Page 68 of Hayden's Haven
“This works out well. I can warm up, and I get to watch you strut your stuff about.”
Hayden gyrated his hips. His cock was already hard again, but it made Mila laugh. Anything that enticed her to laugh like that was definitely worth doing, no matter how foolish he felt.
He patted her ass as they headed out of the bathroom. “You’re never going to tell me, are you?” she said.
The scars. Right.“It’s not a secret. It’s just hard to talk about,” he said as he drew her to sit next to him on the bed. “Shortly after my father died, Logan took Drake in to raise him as his own. Drake was ten. I was twelve. That’s when everything changed between us. We’d been close before that, but once Logan got hold of Drake. . .”
Hayden shook his head. He never talked about this with anyone, and he never realized how hard it was. Mila put her hand on his, and that simple contact gave him the strength to continue.
“I was kept away, sent off to cousins in the distant part of our territory. I tried to return to the main part of camp but was always turned away. When I was thirteen, I almost made my way to Drake but I was caught. Logan punished me. I tried again and again over the next two years. Never reached Drake. Each time I was caught, the punishment got worse.
“Logan cut me, over and over. But I was still young, strong, and Logan only held me a few days each time, quickly getting bored with me. My wolf had time to heal me. I’d spend the next few days in the woods, waiting to heal before returning to my cousins. I didn’t want them to know what I was doing, because I was endangering them, not just myself.
“After a few more attempts, Logan made it quite clear what would happen if I came near Drake again.” Hayden took a deep breath, still remembering the terror that had gone through him when Logan pinned him to a wall and explained in graphic detail what would happen to the only family he had left.
“He would have killed them all, Mila. My mother’s family. Uncles, aunts, even the babies. I couldn’t let anyone else die. I stayed away. Abandoned my own brother. Years passed. The rumors began about the type of shifter Drake had become. Except they weren’t rumors.
“When I was nineteen, I was allowed to return. It was expected as part of guard training. My uncle never killed me because he never saw me as a threat. I was simply another male to be used how he wanted.”
“Do all males there train as guards?”
“We’re lined up, assessed for speed and strength. I had both. There were no choices under Logan’s rule. For anything.”
Green eyes lowered. She understood, all too well perhaps. He tipped her head up with his finger beneath his chin. “Why the frown?”
“I was hoping your childhood was better than my own.”
“Maybe we’ll just understand each other better this way.”
“There’s nothing wrong with being a guard, Hayden. Or second. Or a maintenance worker. We don’t get to choose what our talents and abilities are when we’re born. We can only decide what we do with them. That has to be what matters, right?”
Why did he feel as if she was trying to tell him something? “Agreed. Being a guard wasn’t something I cared for, but it wasn’t like I had a choice either, but being assigned a job by the alpha was rather typical in my pack. Had been for many years from what my father had told me. We do the same here, assign jobs based on skills and strengths. Though if a shifter has a strong objection to a job assignment, Damien will take his or her request under consideration. That was unheard of in my pack. Regardless, I did as ordered. Lived the best I could, kept my distance from Drake. We crossed paths a few times. Didn’t say much at that point, either of us.
“Then, there was. . . an incident one day.” He really wasn’t ready to talk about that.
Her hand fell to his thigh as she leaned against him. Even though she was wrapped in a towel, she was starting to shiver. “You should dress, or sit by the fire,” he said as he kissed her forehead.
“Or you can warm me.”
He pulled her against him and wrapped his arms around her. They sat for several minutes as he rubbed heat back into her arms.
“I killed my alpha,” he suddenly blurted out. “It was easier than I thought. Physically, emotionally. Should have done it years earlier. It’s what came next I wasn’t prepared for. Drake found me. This. . .” Hayden placed her hand against his scars. The heat from her hand warmed his exposed chest and somehow the pain of remembering didn’t sting quite as much. “This was Drake’s response to what I’d done.”
“You killed an alpha. . .”
“Worse. I killed Drake’s father. Or rather the shifter he’d come to know as his father. Drake had been raised and molded by Logan. To fear, love, and idolize the bastard.”
“Still, your own brother tried to kill you. . .”
“I’m not sure what he was trying to do. He could have killed me once I’d been caught, but he didn’t. He certainly couldn’t let me go unpunished. After he declared me a traitor, he chained me to a wall in the cave. I tried explaining what had happened, but he raged.”
Hayden took a deep breath. “I had never seen Drake like that before. And I couldn’t escape him. He clawed me open and left. He returned day after day, re-clawing the same spot before my wolf could heal me. After a few weeks, the strain of healing me over and over again became too much for my wolf. Healing the scars became secondary to keeping me alive.”
Mila snuggled against his chest, and his wolf practically purred inside. Hayden had never told anyone that story before, not even Damien when Hayden had escaped to Damien’s pack and asked for asylum.
“It’s over, Hayden. You can let go of the past. It’s hard sometimes, but you can’t blame yourself. You’re responsible for what you do, not what others do. And it hurts when loved ones let us down.”
Wise words that they were, his Mila was still speaking from experience. He was glad she had come to terms with her past. Perhaps one day soon he’d learn how to do the same. Hayden pulled her tight against his chest and kissed her forehead, just above the cut. One day soon he’d blood-bond this amazing shifter, and they’d find a new path together, just the two of them.
