“Meaning?” I turn to him fully and lock onto him, seeing him swallow hard, and his mistrust of my
current behavior is written all over him. In this moment he’s afraid of me and he’s nervously spewing
words to try and diffuse it, or to keep me focused on anything other than turning on him. I can smell the
terror coming in waves from him, even without my wolf sense. It’s not intentional, but these feeling are
bigger than me, and I have no will to reel them in right now. Fractured and seeping, and I don’t know
how to stop it pouring out and pooling around me like a dense smog.
“She got to you before Juan did. Ran and left the pack on their return to your lands. She bound her
blood to you, so you became linked to her, and completely protected from being slain too, thus
meaning he could never kill you. And if he tried to isolate and imprison you, then his pack would have
asked why… what did a child do? All these years, this story haunted me as nothing more than the
imagining of a fractured mind, torn by horror and atrocity she witnessed, and yet here you stand… the
child of Marina. Just like she said you would. Alora…. I am so sorry, please…. you must understand,
that had I known it was truth, I would never …….” His real honest despair comes through in torn
rawness, but it’s not my concern right now. I can’t feel anything for his sorrow or his heartache, while
there’s only chaos and a need to avenge them all.
“Why can’t I remember that? If she bound to me then why don’t I see her in my memory?” I snap,
interrupting his apologies, too caught up in my own pain and misery and needing to hurt something, to
care about him and his regrets. It doesn’t change the now or how I got here.
“She bound your memory, your gifts, and that of her son, to protect you all, for she feared Juan would
see even challenge to his position in his own child, should he have inherited her gifts too. Like I said,
she has certain abilities. She said the time would come when she would give back to you that which
she took…. I assume she means those. Not just yours, but Colton’s too.” He falters, his voice
trembling, wringing his hands in nervousness, and I jump up and stalk pas, him to push my hands
against the glass. My head torn with the addition of even more to this story.
Colton has other gifts too. Bound? And me…. is she the reason I can’t seem to grasp my own gifts and
gain any control, because I’m always fighting some kind of spell that keeps them dormant? How is that
helpful? Especially now, when she’s like a corpse, sleeping through the years and can’t do anything to
physically help.
My body is aching to turn and trying to revert to wolf, but this damn building is strong and keeping it in
check, no matter how hard it wails and howls within me. I bang the glass, the torture of it getting too
much, and watch the shudder travelling from my palm and spreading out the full expanse of the
invisible wall. It does nothing to ease the inner war.
“Bound my gifts? My memories? How could she… that’s impossible. I have gifts, I’m learning but
they’re there, not tied down completely. Colton… he has his gifts too and he’s more than capable of
using them. His alpha strength, and speed, his dominance. He can command with a tone. It can’t be
true… no one has ever documented a witch binding a wolf’s natural gifts.” It’s a rebuff of what he’s
saying as I mentally try and dismiss them as lies, focused fully on her and willing her to get up and tell
me this herself. Lying there like a weak powerless fool who let her mate destroy everything in our lives.
Get up Sierra…. Get the fuck up!! You owe me this truth yourself, from your own mouth!
It’s anger at her, but it’s born of fear, churning up to douse the inferno of molten rage. That all of this is
too much and bigger than me. I don’t want this burden of weight or this story to be mine. I want to go
back to the mountain, to the home, to disappear back into the shadows and be a girl that no one
noticed again. I was safe and ignorant, and it didn’t hurt like this. It wasn’t some precipice of danger
and had me teetering on the edge and looking down into the abyss, knowing I’m never going to be safe
or okay ever again. It’s all too much and I’m only a child. Eighteen, barely grown. I don’t want this!!
“No, my dear… Colton will carry the gifts of his mother too, our research has proven time and again
that hybrids have a mixture, every time… just like you. His non wolf side is in there but bound up tight.
And you, you are not capable of harnessing your full potential if she has bound you. The gifts are
maybe strong enough to peek at times, but she was a capable witch. I don’t doubt her spells serve the
purpose she intended. Her spells brought her a child when her body kept failing to carry Juan’s seed. If
she can overcome that… then she can bind a child in protection until she’s ready to release you.” He
almost whispers it, such is his fear of me, of being heard telling me, of these people, of Juan, and I
glance his way to find him almost pressed into the corner and watching me in wide eyed apprehension.
He too knows that there is no coming back from this now that he’s opened Pandora’s box.
“Then how do I get her to do that if she’s over there sleeping her life away?” I fix him with a stare,
sniffing back watery tears I hadn’t noticed were pouring down my cheeks, my heart numbing out and
my mind moving into a state of shock once more. Calming me but making that sense of hopelessness
grow.
“I don’t know. This facility has a guard count of nineteen, and even though none of you can use your
gifts within, I’m sure you will be no match to nineteen strong men…. Armed ones, even if you are
somewhat terrifying when mad.” It’s a half nervous laugh, as he tries to lighten the tension, that dies on
his lips as I continue to stare at him and lower my hands from the glass as I try to pull my breathing to
something less erratic and self soothe, wiping my face with the back of my hands to pull myself
together.
“You need to let me out…. I need to go find that son of a bitch and show him what my mother failed
to… You don’t mess with my family!! I can’t stay here. I can’t be here when he comes now.” I snarl
again, a spike of returning anger, knowing my emotions are clouding my judgement, and all over the
place, but I don’t care. I was just told that everything I was led to believe, my entire childhood, was a lie
and that my bloodline was never diluted and weak… my mother was a prophesized warrior destined to
lead her people. And Juan murdered her.
He killed all of them. Every single person I loved, cared for, and knew as my pack. A clan of Whyte
wolves. To silence us.
That sniveling slimy power mad freak slayed them all, and he’s going to rue the day he chose to leave
me alive. Now it all makes sense though… why I was thrown with the other orphans and shunned as a
whole. That was our punishment for him being unable to get at me in the way he wanted. That was how
he figured he could keep me down and separate from the people, so I would never have any chance of
rising and leading them against him. And if I did, he could put it down to my being hateful, and holding
a grudge for ten years as an outcast, and nothing more than an impures taste for revenge at her own
failings. So clever.
He made sure I was alone and didn’t care if he smeared a whole bunch of innocents in the process.
None of the rejects deserved to be thrown out there with me, they were just a cover to enhance and
make his lies stronger. Convincing the packs that our fallen heroes were cursed blood, to further
conceal his actions against my people. No one was going to ask questions or defend us if their own
alpha was telling them that we were the failed diluted lineage of weak wolves. He’s deluded, and cruel,
and so consumed with his own need to rule that we were all pawns and had no real value. He’s no
alpha. He doesn’t care about the people and he never did. He just wants to rule them in whatever way
he can.
It must have completely enraged him to near madness when the fates imprinted me on his son, despite
all his measures and precautions of his multi-level plan, and it’s all falling into place. He knew Colton
wasn’t loaded with a useless Luna… he was afraid that in a position of being absorbed into the pack
and as future Luna to my alpha mate I would still find a way to rise and dethrone everything he’s
worked for. Juan was afraid that much like my mother, I would outshine him, and tear his own power
from under his feet, with very little effort at all.
Colton was my way in, and he did what he does to that boy to stop him from ever finding his own
strength. He manipulated him emotionally, he used Colton’s devotion, loyalty to his father, and his own
compassion and love for his people’s needs to get in his head. The fact he tore his mother away from
him has always kept him to heel and lingers in the back of Colton’s mind always. He was afraid I would
leave our people alone like she did, leave him alone when he still needed me. He was afraid I wouldn’t
be strong enough, that he wouldn’t be able to keep me safe, like he wasn’t able to keep his mom safe,
and he couldn’t accept the fates decision.
Colton was protecting me, believing the lies and the manipulation same as everyone else and seeing
no other way. He’s young, unsure about his own worth and power, and he listened to someone that’s
meant to guide him for the best. His faith in his father’s intentions are not a flaw, just naivety that comes
from a good soul. His father has been playing him since the day he was born, and his mother had to
conceal who he really was for fear his natural gifts would make him the target of his father’s power
hunger.
My heart breaks at how angry I’ve been at him when seeing it from this angle makes so much sense.
Colton is nothing like his father, and what he doesn’t know is his father has no intention of ever
relinquishing his position to his son until death takes him.
I’m going to be the last thing Juan sees, no matter what it does to me in the process. I’ll get out of here
and I will level the balance. I’ll kill that son of a bitch… even if Colton tries to stop me, because his own
heart won’t be able to let someone destroy his father, no matter what he did. I’m going to rip that
mountain apart and shred any single wolf who knew or had a part in the demise of my bloodline. Even
if Colton never forgives me.
“Dear girl, calm down and be smart about this. Your fates wouldn’t have brought you here to just leave
again and go start a one-woman war. You came for Sierra….” The doctors words die on his lips as the
beep of the elevator interrupts and he flashes a look that way, panic overtaking his expression as he
jumps up and shoos me away from the glass at a pretty impressive speed for a human. It’s so rapid he
makes me jump bac from the wall in reaction.
“Get on the bed and lay down. NOW!!” He snaps it at me, losing that feeble, weak cower, he had going
on and I listen, despite my turbulent mood. His haste and urgency moving me.
I turn, take a few steps and jump on the bed t as the doors begin to make that whooshing opening
noise of the elevator and approaching footsteps, and he comes to me quickly, yanking up my arm as I
lay down and pushing the stethoscope from his neck under the edge of my medical gown neckline.
“Hearts racing my dear, you really should practice counting to ten and deep relaxing breaths, that kind
of anxiety is not good for the heart. You’re in a safe place, have no fears.” He’s facing me, his voice
fakely joyful, but his eyes dart to the side as someone approaches the glass and I try to focus all my
attention on acting normal.
“I’ve been looking for you. You’re needed upstairs, right now. Leave this mutt alone…. you have an
actual job to do. Some of your fresh samples have been delivered in ice boxes… I’m sure you don’t
want to leave them to go bad.” It’s Deacon, my most favorite person in the whole wide world and with
the pulsing rage I have going on, I tense and make to sit up, instincts taking over and ready to take him
on more than ever. The doctor slams his hand on my chest and aggressively flattens me down.
“Just a moment!” He grits it through his teeth, wildly eyeballing me and mouthing the word NO. That
scowling frown of a paternal tell off and he manages to keep me under control. He gets a narrow-eyed
snarl in response, but I obey and lay back down, out flat and watch as he moves out of my line of sight
and exposes Deacon on the outside of the glass.
“Now! We haven’t got all day!” Deacon snaps at him, obviously not happy when the doctor questions
his authority and I glare directly at the jerk, catching his eye, and making a point of staring right though
him. He takes it, no expression, and stares right back at me, not breaking contact at all.
“Of course. Miss Alora, please eat, and dress, as it will make you far more comfortable and ready for
my returning to continue our tests. We have so much still left to do.” The doctor throws me an odd look
and I glance his way for a second, impulsively nodding before he turns and starts to head out, leaving
me with a strong sense that was a hint.
I watch him walk out and as he gets to the door, he turns and nods at the trolley and the bag as though
reconfirming it and I frown, unsure what he intends to do but obedience seems like a good idea.
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