A tingling sensation starts at my arm, another on my throat and spreads to my chest as it feels like my body is pulled up into a strong cradling embrace and a weight is hauled from me. Against all my expectations, my eyes flutter open as darkness starts to recede and a pair of amber eyes in a familiar face are only inches from mine, reflecting a blue glow that brings my sight down to where it’s coming from. My brain so cloudy that I stare numbly, with no sense of recognition for a second.
Human hands… blue healing glow on my arm and my upper chest and the armor, it’s lying beside me, dented, and curled and slashed and yet I can’t get my bearings at all. I don’t know what’s happening anymore.
“Colton?” I whisper in dazed confusion, knowing this is a dream. So weak, it sounds like the softest pitter patter of rain on the forest floor. Gazing up into the familiar face of the person I have wanted most all this time.
“I’m right here….. you’re going to be okay, just stay still. Let me do this for a minute.” It’s his voice, my mate’s husky, perfect, and beautiful voice, and my strength is coming back to me. The pain receding and my fogginess pushing back to clear my sight and my mind.
The first thing I see around his lowered head is the lack of mist around us, the brighter day minus the smog. With perfect clarity, the face of the person I have pined for hovering over me. Concern and despair etched into that cute boy face and those incomparable features. His voice trembling with the sheer intensity of his pain at finding me this way.
“I don’t know what happened or why we’re out here…I …I…. baby, I’m so confused. Who hurt you? Why didn’t I stop it?” He pulls me to his throat to cradle my face against him, his words strangled and it’s clear he has no idea. Still keeping one hand around my body and half hugs me. Never breaking the way his healing magic is pushing through my body and spreading to every inch of me as he restores everything to what it should be and yet more. His power revives my energy, renews my blood in ways Sierra never had a chance and brings back every ounce of my gifts to within my grasp. Every second brings me to reality and further away from a step into the underworld.
“I’m not dreaming…I’m not dead?” I utter breathlessly, finding the use of my own arms and wrapping them around his waist while gripping on tight, suddenly unable to get close enough even though we are pulled together, touching in several places. I close my eyes and inhale him. The familiar scent, with a need to be sure this isn’t a dream and it’s really him. I squeeze him with ferocity, my body trembling with happiness and try and bury myself into his warm safety as he chokes on a half cry half, half laugh and crushes his cheek to mine. He seems startled by my sudden needy possession of him, wrapping on, holding tight and unable to release him to let him breathe.
“God no….I would never let you die, baby. Lorey, what the hell happened? Who did this to you? How did I wake up here with no idea how I even… why didn’t you turn? What’s going on and why is the pack…..Carmen?” his confusion sobers me fully, lifting my face up to stare at him, as he glances at the now intact femme, smeared in blood, who saunters close enough to lean in and check on my progress.
It seems his presence isn’t her focus, but the making sure she sees me being restored to a state of zero damage. I look down to see the last of my wounds fading into memory, along with how much it hurt. My mind clearing and my energy zings with happiness. I shake my head, so not able to tell him he’s the one who did this, because I know it would kill him and we still have something else to focus on. I shrug, sighing, and reach for his face instead, sliding my arms around his neck so I can pull him closer to me. My heart fit to bursting with the joy and love and overwhelming feeling of being back in his arms.
“I’ve missed you so much.” I cry into his embrace when he fully lifts me against his chest and onto his lap, pulling me so snug I’m fitted like a glove into his body and back where I belong. I’m home, wherever he is always feels like this. He holds me tight, breathing against my ear rapidly as his own emotion gets the better of him, feeding from my own overwhelming chaos of happy and needy and I can tell it dampens his confusion but also raises more questions in his head.
“Missed me? I only left you minutes ago… I sent you back to the house after Carmen and Meds. Why did you come back?” He presses his nose to mine, inhaling my scent and seems to try and grasp at his own memories, screwing his face up to understand what he woke up to. I want to kiss him so badly, but I hold back, knowing if I do, I may not stop and let him go. My cravings for his intimacy, his touch, his nearness, almost start driving me to insanity now I finally get to hold him again.
Colton’s memory is of the last seconds before the fog and I pull back to blink at him, aware that Leyanne broke the spell, but this isn’t over. As much as I want to relish in having him back, at staring at the gorgeousness of his brown eyes and sweet face, I know we can’t right now. Our witch and our wolves are in that mountain and might need help to get back out.
“We don’t have time right now, just trust me….. we need to get up and go get Meadow and the pack. They went into the mountain. The vampires won’t let them go without a fight and there’s only half a dozen of them.”
“The what?” Colton’s eyes widen in shock, pulling back rapidly but not letting me go and he darts a look up ahead of him at the looming rock in the distance, through the dense trees as though trying to visualize a scene before him. His pupils dilate as his brain kicks into gear and his entire body stiffens as I feed on his sudden panic and heavy confusion. Hesitating as he looks down at me and then to the armor, before flicking a questioning glance at Carmen who stands silently nearby watching us. It’s only now at looking past him I can see human wolves wandering around, mumbling to one another, all with dazed expressions and questions. Talking, looking this way. None of them remember anything.
“What aren’t you telling me? Why didn’t you turn?” Colton hits my eyes with his, slightly ambering as his feelings spiral and I can tell he’s raking his memory for answers. I don’t get a chance, just clinging to him to stop the shaking of my body. Reassuring myself that his touch is real, that his warmth is real. I missed him so much.
“What the fuck is going on?” Cesar falls onto his knees at the side of Colton, cutting into our reunion with his own tone of angry misunderstanding and hauls him by the arm. “Cole the entire fucking pack seems to be out here….. I have no idea why. And no one has any kind of clothing, so we all came out here and turned?!!?!?! Why are you here, Luna? You left!” Cesar looks over me and then narrows his eyes on the fact I do have clothes and yet they are blood soaked and torn, and there’s a lot of chain mail on show and a discarded breastplate that’s seen better days. I can almost decipher the questions forming behind that sharp gaze.
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