I know he’s said it twice now, but he can’t be right about the hybrid thing. I mean, my mother had two planned pups, and she never mentioned issues in pregnancy or carrying us, so neither of my parents could have been hybrids, which means I’m not. And then there’s the matter of Sierra ... she is a wolf.
“She can’t be a hybrid. That makes no sense at all. Juan Santo is a pureblood who wouldn’t tolerate that kind of union. His son’s a pureblood; it’s all he ever goes on about.” Rolling my eyes without meaning to, a little anger spiking through as memory replays the whole superior, lording over the mountain bullshit. Juan’s constant lord and king kick and preaching to the packs for decades about his family’s traced pure line of genetics. The Santos pride themselves on being from the strongest lineage of wolves. He would never willingly take a mate who was anything less. I mean, look at his reaction to me and Colton's imprinting. That says it all!
The doc looks behind him, checking his assistant is engrossed
in dealing with the machines before stepping inside my room, so the door slides shut behind him, lowering his tone.
“My dear, I fear I have said too much and inadvertently made your hope of release a less plausible outcome. You must forget what I said, especially about Luna Santo. It’s in your best interest that we never had this conversation, and you do not repeat to anyone that we did.” There’s serious concern etched into his face that deepens the lines around his eyes, and he locks a direct gaze right on my eyes, a hint of warning in his tone. He’s closing down our line of communication because he thinks what he’s telling me puts me in danger. An indication that I was right about his character and him being the weak link in this facility. He’s a decent man who cares, and I need to show him I’m already screwed so he doesn’t lock me out.
“I imprinted on Colton, and Juan forbade it. We’re fated, but he forced him to mark another for the pack's sake. I’m not getting set free. I’m probably going to end up like her, or worse. I’m a reject of the pack, a diluted bloodline that brings shame to his people, and the only reason he’s coming here is to be done with me once and for all. Nothing you say makes a difference to what he’s going to do to me. I’m not getting out.” It’s a harsh, hurried whisper, and I fall silent as I catch a glimpse over his shoulder of his assistant coming out of Sierra’s room. Nodding her way to alert him, he seems completely dazed. Stiff and still and staring at me intensely.
“I’m done. I’ll go up to the lab and run the new bloods they sent us from the south, Doctor.” She calls to him from the hallway across the bay, and without looking back at her, he waves a hand dismissively, eyes locked on me most alarmingly. She takes that as an answer, nods, and walks off towards the elevator briskly to head back upstairs. The air in this room is suddenly heavy with tension.
“Imprinted? By the Fates? As in that rare form of bonding two souls, so they become insanely lust and love-driven to be forever together? I didn’t think any Alpha had the authority to undermine that. It means you’re linked to ... Sierra’s bloodline?” His skin tone seems to pale noticeably, and his eyes darken weirdly. His mind is racing over a million thoughts, and his forehead wrinkles deepen as his frown does—an air of mild nervousness kicking up around him.
“Yeah, well, Juan doesn’t give a rat’s ass about anything except his own authority, and Colton, he’s so stuck in his shadow that he chose to let me go instead of honoring the bond. So I left, didn’t look back and something brought me here instead. This wasn’t a chance find ... this facility. I dreamed of her almost every night, and something pulled me here. I’d headed south, but something made me change and come east from my path. Sierra’s voice calling or some stupid memory of a dream that wouldn’t leave me alone.” I offload on him now that his companion is in the elevator, and it feels good to say it to someone rather than be caught up in my own head—a gush of chatter that I’ve been turning over for days.
“Stop. Don’t.” The doc waves his hand at me, snapping me back to attention, and a wild-eyed, terrified look on his face as though I just told him I have a bomb under my ass. He turns abruptly, panicked, and slams the card against the wall panel to slide open the door, lacking graceful coordination. He steps out of the doorway, shaking his head and hands, and I follow, unsure why he’s recoiling. His whole body is trembling as he emits a crazy amount of fear. I can taste it.
“What? Why? Do you think I’m lying?” The sudden rise of emotion in him has me on edge, too, and I panic that I’m scaring away my only ray of hope of escaping. He appears to be running away, but as he turns to close the door, the tear I catch in his eye silences me, and he pauses, taking a deep breath and lowering his hands. The open door between us keeping us a couple of feet apart, but his sadness overwhelms me.
“Eight years of silence. Eight years watching her sleep, eight years hoping that one day the things she said … I’d accepted that my friend had lost her mind completely. Eight years ... and I convinced myself that her visions and stories were that of a madwoman, broken by a battle that convinced her that her mate was an evil player in some bigger plan, and her confinement here was a betrayal to silence her. Eight years justifying that she was better off asleep than to be tortured by an illness of the mind.” I don’t know if he’s saying this to himself or me. His eyes are not on me, just glazed and distant as a single tear rolls down his cheek, and I’m so very confused.
“I don’t understand. Upstairs, you said she was fine. She’s been here longer than eight years. Colton said nine.” Or was that including the war when he didn’t see her in that timeframe because he never saw her when she came home? I don’t know. Oh, God, please don’t tell me she truly is broken, and this is all for nothing.
The thought crosses my mind. Things not adding up to what he said, and going around in circles, unable to piece it together logically. Maybe Sierra was sick, but then what the hell is he saying? He smiles sadly, his pale gray eyes finally landing on mine, and gives me a watery half-smile.
“If she was crazy, how could she tell me that one day a solitary she-wolf from the west would come to save us all from something coming? A future leader of her people, joined to her blood by the Fates. Maybe it’s a coincidence, and maybe it’s not. Maybe it’s wishful thinking and guilt because I’ve let her lie there for eight long years. Don’t you see?” He’s babbling, but I pick out the points I think he’s trying to connect.
“I came east from where I was, and I’m linked to her son,” I repeat robotically, still looking at him with a quizzical expression and trying to figure out what his vague statements mean. He’s lost in his head.
“Tell me. What does the name Marina mean to you?” He narrows his eyes on me, leaning in as though telling me a secret of the utmost importance, and her name falls off his tongue like a lead rod that stabs me in the heart.
I gasp at its utterance on this man’s lips, my blood running cold as he says it, and I openly stifle a sob at the unexpected pain of hearing it. It was a name that died when she did, and no one has uttered it in a decade.
“She was … my mother …” I whisper painfully, that same rise of heartache anytime I think of her and have to stop my tears from breaking free.
He clasps a hand to his mouth as though I’ve uttered something sinful. His eyes widen in alarm, and he begins to breathe heavily. Backing away from me as something seems to click into place.
“I can’t hear this because if this is what she said … I’ve let my friend suffer in sleep all these years, alone; I failed her. I let him convince me she was mad, don’t you see? I broke my oath. I broke my promise as her friend, and I’m a terrible person. I need to go. I don’t want to know about any of this!” He pulls away, shaking visibly, crumbling, and avoids looking at me as panic grips him mercilessly. He’s visibly distressed. His words falter as he babbles them out and he’s once again running from me mentally.
“Wait ... don’t go ... what about my mother? What do you know? How do you know her name? What did she say about her?!” I’m yelling after him, grasping for something I don’t even know I’m chasing, as panic rises with being left with nothing but her name. My door slides quickly shut as he departs and traps me inside this chamber because I was too slow to lurch forward. He isn’t looking back but fleeing across the concrete floor until he gets mid-way between mine and hers on the way to the elevator.
“I’m sorry. I truly am.” He cries it at me as I slam my hands on the glass, trying to get the door to open, pressing hard against it so I can see him as he runs off to my left.
“I need to know what she said about my mother!!” I scream it like a wild banshee, my emotions overwhelming me as so many racing thoughts rush through my head, and I’m consumed with suspicion, pain, and heartbreak, all weighing down like a house falling on top of me. My breathing is erratic, and I pound the glass aggressively in sheer need to follow him. It shudders and quakes but doesn’t budge an inch.
I can’t calm down. The craziness of that interaction has me all wired and panting as emotion wracks me, and my thoughts spiral crazily with so many possibilities for such little information. The mention of my mother, his reaction made me react in ways I never have before. I start pacing, pulling at my hair as I try to self-calm and focus.
I upset him, so he ran off, but maybe he’ll come back; perhaps he needs time to process and calm as I do. Maybe it was a shock that something she told him now appears to be coming true. He said visions, but wolves, they don’t have those, and maybe that’s what triggered him. A fear that she could, and did, and now I’m here, and I came east, and I’m linked.
Oh, God, it’s all so messy in my head, so I can’t even imagine what’s going on in his if this is something she told him over eight years ago. I mean, to us, the Fates and coincidence are common, and we trust in the paths they lay for us with so little questioning of it, but humans have a more challenging time accepting or believing. So many nowadays don’t even believe in God, let alone some supernatural higher power that always has a plan. He’ll calm down, rationalize, and come back to explain why he knew my mother’s name. I mean, that’s what he’ll do, right? That’s what I’m praying for, anyway.
Something strikes a chord in everything I said, and now I need to know more. I have to learn more. I need to find out what Sierra told him all those years ago that got her sent here and pushed into a coma. Juan keeps her quiet by convincing people she’s crazy, so I want to know what that is. Especially if my mother’s name is in there somewhere, and she knew I would come, be linked to her son. How could she know that? Wolves can’t see the future. Only witches and seers and … Oh, God!
This hybrid crap and Colton being a long-awaited child. None of that could be true because Juan would never value a mixed breed child the way he does his son. Especially not a witch. They are the sorcerers and demons of the supernatural world with a kind of voodoo you don’t fuck with. Unless he doesn’t know. But that can’t be if he knew about this place and the research and left her here. She wanted to know how she could be both witch and wolf and find others like her for whatever reason. Maybe she wanted to know how to conceive a child without it dying. Juan had to have known she wasn’t pure, which made even less sense given how he acted.
Witches and seers are more like humans but with insanely powerful gifts. Sierra surely couldn’t be a half-witch. That’s crazy. She couldn’t hide something like that from the pack all those years, and why doesn’t Colton have any of those gifts? You would know if he could conjure magic and catch visions. But then she’s here. A witch has power, so why didn’t she save herself?
Maybe he didn’t know when he mated to her, and perhaps when he found out, that’s why he banished her here, so the pack would never know and revolt against an Alpha mated to an impure. I’ve never heard of anything like this, and it explains his obsession with making sure Colton has the right Luna. Maybe he’s afraid Colton isn’t pure enough, and it will show in his offspring if he mates badly. Colton can’t have any knowledge of it; I would have seen it in our joined memories.
None of this makes sense. Luna Sierra was in the pack for decades before she had Colton, so surely that can’t be the reason Juan brought her here. He would have known. You can’t hide anything from your mate. Her memories in transference when he marked her would have made sure he knew. Which means he hid what she was. But after decades of living that lie, why would he then suddenly banish her to the back of beyond. And what the hell has my mother got to do with any of this?
My head spins with all of this, a pulse hitting my brain's center with overload and aching so badly I feel like my skull might explode. I end up pacing back to the bed and falling face down on top of it with an ‘arghh’ noise that reverberates through my entire body it’s so loud. All the doc has done is give me more questions than answers, and I roll on my side to see her across the gap. The lights have shut down out there, so she’s illuminated in the light from her cell.
“What are you not telling me, Sierra? Why am I here? What are you, and what the hell am I?” I call to her as though somehow it will give me an answer, but she remains still and silent in her cocooned state, and I exhale heavily. My body is trembling with adrenaline as I begin to calm down, but tears fill my eyes. It’s not sadness, really, but confusion, frustration, and a gnawing pit of unease that there are things I know nothing of, which have everything to do with why I was guided here in the first place.
I’ve lost my appetite, no longer interested in the food he left while my head is going crazy with all of this, and I know one thing for sure—I just lost my ally. I chased him away, and I only have two days before Juan shows up to deal with me.
I have zero chance of romancing Deacon in that time, even if I wanted to try. Not that I could. He physically makes my skin crawl, and I don’t think I have it in me to be nice to the asshole that darted me in the back like a white liver-bellied coward.
I cross my arms over my head and face to smother out the light and noise and sigh at the situation I find myself in. Willing my brain to stop spinning around, turning inside out, and to give me a few seconds of peace to get my bearings. For the love of the Fates!! It feels like it’s been the longest day in history, and, according to the doc, it’s not even lunchtime yet.
What I wouldn’t give to be anywhere but here right now.
Maybe reverse the clock, go back to my Awakening ceremony, and run before I turn to save myself from all the bullshit that has happened since. It was the worst turning point of my life, and I can blame all of it on the bloodline of Santo. I curse that name forevermore. I should have left a long time ago and never waited to turn.
No Colton, no imprinting, no running to the mountains, and no attacks by vampires playing on my mind. Just sheer ignorance of a girl running free and turning alone, knowing none of these people or caring. I should have found the courage to go long before I did and saved myself the heartache.
“Alora?”
I nearly jump out of my skin at the sudden closeness of the doc’s voice and almost topple entirely off the bed as I realize he’s right beside me. My lack of wolf sense let him creep right up to me with zero warning. My heart misses a beat and almost kills me in the process.
“You scared the shit out of me!” I snap impulsively, taking in the bloodshot eyes, the pale pallor, and the strong hint of alcohol on his breath that I’m sure he knocked back hastily to level himself out. He looks a little chaotic and shell-shocked, to say the least, and there’s no sign of his female companion.
“Quite.” He replies tartly, and I can tell by his manner that he isn’t okay. Or it’s his weird British response to what I shouted at him.
I pull myself up to sit and eye him warily as he stands stock still in the center of my room, staring at me as though I have two heads. He twists his hands together, wringing his fingers, and I give him a moment to pull himself together.
“There are no cameras down here. They like to pretend she isn’t here, you see ... the wolves, upstairs. They don’t venture down very often, so they don’t have to acknowledge their shameless purpose of guarding this place. Lord knows we didn’t need chaperones when Luna Sierra was in charge. Just me and my staff to take care of her, mostly from upstairs. They weren’t here before she was put to sleep, so they think she’s in a coma and life support of her own accord, and her rich husband benefactor is paying to keep her comfortable.” He walks around in a circle, and I watch him quietly, feeling the anxious waves and deep emotions coming from him intensely. I’m wary about sending him running once more, but he came back, and I have one question I need him to answer before we go any further.
“Why did you ask me about my mother ... Marina?” I say it solemnly, heart hitching at the use of her name, breathing in slowly and deeply to stop the spiraling emotions that run through me, and I note that my hands are trembling. I’m nervous, reacting in a subtle wave of anxious anticipation like I’m perched on the edge of a cliff, and one tiny breeze will knock me off and change everything I have ever known about my life. I don’t know why, but I can feel it weighing down on this moment like I should stop, turn, and run far away.
He stops his frantic pacing and turns to me completely. Eyes wide, face serious, and he implores me with a widespread of palms as though apologizing as the words come out clearly.
“She’s the reason Sierra is here. Juan executed every one of your bloodlines so they would never return to your mountain, and she tried to stop him.”