210
Matt
I remembered covering my mouth with my hands as we snuck outside in the middle of the night just to sit under the moonlight. It wasn't a full moon. We spoke in soft whispers and little flickers of light.
I shuddered as I realized I had been doing magic for years. How had I forgotten that
Do you think I could become a healer? I asked as we sat together, enjoying sandwiches in the grass.
I saw Oren nearby. Or I felt him as Tony came closer.
Of course not, dear. You're a Blue Moon wolf. Her tone was too sweet, too fake-- nervous. Fearful. Oren had come over. Everyone knows that Blue Moon wolves can't do magic.
I remembered never asking again as her eyes had been frantic and pleading with me. She'd held me that night and stroked my hair.
I could almost feel it now.
Then, there was the slow-moving shadow in the window, back and forth like a pendulum.
"I love you..." She whispered. "More than anything."
Something fell from her hands, a page as she continued to swing back and forth. The peaceful smile on her face was the last thing I saw as darkness dragged me under, and everything in me burned and ached.
Where are you, Matt?
The next day had been the first time Tony and I realized we had a mind link.
The past and present blurred together as I drove. It felt as though I was reliving the slow decline of my mother's life, the gradual erosion of her spirit.
The slow-moving shadow swung like a pendulum, and light swirled around me in my vision. Then, darkness. Over and over again. I drove on, barely seeing the road ahead of me. My heart was pounding out a slower and slower rhythm. My chest hurt. My insides hurt.
As I pulled up to the front of the hospital, I parked and fell out of the car. I choked, shaking and still seeing her face, still hearing her voice.
I love you... more than anything.
"Someone help me," I whispered.
I saw shadows rushing out of a sliding door that moved like that shadow.
I saw her face again, teary-eyed and panicked.
Look away, she whispered. Better yet, go to sleep.
And just as I had closed my eyes and drifted into sleep, I let the phantom scent of her skin fill my senses and let the darkness take me.
When I opened my eyes, there was a mask over my face. I looked left and right until I saw the nurse nearby. She leaned over me, barely a blurry face and sound hovering over me.
"Where..."
"... sir. ... out for... emergency..."
I closed my eyes. I couldn't make sense of what she was saying.
"Sir?"
Matt!
My eyes popped open as I heard her voice. Mother's voice as if from my past and right here. The woman gasped and drew back as I sat up, choking on the thing in my throat. I reached for it, but the nurse stopped me, and I was flattened to the bed. She tilted my head back and pulled the thing out of my throat until I could breathe again.
I gasped and choked.
"Can I get a doctor?" She yelled out the door.
The pain eased. The world came back to me, and she leaned over me again with the most brilliant blue eyes I had ever seen. Her skin was like poured chocolate, and her hair was a vibrant indigo nest of curls on top of her head.
"Beautiful..."
She blinked at me and smirked. "Not too bad yourself, handsome. How are you feeling?"
"Better," I said. The rush of pain receded so sharply that I felt almost giddy. A giggle escaped me. She smiled.
"Yeah, I bet. You have a name?"
"Matt," I said. "Where am I?"
"Where were you trying to go?"
"Yellow Ridge Hospital."
"Then, you made it," she said. "Barely. Any longer and... well, I'm not sure what would have happened."
She took note of something as someone came in: a man in a lab coat. He told me that I had been going into something like shock and that I should see a counselor.
"She'll be around soon to introduce herself. For now, I think Nurse Greenleaf can keep an eye on you."
"Thank you," I said, looking at her as she leaned over me and fiddled with something.
"Not that I'm complaining," I rasped as her breasts hovered over me.
"Call it the perks of having a very large bed and me being on probation."
"Are you naughty?"
She snorted. "Injured, actually. I'm not allowed to do spellwork for at least another month. You're lucky. I actually have human medical training. The others don't, so you probably would have suffocated."
"My hero..." I said. "Angel."
"Elf, actually." She wrinkled her nose. "Well, half, anyway."
I smiled. "I'm glad someone can say for certain what they are."
She cocked an eyebrow. "You're a shifter, aren't you?"
I blinked at her. "I don't... know."
"Maybe I can help with that."
I looked over as the woman entered. She leaned on the other side of the bed. She and Nurse Greenleaf could have been twins.
"I hope my sister has been keeping you alive."
I nodded. "I heard I could have suffocated without her."
"True. Were you cursed?"
I shook my head. "Not... recently at least."
She nodded. "Good to know. If you're stable in an hour, you'll be coming to see me. She'll show you the way. No questions. No buts. We have enough shifters dying for unfixable reasons. We don't need ones dying from fixable issues."
She pat my shoulder and left.
"She's the nice twin if you can believe it," Nurse Greenleaf said.
My lips twitched. "I'll have to take your word for it."
A few hours later, Nurse Greenleaf rustled up a change of clothes for me from my car and led me down the hallway to her sister's office. She knocked and pat my shoulder.
"Just try to be honest. Not just for the ease of things, but for your own peace of mind."
She walked off.
"Come in."
As I entered the counselor's office, the room was bathed in a soft, warm light, creating an ambiance of trust and understanding. The counselor, Dr. Greenleaf, greeted me with a reassuring smile. It was the kind of smile that seemed to say, "You're in a safe space now."
It was different from her earlier expression by miles.
I sank into the seat.
"So, Matt. Tell me why you're troubled."
I swallowed, glancing around. "Everything... isn't what I thought it was."
I closed my eyes. "Nothing is what I thought it was."
I couldn't stop once I'd started. The woman who didn't know me from Charles on the street was getting the full brunt of everything. The things I had remembered, everything that had happened with Lucy, and what was happening to me now. Every word felt like a weight lifted from my chest, and with each sentence, I could sense the counselor's empathy and expertise guiding our conversation. As I finished recounting the series of strange events and my increasingly tumultuous feelings, the counselor leaned forward, steepling her fingers thoughtfully.
"On the scale of zero to fucked up, you're definitely past fucked up, but it doesn't seem as simple as a faulty conscience, or lack thereof...." She hummed. "I think I'll suggest a lineage test to start."
"What is that supposed to do?"
"A lineage test," she explained, "can provide you with a comprehensive understanding of your supernatural heritage. It can reveal your ancestry, the magical gifts you possess, and whether any hidden lineage might explain your unique situation."
I mulled over the idea. It felt terrifying, but the thought that I could know for sure beckoned me. Wouldn't it be better to just know than wonder and fret? Not just about me, but about my mother too.
How had I forgotten all of that?
"Your want to know and your fear of knowing are both entirely valid."
"If my brother, my twin, is a werewolf, then why wouldn't I be one too?"
She smiled. "Supernatural births aren't so cut and dry, darling. A lineage test is made to clear up the confusion. It's not used with werewolves usually because they don't tend to ask for them, but they can help clear up a lot of things. "
She shrugged. "In the case of twins, it's almost several times more complicated."
I considered it. It wasn't a decision to be taken lightly, but as I sat there, I realized it was a path I had to walk. I had to know because even Oren seemed to know something.
Wasn't there a saying about your enemy knowing you better than you know yourself, leading to disaster or something?
And there was no doubt in my mind that by the end of this, whatever that looked like, Oren was my enemy.
He had destroyed our mother somehow, and given half the chance, there was a good chance he would destroy me, too.
Then, I heard Oren's voice from my memory.
Eve!
The look of terror on her face made me shudder.
"Order the test."
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