Chapter Twenty-Five
Only Those Who Love Can Be Betrayed
She couldn't lie and Mary must have seen the truth on her face because she looked at her sympathetically. "It doesn't matter what I feel. What matters is that my child doesn't grow up in a war zone. I refuse to let that happen so if the time comes, will you help me?"
Mary leaned back in her seat and took a sip of her tea. "First, I'll have to convince the pack that you are who you say you are."
Hayley felt a small beat of hope. "So that means you believe me?"
Mary set her tea cup down and got up out of her seat. "Wait here." She disappeared down the hall and returned a minute later with a scroll wrapped in gold ribbon.
She pulled the ribbon and straightened the paper, sliding it over to Hayley.
It was a drawing of Hayley with the words 'Beloved Little Wolf' along the bottom and the initials N. M. Hayley was smiling and there was such a sweetness and innocence to her expression that it was almost like looking at another person, but undeniably her.
"Can I move yet?"
"No,"
"My bottom is falling asleep."
"I promise to soothe it later, Little Wolf."
The memory made her eyes burn because she could see the sweet love on Klaus's face as he teased her. Where was that man? Hayley blinked the tears back and cleared her throat.
"Where did you find that?"
"It's been passed down by my ancestors for centuries. We've had people lead us, other alphas and their mates, but we knew the true alpha and his mate eluded us. My ancestors were tasked with keeping alive the legend, the hope that the promise made between the original alpha of our line and the Labonair family would some day be made right. This was found in a castle in England by a maid who sold it to an art dealer. The art dealer then sold it to a wealthy man who happened to be a wolf who had learned the identity of the woman in the picture. You."
Hayley shivered. "So how did you get it?"
"The man was my grandfather…with a whole bunch of 'greats' tossed in there," Mary added with a wry smile. "So yes, I believe you are who you say you are. My influence only goes so far. They have to believe it." She motioned her head outside.
"I was compelled to forget everything after I was turned. I get little bits and pieces coming back but…" Hayley would have to ask Rebekah to remove the compulsion. She'd seen Elijah do it to Klaus right when he'd been daggered so she hoped it could be done. She didn't know if she was ready to handle opening that door. Knowing the horror that gripped her when Rebekah told her about her baby dying, Hayley had been afraid to ask for the rest and Rebekah had seen that fear and so hadn't pushed.
Now she would have to make herself ready, for the sake of the baby inside of her. A hand went to her belly. What if the shock of it hurt the baby? Hayley squeezed her eyes shut. No, she would be brave. She would fight past her fear to bring Andrea Labonair back.
"The compulsion. It was done as a kindness. I know how to get it removed now and I will."
"You do that, and prove to them that you're Andrea Labonair, and they'll fight for you."
"Even Gus?" Hayley asked with snort.
Mary grinned. "He might be a tougher nut to crack, but I keep a hammer handy. Don't worry."
Hayley bid her goodnight and was on her way back towards her car when a shiver of dread went through her and the back of her neck tingled with the certainty that she was being followed. She gripped her gun tightly. "Who ever you are, I've had a pretty shitty day so either show yourself or get lost before I start getting pissed." She saw some movement and fired her gun, but in the next instant there was a knife against her throat and another against her belly. Cold fear mixed with hot rage and Hayley froze.
"I suggest you put the gun down before I eenie meenie minnie moe over whether I slit your throat or skewer that spawn you have brewing in your stomach," a male voice breathed in her ear.
Not Gus, Hayley decided immediately. She dropped the gun and he let her turn to face him, removing the blade from her neck but keeping the one on her belly. She could disarm the blade at her neck easily enough thanks to her training but the danger to her baby kept her still. She would not take that chance.
He had dark hair and dark eyes. "That's right, Andrea. It's me."
"Sorry I got nothing," Hayley said, shaking her head.
He laughed an ugly humourless sound. "Ah you don't remember me? I'm crushed. We were to be married, sweet thing. It's me. Langon."
Hayley stared at him. Married? What the… "Is that supposed to mean anything to me?"
He gripped her hair painfully and she tried not to cry out, a momentary beat of relief that he'd use the hand that was previously at her throat. "Don't play games with me. I heard the other wolves talking, that you were calling yourself Andrea Labonair. I admit the last time I saw you, you were little more than a child but looking at you now, I see that little brat my parents took in. And how did you repay them? You let Klaus Mikaelson murder them!"
Hayley's eyes widened and she struggled against him. "Look, I'm not sure what you expect from me but I don't remember anything you're talking about. That sucks about your parents but I can't help you-"
Langon smiled. "Oh but you can, sweet Andrea. You can help me make Niklaus Mikaelson pay. Now let's move."
A myriad of ways to make that happen moved through Hayley's mind as he tried to force her into his car. She took that brief moment where he lifted his blade from her belly to use both his arms to push her into the car to glance quickly down and hook her foot around one of his legs and send him crashing backwards. Hayley whirled around and instantly grabbed her gun from her purse and pointed it at him.
"All right, psycho. The keys," she snapped, her blood racing. He glared up at her and then smirked a second before something came down on her head and everything went black.
Shit! Shit! Shit! was the first thing through Hayley's mind as she came to with her hands bound laying on some hard surface, probably the floor. The second was OW! thanks to a monstrous headache.
She kept her eyes closed and listened. She'd been stupid not to think of the possibility that he'd not been alone, but all her focus had been on protecting the baby. His helper's name was Dwayne. The window was open, she could feel the breeze wafting through and she could hear the birds. It smelled musty as if the place hadn't been used in a while. She tried to orientate her hearing to figure out which direction the door was in.
Hands gripped her by the arms and pulled her into a sitting position. "Wake up," (what was his name again….Langford?) said.
She felt strangely calm for herself. She figured Klaus would manage to find her if only to kill her himself for escaping the house. Her panic was for her child. She opened her eyes and studied the man in front of her. There was no way in hell she'd ever agree to marry him. No matter how gone her memory was.
"Listen, Langley," Hayley began.
"Langon!" He snapped, making her jump.
"Right. Sorry. Look. I'm sorry about what happened to your parents and you totally deserve your revenge but you're wasting your time with me. Klaus doesn't give a damn about me." It hurt to say the words.
"Probably not, but he does care about that thing you're carrying," he sneered.
Hayley's temper got the best of her at the way he spoke of her baby and even with the tight cable ties around her wrists, she struck him in the face.
He jerked back and she felt a moment's satisfaction at the blood on his lip. It made something suddenly occur to her and a shudder of horror went through her. "Wait, you said you knew me as a child? Were you…Are you a vampire? Is that how you know Klaus?"
He stared at her, studying her intently. "Are you serious? You actually don't remember any of it?"
She shook her head. "Not you. None of anything to do with you or your parents so, look, just let me go because not only is Klaus gonna kill you, but Marcel is a friend of mine as are the other members of the original family so you're seriously fucking up here if you don't let me go!"
"Do you really think I'm afraid to die?" He asked. "After your parents died the same night as the alpha family, my parents took you in."
"So…you were a wolf?" Hayley said slowly as understanding began to dawn.
"I was. Then your baby daddy killed my parents and I did what I had to to make him pay."
"You…made yourself a vampire? A hybrid to hunt him through the centuries? You did that to yourself? Willingly?" Hayley felt a little nauseous.
"Oh and it was well worth the wait. Dwayne? Are you ready?"
Hayley stiffened. "Wait. What? Ready for what? What the hell is THAT?"
Langon came towards her with a syringe.
"No! Don't!" She cried, scrambling against the wall, trying to kick at him.
Dwayne held her arms down as Langon shoved the syringe into her belly.
Enraged and panicked overrode the pain. Hayley fought against them both, but they only let her go once her blood was drawn into the needle.
"What the hell? I'm going to fucking kill you if you hurt my baby, I swear to God!"
Langon turned Dwayne and stuck him in the neck with the needle and then Hayley watched in horror as he broke Dwayne's neck.
"Oh no!" Hayley closing her eyes and shaking her head, wishing she was anywhere else but trapped in this nightmare. "What was THAT?" she screamed at Langon.
"Relax, he'll be just fine. He actually volunteered."
"For you to kill him?"
"He died with your blood in his system. The blood you share with your little hybrid baby in there."
"So? What does that have-" She gasped in horrific understanding. "You're trying to make him into a hybrid? That's impossible."
"What? You think Klaus didn't know?" He laughed at her. "Of course he knew! You don't actually believe he's decided to start playing daddy all of a sudden, did you? With your baby's blood he can make himself an army of hybrids that will overtake this town in a week and he will be unstoppable! I just plan to beat him to the punch."
"No," Hayley whispered, her heartbreak so gripping it stole her breath. "He wouldn't do that to…no." Of course he would, her brain mocked her. Klaus would do anything for power. When would she learn that? It took her superhuman effort not to break down and weep, torn between sadness and rage. All of it. A lie. His tenderness towards her. His sudden change of heart about the baby. Apologizing for his cruelty while he'd been inside of her!
She felt encouraged by the fact that her baby's heartbeat still throbbed beneath her skin. Quick, as it was no doubt panicked and confused, but still strong. Hayley held on to that. Her stupid fucking broken heart could go to hell. The important thing was her baby was still okay.
And then Langon pulled out the knife.
Hayley's eyes widened. "What are you gonna do with that?"
"Right now, we wait for your baby's blood to do its work for Dwayne. If it will."
She tried to look away from the knife. She was too far away to make a grab for it but maybe if she could bring him closer. "How did Klaus kill your parents?"
His eyes grew cold. "The Mikaelson filth infiltrated our village when I was eight years old. It turned out the father of your child was the biggest abomination of all, not only was he a vampire, but he was a wolf as well. Turns out Esther had been a whore along with being a witch. He polluted our village with his very existence. The Mikaelsons massacred the alpha family of our pack, and killed your parents too by the way."
Hayley startled. She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. No. Please no. She couldn't bear this. The way Elijah had been so nice to her, how she thought of Rebekah as a friend…No, she struggled to deny Langon's words. He had to be saying this stuff to make her hate them as much as he did. His rage had to be colouring his view of what had happened.
Hayley struggled to hang on to that small stupid voice that denied his words and then...
"Then on the final night, when we fought back, the night my parents died, he…that son of a bitch bonded himself to a fucking child, you, so that no one could touch them because we all knew you had been specially chosen to bond with the alpha only they never had a son before they died so in swooped Klaus and no one in the village would move against him for your sake. So they let him go. He killed my parents and they just let him go!" Langon screamed in her face.
Hayley felt the blood drain from her face. Even that? The one pure thing she thought she and Klaus had between them, the primal, fundamental bond that had lasted one thousand years and led them back to each other had been nothing more than another manipulation? The world blurred around her as Hayley struggled to focus and not give in to the agony in her heart. That magical, otherworldly thing that happened whenever she and Klaus had sex…just a convenient plan. She thought she had maybe found the beginnings of an actual family, that maybe this baby would bring all the Mikaelsons together and she could be a part of that, damaged as they all were. It had all been a lie. Klaus hadn't wanted her. She wasn't a part of his family. She was a means to an end. Nothing more and then she would be tossed away like she had been all her life. Rejected yet again.
She curled into herself, protecting her baby, the only thing in her life that was truly good.
"So I waited until I grew older, stronger and then I became what he was, a vampire so I could hunt him and make him pay. And I will. He will beg for mercy and I will give none."
They both jumped then as Dwayne came back to life like a wild thing, an animal, all trace of humanity gone as he stumbled around the room.
"All right, now he has to feed on you," Langon said.
Hayley jerked back a ball of ice dropping into her stomach. "I'm sorry, he has to what now?"
Before she could even blink, Langon leaned forward and cut a slash into the side of her neck and Hayley was so stunned the pain didn't even register until Dwayne latched on to her. She screamed then as fiery pain burst through her and the pull of his mouth on her neck made her want to throw up. She fought. She kicked. She tried to scratch and bite at him until Langon finally pulled him off of her and then Dwayne turned on him and leapt at him, sending both of them crashing through the door onto the porch.
Hayley spotted the knife left on the floor and nearly wept with relief as she stretched to grab it and cut through her bindings as fast as she could. She knew she had seconds before Langon came back. She scrambled out the window and took off running in the opposite direction of the cabin, knife clutched tight in her hand. She'd prefer her gun, but the blade would have to do. She ran until her lungs burned and her legs ached and it was either stop or collapse. She stopped behind a try to give herself a desperate moment to rest.
A low animal growl froze her blood and when she opened her eyes, she gasped. A wolf stood in front of her, eyes on hers, steady. The longer she looked into its eyes, the less fear she felt. It moved closer to her and she felt more curious than panic. It nuzzled her hand and Hayley smiled.
"Hayley!" Langon's voice carried through the forest and her terror returned.
The wolf turned in the direction of the voice and the growl it let out now was definitely one meant to inspire terror. It gave her one last look and then bolted in the direction of the voice. She didn't envy Langon if the wolf caught up with it, but she took her chance and ran.
She stopped once more, praying she'd find a road soon. Hayley heard a snap of a branch behind her and held her breath, praying it was the wolf and not Langon. Just in case, Hayley lifted the blade and whirled out from behind the tree with a cry.
And came face to face with Elijah Mikaelson.