Awakening (2 book series)
Awakening – Following Fate Chapter 74

It's been four days since Leyanne got here and I still cannot get any kind of read on her. She's annoyingly distant, still likes to play vague and although she gives us zero indication that we can't trust her, it's always there swirling around like an underlying coldness. I don't know if it's like Carmen, with her wall of explainable hostile to keep people at bay. Or if her magic somehow gives her this aura of power and distance, but I get severe lonely and empty vibes from her that I can't quite decipher.

Not much has happened while we go through the motions of current daily life and plod along. Carmen isn't really showing face often, only in brief passing, and seems to stick to her room which is understandable. Given how much she now has to process while we have downtime. She asked for time, to grieve, to absorb, to be alone with the pangs of missing her newfound mate and the loss of her family and I let her alone. She needs time and understanding, two things I never had when I suffered similar things and I want to give her that. I feel it's the least I can do, to soften her pain in some way because I feel responsible for all of it. Even though I know I'm not.

Meadow is overseeing the patrols, the sentinel shifts, and the village, to make sure no one ventures beyond the rune line and we are trying to present as much normal as we can. All while Leyanne and Sierra lock themselves below the house and pour over grimoires in a bid to figure out the best way to combat this damn fog. On the surface everything seems fine, despite what we all know but don't talk about, but it's not and their absence invades the air more by the hour every day.

I am under orders to rest, to retain my energy and everyone in the house is treating me like fragile glass. Sierra has stopped pushing me to confirm the pregnancy as I decided I would wait for him. To let him be part of that confirmation when he comes home. I need to give him something in this news, a sweet way to remember the moment seeing as the discovery was not sweet at all.

I miss him so badly that I replace myself wandering to the border to catch glimpses of him, even if it's fury filled and he's looking at me like he wants to devour me and throw my carcass to his pack. He still doesn't recognize me and he still views me as something to kill.

I'm in agony, broken without him, pining for him more so as the days stretch into endlessness. I've cried myself to sleep so many times, only to wake an hour later at the loss of his heat beside me and start all over again. My mind eternally muggy with tiredness and loss. I can't stand waking alone, missing his hugs, needing his voice, and his safe presence. I need his stability, his wisdom, his gentleness. I just want him so badly it's destroying me on a mental level I have no way of combatting. I feel like I'm suffocating without him, without them. So close yet so unreachable and seeing him does nothing to alleviate the despair of not being able to talk to him, touch him, or get close. It kills me to look at him, but not seeing him is just as bad.

The sub pack, the rest of our sentinels, and our people too; I feel their loss like grieving my family all over again. All out there staring inward, and hell bent on getting their chance at coming for us as soon as they can.

What they don't know is that it's coming. It's the one thing I know for certain, whether she replaces a way to completely dissolve the fog effortlessly, or with extra effort. She is adamant she still has to get in the mountain to do it but she is confident that she will break this curse. We need to get her through our wolves, and through those vampires, to replace the witches and deal with what they have done. We won't abandon our people and leave them to grow old and lost in the forests around their home.

"You know that whatever the plan is, you can't come, Chica." Meadow breaks into my thoughts as we walk the perimeter together near dusk. Some nights I need this to be able to sleep at all, just to glimpse him before I go to our room alone. Meadow and I taking some time together to escape for a few minutes and forget everything weighing on us for a second. It feels like the responsibility has been suffocating these past days and times alone and away from the house just to take a breath is all that is getting us through. Meadow is suffering Cesar's loss as I suffer Colton's and she's getting weary and low as the days drag one., Her fighting spirit is barely holding on.

"You know I have to. Meadow, I'm still the strongest of all that we have, even if I cannot turn. I'm a better chance of success than ten of the land wolves from the village. I can't let others do what I can do better." I try to hold my ground, even if I know where her concern comes from.

"You can't turn... What if you get hurt? What if you need to heal?" Meadow stops me with a hand on my wrist and turns me to her, seriousness etched over her face and her eyes gleaming with worry.

"I'll just have to make sure I don't get injured, won't I? With my gifts it shouldn't be hard to build a bubble around myself if I get cornered. I need to lead; I need to be there with my pack to fight through what we have to. They need to see me lead." I lift my hand and run gentle fingers across her cheek to try and convince her that this is what's best, but Meadow grabs me with force and hugs me against her somewhat aggressively.

Meadows voice breaks with sheer emotion, against my hair as her emotions spill out.

"I promised him, that no matter what, I would always protect you for him.... I swore, Chica, so many months ago, that if anything ever happened and he couldn't get to you first, then I would. This isn't protecting you." Her croaks turn to sobs, burying her damp face against my hair and our cheeks lay side by side, feeling her agony seeping out, and it almost breaks me in two. Bringing him up this way, knowing he made her promise something like that way back then, and the ache of my pain at longing for him brings tears to my own eyes. He always thought of me above everything and always puts me first. Even not here, his influence is Meadow, and she speaks for him.