*Isla*
“Go back, Isla,” the Moon Goddess says to me. “Go back.”
“But I want to come with you,” I argue as I continue to float toward her.
She shakes her golden curls and says, “It’s not time yet. I brought you here only to remind you of two things, dear child. One, you are loved, and two… it is time that you remembered who you are.”
I stare at her in confusion. My mind is foggy anyway. I can’t remember how I came to be here, floating through the sky with her, and I can’t remember where I’m meant to be.
So how am I supposed to remember who I am?
But she doesn’t give me a chance to ask that question. She just says the same words to me again. “Go back, Isla. Go back.”
I open my mouth to attempt another protest. The sky is full of stars—I am floating on air! It’s all so perfect, and in my heart, I feel nothing but light and love.
But then… pain begins to set in. It starts as a dull ache in my limbs, but then it becomes a throbbing, biting sting that doesn’t stop. Not only are my limbs set ablaze, but the inside of me also hurts as well, and when I try to suck in air, I feel like my lungs are coated in oil.
My eyes widen as I stare at the Moon Goddess, wanting to ask her what is happening to me, but she only smiles reassuringly. “Go back.”
With her final words, I am launched backward through the air so quickly, the stars become beams of light, and the Moon Goddess fades from view so that I cannot even see her outline against the orb she’s named for.
I slam back into my body, and all of the aches and pains I felt before are magnified a hundredfold. I can’t even open my eyes, the pain is so all-consuming.
But I can breathe. I can feel my lungs moving up and down now. It’s laborious, but it’s happening, and then… a fuzzy light fills my line of sight from the top down, and I realize I’ve opened my eyes.
The world around me begins to come into view, but I can’t really see anything. Only the form of a man who seems to be weeping from the sounds he is making.
All at once, he seems aware that I am breathing and that I am looking at him, and he reaches to touch my face. “Isla!” he shouts. “Are you all right, Isla?”
I can’t see him. I can’t make out who he is, but I know it’s not my father or one of my brothers. His voice is familiar in a way, but I can’t quite place him, and as I attempt to gather my thoughts, all I can think to say is, “Wh-who are you?”
It’s not a question I expect him to answer because I am truly only trying to take inventory of myself, but when he says, “Isla, darling, it’s me—Maddox,” a rush of memories come back to me, and suddenly, tears have filled my eyes. I want to sit up. I want to press myself against his chest and for him to assure me this has all been nothing but a horrible dream, that we are safe back in his bed, or mine, and that none of what I’ve just remembered is real.
But I can see now. My eyes have adjusted to the dim bulb hanging overhead and the fuzziness brought on by the wolfsbane I remember being given now, and beyond Maddox’s broad shoulders, I can see someone else.
“P-Parker,” I manage to force out.
Maddox nods. “Yes, Parker didn’t make it, baby. I’m so sorry.”
My uncontrollable tears are forced into overdrive as I process what he’s saying.
Private Parker died because Zabrina hates me.
It wasn’t fair! He was completely innocent in all of this. I had done nothing wrong either, but at the very least, it should’ve been me who was dead.
Others are here now, standing behind Maddox, a couple of them holding sheets. I wonder, were they about to wrap one of them around me?
I remember them now, the two men and the woman who were with me before. They’d removed the silver chains from my wrists and ankles, but they couldn’t stop the wolfsbane.
So how did Maddox stop it?
I try to sit up, and his arms reach around me, guiding me to sit, leaning against him. He pulls me to him, as I have longed for him to do since I realized who he is. “What happened?” I ask, but then, I think he might try to retell the entire story, and I am not interested in hearing how I got here. I can remember. “I mean, how did you save me?”
“Mystica brought the antidote,” he whispers, and then he gestures to a woman standing near the stairs. She is older, with streaks of gray in her hair, but she looks kind, and I want to thank her, but my voice is so weak, I’m not sure she’ll hear me from here.
“I’m so glad that it worked, child,” she says. “How are you feeling?” She approaches, carrying a black bag, and kneels down on the floor next to me.
“Awful,” I tell her. It’s an understatement.
She nods. “You will continue to ache and have a fuzzy head until the wolfsbane completely leaves your system, but in a few days, you will feel better.”
“Th-thank you.” It’s not enough, but it will have to do for now.
She pats my arm. “I am so glad we made it on time, dear.”
Maddox lets go of me with one arm to reach out to her. Resting his large palm on her slender shoulder he says, “Mystica, I can never repay you for what you’ve done, but I will try.”
She pats his hand. “Your Majesty, you have always taken care of me and mine. You know that. This is part of my job, a job I am honored to perform. Now, when you’re ready, carry our sweet girl up the stairs, and let’s go home.”
She patted him again, as if he were her grandmother, and then got up off the floor, her knee popping as she stood. One of the men from before rushed over to help her. I couldn’t remember their names. I did see Beta Seth and the other one wrapping Private Parker in the sheets, using both of them for him now that I didn’t need one.
I saw someone else as well. It was the quietest I’d ever seen her.
I smiled at Poppy, and she came over. “I’m so glad you’re okay.” She bent down and hugged me, sobbing, and then moved aside, as if she couldn’t handle being so upset in front of everyone. I would have plenty of time to talk to her later, but there was someone else looking at me, someone I needed to speak to.
Behind Maddox, the woman who’d been with me before stood with tears in her eyes. I smiled at her and eked out, “Thank you.”
She nodded. “I’m so glad you’re all right, Your Highness.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Oh, just Isla,” I told her.
She shrugged. “After what I’ve seen tonight, I’m not so sure about that.” She winked at King Maddox and then headed up the stairs.
Now that everyone was gone, Maddox and I were sitting alone in the basement, the place I’d been trying to free myself of for hours. I wanted nothing more than for him to lift me into his strong arms and carry me out.
But he didn’t, not right away anyhow.
“Do you remember now, what happened?” he asks me.
“I remember. Private Wylie said there was an emergency and I had to leave the castle right away. I left with him, and when I got in the car, Zabrina was there. They had Private Parker in the trunk. I guess they needed him in order to formulate their lie,” I say.
He nods. “That’s right. And the driver? You would recognize him if you saw him?”
My head rocks back and forth “They called him Bernard.”
“That’s right,” he says. “That’s Alpha Jordan’s driver’s name.” He sighs and shakes his head. “All right, at least you remember what happened to you. When you first opened your eyes, I thought….” His voice fades, and he looks off at nothing, his eyes staring at a spot on the concrete wall. “I thought you didn’t remember me. It was terrifying.”
“I couldn’t see you,” I tell him. I don’t want to tell him the truth, that it took a moment for me to remember who he was. I didn’t want to see his expression go back to the morose absence of light I’d seen a moment ago.
As his eyes focus on my face, I see his smile broaden. “I’m glad that’s all it was. I don’t know what I’d do if… if you couldn’t remember me, Isla. When I thought you might not ever open yours again, it scared me to death.” He holds me tighter, and I am at a loss for words again.
He is the king. He is the most powerful man in the world—my world, anyway—and he cares enough about me that I feel a tear slide down his cheek and land on my face.
He is said to be cruel, unkind, relentless, unmerciful, but when I am resting with my cheek pressed to his heart, all I hear is the sound of love thumping against his chest.
“Let’s go home, darling,” he says, and I think for the first time that the castle is my home, too.
He lifts me up as he stands, as if I weigh nothing, and I wrap my arms around his neck, burying my face in his shoulder. I don’t want to see this place anymore. I don’t want to smell the mildew or the stench of bodily fluid left behind when Private Parker lost his battle. I don’t want to feel the fear or face the anguish that burrowed its way deep inside of me when I was lying on that cold concrete floor.
I don’t ever want to experience this again, but I know I will.
I know it will sneak up on me when I least expect it, that I will be doing something completely normal, and the memory of this face will burst out of the shadows from nowhere and send me to my knees, trembling with fear.
Because that’s how these sort of experiences creep into our minds and make us who we are, for better or worse.
And that’s why, even though it’s been sixteen years, I remember still the terror I felt that night with the wolves howling behind us as my family boarded that boat and left our homeland to come to Willow pack.
I hadn’t thought about it in forever, but it’s still in my head.
Now, I’ve just got to remember why we were running from the war.
Why did those other wolves want us dead?
Forcing myself to remember would be as painful as reliving what had just happened to me, but it was important for me to remember. The Moon Goddess had told me so.
“It’s time that you remembered who you are.”