Colton takes my hand in his unexpectedly, sliding strong fingers into mine and leads the way across the vast marble floor into a small corridor that runs away from the bathroom he put me in earlier. I don’t reject his touch, needing it now I’m on a comedown of what happened upstairs. Once again vulnerable and out of my depth and clinging to him to take charge while in his domain. Drawing from his strength and ability to swagger through the worst kind of chaos.
We walk down the dark almost claustrophobic space, with voices, noises, lots of movement cascading our way, and follow two Santos we catch up with inside the most crowded room I’ve ever seen. It’s hard to tell how big it would be empty, for it’s packed solid with adult Santo wolves, mostly male, from all over, even the ones who don’t reside in the pack house. Easily over a hundred or so, and they’re all squeezed in, fighting for breathing space as we join right at the back, unseen.
There are several elders and the Shaman, right down at the front, standing on a low podium facing back at us all. Men I have never seen before in my life, standing behind them, and I guess these are the older generation of retired elders, coming out in our time of need. Mostly men in here as is the way when dealing with important matters, or femmes who have no children and are better suited to battle, as all of those who are not are home minding their little ones. Juan Santo is right in the center and he seems to be waiting for everyone to quiet before he starts. The overwhelming seriousness of this cascades around the room, thickening the atmosphere with a heady tension.
Colton pulls me in front of him, placing me right at his chest so he’s up against my back, lacing his fingers into both of my hands from behind as they hang by my sides in the darkest of our shadows. He rests his chin against the back of my head, bringing his body to fit snugly into mine, so we are completely joined without it being obvious to those around us. It looks like two people standing close due to the crushing lack of space as our hands are concealed in darkness. He’s a good head taller than me, so it’s a natural position, and I glance around to see if anyone is staring, but they’re all too focused on their alpha king.
“Quiet now” A voice from the front rows hushes the uneasy mumbling and scraping in the room and everyone stops talking, the atmosphere somehow heavier with the forced hush. Juan steps forward, although I can barely see him over the people in front of me and have to stand on my tip toes to get a proper view between heads. There’s a moment of pause as he looks around us all, his eyes catching his son across the crowds and I can’t miss the fleeting surge of anger as he realizes I’m right in front of him.
I glance away, instantly scalded, landing back down on flat feet, wounded by the penetrating glare and scan the room instead to see if Carmen is anywhere close by. I can’t see her thankfully, which means she probably can’t see us, and try to sink down further to better conceal myself behind the Santo in front of me. Colton squeezes my hands and holds me closer, somehow letting me know that I should ignore it.
Be still. You’re safe with me.
He comes through gently, caressing my mind with a tender tone and I exhale dejectedly.
For now, maybe. While they’re all distracted with Vampire attacks and end of world foreboding, but my gut says it’s temporary. I can feel the hatred lingering in the air from Juan’s vicious frown and it unsettles me in every kind of way.
“You all know why we are here…” Juan begins and it’s the final push needed to bring a total hush to the room as all completely still, not even the shuffle of moving bodies, and fall deathly silent. It tugs my attention back to him and I peek around the side of the male in front of me to catch sight of him again. “We were attacked by a long-forgotten enemy, and quite frankly, we didn’t see it coming and were not prepared. Despite the rumbling of recent months, we didn’t honestly expect them to rise and attack in this way and we failed our people. We lost fifty-three of our kind, on the dark side of the mountain, tonight. Forty-seven lost in the battle and six bonded who perished when their mates heart took its last beat.”
My heart aches as he says it, visualizing so many of the faces I know went down in that attack. Unlike anyone else in this room, I’m probably the only one who not only knew their names, but what every single one of them looked like, who they were as people, and their ages not only when they died, but when they were first dumped in that hellhole without their loved ones. Memories with all of them, even if they were not close to me. To these wolves, they’re just numbers to measure their failures against.
I close my eyes as the tears begin to fall silently down my cheeks, warm unwelcome rivulets of remembrance. The pain returning once more, and I can’t stop myself. My heart filling up and straining to contain it as my mind is swamped with images I don’t want to relive, and I shudder as I push them away, inhaling heavily as my shoulders start to tremble with the effort of not falling apart. The horrors of how I last saw them all, trying so hard to invade my brain and cut me down all over again.
I nestle back into Colton as his arm comes up around my body and across my neck as he cuddles me. His comfort, because he can feel my pain, my body trembling as I cry, squeezing my eyes shut to gain control. His touch is what I need more than anything and I stay here in the darkness of my own doing, listening and silently weeping while held tight in his comforting embrace.
“We think it was a test, for this device we found in the orphanage.” Juan carries on and my eyes rip open at his words, shoving my despair aside as I squirm, wriggling out of Colton’s hug to see what everyone is craning necks to look at. Catching a gap as ones on front move sideways to look where I am.
He holds up a small perfectly square black box, an antenna sticking up at the top but a complete lack of buttons and dials of any sort, that looks harmless. Small and compact, no more than a tissue box in size, with another wire sticking out from the rear about a foot long and doesn’t seem to attach to anything to power it. It doesn’t look real, more like something a child could make with card and glue and some black paint and I blink at it, stupefied, glaring furiously, and hating that something so insignificant, destroyed my life.
“They chose our weakest and our most secluded and walked right in, depositing this in the center of the first-floor kitchen. We think they wanted to test its effectiveness and still have a fighting chance should it fail. It didn’t…. we’ve only one survivor left from the home and only because of the fast actions of our pack. We managed to take down many of their kind, but a few escaped and will be reporting on their success for sure.”
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