Dark Fates (A Paranormal Anthology)(46)

Haydon nodded. “Good news.” Unless the humans had found a way to hide that smell. Even one year earlier he’d never have considered that possibility. As an added thought, he continued. “The Alpha from Austin is dead, along with the males in his pack. It looks like True Believers.”

Sal growled. Hours from the appearance of the Full Moon, they all made strange noises he’d prefer to hide from the humans. Even Hayden found it hard to hold them in. Savage never had that problem. He was a much better Alpha and the San Francisco Pack flourished under his care.

“They won’t get to you, my Alpha. I guarantee it.”

Hayden patted him on the back. “I appreciate your loyalty. I doubt very much they’re coming for me.”

Other than his familial relationship with Savage, he didn’t have much of what the True Believers wanted. He would never be a prominent kill. Maybe an afterthought if they took out his brother and discovered Hayden existed.

Damn it. Things had gone horribly wrong if he had to figure out how the deranged humans would plot his death. But then again, he’d been trained to stay two steps ahead of his enemies at all times. Hayden followed Sal out into the hall towards the front of the vineyard.

“This office?” He pointed to the storage room where the head of their wine club, Max, kept the orders for the next shipment. Max had been severely damaged in his last fight for Lucian. His left hand barely functioned when he was in human form. Yet he never complained about the pain, and with his help, sales were up.

“Yes. I really didn’t know where else to shove her. The caves were out of the question. I wasn’t putting her anywhere near the wine barrels.”

“Good call.” No one went near his product if they didn’t have permission. He loved two—sometimes three—things in the world. His pack and his wine. His brother sometimes fell on that list. Their relationship shifted more than the fault line beneath their feet.

He sniffed the air before he walked in. Crazy had a particular metallic scent on humans. Usually it made his teeth hurt. But he didn’t get that scent just then. Nothing but sweet honey. He stopped moving at the thought.

Yes, the human female in the room, whom he could already place in her twenties based on the quality of her scent alone, didn’t give off the uncomfortable sensation of being ill. In fact, her scent reminded him of a Riesling he’d recently drunk. Sweet wine didn’t usually fit his palate, but he’d liked the taste, had bought a bottle, and had even mentioned to Sal that they might consider buying more land in the next two years to grow the grapes himself.

Using other vineyard’s grapes had never worked for him. He planted the vines, and he followed it to fruition.

Hayden pushed open the door. The honey girl on the other side needed his attention, and he needed to discover how she knew who the hell he really was.

Max’s office had large windows that looked out over the vineyard behind the tasting room. One desk sat in the center with a black leather chair behind it. A framed picture of the Napa Valley was the only artwork in the place, which counted as one more piece of artwork than Hayden had in his own office.

The opening of the door didn’t make the beauty seated at Max’s desk look up. In fact, she didn’t move at all. Her head rested in her hands, and she seemed to be rocking back and forth on the chair. Her scent filled the room, and it made him dizzy. For a second, he thought he might need to sit down, but it passed, leaving him with just a heady feeling of complete…happiness.

What the hell?

He rubbed his forehead. Had he been drugged? He turned to look at Sal. The other man appeared unaffected, so it couldn’t be some loopy poison gas.

The woman finally looked up, and she stared at him. Her pupils were huge. She didn’t smell like illegal drugs. That didn’t mean she hadn’t ingested something he had never encountered before.

“Oh, Hayden. Thank the universe.” She stood up. He had time to register her large blue eyes that matched the hair dye on the tips of her brown hair. She was small, barely five foot two, but she curved in all the right places. Dressed in a long black dress that hit the floor, she looked out of place for a Wednesday afternoon in his casual winery.

Where had she been before she’d come here?

She’d no sooner uttered her words than she leapt into the air. He caught her in his arms, and she snuggled up against him as if they’d known each other—quite well—for a long time. “I knew I’d get to you. I believed it. Even when they held me, I could see it.”

“Um… Miss…” Hayden struggled with conflicting emotions. This close to the Full Moon it was all he could do not to give into his animal need to carry her off and see if she smelled like honey everywhere. But the reasonable part of him, the part that still had control, at least for a few more hours, knew he had never met this woman before in his life.

He set her soundly back on her feet. “You seem to know my name, but I have to tell you that you have me at a disadvantage there. I have no idea who you are.”

She gasped and struggled out of his light hold. Her blue eyes, with their still-too-large pupils, stared back at him as if he’d just told her that he’d murdered her mother.

“No. That can’t be. It cannot have all been in my own mind the whole time.” She shook her head violently. “What did they do to me? You don’t know me? We didn’t share any of it? Oh God. Oh God. Then you don’t know yet. You don’t understand.”