Curled in Colton’s arms in bed, my head laid on his chest as I listen to his heartbeat's steady rhythm. I doze in and out of peaceful and contented slumber. Something keeps waking me when I start to fall deeply, and I can’t seem to put my finger on it, like a dream or a feeling that’s just out of sight and appears to jump in to haul me back whenever my consciousness drifts away. An unease or a threatening nightmare, maybe, it’s a sense of wrong, and try as I might, I can’t seem to fall into blissful darkness for any length of time. It’s almost dawn, and I have barely dozed for more than twenty-minute slots at a time. I’m frustrated and exhausted, yet I can’t seem to rest.
Colton, however, is completely out cold, wrapped up around me protectively, his face buried in my hair as he silently inhales and exhales so peacefully that it at least brings me a sense of calm. His preferred full-frontal body position wedged against my side as I lay on my back, held in his arms and using his bent lower as a pillow. He seems oblivious to my restlessness, and with that flawless, smooth expression showing a vulnerable snoozer, it at least soothes me a little.
My inner anxiety is swirling, and that strong sense of foreboding is slowly chipping away at my mental state. I can’t figure out why or what it is. The night is quiet, the patrols have reported nothing untoward, and the air is just right in temperature for once. It should be a comfortable slumber. I screw my eyes shut tight, knowing that soon the sun will rise, Colton will get up, and the rousing noises of the village will take away this sense of being alone. I will just lay here and hope to catch a few more slots of shut-eye before that happens, leaving me shattered all day.
Colton’s a way early riser and always likes to patrol the grounds with the changeover of sentinels at the first sun to check and ensure nothing happened in the night. He seems to survive on bare minimal sleep, and yet I can never rise before seven nowadays. Even nine is becoming hard. My ability to be as up and on form as he is daily has dwindled lately, and I often wonder if I am getting spoiled and lazy. I want to sleep and curl up in bed way past his leaving me alone, and the first thing I want to do is eat with Sierra when I do. It’s rare for Colton to stay in bed for any length of time, but he does come back before I wake and usually seduces me into some morning affection before we stroll for food.
A light catches my attention through my closed lids, glowing insanely close and blue, and I instantly open my eyes, knowing what it is. Colton’s hand resting gently on my neck is illuminated in the telltale glow of his gift, and I squint at his face to see if there are any hints of distress. My heartbeat upped that he may have a vision or another of those horrifying dreams he mentioned at breakfast. I reach out to touch his face and hesitate as the glow intensifies to an almost blinding light, and I have to screw my eyes closed with the sudden prick of searing pain at its sheer intensity.
He dreams of things sometimes, and this is usually the signal if I am awake when he’s not. His hands warm my skin as it travels up his wrists and makes his forearms gently glow before fading out before it reaches his upper arm. His hands are enveloped in a bright azure orb that lights the whole room, yet he’s still motionless, and I wonder if this is the dream he says he keeps having.
He seems calm and motionless, expression still and youthful and not at all like he’s having a nightmare. I know how much it distresses him if it is, and I don’t want it to progress. So I gently touch his face with my fingertips across his cheek to rouse him from the deepest part of sleep.
“Colton….. wake up.” Whispering, I try to stir him out of his state of vision, but he only opens his eyes impulsively, blinding blue glow like neon tube lights, making me squint and stare blankly through me. His body responds to me, but his mind is submerged wherever he is. He is not awake and focuses on nothing out here with me. No depth, only blank and rigid and disconnected from reality.
He still hasn’t decided if this gift is a curse or something positive, as he’s yet to find the use beyond disturbing dreams. He likes that he’s learning to heal ailments and wounds with a touch, and it has great advantages, especially for the children who come to the med bay with scrapes and bumps. He healed a broken wrist in a three-year-old a few days ago, so he’s getting stronger in his ability to do it. Yet he hates the dreams, visions, and their vagueness and sporadic nature.
It would be freaky and unnerving if I weren’t lying beside him. He’s motionless as I lay, surrounded by eerie light which casts shadows on the furniture around us, lighting up only parts of the room, and the rest falls into odd greyness. It feels like a surreal fairy room and a little ethereal, reminding me of my memories of Sierra when she came to me as a child.
Colton gives me a heart attack by gasping out loudly as though suddenly taking a breath, grasping my face with an impulsive jump reaction, and cringing with a small yelp. My stomach lurches into my chest, and my heart misses a beat as I hit a cold sweat with the sudden fright he gave me. So not ready for any physical response. His eyes widen as the glow intensifies, and then he blinks, seemingly coming to, and brown eyes are restored almost instantly as he registers that I am wide-eyed and staring at him like a scared little rabbit.
He blinks again, subtly shakes his head as though to clear a dream fog away, seems to wake up fully, rubs his face, and takes a second to realize I am still staring at him in the now darkness again as his nocturnal vision kicks in. A frown comes over him and a second pause while he inhales.
“We need to get up!” he commands, darting upwards and giving me no clue why or a second to pull my swirling emotions back to calm. His whole mood sends me into anxiety overload, as he shoots immediately into panicked concern and out of bed in a flash, grabbing the nearest clothes he has and throwing them on, turning to me hurriedly. His rushed ambiance and the deathly fear seeping my way all pull my senses to high alert, and my heart starts racing.
“Baby, up, move … Now! It’s Tawna!” Colton doesn’t wait for me, he turns as soon as he’s dressed and takes off at hyper speed, and I don’t hesitate to do the same, grabbing a robe to cover my sheer nightdress and throwing it on as I follow him at speed. Nerves strung out, head dazed with confusion, but I know him well enough not to argue. He saw something, and he’s acting on it, and I should follow because he told me to.
He’s already down and outside and among the outer ground patrol, issuing orders to wake the reserve patrols immediately. His tone is harsh, his voice low and husky from the residue of sleep and something else - an underlying edge that sounds like he’s almost in freak-out mode. A sense of urgency is in the air as he rallies everyone of our strongest, and I catch his arm as he paces past me to direct more wolves coming in from the west tree line at his command.
“What’s going on?” Colton’s scaring me with the intensity of his panic, and he screws his eyes shut for a moment, turning silent, and then blinks them open at me. I see the sheer devastation in the depths, making me catch my breath as cold sweeps through my body. I shiver that something bad is happening as my eyes mist over of their own accord, and I’m instantly sick with gurgling worry.
“Carmen’s on her way down… her mom isn’t where she should be. I dreamt……. I saw her. She ran. Out there…” Colton turns and points into the densest part of the forest, where most of our vamp attacks come from, the path to imminent danger for a loan wolf in the dark. His face falls somber, paling out as the last of his color seems to drain away, and I gasp as what he says sinks in.
“Oh my god, it’s still dark. She doesn’t know about the boundary or how they lurk out there waiting for us. Colton, what is she doing?” My tone reaches a high pitch of hysteria as my stomach clenches in fear. I gaze out into the darkness and scrunch my eyes closed tight to exert my Luna link. Instinct takes over to shield one of my pack in any way possible.
Tawna, if you can hear me, come back, come home to your pack. It’s not safe out there.
I home in on Tawna’s image, hoping it reaches her mind link, but it’s not something I often do as Colton is much better at pack linking. Colton stares at me for a second because he hears me. As my mate, he can sometimes tap into my mind links involuntarily when we’re this close in contact.
Tawna, I command you to turn around and return to the homestead and safety. Right now.
Colton alpha tones her, cutting into my head and taking over himself, sending out the link, and I cross my fingers in hopes that she hears this. No wolf can deny or resist the alpha tone. It’s the whole point. To command unruly or defiant in your pack against their will so you can regain order and control. She can’t disobey him if she hears him.
“Do you think it will work? What if she closed her link off, so nothing gets in?” my questions are quieted by the shrill voice that comes at us from the open homestead door. A familiar haughty tone, only it’s pitched in terror and higher than normal, and I cringe at its appearance.
“Where is she?….. I couldn’t find her…. She’s not in her room or the house. Colton, why did you tell me to come down here?... Do you know where she is?” Carmen is already in a state of hysteria, tears streaming down her face, not seeming to care who sees them, and we are blinded by the sudden illumination of the sweeping front drive, and tree line as guards switch on our floodlighting. The patrols are streaming in from the village, the homestead, and every nook and cranny around as they gather together as a thrown-together chaotic search party.
I move to Carmen at the door in a flash, instinctively going to her, and pull her into my arms, wiping her face and shooshing her as I cradle her in a hug. She doesn’t fight me. Her body is trembling, her attention fully on the void of her mother’s presence as she lets me hold her up without any resistance. Her body is cold, her posture is weak, and her eyes are fixed on Colton as though begging him for answers she knows he doesn’t have.
“We’re going to find her…. Try and be calm. Let us get out there and look. She can’t have gotten far.” I soothe her with a gentle tone holding her as best I can even though she doesn’t hug me back. Carmen sags in my hold and seems to crumble completely, turning to a whimper as the tears fall freely.