Page 183 of Tiger's Dream
Seeing his wretched state, Kelsey began crying. Ana followed suit, pressing her fingertips to her mouth. “Oh, Ren! What did he do to you?” Kelsey asked.
He told her about Lokesh and that he wanted to find her at any cost. She begged him to hold on and promised we were coming for him.
When he said, “I’m just so…tired,” my heart broke for him. I was surprised when Kelsey’s response was, “Then tell him. Tell him what he wants to know.”Is she crazy?
“I will never tell him,prema,” Ren vowed.
The fire went out of Kells as quickly as it had come. “Ren, I can’t lose you,” she said.
“I’m always with you. My thoughts are of you. All the time.”
Ana cupped my arm and leaned against my chest.
Ren mentioned Durga and that she had offered to help, but Ren deliberately let Kelsey believe the offer was to save him, not her.
“Take it!” Kelsey pleaded. “Don’t think twice about it. You can trust Durga.”
Ana winced at those words.
“Whatever the price is,” Kelsey said, “it doesn’t matter as long as you survive.”
“But Kelsey,” he said.
“Shh. Just survive. Okay?”
Ren nodded, resigned to his fate, and told her she needed to leave. He asked for a kiss, believing it was the last time he’d ever kiss the woman he loved. The way he held her so gently, with such care, anyone watching might have assumed it was because he was in pain, but that wasn’t it at all. To Ren, Kelsey was the most precious thing in the world, and he wanted her to know that. I envied how easy it was for him to express his feelings. Then he went and opened his mouth to spout poetry.Really?Now?
I shifted impatiently, hoping Ana would get the message to speed things along, but she mentally shushed me. The poem moved Ana more than it did me, but I got the point of it, the message he was trying to get across. If I hadn’t felt great sympathy for my brother before, I surely felt it now.
When he finished, Ren moved away from Kells. All the warmth leached from his voice as if he was already letting her go. “Kelsey?” he said. “No matter what happens, please remember that I love you,hridaya patni. Promise me that you’ll remember.”
“I’ll remember. I promise.Mujhe tumse pyarhai, Ren.”
Light shifted around Kelsey. She began to phase in time. If she hadn’t been so fixed on Ren, screaming his name as she was ripped away, she might have turned and seen us. Then she was gone.
It’s time, Ana said.
Summoning her power, she shifted her body, letting it shimmer fully into Ren’s time.
“I will accept your offer, Goddess,” Ren said.
“Very well.” Ana stepped closer to him.
“Will I never remember her again?” Ren asked.
“Your memories will only be blocked temporarily,” Ana replied.
The relief on his face was greater than when she’d taken away his pain. If he’d been able, I think he would have knelt at her feet to worship her. “Thank you,” he said humbly.
“You are welcome,” Ana said and reached into the cage, touching his face lightly with her fingertips. She began her work but then I thought of something. I remembered that moment when Ren regained his memory. It had been when I kissed Kelsey.
“Ana,” I murmured quietly in the dark.
“Hmm?” she turned to me.
“You have to set a trigger in his mind. A thing that will bring his memory back.”
She nodded. “There needs to be a trigger, Dhiren.”
