Chapter 163
Cassie
I stared at him like he had lost his damn mind because he had. He must have. Either that or he was joking. Although joking wasn’t a very Ian like thing to do. In fact I couldn’t even remember a time he had ever joked .
I stared at the people around the kitchen island. Every pair of eyes was looking at me. Their expressions deadpan. If this was a practical joke then they were all in on it.
“You’re kidding right?” I levelled my question at all of them but my eyes were on Ian. I might not ever see him joking around but this bewilderment on his face was even more rare. “Yanna.” I spelt her name out slowly like he was a child.
The line between his eyebrows deepened even further. “I heard you clearly the first time Cassie. I am neither a child or deaf.” He snapped. “I just don’t know anyone by that name.”
I sucked in a deep startled breath. “She’s your mate.”
More blank stares. It was like they had no idea who I was talking about. None of them.
“Julian help me out here. I know you don’t approve of her but-“ I turned to him for help. “They have been mated for years. Stop playing around.”
Ian’s lips pulled back from his teeth in a low rumbling growl. “I don’t have a mate Cassie.”
I jumped to my feet. “Yes you do. Yanna. She’s a cat shifter. Her father is looking after my mother. You love her and kept your union a secret because you didn’t think Julian would approve.”
“I don’t know what the hell you are talking about Cassie. I would never be with a cat. Let alone tie myself to one for all eternity.” Ian snapped.
I took a stumbling step back and it was only Julian’s hand lashing out and catching hold of my arm that stopped me going down on my ass.
“This can’t be happening.” I muttered as my heart pounded away in my chest. I turned to Ian angrily. “You know.” I stabbed him in the chest with my finger over and over again. “Who I am talking about. Stop playing with me.”
His face fell for a second and I let out a sigh of relief but it was short lived as his eyes tilted upwards to bore down into mine. “I’m not playing with you Cassie. I don’t mean to cause you any distress but I don’t know anyone called Yanna.”
“My mother is with her family. They took us in and-“ I muttered. With a groan I pinched the area between my eyebrows and squeezed. This couldn’t be happening? How could they just forget her? She had been Ian’s everything. And if she had now disappeared like the others then what had happened to my mother?
“You’re mother?” Julian asked quietly. His eyes flickering to everyone but me and his lips thinning.
My frown deepened. “Yes my mother.” I snapped back.
“She’s where you left her, Cassie.” This time it was Scarlett who spoke. Her tone soothing but there was no soothing me because my brain was running a million miles an hour. My heart was in turmoil.
“She’s in the hospital.”
“No.” Ripping myself out of Julian’s grip I stumbled away until I couldn’t go any further and my back hit the doorframe. Tears poured from my eyes blinding me and my heart was beating so fast and hard that I didn’t see or hear Julian as he approached me like I was a wounded animal.
And everyone knew that a cornered wounded animal was a dangerous animal.
“My mother is with Yanna and the panthers. She woke up almost a year ago. I ran away with her. You helped us.” I snarled at Ian.
His face darkened. “I helped you Cassie. Just you.”
“What is happening to me?” I sobbed. And this time I let Julian hold me. Because there was no way my legs could hold me up. It was like my whole world was changing. That my past was shifting.
Maybe they were right , maybe I was going crazy.
“My babies?” I managed to croak.
Julian ran a soothing hand up and down my back. His chin rubbed back and forth over the top of my hair. Making it fuzzy and standing on end.
“Niall and Noah are fine with the Lycans. They are safe. They are real.”
I let out a sigh of relief before I stiffened in his arms. It was those last few words that did it. My mate thought I couldn’t distinguish between reality and my own mind playing tricks on me. But I could. Yanna was real. My mother was with her people. I knew all of that to be fact. Yet the people around me didn’t. They didn’t remember them.
“The people in this room are real and-“
“I know.” I said softly. “I must have had a really vivid dream. I’m sorry if I frightened you.” Smiling weakly I turned my back on them and walked away. I had to be careful around them. Someone was messing with me, shifting my past and the people in it around. Kidnapping my friends.
Changing my reality and I was going to find out who it was. I just had to act sane enough to stay out of a padded cell to find out who it was.
“Cassie?”
“I’m just stepping outside to clear my head.” I said in a fake cheery voice.
“You need to come back.” Julian’s voice seemed to echo. “It’s almost the full moon Cassie. I want to run with my wife under the light of it. I want to run next to your beautiful wolf. Come back and -“ the voice grew deeper. Julian’s voice but not. “Shift.”
The world around me tilted around me. There was a moment of blinding pain and the panic of having no control at all , and then my wolf burst from my human skin.
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