He stood up, raising an eyebrow. Her careless use of a word he hadn’t heard in a long time bothered him more than it should have. If anyone else had said it, he wouldn’t have cared. This woman, however, even if she couldn’t remember him, happened to be his mate. “Monster, huh?” He extended his arms. “Do I look like a monster, Chelsea?”
“Not right now you don’t.” Her eyes flared with heat, and she stood up, his shirt hanging down to her knees. He’d forgotten that she’d been sleeping in it and seeing her dressed in one of his favorite pieces of clothing made his cock jump, argument or no argument.
“But I will look like a monster?” Had his mate been influenced by the people who had her? Was she some kind of werewolf bigot?
“I shouldn’t have said monster.” She put her hands on her hips. “That was wrong. I’ve been hearing that for years. I’m sorry. But you’re not exactly…normal. And neither am I, heaven knows I know that. I guess I don’t know what I’m saying.”
“All right then.” He could handle ignorance. Hatred constituted another matter altogether. “Here’s the deal. You’re my mate, Chelsea. Yesterday you knew that. You’d seen it a hundred times in some lifetimes and evidently seen some scenarios where we weren’t together. But in this one, we’re meant to be together. Trust me, I can feel it.”
In every part of his soul. In the very cells that let him breathe, he could feel her essence seeping into him. He needed her. How would he survive the sweet torture of having her close and not being able to claim her? Oh the madness…
She visibly swallowed. “Let me see if I can get this straight. I came here because, in my dream state, I knew that we were mates even though we’d never met before.”
“Exactly.”
“You’re a werewolf. I think I’m human. I mean I’m some kind of human-esque thing, even with my weirdness. Sex can happen? Wolves and, you know, non-Wolves?”
He hadn’t expected that question. Hayden didn’t know her well enough yet to read her facial expressions. Right now she looked…blank. Maybe he had approached this entirely wrong.
“It’s not all that common.” He shifted his stance suddenly feeling uncomfortable. “But it happens. It’s not like we’re not…built to be compatible. We have all the rights parts. It’s just that True Matings are rare, and, usually, if a wolf is settling into a relationship that isn’t a True Mating, they choose to do it with one of our own kind so that there aren’t the problems of existing in two different worlds. So, I guess it’s fair to say that most human-werewolf joinings are usually True Matings.”
She walked toward him, her eyes narrowed. “If all of this is true, then everything I’ve been through has been leading to this moment. My destiny. Is that it? Some universal deity decided that I should mate a werewolf and so, therefore, it shall be?”
“We believe that it’s the Moon. She guards us, shapes us, sets our destinies. We all play a role in the werewolf world. Or at least that’s how the stories go. I don’t pay that much attention to it. I’ve had other things to do.”
Like torture and destruction. He pushed those memories away. They had no place in the room with his mate. She would be protected for the rest of her days, even from the parts of his past he’d never forget.
She stood right in front of him now. He could smell the detergent he used on his clothes. The label called it scentless, it would never be entirely that way to him. But under those chemicals was the light honey scent of Chelsea. He might never wash that shirt again. Would there be a way to get her into all of his clothing? Hayden would have a good time getting her out of them again.
“So the moon made werewolves—”
A thought dawned on him, and he interrupted her. “Actually, it’s a love story.”
She sighed. “Really?”
“Don’t be skeptical. It’s a nice story if nothing else. Do you want to hear it?”
Chelsea raised her dark eyebrows. “Sure. I’ve got nothing else to do, I suppose.”
His mate had a mouth on her, and he really, really liked it. If she were a werewolf, he’d take the opportunity to show her just how dominant he could be by grabbing her, shoving her over his shoulder, finding a private place, and having his wicked way with her. Humans were different. But he couldn’t help smirking at her response.
“Well, Miss Mouthy, the story goes that there was a beautiful woman named Lily. She was abused by some of the men of her village who chased her out into the woods and did terrible things to her.” He had never actually told this story before. His mother had told it to them several times over the years, but saying it aloud really reinforced how brutal the whole thing was.
It didn’t take a lot of imagination to picture Chelsea lying on that ground. What happened next suddenly made a lot more sense than it ever had before.
“What happened to her?” She crossed her arms in a defensive position. Was she also seeing what he saw?
“The moon was high in the sky. She lay dying.” He cleared his throat. “And then she got noticed by three Alpha wolves. They fell in love with her, felt her pain as their own, and begged the moon to make them men so they could protect her, love her, and punish the men who had harmed her.”
She blinked rapidly. “That story sounds so familiar to me.”
“Do you know it from the time you can’t remember? Is it coming back to you?” How much easier would everything be if she just suddenly remembered?
“No. Maybe I heard someone tell the doctors at the place where I stayed.”
He nodded. That was possible. Of course the only one who knew the story were Wolves. Did the True Believers have Wolves captive, or were their wolves working with them? There were so many questions.
She spoke quietly. “The Moon gave it to them. Humanity, of sorts. And they took their girl, and they lived happily ever after.”
“Well, one of the Alphas did. The other two, they say, went on and found their own mates.”
A crooked grin crossed her face. “Then I guess it’s fair to say you guys have been inter-mating since moment one?”
He laughed, surprised by the sudden sound. “You’re right. No purebreds among us.”
“And now you want to mate with me.”
“Yes. But only if you want to.” He leaned close enough so she could feel his warmth. “And it’s my job to make you want it.”
Her sudden intake of breath, the subtle shift of her scent to a stronger scent, and the way her pupils dilated told him she wasn’t immune to his words. She did want him. It was just early in the process.
A knock sounded on the door behind him. “That would be Dan with the clothes I sent him out to buy you. If you give him the black dress you stole that I know you don’t remember doing, we’ll get it back to the dry cleaner somehow. Eat your breakfast. Then we’ll talk again. I want to show you something.”
He turned his back. A thought dawned on Hayden, and he turned around one more time. “And if you decide to run, I will track you and find you. You’re not a prisoner here. You can come and go as you like, always. But you have to come back. Because the second I met you, you changed the game for me. I know it’s too much for you to understand at this point and not fair for me to tell you this yet, but you are my whole life. You’re not alone anymore. You have me and my entire pack with you. Always.”
One lone tear slipped down her cheek. “I don’t even know anyone’s name yet. How can they possibly think of me that way? I’m just some human girl who can’t remember anything that happened yesterday. I don’t belong here.”
Hayden crossed to her in two steps. He wiped his finger down her cheek, and she shivered beneath his touch. “You’ll learn everyone’s name soon enough. They’ll tell them to you over and over until you can remember all of them. But, as for just being some human girl who can’t remember things, well, I guess I can say one thing about that. We’re a pack full of misfits here. A group that was, at one time, so unwanted that most of our fellow werewolves didn’t even know we existed. You’ll fit ri
ght in here, sweetheart. I can promise you that.”
She was his. She’d belong wherever he did. Forever.
Chapter Four
The clothes Hayden’s pack mate had bought her were slightly too big. But she’d lost so much weight over the last year that Chelsea found it hard to wear anything that didn’t hang on her slightly. Certainly, the doctors hadn’t made much of an effort to find her garments that fit. She bit down on her lip. Maybe they weren’t real doctors.
It was hard to think about the last few years without wanting to wince. She’d known they had an objective beyond studying her visions and forgetfulness. And it all had to do with killing werewolves. She’d kept her head down and pretended that the whole thing was so odd it couldn’t be true.
Better to live in their facility than homeless on the street never knowing what was going to happen from one moment to the next.
She wandered through the vines with Hayden. He didn’t seem to be in any particular hurry. They weren’t in harvesting season—she’d evidently just missed that—and he talked a great deal about the grapes, like someone else might wax philosophic about the future of their children.
Chelsea couldn’t help her grin.
“What are you smiling at? Did I say something funny?” The afternoon sun hit from behind leaving part of his body remained draped in shadow.
“When I was living on the street at sixteen, we used to steal boxes of wine from convenience stores.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Boxed?”
“The part of what I just said that bothers you is the boxed part? Not the stealing?”
“Chelsea.” He shook his head. “I used to torture people for a werewolf who, when he died, had managed to convince the majority of Alphas in the world that he was, in fact, so deified he might as well have been the Moon herself. I can assure you a little theft isn’t going to throw me for a loop.”
“What about drugs? Drinking?” If he was going to hold to the whole mating thing—which really should be freaking her out, but the idea hadn’t yet made her want to panic—he should know what he was getting in the bargain.
He shrugged. “I’m deeply in favor of drinking, obviously. In moderation, I hope. But that’s really not my business. Drugs? I don’t smell them on you, not even whatever the True Believers were giving you. Whatever you did, that’s your business. We all have pasts.”
Now that was interesting. Was it possible he could really be that accepting of her? And what did he mean torture? She wanted to ask, but she also did not want to know. None of this made any sense. Chelsea didn’t have that much experience with men, except the ones who always wanted to fuck her when she’d been sixteen and on her own. Before that, it had all been teenage boys, and they were nothing to go by. Television made men seem really dumb, with intentions the female characters could never work out. Unless they weren’t good looking, and then they were passed over.
She stared at Hayden. He definitely fell into the handsome category. Striking. Big. Male. Hot…
“What if I was a stripper? A hooker?”
He sucked in his breath, his dark gaze piercing hers. “Did you do those things to survive? How was there no one in the universe to take care of you? The Moon should have done better for my mate. If I ever meet her, I’ll let her know.”
Chelsea sighed loudly. “All right, I didn’t strip or work the streets. We were more like punks. There were ten of us. We slept in abandoned houses, stole. I got good at picking pockets. Shoplifted. Fortunately, it never gets really cold in Southern California. But my stomach was always growling.”
She wasn’t usually one to share, but she wanted to tell Hayden who she was. He was a werewolf, or so he claimed, and they were standing in what could very possibly be the most beautiful place she’d ever been, hundreds of miles from her childhood home, and yet still considered the same state—she wanted him to know who she was. The true nitty-gritty that made up Chelsea Steefle.
“How did the True Believers find you?”
“I had my first episode about six months into my homelessness. Someone saw it. Rumors about it flew around. A few of the kids that were with me left. They didn’t want to be with the freak. I guess eventually the True Believers heard about me and came investigating. By then I was basically alone. I went with them, knowing it might be a bad idea. I had no other options. And they promised to feed me.”
He took her hand in his. “I tortured people for the Alpha Prime. But now I’m a farmer, basically. I live for my pack and my grapes.”
“Back up and explain all of that.” She’d gone so long thinking of weird, possibly pretend, monsters that the True Believers obsessed about. Now one stood in front of her, and all she wanted to do was caress the hard edges of his arm muscles. Would he think that was really weird?
“We have a system of laws in the werewolf world. All Wolves are loyal to an Alpha wolf. Usually, the Alpha of their pack. Here, in Napa, I’m the Alpha. Although how and why that happened is complicated. It’s questionable whether I should be.”
“Why? You seem to be doing a good job. Look at this place. You’re clearly loaded, and you’re making a vineyard work. That can’t be easy.” She touched one of the plants, running her hand across the hard branch.
“That’s the human part. Yes, I do that just fine. Whether or not I should be Alpha of a pack remains to be seen.”
He needed to finish his explanation. She still didn’t know what an Alpha Prime was. “Finish what you were saying. We can debate whether or not you should be an Alpha after.”
Hayden rubbed his hands together. “Maybe you should be the Alpha. You certainly do like to give orders.”
“No one ever does what I say. I give them directions but no one listens.” She smiled, her cheeks heating up. Maybe she could be a little less forceful in the way she spoke to him.
“You keep ordering. I kind of like it.” He stared off into the distance. Where was his mind? She knew it had travelled far away from where they stood. “Until recently, all the Alphas were loyal to the same man. His name was Lucian, and he was called the Alpha Prime. Over the years, Lucian ran what were essentially elite Alpha training camps at his home in North Carolina. Savage, that’s my older brother, and I were both invited to go the first year. After that, just Savage. I thought I was done. It was the kiss of death when Lucian didn’t pick you. It meant that all those Alpha instincts weren’t going to go to leading a pack.”
Chelsea crossed her arms. She’d always hated bullies. “Who died and appointed him the wolf god?”
“Well, actually, the Alpha Prime in front of him. I think his name was Prentice, but that was a long time ago…”
She stared up at him. She hadn’t had to use her street instincts in a long time, but she still had them, and the alarm that went off in her head to tell her she needed to sit up and pay attention rang loud and strong. “How long ago?”
“Believe it or not, I’m trying really hard to limit the amount of baggage I dump at you at one time.”
Hayden’s non-answer spoke volumes. He was hiding something.
“I think you’d better come out with it then. How long ago did Prentice die?”
“A couple of hundred years ago.” He held out his hands in front of him as if he might ward off an attack. “Look, we live longer than you do. And when you mate me, from what I understand about human-wolf pairings, you’re going to have an extension of your own life.”
Her heart rate sped up until it raced in her chest. She’d been relatively cool about all of it right until that point. Two hundred years? Mating him would affect her life span? How long? Now things had just taken a different turn. How long could she live with her visions spinning her life out of control? It was too much, the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.
Hayden sucked in his breath, but she didn’t wait to hear what he had to say. She took off running through the vines. The sandals she’d been wearing stunted her sprint, and she kicked them off, even knowing she’d likely cut up the
bottom of her feet.
She had to get out of there now. This wasn’t the first time she’d run for her life. Only now she had to do it against a werewolf in his own vineyard. Hell, she was so dead. The vines cut into her when she was foolish enough to try to look over her shoulder, and blood dripped down her arm. If she got out of there intact, she’d consider herself a lucky woman.
Chelsea had run for so long she’d lost track of time, and she still hadn’t gotten out of his vineyard. Or maybe it wasn’t his anymore. How would she be able to tell if she crossed over into another winery? Did they have gates? With her breath coming in and out in short gasps, she stopped running. Her feet burned, and she was too out of breath to keep going at the pace she kept. Around her, the world went silent, which was a funny thought, but that was what stuck her as she listened to herself pant. Wherever she landed, she was going to find a gym. Too many years with the True Believers had made her soft.
He hadn’t chased her. Hayden had let her go. Tears swam to her eyes, and she pushed them away. What the fuck was the matter with her? She’d run to get away from him. He was a werewolf. She’d clearly needed something from him when she’d arrived. Now she couldn’t remember what that was, but it didn’t mean she had to stay where she didn’t want to be.
Only she had nowhere to go, and she was in Northern California with the gentle afternoon sun shining down on her tired body in waves of warmth that didn’t scorch her. A breeze caressed her skin, and a hot man—werewolf or no werewolf—who clearly had the soul of an artist from the way he loved the plants that made wine like they were his babies wanted her in his life. For an extra-long time. When had anyone ever desired her presence?
And she’d just told him that she had stolen from people, used drugs, and he hadn’t even blinked. Because he had a past too, one he’d been trying to tell her about when she’d taken off like the coward she consistently proved herself to be.