Recap: Five months, 9 days, thinking about the truth is not how I wanted any day to go.
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It was night 5 of Kohen sleeping over, holding me. So far I've only fallen asleep once and even then I had a nightmare.
Sure it wasn't anything too bad as it had been lately, but still, me sleeping with my mate was still not helping. I told him. I told him nothing would work.
And I get it, there's probably plenty more things we could try to stop these death nightmares. One being him marking me.
Just to let everyone know, I don't want to be marked. If I'm marked then that means I belong to someone. It means that I'm his other half, fully and completely, I've never wanted that.
It was time for this to end. All of it. The nightmares, the slowly sinking feeling I get every passing day. Every nightmare and every sleepless night. The fact that even though I have never wanted a mate, I do, and because I'm hurting he's hurting too.
And then there's my father. He's done nothing but help me in the trying last several years.
I do what I've been doing for the last 5 days. Get up. Kick Kohen out of my house. Get ready for school and walk through the woods because I don't want Kohen taking me, and I don't want to drive. I know it's dangerous but it's been fine the last 5 days so I might be fine.
Then school, going though the motions, having Kinsley question my moods and personality at that moment. The whole normal thing that's been going on for a good 2 months; and then I would go home read, try not to fall asleep for a nap, and get food sometime in the night for dinner.
At this point, 5 days after we started this whole thing where me and Kohen sleep in the same bed thinking that maybe, just maybe, will the nightmares cease to exist. No such luck. So tonight is gonna be like a normal. No wolf-mate to try and fail to keep the nightmares away.
Which is exactly what I told him this morning when he wandered into school not 5 minutes after I arrived, knowing exactly where I'd been, and what I've done. So I'm sure he knew what I'd done.
Slowly, as the night progressed, my eye lids started to grow heavy. Then, before I knew it, I was asleep.
Nightmare
"Audrey, you come with me or I'll kill him." My nightmare would come true if I don't listen to him. Next thing I know Kohen was in his grip with a knife on his throat, and a cliff behind them. He was being chocked, I could only tell by the color his face was slowly becoming.
"Please don't hurt him." I cry out. Some sort of primal possessiveness was coming out. I was feeling the need to kill him. My skin was tingling with a need to do something.
"Come to me then. I won't kill him. All you have to do is walk away from him. Leave him behind."
The dream ended suddenly. I run down stairs straight into the living room, knowing that's where my dad would be. On the plus side he was alone.
"Dad." I call out in a broken voice. He looks up at me with worry. I've never sounded this broken. "We have to go. I have to go. He's," I point to my head, "going to kill Kohen." There were tears running down my face. I couldn't let him go. Not easily, but to save his life then maybe I could.
"You'll have to go ahead of me. There's no way that I can just up and leave this pack Audrey. And you know why. There's not much I can do about it."
"How am I supposed to do that? Where am I supposed to go?" I questioned.
He came over to me, pulled me into one of his dad hugs, kissed the top of my head and we just stood there for what seemed to be the longest time. "You'll know exactly what to do Drey. You always will even if it be without me. You'll have to leave the nest eventually." He tells me.
"Not this way. Not with him trying to get me by trying kill Kohen." I tell him. Who was this man before me. It wasn't my father that's for sure.
Something was wrong here. Something about this didn't seem real. This couldn't be. "This isn't real, you aren't real." I say more to myself than anything.
"You're right, it's not." My dad disappeared from around me and a few feet away from me was HIM. "You can't take anyone with you Audrey. Other wise they both die."
That tingly sensation was back with a force. If I didn't do something about it soon I might combust. Shaking the anger off me as much as I could, which still wasn't much, I took steps back to take better breaths, knowing the closer I got to HIM the angrier I would get. I slammed my eyes closed and did something Dorothy did. She whispers 'there's no place like home.' Over and over again.
Then I really woke up. I rushed around my room grabbing a bag of clothes stuffing as much stuff as I could. I dumped the contents of my backpack onto the ground and stuffed that with other things I would need.
One thing I did that I will probably regret for the rest of my life. I wrote a note and left it on my nightstand. Right where I knew someone would find it.
Yeah I get it. I was running away. But it's the only thing I could think of to save those I loved.
Silently I went down the stairs making sure not to make a pin drop.
Then the third to last step squeaked. Crap. I think.
"Audrey? Is that you?" I don't make a sound, but push myself through the rest of the house.
My breathing sounded too loud, my heart beat was beating too fast. I just knew my father would hear it.
I heard a chair scrap across the floor. I made a run for it, not caring about the noise I made any more. My dad would catch me if I went slow. But he still caught me anyways. He probably always would.
He beat me to the garage door, like I knew he would if he heard me. "Audrey where do you think you're going?" Why didn't I take the window?
"Why would you take the window? What's going on Drey?" He says in his parental voice.
I repeat the words I said in my dream. Well most of them.
"Dad," I said in the same broken voice that caused the worried looked to play across his face. "He's going to kill Kohen, and if bring you along you too." Like I knew would happen, the water works seemed to break open. The sob that went through me and out my mouth was so breaking that I couldn't see and my legs collapse on me.
With my dad's werewolf reflexes he catches me so I don't hit the floor. We sit there a few minutes until I get my breathing under control and the tears are manageable.
"You love him don't you?" He asked. Even though he already knew the answer.
"I'm pretty sure my feelings would have done it without my consent. But I tried not to for this exact reason." I somehow said, even though my throat felt as if I was checking on air.
"Well we have to move again then." He said even though I know he heard me when I said that HE would kill him too.
"You can't come dad, he'll kill you to. Just because you're king doesn't mean you're invincible." I wish he could, I really do, but I knew HE was telling the truth.
"I know, but I can't let you go on your own Drey. I'm not letting you go on your own."
"This is why I was sneaking out." I tell him. "I knew it would be like this. This is something I have to face on my own now, I have to defeat him myself."
"Okay. On one condition." Fuck. "You have to call every day or I'm sending royal guard to find you and kill that monster, save you."
"Fine." I say reluctantly, knowing I probably won't be able to keep this promise. It would break the moment I found him.
Part of me already knows where he is. I just had that gut feeling that told me exactly where I needed to go.
I had a moment of weakness. "Dad I don't know how to do this."
"Yes you do. I know you will follow your gut and do the right thing for you. Whether it be run some more or find HIM." He pulls me into the dad bear hug just like he did in the dream, kisses me on the top of my head and walks away from me.
This is the hardest thing I will ever do.
I left.
5 months, 3 weeks, and now I was leaving for what would probably be forever. A man who wanted me, but killed me every time I entered my subconscious, who knows what the future had in store for me.
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Sorry about going ghost on this book, I got a new phone.. Which is where I write my books on... hopefully yall like this chapter.!
Mnmsam