Awakening (2 book series)
Awakening – Rejected Mate Chapter 64

Mentally, as I wore on over the next days, I became numb and my will to run far from the mountain died a death. The reason I was going was primarily to outrun him and what he had to do. To try and not let it get to me, to distance myself from the pain and leave him to walk his own path without me. And yet the fates they delivered a blow that almost stopped me in my tracks completely, killing my will to replace my future at all. They left me with the heavy sadness that consumes everything and just won't lift. There's nothing to run from anymore, it's done. He did it. I'm just going through the motions now, without really engaging any kind of effort under this black cloud, my new constant companion. I walk, I replace something to hunt and eat, I wash in rivers, I replace shelter, and I sporadically sleep through the dark. The noises, the movement of nature all should bring me peace as a natural wolf, but it just serves to remind me how very alone I am, and that a wolf, is a pack animal. We don't thrive alone, and it's beginning to wear me down slowly. I can't seem to ever really get any clear indication in my life about where I belong, or what I'm meant to do. Just that discarded worthless kid who wasn't good enough to be mated, when even the fates imprinted me on someone. What hope is there for me?

I don't have a reason to go back anymore anyway. Not even for the sub pack, who never really belonged to me. Colton made his choice; I can feel it and we're done. I need to push on and replace somewhere to settle, accept it, man up, and stop crying like a stupid child, but nowhere ever feels right.

On day eight I stumbled into an unknown dense dark forest at the base of a smaller mountain that was relatively secluded, finally replaceing somewhere that seemed easy to defend, was pretty, and had a good cave for a possible long-term dwelling. Nearby water source, dense enough to feel safe. Sheltered, and a good supply of wildlife for the hunting. No humans around for miles, and no signs that any had been there in forever.

It didn't take long to be chased out by feral wolves who caught my scent in their territory though. Natural wolves, not my kind, no, because my kind would probably have strung me up and gutted me for straying there. Outside of Radstone the packs still have deep grained rivalry and feuds.

They chased me all the way to a cliff edge before I had to jump in the river below to escape unscathed. I don't think I could have fought off more than a dozen rabid wolves on my own, and I don't have the energy to turn and heal myself right now. I'm spent. I guess I'm not eating enough, not resting enough, and all I do is travel from dawn to dusk half-heartedly and flop down again. Maybe it's not energy, but a lack of will power when I'm stuck in this mindset of hopelessness.

I had to replace a quick place to build a fire and dry everything I owned that day and throw away the left-over snacks I opened as they were soggy and inedible. The money Meadow gave me had to be laid out in the sun, and her note was completely ruined, losing even her number on the back, because the ink bled out and disappeared.

Eating raw meat isn't sitting well with my human form either, which came as a shock, as I expected it to be a natural transition, but I don't feel great most of the time. It's like my wolf side really isn't all that in touch with my body, and maybe it will take time to adjust. Like building stamina and trying to develop my gift.

Just more failure and I feel it's all getting to me. The dark empty loneliness in my head, telling me I'm not good enough and never will be. I don't feel like being a wolf comes naturally, and somehow being in human form is easier, which is probably normal considering we spend the first part of our life that way. I just thought it would be a fluid transition, with few bumps, like learning to float by jumping in the deep end.

I sit staring at the little fire I pulled together in the basin of the clearing I managed to replace. My ass on a fallen rotten tree, feet at either side of my rock circled mini campfire. Somewhere caught in the unremarkable depths of another dense dark wood, in the middle of nowhere, that is not as far from the mountain as I would like it to be. Sunny today, with no breeze and the atmosphere has an almost serene calm to it.

I'm far enough that fires no longer make me nervous, even when sat in an open clearing like this, as I doubt anyone would see the smoke now. No idea anymore on where I am, only know how to go back to where I came from.

That's the thing about us... we can always replace our way back to places we've been or left, but without a map, I have no idea how far I am from where I started, or where I am if someone asked me. It all started to look the same to me after only two days and replaceing landmarks in almost identical forests is not that easy. I have to keep climbing trees to check where the mountain is on the horizon, so I stay heading south of it.

Lord knows I would probably end up U turning accidentally and heading back if I didn't. I don't seem to have a sense of direction that I'm sure most wolves should. I just have this constant pull to go home and I'm not convinced it's fully because of homesickness. Sierra's dream keeps haunting me, even in daylight now too, and for some reason, keeps replaying whenever I have to make a choice in direction, swaying in the canopy and gazing at the miles around me. More than once, I've noticed that when I come to a crossroad in my path choosing, she becomes prominent in my mind and my gut tries to pull me east. Not even back to her son, but off to the left into the unknown. I'm not sure it's related, or why my mind keeps wandering that way.

I've wondered what would happen if I said screw it and just went that way, more than once, but I know it's probably nothing more than my being dumb and imagining it. I'm lost, emotionally, physically, so it's no wonder my mind is trying to give me some sort of guidance, or fake purpose, to get me out of this funk.

My plan was always south, my instincts keep on trying to sway me away from the south and I shouldn't ignore my gut, but if my instincts are as faulty as the fates, I'm better off ignoring them completely. Look how wrong they were about Colton. He did it ... ignored them despite our bond. He marked a mate and forgot about me. In the end I guess, it wasn't as hard as he thought it would be. He just needed me to get out of his way.

South is where my mother said her family came from, not that I know much about them as she never really spoke of her roots the way my father did. My mother was not a Radstone wolf, nor a Whyte pack. She came from somewhere else, shrouded in mystery, and always said meeting my father was fated and magical, but never really told us the details or expanded on it.

As a little child I was not overly invested in love stories, so I never pushed. Father would shrug and tell us that their story was much like any other and brush it away, evasive, but then he wasn't the gushy romantic type. I do know that she said she came from a place where the weather was warmer, land flatter, and her own pack never kept in touch or reached out in all of the years we lived on the mountain skirt.

My grandparents were my father's family, and my mother, she just never brought hers up. We didn't really talk about it. My family was small, due to my father being an only child, born late in my grandparents mating life, and older generations had passed away in my early life before I knew them. Wolves live longer than humans, but not for hundreds of years like the vampires are meant to.