Un.Breakable (Slayter Series Book 4) Read online

  Un.BREAKABLE

  Reese L. Morgan

  Copyright © 2017 Reese Morgan

  All Rights Reserved

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. No part of this book may be copied, reproduced, or distributed electronically or otherwise, without written permission from the author.

  Dedication

  To my parents, who never stopped believing, and to you, the reader, who never stopped encouraging and persisting to see Hayden’s next adventure.

  My sincerest thanks.

  Table of Contents

  1. Chapter One

  2. Chapter Two

  3. Chapter Three

  4. Chapter Four

  5. Chapter Five

  6. Chapter Six

  7. Chapter Seven

  8. Chapter Eight

  9. Chapter Nine

  10. Chapter Ten

  11. Chapter Eleven

  12. Chapter Twelve

  13. Chapter Thirteen

  14. Chapter Fourteen

  15. Chapter Fifteen

  16. Chapter Sixteen

  17. Chapter Seventeen

  18. Chapter Eighteen

  19. Chapter Nineteen

  1. Chapter One

  “I think my balls just fell off.”

  “It’s not that cold.”

  “It doesn’t matter how cold it is. A mere breeze would blow off his small pair.”

  A chorus of chuckles erupted amongst the small group and Hayden pressed her lips together, exasperated. She cast a sidelong glance at the blond-haired beta next her, far from amused to see the growing grin on his face.

  As soon as her companion took notice of her displeasure, he cleared his throat.

  “Quiet!” he ordered the four men behind him. “I specifically told you this assignment is supposed to be completed with stealth.”

  Lingering snickers followed Asher’s order, hardly taking him seriously.

  A bad feeling settled in Hayden’s stomach. She’d gone against Blake’s orders and snuck outside the secured campground. Unfortunately, Asher knew her intentions beforehand and convinced her he should tag along.

  He said he’d bring along able fighters, but in all actuality, they seemed like mere…

  Children.

  It was wrong of her to think of them as children. They had to be years older than her, maybe even decades. But the war hadn’t hardened them yet. They had yet to see death, despair, and the suffering.

  All the things that robbed Hayden of her innocence.

  A great majority of the traditional werewolves banded together and settled in a reservation within Canada’s wilderness. Celeste and her puppets hadn’t touched them yet. Cramped living arrangements and bland food were the only things they found disagreeable.

  They just didn’t understand.

  “Relax,” Asher coaxed quietly, sensing her unease. “They are the best fighters in my father’s pack.” At Hayden’s skepticism, he corrected himself. “At least the top fighters who wouldn’t tell Eric about this mission.”

  She seethed.

  She shouldn’t have accepted his help.

  Two months had passed since Nicolas dropped her off with the traditional werewolves. It was a long two months of vigorous training with Adolf while also trying to readjust into the social norms of living amongst other werewolves.

  It hadn’t been easy, it still wasn’t easy, but she tried for her pack’s sake.

  Being with all the others was a constant reminder of Cole’s absence. They grieved as if he died, and maybe he had in some ways, but it pained Hayden to give up hope.

  She wouldn’t.

  She couldn’t.

  There had to be a way to reverse at least some of Celeste’s influences.

  Hence her latest mission of sneaking outside the reservation.

  There were nights she lay awake, thinking long and hard about Troy Arnold. When Xavier and Logan strategized ways to destroy the rogue werewolves, they’d used Troy for his intellect. The man knew things, things that could help Cole and outsmart Celeste.

  The last time she’d seen the man was over two months ago. For the past few years, he’d taken residency inside Xavier Slayter’s old cabin. Perhaps he still occupied the old place, treasuring his underground lab and bottles of moonshine above all else.

  He wouldn’t leave.

  It wasn’t as if she could ask Nicolas to accompany her or hear about his latest findings. Despite his promise of checking up on her frequently, she hadn’t seen him since his departure.

  She thought about him constantly, relentlessly. The more she fought his presence in her mind, the more she obsessed over it.

  Although, obsession was putting it mildly.

  Curling her hands at her sides, Hayden pushed Nicolas from her thoughts.

  “What, exactly, are we looking for again?” Asher pressed.

  “Who,” she corrected. “His name is Troy Arnold.”

  “And you think he can help Cole?” Asher rubbed the back of his neck. “If he has the slightest clue how to reverse the effects, you’d think it would work. Right? I still find this whole situation with Celeste surreal.”

  “Most werewolves agree with you,” Hayden replied resentfully, recalling the snide conversations she’d overheard from the other werewolves at the reservation. “But it’s true. Celeste knows everything about the chemical makeup of werewolves. She knows how to manipulate it to her favor.”

  Asher turned contemplative.

  Casting a sidelong glance in his direction, Hayden mulled over his recent behavior.

  After Nicolas dropped her off with the traditional werewolves, it had taken Asher many attempts to engage a sullen Hayden in a conversation. Somehow, he’d managed to peel back her defenses and force his way inside her barriers.

  After hearing about the incident in Albertville with the Hunters, Asher decided to forgo his desire of starting a life in New York City. He fled back to his father’s side, seemingly determined to stay and give Eric his firm loyalty in this war.

  His sense of duty had flourished and so had his responsibility.

  One would consider Asher’s recent change noteworthy. While it was an improvement to his previous playful indifference, Hayden still considered him naïve, just like all the others.

  Spending so much time with Nicolas and Cole made it impossible to give others equal weight of respect. No one could touch the Slayter brothers in terms of sheer prowess, of resilient resolve, and unquestionable duty.

  “It’s mythical, alright,” one of the males muttered behind her. “Sure, I get the physically enhanced bit, but the mind-numbing obedience? Like a salivating dog with his master? I find that doubtful.”

  “You can doubt it all you want,” Hayden responded ominously. “Just don’t let that doubt bite you in the ass someday.”

  Asher frowned next to her.

  Ignoring him, she continued their brisk pace.

  “It’s still a little too convenient, though.” Another spoke from the group. “After finding out about the drug that makes us stronger, and after Nicolas Slayter decides to join our cause, Cole feigns mind obedience to the enemy.”

  “The brothers are always in direct competition. Everyone knows that Nicolas can best Cole in a real combat. Maybe he didn’t want to face the challenge and decided to join Celeste to get his hands on that strength enhancer—”

  Hayden turned and narrowed her sights on the man speaking. In a matter of seconds, she pinned him against a tree with a clawed hand around his throat.

  Ignoring the shouts of indignation from the others in her company, Hayden gradually elongated her nails. The sharp claws barely brok
e the skin, but the male against the tree fretted anyway.

  Upon seeing the lines of pain and vulnerability across his face, her pupils expanded excitingly. Instinctively, eagerly, she tightened her hold and embedded her nails further into his throat.

  “Just to know you have that theory makes me believe you’re a coward. No one should ever put their trust in you.”

  “Hayden.”

  A heavy hand fell on her shoulder.

  “He’s an idiot. But there is nothing you can do about that.”

  Hayden sneered at Asher’s pack mate before releasing him.

  The man grunted and rubbed his bloody neck, his eyes flashing amber.

  Before he reciprocated, Asher boldly stepped between them, holding out his hands in an attempt to placate.

  “Please, both of you,” he coaxed gently. “Now is not the time to turn against each other. We still have to accomplish this task without killing our own allies.”

  The blond-haired beta stayed immobile until Hayden turned away. She faced forward, a hard line to her mouth. The rage in her stomach stayed hot until she put a respectable distance between herself and the group.

  They adhered to the distance she set, mindful of her short temper.

  They had every reason to be wary.

  If anyone questioned Cole’s sacrifice, Hayden would fiercely defend his honor.

  She trekked easily through the heavy snow, hardly struggling with the abundance of gnarly and naked brush. A few of her companions clearly had trouble picking up their feet, for each snap of a branch resonated across the woods and served as a beacon to their whereabouts.

  Hayden ducked beneath a low-hanging tree branch and abruptly crouched low. A certain tightness settled in her throat as she stared at the dilapidated bungalow nestled purposely amongst the trees.

  “Hayden?” Asher whispered. “Is everything alright? Is that it?”

  Crouching next to her, he gazed keenly at the run-down house.

  She remained silent to his question, pressing her back against the base of the tree while studying their immediate surroundings.

  This was the place.

  This was where a part of her died, and where her memories and nightmares continued to haunt restlessly.

  The deteriorating bungalow was still dark and dank, absolutely no sign of a living soul dwelling within the structure. A few corpses littered the front yard, leftovers from Nicolas and Cole’s last battle together. In death, Celeste’s beheaded puppets didn’t look so menacing. They were only shells of their former and menacing glory.

  Hayden hunched over, staring resolutely at the house. The front door remained splintered and kicked open.

  “I’m going in alone. All of you can watch my back.”

  “I’m going in with you,” Asher rebutted. “The others can have our backs.”

  Despite the unpromising scene in front of him, Asher remained silent to the obvious.

  Troy Arnold was not inside the abandoned home.

  They both knew that.

  Behind him, the four members of Asher’s pack hardly appeared pleased at their beta’s order. Nonetheless, they obeyed the order silently, watching as their blond-haired pack member took a deep breath and slinked towards the home.

  Not wanting to lag behind, Hayden scurried out from underneath the tree.

  “I expected more, I guess,” Asher murmured quietly as he looked down at a dead puppet. “From the descriptions, I imagined something more durable. If Nicolas and Cole can defeat them, they can’t be all that bad, can they?”

  “They don’t exactly possess total competence. Nicolas and Cole could outsmart them most the time. Together.” She looked down at a decapitated head. “They’re hard to take down, but their necks are still vulnerable.”

  Asher didn’t appear impressed at all.

  She didn’t have the energy to deflate his ego. It was easy to boast them unthreatening when they were discarded on the ground in pieces. Asher never fought against one before. He couldn’t possibly fathom their sheer power.

  Approaching the splintered front door, Hayden stepped inside, trying to push aside the painful flashbacks of her last time occupying the property. Returning here had been a struggle. If she weren’t so determined to find Troy, to find her own answers, it would have been virtually impossible to come here and face her demons.

  As soon as they were away from the others, Asher spoke up.

  “Hayd—”

  “I don’t want to hear it, Asher,” she interrupted, already anticipating his blatant observation. “We will search the property before we make any assumptions.”

  Assumptions.

  How could it be an assumption when they both knew it to be true?

  Nonetheless, Asher turned silent and followed closely as she examined the property for signs of life. Death was pungent in its smell and she resisted the urge to cover her mouth and nose. She’d smelt worse down in the tunnels, completely encased by rotting corpses, sour reminders of her father’s wrongdoings.

  “It’s…” Asher trailed off and quickly placed a forearm over his nose. “Is that what I think it is? It’s noxious.”

  Hayden didn’t respond and only led him down the stairs, closer to the smell, closer to the end of their search. She hoped to find Troy hunched over a lab table, fervently studying Celeste’s puppets with empty bottles of moonshine littered around him.

  She stopped at the foot of the stairs, staring at the murky and empty basement.

  The silence was exceedingly deafening.

  Amidst her sinking disappointment at Troy’s absence, surprise ignited as her attention landed on a corpse. There, on the basement ground, lay a slain puppet.

  Did Troy have enough strength to kill Celeste’s toy soldiers?

  Hayden hadn’t thought so, picturing the defeated genius, but the downed puppet proved otherwise. She doubted Nicolas or Cole made it to the basement during the fight in the front yard.

  Aside from the decapitated head, the puppet’s arm was severed and missing, as if the amputation was intentional.

  “Let’s go,” Asher coaxed, his words muffled through his sleeve. “Nothing is here, Hayden. We will have to follow a different lead.”

  Without another word, Hayden pushed past Asher and climbed the stairs.

  That was the problem.

  She had no other leads.

  The only other lead was her mother, and even that was flighty at best. Hayden hadn’t been in contact with her mother in over three months. With the human population finding out about werewolves, Hayden wondered about her mother’s circumstances.

  Dwelling in Canada’s wilderness made it nearly impossible to keep up with world events. The whispers she heard from others made it sound as if humans weren’t taking the news of werewolves seriously. The government hadn’t addressed the issue with hard evidence, causing the population to split into two, distinct groups.

  Humans were either skeptical and disbelieving, or they were fearful, forming groups and extracting their own brand of extermination.

  From what Hayden heard, the government ruled in favor of issuing serious penalties to anyone caught killing wolves until the situation was resolved.

  “Are we going to New York?” Asher asked, as if reading her mind.

  “Yes.”

  Hayden wanted to get in contact with her mother. It was a long shot, but Renee might possess some kind of lead to Logan’s whereabouts. However, first, Hayden needed to break the news to her mother about Kevin Grey’s true identity.

  “Blake isn’t going to be happy—”

  “I don’t see them doing much of anything besides arguing over male supremacy,” Hayden countered fiercely. “I’m not going to stick around and cast votes on the prospect of separate Alphas or a single, prevailing North American Alpha. What good is that?”

  “It provides structure,” he defended. “With so many werewolves gathered in one place, it gets messy with all the testosterone. Werewolves are hierocracy creatures. If half the we
rewolves want to do one thing, and the other half are doing something else, we are not going to be a united front.”

  She crossed through the living room and towards the foyer.

  Beneath her boots, the floor groaned loudly.

  “I’m glad you consider endless meetings a productive step in defeating Celeste.”

  Asher sighed behind her, clearly exasperated with her surliness. “As soon as we get that issue settled, the stronger and more proactive we will be. United. I personally think every pack should have an Alpha. And all those Alphas report to the North American Alpha.”

  Hayden frowned. “It will take too much energy and time to agree on who becomes that prevailing figure. That time and effort are better spent elsewhere.”

  Her train of thought abruptly stopped when she stepped out into the silent, unsettling night. Peeling back the dark shadows, she looked towards Asher’s pack members. The area they once inhabited was empty.

  No one loitered nearby.

  Sniffing the air, Hayden slowly unsheathed her sword from her back holster. The smell of freshly spilled blood fragranced the dead, stale air, cruelly intermixing with the established stink of rotting corpses.

  “We’re not alone.”

  In response to her whispered observation, Asher withdrew his own sword and stepped around her, forsaking stealth. His frantic pulse clearly relayed his panic, seemingly reverberating across the entire forest.

  Hayden watched him through lowered lashes, easily noticing his unease. She uncurled a hand from the hilt of her sword and reached out to him.

  “Asher…” she soothed. “Settle down. We need to stay focused and together—”

  Blindly, he sprinted off through the woods, leaving her behind.

  She stared mutely at the spot he just occupied, shocked despite herself. She hadn’t thought Asher would be so skittish in battle. However, she supposed if she’d been in his place, she’d race off to protect her pack just as well.

  If Fergus or Addie were in trouble…

  No, now wasn’t the time to think about that.

  A hoarse scream echoed across the woods and Hayden quickly sprinted after Asher. From the corner of her eye, she saw a dark shape move behind her. Inhaling deeply, she ran faster. Whoever followed behind her would attempt a surprise attack.