Rejected Mate and Following Fate

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.
"Talk to me!" He snaps the order at me, but it only riles that inner fierce that hates when he tries to command me to do anything.

"Stop it. Let me go. I don't want to talk to you. It's pointless and it's done. You were an idiot, and you broke me, broke us, and
now my memory tells me all you had to do was mark me and it would have changed everything! Why did you have to screw it
up? Why did you have to choose her over me?" I slap at his fingers on my arm, and shove at his chest, making every effort to
have him release me, but Colton is as stubborn as I am and only tightens that grip and stands steady, turning around halfway to
push the door closed behind us, and conceal us in here. His face showing hints of piquing anger, in that furrowed brow, and one
dimple is prominent as a scowl slowly appears. His eyes amber to match my own fierce glow.
"Okay, first, my marking you would have changed everything, yes, and I regret it, I fucking do, Lorey. More than you will ever
know, but we would never have found her. You had to run, I see that now, to be led to her, and maybe any other way we wouldn't
have. My mom would still be hidden because of that choice. Secondly...... How can I fix the damage if you won't give me a
chance to try? I love you, and we're here together ... I am not the one fighting this, and I'm not the one refusing to try. You were
never second choice for me.... the problem was I didn't want anyone else and didn't have any fucking choice." His tone is both
tinged with anger, yet also not. He's mad that I'm resisting and making this physical, pissed at me for what he thinks is my being
over dramatic, but he's trying to get through to me and communicate with that subtle hint of control, and softness, he's trying to
insert and it just makes me break all the more. Sagging as tears pour down my face, and I keep tugging at his fingers like a
spoiled child, to be set free. Unable to really do much more, as energy drains from me. I'm exhausted and this isn't helping.
"How can you fix it? You marked her.... You betrayed the bond and you're linked to another, forever. I won't be your whore, and
the memory said marking.... not screwing. Let. Me. Go!" I tug one last time, glaring his way through watery eyes and he finally
let's go, with a weird sharp inhale, and stares at me like I have two heads as I jump back out of his reach. My entire body
wracked with the hurt I've been carrying all this time, my throat aching with finally saying it out loud and how much agony those
words inflicted on my soul.
"I did what now?" Colton on the other hand seems a tiny bit shocked, a lot dumbfounded, and his tone drops a level or two, his
eyes on me homed in hard. His pulsating temper subdues to a low thrum, and genuine confusions takes over his face, with a
deepening of his brows as he narrows his eyes on me, and that dimple disappears again as his mouth straightens out.
"I felt it... don't try and deny it. I know what you did." I snap at him, consumed with grief and turn away, unwilling to let him
manipulate me with fast words and untruths. Wiping my face with the back of my hand and pull myself together, trying so hard to
find my inner rage again, over this damn stupid weakness at what he's done to us.
"We're linked, you and I. Meaning you feel things like my marking someone else. Which you couldn't have because it didn't
happen! Is this why you are so fucking mad at me? You have this crazy notion in your head I marked Carmen?" The bitter way

he says it, the tinge of anger, and the less than friendly deliverance, only fuel the tornado in me I was trying to calm and I spin
back on him, eyes glowing painfully as my inner wolf jumps out to battle for me.
"Don't you dare! I did feel it... the pain and betrayal about four days after I left, so don't stand there and fucking lie to me about
what you did! I'm not stupid." I yell it at him, temper hitching, and equally riled as I stand up to him, but he doesn't back down.
Colton can be scary as hell when riled, and he seems to stand taller, and bristle at my verbal attack. His eyes much like mine,
increase in glow, of an equally pissed wolf and he reaches down to the hem of his t-shirt and yanks it up over his head, in one
swift hasty motion, and throws it on the bed, exposing that tanned muscular physique. He spreads his arms out wide, looks me
dead in the eye, before turning slowly and giving me a full three sixty of naked upper torso.
"Show me.... Because marking, is a two-way thing, and something I wouldn't be able to hide! Look real hard because on my life,
Lorey...I didn't fucking mark anyone." He bites it at me as he comes back to face me, and the blood drains from my body leaving
me cold inside, as I take in his tanned skin free of mark. It's hard to stay on this idea about marking when there is nothing at all
on the flawless physique, except inky tattoos on one shoulder of his pack tribal, and a lot of carved toned muscle. My anger
simmers, but she isn't about to back down because I know what I felt! In the woods, that kind of pain and betrayal, it doesn't
come from nothing, and he had to have done something.
"Fine.... Okay, so maybe it wasn't that, but what I felt was real. You obviously just screwed her then. Either way... this will never
happen; the bond is marred, and damaged, and you did this to us." I cross my arms across my chest, my fight dying because I
was so sure, and yet I'm wrong. My heart pounding like a war drum within and my body, is beginning to tremble with the
excessive amount of pain, and energy, coursing through me. Colton looks like he might explode, standing menacingly close, a
new rage ignited in that angular face as he tenses his jaw and grits his teeth.
"I DID NOT fuck her!! What is wrong with you? All this cryptic bullshit since I came for you.... The refusal to let me touch you, all
this. You think I cheated on you? That's what all of this was about? Because.... You felt it? No, Lorey, what you felt around four
days after the mess hall conversation was me finding you gone. Was me coming back from four days recon with Matteo, to find,
not only the girl I decided to fight for was gone and it utterly destroyed me, but my Beta, my best friend, kept it from me! Stopping
me from being able to find you and betrayed my trust in the worst way. Meadow broke my heart with a betrayal... You broke it by
leaving. I came back for you, and to tell my father I would leave and take you with me if he stood in my way. She knew you
leaving would break me and it did. I wasn't ever going to mark Carmen; YOU, are my mate, and have been since the second we
imprinted, no matter what I said, or how I seemed. I always wanted you. I'm devoted to you, crazy about you, and I won't be
happy until I'm marked to you! You're my soul mate and I need you. Why in the hell would I fuck that up any more than I did?"

I stand in stunned silence, Colton breathy with the deliverance of an angry, then almost soothing to calm splurge of words, his
whole demeanor softening as he reached the end, and his eyes returned to chocolate brown as he let go of the rage and tried to
drive the point him that I was wrong.
He stands now, just looking at me with a slightly furrowed brow, over that cute boy expression of 'forgive me' and I can't move.
Stomach twisted in pain, and caught in a world of confusion, as his words reverberate through my mind, and heart, and I see-
saw a bunch of emotions all at once. Elation, that in one rant he wiped away all doubt and confusion about why he's been trying
so hard to get us to connect romantically, the sweep of mad at myself that I left when I did and could have been with him all
along, but he's right about Sierra... I wouldn't have found her otherwise, and maybe the fates always intended it this way after all.