Page 23 of Forget Me Not
Eyes wide, she sucked in a breath and fell onto the bench.
Bastien
Bastienhadbeenpacingand pulling at his hair while he waited for her to get dressed. When he heard the rapid, gasping breaths, he ran back inside to find her having a complete panic attack. Acting on instinct alone he grabbed her shoulders to try and ground her, then he saw her skin slowly begin to tremor. The last thing they needed was for her to shift again.
Without a thought, his hands moved up to her face and he barked her name. That had been enough to get her attention. Enough to stop the shift, before it was too late.
Now, she was sitting across from him, greedily emptying water bottles while absolutely drowning in his clothes.
What a mess.
“So…” he began cautiously. “I don’t really know where to start. I guess it might be easier if you just ask questions and I can fill in any blanks where I see them?”
She was halfway through her third water at this point.
“You.” Her face screwed up in confusion. “Turned into…a wolf?”
Bastien had to stifle a laugh. She looked like she thought she was crazy. To be fair, if anyone else had heard her, they might have thought the same thing.
“I did,” he confirmed and paused, waiting for it to register—to see if she was going to laugh or accuse him of lying. She did neither, only stared.
“That was real.” Not a question, a statement. “And I…I turned into—this is insane.” She stood, hands shooting up in exasperation, then coming down to rest on the top of her head as she began pacing. “There is absolutely no way—no way—that I,” she gestured wildly at herself, “turned into a fucking deer.” She let loose a single, “ha!” then dropped down, ass on her heels, and pulled the neck of the hoodie up over her face.
Her voice was muffled by the fabric when she spoke again. “Please just tell me that this is some weird, drug-induced fantasy. Tell me I’m going to wake up in a padded room.”
He could not help it; he laughed.
Like an odd little gray cotton turtle, her head popped up just enough to reveal her eyes, which were shooting daggers in his direction.
“I’m sorry, it’s just…” He shook his head and pulled his legs up, resting his forearms across his knees. “Thisisinsane.”
She blinked at him, unimpressed.
“I just can’t wrap my head aroundhowa shifter could possiblynot knowthey’re a shifter. It’sinsane.”
It took longer than he expected for her to settle back onto the bench and start talking again. Naturally, she started back up with, “How is this possible?” Followed by, “Why me?!” Neither of which he had a good answer for. They spent the next few minutes assessing one another, him waiting for her next question and her, hopefully, thinking of one he could actually answer.
“Oh.” She broke the silence. “What’s your name?”
Now it was his turn to blink rapidly. After everything that had happened, how had he not introduced himself? If Soriah were here, she’d have an absolute cow.
“Shit, sorry, I’m Bastien, Bastien Yerovi. Everyone just calls me Bas, but you can call me whatever you want. You’re Syve, right? I know I already kind of asked you, but you know…Please tell me I haven’t been calling you the wrong name this whole time.” He groaned and put a hand over his face, splitting his fingers over one eye to look at her.
“Bastien.” She said his name like she was sampling a new food, and he decided he liked how it sounded coming fromher mouth. “As much as I would love to fuck with you, yes, my name is Syve. Gehring. Though I wouldreallylove to know how you knew that.” She squinted at him skeptically. “And why were you so intent on chasing me down? You tackled me! Wait, how did we even get back here? I ran all the way to the lake!” She was standing again; hands threaded through her hair.
“Whoa! Okay, I’ll explain! It’s okay.” He held his hands up in surrender for the millionth time that day and waited for her to sit back down. “I only followed you because I wanted to help. I chased you because I didn’t want you to get hurt—or lost! The tackle was…instinct?” He cringed, what a stupid answer. “And I carried you back here.” Syve stared at him, jaw slack in disbelief. “You didn’t shift until we were halfway back—I ran after that, and I never looked down…”
He shut up, cheeks heating. Syve looked away, color rising to her face as well. She remained silent, waiting for him to continue.
Bas dropped his head back against the wall with a softthumpand stared at the ceiling. He ran his tongue along his teeth while he searched for a way to explain his stalking without sounding like…well, a stalker.
Fuck it.
Starting with an incredibly long sigh, Bas spoke again, “I don’t think having you asking questions is really getting us very far. I don’t think you know where to start askingquestions—obviously, this is all new—it wasn’t fair of me to ask that of you.”
He proceeded to tell her everything he knew. How he first happened across her, how he could not explain why he kept coming back and why he had kept getting closer. Syve raised an eyebrow at him when he confessed to following her home and he grimaced, apologizing for being a grade-A creep.
“Thiswholetime I truly thought I was dreaming. I never cared that a big ass wolf was hanging out because I legitimately thought it was all in my head. If you were like…arealwolf I could have literally been eaten.” She laughed, a hint of self-depreciation evident.
