She cried fully now. “That can’t happen. There’s too much for you to do. And there’s the moonlight. The way it hits you. The way you tell the Moon that you need to be a human to save me—I mean her—Lily. All of that has to happen, Hayden. Don’t you understand?”
She spoke of so many different things that he quickly lost track. Did she want to talk about the True Believers, or did she want to talk about the story of the werewolf creation? Lily and the Alpha Wolves?
He would have asked, but just then, her eyes rolled to the back of her head, and she collapsed. Hayden darted forward and caught her before she hit the floor. She really weighed nothing, at least not to him.
“Sal, come on, we need to bring her upstairs.”
His second raised a dark eyebrow. “My Alpha?”
“To my room.” He crossed past Sal and into the hall. “Clear out the humans here for the tastings. Kill the lights. Make it look like a power outage or think of something cleverer. I don’t care. Just handle it.”
“Of course, but as your second, I have to point out how ridiculous it is to bring her upstairs. She’s just talked about killing you. About ending all of us.”
Hayden shook his head. “She didn’t talk about doing it herself. She said some people in a black van would.” Or at least he thought she had. It had gotten downright confusing there at the end.
“The killing you in general is what concerns me.”
Hayden shook his head. “That would concern me too if it weren’t for one thing.”
“What’s that?” Sal didn’t move to let Hayden pass with the girl.
“She’s my mate.”
Saying it aloud stunned him as much as it did Sal, whose mouth fell open like a landed fish. At some point as Hayden stood holding her, the scent of honey everywhere, she’d gotten beneath his skin in the rare way he’d only seen happen on a few occasions. The way it happened if the person in question was a true mate. The rarest-of-the-rare findings, the thing some werewolves spent their lives searching for and died without finding.
And she’d rushed into his vineyard. As crazy as he’d ever seen anyone in his life.
“She’s my true mate. My wolf knows it. My destined love. A human woman—and clearly not in her right mind. I’ll ask you to get out of my way. She won’t kill me. Or, if she does, there’ll be some kind of poetic justice to the whole thing.” He growled his last words, and Sal moved out of his way. “I want a whole pack meeting tonight. I’ll discuss this with everyone. As for her prediction of dire circumstances and death, I’ll take it under advisement. We’ll set up extra security. No one will get in here with guns.”
Sal nodded, and Hayden passed him, heading up the stairs. The moon would be in the sky soon, and he wanted his mate in his bed. Not to fuck her, not yet anyway, and certainly not before he helped her get her mind back in order, if such a thing was possible, but he needed her in his bed, surrounded by his scent and protected in what little he claimed as his own.
He took the stairs two at a time. She hadn’t budged since she’d passed out, and that concerned him. The lady was on something or had something done to her. She’d fainted, and he had no idea how serious that was to the little human. His pack had to shift. He couldn’t be in the hospital with her.
Hayden felt her pulse. It was strong and steady, not too fast or too slow. That was good. She didn’t feel warm. He couldn’t help, however, noticing how soft she was beneath his fingertips.
His little honeyed human. How on earth was he supposed to take care of a human mate with the world falling apart?
Chapter Two
Chelsea Steefle came around slowly. She’d woken up in a dazed, uncomfortable state enough to know she’d been drugged up. No light pooled through windows, and the room was only lit by one small nightstand lamp that someone had left on its dimmest setting. She knew the room, recognized it even though she knew she shouldn’t. Her memories were from one of her dreams or visions or whatever someone wanted to call them. She’d been in this room many times, except she knew she’d never been here.
Only she’d never really met its owner, other than earlier when she’d collapsed, and the many relationships she’d shared with him—decades’ worth of time she’d not really lived—would fade to nothingness now that the fugue had passed. Soon, she wouldn’t remember any of it any more than she would some fleeting images her brain let fade away. Which meant she had very little time to make sure the stranger she’d come to warn actually took heed of her advice.
Chelsea darted to her feet, and then wished she hadn’t, as her head pounded like someone had driven a jackhammer into it. No, she couldn’t have that. She had to get control of the pain before the pain took everything away from her like it always did. The migraines were a symptom of the problem, and solving them did nothing to take away her bigger issues. But if putting a Band-Aid on a gut wound could at least get her moving, then she’d take that in the meantime.
Hayden wouldn’t have any painkillers sitting around. Werewolves wouldn’t need them, but he’d always have an abundance of alcohol. If she couldn’t knock the edge off, she’d see if she could drown it. The thunder clapping in her head almost took her to her knees. Something had to be done immediately.
Only where and what? She bit her lip trying to remember. In her “not real” existence, she’d known this place like the back of her hand. Much as she would love to pop open one of his vintage reds and have at it, chugging the good stuff like she some kind of box wine seemed out of place. Hayden didn’t keep booze in his room—he didn’t like to mix business with bedroom, but Sal did.
She limped out into the hall, every move she made jarring her brain a little bit more.
Chelsea had no sooner rounded the corner than she stopped short. There, standing before her fully shifted into his werewolf form, was Hayden. If the pain of doing so wouldn’t have completely knocked her out, she would have thrown something at him. He always thought he was so tough in his black wolf form, as if someone couldn’t easily get a shotgun, aim, and put a bullet in his thick head.
“I know I told you they were coming for you. I know I got that much out. Were you crazy shifting? You have to be ready to fight back.”
The wolf growled back at her, and she rolled her eyes. “I’m dying with this migraine, and I have more sense than you. Get out of my way. I’m going to Sal’s room to drink so much vodka I can’t feel this throb anymore, and then I’m going to go figure out a way to kill the people coming for you, even though I’m just a puny human and you’re mister tough guy.”
A flash of light appeared before her, and Hayden stepped forward in his human form. She drew her breath in sharply. “How did you do that?”
“I’m an Alpha. I shift when I want to, even during the Full Moon.” His voice sounded like music. He was sixty years old and didn’t look a day over thirty. It was so unfair that he got to be so beautiful and still seem so manly. Brown hair and huge green eyes that seemed to look right through her threatened to drown her in their depths.
“Did I know you that you could shift at will?” She bit down on her lip. Her memory was starting to fade much faster than it should have. What had they given her this time?
“I don’t know. You tell me. I don’t know your name or what’s going on here. I do know that I need to do something about your headache. Your pain is unbearable, and I won’t allow it continue another minute.”
She shook her head. “My head is your least concern. They are coming to kill you.” She could see it so clearly. When he didn’t listen to her, the times that her dreams had shown other outcomes, he’d always ended up dead. It had destroyed her.
“I know you think that. Don’t argue with me. I’m not budging until I make you more comfortable. If you want me to do something else, you’re going to have to comply. It’s up to you exactly how difficult you feel like being.”
He moved toward her like the predator she knew him to be. Hayden tugged her against him, and she let herself, for one second, be
absorbed in how right it felt and how his scent—pine needles and soap—made her feel as if she’d finally gotten home. “Chelsea.”
Hayden laughed, and she heard the small rumble in his chest. “That’s your name, then?”
“Chelsea Steefle.”
“That’s pretty.” He rubbed her forehead, moving his hand to the top of her scalp. “I’m not a Healer, Chelsea”— he could say her name all day, every day, she loved how it sounded— “but I’m Alpha here. For some reason, you know what that means, and, well, there are other reasons, but I’m not going to go into it now. The point is that you have to do what I say. I have Alpha magic.” He pressed on her head. “I want your headache gone.”
Her head felt hot. She gasped, not liking the sensation. It wasn’t a warm gooey feeling but more like someone had jammed a heater inside of her and turned it on full blast. She tried to pull back, but Hayden wouldn’t let her go. “Shh. Quiet now.”
She tried to listen, but it hurt. Chelsea squirmed in his arms until she felt the heat start to leave. Seconds later, coolness invaded her, and she could breathe again. Her headache had eased. It wasn’t completely gone, but she no longer felt as if she might hit the floor.
“We’ll work on that again. A stronger Alpha would be able to kill your headache no problem, but you’re stuck with me.”
She tsked. “You’re always like this. If you don’t die today, you’ll still be doubting yourself at ninety years old. You’re a good Alpha. Lucian didn’t know everything about everything.”
She’d love to see what a little Alpha confidence could do for him. Hayden managed nearly everything he did with perfection. Why couldn’t he see it?
“Okay, Chelsea.” He took a step back from her and narrowed his eyes.
“Oh, we’ve got the serious look going on here. You want answers. I know. I want to give them to you, but there’s the little thing about madmen coming to kill you.”
He shook his head. “If you know me as you claim to, then trust me on all counts. What’s going on here?”
“I…” She cleared her throat. This seemed a lot harder than it should have been. She’d envisioned this scenario hundreds of times, had seen virtually every response possible from Hayden, including the one where he kicked her out on her ass.
“Go on.” He stood so still that he almost looked unreal.
“When my grandmother—who raised me until I was sixteen—died, I inherited her strange abilities. I can see things. Lots of things. Endless possibilities. I live lifetimes that never happen. I know people I’ve yet to meet. It’s…hard. And she never told me how to deal with any of it. She must have been better at it than me because she was normal, and, well, I’m not.”
A slew of emotions passed over his face, the one she knew so well—at least momentarily, from years of love or sometimes hate that he knew nothing about—told her how hard he tried to make out exactly what was happening here.
“Then you have seen me, in various future scenarios, in your visions?” He kept his voice even, which concerned her. Did he think she might suddenly go ballistic and her head would spin like the girl from The Exorcist?
“For a while and then it fades, or at least that’s how it’s been explained to me. I know you right now. I can remember most of the visions I saw, and then I won’t. It’s like I return to the present fully and the other possibilities I’ve witness go into the air, poof, like they were never there. But I’ve seen video of my episodes. The people who’ve had me the last ten years taped my weird states every time it happened, and then when it would fade, they’d show me the recordings.”
When he spoke, his voice had risen a bit. “Who had you for the last ten years, honey-lady?”
She gasped and covered her mouth. “I love that nickname. Oh, thank you for using it. Hearing it tells me that you won’t hate me this time around.”
Before she could think better of it, she wrapped her arms around his neck and held on tight. He stiffened and then let his arms embrace her. Physical contact, outside of sex, had never been easy for him. Not since his years with Lucian.
“Is this making you feel like you want to bolt, Hayden?”
“No, actually.” He cleared his throat. “But I would like to know who has had you for so long.”
“I don’t know exactly. They said they were doctors when they came to get me off the street and said they could help me with my issues. But then it wasn’t like that. I was always drugged, always being forced from one vision to the next. I must have seen hundreds of videos of myself. Whatever they wanted from me, I’ve never been able to give it to them.” She pulled back to look at him. “And then, finally, I knew I had to escape to warn you. I came back to myself, but they’d drugged me up, and I knew I could hold on to the memories long enough to get here.”
“I’m a little fixated about the idea that you’ve been held captive for ten years. The rest of it we will work out. How did you come to be wearing that dress?”
“Oh, this one?” She laughed and stepped out of his embrace. “The one that so clearly doesn’t fit me.” Her boobs were so visible she might as well be walking around in her bra and panties. “I stole it from a dry cleaner. Don’t think badly of me, please. I still have those skills from the year I lived on the streets. And don’t you think the woman who wears this must be very rich? It’s silk. It was the easiest thing to steal. I hope she’s rich, anyway. And I’ll find a way to pay back the dry cleaner because I’m sure they’ll have to pay for it. I swear I will.”
He raised his hand, and she stopped speaking. She always rambled when she got nervous.
“Tell me where you got the dress, and we’ll take care of it.”
“Well. Thank you. That’s awful nice of you.” He didn’t know her yet, and he certainly didn’t have to do that.
He smoothed her hair out of her face. “I just want to make sure I understand because this is somewhat jumbled, and although I am a werewolf and should, I guess, be used to magical, weird things, I’m not. At heart, I’m a rational, pragmatic person.”
Hayden spoke the truth. He liked things to be very black and white, yes or no. If he couldn’t see, feel, taste, or smell it, then it wasn’t there. Even magic he could explain away as a genetic alteration, something people could do because of a gene mutation. Her abilities had always bothered him in her visions.
“Okay.” She prompted him to continue by extending her hand..
“Someone has held you captive because you can see things that others can’t. Who did this to you?” His eyes turned wolf, darkening, becoming more menacing, and she remembered very suddenly that they were in the middle of the Full Moon. He had to be in horrible pain maintaining his human form.
“The True Believers. They don’t want to leave anyone around who has non-human abilities. I was useful or I’d be dead. They have doctors. All these people helping them. Sometimes it even felt like some elaborate camp or spa. I could wander the premises all I wanted. Do anything I wanted in between episodes as long as I didn’t try to leave. Lately, things had changed. They got harsher, angrier with me when I couldn’t preform, so I started searching for ways to break out. Well, I became more serious about it anyway. Before that I’d just felt defeated. There was a door they weren’t always diligent about locking. It’s a good thing I went when I did. I think they would have killed me long ago, but I fascinated one of the doctors, a Patricia Ryan, and she kept me alive to experiment. What did downers do to me? What about uppers? Barbiturates? I’ve done so many different types of drugs, I mean not by choice, and yesterday, I was coming down pretty hard. I knew how to get here. I’d seen myself do it before.”
He kissed her forehead. “Okay. I get it now. You’ve been with the True Believes, they held you captive, and now you’ve come to save me from them. I get it.”
She swallowed. “If you want to skip over the whole I-have-visions part.”
Hayden nodded, his dark hair falling over his eye before he pushed it away. “For now, yes.”
&nb
sp; A sound outside the vineyard made her gasp, and he shushed her as he pulled her against his chest. “Stay very quiet.”
“I told you.” Her voice shook. She didn’t want this vision, not this version. It shouldn’t be this one. Real life shouldn’t be this horror show. Why hadn’t he listened? Why had he wasted so much precious time?
Hayden’s green eyes met hers. “If you know me as you claim to, then you have to trust me now.” He nodded at her and stepped back. “Stay back. I don’t want you so far away that I’ll worry but not so close that you can get hurt.”
“Hayden, what do you have planned?” Her memory might already be going. She had no idea what he was about to do.
“Trust me, Chelsea. I heard your warning. While you were out cold, we took care of business.”
With a quick grin and a flash of light, he shifted. It would have been startling if she hadn’t seen it a million times before. He moved toward the door, now in his black fur, before turning to look at her once over his shoulder. His message seemed clear. He wanted her where he could see her.
She clenched her hands into fists and closed the distance between them before he walked out the front door. It was dark out, the kind of dark that could only be found in the country, away from the big cities. Or at least it was for a second. Then everything went haywire. Bright lights beamed down from the top of the winery, catching five unsuspecting would-be murderers by surprise. One of them yelped as twelve fully transformed and ready werewolves leapt from all directions onto them.
Chelsea covered her mouth to stop from crying out. The idea of necessary violence didn’t bother her, but the reality of it was different than she had seen in her visions. At no time, in any of those dreams, had this happened. Sometimes Hayden listened and won, but the destruction had never been this precise.