Un.Requited (Claimed Series) (17 page)

Up ahead, Blake’s broad shoulders skimmed the low-hanging trees on either side of the skinny path. He led her around a loop, beginning to put more distance from Cole’s property and further away from civilization. Hayden tried to pick up the scent of a territory line, but the smells of wildlife easily overpowered what small marking an Alpha might have made.

Her growing anxieties abruptly vanished when she heard muffled voices ahead of her. As she stumbled forward, she found herself entering a decent-sized clearing. A small lake was nestled in the midst of uneven terrain, with boulders and grassy hills surrounding it. Much to her surprise, there was even a grill situated on a concrete slab, which stood next to a long wooden table.

Blake laughed at her surprise. “It’s your initiation into the Slayter pack.” His mirth died down as he looked around pensively. “Cole isn’t here yet,” he mused. “I would have thought he’d been home by now.”

Not noticing Blake’s disappointment, Hayden stared around in wonder, her lips parting into a small smile. Addie was near the grill, working on what appeared to be hamburgers. Nathan and Fergus were swimming, the latter twin waving at Hayden with prominent excitement.

Near the edge of the lake, Devan was sitting on a boulder. She must have gone home first, because modest shorts replaced the red skirt she had worn at the tavern. 

Across from Hayden, Fergus climbed up on a boulder and began shaking his hips to an imaginary tune. Much to her horror and amusement, he was completely nude. The twin hardly seemed deterred at his lack of dress as he invited Hayden over with a silly grin and a beckoning wave.

Blake swiftly covered her eyes and bellowed across the clearing. “No one wants to see that, Fergus.” He patted Hayden’s head protectively. “Besides, Hayden still has her human modesty.” A laugh from Fergus and the sound of a splash indicated that the twin had followed Blake’s instructions quite seriously.

The hand uncovered her eyes before it nudged her in the direction of Devan and the twins.

“Go socialize,” Blake encouraged as he pushed her more forcibly. “I need to talk to Addie.”

It wasn’t as if she
wanted
to talk to Devan, but Hayden would take advantage of this time to confront her about Joseph. Cole wasn’t around and everyone else was too far out of earshot to hear. She didn’t know what she wanted to get across to the female Alpha, but this time, Hayden was the one on higher ground.

“I see you were able to pull yourself away from Asher,” Devan remarked coolly. “He can be quite charming… to the younger ladies, I suppose.”

Hayden laughed distantly, shaking her head as she came to a stop next to the other woman. “Don’t turn this around on me. You’re not going to make me forget what I saw.” She crouched down next to Devan. “You’re not as scary as you’d like to think.” The tension around Devan’s shoulders hardly went unnoticed by Hayden.

The other female kept her emotions closed as she observed Hayden. “So what are you planning? Are you going to blackmail me?”

Hayden looked away from the
brunette
, amusing herself by making Devan wait for a response. Grinning tightly, she watched the twins’ antics below. Fergus, who’d disappeared completely underwater, suddenly blasted from the depths like an airborne whale, startling a sunbathing Nathan in the process.

“The thought actually did cross my mind,” Hayden admitted truthfully. “But I don’t want anything you have to offer.” The genuine surprise that crossed Devan’s face was worth giving up prospective blackmail material.

Devan frowned suspiciously. “You won’t tell anyone?”

Amber eyes studied her. She noticed that Devan’s features had softened around the edges, a sign that the woman actually possessed a sliver of humanity. “I don’t agree with not being able to date outside the pack. And you seemed serious about him.” Her throat throbbed when she remembered Joseph’s hand around her neck and the way Devan encouraged him.

“I do love him,” Devan declared unexpectedly. At her sides, her fingers clawed against the bolder. “We’ve been together for two years. No one from our pack knows about it. And if Cole or Falco ever found out, we wouldn’t stand a chance staying together.”

Considering Devan was admitting her feelings so openly, Hayden figured she shouldn’t poke fun at their relationship
like
she had intended. “Why don’t you leave Cole’s pack and go to Falco’s? Or Joseph could come into Cole’s pack?” Hayden remembered Cole explaining that many of his father’s old pack members transferred packs after his death.

“It’s not that easy,” she bit out. “Falco doesn’t like Cole and Cole doesn’t like Falco. They would never accept former members of the other’s pack.” Her tone was clipped and slow, as if she were talking to a child. "Just don’t say anything, Hayden You don’t need to overexert
yourself
by thinking up ways to resolve this. I’ve already done that.”

Hayden stood up, not wanting to argue or talk to Devan any further. She would stand by her word and not say anything, at least not unless Joseph continued to assault her. What Devan did with her life was entirely up to her, Hayden wanted nothing to do with it.

She wandered over to Blake, seeing him hunched over the table and playing with something that looked oddly like spikes. He saw her coming and motioned her over, an impish grin in place as he held up a tattoo needle. Her stomach plummeted.

“The Alpha is usually the one that does the initiation tattoo,” Blake informed as he plucked at the equipment on the table. “But Addie said Cole had a late meeting he needed to attend. So you’re stuck with the beta.” He flashed a blinding smile.

Hayden refused to get any closer to the table. Images of foreign viruses and disfiguring do-it-yourself tattoos crossed her mind
. 
“A tattoo?” she asked hoarsely. 

Angling his foot around, Blake revealed a tattoo on his inner ankle. It was a relatively small silhouette of a wolf in mid-stride. The ink was black, but the animal
was outlined
in what appeared to be silver.

“It’s been in the Slayter pack for decades. We all agree it’s time for your initiation into the pack, and all members are required to get the tattoo.” He tapped the bench with his hand. “Come on. It won’t hurt a bit.”

She’d always considered getting a tattoo, but she never imagined Blake doing it by himself. She tried to stifle her disappointment that Cole wasn’t here to do it himself.

“Do you even have any experience with those needles?”

“No, he doesn’t.”

Hayden and Blake both turned around, spying Cole entering the clearing. The Alpha was still dressed in his black slacks and white collared shirt. His suit coat
was slung
over his arm as he approached his two pack members, his dark eyes immediately falling on Hayden.

A silly grin stretched her lips, and when she tried to muffle it, it only seemed to grow more difficult to contain. “I thought you had a meeting tonight,” she commented, trying not to admire the way he commanded complete reverence and attention.

Cole threw his jacket on the table and straddled the chair’s back. He reached for the marker and stencil, inviting her to sit at the bench with a simple nod. “I wouldn’t miss this for the world. You’re my first official pack member. I wasn’t going to have Blake botch-up the marking.”

For his part, Blake looked affronted. Before he could properly defend himself, Addie called him over from the grill, waving her spatula and asking for his assistance. The beta gave one last pout in Cole’s general direction before dragging his feet toward Addie.

“Is it safe to assume you have a tattoo on your ankle as well?” Hayden asked guardedly, making sure this wasn’t just something Blake and Cole schemed up themselves.

Much to her surprise, Cole kicked off his polished shoe and pulled down his sock. There on his ankle, strikingly similar to Blake’s, was the black wolf in mid-stride. He was looking up at her in delight, a sly smirk in place. He had never looked more wolf-like than he did then.

“You didn’t believe me, pup?” he inquired deeply.

Something tightened in her stomach at his tone and Hayden forced herself to sit on the bench before she did something stupid. “It was a passing thought,” she admitted inaudibly, looking away from him and toward the needles.

Frowning, she sniffed at them, noticing something she hadn’t taken notice of before. “Is that really
silver
?” The outline of the tattoo had looked silver, but Hayden hadn’t thought it was actual silver in liquid form.

“It is,” Cole agreed, grinning mischievously. He picked up the needle that had the silver attached to it. “Werewolf packs generally do marking rituals like tattoos or piercings. To set us apart from everyone else, we’ve decided to add a small quantity of silver. I’d like to think it gives us a bit of an edge.”

He was acting extremely playful today. Hayden eyed him doubtfully, but decided she would choose to enjoy this new side of him. “I thought it was poison for werewolves?”

“The tattoo will be irritated for a few days, but your body will eventually adjust to it. Silver is most dangerous to us when it tears muscle tissue. Silver bullets, especially when they fragment, are toxic. It is rare a werewolf survives a gunshot wound.” He opened the disinfected wipes and motioned for her to put her foot on the bench. “A little silver under the skin won’t harm you.”

She remembered seeing Cole’s naked back the night of her arrival. The silvery scars on his back must have been from silver blades, or bullets, that
had been successfully cleaned and treated
. From what she knew, only wounds caused by silver scarred over on a werewolf’s skin. All other lacerations and cuts healed as if nothing had been there in the first place. 

Hayden snapped back to the present as fingers rested on her right ankle. Cole’s calloused and warm hands slid leisurely up her calf and curled around her knee. The touch was confident and sensual, handling Hayden in a way no one had ever done so before. The path of his fingers warmed her skin and ignited a prickle-like sensation across her leg.

Heat blossomed across her cheeks as he moved her leg and ankle closer to him. At his firm, confident hold, her heart seemed to flutter weakly. Trying to ignore the way her body reacted, Hayden took a chance and looked at Cole.

His green eyes were bright and contemplative as regarded her. However, the longer he studied her, the darker his expression turned and the tighter his hold became.

“Who attacked you?” he demanded sternly, his earlier playfulness turning cold and stony.

It took her a second to comprehend the question. When she realized he was talking about Joseph’s hand around her throat, it took a great deal of restraint not to touch her neck. How could he possibly know someone had grabbed her around the throat? It was hardly tender anymore and she hadn’t felt any bruises. Then again, she wasn’t a fully transformed werewolf who shared Cole’s sharp eyesight. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She tried to pull her leg from his grasp, but Cole kept hold, tugging her cleanly across the bench by her ankle and directly next to him.

His hand curled around her chin, forcing her neck back in an awkward arch. Their eyes contested as he scrutinized her darkly. “Don’t lie to me,” he scolded. The Alpha then pressed his face closer, the tips of their noses touching. He inhaled, his eyelashes fluttering closed just briefly before they snapped open.

“Asher, Blake, or a male from Falco’s pack did this to you.” His emerald eyes challenged her, peeling away any defenses she might have had. “I know it’s not Blake, and I highly doubt Asher’s intentions towards you are violent. That leaves the mysterious member in Falco’s pack.”

She was impressed that he was able to discern the different scents on her. It was understandable that Cole knew Blake’s scent because of their inseparability.
And
Hayden recollected Asher admitting that he was once good friends with Cole, which would explain how he would know Asher’s scent.

But
she was surprised that Cole didn’t know Joseph’s scent as well, considering the man was a beta to Falco and around him from time to time. But then again, scents had the ability to wear down over time.

“I guess my throat is still sore from when you grabbed it in the bowling alley.” As soon as the words left her mouth, Hayden cringed mentally.

The Alpha looked repulsed. “I would
never
grab you hard enough to leave marks.” His hand released her chin but his eyes never let her go. “You’re not protecting him, Hayden. When I find out who was behind it, they—”

“It was a misunderstanding,” Hayden interrupted casually. “Trust me. It won’t happen again. And if it does, I’ll come directly to you.”

She made sure to contort her features into something that would convince him of her honesty. His protectiveness was
well-received
, but it wasn’t warranted. If Joseph ever attacked her again, she
would
go to Cole. The Alpha had nothing to be upset
over
.

His lips thinned. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with you, Hayden.”

Hayden flashed him a bright smile, hoping to placate his foul mood. “That’s what my mother always used to say to me,” she said cheekily.