The Characters of Clayton, Rya, Kennedy, Dallas, and the Valentines belong to Rachelle. The character of Cora is expanded on with Permission from Rachelle, and is written for the pleasure of the International Wildflower Pack, the WhiskeyQueenn fandom. #WildflowersUnited #iwp

::Thank you Rachelle  for letting us run amok in your world::

~Dedicated to all those families who have sat in an ICU and prayed; 

and to all the nurses and Drs who were with them.~

So Many Misunderstandings

Charlie's POV

Beep... beep... beep... whoosh....

Beep... beep... beep... whoosh....

Beep... beep... beep... whoosh....

Rage, the only thing I feel right now is rage as I listen to the sounds of the machines keeping my sister and my niece alive. I can't even hold her hand yet, blistered and sickly pink with charred gray-black smudges that couldn't be cleaned away yet. The smell of cooked wolf under Gretchen's medicinal oils makes me want to puke. This is my baby sister! They keep saying she is going to die, but I won't believe it. She can't! She and Corina can't. I need them to live.

Clayton and Dallas called HIM and HE is on his way here. I can't even speak to them. My wolf is barely staying under my skin. I don't want Mark here, I don't want him near them. Everyone thinks Cora was dealing with the rejection just fine but I knew the truth. I smelled the tears she thought she hid from even me. Heard her sobs in the middle of the night. Saw the computer history, where she stalked images and stories of him. I felt the pain that lingered in her heart every moment of every day. She walked around head high, strong on the outside but inside she was crumbling. Rya's mom and Gretchen were always finding something they needed her to do, and oddly so was Luna Catherine. It was like they knew what she was hiding, just like I did. The rejection was killing her and her wolf, but they were fighting to live for their she-pup, for our Corina.

For four days, there had been no change, everyone and everything was still, hesitant, worrying. Even our usual spring storms had given way to an unusual stillness. It was like we were all waiting for that last beep. I prayed to the Goddess for mercy, if any wolf deserved it, it was my sister.

~

Four days ago, I was in the training center with a group when Cora had shouted through the pack link that the pack kitchen was on fire. Her pregnancy had progressed enough that she had stopped helping me train, not that any wolf every got close to her belly but it freaked the warriors out to face an obviously pregnant opponent who always beat them. We got there almost immediately, but Cora was no where in sight. Kennedy and her court were sitting in the grass sobbing as Luna Catherine paced in front of the kitchen doors. Thick smoke billowed out. Cora had been griping about having to use the oldest oven to have enough to get all the souffles done in time for Kennedy's brunch. The ancient appliance had exploded. Cora had dragged Violet and Mandy to safety before running back in. Kimberly was trapped in the kitchen's small bathroom. Cora burst out of the smoke and flames, with the juvenile under her chefs jacket as a second explosion hit. Both were thrown on the grass. Kimberly was mostly unharmed, mild burns and smoke inhalation.

Cora wasn't so lucky. Most of her hair was burnt off and her skin pink and  ash gray on her arms, neck and face. She looked up at me and I knelt over her and gasped, her mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water too long. She made no noise before her eyes rolled back in her head and fluttered. I remember Dallas yelling to get her to the clinic, sticking a tube down her throat to try to get air into her. She flailed in pain and I thought he was hurting her so I attacked him. It took Alpha Adams, Alpha Clayton and Beta Killian to restrain me. They locked me up for two days until I calmed down. I haven't left her bedside since. Dallas tried to explain that she had breathed superheated air and burned the insides of her lungs, that her wolf wasn't healing her quickly enough, that we needed to think about the pup, she needed her mate to strengthen her wolf. But I knew having her mate here would only hurt her if she woke up...

If she woke up... Please Cora wake up.

"Charlie, they just entered the territory, I need to know that you are going to control your wolf in here. This is a clinic, not the training gym," Dallas stood to his full height, he was an Alpha. An Alpha who had walked away from his pack after his pregnant mate died. He had told me the tale, and it was why he had to try to save Cora's pup, why he had called Mark. He was one of the few wolves that I had met since I was 19 that I questioned my ability to beat. He might even give Cora a run for her money, which she might give him the displeasure of when she wakes up and finds out he is to blame for Mark being here.

"Charlie, I need your word," Dallas repeated. His alpha wolf growls but my wolf snarls back.

"I give you my word, I will not touch him inside the clinic. I only care about Cora and Corina," I say.

He looks at Clayton and they nod. The doctor lays a pair of silver cuffs on the receptionist's desk and pulls off the glove he was wearing.  We walk outside together. We are standing in front of the clinic when a black SUV pulls up.

'How appropriate,' I think, then the last person I expected him to bring steps out, the little redhead that the son of a B!tch replaced my sister with. My rage explodes, I shake, restraining myself.

'We only promised not to touch him INSIDE the clinic,' my wolf points out. Goddess, I love my wolf.

I am on him before he is all the way out, punching him as hard as I can. His jaw cracks. Dallas and Clayton are dragging me away as I shout profanities at him. Mark's father has his choice mate tucked behind him. I shook the Alphas off and snarled at Mark. He looks like crap.

"How could you! How could you bring your slut, your whore here? What did she call my sister... oh yeah a floozie, sounds like something a 12-year old would say. My sister is your true mate. Not that little redhead b!cth! CORA!  She is laying inside dying and you bring her here? To what? To watch your pregnant mate die so she can be sure you're only hers!?! That's what my sister heard you promise her the day after our father died, isn't it? She didn't share with floozies and you were only hers!"

Mark just stares at me, holding his jaw, like I've lost my mind. I think I hate him more than my father, more than the Alphas, more than the Beta, more than all of them together. My wolf is the rational one this time, nudging me to leave before I murder Cora and Corina's only chance.

"Calm down Charlie, you need to go for a run," Clayton is standing between us.

I point at Mark, my claws showing, "When Cora wakes up I want you gone. You and you whore or I will end you, Mark. So help me Goddess, I will end you for every tear she has cried and every night she couldn't sleep since you rejected her."

I storm away, shifting into my wolf running toward the lake. I run the lake perimeter until almost dark. Dallas finally stops me. I shift, and put on the shorts he offers, I finish the beer he holds out in one go.

"Why aren't you with Cora?" I demand as we walk back toward the house we once rented. He lives here now.

He offers me a plate filled with steak and baked potatoes. "There's nothing more I can do. You need to eat." He looks out at the lake, before he rubs the back of his neck. "You know, it might not work and if it doesn't, you have to let Mark and his family leave. If you kill him, it will cause a war. His father's pack is four times larger than Adams, bigger than Adams and Valentine combined."

"Noble will join us," I say around a bite of steak. "And it's allies."

"Charlie, you're talking about all out war, the western packs versus the eastern pack. Thousand, tens of thousands could die. Do you want that much blood on you, Gamma?" Dallas makes a good point but I don't want to listen.

My wolf and I want Mark's blood to stain our teeth. "She's my sister, she's all I have left. And he rejected her."

"What about Alexa?"

"How do you know about her?" I demand, what is he a doctor or a psychic.

"My father taught us always to watch, listen and learn."

I snort, "My grandmama taught us the same."

We sit quietly as the darkness settles around us.

Dallas sets his empty beer bottle on the table, "She's not his choice mate. She's his baby sister."

I choke on the last of my beer, "WHAT?!?"

"Blessing, she's his sister. Their mother died the day she was born in a rogue attack. Mark saved her but couldn't save his mother, he was 8. And he didn't reject Cora." Dallas twist open another beer and hands it to me before opening one for himself. "Their father told Clay and I that he was supposed to be calling her every day too. Their pack does this thing when mates fight, where they spend time away from each other considering the other's point. Cora called every day till your father died, then stopped. Blessing said she and Mark were screwing around that morning and Mark thought Cora had pocket dialed him, she'd done it before. Blessing didn't mean for Cora to think Mark had another female. Everyone else thought Mark had rejected Cora so when he went back to Flatirons, no one would tell him anything. He went home to wait for her to call again, but she never did. It is all just a big misunderstanding." He rubs his shaved head and takes a deep breath, "I think you two have a lot to talk about. I set his jaw, it should be healed by tomorrow."

He goes inside and I sit, watching the fireflies over the water, wondering how things got so screwed up.

~~~~

~Mark's pov

I watch Charlie's wolf run away and wonder what the heck I ever did to these wolves. My jaw is broken and I think I have at least two broken ribs. Now, I know where Cora learned how to throw a punch. Then he stood there yelling me about bringing my family, calling my sister a whore, and threatening to end me. I am convinced these eastern wolves are all crazy. It took everything I had to keep my wolf back. Blessing rushed over and I wheezed as she hugged me.

The Alpha watched him go, then turn to look at me, "Are you okay?"

"No," I mumble. I don't think I have ever seen eyes as green as his, like fresh prairie grass in the spring, too bright to be real.

Their pack doctor is an Alpha too, which is odd. Inside the clinic, he sets my jaw and tapes my ribs, as my father introduces us. I can smell my mate and our pup over the smell of antiseptic, medicinals, and burned flesh. I am not really paying attention to what they are saying, I know she in on the other side of that door. Dr Dallas helps me put my shirt back on, Blessing buttons it up for me.

"You know they think your little sister is your choice mate?"

Blessing starts laughing, "You can't be serious?" When neither laugh she looks at them horrified.

My father asks in a careful tone, "Do you know why they would assume that?"

The Doctor nods, "Cora called her mate, you Mark, to tell him her father died, on the phone she heard a female calling her names and saying she didn't share and Mark agreed. Then she saw a picture of the two of you together. When she found out she was pregnant, she was determined to make it through her pregnancy alone. Something about how in the Urban packs, the rejected wolf gets a settlement and a pup out of the rejection."

"Oh my goddess, the day we were screwing around, it was right before Mark got his buckle. When the phone rang I was teasing Mark about some floozy calling, but no one was there, then Shotgun stepped on his phone. I didn't mean to make her think that." Blessing looks horrified, tears in her eyes.

"When was that?" Clayton asked.

"About three and a half weeks before the big blizzard." Blessing answers, leaning against Dad.

Clayton and Dallas share a look, "That's about when Carl had his accident."

I try to say something but my jaw won't work, it hurts too much so I say through the family link. 'That's when she quit calling, I thought Cora had probably pocket dialed me, she'd done it before. I didn't know she'd heard us.'

My father levels a glare at me, "Mark was supposed to be calling Cora once a day as she was him, he says she stopped calling that day. He thought she dialed him by accident putting her phone in her pocket."

My guilt is eating me alive, my wolf would be helping it if we didn't share a body. No wonder her brother hates me, I'd hate me too. My wolf volunteers to hate me.

'Ask if she hates me,' I link to my father.

"Mark want to know if she hates him," my dad says in a tired voice.

Clayton looks at me, sadly, "Cora can be difficult, stubborn, she's always been this way. She is the strongest-willed wolf I have ever met, she doesn't give up on things ever. She will always fight to protect those she loves and what is right. And she hates choice mates, and if she thinks you rejected her to have one, to be honest, she may never forgive you. You are going to have to earn her trust back but since she's hurt, she won't pull any punches. She's a warrior in every way. You're in for a war." Clayton talks like he's known her his whole life and in a pack this size, he probably has.

I rub my eyes and point at the door. Dr Dallas nods and takes me in, I am not prepared for what I see. A heart monitor beeps as the the whoosh of the ventilator pushes air into my beautiful mate through a large tube running into her mouth and down her throat. Her hair is gone, her skin pink and pearly as it heals. Cora is laying in the bed hooked to IVs and machines are breathing for her, feeding and hydrating her, she has no life in her. Her eyes are held shut with this strips of tape. The bulge of her belly draws my attention, it moves with a flurry of little kicks, as if my daughter senses me. She stills as soon as lay my hand on Cora's belly. 

Doctor Dallas is telling me how little hope there is that she will ever wake, how I am here for my pup. He told me not to hold her hands yet but to touch her unburned skin.  He says to encourage my wolf to strengthen hers, so our child will have a chance. Not something I will have to do, I can already feel my wolf reaching toward hers. He says I will have to find a wet nurse for our pup, so she doesn't starve. There are not formulas for werewolf pups. Tears run down my face, I can't stop them. A pained-looking Dr Dallas squeezes my shoulder before he leaves, I wonder how well he knows my Cora.

My Cora...

Do I even have the right to call her that anymore? 

She believes I rejected her, chose another, she has spent months grieving for us and baring the painful burden of my pride alone. I settled in for a long night listen to the machines keeping my Cora alive.

Beep... beep... beep... whoosh....

Beep... beep... beep... whoosh...

Beep... beep... beep... whoosh....

My Cora, my beautiful mate, I'm so sorry, please don't die...

Goddess hear me, please, please... just give me one more chance.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

9.2018 - CLAYTON is published!!!

Clayton (The Wildflower Series) by Rachelle Mills https://www.amazon.com/dp/164034487X/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_U_x_S8sbDbB084P46 via @amazon

2.2019- DALLAS is published!!!

Dallas (The Wildflower Series Book 2) by Rachelle Mills https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MXRVB7M/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_U_x_o9sbDbPFY61NH via @amazon
Find them on Amazon

::Thank you to Rachelle for allowing this CLAYTON Fanfiction to be published.:: 

If you are reading this on a site that is not Wattpad, it has been taken

and published without my permission.