Chapter 15: The Beginning: Part 2

My breathing’s shallow as my lungs burn with the effort to get oxygen, wringing my hands and running my fingers through my hair as I try to self-regulate the pounding of my heart.

My blood pressure is spiking, and I start to feel woozy, nauseous, skin bristling with searing temperature as I lose control.

I mean, I feel like I’ve found out I have cancer or a deadly virus that’s incurable or that Armageddon is on its way, and we have nowhere to run.

I need to calm down. If I don’t, I might turn and do something stupid in a blind haze. We’re not supposed to turn if we feel like we can’t control it.

That’s when bad things happen; wolves do terrible, awful things to the humans nearby. Frenzied, bloodlust-driven, murderous things and then have no memory after.

I have to breathe and slow it down. Except I can’t. I’m spiraling, and I flop down on the ground pathetically, crumpling as my legs give out from shaking crazily.

I clutch my head to force myself to focus on my breathing, face-planting the floorboards to get a grip on reality.

~“What’s wrong, Lorey? What is it? Talk to me. I can feel your panic and your fear. What’s happening, baby? What’s going on?”~

His voice renders me momentarily stunned, and I snap up, spinning around on my ass, looking for the intruder before sense tells me he is inside my head.

~“Colton? Why’re you in my head?”~

I blanch and press my hands to the sides of my skull and slump back down to put my face between my knees.

I continue trying to regulate my breathing, still caught up in my meltdown and confused that he linked after the two-week silence of rejection I’ve endured.

~“I told you. I can feel you freaking out. You’re afraid. What is it? What’s happening? Tell me. If you need me, need my help, I need to know where you are.”~

The sob that bursts from my throat as he says the words I’ve been longing to hear since I last saw him breaks me all over again—that care and need to protect me because, despite rejection, he still has the urges of a mate.

I blurt out my worry and break into over-emotional terrified tears, fueled by knowing I’m a freak with blood-colored eyeballs.

~“My EYES are RED! I think there is something seriously wrong with me.”~ I snort and wail into the emptiness of my room, gripped by actual devastation.

I’m really not too focused on the fact that he’s actually talking to me because this is bigger, scarier, and overwhelming.

~“Jesus Christ, Lorey. I thought something was happening to you. Don’t do that to me! Stop crying!”~

The sharp alpha tone of dominance winds me, and I instinctively obey. I choke and then cough on a tear that had been midflow when he hit me with that crap.

I’m instantly enraged as the pain of my body shutting off my emotional response momentarily winds me, forced out of a real heartfelt need to cry by a bossy asshole abusing his gift.

~“Don’t use that tone on me! Don’t tell me what to do!”~ I snap back, bristled in a fury, forgetting myself as anger bursts forth, stunning me into immediate silence.

I clasp a hand over my mouth despite saying nothing verbally.

He’s not my mate anymore, but a dominant in our lands, and talking back like that could get me seriously messed up if he saw fit. It’s disrespectful on so many levels.

No one of my standing would ever, should ever, snark back at an alpha.

~“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that,”~ I say, backtracking like a total coward, and I start to whimper as fresh tears begin to fall all over again.

A combination of my previous panic sets in and the sheer devastation of talking to him like this now that my faux pas has shaken sense into me. It hurts more than I can bear.

~“It doesn’t matter. Calm down. I’m sorry. I just needed you to stop… listen to me, Lorey. I knew about your eyes, remember? ~

~“There’s nothing wrong with you. The shaman has been researching all this time. Just try not to let anyone see it in the meantime until I know what it means. ~

~“There’ve been others, but none you will find in the history books. The shaman doesn’t know why, but you have to keep it under wraps and stop freaking out. Do you hear me? ~

~“You almost gave me epic heart failure coming through like that.”~

I wipe my face and try to pull myself together, exhaling heavily to steady myself and sitting upright forcefully.

I’m a little soothed by what he said, enough to rationalize and stop acting like a complete idiot, bringing my attention to the fact that things feel less harmful when he’s in my head.

My pain subsides enough to function with even this kind of connection to him.

~“I didn’t mean to project on you. I wasn’t trying to reach you; I know how things are between us. I swear,” ~I say, sounding like a pathetic whiny child, and it drives home how non-luna I am.

~“This wasn’t you. We’re bonded. When you’re afraid to that extent, hurt, anything like that, I’ll still feel it, no matter what we do. Just try to be rational. Hold it together.”~

I guess it works both ways.

Not that big tough Colton Santo probably ever gets freaked out or scared. I doubt I’ll ever feel any extremes from him on my end. He’s way too mature and battle-seasoned for any kind of hysterics.

~“What if I’m sick?”~ I pout petulantly, not all that settled with his explanations and still mulling. I’m shaking now that the shock is settling in and sniffing my mess away.

~“You’re not sick. I would know,” ~he almost chastises me as a paternal tone takes over.

I try not to picture his face as his voice surrounds me. It already hurts enough to hear him; I don’t need a visual reminder on top of that.

~“Then what if I’m cursed, and this is how you know? Maybe I’m a walking hex! Red’s the color of danger,”~ I point out. There’s a real possibility of that. I mean, it’s me, after all.

~“According to our kind, all of you in that home are cursed… are their eyes red too?” ~he says~.~

I swear that was a hint of sarcasm warming his tone to suggest humor, but I let it slide.

~“Okay then, what if I’m not a werewolf and I’m something else?”~

The silence that stretches out between us makes me shudder, and the panic once again soars.

~“Oh my god, that’s it, isn’t it?!” I squeak, unleashing a god-awful noise in the process, and jerk upright, eyes widening as that fear hits me low in the belly once more, and I lurch to my feet to pace erratically.

~“NO! No… okay? I was considering it, but that’s dumb. There are no others like us, so it’s not that. Besides, I saw you turn! You’re a wolf, a pretty one at that,”~ Colton soothes, if somewhat bossily.

Yet it seems to work, and I exhale heavily and stop walking around in manic circles. I blush at the wolf remark, even if I know he’s probably trying to be nice to pull my head out of hysteria.

~“Hmm. How do you know there aren’t other wolfy-type beings?”~ I push, voice strained and fear still lingering now my brain is on this path to self-analysis.

My heart rate is climbing higher, and my feet itch to start walking again.

~“We imprinted. I’m pretty sure two different species can’t do that. Fate wouldn’t allow that. It’s insane. You’re the same as me, Lorey, trust me. We’ll figure this out.”~

I hate that despite everything, his deep soothing tone and sexy voice have a commanding ability that makes me feel like he can make everything okay, that he’s in control and there to catch me.

~“It’s not your job to figure this out. There is no we,”~ I remind him sullenly, and that familiar pang I’ve been carrying for weeks comes back to nestle in my chest.

My fear subsides, overpowered by my longtime companion and shadow—heartbreak.

~“Lorey…”~

It’s a soft regretful whisper and tears my heartstrings.

He doesn’t get to finish whatever he was going to say, as a deafening painful scream, so insanely loud, high-pitched, and bloodcurdling tremors through the house and vibrates everything around me.

My head, my body, my brain, and the surrounding forests shake and stutter in such a way that my whole body spasms aggressively.

It turns my blood to ice instantly, frozen still in fear, and catapults me out of my head like a vicious eject button that sends me crashing to the floor heavily.

It’s the loudest, most painful noise I’ve ever felt in my life.

I’m in a crumpled heap and gasping in terror. It feels like something physically swept through the walls, like an invisible wall of power and chaos, and rendered me completely useless.

The overwhelming nausea and agony it inflicts on me at that moment send me reeling across the floorboards, scrambling nails on the slippery surface, to fight the penetrative pain of my brain nearly exploding.

~“What the fuck? What the hell was that? Lorey? Lorey… answer me!”~

Colton’s panic-stricken tone dances through my mind, but I’m still reeling from the internal vibrations consuming my every nerve ending from that god-awful noise.

It seems to pulse around me as my senses fade in and out. My body is twitching, and I don’t feel right at all.

It’s done something to me. I’m weak and unable to move, barely able to breathe as though all my organs are struggling to fight the pulse and function.

Dragging myself to lie flat on my stomach, I try to haul myself to the door, head pulsating with the aftereffects of whatever that was, brain bruised and throbbing.

And although it’s no longer blasting, I can feel something in the air around me, like invisible thick smog holding me down, swiping my ability to get up as though it’s sucking all the oxygen and energy away.

~“Colton… something’s wrong… I can’t get up.”~ I gasp for air, head swimming with stars and darkness invading my vision, trying so hard to pull myself up.

I’m racked with pain and have no strength to fight it. I’m powerless, and as the effects of whatever that was have rendered me completely useless, I lose the ability to link to Colton, too.

I feel him drop out of my head on my end as though my gift ceases to be before blankness fully smacks me in the face, and I pass out.