Rory
The caveman never took his eyes off me. "Very well. I should like a word with the Omega. In private."
Beta Ansel looked between us. "There are more pressing matters–"
"She saved my life. I am disinclined towards leaving her bound up like a thief. Or a murderer," he hissed vehemently. "Leave us."
Beta Ansel flinched, but he obeyed, retreating to the edge of the treeline with the guards.
The caveman stared after them for a long time. "I have never seen any of those men in my life. Why do they speak to me like they know me? And who is this Darren you claim I am?"
I inched forward. "I'll explain everything, I promise, but we need to get our story right. The Council will demand answers the moment you show up."
His silver eyes found mine. "You are a criminal?"
I flinched. "I was framed by Asher–"
"Asher? The one you called my brother?"
I nodded, my chest tightening with pain. I blinked back the sting in my eyes. "He had Darren poisoned and framed me for it, so he could take over the pack and marry Darren's fiancée. I am to be executed by morning." I bit my lip nervously, fingers trembling. "I know I'm asking for a lot, considering I don't even know who you are, but if you could stand in for Darren for long enough for me to reveal the truth, I would forever be grateful to you."
His eyes narrowed. "Why not flee?"
I shook my head. "I have nowhere else to go. Humans despise us. We are safest within the systems of the pack."
"You could come with me. I have a pack. The largest manor in the North. You would be safe there."
Irritation flared in my gut. "No, you don't. This is the North. Alpha Darren ruled the whole of the North. If you were an Alpha here, I would know it. I understand your need to stay in whatever character in whatever movie you have playing in your head, but it is getting aggravating."
He had a bewildered look on his face. "You do not believe me, lass? I am Zephyr Snow, Alpha of the Red Moon Pack and ruler of the Northern packs. There is no man, woman or child who doesn't know who I am."
I stared at him. "There is no Red Moon pack."
He turned me around and I felt his claw snipe through my bounds, cutting me loose. He took my fingers in his big hands like a proud man. "Come. I will show you my home. It is just below the hill."
He tugged me along with him in a swift walk.
Beta Ansel and the guards yelled in alarm when we breezed past them. We reached the top of the hill and I wondered if he knew he was taking us back to the pack.
We crested the hill together.
And the pack spread out below us.
The man who called himself Zephyr Snow jerked to a sudden halt.
I turned to tell him to point out his obvious error, but the words died the moment I saw his face.
All the arrogance, all the infuriating, unshakeable certainty that had been there since the moment he opened his eyes in that coffin was gone.
His hand, still wrapped around mine, had begun to tremble.
I looked down at it. Then up at his face. Then back at the pack house below blazing with night lights, the cars in the lot, the paved roads, the distant bass of music from somewhere inside.
"What," he said, very quietly, "is that?"
He was pointing at a car pulling out of the lot. The headlights swept the tree line as it turned.
"A car?" I answered, wondering what the hell was wrong with him now.
He stared at it and began hyperventilating. "It moves. Without horses. It is a carriage. Without horses."
I stared at him and against my better judgement, I answered, "Yes, it runs on fuel–"
"And those." He pointed at the telephone poles. His voice was shaky. "What are those cords between the poles?"
Was he playing a game? I didn't mind if he was, so long as he helped me. "They carry electricity. Power?"
"And the lights in the manor." He said it slowly, like a frightened child. "There is no fire. No candles. What feeds them?"
"The electricity. The same power."
"None of this was here," he said after a long stretch of silence. His hand had gone clammy against mine. "When I entered those caves. This is not… this was not here." He looked at me with wide, vulnerable eyes. "Lass, I am not mad."
"I didn't say you were."
"You are thinking it."
I was absolutely thinking it.
"My home." He pointed at the packhouse. "It stood right there. It is… gone."
It struck me then. The anguish in his voice. I realized he truly believed what he was saying. And the conviction only deepened when he met my eyes once more and whispered, "What century have I found myself, lass?"
"Er… the 21st?"
He stumbled back, breathing suddenly ragged. "No, no, no!" he roared, raking fingers through his hair. "I did not merely lose hours. I lost three centuries. By the gods, Maren. What have you done?"
He began to unravel. Uncontrollably. He began to speak of his men riding off to war without him. He began to call names with such pain, I felt something knot in my chest.
Whatever had happened to this man — trauma, delusion, something I didn't have a medical term for… he believed it entirely.
And he was frightened, so distraught that I couldn't stop myself from closing the distance and grabbing his face, pulling his focus to me. "Hey." I said softly. "Whatever happened to you. However you ended up in that cave, however long you were there, we'll figure it out. Okay? After I deal with Asher tonight. I promise I will help you find your way back home."