“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.
I feel so stupid, so guilty, and ashamed, and I regret that it took until now to know this. I look down at the floor, unable to look him in the eye while shame washes through me and my own stupid pride takes a dent.
He didn’t break the bond, he didn’t betray me, and in fact, he came home willing to fight for me, only to find me gone and it was too late. I’m mad at myself for the weeks of shutting him out, when one link and he would have told me to come home to him or came for me. Weeks of heartbreak, and loneliness, when he was always there waiting for me, looking for me, and not about to give up on us. He meant it… he really didn’t, and I’ve held him at arm’s length because I believed his pain and betrayal was something else.
“Why didn’t you just ask me when I came for you? This could have been over then.” Colton steps towards me, his voice now low and level with regret seeping in. A soft little movement closer towards me, to tighten the gap and surround me with his smell, and presence, and I stay still, eyes dropping to my feet in both apology, and mental fatigue. Finally, able to let go of some of this anger, and pain, and it leaves a gaping heaviness within me because I’ve been carrying it for weeks. It was all so unnecessary.
“I didn’t think I needed to. I felt something…… we’re linked. I figured you knew that I knew.” I sound feeble, small, tears stinging my voice as he moves closer. Colton slides his strong, warm hands up my arms, from my wrists, until one rests on each shoulder, and he exhales heavily as he pulls me the last tiny inches towards him, so we are only millimeters apart. His touch and heat soothing me with his gentleness.
“I had no idea you even thought it, or I would have told you, Lorey. I had no idea this was in your head and assumed you would have known I didn’t mark her. I figured you were mad about how it ended, and that I made you feel like leaving was the only option. I’m sorry, baby, for everything, but I swear on my pack, on my life, on us, that I haven’t done anything to betray the bond. I’ve stayed true to you. I’ll project every memory you don’t have of our time apart and prove it.” His soft voice falls over me like a warming balm, and I break down into stupid little sobs and thrust myself at him to be held. I’m the one who needs a little forgiveness in this moment, so easy to break when I know he never did anything to make me hate him.
Colton doesn’t hesitate and wraps me up in his arms tight and presses me to his chest, a full body hug, safe, and secure, as all the pain and heartbreak ebbs away and I cry for everything I’ve gone through these past weeks. Hating him, needing him, being broken hearted over him. It all seems so foolish and nothing now I’m wrapped up tight against him, with his breath on top of my hair, sweeping away all of it. The boy who was my rock, and my words of wisdom, right back here, where I need him, and he does what Colton does best. He holds me up and soothes away my anxiety and tears.
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