I’d just dug the remote control out of the corner of the armchair when someone banged at the front door.

How annoying. It wasn’t that I wanted to watch TV uninterrupted. At four o’clock in the afternoon there was absolutely nothing on. The only reason I sat in front of the TV every afternoon was for the sake of sitting still.

I didn’t know how to relax. My days off were worse than the ones I worked at the Walmart distribution center. At work, I skipped breaks when I could get away with it and jogged the parking lot when I couldn’t. At home, I cleaned like June Cleaver on Red Bull. Anything to keep moving, because it always felt like I was supposed to be doing something, although I could never put my finger on exactly what.

For a moment I considered ignoring the intrusion, but the second round of knocking was forceful enough to rattle the china in the cabinet against the front wall.

I tugged the inside door open and smiled politely through the screen, a brief glance at his outfit made the smile a thin one. He wore a gray leather vest with no shirt, although May wasn’t warm enough yet. It was certainly to his advantage--those muscles would put the guy in the Bowflex ads to shame. Not wanting to be caught ogling, I trained my gaze firmly on points North.

His hair, so light it could have been translucent, fell over his shoulders, nearly touching his waist. Pants to match the vest and tighter than paint. All right. I couldn’t help myself.

So. Either a rock star or a model for paperback covers. Neither guy should be on my porch. Trying not to stare at the expanse of bare chest, I sheltered myself behind the door. “Can I help you?”

His voice rumbled like fast water over rocks, a smooth and powerful sound. “I think you know why I’m here.”

Damn. I knew, all right. Looks like my past was finally catching up to me. “Look, if this is about the scratch on your Cavalier, I don’t even think I was the one--”

“I’m not here about a car.” He pulled open the storm door and pushed his way inside, looking around the parlor.

“This is where you live?” He paced a casual circuit around my living room, pausing briefly by the kitchen and peering in. “I expected a lot more purple.”

“I haven’t had a purple--do you mind? Put that down!”

He set a picture frame back on the mantle without disturbing the others near it. “This looks like an elder’s dwelling. Are you still living with your mother?”

“What do you want?”

“You know what I want.” He continued studying the photographs, sounding out of patience.

“No, I honestly don’t.” My voice was level, despite my heart banging a staccato so jarring I swore my ribs clattered. I picked up the phone and faked bravado. “You have three seconds to tell me who you are and why you thought it was a good idea to force your way into my home.”

“You honestly don’t know?”

“Forget it. I’m calling the cops.”

“Quiet.” Leaning at the waist, he locked his gaze onto mine and uttered a word I didn’t know. It was a slippery-sounding twist of syllables, but what my mind heard was: “Remember.”

And suddenly I remembered. Everything.

With one strange word he added an extra layer of memory to my life. Missing pieces. Pieces I didn’t know had been missing. I had reasons and reactions and regrets that for the past fifteen years had been wiped from my mind. With one arrogant word, this bastard simply put them back.

It didn’t take but a moment for me to react, and my fist caught him cleanly on the left side of his jaw.

* * *

I didn’t get to land a second punch, but that was fine. Most people didn’t get to land the first. Kreth Talir hadn’t become commander of the Elite Force by being an easy target. I’d caught him off guard and that was the real wound.

Our tender reunion didn’t last long. He snapped up my wrists and banged me against the wall. Just like old times; he tended to forget I was human and easily damaged. By his standards, anyway.

“Why are you so angry?” His calm expression and serene voice masked his inward turmoil, presuming he had any.

I knew my own turmoil would be plain to read. Good. I strained against his grip once, testing it. “Maybe because you left me for dead.”

“You weren’t dead, obviously.”

“Obvious now, maybe. Get out.”

He released my wrists, but slowly, lingering over the contact.

“Not until I get what I came for.”

“Which is?”

“My son.”

I crossed my arms and huffed out a long breath.

“I can play this game.” His gaze was steady and stilling. Kreth could make waves stop in mid-crash if he so chose; for him, command and magic came only second to breathing and blinking. Ruthless and unrelenting, he always got what he wanted, no matter the expense. “I can stand here and trade empty words but I’m not going anywhere without my son. I’ll watch you die before I walk away without him.”

“You would.” The clock ticked, punctuating the sounds of suburban children at play that drifted through the screen door. “Why?” I shook my head and looked up at him. “Why did you do that to me?”

“There was no alternative.”

“You left me in an alley, and you--I--I didn’t know where I was. Somebody could have--you just left! You didn’t come back. You made me forget everything about you. I spent years wondering--no one explained. No one knew. Pregnant, battered, alone--So don’t march in here and say here’s your big effing memory back and I want my son.”

“He’s old enough to follow me. It is his time.”

“Get out!”

He grabbed my jaw, cutting off my scream. I whimpered under the pressure, just once. Something in his eyes relented, a thawing of the cold blue steel. He relaxed his fingers but didn’t let go.

“Acey,” he whispered. “Someday you’ll understand. I’m sorry you had to do it alone. But your pain was halved. Believe me.”

“Halved? I was made of pain. There was no half.”

“There, you are wrong. You bore one half, I the other.” He released my jaw and ran his fingers along my cheek before dropping his hand. I jerked away. “I’m sorry. But he must come with me.”

“Why?” I slammed my fists against his chest, making him back up a step. I blinked away a sudden blur of tears. “Why would you take the only thing I have left?”

“Because if I don’t, he will die.” The steel was back, the tone easy to recognize even after so long a separation. “Acey, we are hunted.”

* * *

Muffled footsteps sounded from the kitchen. I saw the minute changes in Kreth’s face, knew that he’d heard them. The click of the basement door was like an M80.

“Who’s hunted? Mom, who’s that?”

I bit back a groan. “Some pain in the ass.” I glared at Kreth. “He was just leaving.”

Kreth gave me a long look, bottomless and blue, which said be still. And in the way my mind obeyed such commands of his, I became still.

He turned to face my son and openly appraised him before speaking. “I am Kreth Talir. Do you know me?”

Kreth’s interrogation was answered by a contemptuous jut of chin. The boy shook his bangs out of his eyes and stared at the stranger. Nobody could do openly hostile like a fourteen-year-old. “Should I?”

“Sometimes a child recognizes his father before meeting him the first time. In the stronger family lines, foreshadowing is a common trait. How old are you?”

Christopher stretched his lanky frame just a bit longer. The kid was built for basketball but born with a vehement aversion to the sport. It was probably all those years of hearing people tell him he should go out for it.

Spite. Wonder who he inherited that from.

He was into cross-country, rifle and archery, soccer. Only now I realized he favored sports that mimicked a Stealth assassin’s training.

“Seventeen last February.” The lie rolled smoothly off his tongue. Wonder who he inherited that skill from, too.

“Honey,” I said. “It’s no use. He knows your age.” I sagged against the wall, feeling the unfamiliar weight of so much history. “He knows everything.”

“How?”

“He’s your father.”

“You said you never knew my father.”

Kreth didn’t know how to stay out of a private family discussion. “Your mother is not entirely incorrect.”

I ignored him. “I didn’t, honey.”

“You didn’t? What changed?”

I shrugged and waved a weary hand toward Kreth. “He. . .came back. He brought my memory back, all of it. I remember now.”

“Well, I don’t buy it. Some big goon in a vest doesn’t get to walk in and tell me my whole life was a lie.” The cockiness was still there, but it did little to mask the rawness. It cut through me the same way his newborn cries once had, piercing straight through to the very core of mothering instinct and invoking a very physical pain.

My son was hurting. Kreth’s fault. I glared at him, my throat swelling with loathing. I wanted to scream and hurt him somehow. We were better off before he came back. He didn’t belong here.

Kreth looked out of place among the plants and the pictures and the other tiny things that made a house into a home. “He has your spirit, Acey.”

“Shut up, Talir.” Smoothing my expression, I reached for my son and stroked his arms, distressed by his glassy-eyed expression and the thin, pale line of his mouth. “He can prove it a hundred times over, honey. All I can say is, look.”

I went to Kreth and pulled open his vest. A tattoo, a tribal-looking insignia that was part thorn and part hook, marked the skin above his heart.

It was the sign of the Elite Force, the killing machine of his society. The maroon-stained tip of the hook identified him as a Stealth; similar coloring of the thorn signified his rank. Commander was a life-rank. The job was dangerous and, as a rule, eventually fatal.

My son looked horrified. “That’s. . .just like yours.”

I nodded. “I know.”

“Yours?” Kreth took my wrist again, tugging me toward him. I pulled against his grip as he pressed my hand flat against his bare chest. “Show me.”

Sullenly I yanked my hand out of his grasp and turned my collar down, revealing an identical tattoo that stained my left breast. “Happy?”

“Most. . . pleased.” Shrugging his shoulder, he slid his vest closed and looked over my head at my son. “Need you more proof?”

“Uh, yeah. And then you can stuff it. I don’t need a father. Especially not a gamer like you.” Shouldering his backpack, he headed to the door.

Kreth halted him with a guttural command. “What is your name?”

The boy hesitated. “Chris.”

“Kris?” Kreth smiled.

“Christopher,” I corrected.

Kreth’s smile broadened. “Kris Tofir, son of Kreth Talir. Your mother has honored me.”

“I’m sure it was an accident.” Christopher rolled his eyes. “Can I go, Mom? Will you be okay with him?”

“Of course, she will,” Kreth said.

I gritted my teeth. “I’ll be fine.”

Kreth didn’t prevent him from leaving; instead, he watched him, eyes alight with fierce interest. It was if he drank in each of the boy’s movements, his darting glances catching each gesture as it spilled: the shrug as Christopher shouldered into his denim jacket, the snap of his collar, the swipe at too-long bangs.

Christopher ignored him, leaning to kiss my cheek before ducking out. “Love you. I’ll call when I get there.”

I only nodded, knowing if I opened my mouth I would scream. Run. Hide.

I couldn’t. I remembered Kreth’s words.

Hunted.

The screen door banged shut behind him, all my warnings unvoiced.

As Christopher crossed the street and disappeared around the corner, a pang of fierce anxiety squeezed my throat. I wasn’t Acey anymore. Just Bonnie, a warehouse clerk, a PTO volunteer, a mother to a fourteen-year-old boy. “Will he be safe out there?”

“Doesn’t matter. We’ll be gone soon.”

“I’m going with him.”

“You cannot. You won’t survive.”

“I’ll be as good as dead if you steal my son. At least this way I won’t be left to die alone. Again.”

“I don’t want you to die. Not with me, not without me. I’ll adjust your memories. Give you any life you want.”

“No.” I couldn’t bear that, knowing how different the past fifteen years had suddenly become. My adjusted life had been safer, but so. . .empty. “I’d rather you killed me.”

“When did you get this?” He traced the sickle pattern through my blouse.

I pressed my lips together and moved away from him. “After I came home from the hospital. I dreamed--this symbol twisted itself around and about, night after night, until I felt compelled to have it drawn. It was the only way to get any peace.”

“You never connected it with me?”

I shook my head. “I thought I was raped. Beaten up, left for dead--then surprise, pregnant. The tattoo made me feel like I’d conquered something. I don’t know if I could have kept him if I didn’t.”

“Kept him? You would have given my son away?”

“I wouldn’t have had him, period.”

“You wouldn’t have dared.” The warning made the hair on the back on my neck stand up.

“Don’t you dare.” My voice held as much warning as his. “You left. He was all mine. He still is. He won’t accept you. He doesn’t need you.”

“He will. I am sorry to say it, but he will.”

I’d never heard his voice so rough with regret.

“You know what was at stake that night,” he said. “If I didn’t leave--you told me to go, you knew--” When he turned I saw his sorrow and knew it wasn’t contrived. “I have not slept a single night without thinking of you. You were cherished.”

“I remember, now,” I said. “But fifteen years has a funny way of changing the truth. You took what you wanted and you left. As far as I’m concerned, you’re no better than a rapist.”

“I didn’t force you.”

“To love you? True. But everything else, you forced. My memories, forced. My abandonment, forced. My exile, forced. I loved you, true. But you stole it from me when you left. I know you have no plans on leaving, so, whatever.” I picked up the remote and handed it to him. “Springer’s on. Go watch it. Make popcorn. Whatever. Just leave me alone. You’re good enough at it.”

And with that I turned my back on him--the greatest insult of all--and went upstairs.

* * *

I slammed my bedroom door, angry to the point of tears. Thoughts whirled around inside like a torrential mess. The only coherent idea that surfaced time and again: How could I have not remembered him?

I had been only nineteen, a freelance tracker and thief-for-hire, when we met one night outside a rather shady club. Kreth Talir was running after someone, I was running away from someone. He appreciated my courage and my ingenuity, if not my affinity for purple clothing.

He had crossed onto our Plane to retrieve a runner who’d abandoned the Wicklands in possession of certain dangerous secrets; Kreth’s mission was to bring him back, in one piece or in many. If the runner spilled those secrets in our world, it would have unleashed a terrible technology, one that could destroy half the planet and leave the other half in a battle for control.

Worse yet--so he thought--it would have revealed the existence of the Wicklands and his kind. And they couldn’t let that happen.

While helping to save the damn worlds, I’d succumbed to Kreth, body and soul. He treated me like a treasure, a possession, an equal, a partner. I couldn’t imagine anyone meaning as much to me as he did. How could I forget those nights?

How could I have forgotten the night the renegade Stealths caught up to him? Just as he opened a portal and was preparing to send the runner back, we were ambushed.

Humans never fare well in a fight against a Wicklander, no matter how good we are. Kreth faltered during the transport spell, distracted by my difficulty in beating off the three scumbags who took turns kicking me in the head.

I’d seen Kreth’s eyes. I knew he considered throwing the whole thing in to save me. He would have abandoned his mission for me. I begged him to go, to finish the job. He dove through the portal, taking the runner with him.

I was stunned when he shouted the amnesia curse before the passage closed. Confusion descended upon me as the Stealths beat me to within an inch of my life before ripping open a second portal. I lost consciousness in a puddle of God only knew what, but not before the curse took hold.

How could I have forgotten any of that?

Magic. That’s how.

Well, magic went both ways.

I cracked my knuckles and locked the door before tracing a symbol on it. A thin pale glow trailed across the wood like a wet fingerprint, shimmering and pulsing as I drew a barring sigil.

My stroke was firm and graceful, an elegant sweep that curled and looped in a single, unbroken line. With the final stroke, my finger came to rest at the starting point. The glow surged once, midday bright, before fading completely.

Perfect. Fifteen years, but I hadn’t lost my touch. Kreth couldn’t open that door if he used his fat head as a battering ram. I’d used his own magic against him.

Kreth seduced me once to get what he wanted, but I wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. With a grim smile, I opened my jewelry box, inside of which lay a blonde curl tied in a faded ribbon, a remembrance from Christopher’s first haircut.

I’d watched Kreth set a cloaking spell to hide his runner fifteen years ago, and I remembered every detail. Setting the ringlet on a small mirror, I began the incantation that would mask my son’s identity by transferring his energy signature to his father. You can’t hunt what you can’t find.

And if hiding my son meant making Kreth a bigger target, oh, well. His past actions had already proved he was okay with collateral damage.

A dim burning sensation ached behind my eyes. It was a familiar sign--and a good one. Physical pain meant a magical debt had been paid. It would be the first of many.

Kreth Talir brought everything back, all right.

And he’d be sorry.