Un.Bridled (Claimed Series #2) (11 page)

As she made a move to descend the hill, he grabbed her arm
roughly. His fingernails were elongated and his eyes flashed amber. Asher and the term ‘aggressive’ had never gone hand-in-hand until now. “That’s reckless and you know it. I can’t let you do that—”

Whatever he intended to say was cut short by an ear-splinting
bang.
Hayden and Asher dropped to the ground on instinct. When their mind caught up to the situation, they peeked over the edge of the hill and down into the gully. Through wide eyes, Hayden watched as a wolf collapsed to the ground, a prominent dark stain spreading on the snow beneath him.

Asher slapped a hand over her mouth, muffling a scream Hayden hadn’t realized she produced. He huddled closer to her and pressed her further into the ground. As he stared at the scene below, his face steadily grew ashen and horrified.

Both the full moon and the deplorable situation caused her heart to race abnormally fast and hard. Straining her eyes below, Hayden caught sight of the Hunters. They were stealthy and quick for humans, possessing supernatural-like abilities as they emerged from the trees and frozen underbrush. With their ability to emerge stealthily, they also harbored the ability of camouflage. They blended against the dark trees and remained hidden until an unsuspecting wolf ran past.

Their rifles were large but the Hunters’ movements were not burdened. In fact, they were in their element as they quickly dodged and pivoted through the snow, cornering another large werewolf. One man took aim at the lunging werewolf before pulling the trigger. The sound of gunfire echoed thunderously across the forest just seconds
after a bullet struck the wolf in the head.

It couldn’t have been a normal
gun. On impact, the bullet exploded the back of the wolf’s head, sending a spray of thick gore fountaining behind the fallen werewolf. Asher flinched alongside Hayden, his body coiled but too frozen to move away.

The rogues, who were mostly all transformed by now, were cornered. Their cries were high-pitched and desperate, effectively tugging at Hayden’s heartstrings. She jerked toward them, her wolf eager to help a comrade in
trouble. Only, Asher’s arm was heavy and inflexible around her waist, forcing her to stay immobile.

Guns weren’t the only weapons of choice for the Hunters. Some men wielded swords and were paired with at least two men carrying rifles. As soon as the riflemen distracted the werewolf long enough, the swordsman swung powerfully and beheaded the confused wolf.

The carnage was horrifying and Hayden couldn’t look away even if she tried. Her heart mourned for the deaths and the horror they must have felt. The wolves were
people
, people who’d been sick and defenseless in their human skin. Just because they turned into canines during the full moon did not make them any less human.

Before long, the pristine snow was muddied with blood and carnage. The rogues who had transformed were all dead and lying unidentifiably on the ground. Besides the five human casualties that transpired before the full moon, a few more humans were just as motionless, not having survived the transformation.

“God…” Asher breathed in horror, reaching over and attempting to cover Hayden’s eyes. “Don’t look, Hayden. Don’t look.”

She couldn’t imagine something worse than what they’d just witnessed. But something had scared Asher enough to warrant his panic. Over his groping hands, she saw the source of his terror.

A young girl, perhaps twelve or thirteen, twitched on the ground, still fighting the transformation. With the other rogues dead, the Hunters congregated towards her, standing over her and waiting. If she survived the transformation, they’d shoot.

What a cruel fate. The child had been alive to witness the brutal scene of her companions; she’d know what waited for her once she turned. Not only did she have to face the unknown,
but she had to do it alone.

Hayden lunged
, but Asher caught her, wrestling her further away from the ledge. They scratched and traded hits with one another, Hayden too lost in her grief and Asher desperately preventing her from doing something stupid. Her fingernails scraped his wrists as he straddled and held her down.

Suddenly, a murky cloud invaded her senses and slowed her limbs. At first, she fought against it, not realizing what it was. But when her panic and terror tempered into soothing reassurance, Hayden fell limp with comprehension. It hadn’t been a physical attack on her person, but a mental one.

Cole
.

Even thousands of miles away, he’d felt her fear. Through their bond, Hayden felt his desperation and confusion
, though he tried to smother it, trying to be strong in lieu of her distress. He wasn’t anywhere near, but he wanted—needed—to be with her.

“A clean shot.”

She jerked at the quiet, mournful statement coming from the Hunter. Clearly, the child had successfully transformed. Staring up at Asher, Hayden saw her devastation mirrored back at her. A moment later, a single gunshot sounded, echoing eerily across the woods as it ended a child’s life.

Hayden arched her back and neck. Tears escaped freely from the corners of her eyes as her body began to transform. She was no longer mentally capable of preventing her wolf from taking over. It reared forward and Hayden did nothing to stop the change.

Rolling on all fours, she began running far away from the destruction. Asher was hot on her heels, a constant shadow
, and a constant companion.

Through the greasy film of melancholy, Hayden registered Cole’s arrival. Leaning her head against the wall, she listened as the pack raced through the halls to greet him. He was back a
day early, and Hayden felt a stab of guilt knowing she was the reason.

Bowing her head, she raked her fingernails
against her scalp, trying to regain her bearings. Dwelling in isolation for hours had been her own decision, but it was far from healthy. Within the confinements of her room, she’d been forced to relive last night’s events and this morning’s heartbreak involving Asher.

Blake’s voice suddenly drifted up the stairs
, startling her from her thoughts. “She’s been in her room all day. She hasn’t talked to anyone and she hasn’t eaten.” He wasted no time getting Cole up to speed. “She and Asher spent the full moon together and arrived home at dawn.”

Hayden stiffened as they approached her bedroom. She preferred not
speaking to anyone, but she knew Cole wouldn’t take no for an answer. He’d be angry, she knew, and she was dreading the imminent confrontation. She had no fight left. She’d be unable to stand tall in the face of his anger.

“I’m sorry.” The beta’s voice sounded further away, as if he stopped in the middle of the staircase. “I should have known she’d do something reckless after hearing about the rogues. I just didn’t think Asher would be so senseless.”

“You did exactly what you were expected to do. You stayed with the pack.” A fool would miss the underlying message in those words, a message that was clearly meant to be overheard. “You leave me to deal with Hayden.”

Hayden winced at both the tone and the words. Cole had expected her to stay with the pack alongside Blake. In fact, he’d stressed his confidence at her competency just days before he’d left. If she hadn’t come to terms with it earlier, his disappointment would have stung more than it had.

As her bedroom door opened, Hayden pulled her legs against her chest and hugged them close. She hadn’t felt this vulnerable in a long time. With Cole’s ability to see past her defenses, Hayden doubted she could build a believable façade. 

The dark room was hardly an obstacle for Cole. His gaze found her instantly. Wedged between the bed and the dresser, she wasn’t the easiest object to spot, though he didn’t seem to think so. He flipped on the lights, bathing the room in illumination.

Hayden furrowed her eyebrows, squinting past the onslaught of light. When her eyes finally adjusted, the door was already closed and Cole was halfway across the room. His face was unreadable, but the sharp angles of his face were hard and unrelenting.

Without so much as a greeting, Cole stooped down low and curled a calloused hand around her ankle. A sharp tug found Hayden sliding cleanly across the floor and into the middle of the room. It was unsurprising that Cole would force Hayden out of her comfortable niche and into the open. He didn’t tolerate moping.

Unconcerned whether she adjusted to the sudden exposure or not, Cole fisted her shirt and hauled her to her feet. “If you can disobey my orders, you can stand on your feet and face the consequences like a proper Alpha, like an adult.”

Blood raced through her numb legs, reviving the feeling in her appendages that she’d lost hours ago. She swayed, but Cole’s heavy palms cupped her throat, holding her up by the neck. No matter how threatening his expression was, Hayden couldn’t be intimidated. After what she witnessed with the Hunters, everything seemed harmless in comparison.

Cole tightened his hold and angled nearer, as if bracing his weight against her. His eyes were a turbulence of stormy emerald. “When I considered all the stupid things you would do in my absence, I was imagining provocative nights with Asher or exploits that took you past the town’s borders. By no means did I
ever
devise the possibility of you running headlong into a group of rogues and Hunters.”

“Nothing happened to me,” she said softly.

Cole shook her fiercely, a predator ring of amber encircling his pupil. “What were you thinking?” he growled, shocking her with the volume. He hardly ever raised his voice.

“We’re not mated.”

Cole blinked and appeared speechless at her unexpected statement. “
What
?”

She exhaled through her nose. “We aren’t mated. If something happened to me, you wouldn’t be adversely affected through the bond.” Hayden glanced down at his shoes. “I understand now, more than ever, why you wanted to refrain from completing the bond. I tend to do stupid things and it would be unfair to you.”

The hands abruptly released her throat. “You think
that’s
what I’m angry about?” If anything, he seemed angrier than before. “Has it ever occurred to you that I worry about your wellbeing because I care about
you,
not about our bond? I couldn’t care a less about our status as life mates. Contrary to popular belief, two people can have a strong relationship without it being sexual.”

Hayden looked up at the declaration. Through the numbness and hazy melancholy, she felt a flicker of surprise.

Resembling a caged animal, Cole began to stalk the length of the room. He seemed distracted, but not distracted enough to overlook Hayden’s reaction to his statement. He turned to her, his dark eyes expressive but ambiguous. “I want a relationship with you,” he stressed, either to convince himself, Hayden, or both. 

Maybe they weren’t thinking along the same lines, because Hayden could never imagine Cole admitting to wanting
that kind
of relationship aloud. He probably meant establishing a bond like the one she shared with Fergus, Blake, and Addie. Hayden quelled her disappointment at that thought.

Blake once mentioned that she needed to talk to Cole about these issues. The prospect seemed daunting and not
something she wanted to undertake at the moment.

Folding her arms over her chest, Hayden forced herself back to the current situation. “I thought you were angry that I left the pack last night
, or that I keep reminding you of the reason why we can never be a ‘
we’
.”  

“Hayden, there are many reasons why I’m angry.” Stepping in her direction, Cole reached for her, but his fingers fell short of touching her jaw. “But my most prominent concern is your safety. You couldn’t fathom how helpless I felt when I was in New York and you were here, in trouble. I was powerless to help you.”

Underneath Cole’s obvious anger, Hayden finally noticed the faint pulses of panic channeling through his side of the bond. Ashamed, she offered a semblance of an apology. “I didn’t mean to worry you. It was reckless, I know.”

He dropped his outstretched hand, his fingers curling into fists. Whatever gentleness he had once possessed was now gone. “You
knew
it was going to be reckless and you decided to go through with it anyway? Or you realized it was reckless after the fact?” Cocking his head, he squinted mockingly at her. “I’d very much like to know the answer so I can analyze your state of mind and prevent it from happening again.”

Instead of answering his sardonic question, Hayden took the middle route. “I wanted to save them,” she whispered.

Images from the massacre, more especially, the young girl’s last moments, flashed persistently through her mind. The more Hayden attempted to suppress the memories, the more prominent and vivid they became.

“You can’t save them all.”    

Hayden narrowed her eyes. Pity wasn’t exactly the best word to describe Cole’s tenor; it was more along the lines of gruff callousness. Evidently, he didn’t care. “No,” she growled. “I realized that firsthand.”

Cole was unrelenting and hardly abashed. “What did you
think you could do to save them, Hayden?”

“Why haven’t you asked what I saw out there?” Hayden raised her eyebrows challengingly and threw her arms down at her sides. Her vulnerability fell way to anger. “Why don’t you ask how many werewolves survived the massacre?”

A hard line formed Cole’s mouth. “I don’t ask questions I know the answers to.”

She stared. “Normally, in most cases, if you know someone just witnessed the most horrific event in her life, you’d comfort her, not drill her with insensitive questions.” Her tone was bitter and every bit cutting.

He might have a general impression of what happened, but he didn’t know the details. Last night, he experienced her horror and grief through their bond. Cole
knew
what she had gone through, yet he was far from comforting. She knew she’d done something stupid, but she had expected a bit more compassion from him.

Cole crossed his arms over his chest, not out of vulnerability but out of impatience. There was nothing reassuring about his forbidding stance. “You brought this upon yourself, Hayden. You knew what would happen if you went out there.”

“But I didn’t.” She winced at the whining tone before trying to adapt an impression of control. “I thought I could warn them in time.”

“You need to stand on your own.” Unrelenting, he bombarded her with harsh words. “This is not the last time something like this will happen. Are you still intending to live up to the expectations of being an Alpha?”

The question took her off guard. “Of course I am—”

“Then you will need to learn how to face situations like these without leaning on another for support. If something critical were to happen to the pack, you would need to set aside your own feelings and protect the ones under your care first and foremost.”

Hayden tried to find even the faintest hint of emotion on Cole’s face. She saw nothing but stoicism. Despite their differences, Cole knew her best. Either he figured a professional angle would bring her out of her depression, or he truly thought things would get worse with the rogues and the Hunters. She hoped it wasn’t the latter, but she had the strangest premonition that it was.

“This is reality and I want you to see it with your eyes wide open.”

She tried not to feel like she was drowning, but everything felt so nightmarish. Cole had comforted her in the past over things far more petty than this. Why was he toughening her up
now
? Did the future really look so bleak from his perspective?

As if feeling guilty for his harsh treatment, Cole flattened a palm against her cheek. “It’s unfair,” he murmured, bowing his neck and placing his cheek on top her head. Despite his closeness,
he still managed to keep a respectable distance. “You should have never seen the things you had, but I never want you to forget what you saw. Don’t try to hide from the memories or the emotions.”

He stood for a moment longer, holding her. The fingers of his free hand brushed her waist, as if wanting to grab her but thinking better of it. Reluctantly, after another caress to her cheek, Cole pulled away.

“Why?” Hayden’s question stopped his departure. “Why should I be content to stand back and watch and do nothing to stop it?”

“You should never feel content,” Cole replied gravely. He paused near the door and looked back at her. “Things were not always this way. Since Nicolas’ reign, the number of these rogues has increased significantly. The Hunters are a secret, exclusive society who tracks and kills rogues. Albeit cruel, they do have their principles.

“If the entire population learned of our existence, it would be dire. Humans are cruel, self-centered beings. You think the Hunters are hostile, imagine what a mob of frightened, ignorant humans would be like. Fear would lead to unorganized killings and the chaos would be overwhelming for everyone involved, not just for the werewolves.”

Sullenly, Hayden mulled it over. “Basically, what the Hunters are doing is population control.”

Cole opened the door, ignoring her derisive remark. “You didn’t know where those rogues came from, Hayden. While it may not be morally right to kill them, it is necessary in some cases. Just be thankful we were not forced to do it ourselves, a situation you may find yourself in the future.”

Without another word, he exited her bedroom, clearly still carrying his earlier anger. Hayden exhaled noisily and collapsed on the edge of
her bed, her mind and body fatigued.

Accepting what the Hunters had done was not part of Hayden’s itinerary. But she reluctantly understood Cole’s arguments. If the world found out about werewolves, there would be mass hysteria. Humans with no experience would hunt, perhaps killing traditional werewolves, or even worse, humans they suspected were werewolves.  

The werewolves wouldn’t be blameless either. If they were hunted, they would defend themselves ruthlessly. Innocent humans would be stuck in the crossfire, and as a result, meaningless deaths and even more newborns would start multiplying. It would be an endless cycle.

Hayden was suddenly hit with the Hunters’ true worth. While cruel, they
did
bring equilibrium. They were a stable obstruction between the humans and the werewolves.

Nonetheless, she still didn’t approve of innocent rogues being slaughtered. She wondered if there was
someone she could blame. Could the Hunters be blamed for being too cruel? Were traditional werewolves at blame for not trying hard enough to induct new rogues into their packs? Or could she blame other rogues for biting humans and Siring newborns?