Page 23 of The Alpha's Bullied Mate

“Hayden.” Tears stained Mica’s face. “We’ve done everything we can find, but we can’t get her out!”

“We can’t get her out,” Echo mocked, her voice pitched high.

“Mica.” Hayden held the door open. “Tess.”

“We can’t just leave her like this,” Mica wailed.

Hayden pushed out his Alpha aura. Tess’s head bowed, and she scrambled out, trembling. Mica stayed where she was, her chin lifted stubbornly. With a sigh, Hayden stepped to her and put an arm around her waist. Touching her made sparks explode under his skin. His wolf zeroed in on her and whined. Despite the situation, it wanted him to pull Mica into his arms right now.

The urge to complete their mating was strong. Hayden ground his teeth together to fight back the desire to take her straight to their room. He doubted Mica would appreciate him wanting to get it on right this minute.

He sent a command through his bond with the team to Blayke and Kai as he pulled Mica out of the room. He closed the door and put his hands on her shoulders.

The hopeful look in her eyes made his stomach twist. Nobody had ever looked at him like that, with so muchtrust. His team trusted him, but Mica looked at him like he was her only hope. He wasn’t sure how to take it.

“We got Elin away from Monroe. She was injured but he hadn’t gone through with the mating ceremony yet,” he told her.

Mica nodded. “And my mother?”

“I’ll have the team guard her, make sure the demon can’t get out. It was good thinking with that salt,” he added. Anything to avoid telling her the truth—Echo was possessed. And despiteall their searching, the team had never found a way to remove an aura-demon from a person.

Except to kill them.

Blayke and Kai appeared at the top of the stairs. Hayden turned from Mica and quickly explained to them what happened.

“Keep an eye out, and don’t let anyone into that room,” Hayden said. “The last thing we need is for a demon running around home base.”

“Hayden, you have to get the demon out of her,” Mica insisted.

Kai gave her a surprised look. “You haven’t told her?”

“This has just happened.” Hayden pulled Mica away. “Just do as I say. I’ll let Ryder know as soon as I’ve finished explaining the situation to Mica.”

Fresh tears slid down Mica’s cheeks. Hayden longed to wipe those tears away, but he could feel the tension in her. She was barely tolerating him touching her as it was. So he led her down the hallway and down to the ground-floor living room. There, he shut the doors. Even this amount of privacy was almost too much, but the wide windows were uncovered—anyone could look through and see them.

“Mica,” he started, but when he met her eyes, he couldn’t bring himself to tell her that Echo was already as good as dead.

It would only hurt her more in the long run to dangle hope in front of her and take it away.

But that trust was there again. That hope, that pleading. Hayden couldn’t ever recall seeing Mica so helpless. To him, she’d always been tough as nails and ready to take on the world.He was reminded of what Ryder had told him, that she was more affected by the pack’s treatment of her than she’d ever let on.

Now, he found he couldn’t hurt her. Not right now.

“Hayden?” she breathed. Her hands clenched. “You can get that demon out, can’t you?”

“I’ll do what I can to save her, Mica,” he promised.

And he would. Maybe there was a way they hadn’t found yet.

Chapter 13 - Mica

The truth was clear.

He wouldn’t say he would save Echo because he didn’t believe he could. Mica wanted to break down, scream, and beat her fists against the floors. Regret flashed through her mind. Was it because she had laid down the salt perimeter? Could they have prevented this if she hadn’t tried to run away?

“If I had just accepted you at the pack meeting—”

Hayden touched his finger to her lips. “Nothing would have changed. We will try, Mica.”

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