The Hailey Holloway Complete Series

by K. C. Stewart

  Turns out his father wasn't a complete bastard after all.

  He had gone to her room before he left and had a look around. Her parents had kept Josh's room in pristine condition, yet Hailey's had been turned into extra storage. Boxes littered the floor and were stacked on the bed. He saw through it all to the room it once was. Pink, not a color he would have pegged Hailey for liking but strangely soothing to know she had once been a girly girl.

  She had a shelf with a few art and writing awards, a picture with her and a young group of what could only be friends by a pool, and a stuffed bunny with button eyes and a t-shirt that had Greg embroidered on it. He picked it up and clapped a cloud of dust off of the toy.

  Greg the bunny wasn't the only thing encased in dust. Everything had a thick layer of the stuff. As he followed the pictures around her room, he noticed that as the photographs of her got older, the amount of friends became smaller; until one solitary picture sat on her desk of her reading in a library. Silas took that picture and wiped off the dust with the corner of the bedspread. She appeared to be in college with a mountain of research around her, so focused on her work, Hailey didn't even realize her picture had been taken. He took the picture out of the frame and placed it into the pocket of his suit jacket.

  With nothing else to see, he left her room and her house. Silas slipped in the back seat of his town car. How should he tell her? Maybe lay out the facts for her to deduce on her own, or just be upfront and tell her?

  "How long till we are back?" he asked his driver.

  "About an hour, Sir."

  He tapped his fingers on the armrest. "Make it forty-five."

  "Yes, Sir."

  *****

  There was no fluttering of eyelashes or soft sigh. One minute Hailey was unconscious, blissfully unaware of anything outside her comatose state and then she was awake. A gargled moan came from her throat as someone rubbed something over one of the cuts on her back. She clawed her hands into the pillow, fisting the feathers.

  "Is that necessary?"

  "Actually," her heart thudded as Dak's soft voice came from behind her, "it is. Just a little more and then you can rest awhile." His fingers spread the goo over her shoulder. She turned her head into the pillow and let loose a string of expletives as he wiped a finger down each cut. "All done," he whispered in her ear when he was through.

  Her grip on the pillow lessened. The goo was warm and numbed her skin slightly. She turned her head toward him. He looked so happy. Dak was putting the lid back on the jar of goo. A piece of his hair had fallen into his face. When he brushed it back, he caught her looking and his eyes softened. Hailey wished that she felt that strongly, but all she felt was a betrayal that ran deeper than the cuts on her back.

  Dak pulled the sheet up over her bare back. She shrank away from his fingertips. The pounding in her chest increased until she could barely even hear herself think.

  "I'm sorry; you must be in so much pain right now." He frowned and ran his eyes down her body, assessing the damage. "Can I get you anything?"

  "Another room." Hailey's voice was much hollower than she had thought it would sound but didn't find the will to care.

  "What's wrong with this one?" He looked around curious as to what she could possibly not like about it. A fire was lit to keep the room warm. It gave a soft glow to the room. The mattress she laid on was like a cloud and he had even covered her with a thin sheet. In his mind, he had thought of everything.

  "You're in this one."

  "Excuse me?" he asked astonished.

  "You heard me." Hailey turned her head into the pillow and onto the other side. Her chest rose and fell in rapid succession. Each breath stretched her healing skin. The strain it caused stung. She wondered where his Mate Katherine was hiding. Bathroom? Guest room? Maybe he had a house just for them somewhere else in the city.

  "Hailey." He came around the bed and knelt in front of her, his eyes confused and just a bit wary. "You still aren't mad about our fight, are you?"

  "Does she know that we had sex? Yeah, I'm sure she does. You two probably had a good laugh over it." She wasn't exactly talking to him, but to herself. The filter on her thoughts had been out of order for some time now and she just couldn't find the care to fix it. "Is she pissed because I got out alive? Well, somewhat anyway. Wait, why am I here? I told Alex to take me home. This is not home."

  "HAILEY!" he yelled and grabbed her shoulder, shaking her until she stopped talking. She hissed in a breath. His hand instantly retreated with guilt.

  "Who are you talking about? Who is she?"

  Hailey turned her eyes from the lamp she had been looking at, to his face. "Katherine, of course."

  He looked as though she had just punched him. "But…how?"

  "How did I know? How did I know your supposedly dead Mate was here? The same way I know that you had lunch and that you kissed her. Pictures speak a thousand words, isn't that what they say?" She searched his eyes for any clue that she was wrong. Just a hint of something she could hope for, but she only found confirmation of his cheating deeds.

  His mouth hung open, he looked truly shocked that she had any idea that Katherine was back. He was probably just upset he had been caught. Hailey flicked her eyes away. She couldn't stare into his eyes without clouding her own with tears.

  "I don't know how you found out so fast about Katherine," he began when his mind started to work again, "but it is not what you think happened."

  "Let me guess, she kissed you."

  "Yes!" he said relieved. "That is exactly what happened." He reached forward as if to place his hand over top hers. Hailey dodged out of the way, which sent a screaming pain through her body.

  "Don't touch me," she hissed.

  "You don't believe me?"

  "No."

  He came closer and acted as though he was going to touch her again. Hailey pushed back, this time using the pain, morphing it into adrenalin and jumped out of the other side of the bed. The sheet that had been covering her body was now her shield. She clung to it protectively.

  He was already on the other side of the room. "Get back in bed." The soft words of her ex-lover were gone and now she got to experience the hardness of the dragon beneath the skin.

  "Don't touch me," she said again, her voice wavering. Hailey backed away with every step he took towards her. "Get out!"

  "No," he growled. "We need to talk about this." Another step forward, another two back.

  Her back hit the wall. "GET OUT!" she screamed and dropped to her knees when her legs gave out. She gasped for breath as pained surged through her.

  "Hailey, please…"

  The door burst opened and Alex stepped inside. He took one look at their stances and pushed passed Dak to where Hailey sat on the floor. "Hey," he said with a smile, "let's get you back into bed." He grabbed under her elbow, cautious to not touch her any more than necessary, and helped her to her feet.

  Dak stepped up behind him, his possessive growl haunting the room with vibrations. She wanted that guttural rumble to be for her, to be more than because a man was helping her to her feet. Alex turned his head and sneered. "Back off."

  On shaky legs, Hailey waded through the tension of the room. It was thick and heavy as it hung in the air. Alex pushed her on, kept her moving toward the bed. When she was close enough, she shook off his hands. Dak instantly stopped growling and she felt breath enter her lungs again.

  "You need to leave," Alex said rounding on Dak.

  "This is my room, my house actually. I'm not going anywhere."

  As she sat on the edge of the bed Hailey caught a glimpse of Dak's eyes. Oblong and amber, it seemed his dragon was peeking out to play. She dropped her eyes, turned her head, and wished for some peace from everything and everyone.

  "Haven't you done enough damage?" Alex asked. The tension in the room dropped out. Dak's eyes were on her, she could feel their pain and anger sweep her over from head to toe assessing the damage. Still, Hailey kept her eyes downcast. As pitiful
as she felt, she must have looked worse because Dak's footsteps receded out of her line of vision and the door closed behind them.

  Hailey slumped forward, unable to hold herself up anymore. Alex swooped in beside her and let her lean against his shoulder. "How you holding up?" he asked.

  "Why did you bring me here?" She tried for accusing but it just sounded tired.

  "Because as much as it doesn't look like it right now, this is your home."

  She sat up, her brow V'd with a deep crevice. "How can you say that after what he did?"

  "I've been around a long time. I'm not saying my experiences have given me any wisdom in the matter but from an outsider's perspective, he loves you. I can't see Dacea hurting you purposefully for any reason."

  "He didn't do it purposefully; he was surprised I even knew about her. Bastard probably had hoped to keep it a secret." He reached for her hand and gave it a soft squeeze as her voice cracked.

  "Like I said before, it smells like a setup to me." He bumped his shoulder lightly against hers. "But I've been known to be wrong in the past."

  She smiled a little at that. "So you want me to keep an open mind?"

  "I do. Just give him a chance to tell you his side of the story."

  "And I should listen to you because you're a guy?"

  "No! That's a horrible reason," he chuckled. "Listen to me because I'm your friend."

  Hailey couldn't argue with that logic. So she nodded. He was right; she could at least hear Dak out. She only wondered if they had to be in the same room when they did talk. His presence was as hard to be near, as was his voice, perhaps he could explain in a text.

  "Good. Now what can I do for you?"

  "Clothes would be nice." Her sheet was a little thin and speckled with blood droplets.

  "Now that is something I can do."

  Chapter Fourteen

  Silas dropped his jacket on the chair and loosened his tie. He pulled up the cameras in Hailey's room from his phone. The shower was where he was headed next, but for his own piece of mind he wanted to check on Hailey. The first angle only showed a messy bed. At least she was out of bed and moving around, he mused. The second angle showed the rest of her empty room. A lamp lay on its side in the middle of the floor. He narrowed his eyes flipping through the four camera views of her room.

  She wasn't there.

  Pocketing his phone he strolled down the stairs to where the cells were. Maybe she had convinced the guard with those eyes of hers to let her go into Alex's room.

  It was a pitiful explanation and one he barely believed himself.

  The guard, Lucas, who he left in charge, was not at his post. If experience had taught him anything, it was to go slow and observe. Rushing only made room for mistakes. So he walked slowly down the hallway peering into each cell. Hailey's was empty and the door open. He took a quick peek inside and zeroed in on the wall between her and Alex. Bloody numbers of the pass code were written in a shaky script. Her mattress was stripped of its sheet and left behind only a rusty red stain in the center. He growled. Someone had made her bleed.

  Alex's room was next; his door was also opened, but nothing out of the ordinary in there. Those were the only two rooms unlocked. Everyone else was tucked safely away in their cells, some were sedated, some half dead, one hadn't stopped smiling for a year now. None of them looked at Silas as he walked by.

  Spots of blood trailed from her room down the hallway toward his interrogation rooms. The door to the first one was hanging open. Boo sat in the doorway. Keeping guard, he realized. He stepped around the cat and found his guard Lucas in the center of the room bound and gagged. Relief shone in his eyes at the sight of Silas. The man's idea of a savior was far off, Silas thought. A piece of paper had been stapled to his shirt.

  Guess whose blood this is?

  Silas jerked the paper free and read it again. His eyes slid from the words to the floor of the room. It had been used recently. No one had authorization to use these rooms without Silas's permission and most times his supervision was required. He could smell Hailey in here. Her blood was pungent but it was the tangy scent of fear that marked the room.

  He smiled viciously at Lucas.

  "I'll be back. Make sure he doesn't go anywhere." Silas said to Boo. The man's eyes bulged from his skull and he began to fight his bindings with renewed vigor. Silas dropped the paper in his lap and strolled out the door.

  The security room held cameras and recordings. He entered his passcodes and found the videos for the previous day. They were gone, erased off the hard drive. For that alone he would beat the fucking shit head. Tampering with his security tapes just proved his guilt.

  Luckily all the tapes were also backed up onto another server. It's not that Silas didn't trust his men, he just didn't trust anyone. After a few more passcodes he found the saved footage from the previous day.

  He didn't need to fast forward long, only an hour after he had left before Lucas entered Hailey's room. Silas watched and listened. His knuckles cracked under the pressure of his fists. "So you wanted to make her feel again, did you Lucas? Let's see just how much feeling you gave back to her."

  He fast forwarded through the day watching as Hailey became more and more agitated. He felt guilty for leaving her, but mostly just a grueling sickness. He had seen the blood, the tools that had been used were still laid carelessly about the room, and he'd done enough torture over the years to know when a session went badly.

  The tapes slowed when the guard entered again. Smoke rose from Silas as Lucas drug her limp, tased body from her room. With quick finger strokes, he seamlessly switched cameras. The sight of his sister hanging from his room of pain and agony, made him see red. Silas didn't need to see any more than the first few hits of the whip before he was in the hall heading back to the guard.

  The man still struggled but ceased when his boss came in in a fury. The gag was ripped from his mouth and instantly Silas's hand gripped his throat.

  "You whipped her?"

  He shook his head and tried to garble out a response.

  "No? Then what do you call it?" His hand lessoned but only enough for Lucas to squeak out a reply.

  "Self-defense."

  A smile spread slowly across Silas's face. It started in his eyes, a gleam of anticipation, then it rolled down to his lips where the tips turned ever so slightly upward and rose until his teeth began to show. Lucas stopped struggling. "And here I had just planned on killing you to get you out of the way, but you know, I think I'm going to take my time with you, like you took your time with whipping my sister."

  He let his last words settle over the room. This was the first time he had spoken of his relation to Hailey out loud and the recipient couldn't have been better chosen. All of the blood had drained from the guard's face. He stumbled on words as he tried to choke out a story that didn't implicate him.

  Silas let him speak; let him grovel for his life. As he listened, he walked around the room taking note of every item Lucas had used on his beloved sister. He would use them all on the guard to cleanse the room and restore the balance.

  "I'd save your breath if I were you," he interrupted. "You're going to need it."

  It had taken a little over an hour. Silas had wanted to draw it out longer but his concern over Hailey exceeded his need for retribution. He wiped his hands with a towel and surveyed the damage. Pieces of Lucas lay abandoned in various locations around the room. After the whipping filleted his skin and muscles, Silas took to using his fists. Each punch was for Hailey and Silas was sure to tell him that. He wanted the man to know why he was dying and who he was dying for. By the end, on a whimper of a breath, he apologized. Silas ended it then by twisting the man's head clean off.

  His security team gathered in the hallway, they had watched, many having to excuse themselves to get sick. He hadn't asked them to be there, but he was pleased to have them observe. This saved him the trouble of informing them what would happen if any of them laid a finger on Hailey.

  "
I'm off to find her. Someone clean this up." He motioned to the bloody mess of the room behind him. Silas walked out the door with a black cat in his shadow.

  *****

  Dacea needed air. His conversation with Hailey had gone way off course. He had planned on telling her of Katherine's surprise visits and what had transpired between them, but she had been in such bad shape that his priority was her health. She thought that he was what? Cheating on her, was stringing her along, keeping her as a mistress? He thought Hailey had known him better than that…had trusted in what they had. This wasn't just some fly by night love affair. She was his Céile and he damn well was going to show her exactly what that meant.

  He jogged down the stairs; at the landing he heard murmurings from Lia and Darby. Explaining to them that Hailey wanted to have nothing to do with him because she had found out about Katherine, better yet, had seen pictures of them together, was not something he could handle at the moment. Yeah, he'd deal with them later, no doubt that they would find fault in his actions.

  There was only one person who could have known about Katherine and that was Silas. It didn't surprise Dacea that the Green dragon would try to turn Hailey against him. But had Katherine been in on it or had that just been a bonus?

  The front door opened, Dacea's steps slowed as his dragon began to stir. Lia let out a, "What the fuck do you think you're doing here?" and Dacea stopped altogether. Of all the people to walk into his home, Silas was the last person he expected, but the most welcomed at the moment.

  He ran down the last few steps and before Silas could take another step further into his home, Dacea rammed his shoulder into Silas's abdomen. They both felt to the ground in a tangle of curses and grunts. Dacea sat on his chest with Silas's arms pinned beneath his legs. He let the frustration over Katherine, anger at Hailey being taken, and heartache from the fight they had only moments earlier drive his hits. Left, right, each punch was thrown and landed with perfect precision.