#Chapter2
The Awakening
I try to right myself and get up. It's hard to use my hands as front legs and I instinctively rear backwards too far onto my haunches, losing my balance and reeling forward again to correct it, before tumbling face forward to the ground once more and meeting the dust with a lower jaw clunk.
/"It gets easier. Try to stay on your feet. All four of them./" The voice above me pulls my head to tilt towards it and I recoil as I realise Colton Santo is standing right by me, watching as I make a spectacle of myself, in falling flat out on new legs. I don't know if I'm shocked that he spoke to me, or wary that he did.
It feels strange. I attempt to mind link with him, weirded out by this new, almost natural ability I didn't have before.
Yeah well, walk it off. Learn fast. He links me back with a smile, and then left me towards his father.
I get up on unsure legs once more, slowly, like Bambi on new—born limbs and lift my head as I know I'm meant to. In unison with all around me, we stretch our necks out, lift our noses to the heavens and howl at the moon for the first time in our lives, as one united pack.
It feels strange at first, my throat vibrates, it aches and rasps my vocal chords, but as my belly empties, my air departs and the longest yowl comes cascading out of me, until it scratches my throat and makes me breathless, I feel alive. Like I have been holding my breath and waiting for this my whole life. I guess I have. This is what I was born to be and with the awakening, comes freedom.
I look around, finding most of werewolves are still keep the human form and experience the painful shifting. I feel surprised because it's said that the faster the one shift into the wolf means that the stronger he/she is.
As soon as I relax, our call stops and the energy in me fades fast. Glancing down in time to watch as everything changes back faster than I thought it would. It's fast, almost instant and before I can blink or even get to grips with what is happening, I am nakedly human. Smeared in my own blood and flat out in a huddled heap on the floor which saves me some of my dignity by shielding my body.
I scramble to pull my body into a ball, aware I am completely uncovered and exposed to the hundreds of eyes around us. I jump when my blanket is tossed towards me by the nearby Damon, a boy from the Conran pack who tried to kiss me a year ago, smirking as his eyes devour my nudity and I recoil. Embarrassed, ashamed, at being naked in front of everyone and mad as hell he made sure I would have to cross eight feet to get the blanket. I glare at him, forgetting myself for a moment and then ponder not going to get it and huddling up to cover myself instead.
Others were tossed theirs directly and looking around I realise I am the only one who has to go crawling for hers, like an animal. He is trying to humiliate me, and I move fast to catch it. Shocked when the slightest movement sends me shooting towards him at lightning speed and I end up almost at his feet in the blink of an eye.
/"Wow/" I blurt out loud and get laughed at by someone nearby as they realise how naïve I am about the speed and power we all just inherited. Another change in me I have to get used to. I grab the blanket and try and crawl backwards while pulling it over me and fall onto my back as it's jerked tight and yanked back taut, sending my head crashing on the smooth stone below me and bouncing my skull painfully.
Damon sniggers, his foot on the edge of it as he looks down at me with complete disdain. Laughing at how much he is enjoying making a show of me and I have no choice but to try and pull the blanket from him once more. My face reddening with heat, aware of many more muffled sniggers and laughs at my expense and I can't conceal the shame washing over me.
/"Enough, Damon. This isn't the time or place. My father is staring at you. Pack it in./" Colton snarls his way, pushes him from behind and comes into view, shoving him off the blanket and swoops down to pick it up with speed. He walks forward in two confident strides and hands it straight to me, bending lightly as he does so to make sure I get it without any more interference. I know he's only doing it to save face, exert his dominance in front of his father and save Damon from punishment later. Either way I'm for the first time ever, thankful for him and relieved he is an Alpha in the making.
I reach out and take it gratefully, quickly pulling it around me and hiding what's on show, afraid to really look at him, but it's almost impulsive as his hand, still attached to the corner, briefly touches my shoulder in passing because of how speedy I am. Hot searing flash runs through my body alarmingly, igniting something tingly inside of me that I can't identify. Like being zapped by a low strength taser and I gasp at the contact, glancing up at him as he attempts to rise to standing, seemingly also recoiling for what was maybe just an electric shock. For one brief millisecond of synchronized surprise, our eyes lock ….
It's all it takes.
One second of direct focus, a meeting of eyes I have never dared to look into before and the worst thing in the world happens to me. We connect; visions, images, projections start flowing through my mind at neck breaking speed that fries my brain and I cannot break his gaze or look away.
/"Holy sh*t/" Colton's voice waves my way, sounding equally shocked and as breathless as me, and I strain up to see him, also on the ground.
/"They are mates! They just imprinted/" one solo voice squeaks out, and echoes around us like someone announcing a death sentence.
/"No, that's can't have happened…/" another, moments later…. and then another, and another. Me? I did what?... No. It can't be.
/"Silence!/" Juan Santo demands with a venomous tone, echoing around the mountain and like a sudden clap of thunder, his voice halts the rest of the chaotic noise, giving me some relief before my brain explodes.
He storms towards us and physically drags his son up by the shoulder from his slumped position. Gripping and hauling him like a madman and angrily turning to face him once on his feet, raw anger erupting all over.
/"Tell me you didn't!/" He demands at him in a cruel tone, but Colton seems as spangled as me. Knocked sideways and unsure what the hell just happened to us. His normally confident stance is loose, and he seems unsteady on his own legs.
/"I don't know what that was… I've never …. I don't know!/" His cocky, dominant tone is lacking too, and I can feel his eyes back on me as I struggle to sit up, pulling myself into a sitting ball and finally have the courage to stare at them.
We just imprinted and the Fates gave me my mate, Colton Santo.
And I can't imagine anything worse.