“She can’t be a hybrid. That makes no sense at all… Juan Santo is a pureblood who wouldn’t’ tolerate that kind of union. His son’s a pureblood, it’s all he ever goes on about.” Rolling my eyes without meaning to, a little anger spiking through as memory replays on the whole superior lording over the mountain bullshit. Juan’s constant lord and king kick and preaching to the packs for decades about his families traced pure line of genetics. The Santos pride themselves on being from the strongest lineage of wolves. He would never willingly take on a mate who was anything less, I mean look at his reaction to my being fated to Colton. That says it all!!
The doctor looks behind him, checking his assistant is engrossed in dealing with the machines before stepping inside my room, so the door slides closes behind him, lowering his tone once more.
“My dear, I fear I have said too much and inadvertently made your hope of release a less plausible outcome. You must forget what I said, especially about Luna Santo. It’s in your best interest that we never had this conversation, and you do not repeat to anyone that we did.” There’s serious concern etched into his face that deepens the lines around his eyes and he locks a direct gaze right on my eyes, a hint of warning in his tone. He’s closing down our line of communication because he thinks what he’s telling me puts me in danger. A hint that I was right about his character and him being the soft link in this facility. He’s a decent man who cares, and I need to show him that I’m already screwed, so he doesn’t lock me out.
“I imprinted on Colton and Juan forbade it…. We’re fated, but he forced him to mark another for the sake of the pack. I’m not getting set free…. I’m probably going to end up like her, or worse. I’m a reject of the pack, a diluted bloodline who brings shame to his people, and the only reason he’s coming here is to be done with me once and for all……. nothing you say makes a difference to what he’s going to do to me. I’m not getting out.” It’s a harsh hurried whisper, and I fall silent as I catch a glimpse over his shoulder of his assistant coming out of Sierra’s room. Nodding her way to alert him, but he seems completely dazed. Stiff and still and staring at me intensely.
“I’m done, I’ll go up to the lab and run the new bloods we were sent from the south, Doctor.” She calls to him from the hallway across the bay and without looking back at her he waves a hand dismissively, eyes locked on me in the most alarming way. She takes that as an answer, nods, and walks off towards the elevator briskly to head back upstairs. The air in this room suddenly heavy with tension.
“Imprinted? By the fates? As in that rare form of bonding two souls so they become insanely lust and love driven to be forever together? I didn’t think any alpha had the authority to undermine that. It means you’re linked to …. Sierra’s bloodline?” His skin tone seems to pale noticeably, and his eyes darken weirdly. His mind clearly racing over a million thoughts and his forehead wrinkles deepen as his frown does. An air of mild nervousness kicking up around him.
“Yeah, well, Juan doesn’t give a rat’s ass about anything except his own authority, and Colton, he’s so stuck in his shadow that he chose to let me go instead of honoring the bond.? So I left, didn’t look back and something brought me here instead. This wasn’t a chance find…. This facility. Dreaming of her almost every night, and something pulled me here. I’d headed south, but something made me change and come east from my path… Sierra’s voice calling or some stupid memory of a dream that wouldn’t leave me alone.” I offload on him, now I know his companion is in the elevator and it feels good to finally say it to someone, rather than be all caught up in my own head. A gush of chatter that I’ve been turning over for days.
“Stop. Don’t.” The doctor waves his hand at me, snapping me back to attention, and the wild-eyed terrified look on his face as though I just told him I have a bomb under my ass. He turns abruptly, panic slamming the card against the wall panel to slide open the door, lacking graceful coordination, and steps out of the doorway fully, shaking his hands and head and I follow, unsure why he’s recoiling. His whole-body trembling as he oozes a crazy amount of fear. I can taste it.
“What? Why? Do you think I’m lying?” The sudden rise of emotion in him has me on edge too, and the panic that I’m scaring my only ray of light to escape away. He appears to be running away, but as he turns to me, to close the door, the tear I catch in his eye silences me and he pauses, taking a deep breath and lowering his hands. The open door between us keeping us a couple of feet apart, but his sadness overwhelms me.
“Eight years of silence… eight years watching her sleep. Eight years hoping that one day the things she said, I’d accept that my friend had lost her mind completely. Eight years…. and I convinced myself that her visions and stories were that of a mad woman, broken by battle which convinced her that her mate was an evil player in some bigger plan, and her confinement here was a betrayal to silence her. Eight years justifying that she was better asleep, than to be tortured by her own illness of the mind.” I don’t know if he’s saying it to me, or to himself, his eyes not on me, just glazed and distant as a single tear rolls down his cheek and I’m so very confused.
“I don’t understand. You said she was fine… upstairs…. She’s been here longer than eight years…. Colton said nine.” Or was that including the war… when he didn’t see her in that timeframe because he never saw her when she came home at all. I don’t know. Oh god, please don’t tell me she really is broken, and this is all for nothing.
The thought crosses my mind, things not adding up to what he said, and going around in circles, unable to piece it together logically. Maybe Sierra really was sick, but then what the hell is he saying? The doctor smiles at me sadly, his pale grey eyes finally landing on mine, and gives me a watery half smile.
“If she was crazy…. then how could she tell me that one day a solitary she wolf from the west would come to save us all from something that was coming. A future leader of her people, joined to her blood by the fates. Maybe it’s coincidence, maybe it’s not. Maybe it’s wishful thinking and guilt because I’ve let her lay there for eight long years. Don’t you see?” he’s almost babbling, but I pick out the points I think he’s trying to connect.
“I came East from where I was, and I’m linked to her son.” I repeat robotically, still looking at him with a quizzical expression on my face and trying to figure out what his vague statements mean. He’s lost in his own head.
“Tell me…. What does the name Marina mean to you?” He narrows his eyes on me, leaning in as though telling me a secret of the utmost importance, and her name falls off his tongue like a lead rod that stabs me in the heart.
I gasp at the utterance of it on this man’s lips, my blood running cold as he says it, and I openly stifle a sob such is the unexpected pain of hearing it. A name that died when she did, and no one has uttered it in a decade.
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