Page 18 of Alphas Never Hide (Willow Lake Supernaturals #5)
Chapter Eighteen
RYLEY
As we walked back to the vehicles, Dillon tried to convince Hayden to go straight to the police station when we returned to Willow Lake , while Jeremy argued we should go to the doctor’s place first because of Hayden’s latest head injury. Hayden refused to commit to either destination. When we got to the vehicles and I climbed into Hayden’s truck with him while the others got into their own vehicles, I doubted we’d be going anywhere but the garage.
I was right.
Dillon stopped right beside us when Hayden parked outside his business. He did his best to coax Hayden to the police station, but Hayden just turned and walked toward the garage as he said, “ Van knows where to find us.”
He only looked back once, when he got to the door. He frowned at me, like he couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t following right behind him. “ Are you coming? ”
As I trotted after the moody werewolf, who was holding the door open for me like a gentleman, I shot Dillon an apologetic smile. I thought I’d outgrown my need to follow people around when I left the herd, but apparently I hadn’t. The almost alpha made me feel safe, and I wasn’t ready to turn my back on that feeling quite yet. It’d been so long since I’d felt it. It was nice.
Of course, it may have also helped that I couldn’t get that impulsive kiss out of my head. I wouldn’t mind doing that again, so I was sticking close. You know, just in case the opportunity to smash our mouths together again presented itself.
I adjusted my glasses as I entered Hayden’s business. The waiting room inside the place was clean but not pristine. The worn-out furniture, the cracked lino, and the dreary fluorescent lights matched how I’d always imagined an old mechanic’s shop waiting room would look. Even the air helped set the atmosphere with scents of all things mechanical. I couldn’t tell you if I was smelling oil or grease or some other mechanical fluid, but it suited the place.
A vending machine with pop, candy, and chips sat in one corner, and a large metal statue sat in another. The statue was unexpected, but I didn’t stop to study it because I didn’t want to lose track of Hayden . He passed a windowed door that led to the left, which, based on the sounds of machinery and clanking metal, must lead to the bays where they worked on vehicles. He also marched by the door marked with a washroom sign and didn’t stop until he got to the unmarked door behind the desk.
I followed. Because apparently that’s what I did now .
Hayden’s office was a mess. It was dusty and grimy and covered with all kinds of administrative clutter. But the most horrifying thing was the desktop computer perched on one end of the paper-strewn desk. It belonged in a museum or, even better, in my collection of electronics. I had every piece of electronics I’d ever owned since leaving the herd, but I didn’t have something like this. I’d love to pull it apart and study it. When had he bought that thing? Had there still been glaciers covering the continent? He grabbed a couple of coins from his top drawer and looked at me.
“ What do you want from the vending machine?”
“ Ginger ale?”
He nodded, then disappeared through the door again. I heard the clunk of the vending machine spitting out a can. He returned and thrust my drink at me.
“ I need to check on the guys,” he said. “ I’ll be right back. Have a seat.”
The chair behind the desk looked like it’d been manufactured in the 70s, and another newer one, which was covered in boxes, sat on this side of the desk. By newer, I meant it was from the 90s. Neither chair was in great condition. They both had holes in the seats and grime caked into the crevices.
I moved the boxes off the chair in front of the desk and set them on the floor. I dropped my backpack beside them and sat down. Now what? My gaze strayed to the desk and all those papers. Client invoices, supplier invoices, order forms, and Magic only knew what else was all mixed up together. I itched to go back there and straighten shit, but people got pissy when you re-organized their space .
Instead , I dug into my backpack and found my phone. Of course the phone was dead, so I went hunting for my charger. After that was sorted, I pulled out my laptop and plugged it in too. Just having it in my hands again sent a wave of joy through me. I’d thought I’d lost it forever. Sure , I backed up everything on the cloud, but it always took so long to set up a new computer, organize my apps, get the screensavers right, adjust short cuts, and everything else. And until that was all done, it always felt like I was wearing someone else’s shoes.
I looked down.
Actually , I was still wearing someone else’s shoes, literally. I should change those. But first, I needed to get into my files and make sure everything was okay.
My laptop fired up like usual. So far, so good. At least it didn’t appear to have suffered any damage. I bit my tongue as I typed in my password and scanned my fingerprint. As soon as the familiar home screen came up, I reviewed all my security protections. Everything looked normal; there’d been no activity since the last time I’d logged in.
Thank Magic . Tension ebbed from my body.
My projects didn’t deal with classified information that needed to be protected under layers of encryption, nor did I have heaps of money to steal. But cyber security was important. It kept people out of places they didn’t belong.
And , yes, my paranoia came from living in a herd for so long. Those bastards were snoopy, constantly sticking their hooves into everyone else’s business. “ What’s yours is ours” was one of their favorite mottos. Sometimes , even after all these years, I still missed a few things about living with the herd—my brother especially—but herd mentality definitely wasn’t one of them.
I signed into my socials next. My friendship circle IRL was pretty much non-existent, but I had a few online groups I loved. I found a few DMs wishing me a good holiday, so I guessed someone may have missed me if I’d never returned.
My work email was next. A few calls for proposals had come and gone, but the rest of my emails were pertaining to simple maintenance work on websites for existing clients. Those took no time to deal with at all.
By the time Hayden returned, I was finishing the last change.
Right on his heels was Van .
“ You think because you’re the alpha that you get VIP treatment? Making me come to you?” Despite his words, the hellhound didn’t sound angry, more annoyed than anything.
“ I’m not the alpha,” Hayden said.
As soon as the words left his mouth, a strange look passed over his face, like he wasn’t sure if he believed what he was saying. He rubbed his chest, right over the spot I’d always been told our magic lived inside us.
Van’s gaze snapped to Hayden . “ Hayden ?”
“ Not now, Van .” Hayden shook his head. “ You’re here to talk to Ryley . Can we go over what we found in those tunnels? Unless Dillon discovered something from those wallets or phones.”
Van looked like he wanted to argue, to press the issue. Instead , he said, “ I’m here if you want to talk. You know that, right? ”
“ Yeah . Sure ,” Hayden said, but he didn’t meet Van’s eyes. “ About those wallets?”
“ We’re still following up.”
Hayden frowned, but there wasn’t much he could do. “ I’ll go grab another chair. Unless you want to talk alone? I can always go help the guys in the back.”
“ Can he stay?” I asked Van as I closed out of what I was doing and secured my laptop.
“ I’ll get a chair,” Hayden said, without waiting for Van’s response. He looked relieved that I wasn’t sending him away.
I thought Van would go sit in Hayden’s chair behind the desk, but he didn’t. It was probably a territorial thing. My kind were less territorial than other supernatural beings. Our isolationist tendencies stemmed more from a false sense of superiority than a need to defend our property, so I had to remind myself wolves and hellhounds were different.
Hayden set a chair beside mine and shut the door. Van dropped onto it as Hayden made his way around to his desk chair. As soon as he was seated, they both turned their attention to me. Having a werewolf and a hellhound stare at me was unsettling. I knew they weren’t trying to intimidate me, but my racing heart wasn’t getting the message.
I wished Hayden wasn’t so far away. What was wrong with me that I was both unsettled by his eyes on me but wanting him close to comfort me, all at the same time? It made no sense.
I usually prided myself on my common sense, mostly because people didn’t consider fauns very logical. I’d always thought I’d inherited common sense from my dad’s side, but maybe my faun genes were more powerful than I’d guessed.
“ What do you want to know?”
“ Why don’t you start at the beginning? Describe what led you to meeting Robbie and go from there.”
I wished we could skip this part. Except , what if those asshole wolves abducted someone else? I sighed. Yeah . I had to talk about all that stuff. Damn it.