Reborn (Shadow Beast Shifters Book 3)

Brenda’s movements didn’t suggest she was panicked by my question, but I felt her unease. The only things that had stopped her from brushing me off, in the hope of avoiding an uncomfortable topic, were my words about Torin encouraging this. No one wanted to go against the alpha.

“In all honesty,” she said softly, “I haven’t really seen you in town since we were brought back from our stasis. We all figured that you were dealing with your bond, learning how to be alpha-mate.”

I paused. “Torin has only been an alpha of Torma for what… two months? Wouldn’t he be learning it too?”

She blinked. “It feels so much longer, but yes, I suppose that is correct. No doubt the many years under Victor acclimated him to the role much faster.”

The look on her face told me that she really hadn’t stopped to think about it, just going about her daily life for the last two months without questioning how the fuck we’d all been frozen for years.

How had none of them lost their minds too at the thought that the world around us had continued moving while we’d stayed the same? In stasis. Vulnerable to any who’d wanted to hurt us.

When I asked Brenda a condensed version of that, she shrugged. “Most of us never leave Torma anyway. And what’s two years when we live hundreds? We celebrated the release of our punishment, and now we live our lives. You should just be happy with your gifts, Mera. You’re our beloved alpha-mate, and through a quirk in fate, the sins of your family were wiped away in a single instant.”

My jaw ached at how hard my teeth were clenched. Everyone was feeding me the same line. Be happy with what you have; don’t worry about the past; move forward and enjoy your newfound popularity.

I could tell they thought I was being an ungrateful brat who just couldn’t stop poking and prodding at the fabric of our pack. But, seriously, there was something majorly wrong here. I felt it so deep inside that it was butting heads with my DNA.

A few other shifters entered her shop then, and I wasn’t able to interrogate Brenda any further. In reality, I already knew she held no other answers. Just like everyone else, she hadn’t questioned what had happened to us, already back to living her same day-to-day reality. If the Torma shifters had niggling doubts or worries about their time held prisoner, they were far better at pushing them down than me.

When I left the bakery, I ate my pastry—which she hadn’t even charged me for because apparently I was the shit these days. Wandering into a few other stores, I dropped more questions, but all the answers were the same. I’d been with Torin over the past two months, getting our pack life back in order. Everything normal. No drama.

And yet for some reason I was missing every damn memory of that. Why did no one have a reasonable explanation for that?

As I continued down the street, having exhausted almost all the available store owners, an empty shop caught my attention. At first, it was because I couldn’t remember this street ever having an empty storefront, but soon after, it was the oddest feeling that I’d spent a lot of time inside those walls.

When I got no answers from peering through the partially boarded-up windows, I stopped in at the hardware store beside it, knowing Magda, my least favorite town gossip, would know what was up.

“Been empty for years,” she said without pause, chewing her gum loudly. “Some sort of water leak that no one could find or repair.”

“I could have sworn there was a shop here the last time I came to town,” I murmured, staring out the hardware store window toward it.

Magda scoffed, her wrinkles deepening so she looked every one of her hundred and fifty years. “You haven’t been into this part of our town for months, and before that, we were all in stasis, and even before that, there was a flood that washed the shop out. Nothing has been there in your lifetime.”

“And what shop was it before my lifetime?” I asked, wondering if I’d seen old photos or something.

She paused, her brow scrunching until her eyebrows nearly hit her yellow-blonde hair. “You know, I don’t remember.”

I pulled my gaze from the other shopfront to stare at her. “What? You’ve never forgotten a damn thing.”

She clicked her tongue at me. “Watch your mouth, missy. Alpha-mate or not, you will respect your elders.”

In what world was uttering the word “damn” not respecting my elders? But, for the sake of possible information, I shot a quick apology her way. The older shifters had the weirdest hang-ups, but at this point, I needed her more than she needed me.

“I remember books,” Magda finally said, but then her eyes tightened again, like that hurt her to say. “Or maybe I’m wrong. There’s never been a bookstore here, so I… don’t know.”

She wandered off then, looking mildly dazed as I continued to stare at the building. Books? That felt… right. The moment I had the thought, my temples were stabbed by invisible knives, and now I was the one walking off rubbing my temples.

Was the abandoned shopfront part of the mystery as well? Magda had acted odd, so it wasn’t just me. It was starting to occur to me that maybe the reason I couldn’t get anything other than the same “story” from the pack was that everyone else had had their memories messed with too. They might not even have realized because it was subtler than what had happened to me.

Truth be told, even if there were gaps in time for them, they didn’t care. They’d fallen into their daily routines, accepting the weird and questioning nothing.

Had that been the plan all along, by whomever had set this in motion?

Had they expected I would just be so happy not to be the shit under Torma’s boots that I’d fall into this new life and never question a damn thing?

If that was the case, the culprit had made a few fundamental errors. Firstly, they should have chosen someone less stubborn than me, and secondly, they should have removed my memories of the pack’s torment and Torin’s rejection. Huge obstacles standing in the way of me falling into pack life.

I supposed removing a few months of time was much easier than removing ten-plus years. I’d have been very surprised to wake up in a twenty-year-old body thinking myself a child.

Why had the culprit had to remove any time, though? If they’d allowed me just to wake with everyone else from the stasis, I’d have been none the wiser…

It just didn’t make sense. None of it, and my time in the main street had only helped to confuse me further.

With nothing else to do, I wandered back in the direction of the apartment, restless and bored. Plan A might not have panned out, but there were plenty of letters left in the alphabet, and it was time to move to “S” for Simone.

Simone’s parents lived in one of the more affluent areas of Torma. It might have only been a relatively small town, but it was still clear who held positions of prestige in the pack, solely through the land and house size they’d been rewarded with. When I walked through their neighborhood, with the acre-sized lots, huge double-level mansions, and perfectly manicured lawns, I tried not to think of all the times I’d been made to feel like I didn’t belong here.

Gerad and Mika Lewison, a.k.a. Simone’s father and mother, were two of the worst for withholding the welcome wagon. I couldn’t really blame them. Their daughter had suffered for her friendship with me, and even though I’d been too selfish to walk away from someone I loved and needed, I’d always felt guilty about it.

So, no, I didn’t blame them, but the scars were there nonetheless.

Their wrought-iron gates were open, so I walked up the path, and just as I reached their door and went to press the buzzer, I heard shouting. Simone’s parents were enforcers, but I’d never heard them yell. They tended to favor the silent and deadly style of intimidation… especially her mother, who was of Japanese descent and proficient in a variety of martial arts and fighting disciplines.

Torin had said on more than one occasion that we were lucky to have the Lewison family defending ours, and despite my personal feelings toward them, I hadn’t disagreed because they were great at what they did.

The door jerked open before I could decide if now was a bad time to be here, and I found myself face to face with Mika. Her elfin features, which had been scrunched in anger, smoothed into a look of surprise as she ground to a halt. The very dark, blue-black hair she had passed onto her daughter flew around her face as she stared at me.

“Mera,” she choked out, blinking a few times before she pulled herself together.

In an instant, every ounce of her fear, surprise, and fury was buried deep beneath a calm sheen of serenity. Her dark brown eyes, also like her daughter’s, were now regarding me with a look of respect.

This fake alpha bullshit was annoying.

“What are you doing here?” she pushed. “Is there an issue at the pack house? Why didn’t Torin just alert us through the two-way radio?”

I waved her off, shaking my head at the same time. “Oh, no. Everything is okay at the pack house.” Or I assumed so since I hadn’t bothered to answer any of Torin’s messages to actually check in. “Sorry to just drop by, but I’ve been worrying about Simone. She still hasn’t returned any of my calls or texts, and I wanted to find out if you’ve heard anything new.”

Mika swallowed hard, and I could have sworn her lips trembled before she pulled herself together again. “Yeah, she’s still doing so well,” she said stiffly. “Totally fine and busy with her—”

“Stop fucking lying to me.”

My patience ran out the second she gave me the same tired line. Simone was not fine. We all knew it, and I was done allowing my friend to suffer because these bastards wanted to lie to me.

A tear spilled down Mika’s cheek, tracing the smooth, brown skin. That was when the panic burst to life in my chest.

“If Simone’s in trouble, you have to let me know,” I said with force. “How long has she really been gone? Where is she?”

Mika didn’t want to answer me, I could tell that, but maybe today she knew I wasn’t leaving without a real response. “I don’t know where she is, Mera.” Her entire body deflated, like that secret had been bursting at the seams of her being, desperate to get loose.

“She ran away just after the stasis was lifted.” That part of the story came from Gerad, who appeared behind his mate. “She was here when we went to sleep, and the next morning when we woke, her bed was empty.”

Gerad, six-feet-seven and built like a brickhouse, actually took a step back when Mika whipped her head around and glared at him. “You’ve been forcing me to remain quiet while you investigated her disappearance, and yet you have no issue telling Mera all the details?”

Gerad sighed before shaking his head. As he moved back into the light, I was surprised at how wrecked he looked. Tired and broken, the fine lines around his face aging him ten years. His dirty blond hair stood up in sections, as if he’d run his hands through it a dozen times today, and his shirt was most definitely buttoned up mismatched. He hadn’t looked like this the last time I’d checked in, but today he clearly had zero fucks to give.

“I’ve searched everywhere,” he said quietly. “We haven’t slept. We hardly eat. We need help…”

It was clear that the argument I’d heard through the door had been about Simone. Simone, who had been missing for two fucking months with only these two fucking idiots unsuccessfully looking for her.

I clutched a hand to my chest. “Please tell me you have at least heard something from her in the past two months? How could you keep this a secret? What if she’s dead? That would be on both of you.”

With each accusation, my words got louder and sharper as my panic attack grew.

My best friend was missing and had been for months.

And I had done nothing to help her.