Chapter 75: You’re Safe: Part 2

“Him? About HIM! Whoever he is, whatever the fuck he is to you, I’m going to fuck him up!”

It’s a vicious, jealous outburst, fueled with a sudden searing rage that even I can feel flowing from him as he springs back to me, almost shadowing me.

He gets that close, bringing his nose down to mine, eyes burning bright, and I slap him in the abdomen.

“No, you fucking won’t. Stop being an idiot. Just shut up and get out of the way.” I push him again, and this time, he doesn’t budge.

His apparent mood is worse than mine, and he stands his ground and stays as intimidating as ever, right in my face, that low growl of the wolf coming through at me.

“You’re ~mine! ~Not anyone else’s, and if I have to take down an asshole who thinks he changes that, I will. We are not done, you and I. He is about to learn that.

“I’m not even playing, Lorey. I will kill that motherfucker where he stands.”

I’ve never seen Colton like this. I can almost taste the fury pulsing from every pore as he loses a small ounce of control and his teeth peek.

I’m only making him worse, and this is not the best version to introduce to the doctor or his mom.

Even I feel a little tiny ounce of fear at this version, and I think maybe I pushed him a little too far with this whole other man thing.

I need to calm things down and not bite, even though his statement makes me want to rip his throat out. This isn’t helping any of us.

“I’m not yours, so you have no right to make any kind of threats. Not anymore. Just stop, okay? It’s not like that. You need to calm down and not scare him.

“He’s human, and he’s not the reason I asked you to meet me.”

I reel in some of my anger, my voice softening as best as possible with this constant internal pain, reminding me never to let my stupid heart soften for him again.

I catch the hemline of Colton’s black hoody, yanking him with me instead of still trying to get past him and change tactics.

I turn and head to the truck’s rear, pulling him when he stubbornly holds still, fighting me for a moment, and then he relents and follows.

The aggression and pain oozing from him have me all kinds of uptight, but I bang on the truck’s back door to let Doc know I’m back here, and I hear the lock slide open.

Colton bristles instantly. I almost feel him ready to pounce in fight mode as we’re about to come face-to-face with a guy he deems a threat to our bond, as ridiculous as he’s being, and the door opens.

I, too, brace myself if I might have to intervene and defend Doc from an angry wolf attack. I am fully prepared to take Colton on to save Doc’s life; after all, I owe him.

Having heard our conversation, Doc sticks his head out warily, and his white pallor makes him almost glow in the darkness, a worried expression all over his face.

He opens the door wide enough to pop head and shoulders out, and Colton goes from a poised, lethal killing machine stance to a sudden “What the hell?” expression in seconds.

He looks from him to me and back again as all manner of confusing emotions flicker across his face.

“Doctor, um?” He seems to be dragging his memory as he says it, staring at Doc like he can’t quite believe what he’s seeing and trying to remember that mouthful of a name.

That hostile, jealous need to maim him dies instantly as he realizes there is no way in hell I’m looking to mate with someone older than my parents.

I feel it wash away, and the surge of relief that bubbles over affects me too, taking the edge off my anger and realizing half the time I don’t even know whose mood is whose as we feed each other and react.

My aggression slides away like I got hosed down with a cool jet in a heatwave.

“Ah, dear boy, you remember me. Look at you all grown up and rather hunky. You are very tall for a Santo. Wow, you certainly beefed up somewhat, did you not?

“Look at those shoulders. I bet you can bench press ten of Alora on a bad day. Such a specimen!”

The doctor, as usual, is inappropriately babbling to diffuse an otherwise awkward situation, and I shove Colton aside and yank the door the rest of the way.

I’m impatient to rip this Band-Aid off completely and show him why we brought him here.

“Excuse me,” I say to Doc politely, suggesting he let me by and stop shielding the truck’s contents.

He shuffles aside as I climb up, getting halfway up the high step when Colton lays his hands on my waist, gripping me lightly, and pushes me up the last distance.

It both riles me that he thinks I need his help like some feeble girl who didn’t survive alone for weeks in the wilderness, and yet it makes my heart ache that he still, even mad and confused, wants to take care of me.

God, I hate him sometimes.

“Colton, come,” I command, knowing the inside of the truck is pitch black in this darkness, and he has no idea who lies inside until he gets up and his nocturnal vision kicks in.

I doubt he would recognize her scent as it’s been so long, and she smells almost human due to not turning for nearly a decade.

He doesn’t question; he just hops up effortlessly behind me and follows me so close his body touches me from behind, and I know it’s deliberate.

I can feel it in him, the longing and ache to get close to me again, almost as much as it’s growing in me to be touched by him.

I am aware of his proximity, like a throbbing pulse in the air, making me hypersensitive to his energy. I shake it off, knowing he’s looking down at me and not ahead.

I can feel his breath on my neck as he very clearly stakes his claim on me. Personal space is not in his vocabulary at this moment in time.

He is all in wolf mode in his head and acting like a male hitting the haze, possessively close, practically bearing down on me as the femme he clearly wants to bone.

It’s a little unnerving that he is being so weird, but I get it—I left him. I knew where I was and was in control of my being gone, so I never had that frantic pain of loss.

I always knew where he was and how to reach him and could have if I needed and wanted to, but he had none of that.

He just had silence. No idea where in the world I went and did not know if I was okay, so I guess it’s why he seems a little stirred up and wolf crazy.

His bond instinct to protect me must have made him insane these past few weeks, and until now, I never really thought of it—how that must have made him feel and the powerless nature of it.

Especially if he could feel my fear, panic, and sadness in everything I have been through. His wolf is taking over, and his instinct to stay on my ass and convince me I need him stuck to me.

That primal, aggressive urge to stick to his mate and kill anything that comes near her.

Usually, the human in us counterbalances it a lot better than he is, but I guess I can let it slide while he’s caught in our first moments of reunion.

My scent alone must be affecting him on all kinds of unbearable levels because he is getting under my skin and making me crazy. It’s taking all my willpower not to turn and wrap myself around him.

I walk a few steps to put distance between us unsuccessfully as he bumps me the whole way in an almost claustrophobic manner.

I stop when I know we’re fully inside and then reach, feeling his face above mine with his taller height, having him towering behind me.

I cup his chin just behind me, stretching my arm slightly and lifting it so he looks directly at the corner where Sierra is lying.

His senses are all on me, so he hasn’t even clicked she’s here—that there’s anyone else in here with us.

There’s a moment of pause.

I sense the heart stop and inhale as he shifts from “I need you” possessive, overly hormonal crazy to “What’s going on?” confusion and the “Is that…?” shock as everything about him changes.

I feel everything he exudes, and it makes my emotions fade in comparison.

Colton steps around me instantly, freeing me from his presence as his attention is swept out from under him, and he darts to the bed in the dark, swift and direct as he sees precisely who it is in the dim light.

Doc is shuffling around and clicks something that illuminates the back of the truck with built-in low lights.

I focus on Colton sliding to his mom’s side, scooping up her hand carefully, and almost gasping in shock.

He leans in, making her look so small compared to him, and gently strokes his thumb across her pale hand.

He displays all the tenderness of a sweet child infatuated with the mom he’s been pining for years.

“Mom? Is that really you? Can you hear me?”

He sounds like a lost little boy, so young and vulnerable, with an aching rawness to his tone, and, for a moment, I forget my anger, and nothing but compassion for him fills my heart.

I can feel how this has ripped his heart open, and his pulse is racing so speedily that mine matches it.

Colton regresses ten years, and he’s just a boy finding the mom he’s needed for so long, so much more than anyone could ever have known.

“She’s sedated. Doc needs to wake her, but she doesn’t know what’s happening. Colton, you need to know… there’s nothing wrong with her mind,” I point out.

I come level with him, resting my hand on his arm as he stares at her, eyes fixed on her face. His breathing is shallow, and the confusion and pain are evident under that furrowed brow and glowing amber eyes.

He can’t contain his emotion, so his wolf is showing.

He swallows hard, reaches out, and lifts a strand of her hair before brushing it back gently, carefully, like she’s fine china, so fixated on her like this is some dream he doesn’t want to wake from.

“How… where?” His voice breaks, a harsh croak, and Doc keeps his distance to let me be the one to explain.

It’s not easy to tell a guy that the father he’s loved all this time is why his mother was imprisoned and put in a coma.

I don’t even know how or where to begin, and I hesitate, looking at Doc and mildly panic-stricken for a moment when it comes to me.

Doc shrugs and nods as though encouraging me. I think he’s a little intimidated by Colton, to be fair. I mean, he did threaten to kill him three minutes ago.

I don’t need to tell him. I need to show him. It’s the only way I know how.

“It’s a long story. I think maybe it’s better to do it this way. So you can see for yourself,” I whisper, reaching up and laying my fingertips on his temple and waiting for his permission.

I tense as my touch seems so light and hesitant on him, that familiarity dragging me to draw closer.

Colton nods, oblivious to me while his attention is on her, knowing I mean projecting my memories. I can’t blame him; he’s searched for her for so long, so no wonder she’s all he sees.

I close my eyes and push them his way, rifling through and trying to find a starting point as I drag them to the forefront.

I decide on one.

It starts right from my decision to turn east and follow that path, to finding the facility, then being caught—Deacon, the doctor, the cell, and finding Sierra until we got out, and I linked Colton.

I show him every second on that timeline, even how they kept her and hope it all filters in while he’s so distracted.

I need to give him all of it, even the parts I’m afraid of him knowing. I don’t have the words to tell him about his father, and I don’t have the strength to tell him about my family or that we’re both hybrids.

Colton stands stock-still as it all plays in, and he relives what I did in the past couple of days, seeing, hearing, and learning it all.

He feels what I did and experiences everything he must have felt from afar, in microseconds, the way transference works. Even the part I was most afraid of telling him—that I’m a half-breed vampire.

I feel him close me out as soon as the images of the last memory fade away like a shutter coming down as he disconnects from me. That wall of emotion blanks and pushes me away.

It’s not something most wolves can do, especially to an imprinted bond, but Colton does it right now and shields me from everything he’s feeling in the moment and shuts me out.

It’s an alpha gift to protect loved ones from pain and horror.

It shocks me and hurts me a little, but I don’t think he’s doing it to punish me. I think he’s doing it because he knows his emotions are completely overwhelming and doesn’t want to make me feel them.

He’s protecting me and pulling back so he doesn’t share what he’s experiencing.

He stands, lets go of his mom’s hand, and looks over my head at the doc with a glazed, distant expression which is not what I expected.

He looks determined as that leader takes over, and he stands a little taller, moving in to take charge.

“How long do you need before you can wake her?”

There’s a coldness to his tone, a lack of feeling, and I wonder if he has withdrawn even from his emotions because it was too much for him or if he is just really, really pissed.

I honestly cannot tell, but there is a brewing storm in the air around him, even if he is shielding me.

I guess finding out everything in your life was a lie, and the villain in your story is your father, has to hurt as much as when I learned about what he did to my family.