Page 19 of Unforeseen Mate

“By the powers of life and death, I send you to the afterlife,” Hayden intoned in a dark and low voice.

It was as if Hayden had flipped a switch. The man was dead and had died without a sound. On the kinder side, he had died without pain or fear. It was probably an easier death than one of Strode’s goons deserved, but it was silent and effective.

Hellhounds had several lethal abilities that set them apart from others. The first was the spoken words that could kill with just a whisper. The second was the death gaze, which allowed them to heat a creature’s blood to the point that the victim burned alive from the inside, finally bursting into what some had termed spontaneous combustion and collapsing in death. And the last was the breath of death, which allowed a hellhound to use his mind to choke the breath from his victim without touching them. Each of these abilities required the hellhound to be in close proximity and all had to be delivered one-on-one.

Hayden dragged the body into the room from which the man had appeared, stuffing it into the closet so that a quick peek inside the room would reveal nothing. He waited at the door, straining to hear any movement or any cries of alarm until he was satisfied none would be forthcoming. Moving back into the hallway, he made his way to the end of the hall. Fallon’s presence was strong within the room. He’d found her.

Picking the lock on the door, he eased himself inside. Fallon was stretched out under the covers, her body moving restlessly. Not wanting to chance her being startled awake by hearing him, Hayden shimmered into the in-between and made his way around the room, searching for another way out, hoping to find a secret corridor or set of stairs. He knew if he couldn’t find one, they’d either need to make their way down from the balcony or back the way he’d come. A secret escape route from her room would be a much better way to leave. Everything seemed solid, though, as he felt his way around the room.

The windows were locked as well as barred, which seemed a bit redundant, but oddly the doors leading to the balcony were only locked, but not barred. Hayden grasped the handle and forced the lock, easing the door open and stepping out onto the balcony. It was an almost sheer drop to the rocky cliff below. He would have to drop straight down, and any wrong step could send them tumbling over the edge. Alternatively, he could shimmer with her in tow and walk between the two worlds, but that trip would need to be as brief as possible because the atmosphere and heat in the realm of the In-Between could kill her in no time at all. As a human, she would be safe for a longer period of time in the Hollow itself, but she could never survive full-time anywhere but Earth.

He closed the door, but left it cracked open. If push came to shove, he might have to take her out that way. In an emergency even the few seconds it might take to turn the door handle to open it could mean the difference between life and death.

Shimmering back, he watched her for a moment until the flames crackling in the fireplace caught his eye. Fire wasn’t a deterrent to a hellhound, so he moved the ornate iron screen from in front of the fire and looked up. The chimney was too narrow to use as an escape route. Taking a deep breath, he stepped into the flames, looking for a false back or some kindof latching mechanism to move some kind of hidden panel. Knowing he could not be burned and could, in fact, walk through fire did little to take away his instinctive desire to avoid flames. There was nothing inside the firebox itself, but the back did have a hollow sound when he knocked lightly on it.

Leaving the cramped quarters of the fireplace, Hayden re-examined the entire area surrounding the fireplace, grinning when he started examining the books. He smiled as he came across a leather-bound book with a single word title‘Fuir,’which was one of the French words for escape. He pulled down on the top of the book and heard a quiet, distinctive click and watched as the molding around the fireplace surround separated from the wall.

Pulling on the framing, the entire fireplace spun silently to reveal an escape route. Stepping inside, he ensured there was a latch to reopen the hidden entrance behind the fireplace before pulling the escape door back into place. He followed the small corridor that led to a staircase. He made his way down the stairs and ensured there were no other rooms or doorways that could make use of the staircase. At the bottom of the stairs, there was nothing but a wall. Undeterred, Hayden began to look for a lever or some way to open it and was rewarded when he found it.

Opening it just a crack, he listened intently to ensure there was no one on the other side. He pulled the door closed and shimmered through the wall and found himself in a massive wine cellar. A close examination of the room revealed two exits—one into the pantry or kitchen area of the manor, and another that appeared to lead down to another dark corridor.

Shimmering his way through the door, he followed the tunnel, following the scent of the open ocean until he emerged into a cave, which in turn led out to a path that if followed to the left, led down to the beach. As Hayden could see where it led, he chose to go to the right which led up to a large flat field that ranalong the length of the estate but that could not be easily seen. Ascending to the actual piece of land, he saw a hangar built into the side of the headland and upon examination of the hangar, two planes: one a jet and the other a smaller propeller plane.

Hayden made his way back to the entrance into the tunnel. Once inside, he shimmered back into existence. Frigid air hit his naked flesh, reminding him it was cold in the United Kingdom at this time of year. Not as cold as Alaska, but cold, nonetheless. It was one of the things he missed in the Hollow—the climate was always temperate. Hayden often missed the contrasts in temperatures that could be found on Earth.

He made sure the door into the escape tunnel was not closed completely. If they had to run, it would be easier to make their getaway if he didn’t need to bother opening the door. Hayden hoped he might have a chance to wake her slowly, convince her he was one of the good guys and escape with as little stress and chaos as possible.

He walked around the end of the bed, watching her as she slept. Although he’d not only seen her before but had shared some incredibly erotic and satisfying encounters, this was the first time Hayden had seen her in person. He had no idea how this would all work out, but he knew the next several weeks—if not months or years—were not going to be easy for her. He supposed if he was a true hero, he would save her and return her to her people, but he was not cut from the heroic mold. He was a hellhound; a hellhound in need of a mate, and she was his mate. He would save her and take her where she would be safe. To Hayden, that meant the Hollow, but he had strong reservations as to how his pack would react. There were some who thought it better to face extinction than to dilute their bloodline with humans.

Then again, there was always the problem of humans not being able to survive in the Hollow for any length of time.Unless they were transitioned, they died all too quickly and the transition to a hellhound was not a quick process. There had been humans turned, but it had not always gone well. The inherent dangers involved in not only the transition itself but in the claiming could be daunting. It tended to go either really well or to hell in a handbasket, resulting in the one being turned dying. Fallon would need to be strong and convinced of the rightness of their being fated mates.

Wanting just a few moments of peace with her before everything spiraled into madness, he crawled up on the footboard of the bed and sat watching her. The conflict between wanting to claim her here and now and waiting until they were safe was real. He knew that to give into his need could likely result in a death sentence for her and most likely for him as well. If they were caught together, Strode might keep Fallon alive to use her against Nora, but he would have no need for Hayden.

Fallon slept peacefully. From the moment he entered the room, he could tell her soul recognized his presence. His strength and the feeling of the rightness of their bond had allowed her to rest more fully. He envied other shifters. Their process—with the exception of dragons—of claiming a mate, even if she was human, was fairly straightforward and safe, but hellhounds were different—far different, and the bond that tied them together was so much stronger.

Most people knew the story of Persephone and Hades. Most marveled at the depth of their love. Hades might indeed have loved her, but he claimed her as his because she was his mate. Hades had been, after all, a hellhound, and their children had been the first hellhound-shifters. Hayden knew mating with a human could work, but it wasn’t a sure thing, and it could all go wrong without warning.

The change in her breathing alerted him that his mate was returning to wakefulness. Regardless of whether or not theywould survive the resulting issues of his claiming her as his fated mate no longer mattered. All that mattered now was getting Fallon to safety, but they would need to move quickly in order to make use of the darkness to conceal their escape.

CHAPTER 9

FALLON

Her sleep had been neither restful nor restorative—at least not at first. But gradually, she’d found herself slipping deeper and deeper into a slumber that felt more familiar, more comfortable, and offered her a peaceful feeling of security. It was the first time since Abraham Strode had kidnapped her and brought her to his home that she had felt that way. Sure, Hayden had visited her frequently and she always slept better after they’d been together, but the nights he didn’t come to her were long and offered her little in the way of comfort or rest.

She woke with a start, barely managing to stifle a scream. An enormous man sat on the footboard of the elaborately carved bed. His eyes seemed to glow with some kind of ethereal light for just a moment before it faded away. A trick of the light perhaps. He rose from the footboard and moved towards her—the muscles of his naked frame rippling in the moonlight.

“Who the hell are you?” she hissed, throwing a pillow at him. She knew it was ineffectual, but it made her feel better to do something, and she supposed he got the idea.

Fallon glanced toward the window. It was closed, but she could feel the cold breeze from the balcony. She’d thoughtthe lock on the balcony door was redundant, as the balcony overhung a cliff with a perilous drop to the jagged rocks below.

Recognition hit her. It was Hayden. Was she dreaming? She’d never felt cold when she was dreaming, and she still had on her nightgown. Somehow, in all of her dreams, when Hayden appeared, she no longer had clothing. But it couldn’t be Hayden. He was just some figment of her imagination; but then again, the man closing in on her was her dream lover’s spitting image.

“Hayden?” she asked, still not convinced she wasn’t dreaming.

“In other circumstances I might wonder what other man might be wandering around your bedroom naked as he watched you sleeping.”

“Just one in a cast of thousands,” she quipped.

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