"Put her on the phone. I want to speak with her."
"She is not harmed," he assured him. Silas ran a hand down her hair, chuckling at the deadly glare she shot his way.
"I would like to hear that from her." Dacea's voice wavered as his dragon neared the surface. Silas always found a half changed Red hilarious with their forked tongues slurring their words.
"Very well." Silas peeled the tape from Hailey's mouth and held the phone to her ear.
"Dak, could you tell Lia I'm not going to make it for coffee?" she said with continued plots of murder in her eyes. He was beginning to love her spunk.
"Hailey, Love, are you ok?"
"Besides being really pissed off, I'm fine."
"What happened?" Silas could hear the relief in his voice. It was sweet and he would enjoy picking at that weakness like a hardened scab later.
"This bitch pulled me off the street and drugged me. I woke up while they were tying me to this chair." She pulled a bit at her arms that were tied behind her back, testing them for the hundredth time. "That's when I bit the guard and kicked another." Her voice shone with pride.
"Good girl. I'm coming for you, Hailey. But in the meantime, give them hell."
"Dak, wait! I lo-"
Silas pulled the phone away with a chuckle. "And that's enough for one day."
"What do you want, Silas?" Gone was the loving tone of a man smitten, in its place was that of a dragon missing his Mate. How easily Silas could make people mindless killers. It was a gift really.
"Oh Dacea, I've got everything I want right here." He tapped Hailey's nose and replace the tape on her mouth as she put together a very imaginative string of curses
"Silas," Dacea said with warning.
"Do not worry, Dak," he spit out the pet name. "I have sent a gift your way."
"Don't call me that."
"Ah yes, apologies. Well, I only called to keep you from worrying. Goodbye, Dacea." Silas hung up on Dacea's cry of anger. "Right then." He turned and smiled at Hailey. "Shall I show you to your cell?"
Chapter Five
On.
Off.
Her privacy was controlled by a simple switch.
Open.
Close.
Hailey sat on her single bed, her legs crossed in front of her with her back against the wall. She stared at the door.
Glass.
All of it was glass. Trans-fucking-parent. She had one wall that was white and padded, but otherwise it was crystal clear. Hailey thought about when she was seventeen and how she thought she had no privacy then. If teenage Hailey only knew what was in store for her.
She twisted the knob on the controller and the blinds closed on the wall in front of her. After Silas had given her the grand tour, which consisted of pointing to the bed, the TV atop a dresser, and a small sectioned off bathroom, he gave her a remote controller. He had blinds added in between the panels of glass for her arrival. It wasn't much in the way of privacy but at least the guards couldn't watch her shower.
"Just point it at the wall you wish to change. The knob goes up to raise the blinds, down to lower them, and twist to open or close," he told her with humor in his green eyes.
"I hope you step on a Lego," she spat at him. Silas only smiled and handed her the remote with a pat on the head.
That was an hour ago. Hailey was now completely bored. She thought about what Dak was doing to find her. Knowing him, he was calling in the troops and setting up a war room. Darby would be called down from her cabin. He should leave her be, but Darby would come regardless of how tired she was. The witch was stubborn like that.
Lia was probably already there giving him hell and blaming him for all this. She was on a "hate everything with a penis" streak. Which would be entertaining at any other time, but Hailey wasn't sure that would help in the productivity of finding her. "It better be soon," she grumbled. She wasn't sure how much more fun she could find out of opening and closing the blinds.
"Are you going to do that all day?" a man yelled from the other side of the wall.
"Yep," she responded and twisted the blinds halfway open.
"Well, alright then."
Hailey pointed the controller to the wall beside her and lifted the blinds. A man sat on his own bed with a book in his lap. He was rugged in that manual labor does the body good sort of way and was dressed in the Silas prisoner uniform of black sweatpants and a white t-shirt. Hailey had a few sets of her own. On anyone else it would look lazy and comfortable, but on this man the shirt accentuated every hardened muscle in his chest and shoulders. The pants sat low on his hips with the drawstring untied, lying on this thigh.
Of course she couldn't help but look.
The bright blue of his eyes gave the white room some color. He had kind eyes. Ones that understood the frustration she felt about being in this cell.
"Who are you?" she asked.
"Alex. I presume you are Hailey?"
Her finger twitched above the dial. Hailey narrowed her eyes. How did he know who she was? "Maybe."
"Lady, you need to work on your poker face." Alex closed the book and swung his legs over the side of the bed. His room was positioned exactly like hers, but he didn't have blinds in his windows. That sucks, she mused. Alex walked across the room and stood at the wall that adjoined hers. "I only know your name because the guards around here like to gossip. They are worse than a gang of teenage girls. I've know you were coming for a few weeks now."
She groaned. "Weeks? Asshat has been planning my abduction for weeks?"
"'Fraid so." He gave a shrug. "So what did you do to get on his bad side?"
"Existed." Alex arched an eyebrow. She sighed and continued. "I'm the Mate of his arch enemy Dacea. Kinda helped bring him back into being. It's all very dramatic."
His laugh echoed through the cell. "Dacea? No shit. I thought he was dead. No wonder Silas has been in a foul mood lately." The guards were watching them. Hailey opened her mouth to respond but noticed one observing her and talking into a phone. It was an old school receiver mounted to the wall with a spirally cord. She used to get tangled in one just like that at her grandma's house. He looked familiar, but she couldn't place him. Hailey was sure she would have remembered his smile; it was one that would creep out a sociopath.
"Don't worry about them," Alex told her. "Silas keeps them on a short rope. They won't harm you unless he gives the word."
"That's reassuring."
"Nah, you have nothing to worry about. He looks at you different than the rest of us. You mean something more to him than another locked cell door."
Hailey glanced back at Alex, who was studying her. She wasn't sure if what he said was a good or bad thing. Being something special to Silas was not on her bucket list.
"So, you know Dak?" she asked while casually looking Alex over. He didn't look like a dragon but she still wasn't good at picking them out.
"Not officially. I know of him. All dragons know of Dacea, he is something of a legend. Last I heard, he had died at Silas's hand. That was shortly before I arrived here. Actually, his friend is an acquaintance of mine. Do you know Lennox?" His eyes were so bright with curiosity. He was a man starved for the outside world.
"Lennox?" Hailey blinked and saw his body broken in the middle of a Philadelphia park. She didn't know him other than his appearance and the few stories she had heard from Dak and Darby. She wished she had met him sooner. "Yes, I met him once before he died."
Alex's face fell. "Oh."
"I'm sorry." She never knew what to say in moments like these.
"No. It's ok. I'm just surprised. When did it happen?"
"Mid-September of this year. Um, it was Silas who…"
His lips met in a line and he nodded in understanding. Silas had killed him. One more reason why she planned on kicking him in the balls at the first chance she had.
"Hey!" Hailey jumped and whipped her head toward the pounding on the glass. "You two break it up," the guard with the creepy smile said and
walked back to his desk. It hit her then; he was the guard she bit while she was being secured to the chair. He glanced up and caught her looking. Hailey quickly turned her head back to Alex.
"Can they hear us?" she wondered aloud.
"No. Only Silas has the pass codes to turn on the speakers."
"Joy."
"Pretty much," he agreed.
*****
Silas's footsteps echoed in perfect rhythm down the hallway. Confidence was in every footfall, each step radiated power and strength. No one needed to see the smile on his face, or the happiness in his eyes; it was all evident in his steps.
The door to his office opened and closed. He unbuttoned his jacket, slid the knot of his tie down to loosen it. Everything had gone perfectly. Hailey was taken down with no fuss. She was unharmed, which was a miracle in itself with a harpy involved. And then there was Dacea, who was beside himself with worry and anger. Silas couldn't be more thrilled.
He turned on his monitor with a flip of a switch. There he could see Hailey's cell. She and Alex were talking through the glass. It didn't bother him in the least. Actually, he was glad to see them conversing. Alex was a decent man who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Despite what many believed, Silas didn't kill everyone that got in his way.
Alex was only meant to be held captive for a night or two. However, it was around the time he had been dealing with Dacea the first time and his mind had been elsewhere. Time passed and Alex was still in his cell. It seemed easier just to keep him here than to release him and face the possibility of war with the Blue dragons. At the moment, Green and Blue were at peace with each other.
Silas had tried to make his accommodations comfortable, given the circumstances. He had given Alex extensive freedom for a prisoner. They'd spent more than a few nights with a bottle of scotch and a chess board. The man was intelligent and entertaining and forgiving. Alex told him one night that they would have been friends if the situation was different.
Hailey looked angry at the world. She glared at everything and everyone. Silas would need to work on her trust. He needed to prove to her that he was not the bad guy. They were much more to each other than she knew. He just needed to track down a little more information before he could explain it all to her.
A soft rapping sounded on his door. He turned off the monitor, not wanting anyone to spy on Hailey. His Hailey. "Enter."
She floated into the room like a leaf in the wind. Katherine was stunning on the outside. No man could deny her body was perfection. Dirty blonde curls bounced along with the clicks of her heels, red lips curled into a seductive smile when she spotted him. For a moment he savored the beauty before him.
"So how's our favorite Mate Bitch settling in?"
The magic of Katherine burst like a bubble. Silas turned his back and reached for his scotch. He always needed a little extra liquid help when dealing with her. "What did I say about calling her that?"
"Don't do it," she harrumphed as she fell into the chair opposite his desk.
"To answer your question, she is fine. With our business now concluded, I have to wonder what you are doing here, Katherine." He poured two fingers worth and capped the bottle. She pouted her red lips when Silas settled in at his desk without offering her a drink. He knew her game by now. The sooner she left, the better it would be for everyone.
"I was just checking to make sure all was well."
"It is."
She stumbled at his dismissal only for a second. "I'll be visiting Dacea tomorrow."
"I wish you good luck then. Believe me, you'll need it." He smiled into his glass and took a hearty swig of scotch.
"Why do you say that? I'm sure he will be smitten once he sees me. Or did you forget that I captured his heart long ago?" Pride emanated from her. He sorely wished he could be there when it was trampled into the ground.
"I don't doubt you. However, Dacea has changed since his youth; he has a real Mate now—one you just kidnapped and delivered to me, his widely known enemy. I'm fairly certain he will not give you the time of day with Hailey missing."
"You don't know him like I do," she spoke defiantly, her confidence shaken slightly. "He will forget all about the stupid human girl when I am back in his arms."
"Sure, sure." He nodded and hid his smirk behind the glass. "I'm sure you have a brilliant plan. Now, why don't you run along and get started on the seduction and leave me to my work." Silas had found the best way to deal with Katherine was to treat her like a child. It wasn't hard since she always acted like one.
Katherine stood, her eyebrows were set in such a deep V he wondered if it hurt her head when she thought that hard. "I'll keep you updated on how it goes."
"Please don't."
He could only grin when she turned her four inch heels and stormed out of his office. If it was anyone other than Dacea she was going to see, he might feel bad for them.
Chapter Six
"Here, eat this." Lia pushed a peanut butter and jelly sandwich his way. Dacea only gave it a second's glance before turning back to his phone. Food was not priority at the moment. He was sending people out to Silas's various residences within a five hour drive of Philadelphia. So far no one had turned up anything useful. Maybe Silas had taken her by plane? He scowled. That would extend his search exponentially.
"Silas won't hurt her. You heard Hailey yourself, she's fine." He appreciated Lia's attempt to comfort but he was just too angry to have any of it.
"I know he won't hurt her," he spat with a little too much force. "She is too useful to him as it is. And yes, she is fine because Hailey is tougher to break than anyone I know," he stated matter-of-factly. "That doesn't change the fact, however, that I want to find her as soon as possible and get her home safely." Where he would lock her in the goddamn cells in the basement if he had to. She was not getting out of his sight from here on out.
"I can't argue with any of that, but there is no reason to be a snarky jackass with me. You probably wouldn't have known anything was wrong until Silas called you if it weren't for me." Lia picked up the sandwich he had ignored and took a bite out of it. "What's different about this time anyway? Your dragon isn't as twitchy."
His dragon was furious and "twitchy" as she put it. Dacea was just better at controlling him than before. "She didn't leave behind a puddle of blood. I know she is relatively safe and that is allowing me to keep a clearer head than last time Silas grabbed her."
"You still haven't told me what you did."
"And I won't tell you because it is none of your business." Dacea pocketed his phone and pinched the bridge of his nose. There was a headache forming behind his eyes.
"I have a theory." Lia waited a beat and when he didn't ask what it was, she continued on as if he had. "I think you are not really mad at Silas but with yourself. Whatever it is you two were fighting about is your fault and you're feeling guilty thinking if you hadn't been fighting then she probably wouldn't have been taken." She held up a hand when he opened his mouth to dispute it. He snarled instead. "Just accept that the argument is your fault. If you think it isn't, then you are just lying to yourself. Hailey is a forgiving person, give her an hour and she will work whatever anger she is feeling out of her system and try to figure out a solution. This tells me that the problem wasn't with her, but with you."
"You overstep," his deep voiced rumbled.
"Do I?" Lia quirked her eyebrow.
The muse and the dragon locked eyes. He rarely had people challenge him; only Hailey had the stupidity to do that on a normal basis. Any one of his dragons would have dropped their gaze and ran from the room with their tail between their legs. But Lia was an Alpha in her own right. Greek goddess and the daughter of Zeus, she knew how to hold her own.
"Fine. If it will shut you up, I'll tell you." Lia smiled with victory. "I wanted her to move in, she refused. The end."
"You're still trying to put the fault in her. How did you ask her?" Lia slid onto the stool at the kitchen island and took another bi
te of his sandwich.
"After I gave her a tour of the house, one which she had been disinterested in from the beginning, I asked if something needed changing before she moved in." He leaned against the counter and crossed his arms. "She got angry and left."
"So you didn't ask her to move in, you told her?"
"We are Mates. I shouldn't have to ask, she should want to be with me."
"Uh huh," Lia said blandly.
"What? What is it?" he snapped.
"Just that," she licked some peanut butter off her thumb, "Hailey would never move in with you until you guys were intimate. You forget that she is from the human world with their respectable dating practices." She twirled her finger in the air as if saying whoop-dee-doo. "She won't move in with you until you guys have been together—as a couple, not any of that sharing a mind and body crap—and have had sex at least a few times. She'll probably need to move in gradually by spending a night, then a weekend, and then slowly she would have moved all her shit in without you noticing."
Dacea scowled. He stared at the wineglass in the sink from the previous night. She did have expectations last night that he had failed to see in his excitement. He had wanted to take it slow but after her near death only weeks earlier, he realized that she was it for him. Dacea accepted what they had wholeheartedly, how he had ever thought that he could just let her go, was beyond him.
He must have been mistaken in thinking Hailey had felt the same way he did. In his world, after you found your Mate, dating didn't matter. Intimacy didn't have a time line that needed to be followed. Most Mates lived with each other from very early on. He had failed to remember that she had her own customs and traditions to abide by.
Dacea rarely kept up with human practices since they changed so often. However, when Hailey arrived she had been expecting sex. He wouldn't change what they had done later on that evening for anything. However, had he known she was expecting more when she arrived, he would have taken the time to learn human dating behaviors, then he would have met those expectations and exceeded them.
The Hailey Holloway Complete Series Page 21