Dark Fates (A Paranormal Anthology)(49)

“Chelsea Steefle.”

“That’s pretty.” He rubbed her forehead, moving his hand to the top of her scalp. “I’m not a Healer, Chelsea”— he could say her name all day, every day, she loved how it sounded— “but I’m Alpha here. For some reason, you know what that means, and, well, there are other reasons, but I’m not going to go into it now. The point is that you have to do what I say. I have Alpha magic.” He pressed on her head. “I want your headache gone.”

Her head felt hot. She gasped, not liking the sensation. It wasn’t a warm gooey feeling but more like someone had jammed a heater inside of her and turned it on full blast. She tried to pull back, but Hayden wouldn’t let her go. “Shh. Quiet now.”

She tried to listen, but it hurt. Chelsea squirmed in his arms until she felt the heat start to leave. Seconds later, coolness invaded her, and she could breathe again. Her headache had eased. It wasn’t completely gone, but she no longer felt as if she might hit the floor.

“We’ll work on that again. A stronger Alpha would be able to kill your headache no problem, but you’re stuck with me.”

She tsked. “You’re always like this. If you don’t die today, you’ll still be doubting yourself at ninety years old. You’re a good Alpha. Lucian didn’t know everything about everything.”

She’d love to see what a little Alpha confidence could do for him. Hayden managed nearly everything he did with perfection. Why couldn’t he see it?

“Okay, Chelsea.” He took a step back from her and narrowed his eyes.

“Oh, we’ve got the serious look going on here. You want answers. I know. I want to give them to you, but there’s the little thing about madmen coming to kill you.”

He shook his head. “If you know me as you claim to, then trust me on all counts. What’s going on here?”

“I…” She cleared her throat. This seemed a lot harder than it should have been. She’d envisioned this scenario hundreds of times, had seen virtually every response possible from Hayden, including the one where he kicked her out on her ass.

“Go on.” He stood so still that he almost looked unreal.

“When my grandmother—who raised me until I was sixteen—died, I inherited her strange abilities. I can see things. Lots of things. Endless possibilities. I live lifetimes that never happen. I know people I’ve yet to meet. It’s…hard. And she never told me how to deal with any of it. She must have been better at it than me because she was normal, and, well, I’m not.”

A slew of emotions passed over his face, the one she knew so well—at least momentarily, from years of love or sometimes hate that he knew nothing about—told her how hard he tried to make out exactly what was happening here.

“Then you have seen me, in various future scenarios, in your visions?” He kept his voice even, which concerned her. Did he think she might suddenly go ballistic and her head would spin like the girl from The Exorcist?

“For a while and then it fades, or at least that’s how it’s been explained to me. I know you right now. I can remember most of the visions I saw, and then I won’t. It’s like I return to the present fully and the other possibilities I’ve witness go into the air, poof, like they were never there. But I’ve seen video of my episodes. The people who’ve had me the last ten years taped my weird states every time it happened, and then when it would fade, they’d show me the recordings.”

When he spoke, his voice had risen a bit. “Who had you for the last ten years, honey-lady?”

She gasped and covered her mouth. “I love that nickname. Oh, thank you for using it. Hearing it tells me that you won’t hate me this time around.”

Before she could think better of it, she wrapped her arms around his neck and held on tight. He stiffened and then let his arms embrace her. Physical contact, outside of sex, had never been easy for him. Not since his years with Lucian.

“Is this making you feel like you want to bolt, Hayden?”

“No, actually.” He cleared his throat. “But I would like to know who has had you for so long.”

“I don’t know exactly. They said they were doctors when they came to get me off the street and said they could help me with my issues. But then it wasn’t like that. I was always drugged, always being forced from one vision to the next. I must have seen hundreds of videos of myself. Whatever they wanted from me, I’ve never been able to give it to them.” She pulled back to look at him. “And then, finally, I knew I had to escape to warn you. I came back to myself, but they’d drugged me up, and I knew I could hold on to the memories long enough to get here.”

“I’m a little fixated about the idea that you’ve been held captive for ten years. The rest of it we will work out. How did you come to be wearing that dress?”

“Oh, this one?” She laughed and stepped out of his embrace. “The one that so clearly doesn’t fit me.” Her boobs were so visible she might as well be walking around in her bra and panties. “I stole it from a dry cleaner. Don’t think badly of me, please. I still have those skills from the year I lived on the streets. And don’t you think the woman who wears this must be very rich? It’s silk. It was the easiest thing to steal. I hope she’s rich, anyway. And I’ll find a way to pay back the dry cleaner because I’m sure they’ll have to pay for it. I swear I will.”