Scotty frowned and turned to stare blindly out the window of her room. He didn’t want someone else. He wanted Beth. But arriving at her apartment building to find her broken and bleeding from the blast had nearly killed him. He’d almost lost her again, and she was suffering again. He couldn’t bear to see her in such pain. Scotty had sat here watching her sleep as she healed, and all he could think was that he wanted to take it all away for her, all the hurts of the past that he hadn’t been there to spare her from, including this latest attack.
He knew it might mean losing Beth. That taking away her past might alter her to the point where he might no longer be a possible life mate for her and he would lose all that he’d just found. After all, she wouldn’t remember him. He would remember her, though, and Scotty was quite sure he would love her to his dying breath no matter what. That he would spend the rest of his life alone and miserable, looking out for and yearning after a woman who saw him as a stranger. But he was willing to suffer that for her, to give her a chance for a life free of all the pain and misery she’d been dealt and so didn’t deserve.
Turning abruptly, he asked, “Have ye ever really considered what it would mean to have yer memories erased?”
Beth reacted as if he’d hit her, her head going back and her expression going blank with shock. Finally she asked with disbelief, “What?”
“A three-on-one mind wipe could remove all the horrors o’ yer life to date,” he said, trying for reason. “Would ye no’ like that?”
Beth shook her head and closed her eyes. “I can’t believe this.”
“What?” Scotty asked warily.
She opened her eyes and peered at him sadly for a moment, and then said, “You suggested that the night you saved Dree and me from Jamieson.”
Scotty blinked in surprise at the change of subject.
“You dragged her away to talk, and I knew you wanted to talk to her in private, but she’d left her shawl and it was cold and . . .” Beth paused briefly and then cleared her throat and admitted, “And after what had happened I was terrified at being alone, so I used the shawl as an excuse to join you both. I headed toward the pair of you, but I could hear you arguing as I approached and stopped to listen.”
Beth glanced down at her hands as she continued. “You were saying you should be reporting our presence at the house to the Council, that I was obviously mad and they’d want me executed rather than set loose on the world. You said at the very least I should be wiped using a three-on-one.”
Scotty stiffened. Was there anything she didn’t know?
“But,” Beth continued solemnly, “Dree wouldn’t let you. She said she’d take responsibility for me, that she was taking me back to Spain with her that very night, and if you tried to stop her, it would have to be at sword point. She’d not go quietly. She’d drag her brother and uncle into it and start a war if needs must, but she wasn’t letting you touch me.”
“I did no’ ken ye heard that,” Scotty said when she fell silent, and then added gently, “But ye were half-mad that night, lass. Perhaps wholly mad. The Council would ha’e insisted on putting ye down, and I thought if they wiped yer mind o’ all the bad memories . . . I thought ye’d be better off without all the horrors that haunted ye.”
“But it wasn’t just the horrors that would’ve been removed, was it?” Beth asked softly, lifting her head to look at him again. “If you erased my memories all the way back to when I was ten, it could’ve removed my personality as well.”
“When ye were ten?” he asked with confusion.
“Did you think the bad memories started with Jamieson?” she asked dryly. “He was just the first immortal monster in my life. There were many mortal ones before him.”
Scotty frowned. The night he’d met Beth, he’d thought his inability to read her was due to madness brought on by the traumas she’d suffered under Jamieson. After what he’d seen inside the charnel house they’d saved her and Drina from, that had seemed the most likely explanation. It wasn’t until Drina and Beth had already set sail for Spain that he’d realized his hunger for food was reawakening . . . and that his mind was suddenly easily read. Two sure signs that an older immortal had met their life mate.
Unfortunately, Scotty hadn’t connected it with Beth. Mostly because he hadn’t felt any sexual desire for her. He realized now that the situation and the bloody mess she and Drina had been at the time, literally, had not been conducive to sexual desire. Aside from that, they hadn’t made physical contact of any kind. But he hadn’t considered that then, and Scotty had looked closer to home for the life mate he knew he had recently encountered.
It wasn’t until months later that Scotty had realized she was the one. He got news that Drina considered Beth recovered from her trauma and ready to train as a hunter. For some reason he even now didn’t understand, he’d traveled to Spain to warn the Spanish Council that the woman was mad and shouldn’t be allowed to train. And that was the only reason he’d realized the error he’d made.
It was the first night he slept on Spanish soil. He was staying at Drina’s brother’s home, and Drina and Beth had been in attendance, visiting before they left for training. He’d arrived late, just a couple of hours before dawn, but the Council had been waiting there for him, and he’d spent those hours before daybreak closeted with them, trying to convince them not to allow the woman to train. He hadn’t fought that hard, though. Drina’s brother had insisted Beth was sane and couldn’t be judged on her reaction to one traumatic night, and it wasn’t really his problem anyway. He’d already been questioning why he’d come all that way. If the woman was mad as he suspected, it would be the Spanish Council’s problem. He had given them his assessment and that was all he could do.
It was dawn when the meeting ended and Scotty was shown to his room. He’d retired at once, but rather than restful sleep, when he lay down his night had been filled with erotic dreams full of a beautiful redheaded stranger. Scotty hadn’t known they were shared dreams until he woke up and went in search of his host to thank him for his hospitality before leaving. He’d spotted Beth hurrying for the front door as he came down the stairs, and recognizing her from his dreams, had frozen halfway down. It was when she’d opened the front door and he’d heard Drina call out, “Hurry up, Beth. We will be late,” that he realized who she was. Scotty had then stood there for several minutes in shock, unable to believe that she was the bedraggled and blood-covered madwoman he’d rescued.
When Drina’s brother Stephano had found him there on the stairs moments later, Scotty had begun asking questions about Beth. That was when he’d learned that she’d been a prostitute before she was turned, that Drina had been her pimp, and that she was angry and bitter and still dealing with the horrors of her past, but Stephano hoped her working as an Enforcer would help her heal.
Scotty had been in a state of confusion when he left Spain, his thoughts and feelings torn in all different directions. He’d felt shock that she was his life mate, not someone in England, as he’d first assumed. He’d felt concern for her well-being, a desire for her to heal from the horrors of her past and, yes, even discomfort at her chosen career as a mortal. But Scotty had buried that discomfort under his other concerns for her, and had tracked her progress in training, and then as a hunter. He’d also sent Magnus to watch over her, and had interfered as he saw fit, trying to keep her safe.
When Magnus had questioned his actions, Scotty had admitted that she was a possible mate and had told him that he felt she needed to heal from her past before he could claim her. And he had actually believed that to some degree. At least, he had hoped it was true. Beth back then had been hard, angry and lashing out at the world, and he’d thought perhaps with time she could heal, and with time he could learn to accept her past. Unfortunately, rather than admit to his issues with her past and deal with them, he’d pushed them under and focused only on her struggles.
Sighing, he sat down and met her gaze. “Why would your memories have to be erased all the way back to the age of ten?”