Rejected Mate and Following Fate novel Chapter 63

I gasp, inhaling a deep almost vicious breath as reality crashes back in on me, shuddering my brain around my head and I'm startled awake ,back where I began, in the infirmary, gripping onto Colton's leg for dear life, and so disoriented as my vision returns to normal. I can hardly breathe for a moment and have to drag air into my lungs while I get my bearings and shake my head to clear my blurry vision.

"What the hell?" It's an automatic response, tartly said, as I try to catch my breath and Colton's arm around my waist loosen as he lets me go a little. He was holding me up, I guess, and I flop as I'm released, using my hands on my knees to bend forward, and finally pull myself together. It all starts to fade, and the noises, and smells of reality fully bring me back to clarity.

"That was a memory… I saw it too." Colton's voice is gravelly, as though he's just as shaken as me and I untangle myself from him and push to standing. My body spiking with unwanted tingles, and feelings I can't contain, as so many things rush through my head. I guess we somehow mind linked while all three were connected and he got my memory too and could see what I did. My emotions are all over the place, as though I just experienced something traumatic, and he gets up to follow me around the bed, sensing I'm not emotionally calm.

"Are you okay?" he can sense my weirdness in mood, and I wrap my arms around myself to shut out the cold clawing feelings rising up to strangle me. Knocked sideways mentally, just needing a moment to claw my mind back together and figure out why my heart is pounding through my chest, and I feel sickly, and agitated. It's more than the memory invading my brain, it's what Sierra's words told me.

"All I remembered before that, was being asleep in that room, and then waking up in a new place with other kids in the orphanage. There was nothing in between, and now I know why. He must have taken me there, and when I slept, I forgot it all. They told me the Munro family were gone, but I never really understood what they meant by that until later, when I was told the vampires came. Just kid, and then they told me my family was dead, and I never stopped to question anything beyond that." My voice cracks, my throat aching with the effort as it drives home that now, I understand fully that they were killed because of my mother and my gifts. All of them! My mother, my family, the Munroe's, my whole pack died, because of us, and what we are…. The vampires were never the monsters in our midst. We were, the wolves, and those of us who would slaughter women and children in the name of power.

We created wars to cover our sins and let a hatred rage for centuries without learning from the mistakes. It makes my skin crawl to know the vampires were the innocents in all of this, they are just avenging their lost loves. They were fighting the Juan's of the world for what he had done, and now, I'm on the side that they are, in trying to find reason in the death of everyone I cared about.

"She really is a witch…. I mean, I know I saw what the Doc said, and all of this, but seeing it. It's a whole other thing." Colton pulls me back to him with his voice, he sounds distant, his tone low as he turns his head to her, and that spike of emotion hits my hard in the stomach once more. Tears threatening, and the sudden rage shooting up through my stomach, and chest, a pang of anger aimed his way. Remembering her words and what she said, and not for the first time, anger so intense for Colton, I could hate him.

"Why didn't you just do it when you were meant to? …. This could all have been avoided! It would have been done and we would have remembered. Our gifts restored and taken another path! Why didn't you just mark me when you had the fucking chance?! You're an asshole! You could have stopped so much of this bullshit, by just doing what I needed!" It's a sob, the damn breaking and my hurt showing, set loose amid fury as tears hit my cheeks, and I spin away from him, aware the medic in the far corner is trying to pretend she isn't here and I'm going to wake doc up. I don't want people watching us or hearing us fight. I want all of them to leave me alone while I go somewhere and cry this all out. Hate on him and mourn the path we never took. So much hurt that could have been avoided. The fates didn't separate us to lead me somewhere else, they were backtracking to fix his wrong decision and circle us back around together to fix this. He just kept, and keeps on, screwing it up.

"Hey? … Lorey? …What the? …" Colton seems surprised at my reaction, blanching at me as I walk off, and as I stalk out of the room away from him, he doesn't hesitate and follows me. Close on my heel as I get out of the doors into the middle corridor where he catches my wrist and tries to tug me back, but I shrug him off, pull my hand away and keep going. My head is bubbling with the facts staring me in the face, my heart panging with the reminder he destroyed everything between us.

"Leave me alone. You ruined it all!" I'm crying brokenly, tear sodden with the outpour, wracking pain in my chest that makes it difficult to breathe, as though an elephant is sat on my ribs, but he does not relent and sticks to my ass trying to catch my hands.

"Baby, come on. Can we at least talk about this… about that? I know I fucked up, but this isn't ruined! Just give me the opportunity to do something about it." There's panic in his tone, an attempt at gentle, and soothing, with a lot of confusion as to my turn in mood. I storm down the corridor back to the room I was meant to sleep in, and push the door open with a palm slam to the wood, swinging it open at speed so it crashes against the foot of the bed and exposes the room. In no mood for him anymore, and I want to lie down and let this all wash away on a sea of heartbroken tears.

Colton doesn't give up, he's hot on my heel, relentless in his pursuit, and almost suffocating me with his proximity. This time he catches my upper arm, grasps tight, yanking me to a halt as I proceed inside, and spins me to him, so I have no choice but to face him down. I tense, body turning stiff in defense mode, and my eyes glow red in readiness to battle myself free.