Chapter 346: 2-1

Chapter 39.2 – Wolf POV Our kind, you only got one mate, one true person that you were with, that had been matched to you on levels you wouldn’t understand until you truly had them. A person that ensured survival within each family, a way to ensure that good genes were continued, that love was treasured, and I had missed mine. I had lost that part of how I was, my Laura Christi Colt, my other half. I had searched high and low for her, never finding her until twenty-five years ago, and I had lost her before I even truly had her for very long. ‘This isn’t you Harrison,’ her voice coaxed me, chastising me, the one woman I had ever let call me by my given name. Before her I had been Wolf, to everyone and anyone, but she was different, beautiful and calm to my ugly and harsh. I blinked, unsure and well aware that this was impossible, ‘they’re going to need you, you’ll have to help them,’ she continued speaking above me, her blue eyes shining, watery and full of love I hadn’t seen in so long. I was never angry that she was taken from me, because I had left her first. ‘Your brothers and you are special son,’ my father told once. I wanted to apologize Laura, I had too, I abandoned her, years and years gone by and I knew that it was the truth, I had failed her beyond belief and my heart clenched tightly when I thought about it. I didn’t understand though, nearly twenty-three years she hadn’t come to me, I prayed for her, wanted a sign, something, anything. ‘He’s seen that our kind will need help if we are going to persevere,’ my father told me.Laura believed in those sorts of things, when she was alive she believed in arriving late because it wasn’t meant to happen on time. She believed in the wind blowing on a particularly hard day that it was her parents urging her on. She trusted that on her best days, the slightest drop of rain were her parents crying in relief of her good fortune and health. If anyone – anyone ­at all – would be able to send a sign to someone else, it would’ve been her, my mate. Where had she been all these years? I’ve done horrible things in my life, but Rainy, she deserves more than you for a father!’ The words Logan said play in my mind, a broken record stuck on a bad track. I try to ask her, and I’m in the type of dream where no matter how loud you want to shout and scream, no matter how much you want to run, skip, jump around, you can’t. I gaze at her, listen confused as she tells me to help them, that they’ll need my help, I nod because in this dream place, I can do that, when I can do nothing else. Images begin to change, and her soft ethereal like voice is further and further away, “Boss,” I’m shaken and it all vanishes, a worried crew member to my side, gazing down at me as I blink and struggle to lift my head. Falling back with a thud, I bring and welcome more pain, squinting to see Hunter. My second in command, the vice president of my crew, he doesn’t question me. Hunter is disciplined, the man I should have left behind when I went on my run, the man that would have protected my mate, that would have known she was pregn – I’ve done horrible things in my life, but Rainy, she deserves more than you for a father!’ I shoot to sit up when the thought hits me again, my Laura, pregnant. Children. Logan. Rainy. Gone. Nothing was the way it should have been, and in anger I bolted up to my feet unsteadily, his lips a grim line Hunter reached out to help, but I just shrugged him off as mu vision blurred and the room spun. Reeking of alcohol, I stumbled around my chair, falling into it a messy heap, my hand slammed onto the table. The tips of my fingers bringing that picture closer to my face and in my spinning head I see all the pieces. “You okay Boss?” Hunter asks, he hasn’t seen me this way I’m sure since Laura, I don’t answer him though, instead I go for the picture of my Laura and place it flat next to the other picture, pushing it towards him. His thick eyebrows and dark eyes focus on me, before slowly moving to the pictures, and when his eyes widen before he can control his face, I nod to myself. It’s not in my head, my Laura had sent me a sign, five years ago when I met Logan for the first time, when he showed me that picture, that was my wind, my rain, my rainbow, my arriving late. My eyes shut, the last piece of myself that hadn’t broken with my loss, splintered and separated, the pieces all clashing, falling, breaking – I’ve done horrible things in my life, but Rainy, she deserves more than you for a father!’ “Is – where did this come from?” Hunter asked sitting in the chair behind my desk, his elbows on his knees, “I mean is this photo retouched?” he’s focused on the picture of Rainy. I can’t refer to her as who she is – was. “Logan – that’s his sister, I can – I can’t believe it, but it all makes so much more sense now. Rian said she smelt different, that her scent was different; I always wondered what would do that… I thought – I believed that Laura had been trying to hide her scent, alter it so she couldn’t be tracked. She had ignored me for those months, then we couldn’t find her, and I never felt her going into labor, I – I was – I” rough and fast, my head is being pulled and pushed from under water, nothing holding still so I can get my focus back. Gone before he even had a chance to get to know her, Hunter thinks, my eyes dart up to his. ‘Oh… and Rainy is a silver wolf.’ Is a silver wolf… not, was a silver wolf? . . . Chelsea POV I used to watch movies, and there would be these scenes where two people fighting would make the whole room uncomfortable because whatever they were discussing was something that they should deal with privately without an audience. The actors did so well with their craft that I’d feel like I should change the channel myself because I was intruding on something reserved, a conversation that was meant to be kept tightlipped. For a moment I’d feel a pang of sadness because I’d probably never experience something like that, I’d never be one of those people that looked around the room for an escape, and I’d certainly never be one of those people that were having the silent awkward conversation with an audience. Fast forward a few years, “Did you know me before you approached me? Was I some sort of mark for you?” Judy accused her mate, and I was one of those people. I turned and noted I have several ways to get the hell out of this conversation, the front door, the back door, the windows, hell I could just teleport myself out. With wide sad eyes, Philip shook my head, “I – you weren’t Judy I swear to you-” “You swear to me?” she shrieked, “Like I can believe anything you’re saying, how do we even know if you are who you say you are? Is your name even Philip?” was our love even real? She didn’t finish that thought a loud but the majority of what I’m getting from Judy is utter distrust and hurt. I’m pretty sure she’d trust Gabriel more now, and he just shot her in the foot. “You don’t understand,” Philip muttered. “I didn’t – it wasn’t-” “You didn’t kill people for the Elders? You didn’t listen and follow the Elders rule?” Judy shouted standing, her hands shaking at her sides. No more than ten seconds had even passed by but these two seemed to forget the guns pointed, or that aside from their relationship, Gabriel and I were what they should be afraid of. “I can tell you everything I know now…” Philip said to Gabriel, instead of bothering to answer Judy, “I’m sure they had to change a lot of their protocol and passwords, and things that could be done differently but there are some practices that I know that they can’t change,” Philip finished.