Colton

"Are you okay, my dear?” The doctors voice waves at me from what seems like a very distant distance away and I realize how in my own head I've drifted in my state of numb. We're still rumbling along this dark makeshift path, carved through the dense forest, and I was so zoned out in my own mind I completely faded to dark. My cheeks are damp with the tears that sprung out of me and I'm staring blankly ahead, in a state of disconnect, ahead, like everyone I know suddenly died a horrible death, again, and I had to watch.

"I can't be one of those…. those…. creatures. They killed everyone in the orphanage." It's a soft, pitiful whispering tone, and I can't bring myself to look at him. My head so full of confusion, pain, and questions, and I keep picturing Contraltos face, his dimpled smile, and those deep dark sexy eyes, and what he's going to think when he finds out… Meadow, the sub pack. How will they look at me now?

I'm the enemy, and I've been among them this whole time.

"Alora. Those beings were not always the blood thirsty wolf murderers you view them as now. Vampires serve a purpose in the grand scheme of things too, and their kind has as much validity as the wolves. There are those among them, much like your kind, who are peaceful and land loving as some of the wolves are, they don't even hunt humans and very much never wanted for the battles and wars to happen. A feud so ridiculous the history books fail to record it properly, and no one really knows why the species raged a war against one another in the first place. It's a forgotten cause. You are not a creature, and this does not change who you are inside. You are the same fearless girl sat before me that you were ten minutes ago."

I break down and sob, falling forward to cradle my face in my palms and try so desperately to catch my breath, to calm the storm of feelings hitting me hard and twisting me up inside. It isn't fair, and why do I get to be so lumbered with every kind of bullshit the fates can throw at me. What did I do to deserve any of this?

"They won't see it that way. Don't you understand?” I sit up snapping to face him with fresh tears rolling down my face, dripping from my chin as my heart breaks all over again. Soul ripped wide open. "The pack can't ever accept me if they know, and Colton …. He'll be disgusted with what I am. He fought them, he killed, and survived that war too…. He hates them with a passion that's unmatched." That much was obvious when he ripped the head off the one who had me in its clutches and threw it high over the orphanage wall. I feel nauseous even trying to conjure up how he's going to react, or even how he's going to look at me. I can't bear to pull him into my head and see his face change from that cute boy, cheeky happy, into something hateful and Deacon-like. Seeing me as some crude mash up of vile parts. Disgusted by my existence.

"Dear girl, you said the boy imprinted on you. That means you share the purest kind of love there is, so special, and I'm sure that means he'll accept it as part of who you are. especially if he takes after Sierra. It doesn't define you… you are that same girl. Besides, he has to figure out he's half witch and I know from wolf lore that's as bad and he might have to get over that with a little more effort than your news." The doctor shrugs at that as if to point out Colton will probably have bigger issues, and I shake my head at him.

“Why me?” It's not really a real question, more of a verbal despair and I sink back against my seat, lifting my head to stare at the ceiling above us, and try so hard to pull myself together. Sniffing back the emotional break down to stop crying like a vulnerable idiot. None of this is going to help our current situation, and as much as I want to scream and rip that part out of me, I need to put it aside and focus on the now and our bigger issue.

We're in need of protection and I need to link Colton to get it. I don't even know what to say to him, or how, especially now with this foremost in my head. Scared about how that's going to go, and I don't even know if the link will work. Or that he hasn't blocked me on his end too.

"Maybe because you're important and being part vampire gives you something that adds to the prophecy. Your fates always have a reason, isn't that what your kind say… maybe there's a reason you are that, and Colton is half witch. Imagine the triads to come from your union. Your children will be three strong species, combined, if your body allows them to come to fruition. That's simply mind blowing. I don't think there's ever been such a breed." The tinge of excitement in his voice inevitably pushes that knife he's stabbing me in the heart with a whole lot deeper.

"There's going to be no children and no god damn union! Colton marked another, so that part is over!” I snap it, alarmingly hostile, sitting up poker straight to glare at him as that extra searing pain rips through my chest at a speed of droughts. Reminding me of all the reasons I was mad as hell at that asshole in the first place, and why I haven't reached out to him since I left.

Screw you Colton. You weak ass daddy's boy who should have just manned the fuck up and realized this was bigger than us! I was the one, not her. How could you?

I don't really mean it, well almost not fully, but I'm still completely devastated that he betrayed our bond. No matter the reason. Even if it was justified in the grand scheme of things. I don't think I can ever forgive him for wounding me in this way and destroying what was meant to be a perfect union.

“Oh dear. Are you quite sure he ma…."

"Yes, quite sure!” I snap, mimicking his English accent haughtily and cutting him off. Like I wouldn't know that pain hitting me in the chest and almost killing me that day and what it was. Have still not recovered fully and carry that weight constantly like a heavy shroud to eternally remind me I'll love someone I can never have. He's riling a very tender and open wound and it's doing nothing for my mood.

"I see. So, if he has another, how do you know you can…?” he gestures at his temple, locking eyes on mine, making circular motions and implying mind link. I roll my eyes. Exhaling to curb this sudden need to punch things and getting rattier by the second, tension rising, making me all sorts of stiff and uptight.

"I don't, I have to hope." Sharking at him, gritting my teeth, mood getting sensitive with the current topic of conversation. I know it's a genuine concern, given that Colton is key to us getting out of this and surviving, it's just, I'm scared to try now, while everything is so new and raw. I'm out here and all of this has smacked me in the face at once. Add that to the gaping gash of heartbreak he rubbed salt into, and you have one completely irate girl who isn't pulling herself together as quickly as her life is grovelling.

"Then maybe you should, you know….” Again, with the rotating finger at his temple and I huff loudly in exasperation, willing him to stop pushing and give me an ever-loving, god damn, breathing space, of a minute. This is hard for me. I erupt, breaking under the pressure. Spectacularly.

"YES! I KNOW! I'm going to do it! … Excuse me for having a little bit of a mental breakdown with everything I've learned in the last six hours and a reminder my fated mate is a cheating asshole. It's a lot…. A LOT! And I'm an eighteen-year-old girl who hasn't linked her cheating, asshole ex, so called mate, in weeks, since she ran from him. Give me a fucking break already." I push my fingers and nails through my scalp, pushing my wild hair off my face and gripping it with force at my temples, trying so hard not to self-combust under the extra weight of everything hitting me at once.

“I do say." The doctor raises his brows at me in a completely ridiculous British way, and then softens his expression and holds out his handkerchief to me in a sort of white flag apology, as more tears roll down my cheeks against my will. Colton always ruins me. I hate that I'm so hopelessly connected to him, that this rules everything I think or feel.

"I'm sorry…. I need to breathe for a few minutes. Colton he's……. it's really hard. He hurt me… this, all of this, just hurts."

Colton is the one thing in my life that has the power over everything else to screw me up with minimal effort. Even finding out I'm some sort of half creature, and my first thought was 'how will he look at me?’ He's right in there, deep inside of me, and he can make everything feel so good, or everything worse than bad, that I can barely breathe. Without him I survive, but I wouldn't exactly call it successful. There's a need that never leaves me, a longing that never stops calling to him. I miss him, of course I do, and I dream about him, I see, or hear him at stupid points of my day, even when it's not even related. Reaching out and physically connecting is a whole other kind of torture, especially knowing he's not mine and never will be now. It was easier to have no contact at all.

I never knew you could both love a person beyond a shadow of a doubt and crave them constantly, while at the same time hating the ground he walks on and wishing I never had to see him ever again. Such is my dilemma.

I need him, yet I don't want to, and currently I actually physically need him to come and save our asses from this situation. The doc was right, I can't take on a pack of Santo wolves, especially ones who don't play fair and use dart guns to subdue my kind. My gifts are worth shit without having the complete control of them. Colton needs to be in this, no matter how I feel, as Sierra is his mother, and I owe him to give her back to him, where she belongs. He can protect her in ways her own pack failed. Her son will never let her down in that way.

“You can have some time; this road is a good long drive to get out of the undergrowth and by my calculations we have three hours minimum, depending on the metabolism of the wolves before they come around in any kind of way. I'm hoping for six, which is probably a human response to the drug, but your kind are always a little more geared to outdoing us, even in an isolation tank. You can take a little head space before you contact him. Just, you know, not too long, as we don't want to be driving in the wrong direction, or anything."

The doctor isn't helping and I turn and stare out the window, watching the trees flash by in the hopes it will numb my brain out with mindless mesmerizing images flashing on by, the light fading with every minute we drive and Sierra is still as immobile and silent as she was.

I need to swallow this, bite the bullet and do it. Like ripping off a band aid, and not sitting pondering and building the moment into something worse. He's out there, doing god knows what, and the sooner I link him, or even see if I can, the sooner we can figure this out and head for a safe place and all of this no longer rests on my shoulders alone. Some control of this situation, someone else to make the decisions, and I hope to god I'm not being a fool and putting my faith in Colton, only to have him deliver us back to Juan's hands. I truly believe in my heart, despite everything that's happened between us, Colton will come through for me. For us.

This isn't about marking, or obeying the alpha and respecting the laws, this is about his mom and intervening in something bigger than the rules of the packs. This is about betrayal, and what his father has done, and I literally have no idea about how I'm going to tell him. Once he knows, it'll hurt him the way it hurt me, irreversibly, and I have no idea how he's going to react. It's not the kind of thing you can just rock up in his head and say, hey… I have your mom here, and your dad killed everyone I love, do you want to hang out.

How do I tell him about the bigger picture, about my family, the prophecy, the way Sierra was kept and has nothing mentally wrong with her? How do I fit all that in without having some sort of mental freak out, while in a head link with a guy you have been so afraid of linking because of the unbearable pain he can inflict on you? I didn't only blank him out because I left, and we were done. I closed the door because I couldn't handle ever being able to link him again and hearing that familiar voice inside of me. That soothing, husky, melody, that can find its way deep down into the most intimate parts of me and warms me from within in the most basic ways. No one will ever be able to make me feel things the way he does, and he has so much power over me, even with his words, at any distance.

Stop Alora. This is bigger than a broken heart. Colton will help, and you're just stalling.

I catch the doc looking at me, eyes glancing from dark rough road to me, bouncing along this track, and back again, but he says nothing. I think he's checking on my mental and emotional state and I need to get this over and done with. Stop bussing out, getting over dramatic with my female tear fest, and man up.

I inhale, sit up as though that makes any difference and push my forehead against the glass of my side window. Fixing my eyes on nothing at all and drumming up the courage I so badly need. My insides immediately start tying themselves in knots, my stomach cramping with the tension, and I swallow the apprehensive nausea as best I can. I let my breath out slowly, misting the window with the heat and condensation of the cold dark glass, and draw a heart absentmindedly in the steamy patch before rubbing it out and frowning at my own stupid reflection. Now or never! Rip it off, bite the bullet. Be strong.

I know if I stall, I might lose my nerve completely. I screw my eyes tight shut, conjure up a darkness to clear my brain and mentally slide open that heavy locked door I put between us so many weeks ago. Afraid of the sudden precipice I need to step off and I throw it out there in the hopes he's listening.

Colton? Are you there? I need your help.

Please be there. God, I sound so pathetic and weak. I don't get time to regret the break of silence, or to feel any kind of anything about doing it. A paused breath and then….

Lorey? Is that really you? Baby… oh shit, baby, god. I can't believe it's you. It's really you… you're really, ugh shit.

There's a second of pause and before I butt in with a response, he's off again, quietening me with his torrent of verbal diarrhea

Where are you? You have no idea how hard I've been trying to link you for weeks and couldn't get through… not that I blame you, and I know I hurt you, and you're mad. I'm mad too… at me, not you. I'm not in any way mad at you for leaving, so don't think I am okay, because I'm not… Please, tell me where you are… I'm an asshole, I know this… Are you okay? Are you hurt? Are you coming back? Please say that's a yes, and that I didn't completely screw all this up. And, hmm yes, I'm here, obviously… almost crashing my truck, but here. I was always here, waiting, hoping, and you know I'll always help you, that shouldn't even be a request when it's a given. God, I miss you, tell me what you need. Tell me what to do. Say something.

The whoosh of babbling completely catches me off guard, and the tone, changing from relief, to disbelief, to again relief, and sheer emotion, almost cripples me. He can't hide any of it from his voice and the surge of intense felling that comes with it tells me our link still exists, and I pick up on his even through this form of communication. It chokes me up, the sheer obviousness that he's really missed me, and is as broken about my contact as I am. There's no anger, complete overwhelm that he can finally hear me in his head.

My initial response is to tear up, my throat closes tightly as if it's going to choke me, and butterflies escape within my stomach and go bashing around my insides, hitting every orifice and organ they can fly at. Feeling the same as him, aching with the sudden waterfall of feelings I've been trying to fight for weeks.

Colton…. listen, I don't want to do this over the link, but there's a lot and …. for right now, we need somewhere to go, and you need to be there too. Somewhere safe, because we're going to have a pack on our ass soon and I can't fight them. There's too many. For right now, I need you to tell me where to go that we can meet, and for you to show up too, with enough of you to hold off some crazy mad wolves.

My hands are shaking with the ferocity of overwhelming pain I'm experiencing at being in his head and having him in mine. The intimacy of it. It's like the weeks apart drop away and it reminds me of everything I miss the most about him. His voice, his overprotective need to take care of me, the way his presence, even in my head alone, makes me feel suddenly safer, cherished, and he's only making it worse by saying everything I've wanted to hear. Why did he have to go be stupid and mark that bitch?

We? As in, you're with someone else.

It's the complete crumple of his tone and the hint of hurt that peeks through that shakes me out of my rose-tinted stupor, and I know he thinks I might have found someone, as in, a mate. I don't get why he would jump to that conclusion, unless it's guilt, because he knows what he's done to us and I'm well within my right to find a mate and say screw him. It's not important, and it miffs me slightly that he would veer to that little word as more important than the rest.

Yeah, WE. Look, he's helping me, he's a friend and WE need to go somewhere safe.

It seems to completely sober Colton up and I almost feel him draw back a little, the link falling silent for a moment as he seems to disconnect and then comes back an agonizing long ass minute later. I guess it's a moment to pull his head together as jealousy eats him, but good, maybe it's a little bit of karma and he can feel an ounce of what I've been going through all this time. Let him be hurt and think there's someone else…. He deserves some pain. If he jumps to stupid conclusions on limited information, then he can suffer.

Right. Where are you, I need to know so I can find you, or guide you.

It's that all business tone of an alpha moving in, as logic prevails, and he sobers up with that whip in the face. The babbling happy to hear from me dropping off to wounded male who's trying not to sulk. I know it's hurt him, I can feel it radiating through, and as much as it pains me too, I'm not going to correct him and tell him the WE, is a sixty odd year-old human, and his mom.

I turn to the doctor with a serious expression, head getting back to business and ignoring the fact my legs have turned to Jell-O.

"I need a location, so Colton can help us." I sound odd, strained, and my voice is husky, and hoarse, hinting at tears I'm refusing to shed. I can't deny this is awful, but we need his help.

"Oh goodness, that was quick, and it worked. Clever girl. Yes, location, of course, we're fifteen miles or so from the Hackuuh mountain base, north of Rennington. We head south for a good forty miles from here and we end up meeting the route ten to Evansville. Is that accurate enough?” The doctor scratches his head and goes back to grabbing the steering wheel with both hands before peering back out into the darkness, illuminated only by our headlights. I shrug at him and turn away to focus on the link.

Colton, we're fifteen miles or so from the Hackuuh mountain base, north of Pennington. He has us heading south, he says we're forty miles from getting to the route ten to Evansville. Does that help?

The directions mean nothing to me as someone who never ventured out of the valley until recently. I try and only focus on details and not the overwhelming emotions he's passing this way, or the way my own heart rate is pounding sky high and my legs are trembling at being connected to him. It's a bittersweet agony and I'm totally hopeless to defend myself from it.

The Hackuuh? You're not that far, god damn it, Lorey. You're the feeling that I should go southeast? And yet I still didn't find you! Tell him to stick to that route, we can meet you as soon as you hit route ten and escort you to where we've been staying. It's not far. If we get there first, we'll head in towards you and hopefully meet sooner.

I knew Colton would push everything he was feeling aside and pull through. It's what he does, and why one day he'll make a formidable leader. His heart always secondary to what he feels is responsibility and what he has to do. The curse that made him choose her over me. Despite everything, even thinking I've someone to replace him, he's still helping. No hint of malice or telling me to go away. I feel kind of guilty about letting that deception stay between us, but I can't quite bring myself to put him right and I sure as hell can't tell him over link that his mother is with us. I don't have the words. He's going to find out soon enough as it is.

"Stay on track to route ten and they'll meet us, show us where to go…. We're going to be okay." I tap the doctor's arm, seeing the sag of relief as my words filter in and he nods, exhaling a breath he's probably been holding all this time. I guess I do too, because we can't outrun the facility pack, but with Colton and the subs, they won't have a chance of getting at Sierra. It's safety, and success, with very little effort. We need to get to them and let Colton take over.

It does feel weird to know he kept looking though, and admitting something was pulling him where I was, that's odd. Maybe it was his mother finally calling to him too, and nothing to do with me, and I do find it strange he said they were staying somewhere else and not the mountain. I guess Juan has them scouring further afield for Vampires, and Colton has been using it to also look out for me in case we crossed paths.

Please tell me you have the sub pack with you… I have at least a pack of nineteen coming, this might be a fight.

I add in afterthought, a sudden fear he might come alone, eating me.

What the hell did you do? Who are they? Not that it matters right now, because I'll rip them a new one and yes, the sub pack and then some…. You've missed so much, Lorey. I have so much to fill you in on.

Likewise.

I sigh internally and mouth it to myself. I dread it even more knowing that I also have to add my lineage to the list of things Colton should know about. That nausea chokes me again and I try to push it down and concentrate on the act of breathing in and out.

I can't get into it right now, honestly, it's better I show you when we meet, so you can see for yourself and you can tell me then. For now, I need to unlike Colton…this is …hard…. and we have a tough road to navigate out of this damn forest. I'll link you when we hit route ten, please, understand…. It's just easier to not try and explain anything until I see you. You'll understand when you see.

I'm being a coward. I know if we stay linked while passing miles to meet, I might tell him stupid things, and work myself into a mess of tears, and love confessions, and tell the idiot how much I miss and love him still, despite what he's done, and the fact it can never go anywhere. Or I might tell him about his mother, and have to deal with the fall out of Colton self-imploding, and I am not strong enough for that, or for keeping linked to him when I really want to curl up and cry. It's too raw having him back in my head like we've never been apart, and I'm so not equipped to deal with my own feelings on top of his shining through. It's a see saw ride and I have a lot to process.

Promise me you'll re-link the second you hit the route, I hate this not being able to reach you bullshit, it shouldn't be this way. I don't care what or who he is…. I fucking love you, and nothing changes that.

That part shocks me, especially the hostile way he rasps it at me like it's a threat and not a love declaration. Jealousy well and truly piquing in a way he can't control, and it ignites mine, along with the urge to snap back at him. 'So much that you marked Carmen, huh?’. It chokes me up and I unlike him without responding at all. Cutting him off before I lose my shit at him and compromise our run to safety. That inner rage igniting every time I think of the four days after leaving, and that undeniable sign that he betrayed me. He betrayed us. It's not something I can forget, or ever forgive.

It has the desired effect of pulling my head out of my wallowing, lovesick, ass and instead of soppy weak longings, I now want to rip his head off for being a possessive shithead who thinks he still has a right to me. For swearing at me about this when he should be groveling.

"Hugh. He has a god damn cheek, telling me HE is not mad at ME!” I let rip, startling the poor doctor and the fright almost makes him swerve us into a bush. "You know what, he should be more concerned with how mad I am at HIM and afraid, because I'm the one who will rip him a new something when I see him! He should be the one getting sworn at and shielding off hostility, not me!”

The doctor flattens a palm to his chest as though trying to calm the heart failure I inflicted, and he casts me a concerned smile. A flicker of confusion crossing his features.

"Good conversation, I take it?”

He gets a darkening thunderous scowl aimed his way. My look of unimpressed and breathing in raspy short breaths as my temper rages a little higher. I think it's an after effect of holding my anxiety in while linking and now the damn breaks.

"He loves me PAH!….and he doesn't care who I'm with, like he has any say in that respect, when he pushed me out and made me leave and then, before even a week had passed, he had some skanky Pita in his bed and finalizing the marking that should have been with me! Roughhouse. Is he conveniently forgetting all of that? Is he that dense and that much of a condescending hypocrite!” I'm venting, so wound up with our interaction and triggered over the stupidest part of it. Hating on him, as some sort of emotional response, and oozing fury so that I start wriggling about in my seat manically, waving my hands around and kicking the dash.

"Skanky what now?” The doctor rubs his head, eyes darting to me and the road and tries hard to make sense of my ranting.

"You know what? …If I didn't need that jerk for Sierra's sake then he could go kiss my ass and get used to the fact I was dust in his future. Not a chance of ever making me come back, and you know what he had the nerve to say? Do you?” I shout it at the poor doc, getting a wide-eyed shake of the head and half shrugged response.

“I wouldn't like to hazard a guess, but I'm presuming something that piqued a nerve, or ten." It's a semi sarcastic yet wary reply with a feeble smile.

"He said 'I hate this not being able to reach you bullshit and it shouldn't be this way’” I mimic Boles slightly accented dialect in a mocking male low tone, bouncing my shoulders as I say it in pretense marchioness, and kick the dash in fury when I let it out, hurting my own toes inside my boot and it only makes me madder. "He is the god damn reason I LEFT! Oh my god, why the hell did I think that running straight back to that complete dumb ass was the best plan of things. I should have known he would only piss me off completely."

"Don't kill me for the suggestion, but maybe because he is the best option and, you two clearly have a few issues that need to be resolved. He may be marked elsewhere, but it does sound like his heart is still fully invested here, and your nondramatic response screams you love him still." The doc points at my chest, meaning my heart and I shake my hands out in frustration. I want to show him what over dramatic looks like as the urge to air punch the doc out of the truck hits me, for that less than helpful observation.

"Contraltos heart has never been the problem. It's his big, stupid, inflated head, that big dumb brain that sits in there, taking up space and telling him to do the right thing for everyone else in the pack, except him…. and me. That's the only issue we have and it's a non-resolvable one."

Reverting to juvenile insults because Colton really does make me feel wacko sometimes. Like back after the imprinting when he left me alone for two weeks, and then just showed up in my head like some swooning Romeo and screwed me all up. Why didn't he let me die that night?

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but surely marking another would completely dissipate your link and the feelings he has for you?” The doctor is trying to tug me back to a sense of calm with a little question time, but I'm not biting. Too absorbed in my self-rampage of Colton dislike, because I have needed to do this for weeks.

“We imprinted, no one knows…. and in the whole history of fated mates, no one has ever rejected the bond and not marked. Just that dip shit Colton, so I don't know if it's meant to dissolve the link, or whatever, but it didn't. Clearly!” I spit it out, turning away and banging my forehead off the side window in a bid to calm down.

"Then maybe…."

"Don't okay. I know what I felt, and I don't want to talk about him anymore, until I have to see his stupid face. Can we just drive and not talk? Please." I bite my tongue, so many more words poised and ready to spew out, but this is getting me nowhere fast.

"That's fine by me, my dear. This is a difficult path to follow and I should probably concentrate on that." The doctor relents, probably relieved to have an excuse to not engage with the hormonal psycho making this time worse than it needs to be and I do suddenly get hit with a wave of remorse at taking it out on him.

"Fine…… suits me fine!” I lower my tone and try for softer, but I sound like a sulking child and shut myself up. I slump back against my headrest, exhaling heavily and stare out the window once more, pulling my legs up to curl under me on the oversized truck chair, bubbling, and boiling up inside and begin counting down the minutes to seeing that Natasha. Listing all the things in my head I deserve to punch him in the groin for.

It's the only way to pass the time, as I'm not ready to simmer and douse these flames I have burning for that jerk. I start compiling a list with a lot of bones I have to pick. Starting with a major one! Betraying me with that skanky Pita while claiming he loves me.