Running with Rogues

CHAPTER 66 - IN WHICH ALL PRETENCES AT CIVILITY ARE GONE

The windows were tinted, but I knew exactly who was inside, because there was only one person my mother would trust with a job like this. I went straight to the back door and opened it to see Hayden beaming at me.

"Hands," Nia said.

He held them out for her, and she turned the key in the handcuffs and eased them off him. He'd been walking around free so much recently that the bruises had faded, but the faint scuffed scars where his pressure sores had healed over remained. He pulled his sleeves down to cover it, and then he stuffed them into his pockets for good measure as he got out of the car.

Hayden was excited today - wide eyed and alert, not unlike a puppy - because he was going to see his family for the first time in nearly two months. I slammed the door behind him, but I stayed where I was, firmly in his way, until the smile fell off his lips.

"Some ground rules for you, flockie," I said, using my most serious, most threatening voice. "I want you in my line of sight at all times. No tricks. No linking. No making faces. No pointed comments. When it's over, you get in our car, not your dad's. We clear?"

Hayden nodded his head without hesitation. "Yes. We're clear. And I'm on my best behaviour today - don't worry."

"Good. Get in the car. Back seat."

He did what he was told. I made sure to sit in the middle because I was a lot smaller than Hayden was, and Liam struggled with small spaces even without another person pressed against him. Although for Hayden, being squashed together might have been a good thing. He was sat in our car so he could have some nice flockie scent to hide the last traces of 'rogue' on his freshly-laundered clothes.

"Hi," Hayden said. I wasn't sure if it was directed at Liam or Mal and Kelsey or all three of them, but it certainly made our Betas jump.

Mal did a double-take when he looked at Hayden properly for the first time. He twisted in his seat to stare, and then he exchanged a suspicious look with his mate, because it seemed like both of them recognised him.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. The hell is he doing here?" Mal demanded. Not very polite. Poor Hayden eyed him with thinly veiled hurt, even though the two of them had probably never met before in their lives.

"We're just giving him a lift," Liam said, all casual like. "Are you armed?"

Mal pulled his jacket back just far enough to show us the butt end of a gun tucked into his belt. "I am. Kelsey's not."

"I'm not allowed guns," Kelsey agreed forlornly. "Not since the incident."

I had no idea what the 'incident' was, but none of us had been expecting her to be armed. I would have felt better if she'd stayed at home, given that she was barely trained, but it had been her decision, and she'd made it in about five seconds flat. Either way, Mal was strapped, and Liam had a knife in his jeans pocket - I could feel it pressing against my thigh. We had not come unprepared.

And there were two other cars on the road today, both full of fighters. Some would be our guards, but most of them were going to surround the church in case the rogues got any clever ideas. There would be ten from each pack - enough to see off several raiding teams at once if need be. But our men had orders to drop that most crucial duty and close on the church if something went awry.

"Are you?" Hayden asked me suspiciously. "Armed, I mean?"

"Yep," I said cheerfully. "Got my knife. I'm going to put it in my bra, because they won't dare look in there."

He turned a rather alarming shade of pink and looked away, embarrassed, much to my amusement. Kelsey snorted from the passenger seat. Beside me, Liam's eyes were fixed firmly out of the window while I got the knife situated, but there was a definite smile playing about his lips. A smile I recognised only too well.