Amnesia - The Matlock Pack: Book One
Chapter 33 - Takeshi

Saturday 12 December

~*Takeshi’s POV*~

Earlier…

“I’m just saying that we may need to start thinking about long-term accommodation for Nat.”

I watched Auden while I chewed, thinking about what she was saying. As she well knew, there were far-reaching ramifications on allowing Nat full membership into the pack.

She lifted her fork, popped the salad into her mouth and poked the air between us with the fork prongs. “She’s not getting any better, Takeshi. By her own admission, her nightmares are still waking her up every night; there’s no movement on her memories; and Kennedy and I both believe that she’s suffering from anxiety and panic attacks.”

“But she could still recover, yes? Or has that ship sailed?”

“There’s always hope, but I was sure that we’d be seeing some sort of progression to recovery by now. There’s been nothing.”

I grimaced while I took a sip of my water. “You still think it could all resolve when the full moon comes around?”

Auden nodded, placing another forkful of salad into her mouth. “She’s young enough that her wolf must come out then. I’m willing to bet that if nothing changes between now and then, her wolf emerging will trigger a reset of sorts on her system. But again, there are no guarantees on that.” She raised an eyebrow at me. “Which is why I’m saying we need to start thinking about the long term for her.”

“She has shown remarkable skill in Camp.” I thought back on how Nat fought in the sparring sessions. She had been hesitant about displaying any offensive manoeuvres, but her defensive skills were off the charts. She moved quicker than I’d seen anyone her age move in a very long time, yet I still felt like she was holding herself back, and that was only after a week of training. Goddess only knows what she would be capable of if she let herself go.

“You done?” I motioned at Auden’s plate, ready to take it from her and dump it in the sink to wash later.

“Yeah. That was delicious, Takeshi.” She sat back, rubbing her stomach in contentment. I grabbed our plates and walked over to the kitchen sink.

Auden and I had been having these weekly catch-ups for years. Ever since I barely survived the deaths of my wife Manami, and my daughter Suki, and she her husband Caelan, Auden and I had made a point of catching up at least once a week to check in with each other for both our own well-being and the overall welfare of the Matlock Pack. They had remained random weekly meetings until relatively recently, when we had discovered Saturday nights suited us both best, especially to prepare for the Sunday Council meetings we both attended.

With the loss of Manami, Auden had taken up the role of proxy-Luna and was a silent guiding force in the Pack. She was indispensable, not only to me, but to the entire community.

Over the past couple of years, however, she had also become my sounding board on how to deal with a small, but growing disillusion from certain pack members, both within the Council and the community at large. There was a view that Matlock was being too forward-thinking in how we approached things like new pack members, warrior and security training, and firefighting capabilities, and that a return to traditional werewolf values was the best way to secure our borders against neighbouring packs like Kinglake, as well as restricting any new pack members to keep certain werewolf bloodlines pure.

As far as I was concerned, their views were a load of rubbish — we needed more variety in our bloodlines, not less; and although we needed to strengthen our borders, the move to technological operations, such as adding security cameras at certain points around the border to ensure one hundred percent coverage, over traditional operations, like border patrols that could only ever be in one place at any one time, was something a lot of packs overseas were trialling and having great success with.

Of course, there was a substantial financial cost involved in shoring up these defences, and Auden and I believed that the reticence of many of the Council members who were against moving into the twenty-first century stemmed more from the initial expense to the pack rather than a desire of returning to the good old days of ‘traditional werewolf values’. Not that they would ever admit to that.

Auden bringing Nat into the Matlock pack lands had been seen as a direct threat to those Council members who were so adamant that I was leading the Matlock Pack towards ruination. They felt that the only new pack members that Matlock should accept were fated mates. Unmated transfers from other packs were severely frowned upon, even though I advocated for every new member, as they were all thoroughly vetted prior to becoming a fully fledged pack member by our new security team.

This all left me in a quandary with Nat. For starters, Auden had brought her in unmated, and as we had no details about her because of her amnesia, we couldn’t vet her in the usual manner. Even her fingerprints came up empty. She was an unknown. And the Council didn’t like unknowns.

However, if I could show the benefit of having Nat as a pack member, there was a slim chance that I could convince enough Council members that her addition to Matlock would be a windfall, even knowing nothing about her history. If she was to stay in Matlock indefinitely, she needed a good reason to be here.

I just wasn’t sure what that reason could be yet.

“Has there been any shift from Kinglake?” Auden waited for me to come back to the lounge area to continue our conversation.

“No. They’re all still massing at the border.” I went to the small wet bar that I kept the alcohol in for guests and poured two glasses of red wine. I handed her one before I sat opposite her.

“They’re not giving up, are they?”

“Not at all.”

“Any news from Kelly on the current protocols audit?”

“He couldn’t find any gaps.” I sipped my wine, waiting for Auden to explode.

“How could that be? How could Nat and James both get through our lines if there were no gaps?” Auden sounded horrified.

“I’m not any happier than you are about the findings. This shows that the electronic surveillance we’ve been talking about is more urgent than we had expected.” I pulled out the file I had left on the coffee table and handed it to her. “Here is the cost analysis I ran about the initial outlay. Can you do me a favour and double check it before I bring it up tomorrow at the Council meeting?”

She took the slim file and flicked through it quickly. “Doesn’t look like it will take too long, but I had best get going if you need this before lunch tomorrow.” She set the glass of wine on the coffee table and rose from her seat. “Dinner was wonderful, as always, Takeshi. Thank you for cooking.”

I got up from my seat but kept hold of my wine glass as I walked her to the door. “You’re very welcome, Auden. You’ve been pleasant company, as always.” I sipped from the glass as I opened the door to let her out.

She gripped my upper arm in a sign of solidarity before she left. “We’ll figure this all out. They’ll come around, eventually.”

“I hope so.”

She smiled hesitantly at me as she stepped over the threshold. “Have faith, Takeshi. If not in the Goddess above, at least have faith in you and me.” She winked.

“I always have faith in you, Auden.” I laughed as I shut the door.

A light tapping sounded from the open balcony door. I turned to find Nahi standing to the side, half hidden behind the curtain covering the glass. Her magpie familiar, Gidja, was at her bare feet, tapping at the window to get my attention.

Nahi peeked around the door frame, her slim, pale, naked form seeming to radiate in the moonlight that fell on her. Her long strawberry blonde dreadlocks trailed past her buttocks and, as always, were the only thing that covered her body.

“I gather you heard most of that?” Placing the glass of wine on the kitchen bench as I walked past, I grabbed the black velvet robe from the closet I always offered her when she visited.

She nodded silently, her grey eyes roaming the lounge area from her vantage point on the balcony. Gidja hopped over the threshold and waddled over to me.

Draping the robe over my shoulder, I grabbed a handful of the birdseed I kept on the kitchen bench for these visits and bent down to feed her. She warbled happily as she pecked away at the goodness in my cupped palm.

“Nice to see you again, too, my friend,” I whispered to her. She nuzzled my fingers, eyeing me with clear golden-brown eyes.

When she’d had her fill, I stood up, emptied the remnants in my hand back into the bowl and walked over to Nahi to hand her the robe. She took it and swung it around her shoulders, fastening it at her throat. It fell to the floor, covering her entire body.

She took a step forward and kissed me on the cheek, her hand emerging from the robe to clasp my arm. When her lips met my skin, the white markings on her face that showed she was of mystic stock glowed in the tiny transfer of energy. These markings covered Nahi, and they only appeared when she engaged in any form of contact. It was how she absorbed the extra power she needed to complete her most difficult incantations.

“I was wondering when you were going to show up.” I stood still, but relaxed, as she absorbed what energy she needed.

She gazed at me as she took a step back, the vertical white line that trailed down the centre of her face and dots along her high cheekbones fading from view. “It hasn’t been appropriate to visit until now.” Her voice was deep, a low timbre that seemed to echo off the apartment walls.

Her hand dropped from my arm, disappearing into the folds of the robe, emerging again moments later with two small bags of potions. Even after all these years, I still didn’t know how she transported these parcels when she spent most of her time naked.

“These are the potions you asked for.” She held the packages out to me. “I don’t know if either will work, but there won’t be any harm in trying them.”

I brought my palm up for her to drop them into my hand. She loathed being touched without her consent, so I had become used to allowing her to initiate all contact. She held the potions over my hand, but before she dropped them, she fixed me with a shark-like focus, not letting me shift my eyes away from her.

“The price for one of these is high, Takeshi. Bigger than the typical payment. Are you sure that you want to pay such a price?”

Involuntarily, I swallowed, nerves hitting me out of the blue. The last time Nahi had warned me about a high price, our session had lasted four times as long as usual, and it took me days to recover. The depletion of power had felt like I was suffering from the flu, and Spence had had to become temporary Alpha. With the Council in turmoil and James prowling at the Borderlands, was I prepared to cede control over to Spence even for a day?

“Is payment to be made in the usual manner?”

Nahi nodded.

I gulped, weighing the pros and cons of accepting the packages. There was no doubt in my mind that both Nat and Konstantine desperately needed what was in them.

Closing my eyes in resignation, I nodded once and felt the packages drop into my palm. Even though I knew they were predominately herbs and spices, the small parcels felt as heavy as lead. Gripping them, I dropped my hand and walked to my home office to place them in my safe, feeling Nahi’s eyes on me the entire time.

Once they were secure, I went to the small bar and poured myself two fingers of whisky. Without letting it settle, I took a long gulp. The news had left me desperately in need of something stronger than wine. “Is payment expected now?” I nervously looked at Nahi, holding the carafe in the air to offer her a glass of her own.

She shook her head. “I can’t stay that long. There are other things we need to discuss that are more important.”

Sitting down in the comfy old chair tucked in the lounge’s corner, I couldn’t stop a sigh of relief from escaping. Resting my elbow on the armrest, I massaged my forehead with my outstretched fingers. I raised the glass to my lips again with my other hand and watched Nahi prowl towards me, kneeling at my feet, the cloak billowing out from her form as she settled.

“Are our sessions such a chore?” She raised an eyebrow, reaching forward with one hand and placing it on my knee, the dots on her cheekbones glowing faintly.

“Not at all, Nahi.” I had long ago come to terms with the connection that Nahi and I shared. Apart from Auden, she had been the biggest factor in getting me through the deaths of Manami and Suki.

“Then why the sigh?”

I placed the glass on the side table and moved my hand to hover near her cheek, waiting for her to lean into my palm. As she did, the dots burned brightly, and other lines appeared on her face. “Now isn’t the best time to lose so much power. That’s all.”

She closed her eyes, her markings sparking brilliantly, before fading as she moved her head away from my palm. I let my hand drop to my lap.

Nahi rotated her head, then opened her eyes, finding my own instantly. As she stared at me, her irises shifted from the usual grey to a shimmering, unnatural dark lilac, her pupils almost disappearing to become the size of a pinhead.

“The girl is more important than you realise.

“What you’re doing with her is true.

“There will be challenges ahead, but stay your course.”

Her voice split into two as she spoke, her typical low timbre still there, but had been matched with an unusual, almost electronic, high register tone, creating an odd vocal harmony.

I listened carefully. Her foresights were incredibly rare and were always to be taken incredibly seriously. They were a gift, only delivered to those who she believed truly needed them.

I took another sip of my drink. “Anything that you can elaborate on?”

Her eyes clearing, she sighed, her pupils expanding to their natural size, her voice returning to normal. “Not at this stage. There are lots of moving parts, but nothing is truly set in stone yet. It’s becoming clearer by the day. I can explain more when the future settles.”

Suddenly, we heard Gidja let out a quiet warning warble. Nahi and I both looked over to see her plumping her feathers and shaking herself, her beak pointed directly at the front door.

Nahi stiffened, shifting her entire focus to the door, holding her breath. I found I was holding my breath along with her, but for what, I didn’t know.

“There’s someone at the door,” Nahi whispered. “I must go.”

She rose silently before moving swiftly to the still open balcony door, removing the cloak as she went. Gidja joined her, swooping to the railing of the balcony to await her mistress.

I rose from my chair and went to pick up her discarded cloak from the floor.

“Be cautious, my friend. Use your trust sparingly.”

As a knock sounded at my front door, I looked up from my position to ask her what she meant, only to see her stepping through the door, leaping up and over the balcony railing, and spreading her arms from her torso as she and Gidja dove off the sixth-floor apartment balcony.

“Just a moment,” I called out to whoever was at the door. I collected the cloak and threw it into the closet that I got it out of earlier, figuring I could hang it up properly later. Picking up the glass that still held some whisky, I took a sip as I opened the door to find Spence waiting.

“Hey Takeshi. Got a few minutes? We need to talk.”

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