Page 109 of Seducing Hope (The Hope Legacy)

Duncan speaks before I can answer. “Look at me.” Her eyes move to his. “I put it together when I got in your room. He told me nothing. I figured you were here. Don’t blame him, Locks. I would have torn the world apart looking for you.”

She glances down, as pink floods her cheeks. “Who else knows?”

“I haven’t told anyone, but they’ll have forced their way into your room by now. I took care of Jack’s body… but not the room.” She flinches.

He takes hold of her chin gently. “No, Locks. You willnotfeel guilty. You were defending yourself. Don’t spare him one thought. Plenty of monsters play at being human. Evil comes in many forms, and he was more evil than half the demons we kill.”

Well put.

She looks away again. The guilt will haunt her for a long time—it’s part of who she is.

“Find out who knows,” she whispers, trying to gain control.

He frowns. “Now?”

“Yes, minimize it. Stop Uncle Charlie from finding out. Tell anyone who knows I don’t want to talk about it,” she shifts her gaze to me, “ever.”

Jed teleports with Duncan as Natia sits up and leaves the heat of the blankets. She stares around the room for a full two minutes as Nathan and I stay frozen, waiting for the breakdown. She cocks her head at me. “We should get a dog,” she says, confusing the hell out of me. She gives me that beautiful, deranged smile. “A Labrador maybe?” She looks me up and down. “Um, you seem more like a small dog person, one you could tuck in your suit pocket like a Chihuahua. We could name him ‘Bruiser.’”

“What?”

“Okay, not a Chihuahua then. We could go the other way and get a Great Dane. He could follow us around like a guard. We can train him to growl at Zac.” She giggles.

I shake my head as she continues. “Where do you live? My house is in a good school district, but probably not as big as yours. Maybe we can do weekends at mine? What do you think, Nathan—will the in-laws like me? Are they, like, really old? They gotta be, right? I mean, he describes himself as ‘ancient.’ Do you think our age difference will be noticeable? Do you even know what a post, tweet, or poke is?” She arches an eyebrow.

“What are you talking about?” I’m starting to debate if I need to get Nathan to check her mind to see if it’s broken.

“What about YOLO? But then again, it’s redundant if you’re immortal. Are you?”

I blink. “Am I what?”

“Immortal?”

“Define immortal.”

“You can’t die.”

“Then no, I’m not immortal.”

“Huh, sucks to be you—guess YOLO applies after all.”

“You low?”

She snorts and points at me. “You should see your face.” Nathan chuckles.

I stare at the pair of them, dumbfounded. “I don’t understand.”

Interrupting our insane exchange, Jed and Duncan reappear, looking worse than they did before they left. Duncan’s sympathetic look has her laughter drying up immediately. She stands on the bed; my sweats look ridiculous on her.

“No!” she shouts, pointing at him.

He swallows and raises his arms. “I’m sorry, Locks. He already knew.”

She lets out an ear-piercing, agonized scream as she clutches at her chest. I cringe at the pain lancing through every decibel. Her hair lifts around her. When nobody reacts, I stalk toward her. “Lock it down! Now, Natia. You will destroy this building and the hundreds of people in it!” Her anger dissipates, and she slumps onto the bed.

“Who else?” she asks Duncan, her voice monotone, defeated.

“Zee and Aaden.”

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