Awakening: Book 1

by L. T. Marshall

  “Something.” I mumble with lack luster and catch a slight hint of a cute boy smile from him, making him handsomer. Amused at me for giving him attitude, and it serve’s the purpose of softening me a minuscule amount. I can’t deny the way contact with him always calms me, brings me instant peace when he’s not being a jerk, and sends my body and senses into high alert, even when I feel like this. Pushing my bitterness aside and letting his warmer mood seep in.

  “You asked me a question downstairs. You asked me if I even remembered you.” It’s softly spoken, the way a lover would whisper to you while held in their arms. He lifts his hands to trace my cheek with his finger, removing a strand of hair that I couldn’t even feel and leans down closer towards me so his breath fans my face, and for a moment, I wonder if he might kiss me again. I shake it away mentally, knowing how stupid I’m being. He already made it clear we would never be that.

  He raises a brow as though expecting me to at least say something to that, but I blankly stare at him and give him nothing. My head busy with ludicrous thoughts and I try to empty my mind before he picks up on it.

  “It’s like that huh?” He sighs, adjusting his position so he is propped up on his arm, hand fisted against the edge of his jaw and gives me a little breathing space. Moving back a few inches, but still pressed against the side of my full length, and still touching my face. “Two summers ago, before Carmen and I started dating. You were wearing a green dress, serving candy floss at the meadow festival. You served me, wouldn’t look me in the eye and when you passed me my change, you dropped it on the ledge rather than hand it to me. You had a yellow flower in your hair.” His voice is soft and husky, and I try hard to lock on his gaze as my memory dashes backwards, trying to pinpoint what he’s remembering. It’s vague, but I remember the festival and the way his whole pack spent the entire day lording over the rest of us and causing mayhem. It was a nothing day and nothing sticks out as memorable about it.

  “You have my memories, so how do I know you’re not just tapping into one of mine” I blurt out, a little stubborn indignation in the mix because I know he’s trying to get me to be a little less mad at him. It wouldn’t be hard for him to now look backwards and see me when he has all of mine in there to choose from. Colton smiles, shaking his head softly with a frown, lifts his fingers to my temple and gently presses, projecting his memory to me, among the many we share.

  An instant mental visual of that sunny day and there I am, standing at that cart, making floss, and looking like maybe the day wasn’t as bad as I remembered. I have a strappy dress in a nice shade of mint green that brings out a golden color in my hair. My tousled waves blowing free in the wind and for a second, I look almost carefree. Maybe even pretty. I can see me, so these aren’t my memories, they’re his.

  I watch myself at a distance, turn and spot the group of Santos heading my way, looking towards this person, of the head I’m inside and instantly put my nose down and go into full submission. You can almost taste the change in my disposition as I realize they’re coming to my stall and I’m not happy about it. I pull his fingers away sharply, cutting the visual and seeing enough, not wanting to watch anymore of how feeble and unworthy I always was in the presence of them.

  “Doesn’t prove anything.” I shrug and turn my face from him. Not wanting to revisit any memories of those men making me feel like trash anytime they had to talk to me.

  “The memory’s from my eyes, not yours. It proves plenty. Do you want another?” The cocky hint, and I can almost feel the smirk as his hand comes back to rest on the flat of my stomach, a little too comfortable for my own liking. It annoys me how easily he finds this slide into touchy feely when he’s the one who chose to sever our ties. He has a woman somewhere in this house, pining for him, and yet here he is again, touching me like I’m still his property. For once I actually feel like Carmen deserves better, that he maybe lost his affection for her, but she didn’t for him, and he should still care about her feelings. This would hurt her if she saw us like this.

  “Okay, so you remember me. Whatever. It doesn’t mean much, except we interacted before. A few times actually. Of course, in the memory banks I’ll be there. That wasn’t the point of what I was saying. All that memory shows are you saw me and managed to remember it, not that it served any importance to you.” I roll away pushing his hand off me fully, hinting to give me space, and return to my previous position. Bristling internally with the war going off inside my head and returning to irritation. Hating the fact that all the usual little tells are starting to go off inside me at his proximity and my body is beginning to yearn him again.

  “You don’t remember me, do you?” Colton pushes me in the back of my shoulder lightly, almost teasingly and I shirk him off. Not impressed with him trying to turn this around and roll my eyes. He’s being a little too flippant for a guy who spent tonight ripping apart vampires.

  His focus should be on our impending doom and our life from here on in, and not whatever this is. Reminiscing the ‘good old days’ and adding weight to why he will never rebuild trust with his chosen ‘mate’. He’s not exactly acting like he cares about doing it from what I’ve seen.

  “Don’t be stupid. How could I not remember the Alpha son of Lord Santo. I’ve known who you were since birth.” I answer with dripping sarcasm. He’s starting to grate on me now. I mean we share every single memory each harbor, so it’s pretty dumb telling me I wouldn’t know something that he does. Or that I didn’t remember him all these years. How could I forget the guy who walked around for ten of them, like our lord, and king? How could I not know the son of the man who ordered my kind into exile.

  I don’t get a chance to hit him with any kind of comeback, his hand comes at me from behind and he feels out my temple once more, projecting from the many hours of mental movies, a single one that shoots to the forefront in the blink of an eye and renders me mute. I inhale sharply as the visual of my mother comes to view, winding me instantly and pushing me to complete still submission.

  My beautiful angelic mother, holding my hand as we walk around the edge of the lake, near the cavern and I’m young, really young. The place near where he asked me to meet him that day in the forest. She’s laughing, fixing the bow in the back of my hair that’s keeping it all off my face and yet, I’m seeing it from the eyes of someone in the water. I’m a kid, maybe seven, maybe eight, but I recognize myself. I recognize her too, my breathtaking mom and that dazzling smile, those blue eyes that are missing from my life, and it tears at my soul. The pain cutting into me and slicing away some of my armor.

  She walks me to the edge and lets me go, so I can play, go to swim. I run forward and splash into the water, no sign of hesitation. A brave little girl who thought she was capable of anything when sheltered in the shadow of her family. I clumsily gallop, splash in cannonball style and dive under as soon as I get waist deep, her calling encouragement from the edge as she watches me. I can’t pull my mental sight from her face, her laugh, the way her voice echoes in the air around us and surrounds me with a unique warmth, like she’s hugging me now.

  If I’m Colton in this memory then he watches me for a minute too, dragging my eyes back to me and she fades off out of scene. I have no control of where he looks, because this is his memory. He follows my progress as I swim across the lake and then he’s pulled sideways, and I’m suddenly seeing water. Submerged in bubbles and blurry sight, hands in front, waving as I swim back to the surface, coughing and spluttering as another boy blocks my view. I recognize him as one of his closest Santo pack. A boy called Matteo, who’s usually in Colton’s shadow wherever he goes. He was in the study earlier today.

  “Do you like her or something? Why you always staring at her, Cole? Is she why you made me come here? I feel like she’s wherever we go nowadays.” He teases, pushing me back and all I hear in response is…

  “Shut up. She has a name. Get out of my face and stop being dumb.” It’s Colton’s voice. Undeniable, even at such a young age, that
smooth undertone of immature depth that grew into how he sounds now. The completely defensive edge, and embarrassment, hints that his friend is right, and I know from learning so much about him lately that when he gets caught out, he gets bristly and hostile. It starts to dawn on me what he’s showing me as he lets go and breaks the projection.

  I turn on him at speed, eyes wide and gawping, not really sure I just interpreted that the right way, but what other way could I.

  “You liked me?” I blurt out accusingly. I don’t understand. That memory is long before the wars catapulted into our life and changed everything. A time I can barely remember, and I definitely don’t recall on that day, either of us having any kind of memorable interaction. He stayed with his friends and I stayed with mine and then I went home with my mom before the sun went down. I would have to claw through the memories to be sure, but there was nothing to suggest he even noticed me.

  “I had a crush on you, like you wouldn’t believe. I don’t know how many times I tried to talk to you and got completely blanked or lost my nerve. I used to hang out where I knew you would be, but then the war happened, and you became….” His voice tails off, eyes averting, shame washing over his expression, and I know what he means without him finishing.

  I became a black sheep. One of the shamed.

  My family died and our people scraped up the remains and shunned my kind to the darkest corner. One of the rejects and much like everyone else, he would have been told we were cursed and to keep his distance. Colton was a kid, and I guess his father really drummed it into his head that I was unworthy. His crush died, he forgot me, and he moved on with his life, onto Carmen.

  “Why are you telling me this? I don’t remember you ever trying to talk to me, I don’t recall times where you were there in my childhood.” Not that it means anything. Now it’s just hurting me all over again, knowing that even then, he bowed to his fathers will and rejected me, long before that day in the woods. If we were destined, then he failed me twice.

  Colton sighs, pulls me close by the waist and brings my face back to his so that he can move in and rest his forehead on mine. The kind of intimacy you would expect from a mate and I have to remind myself that we’re not anything close. I don’t relax into his touch, but stay like cardboard, and refuse to melt into him or succumb to his power over me.

  “I was shy, and you were this fearless, confident girl, that walked around with her friends, oblivious to any of us. Boys were dumb and you all liked to make a point of avoiding us at all costs.” He points out with a smile, reminding me a little of memories gone by, so well buried to save my heart from the pain of losing my family that I almost blocked them out completely. A time when the packs lived in proximity but kept to their own. A time when the Santo boys were just ‘that bunch of idiots from the south side’ and had no authority over the rest of us.

  It feels like a million years ago now, when life was normal, and I had a real home. My own warm bed in my own little pink room on our farm. I had parents, a brother, and grandparents. Happy and carefree and had no idea there was a storm coming that was big enough to take it all away from me. There was a time when I was just another wolf child, and Colton and his friends were not our superiors, but a rival pack and we had no real animosity. Not between kids anyway. The fights were for the grown-ups.

  I smile at the possibility that Colton was once shy. I mean, t I don’t believe it now with who and how he is, but raking through my memories stored in my brain that belong to him, daring to push back to the before, where all my visions pain me still, I guess I can pinpoint a few that show a much quieter boy. He turned young, and at first, he wasn’t the fearless aggressive wolf that we all know him as now.

  He was sweet at some point in his life, until I guess, he was hardened with whatever responsibility his father laid on his head. He was nine when the wars happened, and as a boy who already ran with the pack, he would have lost so many years of childhood in taking over in his father’s absence while protecting his family.

  We had attacks here too, and many young boys had to fight for our survival. I don’t doubt he was one. I can almost see the point in which he turned away from anyone who wasn’t Santo, pushed people away and stayed in his own little bubble, snarling at others who dared to come too close. Colton the shy sweet boy and me the fearless bossy girl who didn’t let others push her around.

  Oh, how the tables turned.

  “So you knew me. It doesn’t matter.” I sigh finally, realizing he has worn me down enough to get me talking to him and I’m no longer sulking in silence and staring listlessly at a ceiling. Instead I’m lost in a million thoughts and feeling all kinds of sad and depressing things. This is why I never walk down memory lane to see who I used to be. I’m also betraying my own will power and have at some point curled up against his chest and pushed one foot between his ankles, snugly, cuddling up so easily that I didn’t even know I was doing it. I reverse, moving back a little, screwing my face up at how potent this bond can be.

  Colton narrows his eyes and stares at me for the longest moment, knowing this direction of conversation is futile and doesn’t really change anything. Even if he did remember me, if he liked me, we are where we are, and it’s not really important anymore. He can’t undo what is done, and who I am now.

  “Anyway… why are you here. I thought you were scared of me now.” It’s a half joke, half real question, because it’s been playing on my mind since the first couple of hours they locked me in this lifeless room, to listen to the house being mended and boarded up. It’s also my attempt to bring us back from the intimacy that is now making me uncomfortable as I push a little more space between us. I don’t even have a cell phone to keep me occupied as I have no friends and the orphanage wasn’t going to pay for them.

  “Hmmm. Ha ha. Actually, it’s sort of about that. Why I’m here I mean. About earlier and your moment of whatever the hell that was.” Colton’s face turns serious, those pretty eyes under black way too nice eyebrows, turning back to mine, and I can almost hear the gear switch of his brain as he focuses his mind on that topic. All tenderness fades away.

  “What about it? You came to tell me they all think I’m a freak and a threat and I’m getting moved to an isolation tank.” I say it so blankly like there’s no feeling behind it, but honestly, it’s had me worried to the pit of my stomach on and off for hours.

  Isolation tanks dampen gifts and make you unable to do anything much about it. If they think I’m some kind of freak of nature, I can totally see Juan using that as an excuse to contain me. It would solve the whole imprinting issue and his son being in danger. I would literally live in a steel box, forgotten in some basement below one of the Santo houses. I could live and rot until I die of age in there. Problem solved.

  “They’re all too busy figuring out what we do about our lands before we’re hit with another attack. This shit is just the beginning, Lorey. All these years wasted when we should have been preparing and building an army once more. Now they’re calling on packs from the far reaches to consider uniting and mounting an offensive. No, you’re low on the list of things they are worried about today... whereas I have a theory.” He smiles a little at that, a lightness hitting his expression, the look of smug knowledge spreading into those deepest darkest chocolate eye and that annoyingly sexy smile widening enough to bring out dimples and showcase very nice teeth.

  “Which is?” I sound as unconvinced as I feel, and he smiles all the more, making butterflies erupt low down in my body and I have to squirm to get them under control. I don’t like the smug, twinkling, something in his eye. My instincts start to shift and suddenly I feel like wariness might be creeping in and the aura he’s giving off.

  “You have an absorption gift. And that’s what you did. You absorbed the power of the weapon they used in the orphanage and for a short time you can throw it out there as your own. It’s not a common gift, and usually they don’t come across devices like the vampire hit you with. It makes sense. You haven’
t learned to contain your power and you were overwhelmed.” He sounds so convinced, actually pleased at how smart he is for figuring it all out in a logical and almost believable way. I’ve heard of this type of gift among wolves. Well heard stories and legends, like he said, it’s not common. They absorb and can use other wolves’ gifts and some they even retain for more than days. They basically turn any enemies power back on them, and it makes them almost invincible.

  “Except …. that weapon, you’re talking about …. it didn’t break anything, I didn’t turn it to protect me, and it didn’t do any kind of anything outside the house and courtyard. Your father said I sent shockwaves for miles.” I raise a brow and then sigh at the fact I just disproved something that could have potentially made me feel better about what happened.

  “Maybe you can amplify it, make it more potent. Maybe that’s part of your gift. We could test that out. Your gifts were dampened by the weapon because you haven’t mastered them, and you didn’t even know you could. Don’t you see. If you have a powerful gift it could change things for us. My father might reconsider your place in our pack. We try and see what you can do.” Colton shifts so he’s no longer as close but half sits, and turns to tower over me, letting the candlelight illuminate his face once more so I can fully see him. He seems almost pleased, but the doubt and uneasiness inside of me only grows stronger. Picking up on weird, antsy, signals from him and my inner red alert is starting to pique, even though I don’t know why. I push it aside and try to ignore it as nothing more than anxiety because of what he’s saying.

  “How? If I don’t know how to harness it, or what to do, or even how to use it.” I query; not sure I’m into this, but he seems a little too keen. My head spinning with what he’s saying and trying not to dig too deeply into his father changing his mind on anything. Colton’s being stupid, and we both know my having a gift that’s above average isn’t going to change the fact I’m one of the shamed and will never be good enough for an alpha.