The Hailey Holloway Complete Series

by K. C. Stewart

  He took her downstairs and waited for her to catch up at the coat closet. She waited thinking he was going to continue on with their quest but instead he just sat, swishing his tail back and forth.

  "I wanted Silas, not his coat," she stated after opening the closet door and looking inside.

  Boo blinked.

  "So...where is he?"

  Blink.

  "Come on, Boo, just take me to him. I'm really in no mood for your games."

  Blink.

  "Crap, I'm talking to a cat." Hailey realized she was slowly slipping into the realm of Crazy Cat Lady. She slid her eyes back down to him and said, "let's never speak of this again."

  He blinked.

  She groaned.

  While she was picturing herself adopting 20 cats and living in isolation while making a living by knitting sweaters for cats and selling them on Etsy, Boo had slipped past her into the closet.

  "Boo, where are you going?" Hailey pushed the coats aside and found the cat staring at the back wall. He stretched his front paws onto the wall and a soft click sounded in the small space. The wall that was actually a door, swung open revealing a set of steps.

  "Well damn," she said in awe. Of course Silas would have a secret stairwell in his coat closet. Although, she was disappointed that it wasn't a bookshelf that was the door. Hailey believed that if someone was rich and they didn't have a secret room behind a bookshelf, they were doing it wrong.

  Boo had already begun the decent. She closed the closet door and quickly followed after him. The stairwell was well lit with a cool, white lighting. This was not a homey part of the house, it was clinical and it was work. At the base of the steps she had to laugh though. All this time she was living above the place he had kept her prisoner.

  No one occupied her old cell or Alex's. Both had been cleaned and set straight. She remembered bits of how she had left it. Blood smeared on the glass wall, a broken lamp on the floor, her bed all ruffled up. She had never thought about it but that was what Silas had come back too. That scene with two missing prisoners and no explanation.

  But Alex had left him an explanation, he just had to go searching for it.

  Hailey didn't like thinking about that incident and pushed it aside. Burying it deep down was working for her right now. She still had nightmares about it. They came out of nowhere and rendered her no more than a helpless child. Dak had always been there to pull her from them. She relied on him so much at those times.

  "Shit. Stop it!" she snapped at herself. "Don't think about him."

  Hailey turned her head from the room. It was too much to think about on top of everything else. Boo waited for her once more in the center of the hallway. When he saw her slow progress towards him, he turned and kept moving toward where she assumed Silas was.

  Francis #4—the cute one who actually talked—turned the corner and all but ran into her. He was just as shocked to see her as she was to see him. Hailey smiled as much as she could when they regained their balance. He looked her up and down as he held on to her shoulders keeping her in place. She looked like shit and knew it. Unfortunately, now all of the guards knew it too.

  "Are you ok?" he asked her with just a tad more pity than she liked.

  "Yeah I'm just looking for Silas."

  "He's...busy right now."

  "Well that's suspicious." Hailey crossed her arms and looked at him, waiting for a better explanation.

  "Why don't we go back upstairs? I'll send word that you are looking for him." He looked so hopeful that she hated to upset him.

  But she did anyway. "Nope." Hailey pushed past him and turned the corner of the hallway then stopped mid stride. She knew these rooms. She knew what they held inside. For some reason she hadn't thought about the path Boo had taken. Had she not been repressing the memories, Hailey would have realized that she was headed right for the room where she had bled.

  It was silly, but she was scared. Logically she knew no one would hurt her, but the sight of where her torture had taken place knocked the breath from her. Fear had no logic. Fear was a crazed emotion that could bring even the mightiest to their knees.

  Hailey was afraid.

  "We really should-"

  The familiar sound of a whip gliding through the air and cracking like a bolt of lightning echoed off the tiled hallway. Her knees quaked and she reached out to the wall in support.

  Snap! Snap! Snap!

  Hailey whimpered. No longer did she see the hallway as it was now. The vision of the guard circling her, the whip tail slithering over her skin like a snake was clear and sharp. She waited for the bite with still, flexed muscles. Her body knew it was coming.

  Snap!

  A hand grabbed her elbow as her knees gave out completely. She screamed and lashed out with her arms. There was no way to trust what she saw. It was all coming in and out of focus. Black and yellow spotted her vision as the edges crept into darkness. She fought with the guard who was grabbing her. Not again, she thought, please not again.

  Snap!

  Hailey's mind snapped right along with the whip. Black completely clouded her eyes and whisked away her mind. She went limp, but not before issuing out a scream that came right from her memories.

  Chapter Thirteen

  "What is Wendell planning?" Silas asked Kiel, a Green Council member. He had thought that if he could convince anyone to talk easily, it would be one of his own dragons. Silas had hand-picked them after all. However, it seemed like Wendell and Katherine knew to keep them out of the loop when it came to anything and everything. But just in case the dragon was holding out of him, Silas thought it be best to add a little incentive. He had a whip in hand and cracked it up over head. The sound was electrifying.

  "I asked you a question." He had no thoughts on actually using the whip on the man but found it to be a useful tool to scare the ever living shit out of people.

  Kiel trembled in the chair. His eyes were wide in his head as it shook viciously back and forth. "I d-don't know, S-S-Silas." He cracked the whip three more times enjoying the way the dragon jumped at each one.

  Someone screamed but it wasn’t the man in front of him. It was in the hallway. Silas's head snapped toward the door. A woman, but he didn't have any women in the holding cells. In fact the only women here was...

  A guard burst into the room. "Sir, you’re needed." He knew. Somehow in the back of his mind he knew what he was going to find. He pushed the whip into the guard's chest and told him to stay with Kiel.

  Silas had only turned the corner when he zeroed in on her. Crumbled to the floor in the anxious arms of Roman, one of the guards he had made part of her personal security detail. Roman was talking to her, begging her to wake up. He looked up with worried eyes and found Silas running toward them.

  "Sir, I was trying to get her back upstairs. She was wandering around looking for you. I'm not sure what happened."

  “Give her to me.” Silas dropped to his knees and lifted her out of the guard's arms. "Hailey, you need to wake up now. Hailey." He smoothed a hand down her hair. A sheen of sweat had covered her flush face. Her pulse drummed rapidly beneath his fingertips. "Come on, Hailey," he begged her. She didn't move other than the rise and fall of her chest. Silas began to pull at her sweatshirt which had ridden up showing a few inches of her stomach. He could see the spots where the whip had licked around her sides to taste the unmarred flesh of her stomach. All healed now but the lines were a permanent reminder.

  "Someone call a doctor," he told the men in the hallway, not bothering to look at any of them. A crowd had filled the small area. Many of them were fairly new members of his security, but a few had been here a few weeks prior when she had been attacked by one of their own. They looked on with fear as she was lifted from the ground and was swiftly carried upstairs. Whether it was fear for Hailey or fear of what Silas would do, he wasn't sure.

  *****

  Dacea's car skidded to a stop out front of Silas's house. He was angry. Livid actually. And with more fear than h
e had thought possible. He had been meeting with the officers of his growing army when Silas called. Hailey had walked in on Silas interrogating a Council member with a whip. A fucking whip! he thought. Of all the stupid shit he could do to her, Silas had chosen that. Hailey had fainted and hadn't woken up yet.

  He slammed the car door and jogged up the front steps. The door opened before he had a chance to break it down. A guard was waiting for him. He was told Silas was with Hailey in her room upstairs. Dacea refused an escort and went to find them on his own.

  He had been muting their Mate bond for the past few days but opened it now. There was nothing. It was completely silent. He reached into the darkness trying to find her but couldn't find anything tangible to grab hold of. Hailey had gone completely off the grid.

  Dacea stopped on the steps and grabbed his chest. He felt the void where she should have been. His dragon growled and coiled tightly inside of him. In order to keep his beast inside, he had to tamper down his fear. Just giving into the emotion for a second would allow the dragon to take over. And he wasn't sure he would ever gain back control if his dragon seized the reigns again.

  Steps. Up. Go. Simple commands kept his feet moving. Once at the top he found her room easily enough. There were two guards posted outside and Boo watching from a distance. They had the door open for him by the time he made it down the hallway. She was all he saw from the moment he walked in. Centered on the bed, a blanket covered most of her body. Only her arms lay above the covers. She was pale and skinny, her face looking ragged rather than rested. The last few days had taken a toll on her health. She looked like he felt, like absolute hell.

  He caught the sound of her steady heartbeat. It just about took the breath out of him. Relief surged through his heart. He closed his eyes and let the fact that she was alive settle in his mind. As prepared as he was to leave her, he wasn't prepared for this.

  Dacea opened his eyes and caught sight of Silas in an armchair beside her bed. He had his elbows resting on his knees as his head hung low. The ever composed Green dragon looked haggard. "Silas," Dacea's clipped voice rumbled across the room, "what happened?"

  He lifted his head not bothering to hide the guilt on his face. Worry and fear looked out at him through emerald eyes. "I'm sorry to call you out here," he cleared his throat and continued with a little less emotion threaded in his voice, "I wouldn't have but she's been like this for 24 hours now and I didn't know what else to do."

  "This happened 24 hours ago and you didn't call me sooner?"

  "You left her,” he reminded Dacea. “Or did I just imagine that?" Silas stood and stepped in front of Hailey, blocking his view. "If you are going to be like that, then you can just leave. I'll figure something out without your help."

  "Leave us," he demanded and stepped around Silas.

  He cut him off and once more blocked his path to her. "No."

  "Silas do not test me in this. She is my Mate."

  He sneered, "And they say I'm the cruel one." Silas walked forward a pace to stand nose to nose with Dacea. "If you hurt her in anyway, if I have to sit with her one more time as she cries over you, if I have to watch her disappear in front of me again, I will rip out your throat." Dacea met his threat head on. They stared into the others eyes neither one backing down. There was a twitch in his fingers, he wanted something to punch. And from the looks of it, so did Silas. Dacea and Silas were equally matched in strength and dominance, which would only make for a satisfying fight. Unfortunately, now wasn't the time for that.

  "You have ten minutes," Silas growled and pushed past him to the open door.

  Dacea waited for the door to close before moving to Hailey. He felt a gravitational pull to her, he always had. Taking a seat in the chair Silas had been sitting in, Dacea reached for her hand. It was warm and he could feel the pulse of blood in her wrist. The steady pumping calmed him. Let him think more clearly.

  "Hailey," her name left his lips as a sigh. "I am sorry. This...well, you shouldn't have had to deal with any of this." He gripped her hand a little tighter willing her to feel his presence. "I miss you. I don't want to, but I do. I was just so frustrated. Am, I am frustrated. I'm angry too. I just...I don't understand why you couldn't come home?"

  Dacea lifted her hand to his cheek. He nuzzled into it and let her scent fill his senses. "I'm sorry for what I said to you. It hurt even as the words were spilling from me but they were all the truth. No matter how hurtful they were, everything I said was the absolute truth. I want you, Céile. I want you in my bed, in my life, in my heart. But I can't live wondering if you are going to be there when I get home. It's not fair what I ask, but I need all or nothing from you." He turned his head and kissed her palm. Her fingers twitched.

  "Hailey?" His breath was caught in his throat in a hard unmovable lump. Her fingers tightened on his hand and then relaxed.

  She mumbled and groaned raising the hand he had been holding to her head. "Ouch," she said after a moment and opened her eyes in a flutter squinting at him. "Dak?"

  He wasn't sure if he had wanted her to hear his confession or not but as he searched her face it was plain she had not heard a word of what he had said, at least not consciously. Hailey blinked a few times and turned her head towards him. She was confused and didn't hide it.

  "What are you doing here?" She rubbed her head again. And as if a light bulb was turned on, her eyes got wide with the memory. "Oh...oh right."

  For a moment, she was bare to him. He could read every thought and feeling she had passing through her eyes. "Do you need anything for your head?" he stammered out as he read everything he could about her in the ever fleeting moment.

  "Um, no." She turned her head and broke the connection affectively tucking herself away again. "I'll be...fine." She was now shy towards him. Hailey had never been shy around him even after his sudden appearance in her head. He had hoped for a little more, for something to hold on too. And he had thought he had seen it, just for a moment she had been more open to him than ever before. But now he could see it was a useless hope that he needed to let go of. Hailey wanted to hide herself, nothing had changed.

  "Well, since you are awake I'll go get Silas." He had slipped back into indifference like it was an old pair of pants. From running to hiding, Hailey just reiterated his choice through her actions. He stood, unable to watch her fidget any longer.

  "Silas," he said as he opened the door, "she's awake."

  The Green dragon had been pacing the hallway. He paused in his marathon and took a relieved breath. They came back into the room together but Dacea pulled back and let Silas go to her. His place was no longer at her side. Silas however, walked right to her and placed a kiss on her head. He felt jealously crawl up his spine. "That should be us," his dragon hissed. He agreed but wouldn't admit that out loud. Dacea was done. He felt the confirmation as a solid weight in his gut.

  He couldn't stand there and watch her any longer. "Before I go," Silas and Hailey looked up at him from their whispers, "Silver has agreed to a meeting. I will pick you up on Thursday at nine." Hailey had not been expecting that and looked between Dacea and Silas. She stuttered out a yes at the same time Silas asked to talk to him alone.

  They moved back to the hallway. Hailey had looked defeated in his last glimpse of her. The meeting was going to be hell on both of them, but they needed Silver's support and that meant playing house for a little while even if it killed them.

  "I know that she has to go to the meeting, but I don't like it," Silas stated once they were in the hall. "Don't fuck with her."

  "I won't. In fact that will be the last time I come here again. We'll meet at my house from now on so she doesn't have to see me." And vice versa.

  "Fine," he spat. "Well, since you are here I might as well fill you in. I've talked to most of the Council. None know of Wendell's plans but from what I gathered, most aren't in agreement with him either. They don't want a war."

  "Interesting. Why don't they vote him out of the chair?"

 
"Too scared is my guess. Katherine has been making her rounds. I'm sure she has something to do with that."

  "Of course she has." Dacea ran his hand through his hair. "Alright, I've been getting a list of names and locations of all our dragons. We haven't had a census for years. I want to know where our guys are so we can protect them once this gets off the ground. We've both been through this kind of warfare before."

  "Just playing on different sides this time," Silas added.

  "Yes, but that's our advantage. I want to find out which communities will be the biggest targets and start there. They need to be informed and protected as much as possible."

  Silas nodded in agreement but his eyes had kept sliding past Dacea and back toward Hailey's room. "Go, she needs someone and this can wait."

  "Anything you want me to tell her?"

  He thought about it. There were many things he wanted to tell her, but none of them appropriate anymore. He settled on, "be well," and left.

  Chapter Fourteen

  "How are you?" Silas asked while interrupting some deep thought of hers. She had been staring at the blanket that was laid across her with such force, he was sure she would burn a hole in it had she been anything more than human. A minute had passed as he watched her, his sister. His dead sister. He softened just looking at her. After his mother died in childbirth and his father by his own hand there had been no hope for family. Silas accepted this as truth. And yet, there she was. His flesh and blood. Alive all this time.

  And yet she looked like she was terminally ill by the loss of weight and lack of color in her cheeks. Fucking Dacea. Every time he came by she sank deeper into herself, into the illness that has claimed her heart. Was this how every woman acted during a break up or just her? He wouldn't know. Silas had never dated. He fucked and moved on.

  Hailey blinked away her thoughts and flashed her eyes at him. Big, brown and incredibly dismal. Silas hadn't seen her smile in so long that he was beginning to forget what it looked like. He pushed the door closed until he heard the little click, and went to the bed where Hailey had pushed herself into a sitting position.