Chapter 63: You Are Mine

I gasp, inhaling a deep almost vicious breath as reality crashes back in on me, shuddering my brain
around my head and I'm startled awake ,back where I began, in the infirmary, gripping onto Colton's leg
for dear life, and so disoriented as my vision returns to normal. I can hardly breathe for a moment and
have to drag air into my lungs while I get my bearings and shake my head to clear my blurry vision.

"What the hell?" It's an automatic response, tartly said, as I try to catch my breath and Colton's arm
around my waist loosen as he lets me go a little. He was holding me up, I guess, and I flop as I'm
released, using my hands on my knees to bend forward, and finally pull myself together. It all starts to
fade, and the noises, and smells of reality fully bring me back to clarity.

"That was a memory… I saw it too." Colton's voice is gravelly, as though he's just as shaken as me and
I untangle myself from him and push to standing. My body spiking with unwanted tingles, and feelings I
can't contain, as so many things rush through my head. I guess we somehow mind linked while all
three were connected and he got my memory too and could see what I did. My emotions are all over
the place, as though I just experienced something traumatic, and he gets up to follow me around the
bed, sensing I'm not emotionally calm.

"Are you okay?" he can sense my weirdness in mood, and I wrap my arms around myself to shut out
the cold clawing feelings rising up to strangle me. Knocked sideways mentally, just needing a moment
to claw my mind back together and figure out why my heart is pounding through my chest, and I feel
sickly, and agitated. It's more than the memory invading my brain, it's what Sierra's words told me.

"All I remembered before that, was being asleep in that room, and then waking up in a new place with
other kids in the orphanage. There was nothing in between, and now I know why. He must have taken
me there, and when I slept, I forgot it all. They told me the Munro family were gone, but I never really
understood what they meant by that until later, when I was told the vampires came. Just kid, and then
they told me my family was dead, and I never stopped to question anything beyond that." My voice
cracks, my throat aching with the effort as it drives home that now, I understand fully that they were



killed because of my mother and my gifts. All of them! My mother, my family, the Munroe's, my whole
pack died, because of us, and what we are…. The vampires were never the monsters in our midst. We
were, the wolves, and those of us who would slaughter women and children in the name of power.

We created wars to cover our sins and let a hatred rage for centuries without learning from the
mistakes. It makes my skin crawl to know the vampires were the innocents in all of this, they are just
avenging their lost loves. They were fighting the Juan's of the world for what he had done, and now, I'm
on the side that they are, in trying to find reason in the death of everyone I cared about.

"She really is a witch…. I mean, I know I saw what the Doc said, and all of this, but seeing it. It's a
whole other thing." Colton pulls me back to him with his voice, he sounds distant, his tone low as he
turns his head to her, and that spike of emotion hits my hard in the stomach once more. Tears
threatening, and the sudden rage shooting up through my stomach, and chest, a pang of anger aimed
his way. Remembering her words and what she said, and not for the first time, anger so intense for
Colton, I could hate him.

"Why didn't you just do it when you were meant to? …. This could all have been avoided! It would have
been done and we would have remembered. Our gifts restored and taken another path! Why didn't you
just mark me when you had the fucking chance?! You're an asshole! You could have stopped so much
of this bullshit, by just doing what I needed!" It's a sob, the damn breaking and my hurt showing, set
loose amid fury as tears hit my cheeks, and I spin away from him, aware the medic in the far corner is
trying to pretend she isn't here and I'm going to wake doc up. I don't want people watching us or
hearing us fight. I want all of them to leave me alone while I go somewhere and cry this all out. Hate on
him and mourn the path we never took. So much hurt that could have been avoided. The fates didn't
separate us to lead me somewhere else, they were backtracking to fix his wrong decision and circle us
back around together to fix this. He just kept, and keeps on, screwing it up.

"Hey? … Lorey? …What the? …" Colton seems surprised at my reaction, blanching at me as I walk off,
and as I stalk out of the room away from him, he doesn't hesitate and follows me. Close on my heel as



I get out of the doors into the middle corridor where he catches my wrist and tries to tug me back, but I
shrug him off, pull my hand away and keep going. My head is bubbling with the facts staring me in the
face, my heart panging with the reminder he destroyed everything between us.

"Leave me alone. You ruined it all!" I'm crying brokenly, tear sodden with the outpour, wracking pain in
my chest that makes it difficult to breathe, as though an elephant is sat on my ribs, but he does not
relent and sticks to my ass trying to catch my hands.

"Baby, come on. Can we at least talk about this… about that? I know I fucked up, but this isn't ruined!
Just give me the opportunity to do something about it." There's panic in his tone, an attempt at gentle,
and soothing, with a lot of confusion as to my turn in mood. I storm down the corridor back to the room I
was meant to sleep in, and push the door open with a palm slam to the wood, swinging it open at
speed so it crashes against the foot of the bed and exposes the room. In no mood for him anymore,
and I want to lie down and let this all wash away on a sea of heartbroken tears.

Colton doesn't give up, he's hot on my heel, relentless in his pursuit, and almost suffocating me with his
proximity. This time he catches my upper arm, grasps tight, yanking me to a halt as I proceed inside,
and spins me to him, so I have no choice but to face him down. I tense, body turning stiff in defense
mode, and my eyes glow red in readiness to battle myself free.

"Talk to me!" He snaps the order at me, but it only riles that inner fierce that hates when he tries to
command me to do anything.

"Stop it. Let me go. I don't want to talk to you. It's pointless and it's done. You were an idiot, and you
broke me, broke us, and now my memory tells me all you had to do was mark me and it would have
changed everything! Why did you have to screw it up? Why did you have to choose her over me?" I
slap at his fingers on my arm, and shove at his chest, making every effort to have him release me, but
Colton is as stubborn as I am and only tightens that grip and stands steady, turning around halfway to
push the door closed behind us, and conceal us in here. His face showing hints of piquing anger, in that



furrowed brow, and one dimple is prominent as a scowl slowly appears. His eyes amber to match my
own fierce glow.

"Okay, first, my marking you would have changed everything, yes, and I regret it, I fucking do, Lorey.
More than you will ever know, but we would never have found her. You had to run, I see that now, to be
led to her, and maybe any other way we wouldn't have. My mom would still be hidden because of that
choice. Secondly...… How can I fix the damage if you won't give me a chance to try? I love you, and
we're here together … I am not the one fighting this, and I'm not the one refusing to try. You were never
second choice for me…. the problem was I didn't want anyone else and didn't have any fucking
choice." His tone is both tinged with anger, yet also not. He's mad that I'm resisting and making this
physical, pissed at me for what he thinks is my being over dramatic, but he's trying to get through to me
and communicate with that subtle hint of control, and softness, he's trying to insert and it just makes
me break all the more. Sagging as tears pour down my face, and I keep tugging at his fingers like a
spoiled child, to be set free. Unable to really do much more, as energy drains from me. I'm exhausted
and this isn't helping.

"How can you fix it? You marked her…. You betrayed the bond and you're linked to another, forever. I
won't be your whore, and the memory said marking…. not screwing. Let. Me. Go!" I tug one last time,
glaring his way through watery eyes and he finally let's go, with a weird sharp inhale, and stares at me
like I have two heads as I jump back out of his reach. My entire body wracked with the hurt I've been
carrying all this time, my throat aching with finally saying it out loud and how much agony those words
inflicted on my soul.

"I did what now?" Colton on the other hand seems a tiny bit shocked, a lot dumbfounded, and his tone
drops a level or two, his eyes on me homed in hard. His pulsating temper subdues to a low thrum, and
genuine confusions takes over his face, with a deepening of his brows as he narrows his eyes on me,
and that dimple disappears again as his mouth straightens out.



"I felt it… don't try and deny it. I know what you did." I snap at him, consumed with grief and turn away,
unwilling to let him manipulate me with fast words and untruths. Wiping my face with the back of my
hand and pull myself together, trying so hard to find my inner rage again, over this damn stupid
weakness at what he's done to us.

"We're linked, you and I. Meaning you feel things like my marking someone else. Which you couldn't
have because it didn't happen! Is this why you are so fucking mad at me? You have this crazy notion in
your head I marked Carmen?" The bitter way he says it, the tinge of anger, and the less than friendly
deliverance, only fuel the tornado in me I was trying to calm and I spin back on him, eyes glowing
painfully as my inner wolf jumps out to battle for me.

"Don't you dare! I did feel it… the pain and betrayal about four days after I left, so don't stand there and
fucking lie to me about what you did! I'm not stupid." I yell it at him, temper hitching, and equally riled as
I stand up to him, but he doesn't back down. Colton can be scary as hell when riled, and he seems to
stand taller, and bristle at my verbal attack. His eyes much like mine, increase in glow, of an equally
pissed wolf and he reaches down to the hem of his t-shirt and yanks it up over his head, in one swift
hasty motion, and throws it on the bed, exposing that tanned muscular physique. He spreads his arms
out wide, looks me dead in the eye, before turning slowly and giving me a full three sixty of naked
upper torso.

"Show me…. Because marking, is a two-way thing, and something I wouldn't be able to hide! Look real
hard because on my life, Lorey…I didn't fucking mark anyone." He bites it at me as he comes back to
face me, and the blood drains from my body leaving me cold inside, as I take in his tanned skin free of
mark. It's hard to stay on this idea about marking when there is nothing at all on the flawless physique,
except inky tattoos on one shoulder of his pack tribal, and a lot of carved toned muscle. My anger
simmers, but she isn't about to back down because I know what I felt! In the woods, that kind of pain
and betrayal, it doesn't come from nothing, and he had to have done something.



"Fine…. Okay, so maybe it wasn't that, but what I felt was real. You obviously just screwed her then.
Either way… this will never happen; the bond is marred, and damaged, and you did this to us." I cross
my arms across my chest, my fight dying because I was so sure, and yet I'm wrong. My heart pounding
like a war drum within and my body, is beginning to tremble with the excessive amount of pain, and
energy, coursing through me. Colton looks like he might explode, standing menacingly close, a new
rage ignited in that angular face as he tenses his jaw and grits his teeth.

"I DID NOT fuck her!! What is wrong with you? All this cryptic bullshit since I came for you…. The
refusal to let me touch you, all this. You think I cheated on you? That's what all of this was about?
Because…. You felt it? No, Lorey, what you felt around four days after the mess hall conversation was
me finding you gone. Was me coming back from four days recon with Matteo, to find, not only the girl I
decided to fight for was gone and it utterly destroyed me, but my Beta, my best friend, kept it from me!
Stopping me from being able to find you and betrayed my trust in the worst way. Meadow broke my
heart with a betrayal... You broke it by leaving. I came back for you, and to tell my father I would leave
and take you with me if he stood in my way. She knew you leaving would break me and it did. I wasn't
ever going to mark Carmen; YOU, are my mate, and have been since the second we imprinted, no
matter what I said, or how I seemed. I always wanted you. I'm devoted to you, crazy about you, and I
won't be happy until I'm marked to you! You're my soul mate and I need you. Why in the hell would I
fuck that up any more than I did?"

I stand in stunned silence, Colton breathy with the deliverance of an angry, then almost soothing to
calm splurge of words, his whole demeanor softening as he reached the end, and his eyes returned to
chocolate brown as he let go of the rage and tried to drive the point him that I was wrong.

He stands now, just looking at me with a slightly furrowed brow, over that cute boy expression of
'forgive me' and I can't move. Stomach twisted in pain, and caught in a world of confusion, as his words
reverberate through my mind, and heart, and I see-saw a bunch of emotions all at once. Elation, that in
one rant he wiped away all doubt and confusion about why he's been trying so hard to get us to



connect romantically, the sweep of mad at myself that I left when I did and could have been with him all
along, but he's right about Sierra… I wouldn't have found her otherwise, and maybe the fates always
intended it this way after all.


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