âI should have found her a long time ago, before any of this. I should have looked harder, but I was young and stupid, and I believed my father when he said it was for the best.â
Oh, for the love of God! I mean, when you decide to avoid a topic, and they just keep pushing it between us like some sort of annoying sign, it grates a tiny bit.
I give up, eye-roll upward at the Fates, and mentally ask them if this is deliberate.
That heartbreak and rawness in his croaking tone, though, finally tell me how much his fatherâs betrayal is screwing him up.
So, I focus all my energy on that and not the universe trying to make me smother him with his hoody.
I instinctively wrap my arm around his, hoping contact will keep me from heinous beatings, and lean my head on his shoulder, trying to blank them out.
Heâs still trying to shield me but, this close, heâs failing to do it fully, and I can feel it inside me. I want to ease his pain as it flows through me and circles around my own heart and stomach.
Itâs heavy, deep, and consuming, and I forget everything about being upset or angry with him.
I instinctively slide my flattened palm along his arm, cover the back of the hand he has laid on his momâs, and entwine my fingers in his so we hold hands on top of hers.
Colton turns his head with my contact and rests his chin and mouth on top of my hair, pushing in against me, so weâre half cuddling but not really, just touching, leaning together.
For once, I donât push him away or feel the need to jump out of proximity.
We both exhale simultaneously, a heavy release of tension, hurt, and energy as we sag together, and everything pauses for a second. I experience that calm silence his touch always brings me.
I can feel him feeding off me, soothe him slightly with my touch as an imprinted mate should, and I close my eyes and enjoy the stolen moment Iâm allowing myself.
I can push everything aside and pretend that itâs okay to be what he needs when itâs about her when the topic isnât us, markings, and anything other than supporting someone who needs it.
âI donât know how to lead, Lorey. These people, this pack. Iâm just a kid. Iâm not ready.â
The devastation and self-doubt rip through me as it emanates from him, and I look up from my nestled position, shifting to see his face without breaking away.
I hate that he feels so out of whack, and the classic, confident rock Iâve come to depend on is wavering.
âYouâre a born leader. Maybe it seems hard right now, and things arenât clear, but you are the best for your people, Colton.
âLook around. Theyâre here with you. You did this. Safe, protected, you stood up and made a stand for them against someone you love.
âYou put them first, always. The good of the pack, itâs always your primary focus, even when other things get in the way. How can you doubt that?
âItâs what makes you the strongest kind of leader!â I praise him with honesty, heartfelt and hushed, as I whisper the words he needs to remember.
How he can doubt himself this way is beyond me. Everything I know about him makes it obvious; he was always going to be the best kind of alpha. He is!
âMaybe I just want to be a selfish kid. One who took the girl he wanted and walked away, and screw all this. I should have left with you. Belonged with you wherever you went.â
He sounds defeated, and I know this isnât him. This is a tired and uncertain guy who has had a lot thrown at him.
In one day, his ex-mate resurfaces, dragging his long-lost mom along, and he finds out his father kept her prisoner after murdering his people and destroying the life he thought he knew.
It hurts to hear him say it, feel itâthe regret of what happened with us, even while Iâm trying to ignore it.
The tears bite at my eyes, and a lump forms in my throat that almost chokes me, inflicting a unique body and brain ache thatâs hard to shake off.
âMaybe you should have, but you would never have forgiven yourself. You made the choices you made for the packâs good, even if it hurt us.
âIf you left them, he would never have relinquished control, and they would suffer still. The Fates had a plan, and maybe leaving with me would have changed my path and never led me to her.
âAnd what about her? Youâve waited for her for ten years. She needs you. They all do. I finally see how this is so much bigger than us, Colton, why it had to be that we couldnât be together.
âIt was by design, and we did what we were meant to, even you when you rejected me.â
I nod at Sierra, my voice strained with the undercurrents of my agonizing emotions, knowing that all of this is his pain talking and the desire to run away from everything hurting him.
Itâs a typical fight-or-flight response, and I felt the same when I learned about all of it. I still feel this wayâthe desire to run and bury my head and wish itâd been different.
Itâs fear, overwhelming, but itâs pointless, and running wonât fix anything. Juan has to pay. The balance has to be restored, and Sierra needs her son. Colton needs to lead.
Colton sighs, slides his arms under me fully, picks me up, surprising me with the sudden maneuver, and drags me to his lap, where he wraps around me.
He buries his head under my chin, against my chest, so I have no other option than to hold him as he takes what he needs from me, even if he should have asked first.
I relent and wrap him up in a hug, be the strength heâs lacking while doubt and heartbreak consume him.
Itâs awful, and yet the best thing, to allow myself to be this way for a while, even if it confuses my heart.
âThe people, the war, the futureâitâs all interwoven. Us, your mom, your dad, we canât run away from this even if we wanted to. Weâre part of it, even in our mistakes and heartbreak.
âThe Fates know what theyâre doing, and for whatever reason they did this to us, itâll make sense in time.â I run my fingers through his thick, short hair, stroking it back and soothing him against me.
Iâm caring for him, giving him what I can as it stirs up all kinds of longings and warm sensations in the pit of my stomach, being connected to him like this.
âI denied the Fates, Lorey. Maybe I was meant to find her with you, by your side. Maybe I screwed everything up by rejecting you.â
He squeezes me harder, pulling me closer, so I end up almost entirely entangled in his body. It starts to feel inappropriate and way too intimate as I naturally fit up against him in the hollow of his lap.
With my ass nestling in his groin, Iâm fully aware heâs carrying a pretty healthy package because itâs now somehow worked its way into a position where itâs wedged in between my ass cheeks.
It distracts from the heavy feelings of this scenario. Distraction at its finest, a pretty sizable one at that, and I try to focus back on what Iâm meant to, but itâs not easy.
My eyes scan the room for signs of Carmen crashing in here because of my guilty libido as my nether regions tingle.
Iâm heating up with being this close, skin sizzling, and stomach flipping over at something so innocent.
I donât seem to control it now when all I can focus on is feeling it through his pants and mine, and itâs impressive.
Itâs not like I havenât seen it when heâs turned from wolf to human again.
Itâs just that when heâs standing up, and there are a lot of abs, pecs, and muscles all leveling out the eye candy, you donât size up what you donât want to get caught looking at.
I looked that one time accidentally, and it was memorable.
I wriggle to get his âsituationâ from under me, not that itâs reacting much. Itâs that Iâm painfully aware of it through thin sweats, and once your head goes somewhere like that, itâs hard to get it back out of the gutter.
Iâve been having lucid pornographic dreams about him these past weeks while out there alone, but the reality feels a lot more⦠substantial and within grasp.
Swallowing hard, I try to bring my mind and hearing back, but I fail badly. I blush crazily, aware Iâm being a freak.
Heat spreading up from my boobs, neck, and cheeks makes me sweat instantly and overheat so that I must be visibly turning rosy.
Iâm scared to put my hand anywhere and flinch anytime I feel an ounce of movement under me.
I try to avoid looking down or directly at him and subtly attempt an escape from his impalement without drawing attention to it.
Iâm becoming that awkward, sex-starved teen virgin you read about in young adult romance books.
âI donât think they ever intended you to be with me. This is where youâre needed. They wouldnât give you a role if they didnât think you could do it,â I say.
My words are rushed, babbled mainly, my cheeks flushing, and Iâm breathless.
Iâm focusing on sliding sideways like some sad little untouched having a freak-out because he has a penis, and I just realized Iâm sitting on it.
Iâm distracted from the gravity of what weâre talking about because Colton is making me⦠hot.
Thatâs the word! Really, really hot. Squirmy. My whole body is pulsating with need now that itâs caught on to whatâs happening.
I think Iâm experiencing my first full-on hormonal breakdown, full haze mode, and craving things I shouldnât.