Awakening (2 book series)
Awakening – Rejected Mate Chapter 19

"Use protection. An unwanted kid would end up right back here and you'd have no choice but to stay." I warn, more for my benefit than hers. I've been counting down the days when she leaves me in peace, and I can fumigate her rank scent from this room. I've nothing else in life to look forward to anymore, so I may as well have that. Room to myself, space to call my own.

"Whatevs.... Maybe you should try it and f**k up that pretty little Santo head a little, for throwing you in the trash. It's bound to sting." She sneers and then laughs at her own devious plan, but I ignore it. As much as he's broken me, I still love him, and wouldn't want to inflict that kind of pain. Hell, I wouldn't want to do it to myself, I've no desire to have s*x with anyone that's not him, as stupid as that sounds.

"Tell me... is it true you two were mid screw and ready to mark when daddy walked in and threw your a*s out?" It's the snide catty tone that riles my temper and I throw her a pointed snarl, pinning her eyes with mine as she hits a nerve. Erupting furiously, without restraint, as it comes out so fast, I can't counteract.

"It's got nothing to do with you, so shut the hell up." The insane instant deep rumble and scathing tone I elicit scares even me, and as her eyes widen in shock. She drops her cigarette right out of her gawping mouth. I recoil, wondering what the hell that was. I didn't sound like me at all and that hostility came from nowhere. My blood riling and heating up in a split second and forcing out what I assume was my wolf growl. I guess she really struck a bone.

"What the fu.... your eyes.... they're red." She stutters, visibly shaken and backs away from me a little before realizing her lap is burning and starts madly grabbing for her dropped fire stick like a mental person. Soon as she retrieves it, she backs up and slides by me, near the wall, before escaping out of our bedroom door with a backward glance of wariness, a look of unadulterated fear, and takes off at speed.

I'm left dumbfounded, at both my guttural aggressive response and this god damn red crap. I push off from where I am, stepping to the mirror in three strides across the room and stare at my own reflection before the rage in me calms back to numb. I have to see this. It's a stirring memory of Colton's words and I blanche when I see the evidence for myself and gasp in horror.

She's right...

Colton was right.

There before me, seeing for the first time how I look when my eyes flash with warning that I am on the verge to turn, I'm faced with two glowing orbs of the darkest blood red, in place of where amber should be. Almost satanic in their fire and gleam and make me look insane or demonic.

The shock and instant fear that cascades through my veins icily mutes them back to natural green instantly, and I fall back, eliciting a yelp as I'm gripped with a sense that something is really wrong with that. Red? What the hell?

They're not red. They can't be. No one has red, never in all the times, and notes, and books, and packs, and clans, and history, of our kind. I've never heard of it and it dawns on me, the elders have forgotten about Colton's pointing it out that day. It was never mentioned again, or maybe they thought he was mistaken, or maybe they were so preoccupied by the fact he almost marked me right under their noses and that was far mor pressing an issue. I mean it's ludicrous. Our eyes are amber. They can't be any other color. It's not a thing... this is not a thing!!!

I start panicking, pulling myself back to the mirror in a bid to force myself to bring them back, but that ingrained terror running through me stops it from happening. I don't know what to do or what it means.

Am I sick? Is there something wrong with me? I've no idea what to think and I pace insanely, flustered and freaking out, heart close to popping an artery as it thunders insanely in my chest. My brain spinning nauseatingly that maybe there is something really, really wrong with me. I didn't think anything of it when Colton said, it to be frank, I thought he was tripping and not seeing clearly. That somehow with all the chaos, the drama, the heavy emotions swirling around, he saw red because of his own rage and mood at the time. I should go to the medic, right? I should call the Shaman, maybe he will know?

My breathing's shallow as my lungs burn with the effort to get oxygen, wringing my hands and running my fingers through my hair as I try to self-regulate the insane pounding of my heart. My blood pressure hiking and I start to feel woozy, nauseous, skin bristling with searing temperature as I lose control. I mean I feel like I've just found out I have cancer, or a deadly virus that's incurable, or that Armageddon is on its way and we have nowhere to run.

I need to calm down. If I don't, I might turn, and in a blind haze go do something stupid. We're not supposed to turn if we feel like we can't control it. That's when bad things happen, wolves do terrible, awful things, to the humans nearby. Frenzied, blood lusted murderous things and then have no memory after.

I have to breathe and slow it down. Except I can't. I'm spiraling and I flop down on the ground pathetically, crumpling as my legs give out from shaking crazily, clutching my head in a bid to force myself to focus on my breathing. Face planking the floorboards in an effort to get a grip on reality.

What's wrong, Lorey. What is it? Talk to me. I can feel your panic and your fear. What's happening, baby. What's going on? His voice renders me momentarily stupefied and I snap up, spinning around on my a*s, looking for the intruder before sense tells me he is inside my head.