Hayden’s Haven

by Cohen, Julie K.

  A few minutes later, they were at the base of a frozen waterfall at the edge of a fifty-foot cliff. The sight was incredible. Impossibly long and thick glistening icicles spanned the cliff in a curtain of frozen water. Hayden set her down. Mila climbed the nearby rocks, feeling the call to touch one icicle, to be a part of that striking display of nature.

  As she glided her hand along a long expanse of ice, Hayden circled his arms around her from behind, holding her to make sure she wouldn’t fall. “It’s magnificent,” she said, her voice soft as she took in the majesty of the frozen falls.

  “I thought you’d like it. Granted, it’s not as magical as chocolate.”

  She turned into him, only to be greeted by a grin and playful expression that fit Hayden so well. He hid this side back at camp.

  She traced his jaw with her fingers. “Are you happy here, Hayden?”

  “In Damien’s pack? Yes. I have friends, work that never gets boring, and the freedom to be myself.”

  “Really? You seem so reserved at times.”

  “It’s how I was raised, I guess. Never show your displeasure with others. Temper yourself. Think before acting. My mother had a lot of platitudes, but they served their purpose.”

  “What purpose was that?”

  “Survival.”

  “Oh. She’s a cautious woman, I take it.”

  “She was.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

  “It’s fine,” he said as he shrugged. “My parents have been gone a long time. But as I said, I have friends here.”

  “How many friends have you taken to these falls?” she asked, trying to put that grin back on his face. It had slipped away when asked if he was happy.

  “Just you.”

  That grin of his returned with a vengeance. As did the pulsing between her thighs. She was so in trouble if a mere look from him had that effect on her, which it most certainly did.

  Soft lips met hers. Hayden tasted rich and smooth, and much more sinful than chocolate. A hand sifted through her hair and held her as she stepped into his larger frame. His other hand smoothed down her back as his velvety tongue wrapped around hers, caressing her in a way that made her melt into his arms.

  Oh, yes, he was definitely one candy she’d enjoy peeling and tasting, but that hand caressing her ass felt too good, too dangerous. She’d give in to him too easily, she knew that now. It’s not that she was easy, far from it. She’d only been with Vance and one guy before him, but Hayden wasn’t like them. There was an honesty in the way he touched her and all her walls that she’d built up over the past few years disappeared as if Hayden wasn’t only her path but her destination as well.

  The hand on her ass never moved to lift her shirt and enter her pants. He simply held her for now. He was taking this slow. And she was letting him.

  She was a fool.

  “I. . . I have to get back to my lab, Hayden. I have results I have to log at regular intervals. My data will be compromised if—”

  “It’s okay, Mila,” he said as he ran one hand through her hair before finally breaking away. “We can go back now.”

  He took her hand and led her down the steep path away from the falls. The place was really spectacular, and she’d always remember it, but not in as much detail as that kiss. That spine-tingling, losing-herself-in-Hayden kiss.

  They walked in silence until they approached the compound. Though it wasn’t an awkward silence, not in the least. Hayden continued holding her hand, and she let him. Ha. . . she let him. It felt odd thinking she had choices, but with Hayden, there was never a question. She was in charge of her life, not him. She got to choose. And it felt nice, freeing.

  “After you treat your pack, you can come back here if you want. We’ll welcome you back,” he said as they approached the center compound.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I mean, we’re down a doctor, a medical doctor. Pryce is a medic, trained for battle, though we haven’t had any major skirmishes in years, not since Damien signed peace agreements with most of the nearby packs. Every so often, we have an issue with the bear shifters to the north and northeast—”

  “Hayden,” she interrupted. “You’re rambling.”

  “Oh, I guess I am.” The ends of his mouth kicked up. “I guess what I’m saying is that Pryce does what he can, taking care of injuries that are too much for our wolves, but his training is limited. Before the kids have their first shift, if something happens that Pryce can’t handle, we take them to a doctor in Devil’s Peak. The kids present as human at that age, so no problem. But with our growing human population, we could use a doctor here.”

  “Growing human population. You have Anna. That’s it. And as you said, you can take her to town like you do the kids, if she ever needs a doctor.”

  “She’s carrying a half-shifter child. You’ve already seen how being half-shifter affected Kate’s healing, and that was with her blood-bond helping her. What if something happens to the baby? Or Kate suffers another serious injury, one that’s too taxing for her wolf alone to heal? There are parts to our makeup that we can’t easily explain to a doctor, even to the ones willing to treat a shifter, and there aren’t many of those.”

  It was a legitimate concern and a nice offer, although Mila didn’t know where it was coming from. Quite frankly, it was too far off to think about. She had to focus on the vaccine and returning to her pack to treat the survivors of the virus, all while avoiding Vance.

  She shook her head, trying not to let that bastard enter her thoughts. She liked it here and thinking of him just put a dark cloud over everything. Nonetheless, she still had a duty to those innocents she’d left behind.

  “I can’t just leave my pack. I have to return with a working vaccine and a treatment for those who lost the ability to shift.” Then she’d leave them again, somehow.

  His jaws tightened. “Is there another in your life? Someone waiting for you back at your pack, Mila?”

  Not as far as she was concerned. Vance would say otherwise. But leading Hayden on wasn’t smart. That kiss—that blessedly scrumptious kiss—was as far as anything could go between them. “Yes,” she said after too long of a pause.

  A sly smile crept onto Hayden’s face. “He doesn’t mean much to you, or you would have been quicker to answer.”

  “He proposed,” she bit back, wishing she had the guts to tell Hayden everything, like how she’d never mate Vance. Never in a million years.

  “You didn’t accept, or you would have said as much. Interesting.”

  How did he see right through her? “Thank you for showing me the falls.”

  “Next time we can go to the underground caverns. There are some fabulous stalagmite and stalactite formations to see.”

  Next time? Were they dating? “Maybe. I-I have to get back to work.”

  As she turned to head back to the lab, Hayden reached out and caught a tendril of her hair. He sidled up behind her, so close that the heat from his body warmed her torso and backside despite the cold February air. As he stepped closer, his scent flooded her and his hands lingered in her hair, pulling slightly to lock her to him. Heat pooled in her belly and traveled lower. The vision of him sinking his hands into her hair while taking her from behind was so sudden she nearly gasped.

  “You can stay here,” he said, whispering in her ear as his hand sifted through her hair until she leaned her head back against his broad chest. “The pack has already accepted you, and that isn’t an easy feat to accomplish for an outsider. It means you’re one of them. You’ll be protected, given the freedom to pursue your career and have your pick of any available shifter. Though they will have to go through me to get to you, my Mila.”

  My Mila? God, if only she could be his. She’d do anything to make that happen, but it wouldn’t last, not when he learned the truth.

  “I’m not yours, Hayden,” she replied, her voice barely above a whisper.

  “Not yet,” he said as his hand slid away.

  She fe
lt the loss of him pulling away as keenly as if she had removed her winter coat and been struck by an arctic blast. She didn’t dare turn around, because if he was still standing there, looking at her, she’d crack. She’d tell him that she hated her pack and never wanted to go back, that she wanted to stay here with him.

  That was the very last thing she could let happen because Hayden would damn well make sure that dream became a reality.

  Chapter Seven

  MILA

  Mila watched the pack gathering around the lake, stripping down and shifting one by one. The cries of the weaker pack members shifting throughout the crowd sliced through her, making her spine stiffen and her mind recall the pain and agony of her last shift before the virus.

  “You could be out there running with them,” Anna said, rescuing her from the memory. “I’ve only performed the treatment on Tess, but it worked. Hayden says you’re not willing to try yet, that something about it scares you.”

  “He picked up on that, did he?” She wasn’t scared that it would fail, but that it would work.

  “He’s observant, detail-oriented, but he can’t read minds, Mila. I don’t mean to pry, but you haven’t even asked about the protocols. It’s as if you don’t care if you regain your ability to shift.”

  Hayden wasn’t the only observant one. “I don’t feel like I’m missing anything, if that’s what you’re thinking. I simply don’t want to split my focus right now. I realize that must sound lame, but there’s nothing I really miss about being a shifter. Sure, the ability to heal faster is useful, but it’s not like I get injured that often. What happened back in Wyoming was a rarity.”

  That was an outright lie, but it wasn’t to Hayden which somehow would have been ten times worse. Then again, she didn’t like lying to Anna. Mila turned to her new friend, taking in her blonde hair, blue eyes, and rounding belly. Anna stood out here in so many ways, yet she was totally comfortable in this pack. For them to accept a human as one of their own was quite impressive. Why didn’t the pack accept Hayden the same way? He was shifter, and a strong one at that.

  “I promise I’ll go over it soon. I’ll take it back to my pack and ensure everyone gets the treatment.”

  “Including you?”

  “Why would I skip it?”

  That seemed to satisfy Anna. Mila wondered when she had become so skilled at avoiding the truth. Was it when Vance would accuse her of looking at other shifters, treating them when they really didn’t need it? Or was it more recent, driven by this need to protect herself from the pain she would feel if she let anything develop between her and Hayden?

  She glanced toward the rocks where the top shifters stood as Damien talked to the pack. At this distance, neither she nor Anna could hear what he was saying, but the pack seemed energized. This pack loved and supported Damien, and they’d do anything for him, but not Hayden. Her eyes sought out the handsome shifter.

  Hayden was staring at her as Damien shifted and leapt from the rocks, the pack following after him. Hayden ignored the flurry of wolves racing past him as he held her eyes. Then with a slight quirk of his mouth, he shifted. It was as if he was making a promise that in the future they’d run together. He wasn’t giving up on her. This was definitely not good.

  * * *

  There was a banging somewhere nearby, like hammering, that woke Mila. If she had been back at her pack, she would have opened up the door to yell at whoever was making a racket when the sun was barely up. At least she would have wanted to, knowing full well that calling attention to herself like that never ended well.

  She always found it odd how being a doctor earned a human a lot of respect, but a shifter just the opposite, at least back home. No one there could understand why she had ‘wasted so many years’ of her life to becoming a doctor when most shifters healed on their own. Gaining knowledge never seemed like a waste to her, and the shifters here certainly appreciated her coming to work on the vaccine. She hoped she didn’t let them down.

  The banging, along with a car backfiring finally killed any chance of falling back to sleep. Mila quickly dressed, grabbed her coat and headed in the direction of the noise. A few hundred feet beyond Damien’s house and down a small hill, stood a dozen or so shifters, surrounded by sawhorses, gas-powered saws, hammers, spools of cables and wires, and other construction materials. Several trees had been cleared and the stumps were presently being removed despite the cold morning.

  Four shifters were unloading wood beams from the truck she had heard backfire. In the center of it all stood the mousy shifter she had seen talking to Hayden yesterday. The short shifter with the stringy hair and very humdrum hazel eyes was yelling orders at three different groups of men, concurrently. He was small, but he was definitely in control of whatever was going on.

  Mila hugged her arms tight to her body, wishing she could access her wolf and not have to suffer the cold. She only had herself to blame for not taking the time to make a pot of coffee before heading out.

  “What do you think?” Hayden said from behind, sending a slight chill through her body. He had snuck up on her all too easily.

  “Think of what? I’m not sure what they’re building,” she said as she resisted him.

  “A lab for you. And Anna.”

  She spun around. “Seriously?”

  This smile reached his eyes. “We can’t have our two most valuable assets freezing to death in that janitor’s shack. You’ll have plenty of space, with proper insulation, electricity, and heat. Of course, it’s still only generator driven and those aren’t as good as living in a city—”

  “It’s perfect!” she said as she bounced on her heels and kissed Hayden without realizing what she was doing. His arms circled her waist and held her there before she could pull away.

  “Anything for you, Mila.”

  Her smile faltered. “You can’t bribe me to stay here, Hayden.”

  “Would staying be so bad? Or is it because I’m here that you don’t want to stay?”

  “Why would you say that?” she asked, searching his eyes. She wished she understood the sadness there.

  “You’re afraid of me,” he said.

  “What makes you think—”

  “I’m a white wolf, and I know that scares you. And every time I try to strike up a conversation with you, you find an excuse to walk away, or you avoid me altogether.”

  “I’m talking to you now.”

  “And if I asked you to go for a walk with me, would you?”

  “I was heading to the lab—”

  “Then later. Lunchtime. Or dinner. A coffee break even. You name the time.”

  She opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out.

  His hands slid off of her. “Just as I figured.”

  Hayden turned and headed up the hill. He had finally gotten the message that she had been giving him for the past two weeks, the one that said she wasn’t interested.

  Except she was.

  Wait!” she called after him, except he ignored her and kept walking.

  She never did catch up to him. She found his clothes, abandoned at the base of a tree. He had shifted, let his wolf run as she had seen him do several times since they’d returned to his pack.

  Hayden was one of the calmest shifters she knew, but he bottled up all his frustrations inside of him. She had seen him take off running time and time again, mostly after an encounter with a shifter who disrespected him. She was sure Damien would never put up with half the things some of the shifters here said about Hayden, even to Hayden, but Hayden simply bottled it up and ran rather than turn on anyone.

  This time he was running because of her. Now she wished she had taken Anna’s treatment, so she could catch up to Hayden. His tracks stood out easily enough in the fresh layer of snow. It would definitely take her longer on two legs as opposed to four, but she could find him.

  She started out with a moderate jog, pacing herself. Hayden could have gone a mile or four, and she wasn’t in the best of shape. Hiking t
hrough the woods was a necessity in any pack situated in the forest, but doing so during winter when she didn’t have her wolf’s stamina to add to her own or even ward off the cold was another challenge. The weather turned on a dime in the mountains and already heavy snow was blanketing the area, quickly covering up Hayden’s tracks. She stopped, braced her hands on her knees and tried to get her bearing as she caught her breath.

  That’s when she realizes she wasn’t alone. Someone or something was watching her. The usual sounds of the forest had stilled, and the wind whipping through the trees had taken on an eerie quality that made her think of those slasher films Becka, her roommate in college, loved so much. Mila scanned the forest floor for a branch, but there was too much snow.

  Nerves, she told herself, when she didn’t see anything or anyone. Then, a low growl echoed all around her. Clouds hid the sun and a fresh layer of snow had already covered her footprints. Mila ran in what she hoped was the correct direction.

  Off to her left, a tree branch snapped. Mila ran as hard as her legs could go. Cold air ripped through her lungs as she pumped her muscles harder than ever before. Tree branches whipped against her arms and face as the wind tossed her hair into her eyes, blinding her. She tripped over something and went down hard.

  A hand grabbed her by her coat and pulled her up. She unzipped her coat, slid free and ran.

  “Mila, stop!”

  She knew that voice. There was safety and warmth in that deep voice that pushed all the fear and terror aside. Before she could turn, strong arms pulled her against a hard chest. Why she was shivering, she didn’t know. She had only lost her coat seconds earlier. Hayden’s large hand cupped the back of her head as he whispered something to her. Words that weren’t making any sense. The terror was still too fresh, too real.

  He tipped her head back, drawing the pad of one thumb across her freezing cheek. The heat he left behind felt too good to be true, like Hayden.

  “Why did you run from me?” he asked, his tone soft. He wasn’t mad, not in the least. It was a pleasant change from everything she had known in her birth pack.