Chapter Four: Percy

“You’re back again,” Haden’s voice echoed through the quiet and I startled, shifting around till my eyes adjusted to the dark and I could make out his shadowy figure in the corner of what looked like…a library? The vague scattering shapes of bookshelves lined the walls, and pillars dipped in indigo so dark it was nearly black, rose toward the ceiling to support a glass dome that bled red instead of blue like a starry night sky should.

It took me longer than it should’ve to reply to him.

This was a dream after all. Wasn’t it?

He could wait for me. He had no choice.

Still though, I didn’t want to be a total dick, so instead of admiring the mahogany desk Haden sat behind or the piles of books that toppled like ancient buildings stacked along the floor, I turned to him.

“Back?” I asked, because I wasn’t sure what he meant.

Sure, I’d been dreaming of him for weeks, dreaming of this place.

But it had always felt murky at best, the details foggy, like I was stretching, stretching, stretching toward something and never quite reaching it. Like there was a veil between me and what lay before me, thick as molasses, waiting for my fingers to rip it to ribbons so I could push my body through.

“You’ve been here before,” Haden stated plainly. I blinked.

“Is this…a place?” I gestured around me, encompassing all of the dream with curiosity I probably shouldn’t have had. But he made me curious, and I couldn’t help that fact.

“It is a place among other things.” Haden didn’t rise from his seat and as my eyes adjusted more, I noted he was back in his skeleton garb again. What lay beyond his skull mask was nothing but mystery, though his lips looked soft, yet stern. A longing flickered in my chest that I swiftly rubbed away.

Maybe this dream was actually a nightmare.

Something I’d conjured up to punish myself for giving in all those nights ago.

“I didn’t know your people possessed magic such as this,” Haden added, his own voice curious now. Obviously, I was an enigma to him. Our first encounter had gone much the same way. A lot of ‘I didn’t know your people did this, and that’ a lot of wonder and trepidation aching through the rippling tones of his voice.

“Magic?” I scoffed. “I’m not magic.”

“I beg to differ.”

Cute, but weird.

Was he flirting?

Did that mean I was flirting with myself?

“Where are we?” I asked, because I wanted to interrupt my own annoying thought process. Also, because I was curious. Curious, like he was.

“My office.”

Well, that was obvious.

I glared at him.

“Your office?” I glanced around, scanning the piles of books, the littered paper, the wall sconces that should’ve been lit, but instead, were as dry and dead as old bones. Dubious, I narrowed my eyes on him again. “Why are you at an office? What are you?” I folded my arms. “You don’t look like an office drone.” Not that this looked like your typical office drone’s office. Oh no. I wasn’t sure what this looked like.

A dungeon maybe?

A dungeon if it had banged a library, and this was its very dark, very gothic baby.

“I assure you, an office drone I am not.”

I stared at Haden for a long moment, waiting for him to continue, but he didn’t. He just shuffled the papers on his desk, his head tipped down. I hadn’t noticed before, but his hair was shorn close to his scalp. An almost military style haircut that perfectly matched the uniform he obviously had a whole closet full of. The hair was pearly white all over, and looked soft as puppy fluff, though there was a curious stripe of black that ran from his hairline all the way to the back, almost like a reverse-skunk stripe.

I’d yelled at a skunk once.

Not because I wanted to.

I’d been feeding him scraps at the edge of the trailer park for months and when dad caught wind of it, he’d made me scare him off. The look on his little face, so confused by my betrayal, still haunted me.

That was the last time I’d cried. You had to do what you had to do to survive in my house growing up and sometimes that meant others getting hurt. My heart still tore when I thought about it. I rubbed the spot where it ached as I turned my attention away from Haden’s hair and took a cautious step forward.

He couldn’t hurt me, right? Not if this was my dream.

Except I’d had dreams where I got hurt before, so that logic wasn’t exactly sound.

Haden spoke before I could tunnel myself into an even darker anxiety spiral. “How long are you staying this time?” His voice was wary, though curious as I continued to shuffle and stare at him, my hands shoved into my armpits, shoulders drawn up high and tight.

“I don’t know.” It wasn’t like I’d come here on purpose. I couldn’t really leave when I wanted to. If I wanted to. Which I didn’t. This was a definite improvement compared to my life when I was awake.

There weren’t alphas like this at home.

Or…books? Yeah. Books. The books were cool too.

The alphas were better, though.

“Fine.” He sighed, then shuffled his paperwork around, shoved it to the side and folded his hands across the glistening table top. More details of the room came into focus. The engravings along the edge of the desk, a little skeleton army marching forever onward. The dripping candles, with wax that had long since dried as their wicks and lives burning out in tandem.

I was nervous.

I fidgeted a little, waiting for him to speak, because somehow my words had dried up.

This reminded me too much of feelings I had long tried to bury. Of childhoods built on broken promises, crumbling foundations, and brash laughter.

The uncertainty should’ve been familiar. I should’ve soaked it up like I normally did when I chased things that were bad for me, but somehow always felt right. But it didn’t. Maybe that meant Haden wasn’t truly bad? Or maybe that meant the moral compass I possessed had finally gone and broken.

“You look frightened, pup.” Haden rose from his seat and edged toward me. It was like a mating dance almost. He was a big colorful purple bird, fluffing his feathers–or in this case–his bones toward me. My bond mark throbbed, my legs stiff and numb as I shuffled back a pace, and then forced myself to still. I didn’t want to look weak. Didn’t want to look frightened. Being scared had never won me anything.

The closer Haden got, the more I trembled. Like there was electricity between us, zapping at my fingers, my toes, my everything till I was zip-zip-zipping away, ready to combust, my hair standing on end.

When he was close enough that I could scent him, something inside me quivered. I squashed it quickly, keeping my expression as unreadable as I could, my jaw tensed, my lips drawn thin. And then…his fingers were touching me. He didn’t have gloves on this time, and his skin was molten hot. He traced over the swell of my cheek bone and something inside me ignited.

“Do you think I want to hurt you?” Haden’s words caressed the shell of my ear, detached almost, but…underneath all that ice was curiosity. Like a creature that was just waking up.

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “Do you?”

I could never fucking tell.

“If I wanted to hurt you, you would not be standing here, looking up at me so prettily.”

I wanted to point out that I was thicker than him, even if he was tall, but I bit my tongue, my heart wobbling as my traitorous pulse thrummed, pretty, pretty, pretty. No one called me pretty. Except Haden, apparently. I wasn’t sure if he was blind or lying, but I wasn’t about to argue.

Then the other half of his words hit and I relaxed, some of the tension bleeding away as I realized he was right. If he wanted to hurt me, he’d already had ample opportunity. Instead, all he’d done was approach me, like I was a wild raccoon, and his words were kitchen scraps.

I lapped them up like the greedy little trash panda I was.

Swallowing the lump in my throat, I said, “So why am I here then?”

“That I cannot answer you.”

That night came back to me. The cold. The bite of hot fingers. His knot. His cock. His—…rejection. His abandonment. Waking up alone with only dew drops and dead grasshoppers for company. “Why…” I trailed off.

“Hmm?” Haden’s fingers stroked my cheek again, and I shuddered, melting.

“Why did you bite me?” I blurted out, the thought having occurred to me suddenly. It had been bothering me since that night, the loss and anger bubbling up beside the hurt all over again as I recalled this wasn’t the first time he’d called me pretty. “Why bond with me? When you knew you were going to leave. When you knew it wouldn’t take.”

Now I wasn’t so sure about that last bit, since the second I’d seen him again, the mating mark on my neck had begun to light up in a happy little tap dance, endorphins bubbling up inside me as I trembled and my scent-blind nose chased Haden’s sultry essence.

“Didn’t I?” Haden stroked my cheek again, his words so quiet it was almost like he was speaking to himself. He sounded a bit confused, maybe…amazed? I tipped into the touch, unable to help myself. No one touched me like this. Ever. “If the bond had not taken I don’t think we would be talking right now.”

I supposed that made sense.

But it didn’t answer why he’d done it.

“But, why bite me at all?”

Haden’s fingers paused as he mulled over his words. I watched the way his lips pressed together, chasing his eyes inside the shadows of his mask though in this light, they were nearly impossible to see. Just fathomless dark depths. “Truthfully, I did not remember the significance.”

What was that supposed to mean?

“You’re an alpha. How could you not remember what a bond bite is?” God, either this guy was dumb or he thought I was.

Maybe he was right, because he started stroking again and I ate that shit up right away, practically purring.

“I am many things,” Haden explained softly. His fingers never ventured. Only stroked away, lighting up little fires in their wake as he traced along my temple, toying with the soft brunette flop of bangs I religiously gelled out of my face. “I have not been an alpha for a very long time.”

“I don’t get it.” I glared at him. How could he not be an alpha if he had literally dicked me into the dirt? It didn’t make sense. “How can you not be an alpha?” I pointedly stared at his crotch for a moment, then glared up at him in defiance. I was sure he could remember the knot he’d popped when he’d been railing me. A knot. The thing most people chased in one way or another all their lives.

Some of us in different ways than others.

I knew I should’ve been born with one, whereas Tommy enjoyed his in the rubber variety. Not that I’d ever wanted to know that about my friend, but he was an over-sharer just like I was an under-sharer.

I shook Tommy out of my thoughts, distracted again as Haden’s fingers trailed back down to my cheekbone once again. That simple touch shouldn’t feel so damn good. Or so fucking sensitive. My toes curled as a shudder tore through my body unbidden.

“A man can only be so many things at once before some start deteriorating, like a village full of buildings where there is only one caretaker. Eventually, no matter what he does, their foundations begin to crumble.” Haden murmured in the space between us. His scent was faint but I chased it, my nostrils flaring as a soft throaty chuckle left his lips the moment he noticed what I was doing. 

“I don’t know if I buy any of that,” I grunted. “Seems like a lot of pretty words to explain a shitty thing you did.”

“You do not need to ‘buy it’ for it to be the truth.”

Haden’s words were fading.

The room was too.

Gray bled around the edges as fog echoed through the corners of my mind.

“It appears as though your time is up, little one,” Haden echoed.

“I’m not little.” The words were out before I could stop them and then suddenly everything went white.