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He’s warning me that I’m his prey and if this wall wasn’t holding him back, nothing I could say would stop him from tearing me limb from limb. We connect for one second, a tiny fragment between my mate and I and yet I feel only his desire to kill me. Its intensity is shocking and overwhelming to my soul. I shudder, turning away with tears blinding my eyes, to shut him out and jump when I bump into Carmen right behind me. She’s moved closer as though to make sure I didn’t stray closer to the border. Lingering to protect.
“It’s not really him…. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. This isn’t who he is, and you know it. When the spell’s broken, Luna, he’ll smother you with love and protect you and his children with the ferocity of what you see standing out there now. Try and not let this get to you… at least you know his heart is willing when everything else is pulled away.” Her sadness bites through and she rubs my shoulder lightly, rare physical contact, before turning on her heel and walking towards the house. She gestures me to follow and seems sure I am coming now, I blink after her in astonishment, the hints of that caring person I see in her sometimes, shining through and reminding me just how unfair life can be.
“Carmen? Jasper….” I don’t know what words I intended but his name alone dies on my lips with the pain from my own heart at saying it. I realize I have no idea how to console her at all, when I don’t even know how to process myself that my brother stands against us. Her aura changes to cold and closed stiffness instantly.
“Don’t. Karma, remember? I deserved this.” She shrugs, that controlled mask of indifference back in place and moves off, throwing her feelings away. Sill walking without looking back and I silently shake my head.
No, you don’t.
I maybe used to think she deserved all kinds of awful to happen to her for her part in my pain, but not anymore. I hate that she now suffers all the things I did in some strange balance that seems to be intent on making her feel everything I once suffered through – the death of my mom, the loss of the pack, the mistreatment under Juan’s care. The rejection of an imprinted mate because of who she is. Walking alone as though cut off from the shore, while trying to find her place in a new order of things. She’s the outsider now.
Carmen doesn’t deserve to keep being put through all of this and she’s stronger than most, to keep getting up to fight over and over again. Jasper, he was always so loving, so loyal and I know that if she weren’t a Santo, he would the kind of mate she could only dream of. As a brother he was everything in my world, my rock, my safe haven, and I don’t doubt a mate would be even more cherished. He would love her in ways that would heal all her wounds, protect her, and show her what worth and stability are in the same way he showed me.
She just happened to have the wrong name…. and nothing to do with a feud that meant her mate despises her for that one detail alone. Jasper is an idiot to not see beyond his own hatred.
“I should go see Sierra first while you see what the kitchen has to offer. I’ll come right back, I swear. She’ll want to see me, know I’m safe. I know how she is, and her worry won’t subside without it. Besides, I have to tell her about….” I glance down at my stomach, feeling awkward and still not fully confident in this new little fact at all. I still need to have it confirmed but yet, deep down inside since Leyanne told me, I have known it to be true. I can sense something now which I ignored before and I’m certain it was two little lives. Carmen nods sadly when I catch up with her and link my hand in hers loosely, a natural movement borne of being friends with Meadow. She hesitates, flexes her fingers and her hand pauses but doesn’t pull away and avoids looking at me directly.
“I can get something for you and bring it up to her suite. I’m sure Sierra will be happy to see her daughter in the flesh, even if the witch is monopolizing her attention.” Her tone is tight, a slight lacing of something under the surface that I can’t read. Her emotions are shielded effectively, and I sigh inwardly that she just won’t let her guard down. Not even around her Luna.
I’m glad she doesn’t argue with me the way Meadow does on this, and we part at the inner stairway when we get inside the house. Just the air and the atmosphere alone make me see how much tension I’ve been holding in my body these last couple of days and I exhale to release some of it. My body sagging at the familiar and safe surroundings, the very air in this space calling me home and soothing that eternal weight of pain in my chest. If he wasn’t missing in this scene, then this would be heaven to return to.
It feels less despairing than before we left. We have the witch, we have crazy revelations about my mother, and we have hope of not only fixing this mess of this spell but ending the war. Something we never knew how to achieve before. Which if we do, leaves only one little problem left in our list of all things we have lost sleep over in recent months. Juan Santo and our mountain.
With the threat of vampires out of the way, maybe our focus on saving our people might actually become priority when we get Colton back. And then Jasper… my brother out there in the world posing a new kind of threat if he sticks to his word and comes after my people for what was done to our family. I can’t even contemplate that right now and what will happen if he holds true to his word. Jasper against me… or even against Colton. I know he would lose. He’s strong, his gift is speed which is why he probably escaped Juan so long ago. His hyper speed compared to other wolves is twice as fast, but he’s no alpha and he would never be a match for my mate. Colton is stronger, has more aggression in his pinky, and is battle worn and calculative in a fight. I don’t know of Jaspers training these past ten years with the vampires, and I was shocked at his level of hostile, but I could still sense he wouldn’t be able to take me alone, let alone with my mate.
I don’t want to fight him, especially not when at the root of his goal is the pain of our loss. He loved our pack, our family, our parents. He lost everyone, even thought I was gone, his home, and has had to carve out life within the lap of those he was once afraid of as the enemy. Creatures he rose against in battle and had been ingrained to fear since childhood. Living with vampires for a decade can’t have been all that great.
And then there’s that which completely confuses me…. vampires accepted a wolf and let him live. Not as a slave or a mistreated being, but as one of them. Initiated into their coven from what Darrius blurted out, which raises a whole lot of questions about the morality and laws of what we once believed were only monsters. It seems this breed we never knew existed, is far superior in so many ways to those things out in the woods. Miles apart physically but also in morality too. It shakes everything I thought I knew about them.
I need to talk to Leyanne about the difference between the born and the turned, and if there is one, how the hell we create peace once more so that no more blood has to fall on either side. I don’t fancy our chances should the born vampires come into play and be the ones to stand in battle against us instead.
I can’t even begin to contemplate my own heritage and that’s a whole head mess I’m leaving aside for now. If I’m royalty… I’ve been killing my own kind for the past months and hating them, while maybe I might have had a chance at stopping this. My head aches with all of it and I don’t even know how to start pulling it apart, turning it over or figuring it out. That’s always been Colton’s forte. To see things and figure out the chess moves, lay it out in a logical way. I miss him so much more with every second I need him to be here.
