by S. Young
His heart lurched into his throat as she fell too fast, too hard.
Even if he caught her, her neck would break on impact.
“Rose,” he whispered, the word choking him as helplessness paralyzed his body.
But then the air changed and her shadowed body slowed just before she hit the ground.
Rose landed on the stone paving in front of him with the grace of a panther, stunning him.
The shadows melted from her body and the anxiety he felt melted with them.
Deciding the emotions he’d experienced as she’d fallen were far too complicated to contemplate, he focused on her cockiness.
The bloody woman just did a bloody handspring off La bloody Sagrada Familia.
He settled his face into a blank mask. “Show-off.”
The sensation of falling stayed with Rose as she followed Fionn, both traveling out of the church grounds to a shadowed corner behind the walls that protected it.
She was getting better at that too.
Still, Rose took a minute before hurrying to catch up with Fionn, already marching toward their hotel. He’d accused her of showing off but that wasn’t what the handspring off the spire was. What Fionn had forgotten to mention was that traveling to the top of that spire was dangerous in itself. The precision required of a newbie was asking a lot.
She’d ended up on one of the construction cranes instead, and it had taken her a moment to gather the courage to travel to the spire.
The fearlessness she’d felt inside the church abandoned her.
It was all well and good to say to yourself, “Hey, I’m unkillable!” It was another to stand five hundred feet above the ground and jump. Fionn was asking too much. He must have known the possibility of her smashing her body to pieces was high.
She should have smacked him to the floor until she knocked some emotion into him.
The handspring off the spire was the only way she could convince herself to fall. Rose pretended the spire was merely an uneven bar in gymnastics. Then as she fell at amazing velocity, it had become a battle of survival versus panic. The world below was coming up to meet her way too fast, yet at the last second, she’d remembered Fionn telling her about using the wind to break her fall. Magic became imaginary wings on her back, flapping around her and slowing her descent.
The experience wasn’t something Rose wanted to repeat, but it was nice to know she could do it.
Although she wouldn’t admit that to Fionn.
He was lucky she didn’t blindfold him, force him back up to the top of the damn church, and push him off. See how he liked it!
“You know, you take coaching to an illegal level of limit pushing,” she commented as she caught up to him.
He grunted.
Rose sighed. “So, I guess training is over for the night?”
Fionn flicked a hand at her. “You’re a natural.”
Despite the pride his compliment made her feel, she frowned. “We won’t be training anymore?”
“You still have much to learn so, yes, we will. But tonight, we rest. The auction is tomorrow evening and we need to steal back An Breitheamh before that.”
Un Bre-huv. There was that foreign-sounding word again. Whatever it was. “This is the part you tell me all about that.”
Fionn stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. He cast a look down an alley between two restaurants and then strode into the awaiting darkness. Frowning, Rose followed, trying to breathe through her mouth when they passed the most god-awful-smelling dumpster.
“What are we doing down here?”
“Last lesson of the night. Back in Zagreb, you tried to travel to my hotel and couldn’t. I want you to try again. Travel to your hotel room.”
“And if I end up traveling into an oncoming bus?”
He shrugged. “I’ll clean up the mess.”
She pulled her lip back in a growl. “I’m tired, I don’t know why we’re here, I just jumped off the La Sagrada Familia, and it would be nice if you could remember that smashing to the ground or being hit by a bus will still cause me emotional trauma, if not physical. I’m not over two thousand years old and used to piecing myself back together like a ninety-year-old plastic surgery junkie.”
“I think I liked it better when you flirted,” he griped.
“Just remember, in all your ‘I don’t care if you get squashed like a bug just as long as you learn’ style of coaching, you need me to feed that hero complex of yours.”
“I don’t need you, Rose. You need me. Now get back to the hotel room.”
Thankfully, Rose succeeded in hiding her hurt at his words. “I’m feeling the need for a little space, so I’m going to walk back. I’ll meet you there.” She turned around and let out a yelp to find Fionn blocking her path. Heart in her throat, she hissed, “Don’t do that to me.”
He stepped into her personal space, the top of her head just reaching his chin. Which meant she was faced with the impressive, hard breadth of his chest. Fionn bent his head toward her, and she inhaled the smell of his expensive cologne just as he spoke in a menacingly soft voice. “There is no time for space. If you want me to save your life, you’ll do as I say, when I say it. Nod if you understand.”
Blinding indignation rose inside her at his condescending attempt to master her. Perhaps his two-thousand year old mentality needed a reminder this was the twenty-first century.
“You know, I’ve been wondering something,” she whispered, a careful glimmer in her eyes as she lifted a hand to trail a finger across abs.
She felt Fionn stiffen at her touch and fought very hard not to smirk.
Their eyes met and held, something undecipherable working behind his.
“How does it feel”—she cocked her head to the side as she gripped tight to his biceps—“when a fae gets kneed in the balls?”
Not giving him time to process that question, Rose launched her kneecap as hard as her fae strength would allow, right into his junk.
Pain strained Fionn’s features as he dropped silently to one knee, his face turning red as he fought to hold back what she knew had to be sounds of major discomfort. He glared balefully up at her, his expression promising retribution.
Rose stepped back to enjoy the view and chuckled. “That would be ‘painful,’ then,” she said.
As he pushed back to his feet, she spoke before he could. “Never try to bully me again. I’m here of my own free will. I am not your plaything to command.” With a careful step back, she prepared to travel. “I’ll meet you at the hotel.”
The world turned black for just a second as she concentrated on her hotel room, and then a blur of color met her eyes before the unlit room settled into place.
Rose blew out a breath and smiled.
She’d done it.
She’d traveled back to her room—
“Ah!” A strong arm wrapped around her waist and she found herself airborne. She’d barely made the landing on the bed when she was pinned flat on her back by Fionn straddling her, her wrists held down at either side of her head in his brutal grasp.
It took her a second to catch her breath as he loomed over her in the dark room.
“Don’t you ever do that again,” he warned, his voice a terrifying low growl.
Or at least it should have been.
Now that Rose had asserted herself with him, she was feeling less annoyed and more turned on by their current position. “I made my point, didn’t I?”
“I’d prefer it”—his mouth was inches from her as he spoke—“if you found other ways to communicate that didn’t involve the abuse of my balls.”
She tried not to grin and failed.
Fionn glared at her mouth.
Her blood, which had heated as soon as she found herself beneath his magnificent body, whooshed in her ears. Demanding need set in between her legs.
She shifted her hips beneath his and answered provocatively, “If you want, I could kiss them all better.”
Desire flashed fiercely across Fi
onn’s face seconds before he rolled off her and landed on his feet by the bed. “I’ll see you in the morning,” he bit out gruffly and marched toward the adjoining door.
Disappointment flooded her as she sat up. “What about An Breitheamh?”
His answer was to slam the door hard behind him.
Laughter trembled on Rose’s lips. For whatever reason, Fionn was fighting his attraction to her. Pushing that button would be a much more entertaining way to keep him on his toes than a swift kick to the balls.
“If you want, I could kiss them all better.”
Fionn flinched as Rose’s husky offer played over and over in his mind, not doing anything to dispel the hot blood currently hardening his dick. He flicked a hand at the shower as he undressed in the en suite. Bracing himself as he stepped into the tub, Fionn sucked in a breath as the cold water hit his skin.
Determined to stay there for as long as it took to regain control of his body, Fionn withstood the icy spray.
She’d bested him twice.
First with a surprisingly impactful knee to his balls.
Then by trying to seduce him.
Fuck.
She was the devil.
Rose Kelly was the bloody devil.
He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had gotten the better of him, let alone a little slip of a woman. Even Aoibhinn had not been able to lead him around by his dick.
Neither would Rose, he growled to himself.
In a mere few days, she’d be dead and out of his life.
Just like that, his arousal died.
Fionn turned off the shower, leaning back against the wet tile.
That woman next door, with her vital strength and complex soul, would be extinguished from this world and he’d be one step closer to his revenge.
The burn in his own soul reminded him that his was not yet lost. But that burn, a million times more painful than Rose’s knee between his legs, would not change his mind. Tomorrow she’d help him retrieve An Breitheamh, the iron dagger that had belonged to him when he was human. The iron dagger that had killed the fae prince, his royal blood imbuing it with powers that made it legendary. An Breitheamh the only weapon purported to be able to kill Aine. The dagger that had taken him two centuries to find because the faerie bitch had hidden it so well.
Once he had that dagger, he’d use it to kill Rose to open the gate, and then, he’d plunge its fatal point into the heart of the Faerie Queen.
17
“Uh … we’re going to what?” Rose stared open-mouthed at Fionn from across the breakfast table.
Their hotel put on a breakfast buffet and Fionn had inadvertently supplied the morning’s entertainment by eating his weight in food without breaking a sweat. That was until he’d told her they would steal an ancient iron dagger called An Breitheamh from a vault in a five-star hotel in Barcelona.
Fionn chewed the last of his toast, studying her with the blank expression he’d treated her to since joining him downstairs for breakfast. His empty expression was driving Rose nuts.
She surmised his current cold behavior was an effort to create walls between them after last night.
Usually, Rose would be good with that.
A guy didn’t want to have sex with her? Fine. Plenty of other fish in the sea.
However, Rose wasn’t a hundred percent sure Fionn didn’t want to have sex with her, and there were not plenty of other men like Fionn in the sea.
He wasn’t even a man.
He was a six-foot-seven behemoth of hotness. A fae warrior king who was frustrating, implacable, Powerful with a capital P, and fiercely noble in a way she’d never encountered.
Every time she looked into his spring-green eyes, her belly fluttered.
Actually fluttered.
Rose wanted him.
And for once, she didn’t feel like giving up so easily.
“An Breitheamh is in a vault at Hotel Saber, a luxury hotel owned by a warlock,” Fionn repeated patiently. “It will be removed from that vault tonight at midnight for the auction. For reasons I’m about to explain, I need your help to retrieve the dagger.”
“How?”
“You’ll travel into the vault. I’ll be there to help you get out of the hotel with it.”
“And how am I supposed to pick up an iron dagger?”
“An Breitheamh is kept in a solid silver case spelled to protect me from the iron inside.”
“Protect you? You specifically?”
“The dagger is mine, so yes. But it’ll protect any fae against the iron.”
Rose leaned back in her chair, studying Fionn. She’d known that An Breitheamh had been stolen from him, but what wasn’t clear was why he wanted it back so badly, it was worth risking their anonymity, and maybe even their lives. “Why is it important?”
“Because it was the dagger I used to kill the fae prince when I was human and thus, it’s special. You’re the lock to the gate to Faerie. Your blood, your heart. An Breitheamh is the key. Whoever stabs you in the heart with it opens the gate.”
She sucked in a breath at this news.
Stealing the damn thing back was now pretty damn important.
“Now you understand my insistence on retrieving it.”
He was trying to save her.
Again.
“Fionn,” she whispered, “how do I pay you back for—”
“Don’t,” he cut her off impatiently. “You’ll retrieve An Breitheamh. You’ll save yourself.”
His tone made her spine stiffen. He was right. Fionn may have led her to the dagger but Rose would be the one to steal it. It belonged to Fionn, but she trusted once it was in his hands, he’d keep it safe.
Except …
“If this weapon can open a gate between worlds, how the hell did you let it get stolen in the first place? And by whom?”
Fionn reached for his coffee. As he raised the cup to his lips, he replied, “I’m feeling very judged right now.”
Despite their grave discussion, Rose’s lips trembled with the desire to laugh. She held it together, though.
“Ironic,” he muttered after a sip.
“Ironic how?”
“That’s what An Breitheamh means. It’s roughly translated to ‘the judge.’”
She snorted. “That’s what you called your iron dagger back in your warrior king days? It’s a little pretentious.”
Unamused, he glowered. “I didn’t name it,” he finally said. “My people did. The Fae Queen spelled it to keep it hidden.”
“How did you find it, then?”
“After searching for two centuries, I came across it by chance. I was swimming in the faerie pools by my estate and I’d dived deeper than normal. I felt it. Perhaps because it once belonged to me. It was buried beneath centuries of sediment. When I unearthed it, I returned with gloved hands to retrieve it and felt the electricity of magic humming from the blade. When I brought it home, my mistress couldn’t see the blade. So, I tested it on my staff, leaving the blade out in the kitchen. Every single person passed over the dagger.
“That’s when I realized it had been spelled to be hidden from the world.”
“Except from you.”
“Magic is strange. Although we have it at our command, we should never forget it has a will of its own. If it believes an object feels allegiance to someone, that object can never be spelled against them.”
Rose was confused. “How can an object feel anything?”
Fionn leaned forward in his seat, his voice low. “Everything is energy, Rose. Everything.”
She remained silent for several minutes. Minutes Fionn no doubt relished.
“Who stole it and how, if it’s hidden?”
He looked up from the table. “The spell faded. It was only meant to last until An Breitheamh was reclaimed. Within a day, it could be seen by everyone. Which is why a treacherous mistress came across the vault it was hidden within. It was stolen six weeks ago.”
There was that word again. Rose did not
like the possibilities of its meaning. “By mistress, do you mean you’re married and have a woman on the side?”
“Marriage is a human contraption. And you’re putting the modern meaning to the word mistress. Mistress used to be just a common word for a woman you frequently bedded.”
“Bedded?” Rose’s lips twitched. “Fionn, if you want people to believe you’re only in your thirties, not your third millennia, you need to update the vocab.”
This time the blank expression slipped and he glared at her. “Fine. I frequently fucked her. Better?”
More than a gentle stab of jealousy unexpectedly pierced her. It was mixed with a not-so-surprising tingle at hearing Fionn use the word fucked in its most physical context. “Fine, she’s your fuck buddy. So …”
“Alice was my fuck buddy. When we met, she was human. Now she’s a vampire.”
“What happened?”
“There was a rumor a few months ago that a vampire had encountered a being of exceptional power. He was spreading it around that there was a species out there apparently no one had heard of. It all pointed toward fae, and I wanted to know if he’d been in contact with you or one of the others. This vamp has money. He holds parties for those interested in S and M.”
Rose mouthed an o in reaction.
“He lures people to his fancy rented properties and while salacious but perfectly human debauchery happens upstairs, he picks his favorite for the night and takes them into a locked room in the basement where he drinks their blood while he fucks them.”
There he went using that word again.
Rose shifted in her seat, squeezing her thighs together as she glanced from left to right to make sure no one was listening in.
Fionn considered her a moment, his eyes narrowing as they dipped down her body and back up again.
What was that?
Fionn frowned. “I angled for an invite with an acquaintance of his so I might speak with him. I was with Alice at the time and this acquaintance was taken with her. To get the invite, I had to bring her with me.”
Uneasiness shifted through Rose. “Did you do it?”
He nodded, expression grim. “I regretted it, so you can remove that judgy little pinch between your brows.”