I gasp, inhaling a deep, almost vicious breath as reality crashes back in on me, shuddering my brain around my head, and I’m startled awake, back where I began, in the infirmary and gripping onto Colton’s leg for dear life. So disoriented as my vision returns to normal. I can hardly breathe for a moment and have to drag air into my lungs while I get my bearings and shake my head to clear my blurry vision.
“What the hell?” It’s an automatic response as I try to catch my breath, and Colton’s arm around my waist loosens as he lets me go a little. I guess he was holding me up, and I flop as I’m released, using my hands on my knees to bend forward and finally pull myself together. It all starts to fade, and the noises and smells of reality bring me back to clarity.
“That was a memory; I saw it too.” Colton’s voice is gravelly, as though he’s just as shaken as me, and I untangle myself from him and stand up. My body is spiking with unwanted tingles and feelings I can’t contain as many things rush through my head. I guess we somehow mind-linked when all three of us connected, and he got the memory, too, seeing what I saw. My emotions are all over the place, as though I just experienced something traumatic, and he gets up to follow me around the bed, sensing I’m not emotionally calm.
“Are you okay?” He can sense my weirdness, and I wrap my arms around myself to shut out the cold, clawing feelings rising to strangle me. Knocked sideways mentally, just needing a moment to claw my mind back together and figure out why my heart is pounding through my chest. I feel sick and agitated. It’s more than the memory invading my brain; it’s what Sierra’s words told me.
“All I remembered before that was being asleep in that room and then waking up in a new place with other kids in the orphanage. There was nothing in between, and now I know why. He must have taken me there, and I forgot it all when I slept. They told me the Munro family was gone, but I never really understood what they meant by that. Not until later, when I was told the vampires came. Just a kid, and then they told me my family was dead, and I never stopped to question anything beyond that.” My voice cracks and my throat is aching with the effort as it drives home that now, I fully understand they were killed because of my mother’s and my gifts.
All of them! My mother, family, Munros, and the whole pack died because of us and what we are. The vampires were never the monsters in our midst. We were. The wolves and those of us who would slaughter women and children in the name of power.
We created wars to cover our sins and let hatred rage for centuries without learning from our mistakes. It makes my skin crawl to know the vampires were the innocents in all of this; they are just avenging their lost loves. They were fighting the Juans of the world for what he had done, and now, I’m on the side they are, trying to find reason in the death of everyone I cared about.
“She really is a witch. I mean, I know I saw what the doc’ said and all of this, but seeing it. It’s a whole other thing.” Colton pulls me back to him with his voice. He sounds distant, and his tone is low as he turns his head to her. That spike of emotion hits me hard in the stomach once more. Tears threatening, and the sudden rage shooting up through my stomach and chest. A pang of anger aimed his way. I remember her words and what she said, and not for the first time, anger so intense for Colton that I could hate him.
“Why didn’t you just do it when you were supposed to? We could have avoided all this! It would have been done, and we would have remembered. Our gifts restored and taken another path! Why didn’t you just mark me when you had the fucking chance? You’re an asshole! You could have stopped so much of this bullshit by doing what I needed!” It’s a sob, the dam breaking and my pain showing, set loose amid the fury as tears hit my cheeks.
I spin away from him, aware the medic in the far corner is trying to pretend she isn’t here, and I’m going to wake Doc up. I don’t want people watching us or hearing us fight. I want them to leave me alone while I go somewhere and cry this out, hate on him, and mourn the path we never took. So much hurt that could have been avoided. The Fates didn’t separate us to lead me somewhere else; they were backtracking to fix his wrong decision and circle us back around together to fix this. He just kept, and keeps on, screwing it up.
“Hey? Lorey? What the …?” Colton seems surprised by my reaction, staring at me as I walk off. As I stalk out of the room away from him, he doesn’t hesitate and follows me. Close on my heel as I push through the doors into the middle hallway, where he catches my wrist and tries to tug me back. I shrug him off, pull my hand away and keep going. My head is bubbling with the facts staring me in the face, my heart twisting with the reminder he destroyed everything between us.
“Leave me alone. You ruined it all!” I’m crying, broken and tear sodden with the out-pour, wracking pain in my chest that makes it difficult to breathe as though an elephant is sitting on my ribs, but he does not relent and sticks to my ass trying to catch my hands.
“Baby, come on. Can we at least talk about this … about that? I know I fucked up, but this isn’t ruined. Just give me the chance to do something about it.” There’s panic in his tone, an attempt at gentle and soothing, with a lot of confusion about my change of feelings. In no mood for him anymore, and I want to lie down and let all this wash away on a sea of heartbroken tears. I storm down the hallway to the room I’ll be sleeping in and push the door open, slamming my palm on the wood, swinging it open at speed, so it crashes against the wall behind and exposes the room.
Colton doesn’t give up; he’s hot on my heel, relentless in his pursuit, and almost suffocating me with his proximity. This time he catches my upper arm, grasps tight, yanking me to a stop as I proceed inside, and spins me to him, so I have no choice but to face him. I tense, my body turning stiff in defense, and my eyes glow red in readiness to battle myself free.
“Talk to me!” He snaps the order at me, but it only riles that inner fierce that hates when he tries to command me to do anything.
“Stop it. Let me go. I don’t want to talk to you. It’s pointless, and it’s done. You were an idiot. You broke me, broke us, and now my memory tells me all you had to do was mark me, and it would have changed everything! Why did you have to screw it up? Why did you have to choose her over me?” I slap at his fingers on my arm and shove at his chest, trying to have him release me, but Colton is as stubborn as I am and only tightens that grip and stands steady, turning around halfway to push the door closed behind us and conceal us in here. His face shows hints of anger in that furrowed brow, and one dimple is prominent as a scowl slowly appears. His eyes amber to match my fierce glow.
“Okay, first, marking you would have changed everything, yes, and I regret it; I fucking do, Lorey. More than you will ever know, but we would never have found her. You had to run. I see that now, to find her, and maybe any other way we wouldn’t have. My mom would still be hidden because of that choice.
Second, how can I fix the damage if you won’t give me a chance to try? I am not the one fighting this, and I’m not the one refusing to try. You were never the second choice for me. I love you, and we’re here together.
The problem was, I didn’t want anyone else and didn’t have any fucking choice.” His tone is tinged with anger, yet also not. He’s mad that I’m resisting and making this physical; pissed at me for what he thinks is me being overdramatic, but he’s trying to get through to me and communicate with that subtle hint of control and softness, but it just breaks me even more. Sagging as tears pour down my face, I keep tugging at his fingers like a spoiled child to be set free. Unable to do much more as energy drains from me. I’m exhausted, and this isn’t helping.
“How can you fix it? You marked her! You betrayed the bond, and you’re linked to another forever. I won’t be your whore, and the memory said marking—not screwing. Let. Me. Go!” I tug one last time, glaring his way through watery eyes. He finally releases me with a sharp inhale and stares at me like I have two heads as I jump back out of his reach. My entire body wracked with the pain I’ve been carrying all this time, my throat aching with finally saying it out loud and how much agony those words inflicted on my soul.
“I did what now?” On the other hand, Colton seems a bit shocked and dumbfounded, and his tone drops a level or two, his hard eyes homed in on mine. His pulsating temper subdues to a low thrum, and genuine confusion replaces the shock on his face with a deepening of his brows as he narrows his eyes on me, and that dimple disappears again as his mouth straightens out.
“I felt it, so don’t try to deny it. I know what you did.” I snap at him, consumed with grief, and turn away, unwilling to let him manipulate me with fast words and untruths. Wiping my face with the back of my hand and pull myself together, trying so hard to find my inner rage again over this damn stupid weakness at what he’s done to us.
“We’re linked, you and I. Meaning you feel things like me marking someone else. Which you couldn’t have because it didn’t happen! Is this why you are so fucking mad at me? You have this crazy notion in your head I marked Carmen?” The bitter way he says it, the tinge of anger, and the less than friendly deliverance, only fuel the tornado in me I was trying to calm, and I spin back on him, eyes glowing painfully as my inner wolf jumps out to battle for me.
“Don’t you dare! I did feel it … the pain and betrayal. About four days after I left, so don’t stand there and fucking lie to me about what you did! I’m not stupid.” I yell it at him, temper hitching, and equally riled as I stand up to him, but he doesn’t back down. Colton can be scary as hell when riled, and he seems to stand taller and bristles at my verbal attack. His eyes, much like mine, increase in a glow of an equally pissed wolf, and he reaches down to the hem of his T-shirt and yanks it up over his head in one swift, hasty motion and throws it on the bed, exposing that tanned, muscular physique. He spreads his arms out wide and looks me dead in the eye before turning slowly and giving me a full three-sixty of his naked torso.
“Show me. Because marking is a two-way thing and something I wouldn’t be able to hide! Look real hard, Lorey, because, I swear, I haven’t fucking marked anyone.” He bites it at me as he comes back to face me, and the blood drains from my body, leaving me cold inside as I take in his tanned skin, free of any mark.
It’s hard to stay on this idea about marking when there is nothing on the flawless physique except inky tattoos of his pack tribal on one shoulder and a lot of carved, toned muscle. My anger simmers. But she isn’t about to back down because I know what I felt in the woods. That kind of pain and betrayal didn’t happen for nothing, so he had to have done something.
“Fine … Okay, so maybe it wasn’t that, but what I felt was real. You obviously just screwed her then. Either way, this will never happen; the bond is marred and damaged, and you did this to us.” I cross my arms across my chest, my fight dying because I was so sure, yet I’m wrong. My heart is pounding like a war drum within, and my body is beginning to tremble with the excessive amount of pain and energy coursing through me. Colton looks like he might explode; standing menacingly close, a new rage ignited in that angular face as he tenses his jaw and grits his teeth.
“I did NOT fuck her!! What is wrong with you? All this cryptic bullshit since I came for you. The refusal to let me touch you, all this. You think I cheated on you? That’s what all of this is about? Because … you felt it?
No, Lorey, what you felt around four days after the mess hall conversation was me finding you gone. Me coming back from four days of recon with Mateo to find not only the girl I decided to fight for had gone, and that completely destroyed me, but my Beta, my best friend, kept it from me! Stopping me from being able to find you and betraying my trust in the worst way.
Meadow broke my heart with a betrayal. You broke it by leaving. I came back for you and to tell my father I would go and take you with me if he stood in my way. She knew that your leaving would break me, and it did. I wasn’t ever going to mark Carmen. YOU are my mate and have been since the second we imprinted, no matter what I said or how I seemed. I always wanted you. I’m devoted to you, crazy about you, and I won’t be happy until I’m marked to you! You’re my soul mate, and I need you. Why the hell would I fuck that up any more than I already did?”
I stand in stunned silence. Colton is breathless with the deliverance of an angry, then almost soothing to calm splurge of words. His whole demeanor softened as he reached the end, and his eyes returned to chocolate brown as he let go of the rage and tried to drive the point home that I was wrong.
He stands now, looking at me with a slightly furrowed brow over that cute-boy expression of ‘forgive me,’ and I can’t move. My stomach twisted in pain and caught in a world of confusion as his words reverberate through my mind and heart, and I see-saw a bunch of emotions all at once. The elation that, in one rant, he wiped away all doubt and confusion about why he’s been trying so hard to get us to connect romantically; the sweep of mad at myself that I left when I did and could have been with him all along. He’s right about Sierra, though. I wouldn’t have found her otherwise, and maybe the Fates always intended it this way after all.
I feel so stupid, guilty, and ashamed, and I regret it took until now to know this. I look down at the floor, unable to look him in the eye while shame washes through me and my stupid pride takes a dent.
He didn’t break the bond; he didn’t betray me, and in fact, he came home willing to fight for me, only to find I’d gone, and it was too late. I’m mad at myself for the weeks of shutting him out when, with just one link, he would have told me to come home or come for me. Weeks of heartbreak and loneliness when he was always there waiting for me, looking for me, and not about to give up on us. He meant it ... he really didn’t, and I’ve held him at arm’s length because I believed the pain and betrayal was something else.
“Why didn’t you just ask me when I came for you? This could have been over then.” Colton steps toward me. His voice is now low and level, with regret seeping in. A soft little movement closer towards me to tighten the gap and surround me with his smell and presence. I stay still, eyes dropping to my feet in apology and mental fatigue. Finally, able to let go of some of this anger and pain, and it leaves a gaping heaviness within me because I’ve been carrying it for weeks. It was all so unnecessary.
“I didn’t think I needed to. I felt something; we’re linked. I figured you knew that I knew.” I sound feeble and small, tears clogging my voice as he moves closer. Colton slides his strong, warm hands up my arms until they rest on my shoulders, and he exhales heavily as he pulls me the last few inches towards him, so we are only millimeters apart. His touch and heat soothing me with his gentleness.
“I had no idea you even thought it, or I would have told you, Lorey. I didn’t know this was in your head and assumed you would have known I didn’t mark her. I figured you were mad about how it ended and that I made you feel like leaving was the only option.
I’m sorry, baby, for everything, but I swear on my pack, on my life, on us, that I have done nothing to betray the bond. I’ve stayed true to you. I’ll project every memory you don’t have of our time apart and prove it.” His soft voice falls over me like a warming balm, and I break down into stupid little sobs and thrust myself at him to be held. I’m the one who needs forgiveness, so easy to break when I now know he did nothing to make me hate him.