by S. Young
“It’s Kiyo. Bran patched me through.”
“Have you found Niamh?”
Niamh’s eyes narrowed. Fionn had been stalking her for years, intending to use her to open the gate. Then her visions changed suddenly, and she realized Rose, one of her fae siblings (of a sort), could change the path Fionn was on. They were true mates. Niamh couldn’t tell Rose that for fear of changing her destiny, but she’d tracked Rose down to try to convince her that it was important she give her time and trust to Fionn to save the entire world—and Niamh herself.
Still, Niamh had only heard Fionn speak once, and it was during a time she’d rather forget.
“I have her,” Kiyo confirmed. “But she refuses to believe I’m here because you sent me.”
“Is she there? Can she hear me?”
“Yes,” Niamh spoke up. “I’m handcuffed with leather-covered pure iron, in a room filled with iron, while your dog sits guard.”
Kiyo bared his teeth at her.
“What’s this?” Fionn’s voice lowered, a dangerous edge to his tone. “That’s not what we discussed, Kiyo.”
“There wasn’t a better way to keep her in one place while I got her to trust me.”
“I doubt this is inspiring trust,” he drawled.
“Amen to that,” Niamh agreed. “Also, I can’t remember talking to this Fionn character,” she lied, “so how the bloody hell am I supposed to know if you’re really him?”
Fionn grunted. There was a rustling sound and then, “Hello, Niamh?”
She stiffened.
The new melodic voice with its American accent was familiar.
Rose.
“It’s me, Rose. I’m sorry if Kiyo has hurt you. That wasn’t in the plan and I’m going to kick his furry ass when I see him next.”
The said furry arsehole remained impassive against the insult, but she noted a muscle ticking in his jaw that gave away his annoyance. Niamh snorted with humor.
She’d know Rose’s voice anywhere, which meant he was telling the truth. He was her new bodyguard.
“There’s no permanent damage,” she assured Rose with a sleepy breeziness. “He broke my neck a few times, but he hasn’t let the iron touch my skin, so I guess that’s something.”
“Kiyo, you’re a dead man,” Rose said, sounding impressively scary. Well, at least Niamh thought so.
Kiyo looked unperturbed.
“So … may I ask why you felt the need to have me kidnapped by a werewolf who proclaims himself my bodyguard?”
“You weren’t supposed to be kidnapped,” Rose insisted. “We sent Kiyo to watch over you. Niamh, the Blackwoods think you killed their son and daughters. I’m so sorry. It’s kind of my fault.”
“Not really.” Niamh meant it too. “Those wicked bastards had it coming, Rose. And I don’t need your help.”
“You do. Niamh, you’re not being safe. You can’t keep using your magic out in the open like this.”
“What else am I to do? I stopped receiving visions about us, about the fae-borne and the gate … so I have nothing else to do but follow the visions I do receive. That’s what I’m doing. They must mean something. They feel different from my other visions. Angrier, insistent. Important.”
“Those visions are going to get you killed. Please. Just … stay with Kiyo for a while. He’ll take you somewhere safe.”
“And if I say no?”
Rose sighed heavily. “I’m sorry but that’s not an option. I can’t leave you unprotected. We’re connected, Niamh. We owe each other. I owe you. But more than that, I can’t let you be the one to open the gate. So please, don’t fight Kiyo. Just lie low for a while.”
Exhaustion was pulling Niamh under. It was a struggle to reply. “It won’t just be for a while. We both know this is our lives forever. On the run. Hiding. This werewolf you’ve hired, he can’t protect me indefinitely.”
“He’ll protect you until he’s sure you’re in the right frame of mind to protect yourself. He’ll protect you until we’ve found a way to deal with the Blackwood Coven permanently.”
“That’s your plan?”
“It wasn’t … but Fionn and I have decided they need to be dealt with. But in a way that’s orchestrated so it doesn’t look like the fae-borne had anything to do with it. That could take awhile. So Kiyo will stay with you. Please, Niamh, tell me you’ll allow this without a fight.”
That burn of irritation swarmed Niamh’s chest. “I will if your dog will take off these damn handcuffs and get me out of this bloody awful apartment.”
“You heard her,” Rose practically snarled. “Kiyo, do it.”
“Are you sure?” Kiyo narrowed his eyes on Niamh. “I’m not convinced she’s seeing things your way.”
“Niamh Farren is the sweetest soul I’ve ever met, Kiyo, and you are so lucky I am not in that room to eviscerate you for hurting her.”
Rose’s words eased the burn somewhat in Niamh’s chest. Guilt replaced the irritation.
Kiyo glared at his phone. “I think I might have the wrong Niamh Farren, then.”
Ugh, very nice. She gave him a dark look.
“Just do it.”
“Fine.”
“And let us know when you’re on the move. We don’t need to know where … we just need to know she’s okay.”
“Fine.” He hung up.
Kiyo stood slowly and Niamh drank in his powerful body. Beneath his T-shirt and jeans were very broad shoulders, a narrow waist, and long legs.
“You don’t like her very much, do you?” she asked.
He walked toward the mattress. “I thought you’d have mixed feelings about her, considering it was her coven who killed—”
“That wasn’t Rose’s fault.”
Thankfully, Kiyo said no more. Instead he lowered to his haunches and reached out to take hold of the leather cuffs. A small key appeared in his hand as if from nowhere and he unlocked them.
“Throw them away, please,” she begged, feeling tears of relief sting her eyes.
He frowned but did as she asked, sending them soaring to the other side of the room.
The deep lethargy began to fade from her body, although the iron walls meant it wouldn’t alleviate itself completely.
“So, what’s the decision. Really?” Kiyo asked.
They stared at one another a second, and Niamh had the alarming feeling she could drown in his big dark eyes. They should have been soulless and dull considering he had all the warmth of an icebox. But they weren’t. His eyes glittered with intelligence and determination.
Her gaze dropped to his lips. He had the most prominent cupid’s bow she’d ever seen on a man. His mouth was beautiful and tempting as hell.
Pity, really, they’d met under these circumstances.
It took every inch of strength Niamh possessed, gathering it like a cyclone in the center of her being.
Kiyo’s eyes widened as he sensed her energy building.
But he was too late.
Niamh sent her magic out like two hands gripping his head and she snapped his neck without even touching him.
“Fair play and all that,” she muttered wearily as she crawled along the mattress past his now-unconscious body.
It took Niamh much longer than she’d ever have thought to crawl to the apartment door. Her body was soaked with sweat by the time she reached it, all the while worried the wolf would awaken and stop her.
But finally, her hand grasped the lock and the doorknob and it swung open. She fell out of the doorway and scrambled to shut it behind her.
Though still tired and weak, the heaviness left her limbs and she managed to push herself up to standing. She had to move at the speed of a human, but Niamh hurried as fast as she could out of there and used what energy she had left to start the engine of a car out in the lot.
She breathed a very real sigh of relief as the car pulled away from the apartment building.
Because Niamh didn’t care what Rose and Fionn wanted. They didn’t have the visions like she did. And if sh
e didn’t follow her visions, then what was the point in this long, bloody awful eternal life? If the visions led to her eventual death, then at least she would have died for something and not been killed in a pointless act that had led to nothing.
3
An aching burn of pain woke Kiyo. His eyes flew open and he stared up at the cracked ceiling, frowning at the hurt in his neck and spine as he tried to orient himself.
Niamh.
The memory of her hit with the same force of a sucker punch. Fury filled him as he flew to his feet and swayed. His body wasn’t quite done healing itself.
The fae woman had broken his neck without even touching him.
He growled as he marched toward the door of the apartment, following the faint traces of her scent out into the hallway. Kiyo knew he shouldn’t have listened to Rose. Behind Niamh’s blasé but iron-weakened attitude had been a hard glint of determination in her eyes.
Either she didn’t give a damn she was putting the gate in danger or she was so blinded by her own mission, she couldn’t see what she was jeopardizing.
Thankfully, her scent still lingered, which meant it hadn’t been long since she’d escaped. She’d underestimated how quickly Kiyo would heal. Not as fast as a fae, maybe, but faster than the other wolves.
Her scent led out to the parking lot and beyond, so Kiyo jumped in the stolen car he’d parked out there and rolled down the window. Niamh’s caramel essence tickled his nose and he drove in the direction she’d taken off in.
The whole time he drove, he tried to contain his anger. Playing nice wasn’t second nature to Kiyo, but his fury at her would definitely push her further away.
He’d never regretted taking on a job more.
She hadn’t escaped from the apartment for more than five minutes when the two cars appeared behind her.
Niamh’s pulse jumped. It wasn’t the wolf following her. Wolves didn’t heal that fast. But her knowledge of her pursuers’ identity came from more than that.
Fae could sense when they or others were in danger. The hair on Niamh’s body rose, her pulse rate increased, and a feeling akin to dread swam over her. That hadn’t happened with Kiyo and now she knew why. Rose and Fionn had sent him to protect her.
So the three cars behind her … nothing to do with Kiyo.
It was either The Garm or the Blackwoods.
The bloody wolf had led them right to her. She scoffed in irritation at his interference.
And because of his interference, she was too weak to travel!
Niamh had been heading back into the city to collect her things from the hotel, but even if it was the early hours of the morning and there were only a few cars on the road, she couldn’t lead them into a fight where innocents might get hurt.
She was currently on the motorway and as she passed the buildings on her left, she caught glimpses of thick, dark forestation in the distance. One of Moscow’s national parks, maybe? She knew there were areas of natural beauty scattered throughout Moscow that could make folks forget they were even in a city.
Niamh could head into the park and lose them in there. Her strength might even come back in a place like that and she’d be able to travel.
Mind made up, and seeing no way off the motorway but to cross it, she swerved the car onto the opposite side of the quiet road and shot across and off it. She hit the grass as she took a road on the left, past a Burger King, down a tree-lined street toward the wooded area she’d seen in the distance. Plowed snow sat piled along the edges of the sidewalks in graying, icy borders.
Glancing in the rearview mirror, she saw the two cars were still following her.
Clingy buggers, aren’t they? she thought in aggravation as she approached a glowing-red traffic light perched beneath a railway bridge.
Niamh took a breath and flew under the tight bridge, thankfully not meeting any oncoming traffic. As soon as she came out of it, her headlights lit up a path leading into the park.
Skidding to a stop, the car hit ice and swung haphazardly into the tall curbside. She barely even felt it. She was too busy jumping out of the car. Niamh dashed toward the opening in the snow-dusted trees. She could see the pathway under a thick layer of snow. Tires squealed behind her as her pursuers witnessed her escape. Sweat beaded under her arms as she pushed through the lethargy that still clung to her body.
Come on! She gritted her teeth in frustration as she ran up the snowy path, fast but nowhere near the speed she was capable of. The snow didn’t bloody help matters.
That fecking fecker of a werewolf!
He was going to get her killed!
The path seemed to just keep going, the trees thick on either side, and Niamh could hear the crunching of very fast feet through hard snow in the distance. Panic bloomed in her chest as she hit an intersection in the path.
She turned left, feeling her speed pick up in increments. Fast, but not fast enough.
Breaking off the path, Niamh disappeared into the snowy trees, hoping to lose her pursuers in the darkness. She had superior night vision, but so did most supernaturals.
The birch trees towered above like skinny giants holding out their snow-peppered arms protectively, urging her to hurry. She tried to detect the scent of her pursuers but she didn’t have a nose like a wolf and all she could smell was the freshness of snow, the earthiness of the soil beneath, and the sweet, sharp, clean scent of the birch. There was also the faint mustiness of animal. Not werewolf, but from whatever animal lived in the park.
Niamh picked up speed, calmed by the enveloping darkness of the trees and the fact that the crunching footsteps had grown fainter in the distance. She kept pushing, pushing until she burst out of the trees into an open field thick with snow. Gathering her speed again, she flew across the openness—wet encapsulated her ankles as her feet disappeared in and out of the snow—and into the tree line ahead.
Not long later, as Niamh caught the glimmer of another opening in the distance, a familiar sick sensation built in her gut.
No.
No, not now.
Tears of defeat pricked her eyes as she rushed out, skidding through the snow of another small clearing.
In the distance, she could hear the thrashing through the forest. The thrashing of her pursuers growing closer.
And there was nothing she could do as the first image blasted into her head, throwing her to her knees. She didn’t even feel the icy wetness soak through her clothes.
The pain was too blinding, an electric, white-hot heat that blazed around her head as she saw green.
Grass.
And on the grass, four stone circles. Like a small druid circle. Like standing stones.
Then a face appeared through that image. A woman. A face she’d seen before but not since her death.
And then Elijah.
And Rose.
And herself.
The image was obliterated as another slammed into her skull. A pendant. A jade pendant shaped like a water droplet. It flickered and there was a city. A mountain towering over it. A garden. A water garden. A Japanese garden. The images kept coming, one after the other, each like a mallet to her head.
Self-directed frustration and irritation held Kiyo immobile for a few seconds.
He’d followed Niamh’s scent down the highway, across traffic and down a road that led him under the railway bridge to a park.
And scattered across the road by the entrance to the park were three vehicles. One smelled of Niamh.
The other two of vamps and wolves.
The Garm.
They’d found her.
For a moment, Kiyo wondered why the hell she had led them to a park instead of traveling, and that’s when he realized that she probably couldn’t.
Kiyo’s trick with the iron had depleted her strength.
And if she died today, Fionn would make the rest of his eternity a living hell.
Biting back a curse, Kiyo took off into the park.
He was faster as a wolf, especially in snow.
>
So as he ran, a blur through the wintry darkness, following Niamh’s scent and the fresh footprints, he called on the change.
Not many wolves could run and change at the same time, but as Kiyo liked to remind himself, he wasn’t like normal werewolves.
Usually, he had time to enjoy the transformation. Changing was like a satisfying pleasure pain. Like a deep stretch of a knotted muscle. Bones cracked and muscles contorted and it all sounded horrific but … it wasn’t. Kiyo, however, didn’t have time to feel any of those things.
He slowed, kicking off his boots, just before he began to run on all fours. Eventually he skidded through the snow, halting in the density of the woods to let the transformation take over. He pushed it. He didn’t savor it. And in a flash, he was staring through the eyes of his wolf with his wider peripheral vision.
He contained the growl he wanted to unleash but didn’t for fear of losing the element of surprise. Kiyo instead left behind his tattered clothes and ran.
He soared through the woods with such speed, even if it had been daylight, all anyone would have seen was a blur so fleeting, they would be sure they imagined him. The wind whipped through his fur; the snow barely had time to soak his paws he was so light across it. He felt the violence building within him at the thought of The Garm harming Niamh Farren.
She was his charge.
She was his job.
His to protect.
And Kiyo did not like to fail.
Hearing voices ahead, his ears twitched as a male voice asked in a thick Russian accent, “What do we do with her?”
“Kill her,” another grunted in exasperation.
“But she’s … she’s seizing or something,” a female said. “Maybe she’s already dying.”
Seizing?
The word caused Kiyo more than a flicker of unease.
Rose said Niamh’s visions physically incapacitated her. She said she resembled someone in the midst of a seizure.
Niamh couldn’t even protect herself.
“Take that piece of iron and kill her!” the exasperated male ordered. Kiyo could see the man through the opening ahead. Tall. Burly. Another wolf.