I lie on my bed, my stomach growling with hunger while tying my insides in knots, but I canât seem to face eating.
I try; I go down for allocated mealtimes, but I pick at my food, and it all tastes like cardboard when I put it in my mouth.
Nothing shifts this feeling, this deep emptiness creating a cavern inside me, and itâs bottomless and cold. The longer this goes on, the worse it gets.
The only thing my body craves and wants, it canât have. I hate that he can mess me up like this when we were strangers only days ago. Itâs not fair!
I close my eyes and will myself to picture anything but him.
I push the thoughts of him aside and try to bring forward an image of my parents instead, something I do when I need to self-calm or get a happy memory into the depression of my daily life.
I try to conjure an image of my motherâs face to comfort me, but they are all becoming blurry, faded pictures in the dark recesses of my mind, so seeing them properly is no longer easy.
Time is taking them from me, and I have nothing left of them in any form after the elders destroyed all links to our past dead.
~âI need to see you.â~
The familiar voice comes out of nowhere inside my head, and I jump at the intrusion, having a minor heart attack as its beat elevates crazily.
I sit up fast and spin my head around to scan my room as if he is standing right here.
I know his voice well enough. I hear it in my dreams whenever I sleep, and my body tingles in response to the contact, goose-bumping all over instantly, my insides tingling with anticipation of seeing my mate again.
I miss him beyond words, even if itâs insane to do so.
~âWhere are you?â~ I reply desperately, unable to contain the surge of adrenaline that hearing him inside my head gives me.
I just need a tiny ounce of contact to restore some of this desolate emptiness Iâve felt since that night.
~âIâm in the pack house, and we have to be discreet. Meet me in the west forest, deep down by the old cavern, within the hour. ~
~âDonât let anyone see you leave. Iâm being watched like a hawk, but I know how to get there unseenâ¦We have to talk face-to-face.â~
I almost sob with the sheer happiness at hearing his voice and that I will get to see him for real, not just an image in my headâto share physical air and lay eyes on what my soul craves the most.
The only thing dampening my crazy instant joy is the solemn, almost monotone hint in his voice and the lack of excitement Iâm experiencing as I pick up emotions through the link.
~âCanât we talk like this first? I donât know if I can get out right away, and it feels so good hearing you inside my head again. Donât go. Talk to me now.â~
I sound as desperate as I feel, and I donât want him to close the link once more. Iâve waited endlessly to have him link me like this.
~âNo. Itâs harder like this. It only strengthens our bond when we link this way, and I have a lot to say. I told you, this needs to be face-to-face. Thereâs something we have to do correctly.â~
My heart plummets into my stomach as his alpha tone seeps through, and I know Iâm being commanded and not asked.
That doesnât sit well, and the sense of foreboding that sentence gives me tears my soul in two. Whatever he wants to say will not be about finding a way to make this work without his fatherâs blessing.
He wouldnât worry about our bond strengthening if that were true. I try to ignore the suspicions, but I canât.
~âJust meet me, please.â~
This time the tone is gone, and itâs a request with a little underlying plea.
I repress the urge to beg him to talk more now and push the tears aside, clinging to hope that maybe face-to-face it will be something good, not what I fear, and I nod into my empty room.
Heaviness consumes me as heartache gnaws at my stomach and chest.
~âIâll be there.â~
I sound deflated, sad, close to breaking with a raw huskiness in my tone that I canât conceal as I wait for him to close the link between us. Itâs like waiting for something painful to happen, and I hold my breath.
~âAlora? Iâm⦠I wish it didnât have to be this way. Iâm sorry that it was me.â~
Before I have time to respond to that strained, husky reply, he closes off, and I physically feel the link between us go dead. My mind is quieting back to solitary, and I know heâs gone.
Even with a bond, a mate can choose to close the communication channel at will, and he did as he has been doing for days.
I stare at the wall numbly, lost in the moment and how empty everything feels once more, knowing that my prison will be eternal, and I canât see any other way out.
I know Iâm getting to see him, finally, but everything about that interaction breaks me open, and I roll over into my cushions to sob it all out.
I cry in pain thatâs not too dissimilar to mourning my entire family ten years ago. I feel worse now that Iâve spoken to him briefly.
This feels as much of a loss as then, even if it seems crazy and not a comparison like something awful is coming, and when I see him, it will only cause me more devastation.
A nagging voice of logic and haste in the back of my head pulls me out of my dark depressive state and reminds me that if I want to get to the forest within the hour, I need to get up and motivate myself.
In human form, itâs a trek and a half, and I need time to get ready. Iâve been living in my nightwear for days.
In wolf form, Iâll get there in minutes but completely naked, and I havenât yet tried to turn on my own accord.
I was too preoccupied to even attempt it and wouldnât know how to start without a bit of practice.
I need to shower, change, make myself look half-human at least, and hide the dark circles and shadows from pining my days away. I donât want him to see me at my worst.
I am desperate to find relief in the meeting, even if the outcome wonât be what my heart hopes.
My body is weighed down with lethargy when I drag myself up, and it takes all my willpower to haul ass to the bathroom moments later.
Iâm torn in two, though, with a little shining light of delusional hope telling me that maybe what he needs and wants to do face-to-face is mark me as his mate.
Perhaps we can do this in secret and find a way to be togetherâor maybe not.
I still cannot seem to come to grips with how this can be.
I canât understand how imprinting on a relative stranger can completely derail everything you knew before and make you so insanely in need of them you would tie your life up in theirs just to breathe.
This results in pushing that person into the center of everything and craving them with the intensity of severe addiction.
I know more about him than anyone in my life, and I have barely spoken to him.
My mind is a chaotic tangle of his life and mine, which used to run separately yet now coincide, and memories blur into one another.
I have mental images of him at every age and random knowledge about things most people never know about their mate.
I know everything he does about himself, his life, his family, and Iâm guessing the same goes for him. You truly merge when imprinting, and now I see why itâs so rare and potent when it happens.
You lose control of everything, and the only thing that matters from then on is your mate.
We are one in every way possible.
I quickly wash, dress, dry my hair at high speed, and attempt to fix my face to hide the blotchiness of my tears.
Makeup was never my thing, but this sudden obsessive adoration for Colton makes me want to look my best for him, even if our meeting has a tone that doesnât spell happily ever after for me.
I need to have hope.
I clock-watch as I apply the bare minimum enhancements and tousle my hair out with my fingers as it forms natural light waves.
For a moment, my reflection reminds me of my mother, and I swallow a lump in my throat as the shooting pain of remembered heartbreak hits me like a sucker punch.
My knees almost buckle under the weight, bruising my heart in that unique way that only loss can.
âI miss you, Mom. I miss all of you.â
I stare at the resemblance while biting back tears and then shake her out of my head as I have become accustomed to doing over the years to bear the ache, and I turn to ready myself to get out of here unseen.
The only way I dealt with their loss was to never dwell too long on it. I never really learned any other way.
I turn my attention back to what I need to do. Iâve never snuck out of the orphanage before, nor ever needed to.
I have a route planned, and I think I know how to get by unseen, where no one will miss me for an hour or two. Itâs not like this place was ever set up as a prison, and we donât have any guards watching us.
I scribble a hurried note for Vanka, should she care, which is doubtful, telling her Iâm taking a book to a secluded part of the garden to hide and read.
I know she wonât bother checking. She doesnât care if I live or die most days, so she sure as hell wonât care if Iâm not in my room now that I no longer have classes to attend.
School ended for me on the day of my turning, as coincidence has it, and I should have been on my merry way to a new life, much like Vanka is planning before the month is out.
Sheâs been making arrangements to head off, and soon this room will be mine alone. That will be the only upside to being stuck here for eternity.
Itâs not like any new orphans will be heading in here or have done for the last decade.
Newborns have families, and unless another war wipes out a lot more of us, I doubt the orphanage will have any new rejects coming in.
I yank on my sneakers, pull my blue hoodie over my tight T-shirt and jeans, and slide out of my room into the deserted hall.
Itâs during class time, so most of the kids are in the rooms of the left-wing right now, learning all about our traditions and history with some academia thrown in.
For the most part, they raise us to live among humans, to fit in and exist in their world, so we learn all the same crap they do and how to conceal what we are.
I guess I was lucky that the war confined us here, in our school, and I havenât had to interact with non-wolves since then.
Those of us left with no family got pulled out of our human schools amid rumors of a deadly virus plaguing families on the mountain skirts, which meant no officials came knocking.
Some of the alphas, like the Santos, were evacuated too for their protection and lineage, but the general population was allowed to keep their places in the real world as though nothing happened.
I donât plan to go back there anytime soon either, now that my change has drastically altered the course of my path.
I sprint to the end of the hall and down the servant stairs to the kitchen, not that we have any, but this house used to belong to the alpha of the Romaine pack.
None of them returned from the great wars, and the place was repurposed for our use.
Their wealth is committed to the cause of repairing our society, probably because they were the smallest of the packs, living on the edge of solitude and far from the rest of the villages. It was a prime location.
The house and its lands are secluded enough to confine unwanteds in one corner, to forget us and leave us to our own devices.
I guess itâs why Colton picked the west forest. Itâs easy to access from here and close enough for me to get to without effort.
Itâll take him longer to get there from where he is, though, as his pack lives on the south side of the mountain, almost seven miles from here.
If he canât be seen leaving, he will have to go on foot, not use his truck, and the only option is to turn and wolf it this way.
We can cover ground faster as our true selves, and I wonder if I should take him some sort of clothing. Not that seeing him naked is a bad thing, but it might take my focus away from what he wants to say.
I shake my head at my stupidity and realize he probably thought of this and will carry some sort of bag and attire for changing back, thatâs if he intends to. Maybe he will stay in form and talk to me that way.
No, stupid. He said face-to-face, as using our mind-link will make this worse!
I chastise myself, blaming the lack of sleep for my dumbing down lately as I slide through the kitchen unseen and reach the back porch door in record time.
Iâm getting used to my new speed, and zipping around when I donât want to be seen is the perfect practice.
Iâve stopped bumping into things and tripping over my own feet in hyper-speed mode, but I havenât yet mastered how not to get breathless. It takes it out of me after a short sprint.
The garden is empty, but most of the classrooms look into the courtyard, so I make sure to stay in the shadows against the wall and slide along to the concealed part of the garden behind the outhouses.
I scale up and over the eight-foot brick wall with an easy leap, and Iâm free to run for the woods with no one seeing my escape. Itâs easier than I thought.
Then again, no one expects me to defy rules and go chasing after Colton Santo.
I was never this girl before him, yet now he only has to say the word, and I go⦠blindly following my alpha, another annoying trait of being mated.
He commands, and I do. Itâs kind of pathetic.