Alone Until I Met You (Completed)

(5) The Man with the Missing Boots

Those beautiful green eyes had streams of gold shimmering through them as they waited patiently for my reaction. At first all I could do was stare back into those breathtaking orbs and wait for my brain to start back up. Did he really mean what he said? Did he want to start a pack with me? This warm rushed spread through my chest making my stomach flutter and my blood race. I placed my hand over my chest to try to calm my racing heart.

Before I could mumble out a single word anger flashed in his emerald eyes. His hand quickly dropped from my face and his expression morphed into something fearsome. The streams of gold in his eyes vanished into a darkening sea and hidden behind them I could see the rage boiling up. He pushed out his chest and squared his large shoulders before turning his face away from my view.

“If being in a pack with me was really that horrifying to you then you shouldn’t have followed me in the first place.” He spat out with his hands balled into tight fists.

His threatening stance and pissed off tone in his voice made me want to dive under the table and wait for his foul mood to pass, but I knew I couldn’t do that. So before he could even think about stomping away I shot up from the wooden chair and grabbed hold of his wrist. “Wait, Colt.”

I almost fell flat on my face when Colt jerked his wrist out of my grip and spun around snarling. “It’s doesn’t matter anymore Allie, I get it.”

“No Colt you don’t understand it’s not like that at all,” I realized that he wasn’t listening to me and became so frustrated that I started to shake. I was so angered and irritated that I reached out for him again and this time, with my nails I dug them into his forearm before barking at him. “Damn it Colt will you at least look at me when I’m talking to you!” He grew wide with surprise at my strange outburst but I didn’t really care. “I want to be with you!”

My heart was pounding against my chest so hard that it hurt making my breathing off too. The lungs in my chest were burning because I was breathing so hard and my throat was dry but that fervent look in his eyes was disappearing and that was all I needed.

“What did you say?”

With some newfound boldness I forced myself into taking a step closer to him. “I want to be with you Colt.” Cautiously I touched my fingertips to the new scar of his cheek and followed the line up until I was resting my palm against his skin.

He watched me for a moment and then his eyes took on a saddened look before he sighed and pulled my hand away from his face. “Why didn’t you say something earlier then?”

I couldn’t help but feel slightly rejected when he let my hand drop down to my hip but then again I felt a little relieved as well. “I was shocked by your question.”

He growled at the thought of it. “Shocked? Why?”

“Colt,” I began, “I’ve never been part of a pack before. My parents left me as soon as I could fend for myself and I’ve only come into contact with one other pack before I met you. So-

“Wait,” He interrupted, “Why didn’t you join the other pack?”

I flinched at his question. It was a definite hit to my ego to have to admit that I hadn’t been accepted because I was too weak to contribute anything to the pack and too young to be paired off but either way he would find out sooner or later. My gaze dropped down to the floor as I mumbled out the words. “You know that I’m a weak wolf and back then I was younger so I was of no use to them.”

There was a short pause before he answered and when he did my stomach dropped painfully. “You are weak and there is no changing that.” I could feel my chest burn with hurt and a little bit of anger. Even though I knew I was weak he had no right to rub it in my face. With my jaw clenched tightly I lifted my chin up to growl at him but his expression caught me off guard. He was smiling down at me as if he had been waiting for my reaction. In my moment of hesitation he took a step closer leaving only a breath between us.

I couldn’t help but shiver when he ran his finger up the length of my neck and notched my chin up a little higher. The anger inside of me vanished as soon as my eyes connected with his. As if that had been some kind of sign for him, he slowly lowered his face down to mine. Already I could feel my heart racing inside of my chest and feel the blood pounding in my ears when he parted his lips slowly. His hot warm caressed my lower lips as he inched in even closer and then he growled.

Suddenly he was pulling away from me with a deep frown set on his face. He turned his gaze towards the door and glared over at it. My body felt the loss of his heat, and I couldn’t help but shudder at the sudden chill I felt replacing it. Even though I had no clue what had just happened I still couldn’t take my eyes off of him. The way he was mumbling something under his breath and how he stomped over to the door made him seem absolutely breathtaking.

Before the knock could even sound all the way Colt had already jerked the door open.

“What.” He growled out.

The smell hit me first. It was so strong that it made my nostrils burn and my stomach clench. The sickening smell was so harsh that it had me gasping for fresh air. It was the smell of cologne that was mixed in with my air. The only reason I knew that was because it was what human males wore to mask their own aroma. My mother had told me that they wore it to ward off any predators from attacking. A clever trick I might add because no creature would want to eat something that smelled so rancid. By the way Colt was growling however, I didn’t think that the smell was really putting a dent in his appetite.

“Well aren’t a bowl of cheerios today,” The man ducked under Colt’s arm and walked right into the room making a tsk’ing noise as he shook his head in dismay. “You know, maybe if you smiled every once in a while people wouldn’t think that you’re such a douche.” He laughed to himself as he walked over to the couch and fell back on it.

I glanced back over to Colt to see him glare at the human before slamming the door shut with a sneer. “People don’t call me a douche.”

The man kicked off his brown boots and then folded his arms behind his head. “Yeah you’re probably right, they’d be too afraid that you’d knock their teeth in. I mean gosh have you looked in a mirror lately? Every time I see you you’ve got a new scar or something.” He looked up at the ceiling as he continued to talk. “Where’d you get that one on your cheek? Get in a knife fight with some teens again or did you get it caught of some barbed wire when you were hopping a fence?”

Colt didn’t really say much of anything instead he just walked over to the fridge and pulled out two brown bottles. He popped them both open and then made his way into the living room and passed one off to the man. The man wasn’t very big at all and in fact he was probably just as tall as I was. His build was larger than mine but that came as no surprise. I chewed on the inside of my cheek as I watched him from a distance. This was the first human that I had ever seen before and so far…he was very plain. Both his hair and eyes were the exact same color as the many tree barks that I had run past in the forest. Besides his strong scent, crooked smirk, and strange naked female shaped birthmark on his arm everything else seemed dull.

I mean the man hadn’t even noticed that I was in the room-

“Hey,” he pointed to me with the end of his bottle. “Who’s the girl?”

I couldn’t help but jump a little bit when he looked at me. Even though I had labeled him as dull that didn’t mean that I wasn’t still weary of him. Slowly I took a small step backwards with my head held a little bit lower than normal. Colt looked over at me with a small twinkle in his eyes. I took that twinkle as a smile and instantly perked up by smiling back. Colt ushered me over to them with a flick of his chin.

“That’s Allison.” He said roughly before putting the bottle against his firm lips and tipping it back.

The human jammed his elbow into Colt’s ribcage making him cough out the brown liquid. Automatically I stopped where I was at and started growling at the man for attacking Colt but then Colt shot a glare and I instantly stopped.

The man looked back up at Colt from the couch. “Hey Colt are those your clothes she’s wearing?”

He didn’t break eye contact with me as he sat down on the armrest of the couch and leaned back. The look he was giving me made me shiver. It was more than the dominance look that I had grown used to and it reminded me more of…making a claim? I could feel the heat rising to my face so I averted my gaze and looked down at my bare toes instead.

Colt must have nodded to the human or something because then he started whispering over to him. “Is she something special?”

I watched Colt through the lashes of my eyes as he brought the bottle up towards his mouth before answering. “You could say that.”

My heart started head butting the inside of my chest at that one. He thought I was something special.

“Well than,” I jumped at the sound of the human’s voice and watched him wide eyed as he picked himself up off of the couch. Without looking back at Colt to see if it was okay he started walking over to me. Freaked over what I was supposed to do, I looked back and forth between him and the human. Neither of them were any help so I had to rely on the only thing I had left; my animal instincts.

The only problem was that I hadn’t expected the human to be so fast. One minute he was getting up off of the couch and the next he was standing in front of me with his hand sticking out. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up at his nearness and I had to bite down on my lower lip to keep from snarling at him.

“I’m Lincoln Darwin Fletcher, but if you call me anything other than Linc I will personally shave off one of your eyebrows.” He laughed at his own joke and then gradually let his arm fall to his side. “Do you prefer to be called Allison or Allie?”

I looked up into his friendly brown eyes wearily before giving him a small smile. “I like Allie,”

Mockingly he copied my smile and even tilted his head. I could feel my hackles rise at that and before I could stop myself I growled at him, “If you call me anything else I’ll shave the middle of your head.”

Truthfully I had no clue what ‘shaving’ was but I knew it had something to do with hair and by the surprised look he was giving me I guess I was right. Linc spun back around on the heels of his feet to face Colt.

“Dude I love your new girlfriend!” he yelled with his arms in the air.

Again with the girlfriend term!

Linc spun back around so that he could grab hold of my hand and drag me over to the couch. He sat in-between me and Colt and I couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed at that.

“So,” Linc placed his arm behind my shoulders. “How long have you too been together?”

I looked down at Colt’s black shirt that I was still wearing and started playing with the loose threads. “Two days.”

Linc sudden gasp made me jump in my seat. Sneered over at him for making me jump but he was already talking. “Only two days! That means that the man hasn’t wooed you at all!” He glanced over his shoulder at Colt with one brown eyebrow raised. “That means that I have a chance to snatch her still.”

Before Linc had the chance to turn back around Colt grabbed the back of his shirt and yanked him off of the couch. Linc started yelling at Colt as he dragged him along the floor by the nap of his neck much like a mother would a cub. “If you even think about it Linc, I’ll call Jackie.”

Linc instantly soured at the name and folded his arms over his chest in a pout. “Why’d you have to go bring the wife in on this? I thought we were friends.”

Colt shook his head from side to side when he opened up the front door. “Nope, you just come here for the beer.” He then tossed him out into the hallway.

The human started yelling so loudly that I couldn’t understand a word he was saying. Colt just stood there with the door open nodding his head at the mindless drabble until Linc started to make sense again. “And another thing, Frank wants us to be at work at noon tomorrow.”

He nodded his head a little bit slower at that one and his frown grew a little bit deeper. “How many hours are we working tomorrow?”

“Twelve man, sheesh, don’t you listen to anything that the boss says?” Colt shrugged his shoulder in response and got a whine out of Linc.

“See you tomorrow than Linc.” Colt reached to shut the door.

“Oh hey one more thing, Jackie says that she hasn’t heard from Hailey in a while and was wondering if she got her number changed or something. Know anything ‘bout it?”

Colt’s jade eyes harder at the question and a muscle in his jaw twitched as well. Through clenched teeth Colt spoke sternly, “No I haven’t heard from her either.”

Linc mumbled something from the other side of the door but it was too low for me to catch and then Colt closed the door shut. I could hear Linc’s unbooted feet march down the steps of the apartment and couldn’t help but smile. Human were so forgetful. I glanced down at his old worn out boots and laughed silently to myself wonder if he would ever remember that he had left them here. Colt made his way back over to the couch, noticed the boot lying on the floor and growled. Before I could say anything Colt scooped the shoes up off the floor, walked over to the window, and tossed them right out while mumbling something about ‘that’ll teach him’.

After that he fell back down onto the couch and rested his head against my stomach. Shocked that he would do something so bold I felt my face heat up again and my heart start to hammer in my throat. His hot breath warmed the outside of the shirt and then he was suddenly snugging closer. I laughed when his nose tickled my butterfly filled stomach and suddenly found my hand playing in his dark hair. He cracked an eye open to glare at me but said nothing. For a little while I ran my fingers through his thick black hair and then followed the jagged scar down the side of his face.

I frowned at the memories it brought back. Kirk threatening to kill me, Colt trying desperately to win against the odds, and then having them both argue….

The name popped back into my head. It had been the same name that had pissed off Kirk. Colt had said something about her to him and he had instantly yelled at him to never say her name again. Even though I had told Colt that I wouldn’t question him about his past until he was ready to tell me, I felt the need to know who she was.

I tapped his chin with my finger and waited for him to open his eyes. When those gorgeous green ones flashed open I felt my heart skip a beat.

“Colt, who is Hailey?”

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Because of popular demand I am posting this chapter one day early. :) I got no sleep at all when i wrote this so please excuse the fact that there may be misspelled words.

Thank you all who have kept up with the story and who have not been silent readers :)