Page 88 of Hayden's Haven
Then the zipper slid open, giving her some blessedly fresh air. Someone peeled back the black vinyl.
At first, she thought she was dreaming. Surely she had to be. Hayden, her sweet Hayden was there! He had found her! She cried, silently begging him to release her from this nightmare, but he stood there, staring at her with no emotion on his face.
Nothing had changed since she had last seen him. Hehatedher. There was no other reason he just stared at her, as if he could care less what was about to happen to her. But perhaps that was just it. . . he didn’t care. She’d hurt him, but he couldn’t hate her so much that he wanted her dead, could he?
“H-aa-en!” she screamed through the gag. His eyes never once softened for her, even as he turned away.
A guard backhanded her, splitting her lip. She had been warned earlier that making any noise would be dealt with harshly. While her lip stung, along with all the other bruises on her body, nothing was as painful as watching Hayden turn away from her.
“I see you found the runaway,” Hayden said. There was no emotion in Hayden’s voice. That’s when she realized the awful truth. She meant nothing to him now, if she ever had.
Her head was pounding. Focusing was becoming really hard, but Mila strained to listen to Hayden’s voice.
“. . .last I heard, she had been flirting with one of her own, a weak shifter. Lars or Larry. I didn’t really pay attention. I’d had some fun with her, sure. But there was no reason to keep her around after I got what I wanted.”
Mila stopped fighting against the ropes binding her hands and ankles. Hayden hated her, truly didn’t care anything about what happened to her. Vance had sold her. Her parents had told her she was worthless, and it appeared everyone agreed with him. Except Anna hadn’t. Damien hadn’t either. Nor Tess. And Lars. Benji. That little kid who’s cut she had stitched. He had given her a big smile and thanked her. She had value. She couldn’t let Drake and his pack do this to her.
Drake was saying something about Hayden taking over the pack and then he placed a gun against her head. The chill of the metal sent terror down her spine. She wasn’t going to survive. He was going to kill her. Mila cried through the rag they’d stuffed in her mouth. Drake’s soulless eyes peered down at her. Mila clamped her eyes shut and listened as he cocked the gun.
“I’ll do it!” Hayden shouted.
Hayden shoved Drake aside and bent over. He flung the zipper down and hauled her out of the bag. She couldn’t stop shivering. Nothing made sense. Not why Hayden was carrying her, or what he was saying to her. Or why Drake was grinning. She only knew that being in Hayden’s arms again felt like heaven, except for the fact that she was clearly dreaming. Hayden didn’t care if she lived or died.
* * *
HAYDEN
Hayden said nothing as the guards escorted Callen and him to the old Winslow cabin far from the main part of camp. He hadn’t seen this place since he turned twenty and learned the truth of the male shifters who had lived there. The place should have been burned down back then, with both males still inside.
Mila had passed out, but she was breathing. And shivering. His bastard of a brother had left her in nothing but her bra and panties.
The guard shoved him inside, and he would have whirled and slugged the shifter except for two things. He was carrying Mila, and they still didn’t know where Drake was keeping the HEV. Callen was staring the guard down, daring the shifter to pass the threshold. Finally, the door slammed shut behind them.
“How many?” Hayden asked.
“Two on each side of the house and another two that I could see with rifles positioned in the trees on either side. That’s not accounting for any that may be using a scope from a distance.”
Hayden kicked in the first door off the common area. He stopped short. The place was nothing short of a torture chamber, and he smelled fresh blood there. Mila’s. There were restraints on each corner of the bed and a neck chain attached to the wall above the bed. The place wreaked of sex, torture, and depravity. There were two puncture wounds on Mila’s neck, the same spacing as the spikes on the collar.
“I’m not taking her in there.”
Callen squeezed by to inspect the room, no doubt looking for anything that could give them the advantage. “Lay her down by the fire. I’ll break up some of the furniture to burn. We can at least get her warm.”
Gently, Hayden laid her down on the floor, untied her hands and ankles, wishing he had something to apply to the rope burns. His entire body was still shaking from the terror of having smelled her and the scent of death in that body bag. Hayden stripped off his sweatshirt and eased it over Mila’s head and arms. It only reached her upper thighs. At least she wouldn’t feel so exposed, so vulnerable when she woke.Ifshe woke. He gently brushed her hair aside to look at the wound on her forehead. It was just a bruise, but she had had a concussion recently from a blow to the same spot.
Callen tossed what looked like spindles from a wood bed frame followed by broken pieces of support slats into the fireplace.
“I don’t suppose you found a first aid kit back there?” Hayden asked as he pulled Mila into his lap. The floor was too damn cold without a rug and he needed to keep her warm.
“Trust me when I say you don’t want to know what I found.”
Coming from an enforcer, that was a heavy statement.
“Any running water?” Hayden asked.
“You know what this place is, don’t you?”
Drake’s own little torture chamber. Hayden held Mila closer. Her blood was in that back room. “Ideas?”
