She flinched away. “Don’t touch me!”
Allan sighed as he sat back in his chair, putting some distance between them. “I know you don’t trust me. The circumstances of our meeting were unfortunate. I’d wished to sweep you off your feet, get to know you, introduce you to this world slowly. But then you went to that party, and Mayhem found you…” He rubbed his hand over his face, closing his eyes briefly before looking at her again with a small smile. “You’re not his yet, Hannah. There’s still time for me to win your heart.”
Hannah shook her head. “You must be crazy. All of you.”
“It certainly does seem that way.” Allan chuckled. “This fantasy world of Hunter and beasts. Men turning into monsters. Huntresses battling for humanity. But deep down, it’s in you, Hannah. Somewhere in your subconscious is the truth. If you’d just let me…” He reached out a hand again as if to touch her arm.
“Don’t touch me!” she screeched, slapping his hand away and nearly spilling the mug of hot tea all over her lap. She set the mug on a side table and jumped from the chair, forcing herself to walk, put more distance between them. “I’m not going to tell you again.”
“Allan.” Kelly walked into the room, a frown on her face. “Why don’t you leave us for a few minutes?”
Allan glanced over at Kelly, resignation on his face.
“We need some girl time,” she continued as she motioned to the doorway.
Allan nodded, looked over at Hannah one more time. She felt that pull again, the desire to go and console him, to feel something other than fright, anger, betrayal. She gave her head a hard shake and turned her back on him. “Bizarre,” she mumbled.
“You share the same power,” Kelly said. “More so. It’s locked within right now but you could access it if you’d allow Allan to bond with you.”
Hannah turned to see that Kelly had taken a seat in the chair that Allan had occupied only moments before. “What’s your power?” She didn’t want to believe any of this, but there were edges of truth—blunt edges that were prodding her toward acceptance in some form.
Kelly chuckled bitterly. “Clairvoyance. In a limited capacity these days.”
Hannah cocked an eyebrow. “You can see the future?”
Kelly nodded. “It’s not so reliable at the moment. My Hunter…” Her throat caught. She looked down, losing the image of strength she’d been presenting. “He’s been captured by the beasts. Not yet dead, I don’t think. I’d know that if he were…I mean, I think I’d know that.” Her voice quivered. She cleared her throat, snapped her eyes up to meet Hannah’s, the strength shining once again. “My powers have been slipping over the past few weeks, but yes, I can see the future sometimes.”
Hannah shook her head, moved back to her chair and slumped down, exhaustion winning once again. “This is all so fantastical. I don’t know what to believe. Allan…there’s something about him, like when he looks at me, when he touches me, I feel things.”
Kelly nodded. “That’s the power you share. Allan is able to elicit emotion in others. Control, in a limited way, how people are feeling or perceiving a situation.”
“Emotional manipulation you mean?” Hannah felt her anger rise again, understanding clicking. “So that’s what’s been going on. That’s how he got me here. He can influence what I’m feeling.” She hesitated. That was, if she believed any of this.
“He’s your Hunter, Hannah. His destiny is to protect you, bond with you. Since the day that he earned his mark, the tattoo on his arm, he’s been training, learning, developing his powers for you. Years of honing his strength so that he can pass it on to you when you bond.”
“I don’t understand.” Hannah sighed, her mind whirring once again.
“The man becomes the Hunter when the wolf tattoo appears. It’s triggered by some kind of interaction with a beast, whether it be a chance crossing or a forced encounter. If he is destined to be a Hunter, the mark will appear. Allan got his mark when he was fifteen and he’s been preparing himself for meeting you, his Huntress, ever since.”
“And what? Now I’m just supposed to forget about Mayhem? Ignore my feelings for him and accept this—what you’re telling me as my destiny?” Hannah shook her head. “I don’t feel that way about Allan. I don’t want to give up Mayhem.”
“You don’t feel that way about Allan yet. If you’d just give him a chance—”
“A chance to what? To trick me into falling in love with him? To manipulate me into feeling something I don’t?” Hannah’s anger was bubbling through her exhaustion.
Kelly shook her head. “He can’t make you feel something that you don’t. That’s not how it works. He can only tap into what is already there. You’re attracted to him, you can’t deny that…” She smirked when Hannah opened her mouth to argue, raised a hand. “Okay, so maybe you can deny it. Either way, if there wasn’t some curiosity, some interest on your part, he would never have gotten you into the truck with him.”
Hannah’s eyes grew wide, guilt stabbing at her. She had found him intriguing, attractive. She’d been curious. She’d also been mystified and scared by what he’d shown her in that video of Mayhem transforming. He’d taken advantage of that. She clamped her mouth shut though, unwilling to admit to any truth in Kelly’s words.
“We know all about your background, Hannah,” Kelly said as she rose from her chair and walked to the window.
Hannah frowned. “What do you mean?”
“We know about your childhood, growing up without your mom, with a father who took out his frustrations on the easiest target.”
Hannah flinched, an old, buried wound ripping wide open. “That’s not…” She choked on her words. “He didn’t…”
Kelly turned toward her, sympathy etched on her face. “Your mom left, abandoned you both. He made you feel inadequate. He made you feel unloved. Tell me I’m wrong, Hannah. Go ahead, tell me that your childhood was happy.”
Hannah gulped back the tears that threatened to explode. Too much. This was all too much. Kelly was hitting on truths that Hannah had buried deep. Had built walls around. “There have been worse childhoods. It’s not like I was abused.” She shrugged. “Not physically anyway.”
“The Order, this place, it can give you everything you crave. Love, acceptance, belonging. A higher purpose. When you bond with your Hunter, when you embrace your role as Huntress, you’ll never know those feelings of inadequacy again. Don’t you want that, Hannah?”
“What are you saying? That if I agree to this bonding, if I accept this reality that you present, that I’ll suddenly be a different person? That you’ll fix damage that I’ve carried with me for years? That you’ll take that baggage and make it disappear?” Hannah scoffed, wanting so badly to tell Kelly to go to hell, wanting so badly to embrace what she was offering.
“The bonding process between Huntress and Hunter is intense. It involves a lot of emotion, a physical connection usually. But it’s so worth it. All that he knows, all of the legacy of information, all of his training, his strength, physically, intellectually, magically, will become yours. Ultimately, your powers will grow stronger than his, but the bond is the catalyst. Once bonded, you will never want to be parted from him again. You won’t even question what he did to get you here. Any uncertainty will disappear. Once bonded, to lose your Hunter is intolerable.” Kelly’s eyes swam with unshed tears, sorrow edging her words. “We had a Huntress, Talia, lose her Hunter not too long ago. She lost herself, she betrayed her fellow Hunters. She became a different person. Dangerous. Unhinged.”
“How did her Hunter die?” Hannah was overwhelmed by Kelly, her words, her obvious belief, conviction in everything she said. It was hard not to trust her.
Kelly stabbed her with a look so cold that Hannah flinched. “His throat was ripped out, murdered by Mayhem.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Mayhem came to with a jolt. He was
seated in the driver side of the rental truck. What the fuck? He shook his head, snapped around to see Jay and Dy slumped in the back seats.
He looked toward the bar. The lights were still blinking, the doorman gone. Night was fading, his time running out. His wolf was agitated, pawing at him to do something. Anything to get to Hannah.
“What’s going on?” Dy moaned. “Fuck, I feel like I’ve got the world’s worst hangover.”
“Wake Jay up, will ya?” Mayhem opened the door and stepped out of the truck. She’d fucked him over, that stupid bitch, and she would answer for it.
He made it two steps toward the bar when he hit a wall, a force of power that held him back. Talia’s voice was like a whisper in his head. “You don’t want to be part of this, Mayhem. Turn around. Leave. Remember what I told you. Remember.”
And it all came flooding back. She’d fucked him, yes, but not completely. He reached into his jacket, finding the slip of paper she’d put there. “Give this to your witch, she’ll know what to do,” her tone commanding. It came along with memory of her directing him to leave the bar, forcing him to walk like a zombie to his truck, Dy and Jay in tow. Her powers were back. That was what she had said. Powers like she’d never experienced before. He shuddered. Scary.
Mayhem looked to the horizon. Muted yellows glowed, burning him from the inside, making his beast perk up, shake off the last of dozy haze from whatever Talia had done to them. He had just enough time to get back to the motel before they all wolfed out. With one last growl in the direction of the bar, he stormed back to the truck, got in and slammed the door.
“What happened?” Jay leaned forward, hand on Mayhem’s shoulder. “You okay?”
Mayhem shrugged his hand off. “The bitch screwed us over. We need to get out of here before the sun hits. I don’t trust her not to fuck us again.” He turned the ignition and peeled out of the lot.
Darcy gasped as she scanned the piece of paper again. “Do you know what this is?”
Mayhem snarled, “If I did, I probably wouldn’t be handing it to you looking confused, now would I?”
Darcy snapped her eyes up to meet Mayhem’s, a frown on her face.
“Sorry,” he grumbled then walked to the bed and sat. “Bad night.”
“This is a powerful spell. A dream-walking spell.” She scanned the paper again. “I think…I think that this spell will let you enter other people’s dreams, maybe even their subconscious mind if they aren’t sleeping.”
“So?” Mayhem was in no mood for riddles. Any hope he had that Talia hadn’t totally fucked him over was gone now. “What the hell do I need to dream-walk for? I need to find Hannah.” He stood from the bed and pounded his fist into the wall. “Fuck! We’ve wasted an entire night!”
“Mayhem,” Darcy said, her voice low, forcing him to look over at her once again. “This means that you could enter Hannah’s mind. You could, in theory, mark her in a dream or in her subconscious.”
“What?” Mayhem didn’t know a whole lot about magic or about how the bite worked completely, but if there was any chance to claim Hannah… “You mean I could remotely bite her? Would that work?”
“The way this spell is laid out, it kinda suggests that you can manipulate on a physical level.” Darcy smirked. “I think it’s meant for sex—like long distance relationship kinda stuff. I don’t see why it wouldn’t work in other ways too. Marking your mate is a physical act. It might have the same or at least some impact on creating a bond with Hannah.”
“It seems like a possibility.” Aubrey tapped her fingers to her lips, contemplating the information. “I mean, if you mark her, if your minds are linked, that might be enough to establish a bond so that you can at least track her. Doesn’t solve the problem of getting past the magical barriers they have set up around their compound, though.”
“We’ll worry about that we when get to that point.” Mayhem motioned toward Darcy. “Do it.”
Darcy winced. “It’s a tricky spell, May. I’m going to need some time to practice a bit. Dream-walking…it’s not the kind of thing you want to fuck up.”
“Do it.” Mayhem knew he was being unfair, commanding something that Darcy would feel obligated to perform. When she flinched, he softened his tone. “I have faith in you. You’re a powerful witch and I trust you with my life.”
“It might take me a while to get it right,” she said as she glanced down at the paper.
“Whatever time you need.” It hurt him to say that when what he really meant was do it, do it now, this very second, a moment wasted was a moment lost to the Hunters.
“If this works, you’ll be in your wolf form most likely, unless she manipulates the dream in some way. All you need is to bite her, even if she is freaking out a bit. In her mind, it will all be just a dream.” Darcy reread the spell. “I need something though, something that belongs to her. Something that she would cherish. That’s how we get the link.”
“Fuck.” Mayhem turned to look at Raven, who was still in wolf form. The bag that he’d been carrying of items belonging to Hannah was trapped within that form as well, the magic making it disappear until he returned to being human.
“We can go to her apartment, find something and bring it back,” Jaylon offered, his hand on the door knob, ready to run if Mayhem said so.
“No.” Mayhem reached into his jacket, suddenly remembering the jewelry box. “I’ve got something.” He pulled out the box and flipped it open. Nestled inside the plush velvet was a small silver locket open to reveal a photograph of an older looking version of Hannah. Her mother, perhaps?
“That might work.” Darcy said as she dipped her fingers in and pulled the jewelry out. “You ready?”
“Let’s do this,” Mayhem said. “Just tell me what you need me to do.”
Darcy sucked in a deep breath, holding the locket and motioning toward the bed. “Get comfortable. I’ll start the spell as soon as the sun is up.”
Mayhem nodded. Any minute now and the sun would give his beast all the power. He moved to the bed and lay down, his instinct warring with his actions. He hated magic when it was being used on him, but it seemed like in order to embrace the role of the Huntresses in his life, he would have to accept the amount of power they had over him. He trusted Darcy with her powers—that didn’t mean he had to like it when she used them on him.
As the sun rose, the magic of his transformation took hold, his wolf bursting forth, not totally understanding what he was supposed to be doing but looking at Darcy expectantly.
Mayhem drifted in and out of awareness, conscious of the passing of time, feeling on some level his wolf’s frustration of time wasting, he knew Darcy had not yet succeeded in performing the spell. The tiny glimpses of the hotel room, fleeting moments of lucid clarity when he pushed through to see things from his wolf eyes. These moments only confirmed the truth. The spell wasn’t working. He wasn’t getting any closer to Hannah. He let out a roar, both he and his wolf wanting nothing more than to bust a hole in the door and take off. Find her. Mark her.
Lost in his thoughts, Darcy’s voice came as a whisper at first. “Mayhem, Mayhem, Mayhem,” her voice echoed in his head. “I don’t know how long this spell will last, so try to make the bite quickly.”
Hannah was unconscious, or sleeping—but lucid, right? She rolled over on the plush mattress, not sure how she got there but appreciating it all the same. She wasn’t awake, that much she knew. Everything was foggy, dreamy. She sighed, her body relaxing even more. She’d been having the most horrid dream moments before with a strange group of people, a beast and a lot of blood but now she was laying in this bed, dreaming about Mayhem.
He was at the door of the room, watching her like he wasn’t quite sure he was in the right place. “Hannah?” His voice was muffled a little, foggy like the room.
“Mayhem.” She beckoned him with her hand.
“We don’t have
a lot of time,” he said as he moved into the room. “There are things I need to tell you.”
“Shhh.” She moved to the end of the bed, her body feeling like she was floating. She reached up to him, on her knees so she was almost at eye level. “I missed you.”
Something flickered in his eyes—like he wanted to pop this bubble of wonderful she’d created.
She pressed a finger to his lips. “I was having the most terrible dream. You came just at the right time.”
When he frowned and opened his mouth to speak, she stretched up and pressed her lips to his as she slid her hands on his chest. He hesitated for a moment, but it was her dream and she wanted it to be something nice, so it didn’t take long to convince him that talking would come later.
His cock was hard, straining against his pants, pressing her sex through her panties. Her body ached for him. She pulled away and backed up so that he could see her as she slid her hand down her stomach, dipping into her panties to touch her clit. She was so wet, her fingers gliding along her swollen lips, slipping inside as she rubbed herself. Mayhem was riveted, his eyes telling her that he liked what she was doing, his tongue darting out to lick his lips like he wanted a taste.
She bent her head back. “Mayhem,” she moaned.
His weight on the bed almost sent her tumbling forward. She snapped her head up as his hands landed on her hips. She pulled her fingers out of her panties and offered him a taste. He smiled that wicked smile she loved and sucked her fingers into his mouth, twirling around with his tongue. She giggled as he rubbed the back of his hand over her breasts, teasing her nipples with his knuckles.
He released her fingers and she dropped her hands to his penis. He was completely naked now because she’d willed it so. Her dream. Mayhem needed to be bare.
“I’ve missed you, sweet Hannah,” he groaned when she circled his cock with both hands, stroking him with one, cupping his balls with the other. She licked her lips, intent on tasting him.
He stilled her, though, one hand on her hip, fingers of the other touching her lips. “Later, sweets, we don’t have time now.”
Mayhem: The Order of the Wolf, Book 5 Page 12
