Undying Hope Read Online Free Page B

unusual.”
    “Funny coming from someone without a name,” he said as he scanned the room for any odd trinket she may have overlooked.
    “Haven,” she whispered. “The boy is Bastian.” She took the last remaining bag of their meager belongings off the bed. “How do you know you can help him?”
    Donovan lifted Bastian over his shoulder and stopped by the door. He glanced out the window to assure the Hummer was still where he’d left it. He had stopped believing in coincidences long ago. Standing here with an Undying child in his arms, and a woman with lifebond magic, was the exact reason fate had him choosing that parking space while he’d been hunting Kyros. His attention went back to Haven. “I am what he is.”
    She sucked in a sharp breath and slowly nodded. “And what is that exactly?”
    “Undying,” he repeated for the eighth time since the diner fifteen minutes ago.
    She snorted at him. “I don’t understand what that means. Something like a meirlock?”
    A pulse of treòir energy vibrated through the room. “When have you come into contact with a meirlock?”
    Her eyes went wide as she stumbled back a step. “I-I’m sorry. I’ve only heard the term used to describe a man…my grandfather knows.”
    The room vibrated again. Donovan gritted his teeth in the effort to keep his power from frightening his lifebond further. “Kyros is meirlock. The word literally means lawbreaker.”
    She studied his face for a long moment. “Why would someone as powerful as you help perfect strangers?”
    “Bastian is of my kind,” he said choosing his words carefully. “Without an older male to teach him the proper ways of our people, he is destined to be a meirlock and would be marked for death.”
    Her back went straight as her expression hardened. “He’s a good person. There is no need for anyone to mark him for death. He just needs something I don’t think I am able to give him.”
    “Aye,” Donovan agreed as he opened the door. “As an older male of our people, it is my responsibility to take the boy in and guide him so our king does not have to give him a death sentence.”
    “I still don’t get why that means you would help us,” she said as she moved toward the door. “I am trying to trust you, and I want to believe who you say you are, but I’ve been searching for Quinn Donovan for nearly two years to help Bastian. How did you suddenly fall in my lap and rescue us from Kyros?”
    He closed the motel room door before taking to the Hummer. He settled the boy on the backseat and then joined Haven behind the vehicle. “I heard your call for help and responded before the dragon was able to get here.”
    Haven waited for him to open the hatch. “Dragons? There are dragons, too?”
    “There are several different clans of the Undying. The wolf clan and the dragon clan are but two, though the dragons are the only ones who can shapeshift.”
    She put her bags into the back as a black wolf ghosted out from between two parked cars.
    “Quinn! There’s a wolf!”
    Donovan opened the back door of the hummer for the wolf to hop inside. “This is Nikon. He is an old friend.”
    She squeaked. “By your…friend, you’re part of the wolf clan?”
    “Aye,” he said, knowing he was somehow doing this all wrong and not giving her the right information. The more he told her, the more upset she became. “Nikon and Medea would no more harm you than they would their newborn cubs. I understand this is confusing, and more questions come to you than I can answer satisfactorily. Give yourself time. This world you enter is complex.”
    She puffed out a breath of air before nodding. “Where are you taking us?”
    “To my home.” He walked her around to the passenger side of the Hummer. Kyros was still out there and regardless of whose lifebond she was, he couldn’t risk allowing the meirlock to get a hold of her. “Both of you will be safest there.”
    “How do I know you are who you claim to be?” She