They had been rooting for Finley’s niece Charlotte and she had won the position of alpha for the Mock Running of the Moon. Finley talked about Charlotte incessantly. She was the first strong shifter born to the family in decades and they were all so proud of her. It had made Mila somewhat sad to think her family only found pride in her because of her shifter abilities when clearly the little girl had so much more going for her.
She didn’t say that to Fin of course. He wouldn’t understand. He still thought weak shifters belonged with weak shifters, and she had told him more than once that she was glad she had such nice friends as him, Anna, and Kate. After two weeks of hearing that, he was starting to get the idea that they were simply friends. Mila pointed him in the direction of Emma, a shy brunette who worked in the prep kitchen at the cookhouse. He had seen her before but never considered her because she was a strong shifter.
Strong. . . weak. . . This pack was as caught up on the concept as. . . well, as Mila had been.
Emma blushed when Mila told her about Fin. The two shifters agreed to a ‘blind date’ of sorts during the Mock Running of the Moon. Finley was really nervous and excited, and Emma was sweet and wasn’t caught up in the whole strong vs. weak shifter class war. She simply wanted a shifter who’d be good to her. If only all shifters were as smart as her.
As soon as Emma got back with the drinks, Mila was supposed to ‘disappear’ as Finley had put it. Summarily dismissed. Perfect.
Before Emma returned, Finley decided to test out a joke on Mila. The joke was funny and made her laugh. That’s the moment she caught Hayden’s delicious scent in the wind. Mila turned and locked eyes with Hayden, only to see his face fall.
Her heart skipped a beat. Hayden had seen her sitting and laughing with Finley. It was all a big misunderstanding. She could fix this. She would fix it.
Mila rushed off without a word to Finley, but he must have figured it out. She heard him wish her good luck as she leapt off the rock and raced after Hayden.
Hayden had disappeared. His wolf was a faster runner, but she had her wolf back. Despite how slow Mila’s wolf was at shifting and healing, she had always had a keen sense of smell—which had helped Mila sniff out disease and sickness here and there too, even before patients showed outward signs of illness. It’s how she had known to enact the quarantine in her pack before the first patients had fallen to the virus.
Mila found Hayden sitting in the snow, his head bent over his knees that he had pulled up to his chest. Her shifter was healthy and well, but still broken. Her heart lurched at the smell of his fear.
Her finger ran through his thick hair. His breathing hitched.
“You came back,” she said.
Those weren’t the words she had crafted in her head as she had searched for him, but they were genuine. She had started to wonder if he’d return for her. Then again, she wasn’t sure that he had.
He had seen her with Fin and then he had raced off. He hadn’t pulled her away or even threatened Fin as she would have expected. Hayden had changed since she had last seen him. He was calm, settled, but he wasn’t fighting others to get away from her.
He lifted his head. A fire swirled in the depths of his black eyes. Want, need, confusion.
“I missed you, Hayden,” she whispered as she bent her head close to his.
* * *
HAYDEN
Hayden watched as her wolf approached. Beautiful dark brown fur framed striking green eyes that held him stronger than any metal ever could.
Mila had followed him. She had left Fin to follow him. Maybe he hadn’t lost her. His wolf nipped him. Asshole. Hayden was trying to do things right with Mila, not screw it up again, and his asshole wolf wanted him to grab her, drag her to his cabin, lock the world out, and claim her. The idea had merit, but Hayden had to do this right. It had to be Mila’s choice.
She shifted back to human form. Her shift was painful and slow, but she’d shifted in front of him. She’d never done that before, shown her weaker abilities. That took strength on her part.
He couldn’t lose her. . . he just couldn’t.
“You came back,” she said.
That said it right there. She was surprised he’d returned for her. Had she given up on him? Is that why she was with Finley?
“I missed you, Hayden,” she whispered. Her scent nearly overwhelmed him as she touched her forehead to his.
She was his female. Even if she never blood-bonded him. Even if she never consented to mate him. She’d always be his. Until the end of time.
“The last we spoke, I said I’d return for you, and blood-bond you,” Hayden said. A reminder of his promise, of his love. Was it enough?
Her eyes sparkled with such brilliance it amazed him, but Hayden could swear he felt a bond forming between them. Like a window opening and letting in the fresh spring air, part of his Mila poured into his soul. There’d never be any question; with every bone, nerve, and cell in his body, he knew she was his. But she wasn’t as sure. There was a hesitation to her still.
“I was scared,” she said, her voice slight, scared.
Hayden traced the line of her jaw to her neck. The scars and bruising were gone. Her wolf had finally healed her, at least her body.
“I never meant to put you in danger. You’ll be safe here now.”
She shook her head. “That’s not what I meant. I was scared you wouldn’t return. Callen said he had spoken with you, that you had recovered, but you didn’t say when—or if—you’d return.”
Hayden’s hand sifted through her hair. He’d forgotten how silky soft her hair was. How could he have forgotten?
“You were always on my mind. Always. I should have sent a message, but I guess I was scared, too.”
“Of what?”
“That you’d be mad at me still. For pushing you away, for accusing you of trying to use me. All the things we never had a chance to discuss in that wretched cabin but should have. I just keep thinking about what an ass I’d been. I couldn’t apologize to you through Callen or even a note, and I didn’t expect to be there that long.”
“You’re here now,” she said, her smile as wide and lovely as ever. His Mila trusted and gave and deserved so much better than what he could offer. He had so much to tell her, but right now, he just wanted to hold her.
“Want to go back to my place?” he asked. When she didn’t say anything, he added. “Or yours. We can just talk. We don’t have to do anything. I just want to be with you, for as long as I can.”
“What does that mean?” she asked as he rose and held a hand down to her.
“Nothing.” He pulled her up and pulled her in tight against his chest. Never mind that they were both naked after shifting, he needed to feel her body against him and to remind her of who they were together.
She didn’t pull away, but met his eyes straight on. “No more lies, Hayden. From either of us.”
“I want to blood-bond you, Mila,” he said. He wouldn’t let her slip out of his hands again. She had turned him down once, but couldn’t give up on her. It was the very reason he couldn’t stay at Drake’s one more hellish minute. He could put up with his brother’s shit and the cesspool of the pack that he led, but being without Mila had been tearing him apart. What he did, where he went. . . None of that mattered without her.
“We can’t, Hayden.”
“Of course, we can. We get a knife, and then we blood-bond. Just the two of us. Unless you want the formal ceremony, with everyone watching.”
“I’m a weak shifter, Hayden. You say you don’t care if your abilities weaken, but you will, in time. Once we blood-bond, there’s no reversing it. Sooner or later, you’ll start to resent me. The first time you can fight alongside the others, the first time you’re unable to do something you used to do.”
He could see where there might be resentment from a shifter losing his or her strength as a result of a bond, but there was so much more to be gained.
“Anna did some sort of treatment with Blade,
to protect him when they blood-bonded. We can do that too. I want you, Mila, all of you.”
“I guess that’s an option.”
She didn’t sound pleased. “You said no more lies. Are you afraid to share a bond with me?”
She bit her lip. “I want that, Hayden, I desperately want that with you. A blood-bond with another was all I ever dreamt of as a little girl. Then I shifted, discovered how weak I was. My mother told me I’d never blood-bond. That I’d be lucky to have any shifter. ‘Weak wolves don’t bond’ she always said.”
“Bull shit. Most of the mated pairs here are blood-bonded. Though most of it is strong to strong or weak to weak.”
“Then you understand why I can’t have the bond! I want you, and I don’t want you to wake up resenting me one morning because of the damage I caused you. I can’t be responsible for making you weak.”
“I can care less about being weak. So, I’ll heal a bit slower. I know a great doctor, and I’m betting if I can sweet talk her into making bed calls.”
“That’s house calls.”
“For me, you’ll make an exception. Bed calls.”
She laughed, and he didn’t need any stupid tradition of strong shifters only blood-bonded other strong shifters, or mothers from her past ruining this. He was going to find a way to blood-bond her.
“I’m not alpha of a pack. Only a second. Around here that doesn’t mean much. I don’t need to run perimeter or fight intruders.”
“Except you can’t stay here. This pack, despite all the wonderful things about it, is hurting you. You need to return to Drake, take him up on his offer to be his second.”
“What? How do you know about that?”
“Damien told me.”
“Asshole.”
“He was trying to prepare me for the possibility that you wouldn’t come back.”
“I was always going to come back for you, Mila! None of this, being Damien’s second or helping Drake, none of it means anything without you!”
“You’re going then?” she asked, her voice soft, nervous. She thought he was going to leave her behind. That’s exactly what he had planned on doing. He couldn’t take her to his birth pack, subject her to a broken pack full of shifters who’d forgotten what it meant to be part of a pack, to have pride in one another, loyalty. . .everything that made a pack strong, beyond mere brute force.
“I haven’t decided,” Hayden confessed.
“Did you know your right eye twitches slightly when you lie?”
“It does not,” he said, reaching up to his eye.
“You’re right. But you wouldn’t have checked had you been telling me the truth.”
“Hell, you’re too smart sometimes.”
“Please, Hayden, no more lies, even to protect me. Okay?”
“I’m supposed to protect you. That’s my job. Before being Damien’s second, or Drake’s brother, or anything else, my job—first and foremost—is to protect you and make you happy.”
“That’s good, because I want you to go to Drake’s pack. That will make me happy.”
He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You want me to leave you?”
“No!” she cried. “I want you to be whole again. You need to be there, to find whatever you lost there so long ago.”
“I need you, Mila. Always you.”
“Then we’ll go together.”
“It’s too dangerous there. I won’t put you through that again.”
“You’ll protect me,” she said with the utmost confidence. “Which is another reason why we can’t blood-bond.”
He really hated when she used logic against him. This wasn’t going as planned. None of this was going as planned. He was supposed to discuss the possibility of going to Drake’s pack for a few months and then returning to be with her. They would have blood-bonded before he left of course. Now she refused the blood-bond and planned on coming with him, putting herself in danger.
She slid her hands around his neck. “I don’t need a blood-bond. I simply need you, do you understand that?”
He understood, he just didn’t like it, any of it. “So where do we go from here?” he asked.
“Back to my place,” she said as she leaned up to kiss him. The kiss was long, deep, and everything he had been dreaming of for weeks, but she was holding back something. Or maybe it was him, knowing she wasn’t going to blood-bond him, that he’d never have the one true connection to her.
“I thought you said we were going to your place,” he commented as she headed in the wrong direction for Aloe’s house. She merely threw a coy look over her shoulder as she led him back to his cabin.
His heart raced. “You’re moving in with me?”
“Technically, since I’ve been living here for the last three weeks, I think you’re the one moving in with me. At least until we go to Drake’s pack,” she said as she pulled him by his shirt into the bedroom. “Now strip, beefcake.”
Beefcake? She hadn’t called him that since the bakery. Hayden quickly undressed, enjoying this side of Mila.
“I have a present for you,” she said as she withdrew a black cloth from the nightstand. “Turn around.”
“Bossy,” he said as he turned around at the edge of the bed.
“I’ve been thinking about this for a long time,” she said as she stood behind him and tied the blindfold on him.
* * *
MILA
Mila ran her hands down along the hard planes of Hayden’s body. He had so much strength and heart, that it seemed no matter what she decided, it wasn’t enough. Blood-bonding would leave him weak, and not blood-bonding meant denying him the bond that every sifter sought, that ultimate connection to his or her mate.
He thought they’d ask Anna for a fix, except she had already talked to their resident genetic engineer. It seemed the process Anna used on herself wouldn’t work on Mila. Unlike Anna, Mila had a bridge and a wolf genome. There was no way to use naked DNA to trick Hayden’s system to copy his DNA back into his own body instead of copying Mila’s.
She and Anna had discussed the process and theories at length. Anna couldn’t say when she would be able to correct those genes that left Mila and so many other shifters weak. Sometimes, there were just no fixes, simply choices to be made. Mila wouldn’t let Hayden lose his strength. He needed it, pure and simple.
Hayden ripped the blindfold off and turned around, a concerned look on his face. With his forefinger, he traced her lips. “Where did you go just now?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You stopped touching, talking. I don’t need to see you to know when you’re getting dragged down by your thoughts,” he said as he pulled her against him.
Mila rested her head against his chest and breathed in his scent. Strong arms tightened around her, and she let out a deep breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.
She had planned a fun homecoming. Some teasing, stroking, her tongue in new places. She had been getting ideas from listening to Tess, Anna, and Kate talk during one of their girls’ nights out. Kate was very inexperienced and had asked for tips on what men like. That had led to a long night of laughter and a lot of alcohol, except for Anna who couldn’t drink but still managed to get silly-drunk just from the conversation.
Callen had escorted Mila back to Hayden’s cabin, depositing her on her bed where she hadn’t had the luxury of passing out. She had inhaled Hayden’s scent in the pillows and then she had cried herself to sleep. She had woken the next day, determined to do whatever it took to make him happy. She had thought a stupid blindfold and some teasing would do that. Her shifter wanted a blood-bond as much as she did, but she just couldn’t weaken him like that.
“This wasn’t how this was supposed to go. Any of it,” she said
“Ah, I see the problem,” he said as he turned her to face the bed. “You’re not sure how this works. Far be it for me to leave a female in distress. I shall demonstrate. Hayden slipped the blindfold onto her head. Then he leaned
in and with a deep, slow voice, Hayden said. “My rules are in play now, shifter.”
“We have rules now?” she said, trying to resist the shiver that traveled from where his warm tongue licked the shell of her ear all the way down to her toes.
“Always have. Did I fail to mention them to you?” he said as he ran his hand up the inside of her blouse and then down over her ass before settling over her mound.
“You can’t add rules after the fact,” she said, sure she could beat him at his own game. She had always been good at games.
Then he cupped her pussy and pulled her back against his hard chest, locking her to him. Slight wisps of breath tickled her ear as he whispered, “I can do anything I want. My cabin, my female, my rules.”
Mila swallowed. Hard.
His hand ran down her throat. “I see you want me in your mouth. In time, sunshine. I have other plans for you, first.”
These were not the type of games she played. “What are the rules?” she forced out as he unbuttoned her jeans and slid them down her legs. He tapped at first one foot, then the other, and she lifted on cue until he’d removed her pants. Not seeing him, not knowing what he was going to do made her heart race and her pussy clench.
“First rule. You do as I say, when I say.”
He dragged something cold and metallic over her chin, sending more shivers through her. “And the rest?”
“You don’t come until I give you permission.”
“That’s not—”
He smacked her ass, the force of which sent her falling forward onto the bed. “Fair?” he said, as she tried to get used to the sting. Then his hand was massaging away the burn, dulling it until only a heat remained. And her pussy was suddenly throbbing with need.
The cool edge returned, against her thigh and ass this time. Then it snaked under her panties and pulled up. Her panties fell away from her skin as he lifted her hips, positioning her on all fours.
Hayden’s Haven Page 32
