âYES! I KNOW! Iâm going to do it. Excuse me for having a mental breakdown with everything Iâve learned in the last six hours and a reminder that my destined mate is a cheating asshole.
âItâs a lot⦠A LOT! Iâm an eighteen-year-old girl who hasnât linked her cheating, asshole ex-so-called-mate in weeks, not since I ran from him. Give me a fucking break already.â
I push my fingers and nails through my scalp, sweeping my wild hair off my face and gripping it with force at my temples, trying hard not to self-combust under the extra weight of everything hitting me at once.
âI do say.â Doc raises his brows at me in a completely ridiculous British way and then softens his expression.
He holds out his handkerchief to me in a white-flag apology as more tears roll down my cheeks against my will.
I hate that Iâm so hopelessly connected to him that this rules everything I think or feel. Colton always ruins me.
âIâm sorry. I need to breathe for a few minutes. Colton is⦠itâs tough. He hurt me. This, all of this, just hurts.â
Colton is the one thing in my life that has the power over everything else to screw me up with minimal effort.
Even after discovering Iâm some sort of half creature, my first thought was, How will he look at me?
Heâs right in there, deep inside me, and he can make everything feel so good or worse than bad that I can barely breathe.
Without him, I survive, but I wouldnât exactly call it successful. Thereâs a need that never leaves me, a longing that never stops calling to him.
I miss him. Of course I do, and I dream about him. I see or hear him at stupid points of my day, even when itâs not related.
Reaching out and physically connecting is a whole other kind of torture, especially knowing heâs not mine and never will be now. It was easier to have no contact at all.
I never knew I could both love a person beyond a shadow of a doubt and crave them constantly while at the same time hating the ground they walk on and wishing I never had to see them again.
Such is my dilemma.
I need him, yet I donât want to, but right now, I physically ~need~ him to come and save our asses from this situation.
Doc was right. I canât take on a pack of Santo wolves, especially ones who donât play fair and use dart guns to subdue my kind.
My gifts are worth shit without having complete control of them.
Colton needs to be in this, no matter how I feel, as Sierra is ~his~ mother, and I owe him to give her back to him, where she belongs. He can protect her in ways her own pack failed.
Her son will never let her down in that way.
âYou can have some time.
âThis road is a good long drive to get out of the undergrowth, and by my calculations, we have three hours minimum, depending on the metabolism of the wolves before they start to come around.
âIâm hoping for six, which is probably a human response to the drug, but your kind is always a little more geared to outdoing us, even in an isolation tank.
âYou can take a little headspace before you contact him. Just, you know, not too long, as we donât want to be driving in the wrong direction or anything.â
He isnât helping, and I turn and stare out the window, watching the trees flash by, hoping the mesmerizing images flashing by will numb my brain.
The light fades with every minute we drive, and Sierra is still as immobile and silent as she was.
I need to swallow this, bite the bullet and do it like ripping off a Band-Aid and not sitting pondering and building the moment into something worse.
Heâs out there, doing god knows what, and the sooner I link him or even see if I can, the sooner we can figure this out and head for a safe place, and all of this no longer rests on my shoulders alone.
I need some control of this situation, someone else to make the decisions, and I hope to God Iâm not being a fool and putting my faith in Colton only to have him deliver us back into Juanâs hands.
I truly believe in my heart, despite everything thatâs happened between us, Colton will come through for meâfor us.
This isnât about marking or obeying the alpha and respecting the laws. This is about his mom and intervening in something more significant than the rules of the packs.
This is about betrayal and what his father has done, and I have no idea how Iâm going to tell him.
Itâs not the kind of thing where you can just rock up in his head and say, âHey, I have your mom here, and your dad killed everyone I love. Do you want to hang out?â
Once he knows, itâll hurt him the way it hurt me, irreversibly, and I donât know how he will react.
How do I tell him about the bigger picture, my family, the prophecy, and how Sierra was kept and has nothing mentally wrong with her?
How do I fit all that in without having some mental freak-out while in a mind-link with a guy I have been so afraid of linking because of the unbearable pain he can inflict on me?
I didnât only blank him out because I left, and we were done. I closed the door because I couldnât handle ever being able to link with him again and hearing that familiar voice inside me.
That soothing, husky melody can find its way deep down into the most intimate parts of me and warm me from within in the most basic way.
No one will ever be able to make me feel things the way he does, and he has so much power over me, even with his words, at any distance.
Stop, Alora. This is bigger than a broken heart. Colton will help, and youâre just stalling.
I catch Doc looking at me, eyes glancing from the dark, rough road to me, bouncing along this track and back again, but he says nothing.
I think heâs checking on my mental and emotional state, and I need to get this over and done with. Stop being a wuss and getting overdramatic with a female tear fest, and man up.
I inhale, sit up as though that makes any difference, and push my forehead against the glass of my side window, fixing my eyes on nothing and drumming up the courage I so badly need.
My insides immediately start tying themselves in knots, my stomach cramping with the tension, and I swallow apprehensive nausea as best I can.
I let my breath out slowly, misting the window with the heat and condensation of the cold dark glass.
I draw a heart absentmindedly in the steamy patch before rubbing it out and frowning at my stupid reflection.
Now or never! Rip it off. Bite the bullet. Be strong.
I know if I stall, I might lose my nerve completely. I screw my eyes tight shut, conjure up some darkness to clear my brain, and mentally slide open that heavy locked door I put between us many weeks ago.
Afraid of the sudden precipice I need to step off, I throw it out there, hoping heâs listening.
~âColton? Are you there? I need your help.â~
Please be there. God, I sound so pathetic and weak. I donât get time to regret the break of silence or feel anything about doing it. A paused breath and thenâ¦
~âLorey? Is that really you? Baby⦠oh shit, baby, God. I canât believe itâs you. Itâs really you⦠youâre really⦠shit.â~
Thereâs a second of pause, but before I can respond, heâs off again, quieting me with his torrent of verbal diarrhea.
~âWhere are you? You have no idea how hard Iâve been trying to link you for weeks and couldnât get through. Not that I blame you, and I know I hurt you, and youâre mad. ~
~âIâm angry too⦠at me, not you. Iâm not in any way mad at you for leaving, so donât think I am because Iâm not⦠~
~âPlease, tell me where you are⦠Iâm an asshole. I know this. Are you okay? Are you hurt? Are you coming back? ~
~âPlease say thatâs a yes and that I didnât completely screw all this up. And, umm, yes, Iâm here, almost crashing my truck, but here. ~
~âI was always here, waiting, hoping, and you know Iâll always help you. That shouldnât even be a request when itâs a given. God, I miss you. Tell me what you need. Tell me what to do. Say something.â~
The whoosh of babbling completely catches me off guard, and the tone, changing from relief to disbelief to relief again, and the sheer emotion almost cripples me.
He canât hide any of it from his voice, and the surge of intense feeling that comes with it tells me our link still exists, and I pick up on his even through this form of communication.
It chokes me up, the obviousness that heâs missed me and is as broken about my contact as I am. Thereâs no anger, just complete overwhelm that he can finally hear me in his head.