Dark Fates (A Paranormal Anthology)(53)

That wasn’t exactly true. He’d told a huge amount of lies in the past when Lucian had needed him to. These days he’d tried very hard to be truthful. Why bother when the truth worked just fine? If he lived an authentic life, he had no use for fabrication. With all of that being the case, he still lied by omission every day to protect his pack from human discovery.

“If you don’t know of a human who can do what she does, then no one does.” Savage kept his nose deep in the darker edges of the world. Psychic humans who could see many futures would have caught his attention. “Thanks anyway.”

“I’ll look into it. Keep your head down, brother. I’ll call if I hear anything.”

Hayden disconnected the call just as Sal walked into the room. “My Alpha?”

Whether Sal wanted to know about the food on the tray or his conversation on the phone Hayden didn’t know. Either way he wasn’t exactly in the mood to share. “Go out to the car, Sal.” It wasn’t much of a greeting, but right now he couldn’t do pleasantries. His pack would have to understand. “The one we took from the True Believers last night. The van.” He spoke in spurts and stops, a tribute to how befuddled his mind had gotten.

“Yes, the van outside. I’m following you.”

“Good because I’m not following myself.” He shook his head. “Take down the plates. Someone owns this van. Even if it was stolen, it gives us something to go by. Some place to start. We’re going to have to find the True Believers who held my mate. If we can track them down, I don’t know, we’ll figure something out.”

Sal nodded. “I’ll get the boys on it.”

“Good.”

“One more thing, my Alpha.” Sal cleared his throat.

“Yes?” Hayden turned back to him.

Sal took a package out of his coat pocket. It took Hayden a full thirty seconds to realize they were condoms. He opened and closed his mouth several times before he spoke. “She’s human. You’re right to give me those. I could actually get her pregnant without her needing to be in heat.”

His second-in-command nodded. “Consider it a gift from my years of sleeping with the gentler species. I’ll find a way to get them in your bedside drawer without her noticing.”

“Thank you.” He cleared his throat. “Okay if we never mention this again?”

Sal grinned. “Absolutely, my Alpha.”

Hayden retrieved the tray. Delaying the inevitable couldn’t continue. Besides, he needed to set eyes on her again. His need to claim her demanded he at least be in the same room with her for enough time to assure himself of her safety.

He took the stairs two at a time while maintaining the tray. What was the protocol for entering her room? Did he knock? Did he just enter? In the end, manners ruled out. His mother had been nothing if not a drill sergeant when it came to that.

Hayden knocked. What exactly would he do if she denied him entry? Leave the food on the tray outside the door and scamper away? He was an Alpha male. It wasn’t in his nature to run away. Fortunately, he didn’t have to decide, though the few seconds it took for her to call her permission for him to come in were the longest of his life.

He opened the door and walked in, careful not to spill anything. She sat against the headboard, still covered by the sheets. Dark circles marred the skin under her eyes, and the acrid smell of her distress permeated the room, making him want to cringe.

He walked to the bed and set the tray down next to her. “I wasn’t sure what you liked to eat.”

She eyed the food, and to his horror, a tear slipped from her eyes. “That was awful nice of you. I can’t tell you how much it means to me.”

“Chelsea.” He exhaled her name, not sure what to do with himself but finally deciding to sit down on the edge of the bed where he wouldn’t cause the tray to turn over. “Yesterday was a very…odd day, for both of us.”

“Only I can’t remember most of it.” She sniffed. “I’d forgotten what this was like. I’ve been confined in a place for so long where people understood what was happening to me. I’d let slip from my mind how horrible it is to be around groups who know things that you did when you don’t have any idea of it yourself. I don’t know if I’m making any sense.”

He nodded, the need to take her in his arms nearly overwhelming him. He had to wait. Grabbing her into an embrace would send her running, and he couldn’t have that. Control. He’d never been without it.

So why did his mate make him feel like a thirteen-year-old kid who couldn’t figure out if he wanted to shift or f*ck?

“Trust me, I get the senseless stuff. There are things about my life that you might have trouble believing.” He cracked his knuckles. “But don’t act like the people who kept you confined did you any favors. They didn’t. They were using you for their own purposes. I don’t know if you remember feeling like they wanted to kill you, but that was your impression.”

She nodded. “I’d been feeling that for a while. It wasn’t confined to this most recent time.”

“We need to find those people so we can figure out what is happening to you, and I think that is going to be easier said than done.” The True Believers hadn’t gotten away with the destruction they’d been causing lately by not being good at secrets.