Rejected Mate and Following Fate

"What? Why? Do you think I'm lying?" The sudden rise of emotion in him has me on edge too, and the panic that I'm scaring my only ray of light to escape away. He appears to be running away, but as he turns to me, to close the door, the tear I catch in his eye silences me and he pauses, taking a deep breath and lowering his hands. The open door between us keeping us a couple of feet apart, but his sadness overwhelms me.

"Eight years of silence… eight years watching her sleep. Eight years hoping that one day the things she said, I'd accept that my friend had lost her mind completely. Eight years…. and I convinced myself that her visions and stories were that of a mad woman, broken by battle which convinced her that her mate was an evil player in some bigger plan, and her confinement here was a betrayal to silence her. Eight years justifying that she was better asleep, than to be tortured by her own illness of the mind." I don't know if he's saying it to me, or to himself, his eyes not on me, just glazed and distant as a single tear rolls down his cheek and I'm so very confused.

"I don't understand. You said she was fine… upstairs…. She's been here longer than eight years…. Colton said nine." Or was that including the war… when he didn't see her in that timeframe because he never saw her when she came home at all. I don't know. Oh god, please don't tell me she really is broken, and this is all for nothing.

The thought crosses my mind, things not adding up to what he said, and going around in circles, unable to piece it together logically. Maybe Sierra really was sick, but then what the hell is he saying? The doctor smiles at me sadly, his pale grey eyes finally landing on mine, and gives me a watery half smile.

"If she was crazy…. then how could she tell me that one day a solitary she wolf from the west would come to save us all from something that was coming. A future leader of her people, joined to her blood by the fates. Maybe it's coincidence, maybe it's not. Maybe it's wishful thinking and guilt because I've let her lay there for eight long years. Don't you see?" he's almost babbling, but I pick out the points I think he's trying to connect.

"I came East from where I was, and I'm linked to her son." I repeat robotically, still looking at him with a quizzical expression on my face and trying to figure out what his vague statements mean. He's lost in his own head.

"Tell me…. What does the name Marina mean to you?" He narrows his eyes on me, leaning in as though telling me a secret of the utmost importance, and her name falls off his tongue like a lead rod that stabs me in the heart.

I gasp at the utterance of it on this man's lips, my blood running cold as he says it, and I openly stifle a sob such is the unexpected pain of hearing it. A name that died when she did, and no one has uttered it in a decade.

"She was my mother…." I whisper it painfully, that same rise of heartache anytime I begin to think of her and have to stop my own tears from breaking free.

The doctor clasps a hand to his mouth as though I've uttered something sinful, his eyes widening in alarm and he begins to breathe heavily. Backing away from me as something seems to click into place.

broke my oath, I broke my promise as her friend, and I'm a terrible person. I need to go…. I don't want to know about any of this!" He pulls away, shaking visibly, beginning to crumble, and avoids looking at me as panic grips him mercilessly. He's clearly distressed, his

know? How do you know her name? What did she say about her?!" I'm yelling after him, grasping for something I don't even know I'm chasing, as my own panic rises with being left with nothing but her name. My door slides quickly shut as he departs and traps me inside this chamber before I

I slam my hands on the glass in a bid to get the door to open, pressing hard against it so

mother!!!" I scream it like a feral banshee, my own emotions overwhelming me as so many racing thoughts rush through my head, and I'm consumed with suspicion, and pain, and heartbreak, all weighing down like a house falling on top of me. My breathing erratic and I pound the glass aggressively, in sheer need to follow him. It shudders and quakes but

of that interaction has me all wired and panting as emotion wracks me and my thoughts spiral crazily with so many possibilities on such little information. The mention of my mother, his reaction…. it's made me react in ways I never have before and I start pacing, pulling at my hair as I try to

she told him now appears to be coming true. He said visions, but wolves they don't have those, and maybe

in the paths they lay for us with so little questioning of it, but humans…

her quiet by convincing people she's crazy, so I want to know what that is.

world, with a kind of voodoo you don't fuck with. Unless he doesn't know? But that can't be, if he knew about this place and the research and left her here. She obviously wanted to know how she could be both witch, and wolf, and find others like her for whatever reason… maybe she wanted to know how to conceive a child without it dying. Juan had to know she wasn't pure and that makes even less

a half witch, that's crazy. She couldn't hide something like that from the pack all those years, and why doesn't Colton have any of those gifts?

didn't know when he mated to her, and maybe when he found out that's why he banished her here, so the pack would never know and revolt against an alpha mated to an impure. I've never heard of anything like this, and it does explain his obsession with making sure Colton has the right Luna. Maybe he's afraid Colton isn't

surely that can't be the reason Juan brought her here. He would have known; you can't hide anything from your mate. Her memories in transference when he marked her would have made sure he knew. Which means he hid what she was. And after decades living that lie, why would he

in the center of my brain with overload and aching so badly I feel like my skull might explode. I end up pacing back to the bed and falling face down on top of it with an 'arghhh' noise that reverberates through my entire body it's so loud. All the doctor has done is give me more questions than answers, and I roll on my side so I can see her across the gap. The lights have shut down out there, so she's illuminated in

call to her as though somehow it will give me an answer, but she remains still and silent in her cocoon like state, and I exhale heavily. My body trembling with adrenalin as I begin to calm down, but my tears fill up my eyes. It's not sadness really,

left while my head is going crazy with all of this, and I know one thing for sure, I just lost my ally, chased him away and I only have two days before Juan shows up to deal with me. I have zero chance of romancing Deacon in that time, even if I wanted to try. Not that I could, he physically makes my skin crawl, and I don't think I have it in me to be nice to the asshole that

arms over my head and face to smother out the light and noise and 'garrrrr' loudly at this situation I find myself in. Willing my brain to stop spinning around, and turning inside out, and give me a few seconds peace to get my bearings once more. It feels like it's