I fall silent as I pull on the last item from the pile, gritting my teeth at his pigheaded denseness, as that
ember erupts into a little flame, pushing my nerves taut. A small candle sized one, that hits in the dark
recess and instantly glows, and grows, to epic proportions of robust flame, that moves me to dress
faster with a hostile last tug to secure my pants. My blood boiling as it overtakes me, and I sweep my
hair back with sass and grab the door handle angrily.
Yanking the door open, surprised to come face to face with him as he’s leaning his forehead against
the door and I almost face butt him full on. His eyes glowing with the turmoil of his emotions, but it does
little to dampen mine. It only notches my inner fury up another click. They meet mine and lock on in that
special way we have whenever our eyes connect, the sizzle, the connection, but he isn’t expecting the
response that comes out of me. Nor the rage. That little burning flame of crazy that explodes at the
sight of him.
“You didn’t even like me before that night! You didn’t know me! This, us, it’s not real. It’s something
implanted inside of us by something up there.” I point skyward, aggressively, glaring at him. “We would
never have fallen for one another, never have crossed paths in any kind of way if it wasn’t for the fates.
I wasn’t on your radar, and to be honest, I didn’t even like you anyway.” I shove him back out of my
space with a push to his ab’s, so he clears the doorway, and he just gawps at me like I’ve lost my mind.
Maybe I have! “You don’t even remember me, do you? … Before that night. I didn’t think so! … You
need to pull your head out of your ass and remember that. Carmen was the woman you loved and
planned a life with, and you chose her…. Loud and painfully clear! You said the words to me, and this
is done. The fates didn’t stop us, Colton, you did and your family, and everyone else in this hell hole
that confined my kind to a dark hole on the outskirts and left us there to die. So don’t you dare tell me
how awful this is for you, because you have no fucking idea what awful is until you’ve walked in my
shoes for the last ten years of life. You have Carmen, you have a pack, a home, and a fucking choice in
all of this. I never did! The fates didn’t punish you with this, they probably expected you to man up and
do what they told you to do, for whatever reason they decided on us! You did this to us! You did this to
me! Suck it up and shut the fuck up!” I have no idea where this angry dress down comes from, but I
deliver it in a raspy, accusatory tone, right into his face. No fear or wuthering wallflower, cowering in
front of an alpha of the pack. Just an angry girl, in the face of a stupid boy, who bruised her heart and is
pissing her off by denying his part in it. A powerful frustration filled lecture, snarls and throaty growls
included, and I lock a penetrating gaze on him pinning him where he stands as though I could impale
him with looks alone.
It’s true though. He can stand making speeches and regretful apologies from now until eternity, but the
simple fact is, Colton had a choice, and this is what he chose. He doesn’t get to whine like some
spoiled pup about it now. He’s an alpha for god’s sake, and he needs to own it. Not act like some
overdramatic teen whose parents are being lame and stopping him from doing something superficial.
He stares back at me in utter shock, rendered mute at my outburst and unsure how to even respond
anyway. Even his mind link is silent. I don’t think any wolf this far below his station has ever talked to
him like that, and he doesn’t seem like he knows quite how to respond. If I was anyone else, he
probably would have me pinned to the floor by the throat and reminded them who their alpha was.
Instead he’s silently shocked that I even had it in me.
I ‘arghh’ at him, and shove him back abruptly, marching past, simmering with this sudden newfound
rage and I know it can only be some sort of delayed reaction to what happened tonight.
I’m not myself, I don’t feel like I’m really here, and to be honest this whole Carmen, Colton, Vampires,
bullshit and being brought to the home of the people who made my last decade worthless, is all a little
too much for me right now. I’m angry, seething, bubbling away inside... at him, them, life, The god
damn fates. Most of all, I’m angry at me; for being this weak stupid girl who wasn’t good enough to
keep, and too useless and vulnerable to save her friends. Her family.
I lost everything and I almost died. Terrified inside, deep down, like a churning pit of foreboding that
shadows me, of the monsters I knew only from stories. The ones who jumped out of the fables and
threw me out of my own bedroom window.
Knowing they are out there and close enough to really devastate our kind is enough in itself to make
me cower for the rest of my life. They had a weapon, a sound, that much like Carmen’s had the ability
to hurt us and render us unable to turn. That means we’re no longer the stronger in this newfound war
and we can all be killed. I have bigger things in my head right now, than love confessions, and pining
assholes trying to mess with my head, while arguing with his mate.
“I’m not going to spend my days whining about this crap, and I need you to just stop, okay. The words
you said in the forest were the end of this. There’s nothing to say or drag out and talk through.” I turn
on him aggressively, lifting my palms in a show of ‘what now?’, meaning where the hell am I meant to
be going in this damned house because I have never been here before and I’m fucking lost. He nods
back at a door behind me with very little to say. His expression ashen, temporarily without words, and
not really tackling my mood in the slightest.
To be honest, he looks a little shellshocked and right now, I don’t really care. I have weeks of pent up
heartbreak at this guy’s hands and I’m done being a push over. My life, in one night, went from awful, to
completely rock bottom, end of the line, apocalypse, kind of bad. I have bigger headaches than him.
My emotions starts shredding and unraveling now that I let all of that out, chest hit with a heavy shunt,
and suddenly I don’t’ feel so pent up and hostile anymore, instead I feel like maybe, I might actually cry.
From rage and frustration to a sudden need to lie down and sob. Energy burning out from venting, and
reality coming back full circle to remind me that I’ve lost everything.
I spin away from him to head on, then stop, shudder involuntarily as the overwhelming wave hits me at
full speed and the tidal wave of tears come out of nowhere. I don’t even have a chance to try and
combat it before it hits full throttle. Breaking and flinching as I lose control and they start to fall.
Coughing on the woeful sound that escapes me and smothering my face with both hands to try and
catch the waterfall as it pours from my eyes.
“Lorey, baby, don’t.” Colton catches me by the arm, tries to pull me towards him but I throw him off,
putting too much force into shoving him away from me and sending him back stepping by about three
feet. Startling him with my show of force as he raises his palms to show he won’t retaliate. Even
breaking down like a feeble femme, there’s an internal burning rage that just isn’t ready to die.
“Don’t. I don’t need you touching me, consoling me. I just need you to leave me alone. All of you. I was
fine on my own before, and I’ll be fine on my own again.” Not really accurate, but irrational, and
hormonal, are not states to be argued with, and all I know is I need to get out of here and run. I need
space. From him, them, this, my whole head mess of pain, at knowing from tonight onwards, nothing is
going to be the same ever again.
I turn and head for the front door impulsively, not caring about anything else but getting solitude, the
darkness invading the open space as I reach it, sending an internal shiver of terror down into my
stomach. I peer out into the unknown, from a doorway I’ve never known and with the knowledge that
creatures out there worse than us mean us harm. They could be anywhere, and I have no place to
return too now either.
“No!” Colton yanks me back with force and I spin on him tearfully. “I’ll leave you alone, but you’re not
leaving this house. It’s dangerous out there for all of us now, and I won’t let you go.” He pins me with a
commanding look and a hostile tone, veiling a sliver of fear for my safety, but I throw it aside and cast
of his emotions that are starting to flood me once more. I open my mouth to bark a refusal, but he hits
me with a mental link and that dominant tone that instantly disables me.
You are not to leave this pack house without my say so, and you won’t argue! Stop it, now!
My head buzzes, both with rage and sheer frustration, as words catch in my throat and almost choke
me instantaneously. I can’t get them out, his gift being misused to confine me to his home and stop my
need to tell him what I think of his ‘commands’. Rendered mute because he forbade me to argue and
the only words poised are one’s that tell him where to go. I instead throw my hands in the air, glaring
furiously at him and then sucker punch him in the abs, out of intense frustration. He flinches, half
smiling with a shocked response, total disbelief that I’m being this aggressive and a little apprehensive
in how to react. I storm left, heading for the bathroom I just came from. Hating on him for being such a
bossy asshole and exerting his powers over me when he has no god damn right.
Colton catches me by the elbow instantly, and yanks me to the right instead, heading for the stairs at a
fast pace that signals he’s in no mode to argue about it. Forced by his strength. Not even letting me
choose where I get to be alone and it riles me, that simmering fire in my belly back in a flash to push all
tame aside and my inner demon shows face. I start fighting him, every inch of the way, by tugging, and
squirming, and pushing him off, stabbing him with scathing pointed glares, refusing to relent. I pull his
hand from my arm, getting madder when he grabs me by the other instead, a tighter, biting grip, that is
meant to bring me back to heel. I twist it away, but to no avail as he shunts me from behind, then slides
his arms around my body and continues to forcefully guide and push me where he wants me to go. It
becomes a juvenile game of slapping, grabbing, shoving, tugging, and he gets me around the waist
and lifts me from my feet before I ram an elbow straight in his face, crunching on the bridge of his nose
and bruising my bone in the process.
“Fuck sakes, Lorey!” He snaps at me, losing his shit completely and halts as we hit the foot of the stair.
Seriously emanating all kinds of rage at my refusal to be controlled and glares, hitting me with a full-on
furious frown and sneer. He turns me snappily, hauls me towards him by the waist, bends and hoists
me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
Not playing anymore; his anger radiating hotter than the sun, but it only heightens my own. Carrying
me as I squirm and wriggle and kick out, using my nails on his back in a bid to make him drop me. He
grips me tight and does the worst thing he can do in this moment. He uses his gift again, in a bid to get
me to do as he wants, against my will.
Be still. Be quiet. Obey me!
I freeze, motionless, voiceless, all without choice and completely furious that he renders me immobile.
My internal bubbling pot of ‘how the fuck dare you’ heightening to volcanic levels in the blink of an eye.
Internally seething, that twice, in the space of a minute, he’s exerted his alpha tone over me and put
me in my place like an obedient little lowlife. My body obeying him, my throat muting, and I honestly
don’t think I have ever felt this much instant venom for anyone in my whole life.
It almost explodes inside of me, with the power to rip down these damned four walls. Like a kettle
letting off steam after boiling to excessive popping abilities, and it fills my every pore and vein with a
molten lava, straight from the depths of hell.
I loathe him, more than I ever thought I could hate anyone, and despite being bonded and imprinted to
this arrogant asshole, I want to rip his god damn, fucking, stupid, dumbass, shitty, head, off his
shoulders, and kick it down the stairs like a soccer ball.
That internal rage heats me like a volcano from inside out, my blood reaching boiling point, my temper
shooting through the roof and despite being utterly paralyzed, slumped over him as we climb the stairs,
my mind and insides churn up a tornado that would scare the fates. It feels like I emit a solar flare when
I boom out via our mental link.
I FUCKING DESPISE YOU!!!!!
It’s a psychic scream, but as we pass two other Santo’s on the stair, the very second it erupts from my
mind to his, even those two males cower and fall to the ground, grabbing their heads and yelping in
agony. Colton, too crumbles, dropping me clumsily, my lifeless body, with an ungraceful thud on top of
him as we collapse in a heap on the steps.
Like a tremor of an earthquake, erupting from my soul, every vase, glass, ceramic, and piece of pottery,
in the near vicinity, explodes instantaneously, windows blow out all around us and the chandelier of the
main hall hanging right to the left of the stair way shatters into a thousand tiny specks of self-
combusted dust, as though it just exploded. Scattering microscopic glitter into the air that comes to
settle on everything around it.
It’s a second of utter chaos, as though a bomb just went off in the center of the pack house, and hard
brittle objects in every direction break under the strain with a dramatic ‘whoosh’.
People come down like ten pins around us, caving and crumbling while covering their ears, every
single Santo in the downstairs hall who just walked in. I can see them from my viewpoint. All gripping
their skulls and screwing their eyes shut as it reverberates through and causes them all to collapse
where they stand, in a ripple effect. I’m the only one not clawing at themselves to keep, what seems to
be overwhelming pain, out.
“What the f….?” Colton is breathless as he tries to regain composure, sliding his arms away from me
hurriedly, and skirts back to give me space, leaving me suddenly free to pull myself together. A hint of
fear darting across his normally emotionless face as he flashes a glance at me and then on the
carnage all around us, at all the debris. I can sense his panic and confusion and for the moment, I can
feel he doesn’t want to get any closer, that he’s wary about what I just did. If that was even me.
I’m dazed, bruised, from being dropped on a hardwood staircase, and completely non-plussed about
what the hell just happened. I feel like there was some sort of implosion around me, yet I’m completely
unscathed. And now, my internal thoughts, body and soul are totally calm. All that fire and rage, just
gone.
“Was that voice hers?” one of the males on the stairs crawls to his knees and attempts to pull himself
up by the bannister, staring at me in utter wariness. He too looks afraid and keeps his distance, getting
further from me as he moves out of range.
“You heard her?” Colton spins on him and I pale as both men nod. Eyes darting to me, then him, and
they slide down the steps until they get on their own feet and scale it quickly to get away from me.
Shaking legs, rubbing their heads and I can feel all eyes turning my way as others begin to pick
themselves up from the floor. The hall looks like Armageddon just rolled through and there’s smashed
glass, china, and all sorts of carnage on every surface.
I know I did it in the headspace that only Colton should hear. No one else can access our bonded link. I
didn’t say it out loud, and as I move to sit up and gather my wits, I realize I’m no longer bound by his
command either. I cough, and croak out a shocked reply, weirded out that I can both move and speak.
Shouldn’t be able to until he undoes what he told me to do.
“I didn’t do that.” I implore him, turning with nervousness, wounded when he moves even further away,
his eyes on me mistrusting. I can sense his apprehension, and it cuts deep, like he’s rejecting me all
over again.
“What the hell was that?!?!” Juan Santo bursts in the open space of the front door of the pack house,
surrounded by his entourage of men, all dragging on blankets to conceal their nudity and looking utterly
feral. All casting an accusatory eye, first at those who have come out into the hallway to see what’s
going on, dazed, and confused, to join those picking themselves out of the mess, but then his eyes
scan up to where we are and locks a hateful glare right on me.
I can almost taste his despise of me and the pointed way his eyes flicker to Colton in an ‘why is she
here?’ furious balk.
“I think that was Alora. I mean… it was, Alora.” Colton sounds sheepish, and even through all this
chaos going off inside of me, I can feel he’s afraid to come near me. There’s genuine confusion, fear,
inside of him and he’s keeping his distance by several feet now. Bonded or not, right now, he is scared
of me. He doesn’t understand what I just did any more than I do.
“It couldn’t have been. She can’t have the power to inflict that kind of pain in the link state…. Or break
everything as far as the eye can see. No wolf can.” A voice in the crowd echoes my way and I’m aware
every set of eyes locked on me now and shrink down into a huddled heap of shame. Heat rising to my
face as I attempt to turn invisible.
I immediately think of Carmen’s gift, wondering if maybe it’s coincidental, and this was her, from
somewhere else in the house, going catatonic in her own misery, but I know it can’t be. She can smash
glass only in the near vicinity when she sustains a scream at highest pitch for long seconds. It hurts our
hearing, not our mental link, and she’s never demolished everything around her the way I just did. Nor
immobilized the entire pack with one pulsating psychic yell.
“Alora can.” Colton’s voice drops in the air around us like a heavy thud, and the deathly silence, wave
of shock, fear, and utter confusion, his response is met with, sends the fear of god right to the pit of my
soul.
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