“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.”
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.
Twelve wolves destroying their adversaries as if they’d done it a million times.
Tearing them to chewable pieces…clawing, biting, destroying, with Hayden leading the charge. It was brutal. Blood splattered everywhe
re.
When it was over, Hayden shifted back and looked at her, a grin on his face. “I told you to trust me, honey-woman. Are you okay?”
She swallowed and tried to smile through her chattering teeth. Nerves or adrenaline or maybe she was still coming down from whatever they’d given her nearly overwhelmed her. She couldn’t make them stop.
Hayden took her hand. He’d shifted, as they always did, back into his clothes. If she hadn’t seen him do it, and if there weren’t eleven other werewolves running around, she might be able to believe it hadn’t just happened.
“I’m okay.”
“You’re worn out, I can smell it. Go back to my room. Lock the door. I have a key. I can get in. I want you asleep in my bed when I come back. Nod if you understand.” She nodded. “I’m going to get rid of their car, and then I’m going to shift. Much as l might like to do otherwise, I have to shift in this moon, or it will hurt like hell. A good, long change.”
Another woman might not like his instructions—the magazines her captors had provided her with and the movies she’d gotten to see made it seem like she was supposed to be completely independent. But she liked Hayden telling her what to do. At least for right now.
“Chelsea, in any of those visions, did you see the truth of us?”
“The truth of us?” She didn’t know what he meant.
“That you’re my mate. You know what that means?” The stillness she’d seen earlier returned when he asked her that question.
Happiness surged up her spine. Those times she’d been his mate? The best lives she’d ever imagined living. “I do.”
He smiled, a full-on goofy grin. Hayden only looked thirty years old, except in his eyes. In them she could see all the years he had lived. But grinning like that? It took ten years of sadness away from his gaze.
“Good. Then get upstairs, honey. I’ll be there later.”
His words spoke of promises. He didn’t know her yet, but maybe that wouldn’t matter. They’d figure it out. He’d just beat the True Believers. They’d figure the rest of it out.
Despite the small lingering headache, her steps to his room were light and giddy. She found an old T-shirt she vaguely recognized as one she’d seen him in. It still smelled like his scent—maybe she was part wolf?—and she changed into it. Cuddling into his pillow, she closed her eyes. Everything was going to be all right.
Sometime later a sound woke her up. A key being inserted into a door. Did the doctors need her now? It didn’t feel like morning. How long had she slept? She sat up and rubbed her eyes. Looking around the room and seeing early morning light coming through the shades, Chelsea realized one thing. She had no fucking idea where she was.
With shaking hands, she yanked the covers up to her chin. Oh god. Where am I? This wasn’t a dream. Or at least she didn’t think it was. How would she know?
Not knowing what else to do, she grabbed for anything she could use as a weapon. Her shoe was the only thing readily available, as it sat right next to the bed. Her sneakers wouldn’t provide much defense , but maybe she could chuck it.
“Who’s there?” she called out as the door swung open.
The handsomest man she’d ever seen outside of television stepped into the room. All good looks aside, he still might prove to be some sort of psychopath. She’d met enough of those during the year she’d lived on the street.
“Its just me, Chelsea. I told you I had a key. What’s the matter? You smell terrified. Did you have a bad dream?”
He walked toward the bed, all long, muscled limbs that complemented his high cheekbones and closely shaven brown hair. He had scars on his knuckles. How many times did a person have to be in a fistfight to get that scarred?
“Who are you?” She raised her shoe, knowing it was ridiculous. “Where am I, and how did I get here?”
He stopped moving. “What?”
“You heard me.” She gestured with the shoe again. “Answer me.”
“Chelsea, are you saying you don’t know me?” He put his hands on his hips.
“We don’t know each other. That I’m sure of, damn it. I have no memory of getting here and no clue as to who you are. So you’d better start talking. Or I’ll…” She closed her mouth. There really wasn’t anything else to say.
“You’ll hit me with that shoe.” He nodded. “You’ve forgotten. The vision faded, and now you can’t remember. You said that would happen. I was busy focused on other things. I didn’t pay attention to the idea that you might forget.”
She sucked in her breath. “Are you telling me I know you from a vision? From one of my episodes?”
“Yes.”
He didn’t say more. He didn’t need to. This was very bad news. She’d had a vision, and it had brought her to this person, this place. Disaster loomed on the horizon. She just knew it. Even if the man across the room could stop traffic with the intensity in which he stared at her.
Her mouth went dry. “Can you tell me what’s happening?”
“Truthfully? I’m not exactly sure I can. This has gotten complicated. You were aware of things before that I’ll now have to explain. That’s going to be hard.” He shook his head. “But for tonight, you’re safe. Sleep here. It’s your room now. We’ll figure it out tomorrow. You’re safe.”
She didn’t feel safe. But, for now, his reassurances would have to do. Running back to the doctors would be ridiculous. They’d gotten mean. The True Believers wanted her dead. She’d have to stay here until she could figure it out.
With the man who’s name she didn’t know watching her.
Chapter Three
Hayden stared at the breakfast he’d made as he set it on the tray to bring up to Chelsea. He had no idea what she ate and didn’t eat, so he’d made everything he could think of. Bacon, eggs, cereal, biscuits, and pastry he’d bought from the gourmet bakery down the street the second they’d opened. He hadn’t been sleeping anyway. The couch in the den of the living area wasn’t very comfortable. He climbed the stairs.
Napa had no shortage of extraordinary food. He’d be glad to get her whatever she wanted. But first he had to introduce himself and figure out how to explain all of this to his mate, who now had no idea who he was.
Things had been easier when she’d been making very little sense. He hadn’t known her, but he’d certainly known he wanted to. She’d known him, or at least she thought she had, and she wanted him in spite of the truth of who he was.
He stared at the closed door to his—now her—room. What was he supposed to do? It had never occurred to him that he could have a human for his true mate. How was he supposed to woo her? If she were a wolf woman, she’d know they were supposed to be together from scent alone. Then she’d run from him. It was the way of the female werewolves. He’d chase her, catch her, and the rest they’d work out in the bedroom.
Or the living room. Or outside. Or wherever the urge took them…
He shook his head. Picturing her naked, sprawled out on his bed, with her brown hair laid out on his pillow made him hard. The images continued. The blue tips on the end of locks touching the headboard. Her breasts, rounded and large for a woman as petite as she…
Hayden set the tray outside her room on the floor. This wasn’t going to work if he was as jacked up as rocket about to go off. Somehow, someway, he had to get control of himself. He craved the woman more than he wanted his next breath, and she had no fucking idea who he was.
He hated to do what had to be done. Bringing Savage too far into his business broke the unspoken rule between them that said he left his brother alone and that Savage did the same thing when it came to personal choices. Hayden rubbed his temples.
His mate, even if she didn’t know that was what she was, needed help, and he had to figure out what to do about the True Believers. Why had they targeted him when he was such a completely small opponent? Kill Savage and they might gain some tactical growth. San Francisco was a huge pack. Take out Napa and it would be weeks before anyone would even notice.
“Hayden.” Savage answered on the first ring. “Someone die on Full Moon last night?”
Hayden shook his head. Savage always had a way of jumping to the worst possible conclusion, which was probably why the other man remained alive. “No one is dead. Yet.”
Silence met his statement for several beats. He could almost picture his brother, standing on the deck of his multi-million dollar home overlooking the Pacific. If there was one thing werewolves seemed to know how to do it was to turn one dollar into ten. Maybe it was because they lived longer—or maybe it had to do with their aggressive instincts simple made them more dominant in the marketplace.
Savage always took his calls outside whenever possible. He said he did his best thinking with the wind in his face. In this case, Hayden hoped it worked.
“I was kidding about the death part. But I guess I shouldn’t be making jokes given the current climate. Talk to me, brother. What do you need?”
Hayden appreciated Savage not making him ask. They had enough trouble getting along without playing mind games. Or maybe Savage understood that, in the arena of manipulation, Hayden had been better versed.
“I need a Healer.” He drummed his fingers on the kitchen counter. This was going to get ugly any second.
“That’s not a problem. I can send you mine. He’ll be there in two hours.”
“Thanks but your Healer isn’t going to help me in this. I need a Healer who can fix a human. Do you know any?” Hayden’s limited understanding about the werewolf Healers, who were few and far between, was that their powers worked on other werewolves and didn’t extend past that.
“They’re called doctors, brother, and I would imagine you can find quite a few in the Napa Valley.”
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