The Hailey Holloway Complete Series

by K. C. Stewart

  “Err, Dragon? I’m going to go back to bed and when I wake up you’ll be gone.” She opened her medicine cabinet and grabbed the bottle of NyQuil. Hailey could almost feel his disapproving gaze. “Don’t judge.” She took a few swigs from the bottle and replaced the cap.

  “Very well, we will play this little game of yours but when you wake up, we will talk.”

  She stood and brushed off the bits of cut grass from her pants. They hadn’t talked that day or the next. Hailey did everything in her power to pretend he wasn’t there. She still did.

  Realizing the time, she took a deep breath and cleared her mind. Once outside the park’s gate she felt the air move again. A cool fall breeze snapped her from her stupor. Life had taken a serious wrong turn and that park was to blame.

  Chapter Two

  Hailey settled in at her cubicle and flipped through the new files that magically appeared overnight. Not her work of course, she always got that done. Hailey had the unfortunate roll as the office pushover. It started out with helping people who were behind to make their deadlines. Now, she just did it for them and avoided the confrontation. It bothered her more than she liked to admit but never planned to do anything about it.

  “Oh good, you found the files. If you could just finish those up for me, that’d be great.” Holly, otherwise known as the “Office Slut,” gave her a fake smile and sauntered past Hailey in her ode to Mad Men dress. She was no Christina Hendricks, but Holly’s red hair and hourglass curves were what dreams were made of. “By noon Hails,” she said before closing the door to her office.

  “By noon Hails,” she said mockingly to her computer.

  Inside she fumed with loathing, spouting off every string of curse words she could think of. Outside she held a well-practiced neutral face. Emotions and Hailey didn’t really get along. Something always went wrong from the initial feeling to expressing that feeling outward. Instead of fighting it, she accepted and honed it. Now, it was a blessing and a curse to stay in her “emotional safe zone.” On a scale of one to ten, she stayed consistently between four and six, never to stray far from the median.

  “Why do you never say no? Is it not in your vocabulary?”

  Oh goodie, because her troubles weren’t bad enough, the voice was back again.

  “Why do you insist on speaking to me when I want nothing to do with you?” she whispered and looked around to make sure no one was watching her talk to herself. They already thought she was a freak, no need to add fuel to the fire.

  “You know I can’t leave. I have tried countless times but nothing has worked. So speaking to you, as loathsome as that may be, is my only option.”

  And here she thought he lived only to torment her. “You have?” She frowned. Hailey wasn’t a religious person, but she had prayed for help every day, to anyone who would listen. Just like when she was ten and prayed for a snow day, there was no answer.

  “You think I want to be stuck with a human woman who thinks she is going crazy?” he sneered. “It has been three weeks since I bonded with you. At first you were cute and endearing. Now, this act you have going on is downright annoying.”

  Apparently she wasn’t good enough for the voice in her head. New mental health low, she mused. That didn’t bother her, not at all. It wouldn’t be the first time someone gave up on her, nor would it be the last.

  She huffed out a breath. Okay, maybe it bothered her a bit. “Whatever, I didn’t ask for this. Now if you would shut up I’d like to get my work done.” She waited for his retort but none came.

  Hailey got up to refill her coffee and headed back to her desk before anyone had the notion to talk to her. An earring lay abandoned on the corner of a coworker’s desk. Hailey slipped it into her pocket before even she knew what she was doing. Her hand rested on the outside of her pocket and felt the outline of the earring. An unfortunate side effect out their “bonding” as he liked to call it. Hailey was a kleptomaniac now. She stole constantly. Anything shiny, she had to have. If she kept this up she would be rocking back and forth in the bathroom saying “My Precious” in no time.

  After mentally cursing the dragon for doing this to her, Hailey dove into her work headfirst. It was the only thing that kept her mind busy and off of the wrong turn her life had taken. Three weeks ago she had been a normal 24-year-old college graduate working as a copy editor for a travel magazine. It wasn’t the most thrilling job in the world but it paid for her studio apartment and freedom.

  Like most college students, she moved back home after graduation. It started out okay as she looked for a job but when the weeks wore into months, her parents decided that now was the perfect time to come out of their 14 year funk and be parents again, complete with curfew and guilt trips. The moment she got the job at the magazine, Hailey had moved out.

  By noon she had just finished Holly’s work; her own glaring her in the face. She would have to work through her lunch, again. The only comfort she had was the dragon had not spoken a word. Although, it made her wonder why he was so quiet all of a sudden.

  *****

  Dacea wished he had hands to throttle young Hailey with. Things were happening, things that were larger than her little human mind could comprehend. They were taking place at that very moment and he could do nothing to prevent them. All because his long awaited dragon Mate was a simple human girl who thought she was going crazy.

  If she were a bird, Hailey would have been pushed out of the nest long ago. There was no strength to speak of in her body and no magic in her mind. Of all the Mates to be paired with, he had to get the human. Dacea needed to be free of her for no other reason than she was a hindrance to his sanity.

  There was also Darby, he still needed to find the witch and tell her about Lennox’s death. It’d been weeks since she last heard from her Mate. Did she know? Could she feel the connection to Lennox missing? He felt the loss of his friend every day.

  “Uh, Mr. Dragon?”

  “Dacea,” he barked.

  “What now?” she asked, confused.

  “My name is not Mr. Dragon, it is Dacea.”

  Hailey stared at her reflection in the computer screen. “Does it really look like I give a crap?” she deadpanned. “Dak, I have a question for you.”

  “Do you now?” Oh this should be interesting, he thought.

  “I’m not really crazy, am I?”

  “Well now, that is a loaded question. Are we speaking figuratively or clinically?”

  “Whatever Jackass, it doesn’t matter,” she muttered and turned off her computer.

  Hailey grabbed her purse and headed out of the office. Like most nights, she was the last one to leave. Only an hour after shift this time; might be a new record for her. She was tired. With no real social life to speak of there was no reason for her to be so exhausted. The only explanation could be that she was tired with life in general. And the dragon, she thought, she was tired of the dragon.

  “To answer your question, you are not crazy. It is a perfectly reasonable reaction to what you’ve witnessed. However, your grace period has ended. You need to get on with it and accept what happened.”

  She continued to walk. As much as she hated to admit it, he had a point. And as hard as she tried, he wasn’t going away. No matter how many candles she blew out, 11:11s she caught, or eyelashes she blew off her finger, wishing wasn’t getting her anywhere. Maybe it was time to start asking questions, the ones that were long overdue.

  “Yeah, I’m starting to see that maybe you are right. Can we call a truce tonight and talk this through?”

  “I’d love nothing more than that. Thank you Hailey for finally being reasonable.”

  Hailey turned the corner and took her shortcut down the alley. Her apartment was just two blocks away. Once she was in her sweats and had a big bowl of cereal, she and Dak would need to have a little Q & A session.

  It was a fairly warm night in September, but she had a chill as she walked. The sun was just beginning to settle beneath the horizon, a sure sign f
all was almost here. Fall was one of her favorite times of year, unfortunately it brought with it winter. However, this wasn’t a temperature kind of cold that brought goose bumps to her arms. Paranoia seeped into her consciousness. She took this route home all the time. She even knew most of the shop owners who used the alley. It was perfectly safe, she reminded herself.

  Regardless of how safe it was or wasn’t, she slid her hand into her purse and gripped the canister of pepper spray. It was probably an overreaction but the cold metal canister settled a small amount of her worry. One of the first things she did when she got to college was take self-defense classes. Fortunately she never had to use the knowledge, tonight might change that.

  “Dak are your Spidey senses tingling?”

  “My name is not Dak, it is Da-see-a.” He sounded it out like she was a kindergartener. “And if you are asking if someone is following you, then yes, my Spidey senses are in fact tingling.”

  Did he just roll his eyes?

  “What should I do?”

  “Why, introduce yourself, of course!” a voice called from behind her.

  Chapter Three

  Hailey froze at the sound of the new voice to enter the conversation. His footsteps echoed down the alley becoming louder and more threatening with each click of his step. “Dacea, I see you have survived our little tiff. Well, almost.” Amusement was thick in his voice as the steps stopped behind her.

  She didn’t want to turn and face the man, which would make this whole thing real; from the fight she witnessed to this moment, it would all be proven as reality. But having him at her back was not a good idea either. She turned and came face to face with the green dragon from the fight and the fucker was smirking at her.

  If Hailey had learned anything from books and movies, it was that bad guys were always hot. This one was no exception. Mr. Tall, Dark, and Deadly had that long messy hair look, like he just got out of bed where some woman had been running her fingers through the strands. The dragon’s eyes were piercing with the help of a little guy-liner, or were those just his eyelashes? The sinful package was complete with a well-trimmed bit of scruff, and lips that were the sexiest thing north of the Mason Dixon.

  “Dacea, what a pretty little frame you carry this time around. Tell me, when you were younger did you feel like you were born wrong? Maybe you wanted to play dollies with the girls instead of hunting with the boys? I, for one, am so happy that you have finally found a body that fits.” Even his smile was perfect. Evil and a little creepy, but perfect. “I must say, it agrees with you.”

  A growl rumbled across the alley. It was a deep menacing purr, and it was coming from her. Horrified, she shut it down and took a few steps back covering her mouth with her hand.

  “Oh look, she’s scared. You sure did pick a good one Dacea.” He circled her. Her skin crawled with each pass of his eyes. She felt like a science experiment under his scrutiny. “She’s pretty.”

  Dak was fuming in what she could only guess as Irish. She could almost feel him pacing inside of her head. Hailey tried to keep her breath steady and her faced void of emotion but with Dak’s cursing, and the green dragon’s eyes undressing her, she could barely breathe, let alone think.

  “Where are my manners?” The dragon took a bow. “I am Silas, Overseer of the Green Dragons.” Silas snatched her hand before she could pull away. Green eyes shone brightly as he placed a kiss on the center of her palm. “That means I’m in charge, Sweetheart.” He winked and dropped her hand.

  “Dak, you have anything productive to say or are you going to just continue your rant?” she whispered never taking her eyes off of Silas, who continued to smile at her.

  “Let me take over. I’ll handle it.”

  “What exactly does that mean?” Hailey was kicking herself for not getting information on their situation sooner. He could take control of her body? Wasn’t that kidnapping or body snatching or something?

  “Just trust me Hailey. This is not your fight.” But would he give her control back or would she be trapped like he was now?

  Nails punctured her skin and the metallic smell of blood stung her nose. Silas raised an eyebrow and glanced down at her fisted hands. Did he see everything? She wanted to scream. Instead Hailey took a steadying breath and forcibly relaxed her fingers.

  “I really must be going, Silas. I can’t say it was a pleasure meeting you. Excuse me.” She stepped around him trying her hardest to portray confidence and headed for the busy street a block ahead. She swallowed back the fear that was ringing in her ears. She just needed to make it to the street. There was no way Silas would make a scene with that many people around. Dozens of people were walking by, she hoped one of them would look down the alley but they all kept on going without so much as a glance.

  The blow to the back of her head all but knocked her unconscious and the fall to the ground just about finished the job. Hailey moaned as she was drug back into the shadows of the alleyway. Her hands outstretched in front of her trying to grip the pavement. But there was no use with her mind weaving in and out of awareness.

  With her defenses down Dacea slid into place. Hailey’s honey brown eyes changed to deep amber. He got to his feet with much more ease than she felt and glared at Silas. He was blatantly ignoring the fact that Hailey’s body was weak and about to go into shock, and pushed her as far as he could.

  “Oh look, Dacea has come out to play,” the dragon teased. He was fast, too fast for Dacea to do anything given his current situation. Silas’s hand seized his throat and pushed back until his head cracked against the brick building behind him. Still unfazed by his position, Dacea continued to stare at Silas.

  “So how much trouble did the Council give you for not killing me?” The hand on his throat squeezed tighter. “Don’t tell me you thought I didn’t know about the contract on my head. You’re slipping, Silas.” Dacea’s lips twitched in amusement when smoke came streaming out of Silas’s nose.

  Hailey’s fingers began to lengthen and thicken. Red scales covered her arms and talons curled from each nail. Dacea stopped transforming further. Even if he wanted to take care of Silas right then, there were too many witnesses and killing the head of a Sept was frowned upon outside of a formal challenge. Silas may ignore their customs and traditions but Dacea was taught to respect their ways.

  “Walk away, Silas. Now is neither the time, nor place for this.” Blood trickled down his neck where Silas held his throat. Hailey would be bruised and in pain the next few days, but she would be alive. The hand dropped and Dacea resisted the need to slump back against the wall.

  “Hailey Holloway, I know you are listening in there.” Silas got in Dacea’s face. “Remember this, I know you and I’ll are coming for you.”

  “Leave her out of this.”

  “Oh but Dacea, you’re the one who brought her into it. If you would just stay dead for once in your goddamn life then I would have no qualms with the lovely Hailey.” With that Silas turned and walked down the alley before disappearing into the crowd around the corner.

  She fought back for control. It was a strange feeling not being in control of your own body. An even stranger feeling was having her body transform into something else. Her mind couldn’t wrap around the logistics of how it all worked.

  Dak slid back and let Hailey take the reins. She had questions but right now she needed to get home and off the streets. Each step was agony. Her head throbbed and she had lumps forming where she was hit. Thoughts of going to the hospital went as fast as they came. What would she tell them, she was robbed? Maybe she went skydiving and botched the landing. “Yes Doctor, the tree and I just had an argument, but the ground has had it out for me for years.” That seemed like too much of a hassle and too many lies—more than she could manage at the moment.

  Her apartment was on the second floor and she was regretting that decision with every step. Her body was beaten, tired, and swollen around the edges. As much as she just wanted to rest, her mind was unsettled.

  Hail
ey collapsed into her couch and exhaled. She breathed through the pain, the fatigue, and when she felt like she had her footing again she spoke to the dragon who was single handedly ruining her life.

  “Let me start by saying that I want you out. I want my body back and I want my life back. You are hereby being evicted.” Her voice was calm and soft, but there was heat beneath it. “So, with that being said, how do we get you out of my head and out of my life?” She closed her eyes and continued to breath, awaiting his response.

  “It’s not something I have ever seen done before. Then again, this whole situation is unusual.”

  “Could you elaborate?”

  “When a dragon dies it is the same as when a human dies. We are simply gone. When Silas stabbed me in the park I should have died. I would have recovered from the knife wound but he had poisoned his talons. When you showed up, I’m not sure why but my soul, my essence, traveled to you.”

  He had made the decision earlier not to tell Hailey she was a Mate. It was the only reason he travelled to her; a rare occurrence but not completely unheard of. It had happened a dozen other times throughout dragon history. A Mate had taken the soul of their dying match into their body and kept him there until death. He had never heard of a dragon escaping a Mate’s hold. Not that they would want to leave, to be with your Mate till the end was a precious thing.

  “I’ve heard stories such as ours but never one where the dragon has gone free.” He paused unsure what to say next.

  Hailey stared at the wall and let what he said sink in. She was stuck with him. The rest of her life she would be part dragon with a voice in her head. “How long do you live?”

  “I am in my 800’s now, lost track awhile back. I will live to be about 5000.”

  “And how long will I live?” she asked, not sure if she wanted to hear the answer.

  “Hailey...” The sympathy in his voice almost broke her.