“It’s like that huh?” He sighs, adjusting his position so he is propped up on his arm, hand fisted against the edge of his jaw and gives me a little breathing space. Moving back a few inches, but still pressed against the side of my full length, and still touching my face. “Two summers ago, before Carmen and I started dating. You were wearing a green dress, serving candy floss at the meadow festival. You served me, wouldn’t look me in the eye and when you passed me my change, you dropped it on the ledge rather than hand it to me. You had a yellow flower in your hair.” His voice is soft and husky, and I try hard to lock on his gaze as my memory dashes backwards, trying to pinpoint what he’s remembering. It’s vague, but I remember the festival and the way his whole pack spent the entire day lording over the rest of us and causing mayhem. It was a nothing day and nothing sticks out as memorable about it.
“You have my memories,“You liked me?” I blurt out accusingly. I don’t understand. That memory is long before the wars catapulted into our life and changed everything. A time I can barely remember, and I definitely don’t recall on that day, either of us having any kind of memorable interaction. He stayed with his friends and I stayed with mine and then I went home with my mom before the sun went down. I would have to claw through the memories to be sure, but there was nothing to suggest he even noticed me. “I had a crush on you, like you wouldn’t believe. I don’t know how many times I tried to talk to you and got completely blanked or lost my nerve. I used to hang out where I knew you would be, but then the war happened, and you became….” His voice tails off, eyes averting, shame washing over his expression, and I know what he means without him finishing. I became a black sheep. One of the shamed. My family died and our people scrape
“What about it? You came to tell me they all think I’m a freak and a threat and I’m getting moved to an isolation tank.” I say it so blankly like there’s no feeling behind it, but honestly, it’s had me worried to the pit of my stomach on and off for hours. Isolation tanks dampen gifts and make you unable to do anything much about it. If they think I’m some kind of freak of nature, I can totally see Juan using that as an excuse to contain me. It would solve the whole imprinting issue and his son being in danger. I would literally live in a steel box, forgotten in some basement below one of the Santo houses. I could live and rot until I die of age in there. Problem solved.“They’re all too busy figuring out what we do about our lands before we’re hit with another attack. This shit is just the beginning, Lorey. All these years wasted when we should have been preparing and building an army once more. Now they’r
I frown, mouth opening to say ‘What?’ but he grabs me by my hips, yanks me down the bed and jumps on top of me in under a second, using hyper speed and insane reflexes so I haven’t even time for a breath, or a blink. I yelp with the surprise of the maneuver, winded with his sudden weight on top of me, aggressively heavy, his body fitting snugly against mine in every way so he’s literally nose to nose with me and I can’t move an inch. My hands pinned to the cushions beside my head by his, and ankles shoved apart by his feet, viciously. Stunned and suddenly feeling all kinds of things that conflict and collide, I gawp at him, heart rate pounding up to insane levels and start to squirm in his harsh grip.“What are you doing? Colton, get off of me.” I whisper huskily against him, panic flashing that this doesn’t feel right, or like that first time we started to mark but he has me completely immobile. I’m instantly a little too h
I wake up face down on the floor in a heap, arm draped awkwardly over my head and limbs splayed out on the hardwood, disorientated, choking on my own blood, and gagging on bile. Gathering my wits and trying to get my bearings, I struggle to move, dazed for a moment and then I remember where I am, and what he’s doing to me. Like a rush of water flowing back to a dry riverbed when the damn is breached.That surge of furious self-preservation, instant awareness as the room comes back at me and I jump up, heart tearing through my chest with elevated thuds, claws appearing, mind a burning mess of mad. Ready to take him on in a battle to the death and fueled by something inside of me that I never knew I possessed. I feel like my hatred could melt steel, with the heat radiating from my fiery depths and I spin hysterically, ready to demolish my attacker. Body mid turn in furious speed when I realize he is on the other side of the room from me and looking at me like I have t
“I know how it looks. I had to make you fight back, and I knew that was a surefire way. I had to see. This changes things Lorey, can’t you understand? Our packs are verging on a war where more than ever my mate has to be capable of standing by my side and fighting worse than us. You can absorb my gifts, which means you can absorb any that you come up against, turn them into something more powerful and use them with control. You were right when you said I made a choice and I did ... but this is how we change it. My father has to see that you’re not a black mark on our people if the fates gave you a gift like this. There’s hope that I can have them accept you into the pack and lay claim to what the fates ordained. You as my mate… as we always should have been...” The muscle twinge in his jaw, the flicker of his eyes on mine as he begs me to believe, has me spiraling.I shake my head at him, so consumed with mistrust, my mind a flurry of confli
It’s as he says. After I blacked out there was a moment of pause, where he stopped, pulled my face to him from the cushions and looked over me, aware I was no longer responding. His voice laced in concern, asking if I was okay and trying to rouse me. Genuinely afraid he hurt me or pushed me too far and that maybe he had stopped me from being able to get air. He turned me over carefully, checked my breathing, leaned in, and tried to stroke my face to wake me, saying my name softly.It’s like I stopped and became vacant and there were long seconds of nothing from me. He released his hold on me, panic rising inside of him, afraid he had done something to me, checked my pulse, stroked my face again and tried to shake me, whispering my name softly. He didn’t do anything more to hurt me, just bring me round. When it looked like he started moving to pull me up to sit, so drenched in his concern, I completely exploded, transforming in a blink, like he woke the dormant
What else can I do. I’m technically a prisoner here, with nowhere else to go. I’m on my feet, with a persistent pain in my ass bossing me around, in a house full of people who hate me. I literally only have him on my side to depend on, and only because the fates forced it. I have nowhere else, and if I’m being honest with myself, everything is too messy, my gifts too new, and my mental state a little too on the fragile side to be thinking about going anywhere alone. So, I nod reluctantly.“Come on then. Stay close to me.” Colton turns and leads the way, sensing I don’t want or need him touching me and I do as he says. Staying right behind him, clutching my covering and wait while he grabs one, wrapping it on like a toga, and heads towards the door. If Carmen saw us now, naked with ripped bed sheets to cover our modesty, she would only assume the worst and I can’t imagine that going down well at all. Shuddering at the possibility she mig
I close my eyes as the tears begin to fall silently down my cheeks, warm unwelcome rivulets of remembrance. The pain returning once more, and I can’t stop myself. My heart filling up and straining to contain it as my mind is swamped with images I don’t want to relive, and I shudder as I push them away, inhaling heavily as my shoulders start to tremble with the effort of not falling apart. The horrors of how I last saw them all, trying so hard to invade my brain and cut me down all over again. I nestle back into Colton as his arm comes up around my body and across my neck as he cuddles me. His comfort, because he can feel my pain, my body trembling as I cry, squeezing my eyes shut to gain control. His touch is what I need more than anything and I stay here in the darkness of my own doing, listening and silently weeping while held tight in his comforting embrace.“We think it was a test, for this device we found in the orphanage.” Juan carries on and