can really curse people? I thought that was just stories. I’ve never seen it.”

Ray thought of Cal, furious and practically sparking with energy.

“Most people don’t want to advertise that a fairy cursed them. It’s embarrassing,” Cassandra explained to Penn, her voice fading as Ray returned his focus to two in the garden.

“I am going to make them suffer. They tried to get rid of me, Benny.On purpose. And even Ray said I wouldn’t like what he would become without—“Cal gasped.“I could still lose him. He might decide he doesn’t want a fairy the second time around. He barely did the first.”

Ray stopped breathing.

“I don’t think that’s how mating works,”Benny answered carefully.

“But they can choose,”Cal argued, pacing again.“Even if it means suffering, they can still choose right? Before the bond is there? That’s what the romance novels say.”

Benny seemed alarmed in a whole new way.“Have you been reading those again?”

“Did I not return your copies?”Cal moved on before Benny could reply.“I know they are mostly smut, fantastic, amazing smut, but I had to find this stuff somewhere! It’s not like Ray would tell me unless I asked directly. I can’t tell if he does it on purpose or if he thinks no one cares so he stopped explaining years before he met me…or if he just doesn’t think of it and assumes I know.”Cal didn’t sound like he was moving around anymore.“In the books, you know, they always claim their mates right away. In the books… they want them.”

Benny sighed.“Again, I don’t think that is how werewolf bonds work. Outside of those novels, I mean.”

“But you don’t know!“ Cal’s argument was more dejected than angry.“He could say no this time and mean it.”

“Cal.”

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