Page 35 of Unforeseen Mate
“Murkier and murkier. It seems everything I learn makes me question everything else and opens up a whole slew of questions.”
“I am not trying to be deliberately deceitful. In fact, it is just the opposite. But it doesn’t necessarily occur to me what additional questions might occur to you after I tell you something.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “I can see that. It’s the scientific manner of doing things: question, get an answer, examine it, and question again.”
Hayden grinned. “Duly noted.”
“So, I can go home.”
“The Hollow is your home.”
Fallon rolled her eyes. “But I can go back to Earth.”
“Soon, but not now.”
“Why not?”
“Your transition needs to be complete, but more than that, Strode wasn’t at his fortress when I took you from there. He’s still alive, and you are incredibly valuable to him. Not only does he want to leverage you to force Nora to come back to the fold, but you’ve made him look bad in front of his allies and acolytes.”
“I suppose if he shows up, you’ll keep me safe?” she asked, trying to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.
Hayden stilled, and locked eyes with hers. “If Strode shows up, I’ll kill him.”
CHAPTER 15
HAYDEN
He watched her face as the truth of what he’d said sunk in.
“Just like that,” she snapped her fingers, “you’ll kill him.”
“Just like that,” he said, mimicking her gesture. “There is nothing I wouldn’t do to keep you safe. As long as Strode exists in any realm he is a threat to you.”
“But if you killed him, he would no longer exist.”
“No, if someone, like your friend Nora, kills him, he’s dead and he’s banished to one of the lower circles of hell, but it doesn’t mean he loses all his power. He might still be able to reach beyond the grave to strike at you—and through you at me and Nora.”
“Why does it matter who kills him?”
“Because if I do it, I can literally obliterate him and his evil from all space and time going forward. He will simply no longer exist.”
“Is Nora really an assassin?”
Hayden nodded, knowing how this would weigh on her. “But not all assassins are bad.”
“She kills people…”
“But never innocents. It is one of the things she is known for. She and Strode have locked horns before. It’s how he knew he had to use you—someone who means a great deal to her—as leverage to get what he wanted.”
“What does he want? I know he wanted her to kill someone named Hutchinson, but who is that?”
Hayden smiled wryly. “That would be her fated mate.”
He could see Fallon grasping the depth of the situation. “He put her in an untenable position.”
“Yes,” Hayden said, nodding. “Kill her best friend—in fact her only friend—or kill her mate.”
“Youneed to end him,” Fallon said, squaring her shoulders.
