Awakening: Book 1

by L. T. Marshall

  I stand back watching as she’s settled, and the transition is complete. The doctor moving in to talk with a woman in a white coat I recognize from the Santo medical center in the valley. She has two nurses flanking her as they busily squirrel around, put trolleys away, and sort out the haywire mess of machines they’ve taken from Sierra. Tidying up and making her ready for her new stay in here.

  Colton pulls over a high stool to the head of her bed and perches down beside her, oblivious to me over here, leaning in and saying something softly as he strokes her hair back, fully locked on her face as everyone else seems engrossed on the care plan they’re discussing. I can hear the doc listing of medications and withdrawal key points, a step by step of what they need to do over the next few hours, but all my attention is on that solitary, strong, wide figure, with his back to me, and the longing pulling me to go comfort him.

  Despite everything going on, we both have so much mess in our heads and a shared pain from finding out things that turned everything upside down. Now isn’t the time to hold that against him while all this is going on. Neither of us was prepared or even mature enough to deal with the tsunami of shit we’ve endured these past weeks, and I’m weary with it all catching up. I don’t want to carry the feelings of hurt and hate on top of that too. Not right now.

  We have to figure this out, wait on Sierra to see if she has an answer, and focus on the fact Deacon and his crew will follow us. Soon as they wake up and realize what’s happened, I’m sure Juan will be notified, and there will be a mad scramble to try and get here before she can tell everyone the truth.

  I can be mad at Colton, hurt by him, but right now he’s my alpha too, and I need to look to him for leadership, and keeping us all safe. If all I do is argue and carry a grudge, I’ll make it all harder for myself. The pack, this house, this place, its where I’m meant to be through this, and I need to put this shit aside and stop thinking about myself for a little while. About how what he did broke my heart, when right now, the priority is everyone else, and Sierra.

  “This is not the little sub pack and hide out I imagined it would be.” The doc infiltrates my thoughts, appearing beside me with that soothing English dialect that’s becoming like a warm hug, and I have to smile at that.

  “Me either. I didn’t know anything that happened since I left. It’s crazy.” I shrug, eyeing up the room with a sigh.

  “Yes, Colton gave me a condensed version as we wheeled Sierra in. In a way though, I’m rather glad that we ended up in a place that ensures I have time to wake her safely. I don’t need to rush and risk her body going into shock. This was definitely your fates guiding the way and providing us with ample shelter for a very difficult task.” The doc looks as tired as I feel, and we’re both sagging over here, probably equally as eager for a bed as the other to lay down for a little while, but both of us have to be here.

  “How long do you think that will take?” I ask genuinely, eager to see Colton finally get to reunite with her after all these years. Eyes falling on that beautiful man as he tends to his mom lovingly.

  “We’ve come up with a plan to slow down and stop the sedation meds over forty-eight hours, to let her brain begin to come out on its own accord. We’ll monitor her, keep her stabilized, and adjust as she progresses. She might have a few days of vegetative state where it seems like we’ve lost her…. that’s normal. Eight years is a long time to live in a dream world and the mind is a complex piece of hardware that sometimes requires a reset period. We’ll just take this as it comes, and hope she’ll be one of the rare cases of long-term coma patients to come out and be able to interact within mere days.” He nods, a look of relative confidence on that lowered brow.

  “She’s a wolf… I say your bets are stacked on the positive side.” I perk him up with a cheeky smile, and it gets a little one in return.

  “Quite!”

  “I don’t know where we go from here.” I point out, nodding at Colton across the room, not really meaning just me and him, trying to hide the longing that crosses my face and the doctor nudges me with his shoulder.

  “I’m a believer that a good cup of tea and a long chat usually resolves many of life’s issues. Problems that seem overwhelming are sometimes just smoke and mirrors and getting it all out is sometimes the only way forward.” He raises those bushy grey brows with a knowing expression, and I nudge him back.

  “Like confessing all to a strange girl who fell into your medical facility?” I smirk.

  “Exactly. Sometimes you have to throw away your entire life’s work, put your trust in a higher power, no matter how many signs are killing your hopes, and know they won’t steer you wrong if you just stop fighting it.” His eyes stray to Colton too and it has the annoying effect of dragging my vision back to him. That strong, upright figure, looking a little too inviting while framed by the light from the lamp over Sierra’s bed. Always so unruffled even in the face of a storm. He’s solid, cool, and takes it all in his stride.

  “Good advice, doc. Not so easy to follow, but yeah… I guess.” I exhale heavily, feeling hopeless when he’s over there, looking like everything I need to cure me of my eternal agony.

  “We’ll figure this out, together, young lady. After all, …. you are our savior.” He throws his arm around me awkwardly, gives me a squeeze, and then drops it as quickly as though he crossed some sort of touching boundaries that threw him well outside his comfort zone. I get the overwhelming surge of flustered, eccentric cringing, at his own public display of affection, and let out an involuntary giggle.

  “I guess I better go white flag the Alpha, until we can see where all this is going. Might make life easier if I give him a few days pass.” I shrug it out, knowing all things considered, Colton probably could use less stress until Sierra wakes up.

  “He’s young, headstrong, stubborn like his mother, and still finding his feet in his new role. Go easy on him. He has the world on his shoulders, and he needs a little help in holding it up. His head is not quite where it should be.” The doc glances at him and then off to the femme Medic across the other side who waves him to her.

  I nod, taking the hint, and push off to walk towards Colton, leaving the doc to wander back to the femme in the corner pouring over some clipboard as she jots things down.

  I take a levelling inhale, push all my riots of feelings into one tiny box and sit on them for now. Determined to be civil and not let everything ooze out of me while he needs a friend. I approach him from behind, and like in the truck, he’s so zoned in on his mom he doesn’t acknowledge me coming close until I get right up beside him and lean in to look at her. Eyeing her up now she’s been settled in here and it’s odd, but I swear, she has more color to her pallor and her hair looks a little shinier. It’s almost like she knows she isn’t alone anymore, that she’s surrounded by her people and their love, even if that’s ridiculous.

  Seeing them together like this, only highlights how much he looks like her now he’s an adult. The same profile, small nose, and perfect bone structure of two very beautiful people, and I guess he always had her strong DNA. The dark hair, and straight brows, although Sierra is noticeably pale compared to Colton’s sallow tan he wears all year round. She is lithe, and feminine in her build though, and Colton, well, he’s your typical strong, tall, and built alpha type. More muscles than brains sometimes, and he has a nice ass.

  One of the nurses pushes a stool up behind me with a smile and nod and I take it gratefully, sitting beside Colton and trying hard not to reach out to touch him. He looks so lost in the moment, eyes fixated on her, and so many thoughts must be running through his head. It’s like watching a pained child trying to figure something out, and that maternal instinct in me revs up a thousand watts and makes sitting here unbearable.

  “I can’t believe she’s really here… that’s she’s real. How many times I dreamed of seeing her again?” He whispers it, that sexy voice low, and rough, alerting me to the fact he’s aware I’m beside him after all, and I relax into the se
at, propping my feet up on the bar and lean towards him lightly. Suddenly consumed with fierce protectiveness over him when he seems this vulnerable.

  “I’m just glad that we got her here. That you came when I found her.” What else can I say. Nothing I can add right now is going to ease the tension as we wait, and he knows everything I do about all of this.

  “How could he do this to her? How could he not love her the way he was supposed to?” His eyes run back to her face, once again he strokes her hair, and he’s so lost in his own feeling he doesn’t notice my sarcastic eyebrow rise and tilted pointed chin gesture I give him.

  That’s a very good question Colton… why couldn’t he? You might know given you clearly have the same flaw!!

  I shake it out of my head before he senses my attitude, scolding myself for such an impulsive response, but still, he really is dense sometimes. Know this projecting crap is only going to make me mad, and I don’t bite or say it out loud but god damn it, Colton. Really?

  I know he doesn’t need this right now, so I sigh it away, breathe slowly, and count to ten, sit a little taller, and try and focus on what he needs instead. Reminding myself that this is bigger than us, and I have to be less pounce ready.

  “He betrayed the mate bond; he doesn’t deserve her.” I point out flatly, then curse myself under my breath for still pushing it out there even if I didn’t meant to. It’s like everything we are saying is the damned obvious, yet Colton doesn’t even click. Colton doesn’t move or react, just that same silent fixed stare as he watches her breathe, eyes on her closed lids, and he sits. I feel like screaming and hitting him over the head with the nearest hard object, but instead I stare at the ceiling for a minute and let it pass. Soooooo slowly.

  “I should have found her a long time ago, before any of this. I should have looked harder, but I was young, and stupid, and I believed in my father when he said it was for the best.”

  Oh, for the love of god! I give up, eyeroll upwards at the fates and mentally ask them is this is deliberate. I mean, when you decide to avoid a topic and they just keep pushing it between us like some sort of annoying sign, it starts to grate a tiny bit.

  That heartbreak and rawness in the croaking tone tells me finally though, how much the betrayal of his father is screwing him up, and I focus all my energy on that and not the universe trying to make me smother him with his own hoody. I instinctively wrap my arm around his, hoping contact will keep me from heinous beatings, and lean my head on his shoulder in a bid to blank them out. I really want to ease his pain, as it ebbs through me and waves inside of my own heart and stomach. He’s still trying to shield me but this close, he’s failing to do it fully, and I can feel it inside of me.

  It’s heavy, and deep, and consuming, and I forget everything about being upset with him or angry. I slide my flattened palm along his arm instinctively, cover the back of the hand he has laid on his mom’s and entwine my fingers in his, so we hold hands on top of hers. Colton turns his head with my contact and rests his chin and mouth on top of my hair, pushing in against me so we’re half cuddling but not really, just touching, leaning together, and for once I don’t push him away or feel the need to jump out of proximity. We both exhale at the same time, a heavy releasing of tension, and hurt, and energy, as we sag together, and everything pauses for a second. That calm silence his touch always brings me.

  I can feel him feeding from me, soothing him slightly with my touch like an imprinted mate is meant too, and I close my eyes and enjoy the stolen moment I’m allowing myself. I can push everything else aside and pretend that it’s okay to be what he needs when it’s about her. When the topic isn’t us, and markings, and anything other than being a support for someone who really needs it.

  “I don’t know how to lead, Lorey. These people, this pack. I’m just a kid. I’m not ready.” The devastation and self-doubt rips through me as it waves over me from him, and I look up from my nestled position, shifting to see his face without breaking away. Hating that he feels so out of whack and the normal confident rock I’ve come to depend on is wavering.

  “You’re a born leader. Maybe it seems hard right now, and things aren’t clear, but Colton, you are the best for your people. Look around. They’re here with you. You did this. Safe, protected, you stood up and made a stand for them against someone you love. You put them first, always. The good of the pack, it’s always your primary focus, even when other things get in the way. How can you doubt that? It’s what makes you the strongest kind of leader!” I praise him with honesty, heartfelt, and hushed, as I whisper the words he needs to remember. How he can doubt himself this way is beyond me, when everything I know about him makes it obvious, he was always going to be the best kind of alpha. He is!

  “Maybe I just want to be a kid who’s selfish. Who took the girl he wanted and walked away, and screw all this. I should have left with you. Belonged with you, wherever you went.” He sounds defeated and I know this isn’t him. This is a tired and uncertain guy who has had a lot thrown at him. In one day, his ex-mate resurfaces, dragging his long-lost mom along, and he finds out his father kept her prisoner, after murdering his own people and destroyed the life he thought he knew.

  It hurts to hear him say it, feel it. The regret of what happened with us, even while I’m trying to ignore it. The tears bite at my eyes, and a lump forms in my throat, that almost chokes me, inflicting a unique kind of body and brain ache that’s hard to shake off.

  “Maybe you should have, but you would never have forgiven yourself. You made the choices you made for the good of the pack, even if it hurt us. If you left them, he would never have relinquished control, and they would be suffering still. The fates had a plan, and maybe leaving with me would have changed my path and never led me to her. And what about her? You’ve waited for her for ten years; she needs you too. They all do. I finally see how all of this is so much bigger than us, Colton. Why it had to be that we couldn’t be together. It was by design, and we did what we were meant to, even you when you rejected me.” I nod at Sierra, my own voice strained with my own undercurrents of agonizing emotions, knowing that all of this is his pain talking and the desire to run away from everything hurting him. A normal flight or fight response, and I felt the same when I learned about all of it, in fact I still feel this way. To run and bury my head and wish it’d been different. It’s fear, it’s overwhelm, but it’s pointless and running isn’t going to fix any of this anymore. Juan has to pay; the balance has to be restored, and Sierra needs her son. Colton needs to lead.

  Colton sighs, slides his arms under me fully and picks me up, surprising me with the sudden maneuver, and drags me to his lap where he wraps himself around me. He buries his head under my chin, against my chest so I have no other option than to hold him too, taking from me what he needs, even if he should have asked first. I relent and wrap him up in a hug, being the strength he’s lacking, while doubt and heartbreak consumes him. It’s both awful, and yet the best thing, to allow myself to be this way for a while even if it confuses my heart all the more.

  “The people, the war, the future… it’s all interwoven. Us, your mom, your dad… we can’t run away from any of this. Even if we wanted to. We’re part of it, even in our mistakes, even in our heartbreak. The fates, they know what they’re doing and for whatever reason they did this to us, it’ll make sense in time.” I run my fingers through his thick short hair, stroking it back and lulling him against me. Caring for him, giving him what I can as it starts to stir up all kinds of longings, and warm sensations in the pit of my stomach being this connected to him.

  “I denied the fates, Lorey. Maybe I was meant to find her with you, by your side. Maybe I screwed everything up by rejecting you.” He squeezes me harder, pulling me closer so I end up almost entangled in his body fully, and it starts to feel inappropriate and way too intimate as I naturally fit up against him in the hollow of his lap. Especially with my ass nestling in his groin, and I’m fully aware he’s carrying a pretty healthy package, beca
use it’s now worked somehow into a position where it’s wedged in between my ass cheeks and distracts from the heavy feelings of this scenario. Distraction at its finest, a pretty sizeable one at that, and I try and focus back on what I’m meant to, but it’s not an easy task.

  My eyes scan the room for signs of Carmen crashing in here, because of my own guilty libido as my nether regions tingle. I’m heating up with being this close, skin starting to sizzle, and stomach flipping over at something so nothing and stupid. I don’t seem to have much control over it now, when all I can focus on is the fact, I can feel it through his pants, and mine, and it’s impressive. It being… you know…. his ummm.

  It’s not like I haven’t seen it, when he’s turned from wolf to human again, just somehow when he’s standing up and there’s a lot of abs, pecks and muscles all levelling out the eye candy, you don’t really size up what you don’t want to get caught looking at. I looked that one time, accidently, and it was memorable.

  I wriggle in a bid to get his ‘situation’ from under me, not that it’s reacting much, it’s that I’m painfully aware of it through thin sweats, and once your head goes somewhere like that, it’s hard to get it back out of the gutter. I’ve been having lucid pornographic dreams about him these past weeks while out there alone, but the reality feels a lot more…. Substantial and within grasp. Swallowing hard, trying to rake my mind, and hearing back to him and failing badly.

  I start blushing crazily, aware I’m being a freak. Heat spreading up from my boobs, neck, and cheeks, that makes me sweat instantly, and overheat, so that I must be turning rosy visibly. Becoming that awkward, sex starved, teen virgin, you read about in young adult romance books. Scared to now put my hand anywhere, and flinch anytime I feel an ounce of movement under me, while trying to avoid looking down, or directly at him, and subtly attempting an escape from impalement without drawing attention to it.