Awakening (2 book series)
Awakening – Following Fate Chapter 144

Colton's mind link distracts me momentarily, and I automatically glance behind me to see the lurking figure of my mate keeping his distance but not losing sight of us. Further back are the two Luna's guard and Meadow. I smile without thought at how much he still loves and protects me fiercely and catch Varro focusing on my face.

"You picked someone that your mother would approve of. He's headstrong, a little cocky, and infuriatingly bossy, but he loves you and would die for you. I can see that about him. He puts you above everything else. A true born Alpha." He nods the obvious compliment Colton's way and gets a narrowed amber glare right back.

"He's the other half of my soul, even when he's being this feral, although I didn't pick him. The fates did. I should thank them for their good judgement." I point out with a cutesy smile, being funny, and turn back towards our destination. Relaxing in the company of this strange man. This unplanned conversation is I guess how one gets to know someone and build something. Letting words flow naturally and picking at topics that come at us without force. I don't feel guarded at all.

"Ah, your Fates. Destiny...whatever you want to call it. I believe that the choosing and imprinting is not an outside force, but comes from within when two of your kind are ready to be together. I believe all creatures have a hand in their own path and are steered by biology of nature."

"You're saying I subconsciously chose him?" I laugh at that interpretation of what our kind does and has done for centuries. I doubt I had any part in what happened the night of my Awakening ceremony.

"I believe destined mates started as one being, a long time ago, before nature split us apart for whatever reason. That there is something inside of you that craves and searches for it until the two are ready to be united. Vampires believe in kindreds, or twin flames; it's a similar idea. We don't imprint but we can replace the other half to our soul, although it's very rare. We call it Sacrorum, which means coming together as one. I wanted your mother to be that for me, but she sadly never was. Her destined one was a Lychan, despite her bloodline."

The sadness in his voice and the still evident pain of losing my mother in love and life makes me instantly somber. Until this moment I truly never believed vampires could really love the way we do, but it's written all over him and I feel sorry that my mother left him in that way. My empathy kicking up for what if eel was true devotion on his side of things.

"Have you never found another after her? Do you have a mate back where you are from now?" I query, intrigued by the differences yet similarities between our species. Wanting so badly for the answer to be yes as I feed from the loneliness of his soul and pick up on subtle hints that he truly craves what I have with Colton. I want him not to still be tortured by her absence. It makes me look at him in a whole other light and suddenly understand why he raged wars with the loss of his love and child.

"I have lovers, but never have I found the other half to my soul. Not all vampires are blessed to ever replace them, yet we are physical creatures and will pass the time with many playthings instead of yearning for it." He smirks, the hints of that sadness wiping away instantly and are pushed behind a dark wall away from plain sight. Something I guess he has perfected all these years. Hiding away his true feelings.

I hold onto the fragments though, in my heart, and swallow them down to nurture in a place where real affection may be able to grow for this bizarre creature. He seemed human for a moment and the glimpses of a heart capable of true feeling give me hope that one day I will love him as a father.

"Maybe your other half isn't a Vampire, or a Lychan. Maybe she's something else and only geography has kept you apart." I try for comfort and get a strange smile thrown my way

"It's not really my priority anymore. I have two grandchildren coming my way, a daughter to get to know, and a throne to slide into. My future is going to be busy and fulfilling as we work into a time of peace between our two kinds. Finally. We have a lot of ground to cover." He pats my hand that's tucked into his elbow and leads the way slowly, watching the ground for debris that might trip me and guiding me around small rocks carefully.

"Surely you can have all that and a person to love?" I nudge him, brave with the way our conversation has turned warm and almost intimate, and I marvel at how quickly I am at ease with him. As though somehow the bond in our DNA is a potent magic that is breaking down the barriers quicker than I could have imagined. This conversation is deeper than I expected to have the first time we were alone.

"I'm going to have three demanding women to spoil in my life soon enough. I don't need anymore to split my attentions." He looks up towards the sky at the bright sun and my brain grabs at his calculation with inquisitiveness. "Three?" I query.

"Hmmmm..... yes, you, and my granddaughters!" He absentmindedly responds and reaches out to brush away low hanging branches that are in line of where I am walking. Oblivious to my startled expression. I am too shocked to pay attention to how attentive and considerate he is being.

"Wait, what? How do you know they are girls?" I stop abruptly, tugging his arm so he's forced to bring his attention back to me and gawp at him, with a hammering heart pounding in my ribcage. I mean, I had slight gut feelings about what I was carrying but if he knows for certain, then I don't know how to feel. How could he know? Can vampires tell?

"Well, the witch told me of course..... Two very precious little girls who will have something of an interesting future. Dawn of something bigger than us." He winks and then lightly pats my abdomen in a paternal way, his face breaking with a genuine smile. I can't formulate words as it sinks down that if it came from Leyanne then possibility it's certain. That I just had it confirmed that I will be a mother to two daughters.

"I'm having girls!" I utter mostly to myself and then break into a heartfelt smile as the feeling of warmth overtakes me. The knowledge that I might have what I did with my own mother, but in duplicate. Suddenly filled to bursting with this effervescent joy that springs up from deep down.

"Yes, it seems the future of our combined worlds lies in the hands of femmes.... I wonder if they will also be white wolves?" His words stop me in my gleeful grinning as though being splashed with icy water and the smile slips form my face. His words hitting me in the heart like a stabbing spike.

A strange feeling comes over me as the prophecy that ended my mother's life swirls around my brain and Leyanne's words of long ago come at me. That I was never the prophesized wolf. Neither was my mother.

My purpose was to use love to nurture a change. I wasn't the warrior, and neither was she.

I feel sick with the knowledge that maybe the white femme of the legend has yet to be born, and that by love, she meant my birthing the first tribrids of our time. The possibility that one of theses innocent babes has yet to meet a destiny that was written long before my mother was born.

I cover my belly with dread at what I don't know the future holds and the vast possibility of things to come that might need a prophecy fulfilment.