Awakening (2 book series)
Awakening – Rejected Mate Chapter 57

"You'll always be my pack. No matter where you are. I love you like blood, you were meant to replace me mi hermana, and I'll never stop caring about you." Her statement tells me she does know, and she isn't going to argue about it. She's a realist, and she knows my life won't improve when Colton marks Carmen. I'll be this inconvenient issue stuck in the way of Carmen's happy ever after, and we both know she's too spiteful to let that fly.

"I know what I have to do to ensure my own safety, and my own future. I love you too, Meds. I'm sorry." I guess deep down I've been churning this over for days, knowing it's where I was heading, but until now, I didn't want to face it or say the words. I've pulled my head apart, and churned my mind in circles over this, and it all kept coming to the same blank spot I didn't want to fill in. You have to cut the roots to let the grass fly free and replace its own place to seed and grow.

Meadow's soft tears turn to shuddering fat ones and she scrunches her body into a ball, cuddling herself tighter to console, so we won't draw the attention of the sub pack who are racing around the run track nearby, chasing one another in high spirits for once. "I wish there was another way, but I know what you're saying is true. You were never welcomed, and there's a chance the marking will completely sever your bond and leave you as Juan's prey. He won't leave loose ends to come back and mess with what he wants." It's all the confirmation I need, as a plan clicks into place and she verbalizes the fear that's been gnawing at me. If Colton marking Carmen does sever my tie to him, Juan will kill me and burn my body with the rest of my rejects. That's how little I mean to him. "No one will notice if I go, and Colton, maybe in a few days might question it, but the full moon will swoop in and he'll do what he has to." His avoidance has meant he hasn't linked in any way, doesn't come by my room, and avoids any interaction. Besides Meadow, he's the only one who would care if I don't show up for training.

"Don't make me say goodbye, don't tell me when. I don't think I can handle knowing, I would stop you. I don't want to keep that kind of secret from Cesar, he would know. I can't lie to him." Meadow sniffs from within her body cocoon, desperation all around her as her heart bleeds. I understand, and I reach out and touch her gently on her knee, my own eyes misting over, the pain just as bad, but I hold myself together. Apprehension circling in my gut, but my focus is clear, and my mind made up.

"Sisters don't say goodbye, they say laters, Chica. I have thing to figure out and plan, so I'm going upstairs.' I use Meadow's pet name, our eyes meet as damp emotional smiles are passed, in that one instance, I know a love that I've needed for the past eight years, a true friend, and it kills me that I only found it to leave it behind. I'm going to miss those blue eyes, and that sassy spunk of my beautiful wild femme sister.

I pull myself to my feet, head determined, and surprisingly free of tears, despite her breaking her heart and crying floods as she watches me move. She stays immobile, like she's stuck on the grass unable to do anything else for now.

It hurts more than anything in the world, not too dissimilar a pain to having Colton reject me, but there's something inside of me pushing on and keeping me calm. I can't sit here and wait for the inevitable and then cry when it all goes how I expect it to. I need to take control of my own life and do what I always intended. I had a plan! A chosen path before I imprinted.

To leave Radstone and the Santos behind, and make it on my own. If the fates wanted me to be mated and stay, they wouldn't have made me his. They knew this would happen, they know everything, and yet they chose to throw dynamite in the fishing pond and sat back as chaos ensued.

"Tell him I don't want to see him for a few days if he asks. That I need headspace. That I don't want to train. I'll leave sometime within that, so you don't know. Give me a couple of days after I don't show for meals at the mess before you tell him I'm gone. I have to make sure my scent is faded before he replaces out."

I don't want anyone tracking me, especially not him, and as our scent fades fast, I need at least twenty-four hours to get far away from here before he replaces out I'm gone.

Of course, I'm terrified. I mean, over the last days I've become marginally better at turning at will, my fitness improving, but I haven't perfected anything, haven't gotten to grips with my gifts or how to use them. I'm going out there with no experience, or skills to keep me safe, but I have to. It's safer than what I can feel is coming.

I grew up taking care of myself and knowing the basics to get by. My father taught me to camp, to hunt in human form, and cook, even if I was a little kid I still remember. He taught me how to make fires, and how to fish, it was his favorite pastime. Going rural as a human and living on the land, it was something he just liked to do with jasper and me, daddy time with his children. I can't have forgotten all of that.

Now I have the added bonus of being able to turn. I can hunt for food that way, eat as a wolf, nourish my body with things a human couldn't digest, like raw meat. I can sleep anywhere I replace shelter, because we don't feel the cold, we don't get sick from the elements, or die of exposure. I can keep moving until I replace somewhere to stop. I don't mind being alone, I've felt that way for ten years, until Colton. I'm not afraid to be isolated from others and doing it by myself.

If I have to venture into the human world to get a job or somewhere to settle, then I'm sure it can't be that hard. I'm hardly a vulnerable weak girl with no way to take care of herself. Even in human form, I have my senses, my strength, and speed, and I have my inner wolf to protect me. I can heal when I get sick or injured. I just need to replace my courage and go.

Time will do nothing in this situation anymore, and as much as leaving him will kill me, it will also set me free. It will set us both so. Him to focus on his responsibility and lead his people, and me, to hope that our bond will fade or die in time, that I may never forget him, but that I may learn how to live without him.

Despite what I said to Meadow about needing a couple of days, I don't. I already made up my mind that I leave at dusk, I just couldn't tell her that. I need to move before dark, as no one wants to be out there while our enemy can move around. I have a gap of time, to run far and replace shelter, before the sun fully sets and I'm done wasting time with this.