Page 14 of Unforeseen Mate

Strode was certifiable. He might or might not be a dragon-shifter, but he was nuts.

“Why should I believe that you are some all-powerful being? Other than the atrocious breath, you haven’t given me anything but wild conjecture.”

The evil smile he gave her made her shiver. “Oh, ye of little faith,” he said. “Watch out your window and be prepared to be amazed.”

Fallon said nothing but rolled her eyes.

Strode and Mrs. Crane left, locking her in her room, and Fallon moved to the window overlooking the courtyard. Strode walked into the middle of the area, giving himself plenty of room. A chaotic storm-like mist filled with thunder, lightning and color swirled all around him. As it dissipated an enormous black dragon was left in its wake. It roared, spewing fire in a brilliant arch.

Fallon had to grasp the bars to keep from stumbling back as the dragon flapped its great wings and lifted off the ground until it was level with her. It screeched and banked away, flying in a huge circle before touching down again. Another swirling mist, and the dragon became a naked man smirking up to her and to whom Mrs. Crane ran with a robe.

Holy shit. Dragons. There were dragons, and they weren’t just dragons—they were dragons that could hide in plain sight as humans with no one the wiser. This wasn’t good. This wasn’t good at all.

Fallon stumbled away from the window, plopping down on the bed when the backs of her thighs encountered the mattress. And not just that, her best friend was one of them—maybe not a dragon, but a shifter of some kind. Strode had implied as much. Crawling onto the bed, Fallon cuddled against the headboard, drawing the covers up around her.

How could she not have known? How could Nora have kept something this momentous from her? And it wasn’t even the shifter part that bothered her the most. Fallon could almost understand that. No, what frightened her was that her friend appeared to be a stone-cold killer. If that was the case, had they ever been friends? Would Nora simply abandon Fallon to her fate?

Fallon tried to let it roll off her. If Nora had betrayed Strode, who, according to him, had raised her, why on earth would she risk her life or that of a man she loved for someone she had lied to from the beginning? And if Nora wasn’t doing anything to save her, it was up to Fallon to save herself… but how?

CHAPTER 6

HAYDEN

The Hollow

Hayden made his way to the surface, shimmering through the barrier between the Hollow and the Earth and then trudging his way up through the volcano that stood in the Alaska Range. The range was part of the Ring of Fire that encircled the Pacific Rim. It always amused Hayden that the entrance to the passageway that led to the fiery pits of Underworld was ironically located in a remote and frigid part of Alaska.

Arriving at the surface, Hayden walked outside, chuckling as the snow melted and steam rose from beneath his feet. He inhaled deeply, enjoying the crisp, cold air with nary a trace of fire or brimstone. Deciding to run instead of shimmer, Hayden called forth his hellhound—a wolf-like beast with a shaggy black coat, the tips of which seemed to be alight.

Lifting his muzzle to the sky, Hayden emitted a long, low, mournful howl. The time was fast approaching when he would need to claim the fated mate he was seeing in his dreams. If war was coming, and both Deke and Colby assured him it was, he did not want her caught in one of the many battlefields. He turned toward the east and began to run, enjoying the way thesnow melted beneath his paws only to ice back over once they left the ground again. He would go to the coast of the mainland and then shimmer across to Kodiak Island before reverting to his hellhound form to complete his journey to Colby’s estate.

Windsong Manor

Mystic River, Alaska

Hayden shimmered into being behind Colby Reynolds, the alpha of the lynx shifters in Mystic River.

“You rang?” Hayden asked pleasantly, enjoying how the usually cool lynx nearly jumped out of his skin.

“Do you have to do that? Can’t you just enter a room like a normal person?”

“I suppose I could if I was so inclined, but then I’ve never aspired to be normal.”

Colby rolled his eyes. “That’s probably a good thing as I’m not sure you could pull it off.”

Hayden tilted his head. The lynx-shifter seemed disturbed. “You sent word you needed my help.”

Colby nodded. “I’m not sure how much in the loop Deke has kept you…”

“I know that the Resistance has finally gotten its collective head out of its collective ass and that you have formed a kind of joint chiefs with Deke having overall command—good choice there.”

“Agreed. Your friend Mason has gone to Reykjavik to destroy the Shadow League’s nasty little shop of horrors. But we have another issue. You know the dragon they call Apophis?”

Hayden nodded. “He’s also known as Abraham Strode, right?”

“Yes. He dispatched his top assassin to take out one of the residents here.”

“The Ghost. That must have set old Abraham back to have her turn on him.”

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