âMeaning?â I turn to him fully and lock onto him, seeing him swallow hard, and his mistrust of my
current behavior is written all over him. In this moment heâs afraid of me and heâs nervously spewing
words to try and diffuse it, or to keep me focused on anything other than turning on him. I can
smell the terror coming in waves from him, even without my wolf sense. It's not intentional, but
these feeling are bigger than me, and I have no will to reel them in right now. Fractured and
seeping, and I donât know how to stop it pouring out and pooling around me like a dense smog.
"She got to you before Juan did. Ran and left the pack on their return to your lands. She bound her
blood to you, so you became linked to her, and completely protected from being slain too, thus
meaning he could never kill you. And if he tried to isolate and imprison you, then his pack would
have asked why... what did a child do? All these years, this story haunted me as nothing more than
the imagining of a fractured mind, torn by horror and atrocity she witnessed, and yet here you
stand... the child of Marina. Just like she said you would. Alora.... I am so sorry, please... you must
understand, that had I known it was truth, I would never ......" His real honest despair comes
through in torn rawness, but it's not my concern right now. I canât feel anything for his sorrow or his
heartache, while there's only chaos and a need to avenge them all.
"Why can't I remember that? If she bound to me then why don't I see her in my memory?â I snap,
interrupting his apologies, too caught up in my own pain and misery and needing to hurt
something, to care about him and his regrets. It doesnât change the now or how I got here.
âShe bound your memory, your gifts, and that of her son, to protect you all, for she feared Juan
would see even challenge to his position in his own child, should he have inherited her gifts too.
Like I said, she has certain abilities. She said the time would come when she would give back to you
that which she took... I assume she means those. Not just yours, but Coltonâs too.â He falters, his
voice trembling, wringing his hands in nervousness, and I jump up and stalk pas, him to push my
hands against the glass. My head torn with the addition of even more to this story.
Colton has other gifts too. Bound? And me.... is she the reason I can't seem to grasp my own gifts
and gain any control, because I'm always fighting some kind of spell that keeps them dormant?
How is that helpful? Especially now, when sheâs like a corpse, sleeping through the years and can't
do anything to physically help.
My body is aching to turn and trying to revert to wolf, but this damn building is strong and keeping
it in check, no matter how hard it wails and howls within me. I bang the glass, the torture of it
getting too much, and watch the shudder travelling from my palm and spreading out the full
expanse of the invisible wall. It does nothing to ease the inner war.
âBound my gifts? My memories? How could she... that's impossible. I have gifts, I'm learning but
they're there, not tied down completely. Colton... he has his gifts too and heâs more than capable of
using them. His alpha strength, and speed, his dominance. He can command with a tone. It canât be
true... no one has ever documented a witch binding a wolf's natural gifts.â It's a rebuff of what heâs
saying as I mentally try and dismiss them as lies, focused fully on her and willing her to get up and
tell me this herself. Lying there like a weak powerless fool who let her mate destroy everything in
our lives.
Get up Sierra... Get the fuck up!! You owe me this truth yourself, from your own mouth!
It's anger at her, but it's born of fear, churning up to douse the inferno of molten rage. That all of
this is too much and bigger than me. I donât want this burden of weight or this story to be mine. I
want to go back to the mountain, to the home, to disappear back into the shadows and be a girl
that no one noticed again. I was safe and ignorant, and it didn't hurt like this. It wasn't some
precipice of danger and had me teetering on the edge and looking down into the abyss, knowing
I'm never going to be safe or okay ever again. It's all too much and I'm only a child. Eighteen, barely
grown. I don't want this!!
âNo, my dear... Colton will carry the gifts of his mother too, our research has proven time and again
that hybrids have a mixture, every time... just like you. His non wolf side is in there but bound up
tight. And you, you are not capable of harnessing your full potential if she has bound you. The gifts
are maybe strong enough to peek at times, but she was a capable witch. I donât doubt her spells
serve the purpose she intended. Her spells brought her a child when her body kept failing to carry
Juan's seed. If she can overcome that... then she can bind a child in protection until sheâs ready to
release you.â He almost whispers it, such is his fear of me, of being heard telling me, of these
people, of Juan, and I glance his way to find him almost pressed into the corner and watching me in
wide eyed apprehension. He too knows that there is no coming back from this now that heâs
opened Pandora's box.
âThen how do I get her to do that if sheâs over there sleeping her life away?â I fix him with a stare,
sniffing back watery tears I hadn't noticed were pouring down my cheeks, my heart numbing out
and my mind moving into a state of shock once more. Calming me but making that sense of
hopelessness grow.
âI don't know. This facility has a guard count of nineteen, and even though none of you can use
your gifts within, I'm sure you will be no match to nineteen strong men.... Armed ones, even if you
are somewhat terrifying when mad.â It's a half nervous laugh, as he tries to lighten the tension, that
dies on his lips as I continue to stare at him and lower my hands from the glass as I try to pull my
breathing to something less erratic and self soothe, wiping my face with the back of my hands to
pull myself together.
âYou need to let me out.... I need to go find that son of a bitch and show him what my mother failed
to... You donât mess with my family!! I can't stay here. I can't be here when he comes now.â I snarl
again, a spike of returning anger, knowing my emotions are clouding my judgement, and all over
the place, but I don't care. I was just told that everything I was led to believe, my entire childhood,
was a lie and that my bloodline was never diluted and weak... my mother was a prophesized warrior
destined to lead her people. And Juan murdered her.
He killed all of them. Every single person I loved, cared for, and knew as my pack. A clan of Whyte
wolves. To silence us.
That sniveling slimy power mad freak slayed them all, and heâs going to rue the day he chose to
leave me alive. Now it all makes sense though... why I was thrown with the other orphans and
shunned as a whole. That was our punishment for him being unable to get at me in the way he
wanted. That was how he figured he could keep me down and separate from the people, so I would
never have any chance of rising and leading them against him. And if I did, he could put it down to
my being hateful, and holding a grudge for ten years as an outcast, and nothing more than an
impures taste for revenge at her own failings. So clever.
He made sure I was alone and didn't care if he smeared a whole bunch of innocents in the process.
None of the rejects deserved to be thrown out there with me, they were just a cover to enhance and
make his lies stronger. Convincing the packs that our fallen heroes were cursed blood, to further
conceal his actions against my people. No one was going to ask questions or defend us if their own
alpha was telling them that we were the failed diluted lineage of weak wolves. He's deluded, and
cruel, and so consumed with his own need to rule that we were all pawns and had no real value.
He's no alpha. He doesn't care about the people and he never did. He just wants to rule them in
whatever way he can.
It must have completely enraged him to near madness when the fates imprinted me on his son,
despite all his measures and precautions of his multi-level plan, and it's all falling into place. He
knew Colton wasn't loaded with a useless Luna... he was afraid that in a position of being absorbed
into the pack and as future Luna to my alpha mate I would still find a way to rise and dethrone
everything heâs worked for. Juan was afraid that much like my mother, I would outshine him, and
tear his own power from under his feet, with very little effort at all.
Colton was my way in, and he did what he does to that boy to stop him from ever finding his own
strength. He manipulated him emotionally, he used Coltonâs devotion, loyalty to his father, and his
own compassion and love for his people's needs to get in his head. The fact he tore his mother
away from him has always kept him to heel and lingers in the back of Coltonâ's mind always. He was
afraid I would leave our people alone like she did, leave him alone when he still needed me. He was
afraid I wouldn't be strong enough, that he wouldn't be able to keep me safe, like he wasn't able to
keep his mom safe, and he couldn't accept the fates decision
Colton was protecting me, believing the lies and the manipulation same as everyone else and
seeing no other way. He's young, unsure about his own worth and power, and he listened to
someone that's meant to guide him for the best. His faith in his father's intentions are not a flaw,
just naivety that comes from a good soul. His father has been playing him since the day he was
born, and his mother had to conceal who he really was for fear his natural gifts would make him the
target of his father's power hunger.
My heart breaks at how angry I've been at him when seeing it from this angle makes so much sense.
Colton is nothing like his father, and what he doesnât know is his father has no intention of ever
relinquishing his position to his son until death takes him.
I'm going to be the last thing Juan sees, no matter what it does to me in the process. I'll get out of
here and I will level the balance. I'll kill that son of a bitch... even if Colton tries to stop me, because
his own heart won't be able to let someone destroy his father, no matter what he did. I'm going to
rip that mountain apart and shred any single wolf who knew or had a part in the demise of my
bloodline. Even if Colton never forgives me.
âDear girl, calm down and be smart about this. Your fates wouldn't have brought you here to just
leave again and go start a one-woman war. You came for Sierra...â The doctors words die on his lips
as the beep of the elevator interrupts and he flashes a look that way, panic overtaking his
expression as he jumps up and shoos me away from the glass at a pretty impressive speed for a
human. It's so rapid he makes me jump bac from the wall in reaction.
"Get on the bed and lay down. NOW!!" He snaps it at me, losing that feeble, weak cower, he had
going on and I listen, despite my turbulent mood. His haste and urgency moving me.
I turn, take a few steps and jump on the bed t as the doors begin to make that whooshing opening
noise of the elevator and approaching footsteps, and he comes to me quickly, yanking up my arm
as I lay down and pushing the stethoscope from his neck under the edge of my medical gown
neckline.
âHearts racing my dear, you really should practice counting to ten and deep relaxing breaths, that
kind of anxiety is not good for the heart. You're in a safe place, have no fears.â He's facing me, his
voice fakely joyful, but his eyes dart to the side as someone approaches the glass and I try to focus
all my attention on acting normal.
âI've been looking for you. You're needed upstairs, right now. Leave this mutt alone.... you have an
actual job to do. Some of your fresh samples have been delivered in ice boxes... I'm sure you donât
want to leave them to go bad.â It's Deacon, my most favorite person in the whole wide world and
with the pulsing rage I have going on, I tense and make to sit up, instincts taking over and ready to
take him on more than ever. The doctor slams his hand on my chest and aggressively flattens me
down.
âJust a moment!â He grits it through his teeth, wildly eyeballing me and mouthing the word NO.
That scowling frown of a paternal tell off and he manages to keep me under control. He gets a
narrow-eyed snarl in response, but I obey and lay back down, out flat and watch as he moves out of
my line of sight and exposes Deacon on the outside of the glass.
âNow! We haven't got all day!â Deacon snaps at him, obviously not happy when the doctor
questions his authority and I glare directly at the jerk, catching his eye, and making a point of
staring right though him. He takes it, no expression, and stares right back at me, not breaking
contact at all.
"Of course. Miss Alora, please eat, and dress, as it will make you far more comfortable and ready for
my returning to continue our tests. We have so much still left to do.â The doctor throws me an odd
look and I glance his way for a second, impulsively nodding before he turns and starts to head out,
leaving me with a strong sense that was a hint.
I watch him walk out and as he gets to the door, he turns and nods at the trolley and the bag as
though reconfirming it and I frown, unsure what he intends to do but obedience seems like a good
idea.