Chapter 21: What Now: Part 3

“I’m not going to spend my days whining about this crap, and I need you to just stop, okay? The words you said in the forest were the end of this. There’s nothing to say or drag out and talk through.”

I turn on him aggressively, lifting my palms in a show of “what now?” meaning, where the hell am I meant to be going in this damned house because I have never been here before, and I’m fucking lost.

He nods back at the door behind me with very little to say, his expression ashen, temporarily without words, and not tackling my mood in the slightest.

To be honest, he looks a little shell-shocked right now, but I don’t care. I have more significant headaches than him.

I have weeks of pent-up heartbreak at this guy’s hands, and I’m done being a pushover. My life, in one night, went from awful to completely rock bottom, end of the line, apocalypse kind of bad.

My emotions start shredding and unraveling now that I’ve let all of that out. My chest is hit with a heavy shunt, and suddenly I don’t feel so pent-up and hostile anymore.

Instead, I feel like I might cry. From rage and frustration to a sudden need to lie down and sob, energy burned out from venting, and reality coming back full circle to remind me I’ve lost everything.

I spin away from him, then stop and shudder involuntarily as the overwhelming wave hits me at full speed, and the tidal wave of tears comes out of nowhere.

I don’t even have a chance to try to combat it before it hits full throttle, breaking and flinching as I lose control and then start to fall.

I cough on the woeful sound that escapes me and smother my face with both hands to try to catch the waterfall as it pours from my eyes.

“Lorey, baby, don’t.” Colton catches me by the arm and tries to pull me toward him, but I throw him off, putting too much force into shoving him away from me and sending him back about three feet.

I startle him with my show of force as he raises his palms to show he won’t retaliate. He even breaks down like a feeble femme; there’s an internal burning rage that just isn’t ready to die.

“Don’t. I don’t need you touching me, consoling me. I just need you to leave me alone. All of you. I was fine on my own before, and I’ll be fine on my own again.”

That’s not so accurate, but irrational and hormonal are not states to be argued with, and all I know is I need to get out of here and run. I need space.

From him, from them, from this, my whole muddled head of pain, at knowing from tonight onward, nothing will be the same ever again.

I turn and head for the front door impulsively, not caring about anything but getting solitude, the darkness invading the open space as I reach it, sending an internal shiver of terror into my stomach.

I peer out into the unknown from a doorway I’ve never known, knowing that creatures out there worse than us mean us harm. They could be anywhere, and I have no place to return to now, either.

“No!” Colton yanks me back with force, and I spin on him tearfully. “I’ll leave you alone, but you’re not leaving this house. It’s dangerous out there for all of us now, and I won’t let you go.”

He pins me with a commanding look and a hostile tone, veiling a sliver of fear for my safety, but I throw it aside and cast off his emotions that are flooding me again.

I open my mouth to bark a refusal, but he hits me with a mental link and that dominant tone that instantly disables me. “~You are not to leave this pack house without my say-so, and you won’t argue! Stop it, now!”~

My head buzzes with rage and sheer frustration as words catch in my throat and almost choke me. I can’t get them out.

His gift is being misused to confine me to his home and stop my need to tell him what I think of his “commands.”

I’m rendered mute because he forbade me to argue, and the only words poised tell him where to go.

I instead throw my hands in the air, glaring furiously at him, and then sucker punch him in the abs out of intense frustration.

He flinches, half-smiling with a shocked response and total disbelief that I’m being this aggressive and a little apprehensive about how to react.

I’m hating on him for being such a bossy asshole and exerting his powers over me when he has no goddamn right. I storm left, heading for the bathroom I just came from.

Colton catches me by the elbow and yanks me to the right instead, heading for the stairs at a fast pace that signals he’s in no mood to argue about it.

I fight him every inch of the way by tugging, squirming, and pushing him off, stabbing him with scathing, pointed glares, refusing to relent.

I’m forced by his strength. He’s not even letting me choose where I get to be alone, and it riles me.

That simmering fire in my belly returns in a flash to push all tame aside, and my inner demon shows face.

I pull his hand from my arm, getting madder when he grabs me by the other instead, a tighter, biting grip that is meant to bring me back to heel.

I twist it away, but to no avail, as he shunts me from behind, then slides his arms around my body and continues to guide and push me forcefully where he wants me to go.

It becomes a juvenile game of slapping, grabbing, shoving, tugging, and he gets me around the waist and lifts me from my feet.

I ram an elbow straight in his face, crunching on the bridge of his nose and bruising my bone in the process.

“Fuck’s sake, Lorey!” he snaps at me, losing his shit entirely, and stops as we hit the foot of the stairs.

He turns on me snappily, hauls me toward him by the waist, bends, and hoists me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

He seriously emanates all kinds of rage at my refusal to be controlled and glares at me, hitting me with a full-on furious frown and sneer.

He is not playing anymore; his anger radiates hotter than the sun, but it only heightens my own.

He’s carrying me as I squirm, wriggle, and kick out, using my nails on his back to make him drop me.

He grips me tight and does the worst thing he can do at this moment. He uses his gift again to get me to do as he wants, against my will.~ “Be still. Be quiet. Obey me!”~

I freeze, motionless, voiceless, all without choice and downright furious that he renders me immobile.

My internal bubbling pot of “How the fuck dare you?” intensifies to volcanic levels in the blink of an eye.

I’m internally seething that twice, in the space of a minute, he’s exerted his alpha tone over me and put me in my place like an obedient little lowlife.

My body is obeying him, my throat muting, and I honestly don’t think I have ever felt this much venom for anyone in my whole life.

It almost explodes inside me, with the power to rip down these damned four walls, like a kettle letting off steam after boiling to excessive popping abilities.

It fills every pore and vein with molten lava straight from the depths of hell.

I loathe him more than I ever thought I could hate anyone.

And despite being bonded and imprinted to this arrogant asshole, I want to rip his goddamn fucking, stupid, dumbass, shitty head off his shoulders and kick it down the stairs like a soccer ball.

That internal rage heats me like a volcano from the inside out, my blood reaching the boiling point, my temper shooting through the roof.

Despite being utterly paralyzed and slumped over him as we climb the stairs, my mind and insides churn up a tornado that would scare the Fates.

It feels like I emit a solar flare when I boom out via our mental link.

~“I FUCKING DESPISE YOU!”~

It’s a psychic scream, but as we pass two other Santos on the stairs, the very second it erupts from my mind to his, those two males cower and fall to the ground, grabbing their heads and yelping in agony.

Colton also crumbles, dropping me clumsily with an ungraceful thud on top of him as we collapse in a heap on the steps.

Like a tremor of an earthquake erupting from my soul, every vase, glass, ceramic, and piece of pottery in the near vicinity explodes instantly.

Windows blow out all around us, and the chandelier in the main hall hanging to the left of the stairway shatters into a thousand specks of self-combusted dust as though it just exploded.

It scatters microscopic glitter into the air that comes to settle on everything around it.

It’s a second of utter chaos, as though a bomb just went off in the center of the pack house, and hard, brittle objects in every direction break under strain with a dramatic “whoosh.”

People come down like tenpins around us, caving and crumbling while covering their ears.

From my viewpoint, I can see every single Santo in the downstairs hall who just walked in.

All are gripping their skulls and screwing their eyes shut as it reverberates through and causes them all to collapse where they stand in a ripple effect.

I’m the only one not clawing at myself to keep out what seems to be overwhelming pain.

“What the f…?” Colton is breathless as he tries to regain composure, sliding his arms away from me quickly and skirting back to give me space, leaving me suddenly free to pull myself together.

A hint of fear darts across his usually emotionless face as he glances at me and then at the carnage and debris all around us.

I can sense his panic and confusion, and, for the moment, I can feel he doesn’t want to get any closer, that he’s wary of what I just did if that was even me.

I’m dazed and bruised from being dropped on a hardwood staircase and wholly bewildered about what the hell just happened.

I feel like there was some sort of implosion around me, yet I’m entirely unscathed. And now, my internal thoughts, body, and soul are calm. All that fire and rage are just gone.

“Was that voice hers?” One male on the stairs crawls to his knees and attempts to pull himself up by the railing, staring at me warily.

He, too, looks afraid and keeps his distance, getting farther from me as he moves out of range.

“You heard her?” Colton spins on him, and I pale as both men nod.

Their eyes dart to me, then him, and they slide down the steps until they get on their feet and scale the railing quickly to escape me.

I can feel all eyes turning my way as others pick themselves up from the floor. The hall looks like Armageddon just rolled through, and there’s smashed glass, china, and all sorts of carnage on every surface.

I know I did it in the headspace that only Colton should hear. No one else can access our bonded link.

I didn’t say it out loud, and as I move to sit up and gather my wits, I realize I’m no longer bound by his command either.

I cough and croak out a shocked reply, weirded out that I can both move and speak. I shouldn’t be able to until he undoes what he told me to do.

“I didn’t do that,” I implore him, turning with nervousness, wounded when he moves even farther away, mistrusting eyes on me.

I can sense his apprehension, and it cuts deep like he’s rejecting me all over again.

“What the hell was that?!” Juan Santo bursts into the open space of the front door of the pack house, surrounded by his entourage of men.

All are dragging on blankets to conceal their nudity and looking utterly feral.

All are casting an accusatory eye at those who have come out into the hallway to see what’s going on, dazed and confused, to join those picking themselves out of the mess.

But then Juan’s eyes scan up to where we are and lock a hateful glare right on me.

I can almost taste his disdain for me and the pointed way his eyes flicker to Colton in a “Why is ~she~ here?” furious unspoken question.

“I think that was Alora. I mean, it was Alora.” Colton sounds sheepish, and even through all this chaos going off inside me, I can feel he’s afraid to come near me.

There’s genuine confusion and fear inside him, and he’s keeping his distance by several feet now. Bonded or not, right now, he is scared of me. He doesn’t understand what I just did any more than I do.

“It couldn’t have been. She can’t have the power to inflict that kind of pain in the link state. Or break everything as far as the eye can see. No wolf can,” a voice in the crowd echoes my way.

I’m aware of every set of eyes locked on me now and shrink down into a huddled heap of shame. Heat rises on my face as I try to become invisible.

I immediately think of Carmen’s gift, wondering if maybe it’s coincidental and this was her from somewhere else in the house, going catatonic in her misery, but I know it can’t be.

She can smash glass only in the near vicinity when sustaining a scream at the highest pitch for long seconds.

It hurts our hearing, not our mental link, and she’s never demolished everything around her the way I just did, nor immobilized the entire pack with one pulsating psychic yell.

“Alora can.” Colton’s voice drops in the air like a heavy thud, and the deathly silence—the wave of shock, fear, and utter confusion that meets his response—sends the fear of God right to the pit of my soul.