“Been a long mission,” Hayden said. It wasn’t exactly an apology, but it would suffice. Hayden surveyed the room. Damien, Tess, Blade, Anna, and Mila were present. And here he had assumed Mila would go with Kate when she headed to the cookhouse.
Of all of Damien’s top tier—which apparently now included their mates—only Frank and Pryce were absent. Frank was probably on guard duty. Where was Pryce? Hayden wanted the shifter to take a look at Mila. Her wolf seemed exceedingly slow in healing her. Her one cheek was still bruised and her lip split. She had been off-balance this morning, too. She had taken kicks to the back of her legs and. . . Hell. That damn shifter had probably done more damage to her than he’d realized, overwhelming her wolf.
Mila caught his gaze and started pulling on a lock of hair. Nerves? Of course. She barely knew anyone here, and she was still recovering.
Her lush dark hair was in tangles and she certainly could use a shower. They all could. But Damien had wanted to welcome her right away, make her feel at home, as he tended to do with new shifters. It was a strength Hayden had always appreciated in Damien, one that had gone a long way toward keeping Hayden here in those first few days after he had arrived injured and emotionally broken.
“Quit staring,” Callen whispered as he leaned against the wall with his right leg bent and his foot flush with the plaster, leaving a muddy mark. Tess had put a plant there trying to force him to find a seat instead, but he had slid the plant over.
Tess sighed when she noticed. She let it go. Hayden grinned. For as much as these shifters could be a pain in the neck sometimes, they all had heart and they had never failed him.
“Glad you’re back in one piece,” Damien said as he rubbed his hands on his thighs. “I’d say it was a very successful mission. In addition to escorting Dr. Evans here, you brought Kate back from the dead.”
“Kate’s too stubborn to die,” Hayden said, watching Mila closely. No laugh. Yeah, she was over him.
“It would have been helpful knowing we were looking for a woman,” Hayden said, unable to take his eyes off of her. Even as bruised, disheveled, and dirty as she was, she was still gorgeous. Her eyes held a fire unlike no other.
“I agree,” Damien said.
“I already explained this,” Mila said, crossing her arms over her chest as she glared at Hayden. Why was she mad at him?
The tension in the room was thick until Tess jumped up and headed for the kitchen. “Who wants coffee?”
Mila raised her hand.
Hot chocolate with little marshmallows. That’s what Mila liked.
“Why didn’t your pack have the cure?” Damien asked Mila, though kept taking his eyes off of Mila and scrutinizing Hayden.
“Liam had sent messengers to my pack and a few others in eastern Montana. Along with the small amount of the cure, he provided instructions on how to replicate it. I’m not sure what went wrong exactly. I realize I’m only a medical doctor, not a virologist, but I know I followed the instructions precisely. There was no guesswork involved. And yet the end result was that the cure didn’t work. Neither did the vaccine that I had developed, even though it was based on the information your Dr. Kerns had provided. I promise you, alpha, I’m competent at what I do. All evidence points to the virus mutating.”
“Hell.” Damien ran his hands through his hair.
“I’d like to meet with your virologist as soon as possible, to go over—
“Alex is dead,” Tess said from the kitchen.
“Dead?” Hayden asked, thoroughly surprised
“Shot himself,” Damien said. “Couldn’t take the pressure probably. Hard to say.”
“He had issues,” Tess said to Mila as she handed her a cup of coffee and passed a bottle of water over to Anna. Blade stood to reach the water and he brushed up against Mila’s sore knee. She winced. Hayden growled and glared at Blade.
Damien gripped Hayden’s shoulder on his way to the kitchen and gave a slight tap, enough to distract Hayden. “Do you want a beer or something stronger?” Damien asked.
Hayden knew exactly what Damien was doing, and it wasn’t working. That kiss, that wonderful, soul-shattering kiss of Mila’s had left him on edge, and he needed a run or a good screw, neither of which he was going to get in here.
“Neither,” Hayden answered. There was that look again from Damien, the one that said they were definitely going to talk later. Shit. Best friend and alpha. . .regardless which side of Damien wanted to speak with him, Hayden simply wasn’t in the mood.
Damien grabbed a beer for himself. “Walk with me,” he said as he headed toward the door. That tone was more order than request, but Hayden didn’t care. It gave him the chance to escape, finally.
The second the cold air struck Hayden’s body, he shifted and ran. Giving in to his wolf’s demands would ease the stress, and Damien would certainly follow. The alpha, above the rest of the pack, always had an insatiable need to run. Probably all that pent up alpha energy that couldn’t find a release through sex or fighting. Their wolves were smart animals, but they still were slaves to their more primal needs. Hayden’s brother and family were proof of that.
After Hayden ran for several miles, Damien cut him off. Hayden shifted. “What the fuck, Damien?”
“Talk.”
Not a man of a lot of words, his alpha. “Nothing to talk about. It was a tougher mission than usual. Callen was supposed to lead the men away while I got the women to the meeting point. Nothing went according to plan, but we’re here. Callen has Kate and you have your new doctor.”
“And what do you have, Hayden?”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me. I can see it in your body language and the fact that you’ve barely said a word since returning.”
“We’ve only been back an hour.”
“And in that hour, you’ve growled upon entering my house, barely nodded hello to Tess and Anna, and then growled at Blade for some reason I can’t even fathom because for once he wasn’t being a jerk. On top of that, you totally ignored Abbie when she waved to you from across the compound.”
He hadn’t thought Damien had been watching. Not that it mattered. Hayden hadn’t made any promises to Abbie, not really. That explained why she had waved to him. He had asked her out before leaving with Callen to look for one Dr. Evans, Dr. Mila Evans, the woman who had grabbed hold of his dreams and his soul as surely as if she had grabbed hold of his cock. Great, one more fucking image to add to the collection haunting him. Except this was one he wanted to explore, with her.
“Whatever’s bothering you, don’t take it out on Abbie.”
Hayden had completely forgotten about Abbie. They were supposed to go down to the lake when he returned. Shit.
“It’s been a rough few weeks, Damien. Don’t read into it.”
Damien sighed, as he was prone to do when he was frustrated and forcing himself to be patient. “I spoke with Callen, briefly. He said he got cut off by U.S. ground troops. Any idea what they’re doing up by Medicine Bow or where they’re headed?”
“I didn’t see them. I had to contend with shifters following us.”
“From which pack?”
“No clue. Lone wolves maybe, banding together, forming their own pack.”
“Just what we don’t need. Good thing you stole a car. No way for them to track your scent here. And what happened to Dr. Evans? She’s pretty banged up.”
If it were any other shifter, Hayden would take that as an accusation. Damien knew how easily an op could go sideways. Then again, Mila’s injuries had been more than an op gone wrong.
“I screwed up. Performed a wider perimeter than I should have. One slipped through.”
“She’ll heal.”
“She should have healed by now. I didn’t even manage to accurately assess her injuries afterward. Don’t send me out on any other missions, Damien. I’m no good at it.”
“You got them back alive, Hayden. That’s what matters.”
“Tell that to Dr. Evans.
Last night, after I returned with the car, I listened to her crying out in her sleep all fucking night long. If I could help her forget what happened to her, I would, but I can’t.”
“Is that why you’re sulking? You feel guilty over what happened? You expect too much of yourself. The mission was a success. You got Dr. Evans back here, and you managed to find Kate, too. I’d say it was better than a success. More like a fucking miracle.”
“Kate found us. And I’m not sulking.” He was, but admitting it out loud wasn’t something he’d do, not to Damien who had managed to work through what had happened to Tess without taking it out on the world. Maybe that was because she’d taken to Damien from the start. Mila had rejected Hayden.
“Tell me what to do, Hayden.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re my second, the one I always go to for advice. I have this friend who’s punishing himself for something that was out of his control, and I don’t know how to help him. And I suspect he’s hiding something more from me.”
“I’m loyal to you, Damien.”
Damien’s brow quirked. “In what universe did I give you the impression I thought otherwise?”
“You didn’t. But you should. With my history, you should.”
“It’s not your history. It’s your uncle’s and your brother’s. You were just caught up in it as innocent bystanders often are.”
The powerful white wolf stood over Reina, who lay in the dirt with her neck at an awkward angle, eyes open, blank, and quite dead. The coppery taste of blood slipped into Hayden’s mouth as he and the new alpha, Drake, circled the former alpha’s body. Nothing would stop the fight, not after what Hayden had done.
Damien’s large hand clamped down on Hayden’s shoulder, turning him back toward camp and ripping him from his memories. “Now, tell me about Dr. Evans.”
“Mila. She doesn’t like being called ‘doctor’ for some reason.”
“Mila then. What’s she like? I had planned to put her in the same cabin as Pryce, but that’s when I was expecting a male.”
“Put her with Aloe. They’ll get along.” He wasn’t quite sure about that, but if Aloe could put up with obstinate, hard-headed Damien then she could certainly put up with Mila who got along beautifully with Kate and from the look of it back at the house, was comfortable with Tess and Anna. There was no way in hell Hayden would let her stay with Pryce and Frank, even if they weren’t the type to take advantage of a woman. Pryce and his Southern charm might just sweep Mila off her feet. And then there was Frank and his penchant for books. As a doctor, Mila was probably a reader. He could see those two getting along really well, especially if Frank didn’t talk much. Mila would probably see him as a challenge, which he was.
“That’s all you have to say about her?”
“What do you want me to say? She’s smart, beautiful, cares about her patients, and she’s not the best at taking orders.”
“And?” Damien prodded.
“And she’s way out of my league.”
Damien chuckled. “I thought so.”
“I know better than to set my sights too high.”
“That’s not what I meant. You like her.”
Hayden glared at him. “Don’t. Just. . . don’t. And tell Tess not to meddle, too.”
“Tess doesn’t meddle. She arranges.”
“Boy, has she got her hand wrapped around your cock.”
Damien smiled. “Yes, indeed. You should try it. Maybe then you won’t be so damn moody.”
Hayden shook his head in defeat. That was coming from the king of moody himself. He’d love nothing more than to have Mila’s hand around his cock, or any part of him. That just wasn’t going to happen. As she kept telling Kate, he was a white wolf.
* * *
MILA
The alpha’s mate, Tess, led Mila to a house not too far from her own. The shifter who lived there, Aloe, apparently was visiting her sister at another pack and wouldn’t be back for a while. Mila wasn’t quite sure how she felt about moving into the woman’s house without her knowing, but Mila had to sleep somewhere. She just had to make sure to be tidy and keep the place in good shape.
As for a lab, there was a storage unit that Anna used for her research. She had only met the genetic engineer briefly at Damien’s before Tess pulled her along for the grand tour of the Pack’s compound, where she and Damien’s house stood. The lodge, cookhouse, and various storage sheds were just beyond the first line of trees, with most of the families living down the various trails that led outward from the compound.
Getting time to sit down with Anna and learning what she was doing, what she had discovered about the virus was paramount. Anna said she had set up the previous doctor’s research in the storage unit where she worked since she and Mila would need to share some equipment. The place had its own dedicated generator too, and a slew of maintenance workers on call if the generator broke down.
It almost sounded like a real lab, better than what Mila had at her pack. A small room in the back of her house without any support if the power failed. Then again, having her lab in her house had been convenient. She didn’t have to cross the compound on her way to or from work, risking any unwanted attention from Vance or their alpha, Truman.
From the moment Tess opened the door to Aloe’s, Mila tuned out everything the shifter was saying. The memory of Hayden and that oh-so-seductive kiss took over, pushing aside all thoughts of sharing a lab with Anna and of no longer having to worry about the risks in crossing a compound to get supplies.
That kiss had been passionate, warm, everything she had ever imagined a kiss should be, except it had been one-sided. Hayden had no use for her; his body language, the way he barely spoke to her said as much. That kiss had been him testing the waters, perhaps. In any event, whatever it was, Hayden wasn’t her future. Her future consisted of defeating this damn virus and maybe earning a place in this pack.
Then, why couldn’t she forget about Hayden’s deep black eyes and how soft and gentle his voice could be with her? This was foolishness. She was acting like a teenage girl. She just had to ride it out, ignore this obsession of hers until it went away.
“And if there’s anything else you need, just come to me. I’m helping organize the weekly supply runs into town, but given the reason you’re here, we can make any trip, day or night, to get you whatever you need. For the complicated medical stuff, though, write down precisely what it is you need and the type of places we can, ah, procure it.”
“Don’t you mean steal?”
“Yes and no. We leave money for anything we take, but technically it’s still stealing since we’re not going through proper channels. Can’t leave a trail let alone wait for red tape to clear when it comes to this. This virus. . .” Tess sucked in a breath and then slowly released it. “It’s too deadly and damaging to wait for the humans to open their eyes. Despite the work Kate did getting them to start noticing that the WSSO has been killing shifters, we could all be dead before anyone in the government takes action. If anyone takes action, that is.”
“You sound like you don’t believe any humans care about what’s happening.”
“I guess Damien’s pessimism is rubbing off on me a bit. I grew up in Florida, in the middle of a city, so around here I’m probably the best-versed in human behavior and how they think. Some humans hate us, others fear us, but mostly they’re more concerned about how our existence impacts them. Either way, until the U.S. Government takes measures to help us, we have to defend ourselves. And that’s not just Damien talking.”
“I went to college and then medical school, six years in all since I was on an accelerated track. I had my fair share living among humans too. They’re not that bad. They kind of have it easy, all on the same footing in terms of their abilities at least.”
“Oh, don’t even get me started on the whole strong shifter weak shifter debate or we’ll be here all day and I want to get you settled as fast as possible.”
“Are the weak shifter
s. . .” Mila forced her arms to her side so she wouldn’t wring her fingers. “Are they shunned or abused?” she asked, cautiously.
Tess’s frown deepened. “Nothing like that, but there’s definitely a class split here. They don’t exactly get the best jobs and some of them feel as if they have no right to speak up.” Tess grabbed a set of clean sheets from a linen closet toward the back of the house. “This pack is slow to accept change. I tried pushing a few changes through faster than they were willing to consider, and it backfired on me. The strong wolves want to keep the weak wolves where they are, and the weak wolves are more intimidated than ever, taking out their frustration in little ways. I’m not sure Damien’s noticed. He’s a little slow to notice the subtle things around here, but I’m working on him.”
“You’re a rather progressive shifter, Tess. I take it you’re a weak wolf then?”
“Yes and no. I survived the virus and it left me completely cut-off from my wolf. I resigned myself to live as a human, which around here is hard. I’m not sure how Anna does it, but she does, with a smile to boot.”
“The ones who survived in my pack have the same issue. It’s been a rude awakening to get a taste of what it’s like for weak shifters, and it created a power shift in my pack. Those who survived the virus but lost their shifter abilities in the process now find themselves at the mercy of the strong and weak wolves. They’re being taunted, called ‘human’ and worse. It’s not a good situation.”
“Then you’ll want to have Anna bring you up to speed on the fix.”
“There’s a fix? Seriously?” That stunned Mila. The very idea that they could return shifters’ ability to shift was mind-boggling. Everything in her pack could go back to the way it was. Mila shuddered.
“You cold? Are your injuries more than the bruises and cuts on your face and hands?”
“Concussion. Bruised ribs, strained right knee and more bruises along my legs. And yes, I’m a bit cold from lack of sleep, food mostly. I’ll be back to normal in a few days.”
Hayden’s Haven Page 7