Kiss of Vengeance: A True Immortality Novel

by S. Young

  They were too late.

  The coven had stolen his life. All for nothing. The spell wouldn’t have taken Rose down, let alone both her and Niamh.

  Fionn observed the siblings with a grim countenance, and Rose looked past him to the carnage he’d created. Fury filled her. Those hateful, narrow-minded, traitorous, murdering fools had brought this on themselves. Rose just wished Fionn had shown up sooner.

  “Niamh.” She rested a hand on the girl’s shoulder. Niamh flinched when she looked at Rose. So lost, in far more pain than Rose had been when the iron entered her body.

  “I tried.” Niamh clutched at her own wrist. There were smears of blood on it but no wound. “It kept healing over. I tried.”

  Tears flooded Rose’s eyes. “I know. I’m so sorry.”

  “I saw it coming. I saw it happen before—” Niamh retched, sagging sideways to vomit on the hardwood as far from her brother’s body as she could get. Her back heaved as she tried to eject all the bile and grief inside her.

  Fionn lowered to his haunches and surprised Rose by gently lifting Niamh’s hair out of her face. When her body calmed, she sat back on her heels and looked at Fionn.

  Whatever he saw in her made his usually granite expression soften. “You’ve nothing to fear from me, ceann beag.”

  This surprised Rose. What did it mean?

  “Not directly,” Niamh’s voice was hoarse, her words flat, dead. “I see that now. But you can still bring devastation to this world, Rí Mac Tíre.”

  Confusion crossed his face. Rose felt much the same. If Niamh had nothing to fear from Fionn, but he was still a threat, then the other fae-borne was still in danger of Fionn. At least according to the psychic.

  Niamh pulled away and turned to Rose, who almost flinched at the deadness of her eyes. “Promise me, Rose.”

  Rose understood, and although she had no idea if she could ever forgive Fionn, she could trick him. She could make him think she had … if it meant protecting this girl; if it meant protecting a world that could not withstand a war with hundreds of thousands of beings as powerful as Fionn.

  “We’ll do it together.” She attempted to reach for Niamh, but the girl jerked away, turning to her brother.

  Without another word, Niamh pressed an elegant, ring-bedecked hand to Ronan’s shoulder and sobbed quietly as magic tingled in the air.

  Rose gasped, falling back against the couch as Ronan’s skin cracked and his body crumbled.

  Just crumbled.

  Into ash.

  The ash moved around the edges, like wind was pushing it into a small tornado.

  Until in its place was a dark blue vase with a silver eagle on its center.

  Silently weeping, Niamh picked up the urn that Rose was sure now held Ronan’s ashes, hugged it to her body, bowed over in pain … and vanished.

  Rose cried out, lunging at the space where she’d been.

  Too late.

  Silence filled the room. Rose’s awareness moved beyond Fionn to the corpses, nausea rising in her gut.

  Useless, meaningless death.

  She watched as they crumbled, just as Ronan had, until they were nothing but piles of ash.

  Fionn’s doing.

  Their eyes locked and she watched him as he stood, the silver box with An Breitheamh in his hands. He shifted it, cradling the box against his ribs, and held out his free hand to Rose. Uncertain of her next steps, she allowed him to pull her to her feet. His expression held her arrested for a moment. There was something working behind his eyes, something like disbelief. Maybe even awe.

  “I can’t leave you here now,” Fionn finally said.

  “Did you know?”

  “Know what?”

  Rose drew in a shuddering breath just as sirens sounded in the distance.

  “We have to leave, Rose.”

  That the German police were on their way to the apartment mattered little to her. She had a choice to make and no way of knowing which was the right one. “Did you know … that we’re …” Her lips trembled before the word could choke its way out. With a huff of self-directed exasperation, Rose said, “Mates. That we’re mated?”

  Something darkened in Fionn’s expression. Something that made her heart pound and her body shiver and sparkle with life, the kind of alive she’d never felt before. Despite everything. “I realized after the fight. How did you …?”

  “Niamh. She’s known since Zagreb. That’s why she disappeared. She knew … at least she thought that I was safe with you.”

  “You are.” Fionn glanced at the window as the sirens grew closer. “As is Niamh, which I’ll explain later. But, Rose, we need to leave.”

  “Was I always safe?”

  “Yes,” he bit out. “I didn’t even realize it myself, but yes. You’ve never been in danger of me. I could never hurt you.”

  He could never hurt her. This percolated in Rose’s mind.

  “Now let’s go.”

  “You have An Breitheamh, which means you still plan to go after Aine.”

  He didn’t answer verbally, but she saw she was right.

  Apparently a mating bond wasn’t everything.

  Bitterness swelled inside her.

  Niamh wanted Rose to convince Fionn not to take his revenge. She might be able to if she pretended not to feel betrayed anymore, if she seduced him and made him fall deeper into the mating bond.

  However, that didn’t mean he’d stop his plans. There was no certainty of that if their mating hadn’t already changed his mind. This was an immortal who had been planning his vengeance for three centuries.

  A twenty-five-year-old, Irish-American newbie fae would not alter that.

  Then again, Rose could still hear him roaring her name after the iron knife pierced her body.

  There was rage and grief in his voice.

  “Did you come here just for An Breitheamh or for me too?”

  “An Breitheamh. But then you saved my life.” He wrapped a hand around her biceps and huffed impatiently, “Let’s go. Meet me at Marienplatz.”

  Rose studied him thoughtfully. Fionn wouldn’t exactly be able to search for the other fae-borne to use in his revenge plot if he was too busy chasing her around Europe. Not only would it keep him distracted, worrying about her fate and attempting to bring her to heel so he could get on with his stupid plans, but it also meant Rose wouldn’t have to pretend she didn’t want to knee him in the balls over and over again.

  Softening her expression, she stepped into his space, a hand on his chest near the silver box. His green gaze locked on hers, desire in them he no longer hid. “You hurt me,” she whispered, as she slipped a hand into his overcoat pocket.

  “I know.” The words seemed dragged out of him. “And I planned to let you go. But that was when I confused your actions for mine, or what mine would have been. I expected you to take revenge and instead … You…” He hesitated, something like awe in his eyes. “Rose, I need to keep you safe.”

  The words caused an ache so deep in her, she almost faltered as she withdrew the shampoo bottle she knew he’d been using to trace her. Instead, she leaned into his hard body and pushed up onto her tiptoes, relieved when he bent his head toward hers.

  Her lips brushed his, tingling with sensation, causing her hormones to beg her to kiss him again.

  But she fought against the attraction she now blamed on the mating bond, let her hand slip to the silver box in his as she whispered against his mouth, “Too bad.”

  Rose blinked, and he was gone.

  She stood beneath the steps at the Bavaria Statue, a towering bronze female that symbolized might.

  In Rose’s right hand was the shampoo bottle and in her left, the silver box.

  Fionn knew where her parents lived. She had no doubt he’d go there, find a personal item of hers, and use it to trace her. However, that would take time. Time that allowed her to hide An Breitheamh so that when he came for her again, she’d keep him distracted, searching for it.

  Hopefully long en
ough to work out her rage and betrayal.

  Long enough to prevent the end of the world.

  25

  She’d done it again.

  Rose had bloody well blindsided him.

  As he drove his rental to Munich Airport, he shook his head in utter disbelief. At himself. Not at her. Fionn should have seen that maneuver coming.

  Yet, somehow, he couldn’t bring himself to be furious. He was pissed off, for certain, but once a woman takes an iron blade to save your life, it becomes damn hard to be anything beyond angry with her. Rose wasn’t a vengeful person. She wasn’t him. She was better than him.

  No, the fury churning in his gut had nothing to with Rose taking the shampoo bottle and An Breitheamh. It was about the O’Connor Coven.

  After traveling out of the apartment before the German authorities turned up, Fionn had called Bran to find out how in the hell the Irish coven had tracked down Rose. When he’d realized she was in Munich, it had aggravated him beyond belief because the city was now the heart of the Garm’s territory under the leadership of William “The Bloody” Payne. Bran had called Fionn just as he was arriving in Munich to tell him an incident was reported at Munich Central Station—word on the street it involved the Garm.

  He’d expected when he’d used that shampoo to travel to where Rose was that he’d find her fighting off the Garm—not the O’Connors.

  They’d come in force too.

  When he thought Rose had taken that blade in the heart …

  Fionn gripped the steering wheel, the emotions too overwhelming to stand. For centuries, he’d tried to be numb to everything but vengeance, and mostly he’d succeeded. There had been women he’d felt a fleeting affection for, would even have been dismayed to discover they’d met an untimely death. Yet Fionn never thought he’d feel again the way he’d felt as a human man, never mind that he’d feel beyond his human capacity.

  Seeing Rose crumble to her knees, iron dagger in her chest, was like watching a black hole swallow his entire fucking universe. His rage consumed him and in turn, he’d wiped out every single magic-wielding human in that goddamn room.

  The relief that Rose would be okay was enough to make him tremble—literally shake as he reached to pull that dagger out of her. The urge to haul her against him, keep her there forever was strong, but first he had to know why she’d sacrificed herself for him.

  Fionn still didn’t have her answer … although the mating bond seemed like the obvious culprit.

  No one had ever sacrificed themselves for him and in doing so, Rose changed his plans.

  He’d keep her with him, bring her to Ireland, to his secure home, have everything put in her name and so that when the time came to take his revenge, he’d know that his mate would be safe without him.

  His mate.

  Fionn couldn’t think about what it meant to leave her. Not yet. He’d deal with that later, once he bloody well found her again.

  As soon as he heard his mobile ring, Fionn hit the answer button and then the speaker. “What did you find?”

  “We’ve been betrayed,” Bran spat down the line. “The fucking contact at the coven didn’t deal with the fucking jacket. He took the money and gave the jacket to Eva Mulhern. Ethan Mulhern’s sister.”

  A growl vibrated in Fionn’s throat. “Well, whichever one she was, she’s dead. I slaughtered every one of them.”

  “Not everyone. Apparently a witch got away, but it wasn’t Eva.”

  “I decimated their bodies. Clothes and all. They can’t trace Rose now.” That was something at least.

  “You’re booked to London and then to Baltimore. I’ll have a car waiting for you at the Baltimore airport. You sure this is a good idea? You’ll be on the other side of the world to her.”

  “It’s this or wait for her to give herself away. This way seems more expedient.”

  “She’s not stupid. She must know you’ll do this. What’s her thinking?”

  Fionn wasn’t sure. All he knew was that Rose was clearly determined to stop his plans of vengeance. To keep him with her or just to save the other fae-borne … or both? He didn’t know. But Fionn couldn’t let her disappear. If something happened to her because he let her go …

  His plan was to fly to the States, break into Rose’s childhood home, steal an item (or several for backup) that belonged to her, and use it to find her. “This is the plan. As for Niamh, just keep your ear to the ground.”

  “Who would have thought it? Fionn Mór: Protector of the Fae.”

  An ugly sting sliced through Fionn at Bran’s teasing. “This changes nothing.”

  “Of course, it does. You’re determined to protect Rose because she’s your mate, and you’re determined to protect Niamh because you think she’s your descendant and the only living member of her family she has left was recently murdered.”

  It was true.

  There was no way for Bran’s genealogist to trace Niamh’s family all the way back to Fionn’s. But she had traced it back to the 1500s to an aristocratic clan called Ó Faracháin, a family rumored to have ties to the mythical Rí Mac Tíre.

  The evidence wasn’t one hundred percent there that Niamh was his descendant, but Fionn felt it in his gut. Moreover, it was just the sort of sneaky, cruel thing Aine would have done to him.

  Except it didn’t feel so cruel as he’d kneeled before his kin, an ethereal beauty who grieved for her brother with the passion of an Ó Faracháin. Fionn decided in that moment as she stared into his eyes, as if she could see into his very soul, he’d make sure Niamh Farren was safe too before he departed this world.

  “That’s all that has changed, Bran. The plan still goes ahead.”

  Bran emitted a rare animalistic snarl. “You’re a bloody fool, Fionn Mór.”

  Then he hung up on him.

  Bran hung up on him. Again.

  It was like no one had any respect for him anymore.

  The sun was supposed to make everything better.

  It was supposed to assure her that there would be very few vamps in this part of the world. The sun was supposed to warm her skin, make her feel languorous and at peace. At least for a while.

  However, as Rose laid on a lounger by the resort’s cliff top pool, she felt nothing but worry and guilt.

  Her felonies had racked up in the last day.

  First, she’d experimented with her powers and placed a hand on an ATM in Munich and used her magic to dispense €5000. She’d intended to use that money to rent a car but discovered she needed ID for that. Rose would rather use the mind-control crap as little as possible, so she decided it was less immoral to pull a Fionn, mess with the license plates on a rundown car parked on a leafy residential street, and steal it. With the new phone she’d bought, she used GPS to get her back to Stuttgart—this time to the airport.

  Upon a quick Google search, Rose discovered that Lanzarote, one of the Spanish Canary Islands, was the warmest place in Europe at this time of year. She didn’t want to travel too far away because of Niamh.

  Despite how wrong it felt, Rose knew she had to let Niamh go until her mission with Fionn reached a conclusion. It was what Niamh wanted.

  Rose had booked a direct flight from Stuttgart to Lanzarote, remorsefully using the mind-warp shit since she didn’t have a passport. Her powers, thankfully, weren’t required at security because Rose had already rid herself of An Breitheamh. She’d taken an out-of-the-way route to Stuttgart Airport, and in a field outside a place called Buxheim, Bavaria, Rose had used her powers to dig a twelve-foot hole.

  An Breitheamh was now at the bottom of it.

  The airport afforded Rose a quick shop for weather-appropriate clothing, such as little shorts, tank tops, and bikinis, along with new underwear. She was ready to lead Fionn on this merry dance called distraction.

  But if she had to do it, she wanted sun and relaxation—somewhere she could have a little peace and quiet for a few days before he arrived. Somewhere to forget that she’d never see her parents again, that she�
��d killed people, and that Niamh Farren was now out in the world all alone and grieving.

  Oh, and that the fate of the entire world now rested upon her shoulders.

  No biggie.

  Rose opened her eyes, shaded by the sunglasses she’d bought at the resort store, and saw a couple floating in the pool, arms wrapped around one another. The hotel was adults only because Rose wanted that aforementioned peace and quiet. Yet she was surrounded by mostly couples who reminded her she’d never have a normal relationship.

  It wasn’t something she’d been looking for, but now that it was entirely out of her reach, it stung more than a little.

  Fionn wasn’t the floating in a pool with his arms around you type.

  Of course, he’d have to give up his plans for revenge to even broach the idea of going on vacation with her.

  Rose chuckled at the thought.

  Never gonna happen.

  However, he would find her there at the resort.

  That was the plan.

  To wait for him to come to her.

  Butterflies fluttered in Rose’s belly at the thought of seeing Fionn again.

  Who knew it was possible to have such conflicting feelings for someone? Rose was still unbearably attracted to him, still felt protective toward him, and yet she was a furious, churning volcano of bitterness and resentment too.

  Rose had sacrificed herself to save Fionn’s life … and he wouldn’t even consider giving up his revenge for her.

  26

  It was day three at Misterios Resort on the southern coast of Lanzarote.

  After the fast-paced, action-packed events of the last week, a week that felt more like a year, Rose was bored. She’d conjured a new e-reader from the nearest store, wherever that might have been, but not even the latest psychological thriller could cure her restlessness.

  Rose liked to take one vacation a year—which sounded weird since she’d spent the last few years traveling around the world. But she was always working in whatever new city she’d temporarily settled down in. A cheap vacation to another European city for a few days or a beach resort on the coast was a break from the monotony of passionless employment.