Chapter 18: Vanka: Part 3

“You have to turn, please. It’s the only way you can survive these wounds. Turn for me. Don’t give up. Don’t leave me, baby.”

The desperation in his voice ravages my heart, but I’m too weak, and I’ve lost too much blood.

I’m so cold, so numb that even his touch can’t warm me as it should, and I cry softly with despair because I know as soon as I slip away, his own heart will cease to beat.

I can’t let him die at my hands; I have to save myself to save him. He doesn’t deserve this. He did nothing wrong. He came for me; he came to save me.

I have to try just one more time to give everything I have into healing myself, but it’s futile. I don’t even know how to turn, let alone if I can.

It’s like there is a disconnection, and my abilities fail me. I muster any willpower I can, but it’s like that veil of power is still weighing down, oppressing me, and I can’t fight it.

“I can’t. I don’t know how.” Tears roll down my sodden face as I let out a useless breathy whisper. I’m so ashamed of my own inability to be a match for his strength and power.

Colton stares at me, his face suddenly straightening as he sobers instantly. He looks at his hand curled around my shoulder, twinges his cheek muscle, and frowns. I can’t read it.

Colton doesn’t wait, something registering on his face, and he furrows his brow with determination, pushing the softness aside.

He picks me up, even though I cry out in renewed agony of this new torture, and holds me tight.

Pain slices through my wounds as I lament what he’s doing, writhing and shuddering with the sheer pain it inflicts upon me.

I push my hands to his chest to beg him to let go because it’s too much, and my body can’t take more.

Glass is stuck in my wounds, penetrating deeper with the pressure of his embrace, and I howl out in despair because he’s only hurting me more.

“I’m sorry, baby. I have to.” Pulling us to stand, he runs toward the nearest entrance to the courtyard.

His focus is intent as he scans the wall and moves us as fast as possible to the nearest gate. It’s a human run, not hyper-speed, and he hauls ass to get me outside the perimeter of the enclosed garden and building.

I don’t understand, and all I can do is cling on, stiffen, and sob at the movements that bring me no end of agony.

His mind syncs with mine as soon as we are free from the confines of the courtyard; I feel it. I’m shocked by the sudden presence of him inside my head, even though he doesn’t say anything at all.

There is a change to the weight on my chest and the dull fog of my brain as he skids down to his knees, scraping across the tarmac, taking me down with him as soon as he feels the bond return so effortlessly.

“Try now. Trust me. You have to try. Focus on me, and think of yourself as you were the night of your turning.

“The pain, the thrill of your new form, will it, baby, will it! Turn!” he begs, commands, and alpha tones me all at the same time.

Desperation is in his plea, and I’m powerless to disobey him.

Something about taking me away from the house makes me feel different, as though the constraints have lifted from my soul, and my head clears just enough.

That internal foggy pain that held me weak moves aside, like lifting a foot from my chest, and with a bit of effort, my body starts to tingle.

“That’s it... your eyes... keep going. You can do this... it’s not hard. Fight for me.”

He catches my hand and holds it in his loosely, waiting, watching, silently pushing me on with a look of fear in his eye that maybe it’s too late.

It causes chaos in my heart to see him so afraid.

I focus all my effort on pushing, tapping into some deep inner need in me to unite with my wolf again.

And as soon as I open my mouth to utter the words, “I think it’s working,” I arch in his arms and convulse as my body transforms me into the one thing that can save me.

It happens right on the stroke of my human heart giving out and sucker punches me back into the land of the living in the most painful way.

I gasp as I inhale loudly, coughing out, splaying my limbs, and shuddering viciously as he catches me in his arms and then immediately lets me go to twist and turn onto my belly.

I wretch and gag at the same time before vomiting a ton of blood and mucus right over the top of Colton’s naked thighs, as I’ve no control over my aim.

My wolf body ejects all that internal damage as though somehow healing is just the process of getting rid of the broken bits I no longer need.

Suddenly, I’m covered in my own mess, matting my leg fur and clinging disgustingly around me.

I scramble away from him so as not to make this worse, and find myself on all fours, rejuvenated as the pain diminishes, and I gasp.

The transformation heals me as fast as possible—from head to foot. Cuts close up, bones crack and re-form, and my lungs expand fully, allowing me to breathe again.

I’m shaken, sore all over as it fades away properly, but completely healed. Within minutes, I stand up as though I didn’t just go through hell and was near death in the bloody mess I left back there.

I slump down on the ground and almost immediately revert to human form, as I don’t have the energy or the skill to sustain my wolf form yet.

I exhale with a strangled cry of relief and emotion as everything hits me hard like being in a train wreck, only it’s all mental now the physical has been brushed away.

That took so much out of me to save my life, and I’m spent.

Colton scurries over to me and hauls me into his arms without hesitation, a look of relief on his face, and yanks me close to his chest.

He wraps me up and smooths his hands over my naked body to check for any sign of unhealed marks. There are none. Wolf healing is incomparable and almost always entirely effective.

There are only a few things in this world that wolves can’t heal from, and none are present tonight.

He tugs my face to his throat and hugs me with less panic in his touch, exhaling heavily as he allows himself a moment of relief that warms me to my core and brings me some calm.

“The pack has them in retreat. I need to get you to safety and follow them. There are survivors, and we have to stop them before we lose them.”

He nuzzles his face against my hair before shifting me, making it clear we can’t stay here.

He helps me up, pulling me to my feet, and, holding me close to his body, leads me to one of the abandoned trucks scattered in every street surrounding the school.

I recognize them as belonging to the Santo family. They must have flooded in from every part of the mountain at a moment’s notice.

“How did you know to come?” I ask weakly as he slides me into the nearest vehicle, pulling a blanket from the rear and draping it over my naked body as I begin to shiver violently.

I may be healed, but my body and mind are going into shock from all that has just happened, and I suddenly feel as though I’m in some sort of dream.

I’m fully aware that him taking control is a necessity, as I don’t have the presence of mind to do anything for myself.

“Your link was broken, and I couldn’t reach you. I knew something was wrong. I could feel your confusion and then your fear. Your pain almost ended me, and I didn’t think I would get here in time.

“They did something to the house. Soon as I got near it, my wolf form struggled to stay. There’s some sort of noise or frequency around it. It stops us. I could feel it in the garden, but I couldn’t hear it.”

He closes my door, jumps in the front of the truck, and scrambles around for keys, finding them still in the ignition, thankfully.

Wasting no time in putting it in gear, reversing us at a screeching speed as though we’re in pursuit of something, he hightails us toward the south road out of this part of the mountain valley.

He’s getting me away from here, even if the threat is being chased off in the other direction.

“Where are we going? Why aren’t you saving anyone else? There are more of us; it’s not only me in that home! You can’t leave them behind!”

I sit up, panic-stricken and sudden concern for the others left behind hits me in the chest like a freight train as my tears return with a passion, and I half sob, half choke the words out.

My reject pack is back there, and they’re the only family I know, whether I liked them or not, and there are so many innocents among them.

Colton catches my eyes in the rearview mirror and looks away quickly, a sadness hitting me right in the heart as his emotion silences me with a swift shunt of my stomach.

I immediately know the pain and sorrow in what he doesn’t say. He avoids my eye as I stare at the back of his head, feeling him, reading him as he overcomes my senses, tasting his hesitation and sorrow.

“There is no one else, is there?” I state blankly, numb shock weaving through me and hitting me with the gravity of this situation.

He’s in constant link with his pack so that they would know about survivors.

And I’m guessing the fact they’re chasing down the vampires who ran, and no one but Colton is shepherding one of us away means they already checked.

The weight of reality settles on my shoulders to drag me back down to numbed calm.

He shakes his head, unable to look at me, and I catch his furrowed brow and the gleam of moisture glazing his eyes in the mirror over his head.

He moves up a gear, pushing the truck to dangerous speeds as we head out of the valley and onto the main road that takes us around the perimeter and out to the south.

“We weren’t fast enough. I almost didn’t get to ~you~ in time. We just weren’t ready for something like this. I wasted time assembling the pack when I knew you needed me.”

He sounds almost ashamed, but without the pack, he wouldn’t have been able to fight all of them himself and save me at all. They would have taken him down as soon as he lost his wolf form in the gardens.

“All of them… the unwanteds… the guardians. They’re all gone.” It’s not a question, but more of a dazed reaction as my mind pushes me into shock at what’s happened.

After verbalizing the truth, I slump across the back seat as silent tears fall down my face, diagonally across my cheek like cold, sobering smears, and soak the leather of the truck.

“I’m sorry, Lorey. I know they were all you had. We never knew this was coming.” Colton’s voice is shaky and low—shame and regret tainting his usually sexy huskiness.

We share the agony, but it doesn’t lighten the load, and my insides twist in cruel heartache as it sinks in fully.

In the blink of an eye, they’re all gone, just like ten years ago.

The sad thing was, until this moment, I hadn’t thought they were what I had at all.

We were never a pack, or a family, in my mind before, but now, those others matter more than I ever gave them credit for, even Vanka, my roommate for ten lonely years.

I would give anything right now to have her get in this truck and blow smoke in my face.

My heart crashes inside my chest as the most painful, debilitating heaviness hits me hard, and I let out a mournful sob that turns to a howl as my body turns without me trying.

I lie on the back seat, breaking inside once again. My body is reverting to my wolf form to heal me from the agony my heart is in.

It’s a defense mechanism because my instincts think I’m dying all over again—how ironic.

The most heart-wrenching howl I’ve ever heard leaves my body, fills my ears, and echoes into the eeriest silence of the dark world around us.

First, my blood family, then my pack, and now my unwanteds.

Is there nowhere to run where fate won’t deliver me the worst kind of blow and take everyone from me?