Rejected Mate and Following Fate - Awakening Book novel Chapter 95

The cold wind from the mountain moves in across my skin and bites down at me, causing me to shiver despite wolves never really feeling the cold. My heart pounding, my nerves taut and my head in chaos as I stand on the boundary and stare into the darkness awaiting the sun to start to show hints of rising. The eerie silence despite rows and rows of assembled wolves unnerves me and Leyanne and Meadow to my right, Carmen and Sierra to my left, stand solidly still, waiting, we’re all just waiting.

Tension high, the stillness is painful and the quiet is deafening. I’ve never been more scared in my life and it’s not just because we are on the dawn of the first war battle of my life. Asif that wasn’t bad enough. It’s that our enemy are our loved ones and death blows will be dealt today to forever change everything in our world. No matter what side wins, we all lose the ones we care about most.

The plan is set…. We all know our place, our role, what to do, and we wait for the second before sun break before we run, right for that mountain as fast as we can. We are betting on timing, using the moments between dark and light to cover as much terrain as we can.

The witch is slower so she’s to be carried by Meadow on her back, to get her to the mountain in the same speed we can. Sierra and Carmen with me, to distract the wolves and keep them down here with us. I’m stronger and so are they, so it makes sense for them to be my focus… for Colton to be my focus. I was born to match him in every way and only I can be the one to hold my own against his strength and skill as a warrior. He would kill anyone else and go after Meadow and the witch in the blink of an eye.

Leyanne and Meadow, they and some of the stronger of the pack that we have so little of, their aim is the mountain and getting inside no matter what we encounter out here. They have their order to keep going, leave us behind to battle. To face off vampires while Leyanne finds the witch’s and takes care of the spell wherever it may be coming from. We tried for an even split, but we know the wolves will be the harder battle and ended dup with a seventy thirty uneven decision. Wolves are the problem, not what waits beyond. Our wolves. Our warriors… our sub pack, our family, our mates.

My heart is racing, I can taste the fear and tension all around me as they all wait. My heart in my throat, my body cold and frozen in growing anticipation and fear. My head so bound up in the what if’s I have had to stop myself thinking at all. My emotions clogged by the many so I can’t escape emotion swirling around me like an eternal drain on my energy.

The masses are dressed in old loose clothing that will be shredded when they turn, save one wolf… me. I have to stay human, so I wore something Sierra made me take from the grimoire library. It’s armor of sorts; silver, gleaming and more like a chain mail skirt over leather pants, but my abdomen is sheathed in a metal fitted bodice, held together at the back by chain and lace and a crisscross of binding. It belonged to a warrior witch ancestor and luckily, she wasn’t that much bigger than me.

It doesn’t offer much protection against wolves claws but given I don’t plan on letting any claws get that close, it made Sierra feel better giving me something to protect my body. In case I’m thrown, I fall, or I’m hit in some way, when we all know that my belly is the place I need to shield the most. My most precious gifts are contained therein. I know Sierra intends to stay close, as does Carmen but in the heat of battle that might not pan out. It will be chaos, and we will need to fight hard and long to draw out the distraction for Leyanne. I’m prepared to be separated from them, because I know it will be inevitable.

The suns coming, be ready, turn.

Meadow’s mind link to the entire pack sees a tremor erupt as bodies shred clothing and skin turns to fur all around me. My anxiety growing as human faces disappear and my pack arm themselves for what’s about to come. Growling, snarling, pushing themselves to be ready as the glow of amber eyes lights the duskiness in front of their faces. Carmen and Sierra hold off beside me, waiting….

“This is it…. No turning back now.” Carmen whispers my way, one last focused lock of her eye son mine, one tight squeeze of my hand as she nods her eyes and shows her respect. I feel her intent, her promise to shield me, before letting go and turning too, so I’m faced with softer orange eyes on a fawn wolf and she gracefully swoops to all fours to shield me from one side. Carmen made a vow to stick to me like glue, and somewhere deep down, I know it’s what she will do as long as she can.

“Stay between us at all times…. Never stray. Use us as your protection.” Sierra squeezes my other hand in hers, and dissolves before me into sleek black and grey fur. Much like Colton in a way, only smaller, with light patches, and yet her eyes are blue. As femmes, they are beautiful, both of them and that familiar show of almost feline, sexy, brown wolf, nudging Leyanne to climb on her back informs me Meds has changed too. I’m now the only other human apart form the witch and she casts me a look across the huge heads of our furry friends. Her eyes meeting mine as she nods in a regal way, somehow wishing me luck for the fight ahead.

Leyanne gracefully hops onto the large back of Meadow, using her magic to help her with the unreal height. She moves astride, like she’s sitting on a magnificent horse and tangles her hands in the thick fur at the back of Meadows neck. Making sure she gets a tight grip, because what’s coming is sure to knock the wind out of her. Hyper speed can injure humans, so I know this witch will have done something to make sure she can endure it.

“Focus on the task. Leave the rest to me. Your boy will be back in your arms before you know it, Princess… or is that Luna? I guess either works now.” She throws me that Scottish brogue and a confident smile, the cheeky oozing with her words. Knowing fine well in all his she is in no danger whatsoever. I can see it in her complete lack of care about what’s happening.

She’s immortal, powerful, and this is just a walk in the park for her. No matter the outcome today, she will live, unscathed and probably be telling this story in thousands of years to come. I envy her right now. For that lack of fear, that certainty of her own existence… her confidence comes from the fact she has no natural predators in the world, and nothing can physically kill her.

Luna, it’s time… give the order. Meadow’s mind link for me alone causes a sudden lurch of my stomach and I clench my fists to counteract the sweep of cold terror as I nod. Outwardly calm and in control for my people, yet inside, I’m shaking. I lift my hand high in the air to attract all eyes while I link to the pack, being sure to feel all minds as one and one word is all I need. In mind link it’s clear and bold, whereas my own voice would have never been able to utter it at all.

Move

It happens so fast. The sweep of hyper speed, flying fur, and like a tide we pass the rune border in unison. Each of us protected from the fog by something Leyanne did and we enter and fill our lungs with its sour greenish heaviness, adjusting to the gloom so we can see ahead. I’m startled at the fact I can taste it, feel it invading my lungs like a dense smoke from a burning fire, yet it smells and tastes like a damp early dawn on the mountain as winter turns. Rotting plants and leaves giving it that earthiness while it slows down my breathing as I labor to push through it. It’s cloying.

It took her all night to find a way to be sure that turning wouldn’t remove any kind of protection and she did… seems the base of a foot is the one place on a wolf you can put a magical symbol and it stays. Who knew. Even in turning where we shed all human things, our feet keep enchanted paint.

Every single wolf who showed up here an hour ago was tended to, marked, and she recited incantations over all present to protect us from the fog. She called them double measures, just to be sure.

We don’t know if it will work as we are exposed for a longer length of time, but given she’s the one who made the rune spell I don’t predict it going wrong. As we leach out into the mist and run forward, I don’t see anything that says it’s not working among those who have raced ahead. Still moving fast, with their eyes on the prize, and I can feel the pulsing link of my pack staying connected to me while moving as one powerful body.

This is how a pack is meant to be. The body, the heart, and the fist, working in unison…. Even if we are only half of that.

The forest is dark and eerie and unearthly silent due to the early hour and the still rising dawn. All the wildlife is hiding, and the quiet swarm of fast wolves moving through like whispers on the wind are all I can hear in the air. A whizzing, fleeting flurry as I too, on foot, have to keep up in human form.

It’s the calm before the storm and it’s too late to turn back and rethink this. We’re making distance, heading for the mountain in the far view and nothing is going to sway us from our path. We’re easily two hundred, combined, more than I ever dreamed would come out here.

My pack never deserted me in the final hour, and I could have wept when they showed up strong in number and ready to die for this. Jasper is wrong about the Santos… if he could see them as I do now, he would know his enemy resides at the mountain and his numbers are few. These Santos they would never turn on their own, kill off a bloodline and imprison their Luna… they’re nothing like him and were oppressed by his rule for far too long. Colton didn’t just stand up against all the wrong, he freed a people and gave them back their will to be what they once were. A proud pack, one worthy of so much more.

We make it miles in a flash, covering the distance as we race against the sun and know that this close to the rise, the vampires would already have retreated to the darkness. It’s only a matter of time before the wolves come out to meet us as and we need to get as far as we can until that moment.

I run until I feel like my chest is going to explode with the effort, my limbs aching, burning too, as fatigue is quick to follow me and I internally curse that the effects on my body are more severe than even I thought they would be. Only a month back, I ran farther than this with Colton, around the perimeter and without even a twinge of tiredness or pain. Now my body fails me, and this is more effort than even the first time I ever trained with the sub back at the valley, so long ago.

My breath becomes labored and my run slows enough that I spot the two wolves flanking me drop back and glance at one another, worry evident in their demeanor. I know they realize I’m slowing, and I can feel their hesitation. I have to be faster; I have to get ahead of the pack and lead. I need to show them I’m here.

Get on me.

Carmen commands in that tone that’s uniquely her, breaking into my chaotic thoughts, running into my side so I’m flipped over her without a choice and have to grab her fur to pull myself on properly. Straddling her the way Meadow’s being rode by Leyanne ahead of us and yet Carmen barely breaks her momentum.

I shouldn’t be doing it like this

I mind link her back privately, ashamed of my own lack of worth at something this basic, but silence is all I get as she ignores my protest. Stubborn to the core, for once though, I’m glad she’s the way she is.

We speed up, and within seconds she overtakes everyone who was before us and catches up to Meadow, sliding up, side by side, to carry their riders up front and proud. She knows the pack need to see us there to focus and not lose faith when we hit the first wave of our own. A sense of urgency cloaking us, and the tension somehow increases the farther we get. The sun breaks over the distant horizon and the fog starts thinning as we move from the border, so seeing becomes easier, right until the moment we spot them.

Like a black wave of ants coming out of pores of broken wood. In the distance a sea of fast-moving terror comes our way at speed, like inky black spill on the sea. Our own wolves realize they are being met almost halfway to the mountain and are on the aggressive defensive and coming like bats out of hell, snarls and howls echoing around us in a blood curling way.

Faster… close the gap, don’t let them get far

I link and push the pack onwards, knowing I’m asking them to run harder, to ignore their own fear, when they’re probably already at full pelt. I need to make sure we get closer than this, but they’re coming at us sooner than I thought they would.

Like seas thrashing, storm fronts meeting; it only takes seconds before the wall of them, and the wall of us, crashes into one another in a dramatic collision. Meadow leaps over the coming forms with impressive skill and height, flying overhead at the unsuspecting wolves who are too busy looking forward. She carries on, as we planned, trying to pull her section of the pack onward as the ones staying with me round on the concentration of the wolves meeting us dead on. The aim is to keep them here, distract them, so none follow Meadow’s small group but that’s not as easy as it seemed.

Claws clash, teeth rip, and bodies collide all around, as wolf meets wolf, and a full-on vicious battle erupts all around me. Noises drowning out everything else. The gnashing of teeth, ripping of skin, howling, growling, cries, and chaos.

We’re not running any further because this wall of fierce and fury has stopped us dead and we have met the ground where some of us may forever lay. I leap off Carmen and wade into the fold, mind blank when instinct takes over and adrenalin drowns the last ounce of doubt away. Throwing wolves back, left, right, and center, as I’m surrounded by violence.

It’s a frenzy, a mix of friend and foe and hard to pick out who’s with us and who’s not. Every time a wolf comes at me, teeth bared flying in a leap to take me down I use my power to throw them back, swipe them aside and try not to hurt them. It’s too fast to figure out who they are and I’m sure radar is one who comes at me twice, only to be hurled thirty feet back as I lash out throwing them away. His is the upper hand that I have and why I was so sure I could handle this. My powers mean I can keep everyone around me far enough away without having to physically battle. My babies will be protected in the bubble of my vampire gifts.

My ears and eyes are tuned into the others around me, watching out for them intent on safeguarding. Anytime I spot one of the pack losing the advantage I extend my energy and save them for a moment, shielding them and pushing them to a clearing alone. Giving them space to regroup, heal their wounds, and fly back to fight. Our numbers are an advantage and as I lose sight of Meadow and her group, we are surrounded by feral forms, intent on taking us down.

Carmen rolls into me from behind, almost wiping my legs out from under me because I was so focused on the ahead that it startles me and realize how stupid I was for that’s second. She yanks me down, hauling my body under her brutally as a large tree; trunk, roots, foliage and all, flies past my head from the rear. It misses me by mere inches and I blanche and gawp in the direction of one very large, very angry, black alpha, ripping out another to take down the human in his sights. It seems he spotted me giving my wolves an advantage and I riled his fury to become his target.