I didn’t sleep at all at first, everything swirling in my head and the cravings for not just Colton, but Meadow, the sub pack, my room in the pack house, and the safety of the valley. It was all crying out to me, reminding me that I was barely grown and only newly turned and still so vulnerable in so many ways. I sobbed so much in the first few days, I thought it would break me and send me running back with my tail between my legs, but it didn’t.
I weathered the storm, walking aimlessly south with no plan, and after getting the first few miles clear of the Santo lands, I didn’t see a need to run anymore. With enough distance between us, and no chance they picked up my scent to track me, because quite frankly, they would have caught up with me already if anyone’s been looking. ?I stuck to the rural areas, stayed away from roads, and moved through forests and woods, farmlands, and rougher areas to avoid humans too.
I can still the see the mountain in the far distance as it gets further away with every day I trek, but I’m probably not even as far as I think I am. It just seems so much further because I took so long to get here. I’m afraid to turn in daylight, in case I’m seen, afraid to travel at night in case I run across vampires. I have to use human legs, and human speed, and without your heart and soul pushing you on, progress is slow.
Day four was the worst day of my life, and it alone was almost what ended this adventure of mine. Just when I didn’t think it could get any harder mentally, my heart already breaking with the need to see another person, or hear another voice, I was side swiped by a pain that came out of nowhere.
I thought I was dying. It was like someone reached into my chest cavity and grabbed my heart in the middle of my soul, twisted it around sharply and yanked it out, breaking every bone in its way. I crumbled to the ground, gasping for breath, every part of my rib cage, lungs, and core, slicing in agony, unable to catch air within me. Clawing at the ground as the pain shot through every limb and nerve ending.
I ended up rolling around in the mud, clutching my chest and wailing like a wounded animal, as tears flooded my vision and my brain near shattered. It was the single most terrifying moment I have experienced, beyond the night the vampires attacked, and I was once again completely helpless.
If felt like ultimate betrayal, the severing of my soul, and the only thing I could connect it to was Colton. The only logical answer to something so all-consuming, and yet for no obvious reason to its sudden happening. He must have done something strong enough to our bond to inflict this kind of hell, as it sure as hell was not his death, as I’m still breathing.
Only two things could really hurt your imprinted like that, especially from so many miles apart. Severing the bond, which he couldn’t have, because I would be dead, or betraying the bond with an act that cannot be forgiven.
Sleeping with Carmen and marking her.
It has to be that; nothing else can compare to this agony! The thing they taught us about in school, about carrying that heartache when your fated mate destroys the bond. It all makes sense and for days after, fighting the fatigue and desperation it makes me feel, even still, I barely managed to cover more than couple of miles in total, before breaking down into a crumbling mess and sobbing all over again. It felt like he had taken a knife himself, cut me open wide, and ripped everything out before setting it alight. The emotional devastation was as bad as finding out my entire family was gone when I was just eight years old and it still lingers like a shadow, weighing heavily, keeping me in the dark, even now. It broke me. In so many ways.
Mentally, as I wore on over the next days, I became numb and my will to run far from the mountain died a death. The reason I was going was primarily to outrun him and what he had to do. To try and not let it get to me, to distance myself from the pain and leave him to walk his own path without me. And yet the fates they delivered a blow that almost stopped me in my tracks completely, killing my will to find my future at all. They left me with the heavy sadness that consumes everything and just won’t lift. There’s nothing to run from anymore, it’s done. He did it.
I’m just going through the motions now, without really engaging any kind of effort under this black cloud, my new constant companion. I walk, I find something to hunt and eat, I wash in rivers, I find shelter, and I sporadically sleep through the dark.
The noises, the movement of nature all should bring me peace as a natural wolf, but it just serves to remind me how very alone I am, and that a wolf, is a pack animal. We don’t thrive alone, and it’s beginning to wear me down slowly. I can’t seem to ever really get any clear indication in my life about where I belong, or what I’m meant to do. Just that discarded worthless kid who wasn’t good enough to be mated, when even the fates imprinted me on someone. What hope is there for me?
I don’t have a reason to go back anymore anyway. Not even for the sub pack, who never really belonged to me. Colton made his choice; I can feel it and we’re done. I need to push on and find somewhere to settle, accept it, man up, and stop crying like a stupid child, but nowhere ever feels right.
On day eight I stumbled into an unknown dense dark forest at the base of a smaller mountain that was relatively secluded, finally finding somewhere that seemed easy to defend, was pretty, and had a good cave for a possible long-term dwelling. Nearby water source, dense enough to feel safe. Sheltered, and a good supply of wildlife for the hunting. No humans around for miles, and no signs that any had been there in forever.
It didn’t take long to be chased out by feral wolves who caught my scent in their territory though. Natural wolves, not my kind, no, because my kind would probably have strung me up and gutted me for straying there. Outside of Radstone the packs still have deep grained rivalry and feuds.
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