The Alpha’s Bullied Mate (Bluebell Valley Wolves #1)

Chapter 2 - Hayden

Gasps and whispers erupted all throughout the hall. Hayden pretended like he couldn’t hear them, never moving his gaze off Monroe. They could be shocked all they wanted, but it didn’t change anything. Behind him, his team stood in perfect formation. He could sense where each one of them was. He felt the coiling of their muscles, ready to fight should anyone attack.

“You? Challenge me?” Alpha Monroe frowned at him.

He was a muscular man still in his prime, more than a challenge for most wolves. But Hayden wasn’t most wolves. After leading his team for years against threats that the shifter world was ignorant of, he had more than enough experience to take down the alpha of an admittedly disorganized and uninteresting pack.

“Yes,” Hayden answered. “I challenge you. Shall we set the date for the fight?”

Monroe’s beta, Spencer, as hairy and dense as a bull even in human form, stormed forward. “Take that back, Pup, before you get ripped to shreds. How dare you abandon this pack only to come waltzing back in, thinking you can challenge our alpha?”

Hayden didn’t flinch as Spencer stopped right in front of him. He lifted a lip, revealing a long canine as he snarled.

“I don’t believe I offered the challenge toward you, Beta Spencer,” Hayden said. He fought the urge to smirk. “Only Monroe can answer this challenge. Either set a time to fight or forfeit like a coward.”

More muttering broke out around them. In the years Monroe had been Alpha, nobody had challenged him. Whenever there were whispers about someone challenging him, they ended up badly beaten and run out of town in the best scenarios. In the worst cases, they met with mysterious accidents—like the one that had killed Hayden’s parents.

Hayden couldn’t believe that his father would have challenged Monroe, but when it came to bullies like Monroe, the truth hardly mattered.

It was no wonder why the demons had chosen him .

Even though Hayden didn’t have the ability to see the red aura around a person possessed by demons, Finn could. And it hadn’t taken more than a glance for his teammate to confirm what they all suspected. A demon was controlling Monroe. A powerful one, too, if the density of the aura around him was any indication.

Why the demons had a special interest in the Bluebell Valley pack was anyone’s guess, but they were here.

“Spencer,” Monroe said sharply.

Spencer glared a moment longer at Hayden. Then he hissed, “If you managed to beat the challenge, do you think you could hold this pack?”

Then he turned and stalked back to Monroe’s side. Hayden cocked his head slightly to catch Finn in his peripheral vision. Finn gave a slight shake of his head. So Spencer wasn’t possessed. Not that it made much of a difference. Hayden’s goal here was clear. Defeat Monroe, find the source of the demon activity in the area, and shut it down.

He’d deal with the reality of being an Alpha afterward.

“I don’t think you know what you’re doing, boy,” Monroe said. “It’s not something you can merely say and then take back later. Are you certain you know what you’re getting into?”

The condescending tone made Hayden grind his teeth together. A few people in the crowd laughed out loud, as though the alpha had said something witty.

I have a reason for being here, he reminded himself.

The others in his team, Ryder, Blayke, Kai, and Maverick, wanted to save the pack. Even if it weren’t his home pack, they would need to do something to stop the demon threat. If demons got a foothold in the world, it would be difficult to purge them from it.

And yes, Hayden did feel responsible for the pack, too. It came with the territory when one had an Alpha’s spirit. His parents were dead, and he had no strong ties to this pack anymore, but it was where he grew up. He knew these people. He knew who suffered beneath Monroe’s rule before the demons came, and who would be the first to be sacrificed.

The shock of red hair that had caught his eye the moment he stepped into the hall moved slightly. Hayden resisted the urge to turn. He could imagine the look on Mica’s face as all this went down, but imagining was as far as it would go.

“I know exactly what I’m getting into, Alpha,” Hayden answered. “I can’t help but wonder why you seem to be delaying answering my challenge.”

“It would be irresponsible of me to answer the challenge of every hot-headed child who decided to offer up a challenge,” Monroe said. He leaned against the podium. “You haven’t been here for years. What brings you back now? You didn’t even return for your parents' funeral.”

Hayden didn’t blink. To do so would be taken as a sign of weakness. Behind him, his teammates shifted from foot to foot, each one coiling with energy. He sent a calming wave through their bond. Now was not the time to get ahead of themselves.

Each sent back a reassurance that they would wait for his signal. Two were a bit more reluctant, but Hayden knew it wasn’t a reluctance to follow his lead. Neither Derek nor Finn were part of the Bluebell Valley pack, but they had agreed to be part of this plan all the same. That’s what brothers did for each other.

Monroe looked at him up and down, sizing him up. Hayden waited patiently. A demon needed certain circumstances to possess a person. If this demon lost Monroe, it would have a hard time getting someone new. At this point, Monroe might not even be fully controlled by the demon, only influenced.

Either way, the demon didn’t want to risk its host. But Monroe would lose his power in the pack if he refused a challenge.

To Hayden’s surprise, Monroe started to chuckle. Spencer glared at Hayden, but his eyes flickered to Monroe, looking surprised.

“As amusing as it would be, Hayden, you can’t challenge me. You may have Alpha’s blood somewhere in your distant ancestry, but you can’t be an Alpha without ever having had a mate. And you have none.” Monroe shook his head, still chuckling. “Go home, boy, and think about your life.”

Hayden’s jaw tightened. A mate. He’d forgotten about that. Most of the packs he’d come across over the years didn’t require their Alphas to have a mate before taking leadership. Monroe had had a mate up until last year when she apparently died.

This wasn’t going to ruin his plans, though. Hayden loosened his muscles, refusing to allow Monroe to dismiss him so easily.

“That’s true, I don’t have a mate at this exact moment, but I will have a mate soon enough,” he said.

Spencer barked out a laugh. “Oh, will you? What woman would be so desperate enough to accept you when you’re planning on dying anyway?”

The hall buzzed with people’s whispers. Hayden heard more than one mutter of ‘foolish’ or ‘insane.’ He ignored them all, not breaking eye contact with Monroe.

“I will have my mate soon,” Hayden repeated, speaking slowly so as to enunciate every word. “I merely wished to have this matter of my challenge out in the open and settled before I took my mate. That way, we won’t be distracted .”

He placed heavy emphasis on the final word. A few people gasped. It was purposeful, of course. His parents died when his father supposedly crashed the car they were driving. Monroe’s official report was that it was caused by distracted driving.

Monroe leans against the podium. “Who, then? Who will be your mate, Hayden?”

He spun on his head, seeking out the redhead he’d been deliberately not thinking about. Mica sat with a black-haired woman on one side, and a brown-haired woman on the other. Her expression was clear in the sea of familiar faces. Eyes wide, cheeks pale, mouth slightly open.

Her figure had filled out more since he’d last seen her. It was impossible to tell her true shape in her drab, baggy shirt. Her exceptionally red hair was loose, floating around her as though she was trying to use it to hide away from everyone else. Did she still smell of peaches and cream the way she had when they were teenagers?

“I have a woman in mind,” Hayden said, not moving his eyes from Mica.

She had grown into a beautiful woman, something he was pleased to hear. This may not be what he anticipated doing when he decided to return to Bluebell Valley, but there was something quite intriguing about this proposal.

“I will take Mica as my mate,” he said.

“Mica?” a woman burst out.

Hayden shifted his gaze to the brown-haired woman sitting next to Mica. Elin jumped to her feet, her head swiveling this way and that as though she was trying to find a camera.

“Mica is to be my mate,” Hayden repeated. “We will have the ceremony immediately.”

Mica remained where she was sitting as everyone twisted to stare at her. People weren’t even bothering to whisper now. A few of the men actually laughed.

“You can’t be serious,” Spencer blustered. “The human?”

Hayden ignored him. Mica hadn’t moved. No doubt, she was overwhelmed by the fact that he had finally accepted her as his mate. She had had feelings for him since they were young, after all. This was what she had always wanted.

She slowly got to her feet, shaking visibly. Slowly, she stepped from the rows of chairs. Her hands twisted together as Hayden held her gaze. He smiled at her. She stepped forward, then spun on her heel and dashed out of the hall, her red hair flying out behind her.