“Alora, I believe that might be our escort. This is Route 10.” Doc nudges me lightly, snapping me out of my long weird daydream in which I bludgeoned Carmen to death with Colton’s running shoes before handing them back to him and walking off into the sunset with a flip of my finger. I sit upright, startled by reality. My heart misses a beat, and full-on nerves smack me in the stomach.
There’s a convoy of headlights heading our way in the now pitch-dark, long road, stretching ahead, dazzling us slightly as they approach, along what seems to be a long empty highway lined with dense trees on either side of us. I hadn’t even noticed the change in terrain when we got off the dirt track and got onto an actual road. My insides tighten, tense, and painfully pray that it is who it is.
I lift the veil and link him in case we’re not where they are yet, and this is someone I should worry about. I don’t see any other vehicles on the road.
Colton, please tell me that’s you, the convoy heading towards the military truck on Route 10?
I hold my breath, pausing as nervous energy overtakes and straining to see beyond the blinding lights, but it’s too dark to make out if the trucks are Santo. All I can tell is there is a succession of them as they weave slightly, and headlights shine brightly on the route ahead.
Pullover. It’s us. You’re safe.
That husky, warm flow of assurance as I hear him inside my mind, and I relax a little, letting out the breath I was holding in anticipation. He sounds weird, tense, and maybe a little annoyed, probably from obsessing over my ‘boyfriend’ in the last half hour or however long we’ve been driving. I’ve been silently staring out the window, lost in my head, and Doc just kept plowing on heading north. No concept of time.
Shouldn’t we just follow you?
I query, confused that he should want us to stop and not keep moving with the possibility of a pack on our tail. I don’t understand why he would expect us to.
PULLOVER!
It’s a sharp command, not a request. No hint of politeness or trying to explain. In that bossy, arrogant, snarly, I am pissed tone that verges on his Alpha gift, I wonder what the hell is eating him. All because I questioned him from seemingly calm and logical to an idiot in a millisecond. Maybe he is like his father after all, and that gives me the unyielding urge to tell him where to get off. It brings back my rage from earlier, and I spin my head to the doctor with an attitude.
“Our Lord and commander says stop.” I sound like a petulant child, eye-rolling as I flick my hand at the oncoming vehicles and Doc raises a brow and then frowns instead. “He obviously has some reason to make us pull over, and he doesn’t sound like he’s in the mood to argue about it.”
“Better not disobey an irate Alpha in the making. If he’s anything like his mother, I would say it’s better to accept a request and question later.” It’s an almost submissive stance, but Doc looks tired and weary, and maybe he needs a commander right now more than I do. He pulls us over to the side of the highway and brings us to an immediate stop, waiting and watching as the distant vehicles close the gap between us, and the tension becomes unbearable.
“I’ll quickly check on Sierra, make sure she's still tubed, and everything is plugged in.” He moves first, gets up, and shifts into the back of the truck, exhaling and stretching with relief when he gets to the standing room part of the back. I watch him for a second, but my anxiety, as I can feel Colton getting closer, almost makes me combust.
“I need air.” I point out, opening my door and hopping out before I scream. I’m overcome with the sudden heavy nervous tension of seeing him again and the rising flames of temper and accusation because he’s being a jerk about it, and I hate him. It’s hard to put the Carmen thing aside when I’m going to come face to face with the cheating ass once more.
I expected maybe some sort of sweet directions, not bitchy commands, and aggression from him. My own turbulent emotions are strangling me, and I suddenly have this newfound energy buzzing through my limbs. I can’t sit at peace, and his getting closer is like waiting on a tornado hitting your house and knowing there’ll be carnage. I have no chance. Colton is the tornado and my heart is my home.
As the first of the vehicles pulls up along the side of ours and disappears behind the bulk of our truck, I lose my nerve completely, turn, and walk to the rear of ours into the darkness, around the back to catch my breath and take a few seconds to recenter myself. I need some Dutch courage and some mood leveling before that moment of reunion with him. I inhale and blow it out heavily, hearing doors opening and slamming and footsteps, and I know I should just do it. Bite the bullet, walk right out to him. I move from behind the truck, walking along and turning up the side to head towards Doc’s door. Head in chaos, eyes on the ground as my sight adjusts to nocturnal vision, and I watch where I’m stepping.
I walk smack bang with a certain amount of force into the black-dressed, enormous figure, cutting down from this side, and yelp with the collision. Knocked back momentarily, not hurt, but definitely winded. My heart skipping a beat, instantly making my legs go weak and my insides lurch in surprise.
“Lorey?” Colton’s tone drops completely, a breathy whisper as I jump back and stare wide-eyed and lost for words. We just sort of stand and look at each other for a heavy and lengthy, loaded second, so much translating at the moment, and then he lurches forward, partially shadowed out, so I can’t make out his face perfectly. He grabs me by the wrist and yanks me to him forcefully.
I don’t have time to react, or recoil, because all I get is a flash of glowing amber eyes appearing on that darkened face. Then I’m wrapped in strong arms and molded to a hard, hot body that makes me feel small and precious—wrapped up tight, unable to resist the way he lassos me. He knocks the wind out of me with the intensity of his embrace, hugging me in entirely and burying his face in the crook of my neck, snugly united and highlighting how perfectly we fit together. He squeezes almost all the air from me with the force of his hug, not a single part of me that’s not pressed to him. His breath tickles and tingles my skin as it makes its way under the neckline of my sweater, and I’m dazed by the speed with which he absorbed me into his body.
I’m not going to lie and say it didn’t make me momentarily forget everything except how he feels, how good he smells, and how right his touch is. Heartbreakingly so. I melt, my head getting hazy with this need to let him hold me, and I have to swallow back the overwhelming surge of emotion that has my heart rate hitching and my breathing getting shallow. Biting back instant tears, I taste my weakness shining through, urging me to wrap myself up and tell him how much I missed him.
He squeezes me half to death. Arms tightly wound around my upper body and waist. A hand comes around my neck, under my hair, to hold me in place. Pushing his face against mine, so we’re cheek to cheek, his nose grazes my shoulder, and I hear and feel him inhale and release with the same relief I did. That intense contentment of finally finding home and sinking into it deliciously. Savoring these few seconds of finally getting what you’ve been craving for, needing, for weeks.
I almost cave, my limbs aching to curl around him to get lost in everything good about him. So caught in the heady sensation of being back in his arms as he wraps me up, like a mouse caught in a snake’s death grip, with no hope of escape. I almost fade out into nothing but feelings of tingles, warm inner waves and butterflies, and a sense of belonging when something mentally slaps me in the face and reminds me what a shithead he is. Carmen’s smug face in my mind’s eye and the pain I felt four days after leaving him.
I shove him back with a little more power than I’m used to, a gush or surge of that misty energy conjuring from the intense anger that comes shooting out at speed and hitting him right in the abdomen with enough force I send him reeling back. His arms are impulsively splaying out to stop himself, and he manages to stay upright, even though it’s obvious I threw him off. That look of utter shock that I just overpowered him and almost landed him on his ass, and my surge of aggression, when he thought snuggling was on the cards.
I don’t forget the betraying asshole has a mate out there who wouldn’t be too pleased to see how he’s behaving with another femme even if I was his fated mate once upon a time.
“Don’t touch me! Who the hell do you think you are, huh? That you can just yell at me, make demands, and then come walking on over here and grab me like that? Like you don’t have a shitload of apologizing to do.” Its fury building from inside me, aching to be released, and his simmering to low glow eyes fire right back up, like two very terrifying orange beacons in the pitch black. I can almost feel mine glowing in response, and it feels good to let my inner wolf peek again.
“Are you kidding me right now? Do you know how much shit I’ve been through for weeks trying to find you, and this is the thanks I get? You asked me to come! I’m beyond happy to see you. Excuse me for wanting to react and touch you when you’re all I have thought about for weeks.” My anger seems to feed his, and instead of love confessions and apologies, I’m getting asshole Colton. Sometimes I forget he’s a Santo, and then he swoops right back in and reminds me what arrogant douchebags that whole bloodline is.
“I didn’t ask you to look for me all those weeks, so don’t even start with that bullshit. And you ... YOU are the reason I left, so no, I owe you no thanks and give no shits about whatever you’ve suffered in the meantime. You don’t get to touch me anymore. Now shut up and let me pass. I have to tell him you’re here. He’s probably hiding in the back already, wondering what is going on.” I attempt to get by him to head for the front of the truck, but he steps right at me, blocking me, so I bang into his torso and step back. Full-on aggression mode is switched on, and he’s towering over me menacingly.
“Him? About HIM! Whoever he is, whatever the fuck he is to you, I’m going to fuck him up!” It’s a vicious, jealous outburst, fueled with a sudden searing rage that even I can feel flowing from him as he springs back to me, almost shadowing me. He gets that close, bringing his nose down to mine, eyes burning bright, and I slap him in the abdomen.
“No, you fucking won’t. Stop being an idiot. Just shut up and get out of the way.” I push him again, and this time, he doesn’t budge. His apparent mood is worse than mine, and he sticks his ground and stays as intimidating as ever, right in my face. That low growl of the wolf coming through at me.
“You’re mine! Not anyone else’s, and if I have to take down an asshole who thinks he changes that, I will. We are not done, you and I. He is about to learn that. I’m not even playing, Lorey. I will kill that motherfucker where he stands.” I’ve never seen Colton like this. I can almost taste the fury pulsing from every pore as he loses a small ounce of control and his teeth peek. I’m only making him worse, and this is not the best version to introduce to the doctor or his mom. Even I feel a little tiny ounce of fear at this version, and I think maybe I pushed him a little too far with this whole other man thing. I need to calm things down and not bite, even though his statement makes me want to rip his throat out. This isn’t helping any of us.
“I’m not yours, so you have no right to make any kind of threats. Not anymore. Just stop, okay. It’s not like that. You need to calm down and not scare him. He’s human, and he’s not the reason I asked you to meet me.” I reel in some of my anger, my voice softening as best as possible with this constant internal pain, reminding me never to let my stupid heart soften for him again.
I catch the hemline of Colton’s black hoody, yanking him with me instead of still trying to get past him and change tactics. I turn and head to the truck's rear, pulling him when he stubbornly holds still, fighting me for a moment, and then he relents and follows. The aggression and pain oozing from him have me all kinds of uptight, but I bang on the truck's back door to let Doc know I’m back here, and I hear the lock slide open.
Colton bristles instantly. I almost feel him ready to pounce in fight mode as we’re about to come face to face with a guy he deems a threat to our bond, as ridiculous as he’s being, and the door opens. I, too, brace myself if I might have to intervene and defend Doc from an angry wolf attack. I am fully prepared to take Colton on to save Doc’s life; after all, I owe him.
Having heard our conversation, Doc sticks his head out warily, and his white pallor makes him almost glow in the darkness, a worried expression all over his face. He opens it wide enough to pop head and shoulders out, and Colton goes from a poised, lethal killing machine stance to a sudden ‘what the hell’ expression in seconds. He looks from him to me and back again as all manner of confusing emotions flicker across his face.
“Doctor, umm?” He seems to be dragging his memory as he says it, staring at Doc like he can’t quite believe what he’s seeing and trying to remember that mouthful of a name. That hostile, jealous need to maim him dies instantly as he realizes there is no way in hell I’m looking to mate with someone older than my parents. I feel it wash away, and the surge of relief that bubbles over affects me too, taking the edge off my anger and realizing half the time I don’t even know whose mood is whose as we feed each other and react. My aggression slides away like I got hosed down with a cool jet in a heatwave.
“Ah, dear boy, you remember me. Look at you all grown up and rather hunky. You are very tall for a Santo. Wow, you certainly beefed up somewhat, did you not? Look at those shoulders. I bet you can bench press ten of Alora on a bad day. Such a specimen!” The doctor and his usual inappropriate babbling to diffuse an otherwise awkward situation, and I shove Colton aside and yank the door the rest of the way. Impatient to rip this BandAid off completely and show him why we brought him here.
“Excuse me,” I say to Doc politely, suggesting he let me by and stop shielding the truck's contents. He shuffles aside as I climb up, getting halfway up the high step when Colton lays his hands on my waist, gripping me lightly, and pushes me up the last distance. It both riles me that he thinks I need his help like some feeble girl who didn’t survive alone for weeks in the wilderness, and yet makes my heartache that he still, even mad and confused, wants to take care of me.
God, I hate him sometimes.
“Colton, come,” I command, knowing the inside of the truck is pitch black in this darkness, and he has no idea who lies inside until he gets up and his nocturnal vision kicks in. I doubt he would recognize her scent as it’s been so long, and she smells almost human due to not turning for nearly a decade.
He doesn’t question, he just hops up effortlessly behind me and follows me so close his body touches me from behind, and I know it’s deliberate. I can feel it in him, the longing and ache to get close to me again, almost as much as it’s growing in me to be touched by him. I am aware of his proximity, like a throbbing pulse in the air, making me hyper-sensitive to his energy. I shake it off, knowing he’s looking down at me and not ahead. I can feel his breath on my neck as he very clearly stakes his claim on me. Personal space is not in his vocabulary at this moment in time.
He is all in wolf mode in his head and acting like a male hitting the haze. Possessively close, practically bearing down on me as the femme he clearly wants to bone. It’s a little unnerving that he is being so weird, but I get it—I left him. I knew where I was and was in control of my being gone, so I never had that frantic pain of loss. I always knew where he was and how to reach him and could have if I needed and wanted to, but he had none of that.
He just had silence. No idea where in the world I went and did not know if I was okay, so I guess it’s why he seems a little stirred up and wolf crazy. His bond instinct to protect me must have made him insane these past few weeks, and until now, I never really thought of it. How that must have made him feel and the powerless nature of it. Especially if he could feel my fear, panic, and sadness in everything I have been through. His wolf is taking over, and his instinct to stay on my ass and convince me I need him stuck to me. That primal, aggressive urge to stick to his mate and kill anything that comes near her.
Usually, the human in us counterbalances it a lot better than he is, but I guess I can let it slide while he’s caught in our first moments of reunion. My scent alone must be affecting him on all kinds of unbearable levels because he is getting under my skin and making me crazy. It’s taking all my willpower not to turn and wrap myself around him.
I walk a few steps to put distance between us unsuccessfully as he bumps me the whole way in an almost claustrophobic manner. I stop when I know we’re fully inside and then reach, feeling his face above mine with his taller height, having him towering behind me. I cup his chin just behind me, stretching my arm slightly and lifting it so he looks directly at the corner where Sierra is lying. His senses are all on me, so he hasn’t even clicked she’s here. That there’s anyone else in here with us.
There’s a moment of pause. I sense the heart stop and inhale. His shift from ‘I need you’ possessive, over hormonal crazy to ‘what’s going on?’ confusion and the ‘is that?’ shock as everything about him changes. I feel everything that he exudes, and it makes my own emotions fade in comparison.
Colton steps around me instantly, freeing me from his presence as his attention is swept out from under him and darts to the bed in the dark. Swift and direct as he sees precisely who it is in the dim light. Doc is shuffling around and clicks something that illuminates the back of the truck with built-in low lights, and I focus on Colton sliding to his mom’s side, scooping up her hand carefully, and almost gasping in shock. He leans in, making her look so small compared to him, and gently strokes his thumb across her pale hand. All the tenderness of a sweet child, infatuated with the mom he’s been pining for years.
“Mom? Is that really you? Can you hear me?” He sounds like a lost little boy, so young and vulnerable, with an aching rawness to his tone, and, for a moment, I forget my anger, and nothing but compassion for him fills my heart. I can feel how this has ripped his heart open, and his pulse is racing so speedily that mine matches it. Colton regresses ten years, and he’s just a boy finding the mom he’s needed for so long, so much more than anyone could ever have known.
“She’s sedated. Doc needs to wake her, but she doesn’t know what’s happening. Colton, you need to know … there’s nothing wrong with her mind.” I point out, coming level with him and resting my hand on his arm as he stares at her, eyes fixed on her face. His breathing is shallow, and the confusion and pain are evident under that furrowed brow and glowing amber eyes. He can’t contain his emotion, so his wolf is showing. He swallows hard, reaches out, and lifts a strand of her hair before brushing it back gently, so carefully like she’s fine china, so fixated on her like this is some dream he doesn’t want to wake from.
“How … where?” His voice breaks, a harsh croak, and Doc keeps his distance to let me be the one to explain. It’s not easy to tell a guy that the father he’s loved all this time is why his mother was imprisoned and put in a coma. I don’t even know how or where to begin, and I hesitate, looking at Doc and mildly panic-stricken for a moment when it comes to me. Doc shrugs and nods as though encouraging me. I think he’s a little intimidated by Colton, to be fair. I mean, he did threaten to kill him three minutes ago.
I don’t need to tell him. I need to show him. It’s the only way I know-how.
“It’s a long story. I think maybe it’s better to do it this way. So you can see for yourself,” I whisper, reaching up and laying my fingertips on his temple and waiting for his permission, tensing as my touch seems so light and hesitant on him, that familiarity dragging me to draw closer. Colton nods, oblivious to me while his attention is on her, knowing I mean, projecting my memories. I can’t blame him; he’s searched for her for so long, so no wonder she’s all he sees.
I close my eyes and push them his way, rifling through and trying to find a starting point as I drag them to the forefront. I decide on one, right from my decision to turn east and follow that path, to finding the facility, then being caught. Deacon, the doctor, the cell, and finding Sierra, right until we got out, and I linked Colton. I show him every second on that timeline, even how they kept her and where hoping it all filters in while he’s so distracted.
I need to give him all of it, even the parts I’m afraid of him knowing. I don’t have the words to tell him about his father, and I don’t have the strength to tell him about my family. Or that we’re both hybrids.
Colton stands stock-still as it all plays in, and he relives what I did in the past couple of days, seeing, hearing, and learning everything I did. Feeling what I did and experiencing everything he must have felt from afar. In microseconds, the way transference works. Even the part I was most afraid of telling him—that I’m a half-breed vampire.
I feel him close me out as soon as the images of the last memory fade away like a shutter coming down as he disconnects from me. That wall of emotion blanks and pushes me away. It’s not something most wolves can do, especially to an imprinted bond, but Colton does it right now and shields me from everything he’s feeling in the moment and shuts me out. It’s an Alpha gift to protect loved ones from pain and horror.
It shocks me and hurts me a little, but I don’t think he’s doing it to punish me. I think he’s doing it because he knows his emotions are completely overwhelming and doesn’t want to make me feel them. He’s protecting me and pulling back, so he doesn’t share what he’s experiencing. He stands, lets go of his mom’s hand, and looks over my head at the doc with a glazed, distant expression and not what I expected. A look of determination as that leader takes over, and he stands that little bit taller, moving in to take charge.
“How long do you need before you can wake her?” There’s a coldness to his tone, a lack of feeling, and I wonder if he has withdrawn even from his emotions because it was too much for him, or if he is just really, really pissed. I honestly cannot tell, but there is a brewing storm in the air around him, even if he is shielding me. I guess finding out everything in your life was a lie, and the villain in your story is your father, has to hurt as much as when I learned about what he did to my family.
“A couple of days to bring her round fully, but she may take weeks to come to and recover enough to turn properly; there is no telling. She’s been asleep for a very long time, and I don’t know what kind of harm that has caused her.” He looks helpless, and I can tell he also doesn’t know how to react to Colton being so ... unemotional. It’s like he didn’t just find his long-lost mother sedated in the back of a truck, and he’s absently directing some lost tourist where to go next.
“I’ll drive. You stay back here with my mom. The manor is another thirty minutes away, minimum, and we need to get going before that asshole Deacon, and his failure sub pack show up. I don’t want to be spilling blood in human territory.” That growl, a hint of anger, and I guess I feel a little smug about that. Colton might rip that jerk a new one after all. I hope Deacon does show up because I know my Santo will kick that Santo’s ass into next week, and I don’t mind letting him have that one. Watching will be as much joy as doing it.
He doesn’t even look at me, just nods at Doc to bolt the doors and then walks forward to the cab and climbs into the driver’s seat, smoothly and fluidly, like he’s driven military medical trucks his whole life and doesn’t even blink an eye at it. Stopping and staring out the window at the assembled vehicles out there, I know he’s linking the pack to tell them to move. He’s issuing orders, and I follow and climb into the passenger seat, a little afloat with the sudden disconnect and unsure how to behave. This version is a Colton I don’t know, and even I feel like I should do what he says.
I screw my eyes up at the trucks, counting maybe five, and way too many for the sub pack unless they’re spread thinly among them, but I can’t make out who’s driving. The headlights are screwing with my vision, and I can’t see anything but light glare when I try to look past them. I wonder if Meadow can see me, and I long for nothing more right now than to hug her. She would get a hug; Colton can go to hell, well, maybe not right now, as he seems like he could probably use one.
As soon as we hear the door lock slide and click into place, he glances back to make sure Doc has pulled down one of the folding seats and strapped himself in before moving us on. The fleet of vehicles roar into life, and two stay back to let us pass and follow. We’re flanked, and Colton just focuses on driving. He positions us right in the middle of the other cars as though they’re escorting some president. Precious cargo that needs their protection.
I guess we are. The Luna is as important as the Alpha in a pack. She’s our Queen.
The need to have him say something overpowers my need to be mad at him, and I reach out and place my hand on his bicep gently.
“Are you okay?” I sound like that feeble girl from so long ago that imprinted on him and not the person I’ve grown into these past weeks. When faced with this guy, it seems I become a submissive, lovesick fool, and I silently hate myself for it. Colton seems different now, though, as I sit and evaluate his profile in the backlights shining at us from the black four by four in front.
He looks like Colton, still a cute boy with prominent dimples whenever he moves his face, which could melt any grown-ass woman’s panties. He is still a handsome, dreamy, pretty boy face, with that air of cheeky confidence, yet he seems older. More mature, maybe slight aging that has him seemingly less carefree, high school jock, and somehow more severe and capable in a way he wasn’t before. There’s been a shift, and some of his youthful light has gone out. There’s a sense of darkness around him that was never there and without tapping into his feelings, I don’t know what it is. It’s more than just learning about his mother; it was there when he walked into me outside the truck. Colton’s carrying a weight and I want to know what it is.
“I don’t want to talk about this right now. I need to … just let me be, Lorey. Just for a minute.” A petulant shrug of his arm, so I stop touching him, and it’s like I’ve been scolded. An unexpected rebuff from the guy who just minutes ago hugged the life out of me with sheer need, and now I’m not allowed to touch him. I shouldn’t be upset. He’s hurt, he’s processing, and he’s in his head, and it’s pretty hypocritical for me to be mad about that. I didn’t want him touching me, and that hasn’t changed.
I try to link him, thinking maybe talking that way will help soothe him, away from the doc’s ears, and he might be more open to being less cagey with his feelings, but he has the door closed, and I can’t get through at all. He’s locked me out in every way, and I don’t even know if this is normal behavior for him when he’s nursing pain or if this is because he remembers I’m not his mate and he should only share that space with her.
Fuck you, Carmen. Fuck you, Colton.