Page 46 of Hayden's Haven
“Still sore at Blade?” Frank asked.
“Just drop it.”
“He had Anna to protect.”
“I know. That’s why I didn’t say anything.”
“Then what’s bothering you if you didn’t expect him to stay and help you?”
Hayden slammed to a halt. “He didn’t believe me. Isn’t that enough? Of all the shifters to doubt me, it shouldn’t have been Blade. I’ve never given him cause, and he knows what it’s like being an outsider in our pack.”
“Yeah, he does.”
That was all Frank was going to say? Well, screw him. Without warning, Hayden dropped the bag, stripped, threw his clothing and shoes into the backpack, strung it crosswise over his chest and shifted. He broke into a run, without waiting for Frank to catch up. Even when the tan wolf caught up to him, Hayden kept up his furious pace.
After the three-mile mark, Frank nipped at his ankles twice, telling him to slow down. Damn it, but as much as Hayden wanted to stay mad at Frank, he couldn’t. The shifter hadn’t done anything wrong. Blade hadn’t either, for that matter. Blade had been distracted by Anna’s physical and mental well-being at that moment and nothing more. He hadn’t intentionally lashed out at Hayden to hurt him, but to warn him away from Anna. It was Mila Hayden was mad at. He just hadn’t wanted to admit it before.
Hayden stopped running. He was panting hard and walking in a circle. Frank maintained guard ten feet away, without a single yip or howl. Frank had the patience of a saint and would stay there all night until Hayden got his head straightened away. That gave him a moment to breathe.
With his head on his forepaw, Hayden’s wolf lied down, letting the snow beneath him cool his skin as he stared in the direction of home. His beautiful Mila had run out on him after he had claimed her, and he still wasn’t sure what to make of it.
In town, he had fooled himself into thinking she was just unsure of herself, nothing more. He had bought her the lingerie thinking she’d like it. Or did he buy it because he didn’t know what she liked, and it was a present that generally speaking was popular with the female shifters he had known in the past?
Hell, the more he thought of it, the more he realized what a crummy gift it was. He hadn’t even bought her something that was special to her. Already, he was treating her like the weak shifters he had dated. They were the only ones who would consider a traitor like him. The strong female shifters wouldn’t look at him twice. Buying them nice gifts, well, that just seemed to be his way of ensuring the weaker shifters wouldn’t leave him, which was exactly what he was doing with Mila.
He wanted more from her. . .with her. Not presents to buy affection or loyalty. He wanted her to look at him as if his past meant nothing, as if she only saw the shifter he was inside, not the shifter of years ago.
Hayden shifted. He didn’t even bother to stand. Sitting in the cold hard snow seemed fitting somehow.
“Figure it out?” Frank asked.
“She’s going to leave me. Hell, she already has. I just didn’t want to see it.”
“What makes you say that?”
“She watched them surround me, and she walked away. She didn’t care to watch, Frank, because she didn’t care what happened.”
“You’ve been around Damien too much. You’re thinking like him, not like you.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Damien can be quick to react, without thinking. You watch, observe, and think. Unlike Damien, you reserve judgment until you have all the facts. Then you act. World of difference there.”
Hayden had smelled her arousal in his cabin, from the moment she’d stood behind him and he had warned her he’d claim her one day. From that moment on, once he’d had her smell, and in his heart and mind, she was his. He’d never asked what she wanted.
Frank was right. Hayden hadn’t been thinking. On that walk back to her lab, he had grabbed her and raced to the nearest place they’d have privacy. Aloe’s house. And then he had stripped her and demanded she submit. Fuck!
“You claimed her already, didn’t you?” Frank asked.
Hayden didn’t say anything.
Frank offered him a hand up. “Sex is sex. It doesn’t mean anything, not like a blood-bond.”
Frank was wrong. It meant something, to Hayden at least. As for Mila, he had no idea what she was thinking, or if she had even wanted it. He didn’t recall her sayingnoor fighting him, but something had happened toward the end. She had shut down, barely able to talk. Except she had talked, a few words about a wolf in her pack, and he had assumed she had been hurt before. A bad break up or something. What if he had misunderstood? Was she still with that wolf? Had he destroyed her plans with him? Had he. . . God, no, he hadn’t forced her, had he?
“Hayden?” Frank gripped his shoulder—hard.
Hayden faced the guard but wasn’t focused enough to know what Frank wanted.
