Dark Fates (A Paranormal Anthology)(50)

He raised his hand, and she stopped speaking. She always rambled when she got nervous.

“Tell me where you got the dress, and we’ll take care of it.”

“Well. Thank you. That’s awful nice of you.” He didn’t know her yet, and he certainly didn’t have to do that.

He smoothed her hair out of her face. “I just want to make sure I understand because this is somewhat jumbled, and although I am a werewolf and should, I guess, be used to magical, weird things, I’m not. At heart, I’m a rational, pragmatic person.”

Hayden spoke the truth. He liked things to be very black and white, yes or no. If he couldn’t see, feel, taste, or smell it, then it wasn’t there. Even magic he could explain away as a genetic alteration, something people could do because of a gene mutation. Her abilities had always bothered him in her visions.

“Okay.” She prompted him to continue by extending her hand..

“Someone has held you captive because you can see things that others can’t. Who did this to you?” His eyes turned wolf, darkening, becoming more menacing, and she remembered very suddenly that they were in the middle of the Full Moon. He had to be in horrible pain maintaining his human form.

“The True Believers. They don’t want to leave anyone around who has non-human abilities. I was useful or I’d be dead. They have doctors. All these people helping them. Sometimes it even felt like some elaborate camp or spa. I could wander the premises all I wanted. Do anything I wanted in between episodes as long as I didn’t try to leave. Lately, things had changed. They got harsher, angrier with me when I couldn’t preform, so I started searching for ways to break out. Well, I became more serious about it anyway. Before that I’d just felt defeated. There was a door they weren’t always diligent about locking. It’s a good thing I went when I did. I think they would have killed me long ago, but I fascinated one of the doctors, a Patricia Ryan, and she kept me alive to experiment. What did downers do to me? What about uppers? Barbiturates? I’ve done so many different types of drugs, I mean not by choice, and yesterday, I was coming down pretty hard. I knew how to get here. I’d seen myself do it before.”

He kissed her forehead. “Okay. I get it now. You’ve been with the True Believes, they held you captive, and now you’ve come to save me from them. I get it.”

She swallowed. “If you want to skip over the whole I-have-visions part.”

Hayden nodded, his dark hair falling over his eye before he pushed it away. “For now, yes.”

A sound outside the vineyard made her gasp, and he shushed her as he pulled her against his chest. “Stay very quiet.”

“I told you.” Her voice shook. She didn’t want this vision, not this version. It shouldn’t be this one. Real life shouldn’t be this horror show. Why hadn’t he listened? Why had he wasted so much precious time?

Hayden’s green eyes met hers. “If you know me as you claim to, then you have to trust me now.” He nodded at her and stepped back. “Stay back. I don’t want you so far away that I’ll worry but not so close that you can get hurt.”

“Hayden, what do you have planned?” Her memory might already be going. She had no idea what he was about to do.

“Trust me, Chelsea. I heard your warning. While you were out cold, we took care of business.”

With a quick grin and a flash of light, he shifted. It would have been startling if she hadn’t seen it a million times before. He moved toward the door, now in his black fur, before turning to look at her once over his shoulder. His message seemed clear. He wanted her where he could see her.

She clenched her hands into fists and closed the distance between them before he walked out the front door. It was dark out, the kind of dark that could only be found in the country, away from the big cities. Or at least it was for a second. Then everything went haywire. Bright lights beamed down from the top of the winery, catching five unsuspecting would-be murderers by surprise. One of them yelped as twelve fully transformed and ready werewolves leapt from all directions onto them.

Chelsea covered her mouth to stop from crying out. The idea of necessary violence didn’t bother her, but the reality of it was different than she had seen in her visions. At no time, in any of those dreams, had this happened. Sometimes Hayden listened and won, but the destruction had never been this precise.

Twelve wolves destroying their adversaries as if they’d done it a million times.

Tearing them to chewable pieces…clawing, biting, destroying, with Hayden leading the charge. It was brutal. Blood splattered everywhere.

When it was over, Hayden shifted back and looked at her, a grin on his face. “I told you to trust me, honey-woman. Are you okay?”

She swallowed and tried to smile through her chattering teeth. Nerves or adrenaline or maybe she was still coming down from whatever they’d given her nearly overwhelmed her. She couldn’t make them stop.

Hayden took her hand. He’d shifted, as they always did, back into his clothes. If she hadn’t seen him do it, and if there weren’t eleven other werewolves running around, she might be able to believe it hadn’t just happened.

“I’m okay.”

“You’re worn out, I can smell it. Go back to my room. Lock the door. I have a key. I can get in. I want you asleep in my bed when I come back. Nod if you understand.” She nodded. “I’m going to get rid of their car, and then I’m going to shift. Much as l might like to do otherwise, I have to shift in this moon, or it will hurt like hell. A good, long change.”