Lorey, what in the hell is going on?
Colton walks to me in the open hall space and closes the gap between us, pulling me to him and focusing fully back on me. Looking for answers now, he’s done what was needed, and I catch sight of Meadow and Cesar turning human and embracing several feet behind him. My heart happy with the view of her, okay, and reunited with her mate. My soul swells to bursting, and I can finally feel at peace, feeling that my pack is all intact and safe. My gut is confirming it.
Colton pulls me to him as he stays in wolf, linking me mentally, and cradles my face in his hand, careful not to hurt me with his claws. Being so gentle breaks down my last defenses, and despite his filthiness, I curl against him and hold on tight. Embracing one another for a moment, feeling the high rate of his wolf heart and the excessive heat coming from this mountain of a body. He pulls me back to look at him, and I gaze adoringly, drinking him in, aching all over with the disbelief that we did it, and he’s here. This seems like a dream, and I bask in the happiness of his touch, never wanting this feeling to be lost to me again. Even in wolf form, I love him so much.
I know the only way to get him up to speed and stop questing is the one he’s going to hate himself for seeing, but I can’t put it all into words. I know the quickest way to get out of this hellhole and leave is to explain and go home. Already wolves are evacuating from every tunnel and clearing the space around us to leave behind the mess we made here.
Colton notices his mom, and his obvious shock startles her. She smiles and shrugs, then darts off towards Carmen’s side as though to avoid being scolded by her son, and he turns back to me, locking amber eyes on my green, and I sigh, knowing it’s the only way.
Meadow throws me a look and then gestures Carmen and Sierra to her side, pulling them with her and towards the narrow walkway and gesturing to Leyanne too. I think she knows I need Colton alone for a moment because he’s not going to take this well at all. There’s so much I know he will explode over and so much he will feel is all his fault. I’m expecting him to react in a million ways all at once.
I sigh, swallow nervously because I don’t want any of this to hurt him, locking my eyes on amber fire in black fur and smiling softly. I rub my fingers through the softest patch on his chest before sliding up with a stretch, despite his crouching, to meet that huge head and bypass the terrifying teeth in his impressive jaw. One arm slides halfway around that neck, so I struggle to meet his height, but he leans further and kneels to me. I can tell he’s too riled to turn human, and that’s why he hasn’t shifted. He needs to be calmer, to let the beast go.
I lift my fingers to his temple, find the magic spot and brace myself for what’s to come. My nerves sizzling in anticipation, and my heart starts pounding against my ribcage again. Blood runs cold, and I swallow loudly.
I close my eyes, focus on the section of time he missed, and transfer the memories as quickly as I can so it will pain me less about doing it. From the second we parted after Tawna’s death until now, and hold my breath knowing that little revelation in there, standing out among all the rest, will be the one I want the reaction for the most.
It takes only a few long seconds before he finally leans away, and I break the contact and stare at him to watch as it all registers on his face. Letting go of him to stop myself from stretching so much and lean back on my own feet to give him a moment. It seems the shock of learning kills his wolf fury in one swoop as he transforms and shrinks to an impressively tall human form. His amber eyes fade to brown, his face back to what I love most, and his eyes are rooted on my face in utter disbelief. His posture is stiff, and he doesn’t say anything. He stares at me with confusion and pain etched all over him.
I can almost decipher which memory is being churned over by the expression of shock, regret, guilt, anger, or shock again. Then mild disbelief and an open gasp before his face crumbles back to devastating regret. A million emotions in one fast change, and it’s like I experienced this whole week all over again by feeling him.
“I……. we’re…. you….” he’s too overcome to form words and clutches my hand tightly, pulling it first to his cheek then to his lips before hauling me into his arms and squeezing me half to death. It’s an instinctive reaction born of shock, guilt, and maybe a little surprise. His emotions are raw and tinge mine too, and I start to mist over with the intensity of so much all at once. It’s heavy yet dizzying, sore yet happy. He’s clawing for sanity and seems to be going through the thoughts all over again to see it all, to be sure.
“We must get the pack home and talk… all of us. This isn’t the place.” I utter softly, caressing his cheek and inhaling him to drown out the smell of what’s around us. I can sense his indecision, his lull of logical thought as he swallows this all down. Colton’s trying to process, but he’s unable to when it’s so much all at once, and all he’s doing is clinging to me like I might implode if he lets go. His breathing is heavy by my ear, and as much as I could stay this way forever after yearning for him for endless days, I don’t want to stay here.
Colton continues to hold onto me, silent and pondering, before he scoops me into his arms like a bride and starts carrying me towards the path that leads up and out into the woods. His face says it all, that blank expression, yet it doesn’t shield the war in his eyes, and his lack of verbal response means he just can’t right now.
I know my mate too well, and his guilt will take hold of everything else, even the news I want him to acknowledge. That we’re pregnant, yet I know not to be hurt by him saying nothing. I can see it in his face, feel it seeping from him. My boy’s in shock, and his instinct to take me home where it’s warm and safe overrides everything else.
I curl up against him, sliding my arms around his neck, and pull myself up to his jaw to inhale him and cuddle in. He’s stiff, solemn-faced, giving out all kinds of weird vibes as he processes the memories. Set on a goal – getting us out of here as we follow the last signs of our pack mates. He’s closing me out to save me from being emotionally ambushed, and I don’t like it at all. The ebbing away as he closes back our link and does what Colton does when he wants to protect me from his pain, his suffering. He cuts the bond as much as possible and tries to bear it alone.
“Say something,” I nudge and tense when his jaw twitches. It’s unnerving me that he isn’t reacting quite the way I expected. I expected outward verbal of some kind, not this weird, silent thing he’s doing.
“I’m sorry, baby….. I’m so fucking sorry.” He stops dropping me to my feet and hauls me bodily against him, pulling me in so hard he almost winds me and wraps me up in his arms, tucking my face under his chin and squeezing. His voice breaks as a torrent of pent-up emotion breaks, and I feel a tear pass from his cheek to mine that almost breaks me. “I could have killed you… I almost…… the doctor that’s the first port of call. To get you checked, them checked. You should never have been in this fight, not pregnant, Lorey… Do you realize how stupid that was? How close to dying you were?” He pulls back. His tone from soft and sorrowful to instant rage as his last words are delivered loudly with aggression, and I flinch in reaction.
Okay, anger I didn’t expect, and as he lets me go and picks me up again because I am so obviously not allowed to walk, he furrows his brow, blinks away the show of tears, and that determined but pissed as hell expression covers his face once more. His emotions are strong, the wave of fury and fire coursing through because he’s mad as hell for many things, but mostly because I put myself in danger for him, in so many ways. He bites on his lower lip to curb his urge to scold me and instead starts stomping through the forest, turning semi-wolf to make it less painful on his human skin to be naked.
“I had no choice… I need to lead.” I whimper softly, not wanting our reunion to be like this, and recoil when he snaps back.
“No, you fucking didn’t. That’s what Meadow is there for when I’m not. She’s my beta… the one who deals with war and battle. You’re the Luna. You’re my fucking life, Lorey…. I don’t care what is expected of a Luna. It doesn’t count when it comes to you. You always put your safety first over everything you hear me… That’s a fucking order!” The biting attitude and he alpha tones me in his last two sentences, which enrages me on all levels. He swore he would never ever alpha tone me again as long as we lived because he knows how much I hate his use of it over my free will. The angry growl he exudes, and yep, he is really pissed about all of this, despite the fact we saved his ass and broke the spell. “If anything has happened to those two babies. I’ll never forgive myself!”
His last words tear me open inside, dampening my growing rage as it sizzles into nothing like water on hot coals. I lift myself back to his face and pull his jaw with clasped hands to look at me. Tearing his eyes to mine even though he tries to fight me at first, he relents when he catches my gentle expression and the misting of my eyes at his being so mad.
“I had to bring you home, or else those two babies would not have a father… and I wasn’t about to leave you out here. I couldn’t live without you.” I try softly, attempting to soothe him with my obvious devotion, but he squints his eyes and turns away from me. His jaw clenching, showing he’s still highly emotional and not really in the soft, lovey mode of communication. My sweet talking never works when he’s in pig-headed and overprotective mode.
“Your life trumps everything. Your safety comes first. I can’t believe my mom even allowed you to do this. What the hell was she thinking?” He rages out loud, throwing a Colton tantrum into the air around us. Stamping across the foliage like a bad-mood bear, I close my mouth and cling on, hoping the walk home will help him vent a little.
“That my daughter was more capable than you give her credit for!” Sierra’s voice cuts in, almost making Colton drop me as he realizes she’s still wandering around here without an escort but walking beside him inside this retched forest. She has dodged Meadow and Carmen and found her way back to us and probably has Carmen going mad with looking.
“Don’t even, Mom. You don’t know what you missed back there when you lost her. Jesus Christ, I go mentally off the charts for a week, and you two start running around the forest, taking on vampires! What the hell, mom? The two most important people in my life, and you’re out here acting like all this is a walk in the park, and neither has any chance of being hurt.” He shouts at her too, and I cringe and curl into a tight ball in his arms. He never raises his voice to Sierra, ever, in the whole time I have loved him, and yet here he is, scolding her like she’s another unruly pack member and not the Rema. I squirm to get loose, but the death glare he snaps on my face tells me to stay still and let him carry me all the way home. He’s not to be screwed with in this mood.
“I know this may be hard to comprehend, Cole, but I’m your mother, and I was doing far more dangerous things before you were born or old enough to lead a pack. I can hold my own, and your mate… the fates wouldn’t give you someone who wasn’t able to fend for herself. She made it out, didn’t she? She’s here, unharmed, and so are your children.” Sierra pushes us out onto a well-worn path that leads back to the homestead that I guess the vampires used, and we catch sight of others in the woods heading home too. Some are trying not to eavesdrop, but I guess the alpha going at his mom and mate is something worth listening to. It doesn’t happen … ever.
We make our way into the sunny clearing of freedom and stench free air, inhaling to clear our nostrils, and Sierra darts fast to wipe her blood-soaked hands on the grass by the opening of the forest canopy where light becomes bright enough to see.
“God, their blood is disgusting. Sticky and ughh.” She mutters absentmindedly, and I tense as my mate’s body gets a degree stiffer. His mood is inching higher. I swallow the inner angst that I know he’s not even close to being done.
Colton looks more unamused if that was possible and then shakes his head, hauling me higher in his arms, so he pulls my face into his neck and almost crushes my body into a tight grip that has me clinging on for dear life. He looks down at me, and I blink with a hopeful look of innocence. His eyes are amber once more, and it’s clear I’m not winning with loving faces or sweet smiles.
“You two… vampire blood, battles, road trips, and fucking witches. Don’t bet on getting outside of the stead any time soon, or ever again… Not happening. Letting you out of your rooms for the next decade is not likely. And letting you have any say in what we do concerning future attacks… don’t bet on it. House arrest, grounded, locked up…. whatever you want to call it. I am drawing a fucking line.” He grinds out through clenched teeth in a low, hostile, hoarse tone, eyes burning in rage as he zones on mine, and I flinch and look away from the rage I see there. Maybe mind linking wasn’t the best way to explain, and I might have had an easier time omitting some details from this back story.
He’s in full-on protector mode, and I can’t say I’m mad about it, even if he has me trembling under his fury and feeling apprehensive about getting home to be alone. It’s a relief not to make those decisions or think about leaving my bedroom ever again.
I mean, I’m pregnant. I’ll happily stay in bed for the foreseeable future while groveling for his forgiveness. I can sleep as long as I like and not worry about the safety of my pack. My mate is home, well, almost. I mean, we still have to walk several miles to get there, but right now, the danger has been eradicated.
He won’t be mad at me forever. Maybe in, like, a month, he’ll finally stop growling at me. Maybe. Once he calms down, he lets it all sink in and ensures the pack is okay and that I’m unharmed and our babies are healthy...
I didn’t fall in love with just gentle Colton, but this stubborn, aggressive, crazy protector, who is physically hauling my ass home and looks like he might be about to eat me.
That right there is the guy who makes me feel the safest. I just hope he’s hungry and tired because I could use food and sleep.