Hayden’s Haven

by Cohen, Julie K.

  “There’s too much at stake, Mila. Hayden’s our best shot.”

  “I’m not saying you should sacrifice the other pack or Aloe.” Mila clung to Hayden. She wasn’t sure what she was suggesting, just anything other than sending Hayden in on a suicide mission, because that’s exactly what this would be. Suicide.

  Damien’s eyes softened, returning to their usual gray. “There’s more than Aloe and Liam’s pack at stake here. More than the few hundred shifters of our packs combined. If the Department of Shifter Affairs declares shifters an enemy of the state, this will be an all-out war. No one will win.

  Hayden’s expression was odd, almost pained as he faced Damien. “I’m not challenging my brother.”

  “We don’t have a choice. I was short-sighted in not contacting any other packs. I was counting on Liam. Now, with Sloan’s threat, there’s no time to muster help from our other packs. The time alone it would take me to travel there and convince them. . .”

  Damien’s face tightened. “This is our best option, Hayden. Unless you have another plan.” When Hayden said nothing, Damien looked to Mila for help. She couldn’t give it. She didn’t want Hayden going up against psychopath. “We’ll talk later. Come see me in an hour.” Damien headed out, leaving the three guards outside the cabin’s door.

  Hayden closed the door and sank against it. She wished she knew what he was thinking, but he wasn’t saying anything.

  “I’m close on the vaccine,” Mila said, feeling horrible the second she said it. Damien was right. Thousands would die. Drake still had the HEV in his possession and he’d use it if threatened or pushed. It wouldn’t matter if she managed to create the vaccine, found a way to manufacture enough doses and distribute it to every wolf shifter in the U.S., the government would find other ways to eliminate them if Drake unleashed that HEV to the general population. The innocent humans didn’t deserve that fate either.

  “Forget I said that. It was dumb.”

  Hayden took her by the back of her neck and drew her in close. The feel of his hand there, one that would keep her from running gave her a sense of permanence she longed to have with him.

  He pressed his forehead to hers. “It wasn’t dumb, and I appreciate that you’re trying to find a solution.”

  Something was very off about Hayden. That old fear began to creep through her bones. “You can’t go up against him,” she said, her voice low.

  “You don’t think I could take my brother.” Hayden sounded offended.

  “I didn’t say that. I don’t want to risk you in a fight, that’s all.”

  “Of course not,” he said, brushing by her as he headed into the bedroom. She stood by the dark fireplace, feeling chilled but not from the lack of fire.

  Hayden finished dressing in a white cable-knit sweater, which for some reason reminded her of his white wolf. She had never seen him wear white before. Now, it was as if he was flaunting the color, as if he needed to prove something to her, or maybe Damien. He was headed there directly, without bothering to eat breakfast.

  “I’ll go with you,” she said. Just wait for me to get changed. She rushed back into the bedroom, suddenly remembering she didn’t have any clothing here. She had shifted in the woods. After Vance attacked, Hayden had brought her directly here. She hastily searched through his clothes. The robe was probably the best option given anything he had would float on her. Hell, she didn’t even have shoes. She found an old pair of his sneakers and stuffed extra socks in the toes to take up some of the room. It wasn’t ideal, but it would last until she got back to Aloe’s.

  Mila rushed back into the living room. “I hope you don’t mind that—” She stopped, dead cold. Hayden had left without her.

  * * *

  HAYDEN

  Hayden didn’t wait for Mila because this conversation with Damien would likely not end well, and he didn’t want her caught in the middle trying to make peace between them. For that matter, he planned to suggest to Damien that he tell Tess to leave if she was home. If this turned ugly, then neither of the women should be present.

  “Coward,” someone called from across the compound.

  Hayden stopped for a moment, thought about turning to see who it was with the big mouth, but then did what he usually did. He kept walking. It wasn’t worth his time to find the idiot and show him just how he wasn’t a coward.

  “They know,” Mila whispered beside him.

  Hell, he had been so lost in thought he hadn’t heard her sneak up behind him. With a quick glance over his shoulder, he noticed the three guards trailing her. Yes, Damien would watch over her if Hayden was no longer around. That knowledge comforted Hayden.

  “Secrets are hard to come by here,” he said, trying to be polite. Perhaps in her pack, it was different. Maybe they were more spread out. Damn shifter hearing was a blessing and a curse.

  He thought of telling Mila to leave, that this meeting with Damien was private, but her presence would give him and Damien an excuse to get rid of Tess too. They could ask Tess to take Mila somewhere, maybe town to shop for some clothes. By his count, aside from the clothing she had shredded during her shift yesterday, she only had a dress and another pair of jeans.

  As they walked up Damien’s front steps, Mila slipped her hand in his. Her touch, god help him, brought him such peace and strength. She was smart, brave, and caring, everything a shifter could want in a mate—and she was his.

  He entered without knocking. Part of him felt bad for that, given how he knew Tess frowned on shifters entering without knocking, but he had a message of his own for his alpha.

  “Relax,” Mila whispered at his side. “Doctor’s orders.”

  He quirked a brow and was tempted to flirt with her, that need to put a smile on her face ever-present. That’s when Damien rose from the table in the kitchen. Tess was nowhere in sight, but Blade was in the kitchen with Damien, a cup of coffee on the table in front of him. Curious, considering those two rarely talked so casually. Business between Damien and Blade was usually in Damien’s office.

  “Perhaps you should go find Tess, find some clothes,” Hayden said, flashing Mila a quick smile. “Maybe go shopping in town. You’re running low, and now that you’re shifting again, you’ll need more than the one dress and pair of jeans, at least until Aloe returns.”

  “If Aloe returns,” Damien added.

  If. Aloe would be killed along with the rest of Liam’s pack unless Hayden challenged Drake. “There is nothing you or anyone can do that will make me fight my brother.”

  “That’s twice you’ve referred to Drake as your brother,” Damien said.

  “He is my brother.”

  “I can’t recall the last time you referred to him as your brother though. Suddenly, you’re talking as if you owe him something. Have I lost your loyalty, Hayden?”

  “I’ve always been loyal to you.”

  “Have been. Past tense. What about now?”

  “Don’t make me do this, Damien.”

  “Make you answer if you’re loyal to me, or make you challenge Drake?”

  It was a good question, a fair question. “I’ll always be loyal to you. I haven’t forgotten what you’ve done for me, but I can’t—I won’t—challenge Drake.”

  “Loyal when it’s convenient for you. Is that it?”

  “Nothing about this situation is convenient. If Drake came after you or anyone, I’d defend them with my life, even if it means Drake’s death. But I will not challenge him.”

  “You can beat him. I know you don’t think you’re strong enough, but you are.”

  “This won’t work. Just like a shifter war won’t work. But you can’t see it, Damien, because as usual, you don’t value my opinion. You ask if I’m loyal to you, if I believe in you, I have and always will be, but that’s more than I can say about you.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “You’re not much better than the rest of this pack. You say you believe in me, but in the back of your mind, you’re always
wondering if you did the right thing in accepting me into the pack, in making me your second. You don’t think I’m stronger than Callen or even smart enough to hold the position should something happen to you. But the worst part is that you don’t trust me, you never have, not fully at least.”

  “What the fuck, Hayden? What’s possessed you to think let alone say that? I’ve always trusted you. I’ve known you a long time, since before you killed Logan and Drake branded you a traitor.”

  “Is that why you dismiss me from every summit you’ve had with Drake and Liam or any fucking discussion you’ve had regarding Drake? As if it’s not hard enough dealing with the stares and the comments from this pack, from shifters who know nothing about what really happened, you exclude me from so much around here. I’m your second for fuck’s sake, Damien! I should be privy and involved in every aspect of this pack! You undermine my credibility when you don’t trust me enough to include me in those meetings.”

  Mila came up behind him, placing a soothing hand on his back, but he didn’t want soothing. He shrugged her off of him and stepped closer to Damien who was standing in a defensive position, as if he expected Hayden to strike.

  “You’re wrong,” Blade said as he rose from where he had remained seated in the kitchen. He didn’t think the shifter was talking to him these days. “Damien kept you out of those meetings to protect you.”

  “Enough, Blade,” Damien said, swiftly turning around to silence him.

  “Finish it, Blade. Damien certainly won’t tell me. He’s too used to keeping me in the dark.”

  “Drake’s been trying to get to you for years. Callen’s stopped shifters sent over the border to kill you, multiple times. And every time Drake is here, we see how he says and does everything he can to belittle you. We see how it affects you, Hayden, all of us. You’re not yourself when Drake’s name comes up. Like now. Accusing Damien of not respecting you, of not trusting you. . .That’s not you talking. Not the you that we normally see.

  “You know I’ve had my issues with this pack, probably always will, but I have to tell you, brother, when it comes to Drake, you cannot be objective. You need to step away and trust us. We’re not your brothers by blood, but we’ll die for you, each and every one of us.”

  Damien stood halfway between the two but said nothing as his focus returned to Hayden, waiting for him to speak. The next move was his apparently. Blade was right, he couldn’t be objective when it came to Drake. Even now, a haze of anger covered his emotions and fueled his desire to strike out at someone. He wasn’t even sure if that someone was Drake at this point.

  Mila slipped her hand into Hayden’s and squeezed, tempering the anger. He didn’t push her away, he couldn’t. He needed her too much. And he was too tired, too emotionally drained to think straight. He couldn’t reconcile his loyalty to these shifters to the loyalty that still remained deep inside him for his brother.

  After a long stretch of silence, Damien closed the gap between them. His stance had relaxed. This was Damien the best friend now, not Hayden’s alpha.

  “This pack believes rumors and stories they’ve made up over the years, Hayden, because you’ve never told them what happened. I’ve never needed to know the full story because I know you. But the rest of them, you’ve never given them a chance to really know you.”

  Did he even care what the shifters here thought about him at this point? Mila’s hand in his gave him part of his answer. He cared about what she thought, and truth be told, what Damien, Blade, Callen, Frank, Aloe, and Pryce thought as well. And the women who’d come into their lives. Mason and his mate, Takara, the one shifter in Damien’s pack who Hayden had known from childhood, the only other person in this whole damn pack who knew what it was like living in Hayden’s birth pack. Abbie. . . she’d always been one of the sweeter shifters he had dated, one that didn’t seem to be after him because he was a strong shifter. Maybe Ferguson too. He had gone out of his way to get Mila and Anna’s lab done on time and on spec. Maybe Damien was right.

  “Maybe you can tell Anna for me.” Hayden took a deep breath. “I’m sorry for what Drake did to her. And for when I called her Reina. Reina was very special, to both of us.”

  “She was special to a lot of shifters,” Damien added. “And Anna looks a lot like her. It was an understandable slip of the tongue.”

  “I overreacted,” Blade added. “And I should have returned after I got Anna away from the mob forming.”

  Hayden nodded, appreciating the words and the sincerity behind them.

  “I think that’s why Drake took her,” Hayden said. “I never said anything before because of everything going on with the WSSO. I had hoped it was Anna’s ties to the WSSO and not her resemblance to Reina that caused Drake to take her. Because if it was her resemblance, well, that would have meant Drake really had gone crazy, and I wasn’t ready to accept that.

  “Why Reina?” Damien asked. “What was she to Drake?”

  “Reina and Drake were to be blood-bonded. He was madly in love with her, and he blames me for her death.”

  “How did she die?” Mila asked, her voice soft beside him. She had never let go of his hand. That gave him the strength he needed to continue. He had held onto the story long enough.

  “Logan,” Hayden said.

  “Always Logan,” Damien growled the alpha’s name. “My father should have killed him when he’s had the chance. You were right to kill him, Hayden.”

  “See, that’s just it. I never intended to. I cared for Reina, too, though I wasn’t in love with her. I tried to tell her to leave, that Logan was unstable and being anywhere near him wasn’t safe. I saw the way he had been watching her, like a cat watches a mouse. He’d already killed Lacey, his blood-bonded mate, not that I could ever prove that. Lacey simply disappeared one day without any alarm being raised or Logan searching for her. Reina wouldn’t listen to my warnings. She thought I was jealous of Drake being the alpha heir. She thought being Drake’s intended would protect her. A day or two after that conversation, I heard her screaming. By the time I got to her, she was dead. Logan had killed her.

  “That’s when I attacked Logan, my alpha. He was sane at the time, or as sane as he ever was, that is. I’m still not sure if he had been going feral when he blood-bonded Lacey. I know I told you he was going feral, Damien, but there was something never quite right about Logan, so I just can’t say for sure. The point is, I had no right to put him down, but I did. In that sense, when Drake or this pack calls me a traitor, they’re right.

  “It’s not the same thing,” Mila said. She smiled at him with such innocence it humbled him. She was too far removed from pack politics, too sheltered to see the situation as everyone in his pack, as the shifters in Damien’s pack saw it.

  Hayden cupped her cheek. “I killed him in a fit of rage, sunshine. An alpha can kill anyone, without repercussion. I was not alpha. It was not for me to take him down, without a formal challenge. And that’s not what this was. With no witness to say otherwise, it was simply murder. I was—I am—indeed a traitor to my former pack.”

  “Finish,” Damien said, as he folded his arms across his chest.

  Damien wanted the whole truth, the entire sordid mess. Hayden had come this far, he had to finish. Even if Drake never listened, someone would know the full story.

  “Drake and several guards arrived at the same time. All they saw was Reina with blood on her hand and a snapped neck, and Logan with three claw marks down his chest, another down his arm, and his throat torn out. I was covered in blood, but otherwise unharmed. Before I could say anything, a guard accused me of killing both. Drake believed them. I protested, but Drake couldn’t hear me. He was in shock. The loss was too much for him, I think. There’s one thing you have to understand about Drake. Above all else, he loved Reina and he idolized Logan. Logan had taken Drake in, to live with him when Drake was only ten, and he raised him as his son. He never would have accepted the truth about what Logan had tried to do.”

  “Which
was what exactly?”

  “Logan forced Reina to blood-bond him, and he ended up killing her in the process.”

  “That’s. . .” Mila couldn’t finish her thought, but the unshed tears said enough. Hayden cupped her cheek before facing Damien.

  “Now you understand, Damien, why I can’t challenge Drake. I am the traitor everyone believes I am. I murdered my former alpha. Drake’s pack won’t accept me as their alpha, even if I challenge and win.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  HAYDEN

  Damien took another step forward, and for the first time since he had known Damien, Hayden wasn’t sure how his friend was going to react.

  “You’ve been carrying that around all this time, Hayden?”

  “And if I’d told you when I first arrived, what would you have done, Damien?”

  Damien thrust his hand through his hair, took a deep breath, and look upward, toward the skylight. “Honestly, Hayden, I don’t know. I would have believed you, because that’s not a story someone makes up. Would I have made you my second? Probably not.”

  Damien’s answer didn’t surprise Hayden, but it still hurt. He may have not told Damien the full story eight years ago, but Hayden had always been loyal to him. Mila’s hands closed around his. He had her support and knowing that gave him the strength he needed just then.

  “I understand.”

  “No, I don’t think you do,” Damien said. “There’s a lot you’ve failed to understand lately. What’s done is done. I said I probably wouldn’t have made you my second, but I don’t regret having done so. You and I have been best friends for a long time for good reason. I know who you are, Hayden, sometimes better than I think you do. And that’s why I know you’ll challenge Drake.”

  “Damien—”