“I knew…. deep down. I knew she would try this.”
Assembled are all of our strongest males and a few femmes, the sub pack too, as they come in from the forest where they had been walking the perimeter before dawn.
“We didn’t see her leave. Are you sure, Cole?” Meadow interrupts as she strolls into the group's center and stands by Colton’s side. She goes straight to command mode, and all emotion is pushed aside when she has a task. Colton nods and taps his head as if to tell her he had a vision, and Meadow’s face pales much the same way he did. I can tell he’s linking her with details, and her expression says it all.
“Okay, I’ll take three of our sub packs and spread on the left and backside of the stead. You take the rest and spread right and front. Even if you know which direction she took, she might have veered….. or….” She doesn’t add ‘has been chased’ to the end, glancing at Carmen warily and looking away fast as she waves her hand at the nearest wolves. They jump to attention and silently rally to whatever command her hand gesture gave.
Colton pats Meadow on the back as if in agreement and then turns and links the several packs he’s choosing for his own search party via the open pack link so we all hear him. This is urgent, and he’s wasting no time and no number of bodies. He’s rallying all who are capable, and I know it’s because he fears time is of the essence. They split almost instantly as half the crowd moves with Meds and the rest with Colton, and they all fan out and head into the woods at hyper speed.
“Come on. Let’s stick with Colton, and we’ll help. More eyes.” I brush Carmen’s hair back and release her from my hold, taking her hand and pulling her with me out into the clearing. She lets me guide her like a vulnerable child needing a leader, and for a moment, I wonder if this is the same girl from earlier, the same Carmen who doesn’t show weakness. I shove it out of my head, focusing on being her rock and speeding to catch up with Colton.
As I have no shoes on, I have to turn my feet to wolf to save myself from injury and ignore that I’m out in a silk dress and a short towel robe while everyone else is fully dressed. It doesn’t matter, I guess. Given any hint of danger, I’ll shred these with a turn, so it’s probably a blessing I didn’t get dressed. We lose too many clothes that way.
We catch up with Colton just inside the permitter of the frequency border, and he halts, sensing us behind him, and turns to me. His eyes are amber glowing, his claws already engaged in case we hit trouble. He looks wild, poised to fight, yet I still can’t shake seeing that deep fear in the depths of his beautiful eyes under furrowed brows with stress lines etched on his face. He thinks we won’t get to her in time, and I can feel it in his emotions.
“Stay right with me. No more than four feet away, okay? No matter what. We’re fanning out six feet apart and walking a wave around the whole stead… We’ll find her. We have to… Sun isn’t up for an hour yet. It’s not safe here.” Colton beckons us with hushed tones and turns to lead the way as we join the search. His head is fully engaged in the task and taking control like the Alpha I love. I seem to be the only one who recognizes he’s not as confident and assured as he looks that his aura is bleeding. He’s genuinely afraid of what we might find out here.
Even at speed, the pack moving as one swift line, checking every fallen log, cave, nook, and cranny, and heading further into the deep dark forest, we still see no sign of her, and I start to wonder if she’s out there. Glancing from wolves in the trees around us to the back of Colton’s strong body as we push on beyond our safety net of the frequency and shudder as another wave of revulsion overtakes me.
This is the third time since walking beyond the line that a deep well of nausea and cringe consumes me wholly, and this time I gasp inwardly as I am sucker-punched low down at a strange smell that makes me giddy with memories. The almost stinging, astringent whiff of something awful yet out of my grasp of memory as a familiar thing.
My eyes water with the intensity of its odor, and I have to pull myself stiff to stop my body from crumbling as I stagger over a fallen log. It’s like the smell alone has hit some deep unwanted thought and made my body react like I’m in trauma. I’m weak instantly. My limbs loosen as dizziness moves in, and I become aware that I have fully let go of Carmen.
Colton? …. I gasp and mind link via our mate bond only, the fear rippling over my spine as I figure out what the strong metallic and awful smell is engorging my senses and leaving me hyper-aware as one sickly vision clouds my sight. A dark, terrifying night when I was clinging to life by a thread and all the people I had known were ripped to shreds around me. I vomit with the return of that scene in my mind’s eye, my body shuddering in disgust and pain as my broken heart rips at old scars and tears well up in my eyes.
Wolf blood smells different from most other things in nature, and a dead wolf is the most unique. It’s the smell of death, repulsion, and awful things, from the night of the courtyard when vampires almost killed me. It’s like the second our life essence drains, it leaves the red fluid rancid and potent so no animals will come and try to feast on remains.
I smell it. Stay here. Keep Carmen back.
Colton doesn’t turn to look at me but acts like nothing is wrong and wades further forward, increasing his speed, so he flips out of sight in a blink. I pause, grabbing her arm and finding her palm with my own to bring us back together to lasso her to me. I aggressively yank her back to my side to shield her from what she’s about to find.
“Colton told us to stay.” I fix my gaze on her, tone commanding so she knows not to argue, aware of the movement around us and my body bristling with tension as I search for hints of vamps in the forest. My senses are tuned in, but I feel nothing of close presence, which is weird for them. Given what smell lingers around us, I can’t understand why there’s no lingering scent of our enemy with it.
We’re far from the stead, out in the densest area before it starts going uphill toward the mountain, yet not a single vampire has stuck around. They obviously did this to her recently, so why are they not still here?
“No!…. He would only tell us to …. What’s that smell?” Carmen breaks into my thoughts with her return of bitchy tone. She’s emotionally all over the place and seems to be back in abrasive, don’t touch me mode. Her fear and angst intermingled, hysteria curbing the horizon, and it’s obvious she’s never smelled a dead wolf before. It’s not common, given our ability to stay alive, and few who never went to battle have smelled it. Once you do, though, you never forget.
Carmen starts tugging at my hand impatiently to get free, sensing something off with his sudden departure, as Colton disappears from view completely into the thicket with surrounding sentinels. Several wolves along our line have also halted to guard us, staying close enough to fill the gaps that Colton left by taking a pack with him.
Colton leaving us safe. He always thinks of protecting his mate even if he knows I can defend myself.
“He knows something. He’s found something, hasn’t he? …” Carmen spins on me, her eyes red-rimmed with tears, her appearance haggard, yet her tone is fierce and daunting, and her eyes are glowing bright orange. Without warning, she yanks her hand out of mine and takes off in the blink of an eye in the direction Colton went before I can react. Instinctively I lift my hands and try and grasp her with my power to stop her from leaving me, but she dodges between trees, and instead, I manage to yank the tree backward with a little too much force, so it’s almost uprooted.
“Shit!” I curse into the eerie quiet and throw my hair back as the decision overtakes me. I take off after her
Colton, Carmen got free. She’s heading to you.
I link him in warning and curse under my breath as I speed to catch up, panic overtaking me not only for her but for what I might see. I have never shaken the memory of that night from my memory bank, and despite being on the battlefield and killing vamps these past months, I’m not exactly okay with death and bloodshed.
I follow my mate's scent and run smack bang into the back of Carmen’s halted form only twenty yards into the bush and have to sidestep her at the last second to avoid hitting her full pelt to see why she’s stopped. The sight brings me to a frozen halt, and my brain blanks out as my eyes widen in silent horror.
Colton is kneeling by what looks like the ripped-up remains of an animal, the ground drenched in dark red, thick fluid, and pieces of unidentifiable gristle, meat, and bones are shredded across a ten-foot area like someone blew up a cow. The smell is at an all-time high here, and the scraps of fabric and hair among the debris caught up on bushes and leaves send my stomach into an instant upchuck motion. I have to swallow down hard to curb the urge to vomit again as the realization hits me hard in the chest, and I struggle to breathe. Colton turns, catching sight of us, and jumps to his feet before Carmen reacts. It all happens so fast, only seconds of time, but to me, it feels like endless minutes.
It takes Carmen a second to realize the torn-up animal is wearing shreds of her mother’s dress, and she erupts in an almighty scream that shakes the trees and drops every wolf around us to their knees. Even as blinding pain assaults my every sense and nerve, I crumble under the sheer power of a high-pitched, blazing, searing agony. Shooting through my head and limbs. Covering our ears as Carmen assaults us with her powerful ability and sheer heartbreak makes it more potent than I knew she was capable of. I cover my head, shuddering in terror that my brain may self-implode and sag with relief when Colton’s sharp alpha tone hushes her assault.
“Carmen, stop screaming!” he commands harshly, and the instant relief leaves my ears ringing, my brain stuttering, and my body shivering as though I have been electrocuted with high voltage in the temples. Carmen moves fast, heading for the devastation, yelling out ‘Mom’ as she runs at the mess around the ground before him. Her hysteria is breaking loose, and she’s no longer that mask-wearing girl but blubbing chaos of despair.
Colton counteracts her fast. Dashing in front of her and catching her, hauling her backward with a few strides to keep her away from the worst of what I can see. He pulls her to him fluidly, cradling her in his arms to hold her tight, and pushes her face into his chest so she can’t see the devastation of what’s left of her mother, what those creatures did to her.
“Mom… MOM! … MOM!!!” Carmen breaks completely, wailing, sobbing, screeching with a broken voice that turns to howls as both her human and wolf battle for dominance in their anguish. Fighting him, wriggling wildly to break free and go to her, even though there’s nothing to hold anymore. It’s the most distressing thing I have ever witnessed as I watch her fall apart in my mate’s arms. My eyes blur with tears, and my throat constricts like I’m being strangled.
He struggles to keep her, gripping her in a way that should make me jealous because of how intimately he’s trying to control her, but it doesn’t. My overwhelming sadness and despair rationalize why he has to and why it’s the only thing he can do now. My Luna's heart is kicking in to bleed for the loss of one of our own and the deep sympathy for the heartbreak of another.
Despite his strength, he’s struggling to keep her tied to him and has to force her down to her knees with him so he can gain better control of holding her in a hug. He locks eyes on me, his own shining with unshed tears that rip my heart to shreds, and I cough as I choke with sudden sobs that escape of their own accord. Wracked with heartbreak of my own.
I know he feels like, somehow, he did this. It’s his fault that he failed as Alpha to protect Tawna, but I can only shake my head at him as my warm tears roll chaotically over my cold cheeks and the air around us falls deathly still. I only feel an ounce of the pain I know Carmen is spewing out in the air around me, and it’s almost enough to suffocate me. It’s unbearable, and I can only stand here and stare at them, frozen still where I am and unable to move because I don’t know what else to do.
Carmen weakly claws at Colton’s chest and arms to let her free, without any real fight anymore and crumbles in his arms as her body gives up. Finally, on her knees, Colton sinks over her, from restraint to cuddling, as her body slumps into a disheveled mound and seems to slide through his hold like water as her limbs dissolve. Refusing to relent and let her go and leave her in a heap on the forest floor, where she comes to be quieter and broken. He moves over her protectively, holding her shoulders and upper body as her face lands on his lap, and she curls into a tiny ball like a small child would after a traumatic nightmare.
“Why?.... Why would she…….? She left me….” Her tiny broken whimpers barely graze the air, but I hear them, and they cut me like a knife to the heart and stomach. I cover my face to wipe away the onslaught of wet waves overtaking my skin and blink at the pitiful sight of her, avoiding looking beyond the carnage and pushing the scent out of my nostrils. Wolves around us move in and lower their heads as many begin to shed tears for their fallen kin, and the air is filled with a sadness that destroys what’s left of my sanity. A low howl begins nearby and extends to join a mournful chorus that echoes in the air around us, spreading far beyond into the forest and back towards the stead as the wolves let out their sorrow at being too late. The sound makes me crumble to my knees and cry painfully, hugging my body with my arms.
“Carmen, I’m sorry…. I’m so sorry.” Colton tries to hush her, his voice breaking as his tears fall freely and drop over her lowered head like gentle raindrops. He’s stroking her hair and squeezing her tight as I stare in numb disbelief at what we failed to stop from happening, carrying the heavy weight of guilt in my heart that my mate is already bearing.
I don’t know how to fix this.