Chapter 74: You’re Safe: Part 1

“Alora, I believe that might be our escort. This is Route 10.”

Doc nudges me lightly, snapping me out of my long, weird daydream in which I bludgeoned Carmen to death with Colton’s running shoes.

Then I hand them back to him and walk off into the sunset with a flip of my finger. I sit upright, startled by reality. My heart misses a beat, and full-on nerves smack me in the stomach.

A convoy of headlights approaches in the now pitch-dark long road stretching ahead, dazzling us slightly as they approach along what seems to be a long, empty highway lined with dense trees on either side.

I hadn’t even noticed the change in terrain when we got off the dirt track and got onto an actual road. My insides tighten and tense, and I painfully pray that it is who it is.

I lift the veil and link him in case we’re not where they are yet, and this is someone I should worry about. I don’t see any other vehicles on the road.

~“Colton, please tell me that’s you, the convoy heading toward the military truck on Route 10?”~

I hold my breath, pausing as nervous energy overtakes me and strain to see beyond the blinding lights, but it’s too dark to make out if the trucks are Santo.

All I can tell is there is a succession of them as they weave slightly, and headlights shine brightly on the route ahead.

~“Pull over. It’s us. You’re safe.”~

That husky, warm flow of assurance embraces me as I hear him inside my mind, and I relax a little, letting out the breath I was holding in anticipation.

He sounds weird, tense, and maybe a little annoyed, probably from obsessing over my “boyfriend” in the last half hour or however long we’ve been driving.

I’ve been silently staring out the window, lost in my head, and Doc just kept plowing on heading north—no concept of time.

~“Shouldn’t we just follow you?”~ I query, confused that he should want us to stop and not keep moving with the possibility of a pack on our tail. I don’t understand why he would expect us to.

~PULL OVER!~ It’s a sharp command, not a request, no hint of politeness or trying to explain.

It’s said in that bossy, arrogant, snarly, I-am-pissed tone that verges on his alpha gift, and I wonder what the hell is eating him.

All because I questioned him, he went from seemingly calm and logical to an idiot in a millisecond.

Maybe he is like his father after all, and that gives me the unyielding urge to tell him where to get off. It brings back my rage from earlier, and I spin my head to the doctor with an attitude.

“Our Lord and commander says stop,” I say, sounding like a petulant child, eye-rolling as I flick my hand at the oncoming vehicles.

Doc raises a brow and then frowns instead. “He obviously has some reason to make us pull over, and he doesn’t sound like he’s in the mood to argue about it.”

“Better not disobey an irate alpha-in-the-making. If he’s anything like his mother, I would say it’s better to accept a request and question later.”

It’s an almost submissive stance, but Doc looks tired and weary, and maybe he needs a commander right now more than I do.

He pulls over to the side of the highway and brings us to an immediate stop, waiting and watching as the distant vehicles close the gap between us, and the tension becomes unbearable.

“I’ll quickly check on Sierra, make sure she’s still tubed and everything is plugged in.”

He moves first, gets up, and shifts into the back of the truck, exhaling and stretching with relief when he gets to the standing room part of the back.

I watch him for a second, but my anxiety as I feel Colton getting closer almost makes me combust.

“I need air,” I point out, opening my door and hopping out before I scream.

I’m overcome with the sudden heavy nervous tension of seeing him again and the rising flames of temper and accusation because he’s being a jerk about it, and I hate him.

It’s hard to put the Carmen thing aside when I’m going to come face-to-face with the cheating ass once more.

I expected maybe some sort of sweet directions, not bitchy commands, and aggression from him.

My turbulent emotions are strangling me, and I suddenly have this newfound energy buzzing through my limbs.

I can’t sit in peace, and his getting closer is like waiting on a tornado hitting your house and knowing there’ll be carnage. I have no chance. Colton is the tornado, and my heart is my home.

As the first of the vehicles pulls up along the side of ours and disappears behind the bulk of our truck, I lose my nerve completely.

I turn and walk to the rear of ours into the darkness, around the back, to catch my breath and take a few seconds to recenter myself.

I need some Dutch courage and some mood-leveling before that moment of reunion with him.

I inhale and blow it out heavily, hearing doors opening and slamming and footsteps, and I know I should just do it: bite the bullet, and walk right out to him.

I move from behind the truck, walking along and turning up the side to head toward Doc’s door, head in chaos, eyes on the ground as my sight adjusts to nocturnal vision, and I watch where I’m stepping.

I collide smack-bang with a certain amount of force into the black-dressed, enormous figure, cutting down from this side, and yelp with the collision.

I’m knocked back momentarily, not hurt but definitely winded. My heart skips a beat, instantly making my legs go weak, and my insides lurch in surprise.

“Lorey?” Colton’s tone drops completely, a breathy whisper as I jump back and stare wide-eyed, lost for words.

We just sort of stand and look at each other for a heavy, lengthy, loaded second, so much translating at the moment.

Then he lurches forward, partially shadowed out, so I can’t make out his face perfectly. He grabs me by the wrist and yanks me to him forcefully.

I don’t have time to react or recoil because all I get is a flash of glowing amber eyes appearing on that darkened face.

Then I’m wrapped in strong arms and molded to a hard, hot body that makes me feel small and precious—wrapped up tight, unable to resist the way he lassos me.

He knocks the wind out of me with the intensity of his embrace, hugging me in entirely and burying his face in the crook of my neck, snugly united and highlighting how perfectly we fit together.

He squeezes almost all the air from me with the force of his hug. Not a single part of me is not pressed to him.

His breath tickles and tingles my skin as it makes its way under the neckline of my sweater, and I’m dazed by the speed with which he absorbs me into his body.

I’m not going to lie and say it didn’t make me momentarily forget everything except how he feels, how good he smells, and how right his touch is. Heartbreakingly so.

I melt, my head getting hazy with this need to let him hold me, and I have to swallow back the overwhelming surge of emotion that has my heart rate hitching and my breathing getting shallow.

Biting back instant tears, I taste my weakness shining through, urging me to wrap myself up and tell him how much I missed him.

He squeezes me half to death, arms tightly wound around my upper body and waist. A hand comes around my neck, under my hair, to hold me in place.

Pushing his face against mine so we’re cheek-to-cheek, his nose grazes my shoulder, and I hear and feel him inhale and release with the same relief I did.

It’s that intense contentment of finally finding home and sinking into it deliciously, savoring these few seconds of finally getting what you’ve been craving for, needing, for weeks.

I almost cave, my limbs aching to curl around him to get lost in everything good about him.

I’m so caught in the heady sensation of being back in his arms as he wraps me up, like a mouse caught in a snake’s death grip, with no hope of escape.

I almost fade into nothing but feelings of tingles, warm inner waves, butterflies, and a sense of belonging when something mentally slaps me in the face, reminding me what a shithead he is.

Carmen’s smug face appears in my mind’s eye, and the pain I felt four days after leaving him.

I shove him back with a little more power than I’m used to, a gush or surge of that misty energy conjuring from the intense anger that comes shooting out at top speed.

It hits him right in the abdomen with enough force to send him reeling back.

His arms are impulsively splaying out to stop himself, and he manages to stay upright, even though it’s obvious I threw him off.

He has that look of utter shock that I just overpowered him and almost landed him on his ass with my surge of aggression when he thought snuggling was in the cards.

I don’t forget the betraying asshole has a mate out there who wouldn’t be too pleased to see how he’s behaving with another femme, even if I was his fated mate once upon a time.

“Don’t touch me! Who the hell do you think you are, huh? That you can just yell at me, make demands, and then come walking on over here and grab me like that?

“Like you don’t have a shitload of apologizing to do.”

Its fury builds from inside me, aching to be released, and his simmering-to-low-glow eyes fire right back up like two very terrifying orange beacons in the pitch black.

I can almost feel mine glowing in response, and it feels good to let my inner wolf peek again.

“Are you kidding me right now? Do you know how much shit I’ve been through for weeks trying to find you, and ~this~ is the thanks I get?

“You asked me to come! I’m beyond happy to see you. Excuse me for wanting to react and touch you when you’re all I have thought about for weeks.”

My anger seems to feed his, and instead of love confessions and apologies, I’m getting asshole Colton.

Sometimes I forget he’s a Santo, and then he swoops right back in and reminds me what arrogant douchebags that whole bloodline is.

“I didn’t ask you to look for me all those weeks, so don’t even start with that bullshit. And you… YOU are the reason I left, so no, I owe you no thanks and give no shits about whatever you’ve suffered in the meantime.

“You don’t get to touch me anymore. Now shut up and let me pass. I have to tell him you’re here. He’s probably hiding in the back already, wondering what is going on.”

I attempt to get by him to head for the front of the truck, but he steps right at me, blocking me, so I bang into his torso and step back.

Full-on aggression mode is switched on, and he’s towering over me menacingly.