“I need a location, so Colton can help us.” I sound odd, strained, and my voice is husky, and hoarse,
hinting at tears I’m refusing to shed. I can’t deny this is awful, but we need his help.
“Oh goodness, that was quick, and it worked. Clever girl. Yes, location, of course, we’re fifteen miles or
so from the Hackuuh mountain base, north of Rennington. We head south for a good forty miles from
here and we end up meeting the route ten to Normansville. Is that accurate enough?” The doctor
scratches his head and goes back to grabbing the steering wheel with both hands before peering back
out into the darkness, illuminated only by our headlights. I shrug at him and turn away to focus on the
link.
Colton, we’re fifteen miles or so from the Hackuuh mountain base, north of Rennington. He has us
heading south, he says we’re forty miles from getting to the route ten to Normansville. Does that help?
The directions mean nothing to me as someone who never ventured out of the valley until recently. I try
and only focus on details and not the overwhelming emotions he’s passing this way, or the way my own
heart rate is pounding sky high and my legs are trembling at being connected to him. It’s a bittersweet
agony and I’m totally hopeless to defend myself from it.
The Hackuuh? You’re not that far, god damn it, Lorey. You’re the feeling that I should go south east?
And yet I still didn’t find you!......... Tell him to stick to that route, we can meet you as soon as you hit
route ten and escort you to where we’ve been staying. It’s not far. If we get there first, we’ll head in
towards you and hopefully meet sooner.
I knew Colton would push everything he was feeling aside and pull through. It’s what he does, and why
one day he’ll make a formidable leader. His heart always secondary to what he feels is responsibility
and what he has to do. The curse that made him choose her over me. Despite everything, even
thinking I’ve someone to replace him, he’s still helping. No hint of malice or telling me to go away. I feel
kind of guilty about letting that deception stay between us, but I can’t quite bring myself to put him right
and I sure as hell can’t tell him over link that his mother is with us. I don’t have the words. He’s going to
find out soon enough as it is.
“Stay on track to route ten and they’ll meet us, show us where to go…. We’re going to be okay.” I tap
the doctor’s arm, seeing the sag of relief as my words filter in and he nods, exhaling a breath he’s
probably been holding all this time. I guess I do too, because we can’t outrun the facility pack, but with
Colton and the subs, they won’t have a chance of getting at Sierra. It’s safety, and success, with very
little effort. We need to get to them and let Colton take over.
It does feel weird to know he kept looking though, and admitting something was pulling him where I
was, that’s odd. Maybe it was his mother finally calling to him too, and nothing to do with me, and I do
find it strange he said they were staying somewhere else and not the mountain. I guess Juan has them
scouring further afield for Vampires, and Colton has been using it to also look out for me in case we
crossed paths.
Please tell me you have the sub pack with you… I have at least a pack of nineteen coming, this might
be a fight.
I add in afterthought, a sudden fear he might come alone, eating me.
What the hell did you do? Who are they? Not that it matters right now, because I’ll rip them a new one
and yes, the sub pack and then some…. You’ve missed so much, Lorey. I have so much to fill you in
on.
Likewise.
I sigh internally and mouth it to myself. I dread it even more knowing that I also have to add my lineage
to the list of things Colton should know about. That nausea chokes me again and I try to push it down
and concentrate on the act of breathing in and out.
I can’t get into it right now, honestly, it’s better I show you when we meet, so you can see for yourself
and you can tell me then. For now, I need to unlink Colton…this is …hard…. and we have a tough road
to navigate out of this damn forest. I’ll link you when we hit route ten, please, understand…. It’s just
easier to not try and explain anything until I see you. You’ll understand when you see.
I’m being a coward. I know if we stay linked while passing miles to meet, I might tell him stupid things,
and work myself into a mess of tears, and love confessions, and tell the idiot how much I miss and love
him still, despite what he’s done, and the fact it can never go anywhere. Or I might tell him about his
mother, and have to deal with the fall out of Colton self-imploding, and I am not strong enough for that,
or for keeping linked to him when I really want to curl up and cry. It’s too raw having him back in my
head like we’ve never been apart, and I’m so not equipped to deal with my own feelings on top of his
shining through. It’s a see saw ride and I have a lot to process.
Promise me you’ll re-link the second you hit the route, I hate this not being able to reach you bullshit, it
shouldn’t be this way. I don’t care what or who he is…. I fucking love you, and nothing changes that.
That part shocks me, especially the hostile way he rasps it at me like it’s a threat and not a love
declaration. Jealousy well and truly piquing in a way he can’t control, and it ignites mine, along with the
urge to snap back at him. ‘So much that you marked Carmen, huh?’. It chokes me up and I unlink him
without responding at all. Cutting him off before I lose my shit at him and compromise our run to safety.
That inner rage igniting every time I think of the four days after leaving, and that undeniable sign that
he betrayed me. He betrayed us. It’s not something I can forget, or ever forgive.
It has the desired effect of pulling my head out of my wallowing, love sick, ass and instead of soppy
weak longings, I now want to rip his head off for being a possessive shithead who thinks he still has a
right to me. For swearing at me about this when he should be groveling.
“Ughhhh. He has a god damn cheek, telling me HE is not mad at ME!!” I let rip, startling the poor doctor
and the fright almost makes him swerve us into a bush. “You know what, he should be more concerned
with how mad I am at HIM and afraid, because I’m the one who will rip him a new something when I
see him! He should be the one getting sworn at and shielding off hostility, not me!!!”
The doctor flattens a palm to his chest as though trying to calm the heart failure I inflicted, and he casts
me a concerned smile. A flicker of confusion crossing his features.
“Good conversation, I take it?”
He gets a darkening thunderous scowl aimed his way. My look of unimpressed and breathing in raspy
short breaths as my temper rages a little higher. I think it’s an after effect of holding my anxiety in while
linking and now the damn breaks.
“He loves me PAH!….and he doesn’t care who I’m with, like he has any say in that respect, when he
pushed me out and made me leave and then, before even a week had passed, he had some skanky
puta in his bed and finalizing the marking that should have been with me! Ughhhhh. Is he conveniently
forgetting all of that? Is he that dense and that much of a condescending hypocrite!!” I’m venting, so
wound up with our interaction and triggered over the stupidest part of it. Hating on him, as some sort of
emotional response, and oozing fury so that I start wriggling about in my seat manically, waving my
hands around and kicking the dash.
“Skanky what now?” The doctor rubs his head, eyes darting to me and the road and tries hard to make
sense of my ranting.
“You know what? …If I didn’t need that jerk for Sierra’s sake then he could go kiss my ass and get used
to the fact I was dust in his future. Not a chance of ever making me come back, and you know what he
had the nerve to say? Do you?” I shout it at the poor doc, getting a wide-eyed shake of the head and
half shrugged response.
“I wouldn’t like to hazard a guess, but I’m presuming something that piqued a nerve, or ten.” It’s a semi
sarcastic yet wary reply with a feeble smile.
“He said ‘I hate this not being able to reach you bullshit and it shouldn’t be this way’” I mimic Coles
slightly accented dialect in a mocking male low tone, bouncing my shoulders as I say it in pretense
macho’ness, and kick the dash in fury when I let it out, hurting my own toes inside my boot and it only
makes me madder. “He is the god damn reason I LEFT! Oh my god, why the hell did I think that
running straight back to that complete dumbass was the best plan of things. I should have known he
would only piss me off completely.”
“Don’t kill me for the suggestion, but maybe because he is the best option and, you two clearly have a
few issues that need to be resolved. He may be marked elsewhere, but it does sound like his heart is
still fully invested here, and your overdramatic response screams you love him still.” The doc points at
my chest, meaning my heart and I shake my hands out in frustration. I want to show him what over
dramatic looks like as the urge to air punch the doc out of the truck hits me, for that less than helpful
observation.
“Colton’s heart has never been the problem. It’s his big, stupid, inflated head, that big dumb brain that
sits in there, taking up space and telling him to do the right thing for everyone else in the pack, except
him…. and me. That’s the only issue we have and it’s a non-resolvable one.”
Reverting to juvenile insults because Colton really does make me feel wacko sometimes. Like back
after the imprinting when he left me alone for two weeks, and then just showed up in my head like
some swooning Romeo and screwed me all up. Why didn’t he let me die that night?
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but surely marking another would completely dissipate your link and the
feelings he has for you?” The doctor is trying to tug me back to a sense of calm with a little question
time, but I’m not biting. Too absorbed in my self-rampage of Colton dislike, because I have needed to
do this for weeks.
“We imprinted, no one knows…. and in the whole history of fated mates, no one has ever rejected the
bond and not marked. Just that dip shit Colton, so I don’t know if it’s meant to dissolve the link, or
whatever, but it didn’t. Clearly!” I spit it out, turning away and banging my forehead off the side window
in a bid to calm down.
“Then maybe….”
“Don’t okay. I know what I felt, and I don’t want to talk about him anymore, until I have to see his stupid
face. Can we just drive and not talk? Please.” I bite my tongue, so many more words poised and ready
to spew out, but this is getting me nowhere fast.
“That’s fine by me, my dear. This is a difficult path to follow and I should probably concentrate on that.”
The doctor relents, probably relieved to have an excuse to not engage with the hormonal psycho
making this time worse than it needs to be and I do suddenly get hit with a wave of remorse at taking it
out on him.
“Fine…… suits me fine!” I lower my tone and try for softer, but I sound like a sulking child and shut
myself up. I slump back against my headrest, exhaling heavily and stare out the window once more,
pulling my legs up to curl under me on the oversized truck chair, bubbling, and boiling up inside and
begin counting down the minutes to seeing that asshat. Listing all the things in my head I deserve to
punch him in the groin for.
It’s the only way to pass the time, as I’m not ready to simmer and douse these flames I have burning
for that jerk. I start compiling a list with a lot of bones I have to pick. Starting with a major one!
Betraying me with that skanky puta while claiming he loves me.
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