Chapter 178

DEREK

I would have liked to have thought she was joking.

The way she blinked at me, eyes wide and curious, didn’t feel real. Like she was playing some sort of trick. Maybe testing me. Maybe still mad.

But then she tilted her head, brows knitting softly in confusion, and turned to Jacob.

“Who is he?”

A blade of ice sliced through my ribs.

Jacob stiffened beside me. He glanced between Elena and me, probably seeing the color drain from my face. It felt like my lungs had collapsed, like every ounce of air had been pulled from the room.

“Hey, Aiden,” Jacob said suddenly, crouching next to my son. His voice was too light, too casual. “You know what? I think the vending machines down the hall have those gummy worms you like. Want to come check?”

Aiden blinked, surprised. “Now?”

Jacob smiled and ruffled his hair. “Yeah, now. My treat. You’ve been so brave this week—I think you’ve earned it.”

Aiden looked up at Elena. “Can I, Mom?”

And Elena—Elena, who looked at me like I was a stranger—gave him a warm, easy smile. “Of course, sweetheart,” she said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

The door clicked shut behind them.

And I was left standing in the sterile quiet of the hospital room, feeling like the ground beneath me had turned to mist. My pulse thundered. My wolf clawed at the edges of my chest, wild with confusion.

I took a step closer. Careful. Reverent.

“You really don’t know who I am?” I asked.

She shook her head slowly, expression soft and unreadable. Not afraid. Not angry. Just… curious. There was no recognition in her eyes—but no rejection either.

Then her gaze swept over me again, slower this time, and something shifted in her voice.

“No,” she said, “but I sure would like to.”

My heart cracked wide open.

A breath trembled in my chest. I didn’t know whether to laugh or fall apart.

Then, without warning, her hand came to her chest. Not urgently. Not like she was in pain. More like she was caught off guard by something stirring inside her.

“Are you okay?” I asked, taking a step forward, ready to bolt for a nurse.

She blinked slowly, shaking her head. “No… It’s her.”

“Her?”

“My wolf,” she murmured. “She’s… she’s going a little wild right now.”

And that’s when I felt it too.

A flicker beneath my ribs. A tug in my soul. The faint pulse of something ancient and sacred threading between us.

The bond.

Our bond.

Her eyes lifted to mine again. This time, something coy danced behind them. Something unguarded.

“Are you feeling this too?” she asked, voice just above a whisper.

Inside me, Erebus surged forward, howling. Not in pain. Not in fury. But in stunned, relieved, euphoric recognition.

Yes. YES.

“I am feeling this,” I said hoarsely.

And instead of the walls I’d grown used to—the mistrust, the disappointment—she smiled.

Not politely.

Not cautiously.

A real smile.

Radiant. Curious. Alive.

“Well,” she said, with a teasing lilt that made my heart ache. “Isn’t that interesting.”

My whole body felt like it was on fire.

That’s when the doctor walked in.

He hesitated at the threshold, catching sight of us. His gaze swept over the room—me standing too close, Elena smiling like a girl in the middle of a flirtation, not a patient recovering trauma.

“Ms. Hart,” the doctor said carefully, stepping in with clinical caution. His eyes flicked between us—me, Elena, then me again, brow furrowed with something that looked very much like alarm. “How are you feeling?”

Elena’s smile didn’t falter. In fact, it deepened slightly. She leaned back into her pillows with an ease that made my throat tighten, her eyes never leaving mine.

“I feel great,” she said brightly. “I’ve just met someone…”

I could see the way her words hit the doctor. A flicker of tension in his jaw. A subtle shift in posture. That single, loaded sentence told him everything he needed to know.

He crossed the room with deliberate speed, reaching into the pocket of his white coat.

“Ms. Hart,” he said again, gentler now, switching into full diagnostic mode. “Do you mind if I check your pupils real quick?”

She looked surprised but not wary. “Sure,” she said. “I feel fine, though.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” he said as he pulled a penlight from his coat.

He lifted it and gently shined it into her eyes, first one, then the other, his own gaze sharp and analytical. “Follow the light with your eyes,” he murmured, moving it side to side. She did, her pupils reacting normally.

“Can you smile for me?” he asked.

She gave a small, amused grin. “I’ve been doing that already, haven’t I?”

“Yes,” he said, managing a faint smile in return. “Good reflexes. How about lifting your arms for me—both of them, nice and steady.” She raised them easily. “Any dizziness, nausea, light sensitivity?”

“Nope,” she said. “Honestly, I feel better than I have in weeks.”

She glanced at me again, and the smile that followed was enough to punch the air from my lungs. There was something teasing in it. Something open.

The doctor’s lips pressed into a tight line.

“Okay,” he said, voice lower now, professional but clearly uneasy. He turned to me, touching my arm lightly. “Mr. King—come with me.”

I followed him, my pulse hammering.

In the hallway, Jacob and Aiden stood off to the side. Aiden was fiddling with the corner of a snack wrapper, eyes bouncing between me and the doctor.

The doctor didn’t waste time.

“Mr. Stormvale informed me Elena may be experiencing selective memory loss,” he said briskly.

I nodded. “She doesn’t seem to know who I am.”

“But she knows everyone else?” he asked, turning slightly to confirm.

Jacob and Aiden nodded in sync.

“She called me by name,” Jacob said. “Knew Aiden too. Her parents. Even the nurses. Just not—”

“Me,” I finished.

“I was about to tell her who I am to her,” I added. “Figured if I just explained—”

“No.” The doctor’s voice turned sharp. “You mustn’t.”

My brow furrowed. “What?”

“You cannot tell her who you are,” he said firmly. “Not yet. Possibly not at all.”

Jacob stepped forward. “You want us to lie to her?”

“No. Not lie,” the doctor said. “But don’t trigger a confrontation. Don’t try to force recognition.”

My stomach dropped. “Why?”

The doctor glanced over his shoulder, then lowered his voice. “Because her memory is fully intact—for everyone and everything in her life. Except you.”

“She remembers me,” Jacob said. “Remembers her pack, her duties. Her trauma. Just not…”

“The one thing she couldn't process,” the doctor said. “You.”

I stared at him. “Why me?”

The doctor folded his arms. “Sometimes, the mind severs what hurts the most. What she’s been through with you… it must be a lot. It must have been traumatizing for her.”

I felt the weight of that hit me in the chest.

I saw it all at once.

The way I’d pushed her away when I first met her, dismissing her because she smelled like a rogue.

The way I’d behaved at our wedding. Our wedding. What I wouldn’t give to have that day back.

I thought about the way I’d let Cassandra spin her lies while Elena stood alone. Always choosing Cassandra over Elena because I believed she’d saved my life. When all along it had been Elena.

Elena.

Even when I had her back—I hadn’t known how to hold her. I kept failing her. Testing her. Watching her shatter piece by piece and doing nothing fast enough to stop it.

Of course I was the thing her mind couldn’t hold.

Of course I was the place she broke.

“But she felt the bond,” I argued. “She felt it.”

“Exactly,” the doctor said. “Her body remembers you. Her wolf remembers you. But her conscious mind can’t reconcile that feeling with the pain that preceded it.”

“And if I just explain—if I help her connect the dots—?”

“You could rip open the very wall her mind put up to protect itself,” the doctor said. “It wouldn’t just be confusion or heartbreak. It could be a full system crash. Psychological. Neurological. Emotional.”

Jacob stiffened. Aiden’s small hand slipped into mine, cold and still sticky from the candy.

“What are you saying?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper now.

The doctor looked between us. Then he said it. “If you outright tell her who you are… It could kill her.”