by S. Young
She rolled her eyes. “My spider sense is pertinent, so I’m telling you about it whether you want to know or not. I can sense when danger is lurking. I knew I was being followed by The Garm before I saw the cars. And if there was anyone on this plane that meant to cause me harm, I’d feel that too. So … you can relax, bodyguard. Why don’t you try to catch some z’s?”
Tempting, but he still didn’t trust the woman he’d been hired to protect. And since she had the ability to pop herself out of the plane to somewhere else, he was staying awake and alert.
“I’m fine.”
Niamh leaned into him again and his fingers curled into tight fists. “Do you want to talk about why you don’t want to go to Tokyo?”
“Do you want to tell me about the vision?” he countered.
She flicked him a dry look and thankfully relaxed back into her seat.
“You could share it with me, couldn’t you? Like at the airport with the girl.”
Niamh frowned. “I don’t know how I did that.”
“Want to try again?” He reluctantly held his hand out, palm facing up.
Her gaze dropped to his hand. Her long, spiky lashes drew his attention as she considered his offer. Then, to his surprise, she reached out and placed her hand in his, wrapping her cool fingers around his. Kiyo’s skin sparked and tingled where she touched, like he’d caressed a live wire. It had to be because she was fae and made of potent energy.
“Well?” he said gruffly.
Niamh gave him a sad smile. “Oh, I don’t know how to give you the vision. I just wanted to hold your hand. I haven’t held someone’s hand in a long time.”
Her words disarmed him.
If anyone else had dared to hold his hand, he’d have shoved them off with impatience and irritation. When he took a woman to bed, it was all about sex. Any affection shown was for sexual gratification. It never involved cuddling or hand-holding.
Yet the thought of rejecting Niamh so brutally … well, he didn’t like the thought of doing that to her.
Kiyo didn’t understand his reaction.
He hadn’t experienced soft feelings toward anyone in a very long time.
Disturbed by his response, he lifted their clasped hands and placed them in her lap before easing out of her hold. “I’m not good at providing comfort,” he said as gently as he was able. “I’m not that guy.”
She stared at him, assessing, her eyes moving to his now-free hand, her brows puckering. Wondering at the confusion on her face, he followed her gaze to his hand and realized he was flexing it.
Because it still tingled, like she’d given him an electric shock.
He abruptly dropped his hand out of sight. “Go to sleep,” he commanded.
The goddamn woman needed to give him a break for just a while.
“It’s okay to need human contact, Kiyo,” she whispered. “A little comfort. It doesn’t mean anything.”
Patience thinning, he sneered at her. “Neither of us are human. And I wasn’t the one who needed to be comforted. If you need that, find someone who’s interested when we land in Tokyo.”
Hurt flickered across her stunning face before she could hide it.
Another sensation he hadn’t felt in a long time caused an ache to flare across his chest.
Guilt.
Goddamm it.
He’d never regretted taking on a job so much in his entire existence.
“What happened to make you so cold?” Niamh asked, but he could tell by the hard edge to her words that she wasn’t really asking him. She was merely observing facts.
Kiyo turned to look at her, and his agitation built tenfold. For someone as fast and powerful as she was, a woman who could break his neck without even touching him, she was irritatingly soft. She cared too damn much, and it would get her killed … or worse, put the entire world in jeopardy.
“You’re soft,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.
Her head whipped around toward him. “What?”
“You’re soft. You care about strangers and it makes you weak. That’s not to be admired, Niamh, when that weakness could cause a war. So stop being weak. You could learn a thing or two from me, and it might just keep us all safe.” The words were harsh, and he knew as soon as he said them that she didn’t deserve them. But she made him off-kilter and he didn’t like it.
That’s when she reminded him that he didn’t know her at all. A cool hardness crawled across her features, and she suddenly looked strange and ethereal and every inch the fae woman she was. Her words, however, were very human and very irate. “I have nothing to learn from you other than how to be a complete and total arsehole. Go to sleep, Kiyo. Give the world a rest from your delightful presence.”
The guilt he’d felt over his words was nudged to the side by amusement.
She had a fire in her. Spirit.
And he couldn’t help but admire it.
That was the problem. He couldn’t help but admire—
The hair on Kiyo’s neck rose, stalling his thoughts. He felt strangely disconcerted.
Something wasn’t right.
Growing still, tense, he tried to feel out his surroundings.
“Kiyo, what’s wro—”
He held up a hand to cut off Niamh.
And then it hit him.
Tapping the screen on the headrest in front of him, Kiyo searched for confirmation.
He brought up the map.
His muscles locked tight. Niamh leaned in to look at his screen and he heard her slight exhalation.
“We’re going the wrong way.”
He nodded, quickly tapping off the screen. “We’re not heading south. We’re heading west.” Kiyo studied her shocked expression. “You can’t sense anything?”
They both tried to look circumspectly around the plane. Something about what he saw wasn’t right.
“Kiyo …” Niamh’s voice was hushed with fear. “Everyone is … sleeping.”
Every single passenger had their eyes closed.
He turned to Niamh as she lifted a hand into the air and flexed her fingers. Her cheeks paled as her horrified gaze flew to his. “They’re dead.”
“Get up,” Kiyo bit out. “We need to get off this plane.”
They both unlatched their seat belts and Kiyo slid out first, holding a hand to help Niamh onto the aisle. He was still holding her when every hair on his body rose. A figure appeared out of a shimmer in the air at the head of the aisle; he walked toward them. Behind the man, the air shimmered again and someone else appeared.
“Cloaking spell,” Niamh said as the three warlocks and two witches lined up on the aisle ahead of them.
“How?” Kiyo growled. Niamh was supposed to be able to sense magic and supernaturals.
“They can cloak themselves, even from me.” Tears brightened her eyes. Eyes that were filled with rage as she stared down the coven members. “But at great sacrifice.”
Kiyo knew about magic. He knew that unlike Niamh who was made of energy, connected to it, and could use her powers with no need of an exchange, witches and warlocks couldn’t. To cast spells, to use magic of any kind, they required fuel for the energy. A tree in the woods in exchange for an offensive spell in battle. An animal in exchange for wounding an enemy.
A human being in exchange for a spell of invisibility against the most powerful species on earth.
White witches and warlocks had great limitations upon them because they refused to hurt others for their power.
Some covens, like the Blackwoods, however, were large enough that their combined natural energy allowed them to do much that individual witches and warlocks couldn’t. That’s why most magic users wanted to belong to a coven. It made them more powerful.
And then, of course, there was the fact that when covens became as powerful as the Blackwoods, they got away with using dark magic while pretending the very thought abhorred them.
“They killed everyone on the plane to cloak themselves from me,” Niamh said in furiou
s horror, grief darkening her eyes.
“Not technically necessary.” The warlock leading the charge gestured to the dead passengers. “But we did need about half of them. You’re very hard to trick, you see.”
“Why kill all of them?” Kiyo stared blankly at this warlock who had no honor. It was something Kiyo had mastered over the years. Keeping what little emotion leaked through locked down tight. He’d seen much in his life … but even as soulless as he felt most days, Kiyo knew in that moment that he still had one. Because he felt the deaths of all those passengers pressing in on his chest.
He couldn’t look at them.
At the humans who had gotten on a flight like they’d probably done many times, and their energy, their lives had been snatched mindlessly so five fucking magic users could hide from one fae woman.
Dirty, dishonorable pieces of shit.
“I don’t like loose ends,” the warlock said. His pale gaze was fixed on Niamh. “You’re lucky we need you so badly or I would kill you for what you did to Layton and his sisters. But Layton’s father doesn’t want that. You’re too important.”
“She didn’t kill them.” Kiyo spoke for her.
The warlock flicked an irritated look at him. “And I would believe the word of a mercenary? What business have you here, you filthy, mangy half-creature?”
Absolutely the wrong thing to say to him when he was already feeling more than he wanted to.
Kiyo was a blur, closing the short distance between them.
His fist smashed through the warlock’s chest; he gripped the son of a bitch’s heart and yanked it out. The warlock’s eyes closed and he flopped to the floor like his battery had been removed.
Which it kind of had.
Kiyo had just dropped the heart on the warlock’s body when he felt invisible fingers tightening around his throat. The sensation was unpleasant, startling him to his knees. It wouldn’t kill him, however, and he pushed to standing to face the witches who were using their combined power to choke him.
Suddenly, he smelled Niamh brush past him. He barely saw her. She was so fast, just a whirl of color and movement. The first time he’d seen someone move that fast was a few months ago when Rose and Fionn tracked him down in Bucharest. They’d been attacked by coven members then too.
One by one, like dominoes, the coven members dropped to the aisle floor.
Niamh stood in amongst the carnage, her chest heaving with emotion, tears streaking her face as she stared down at the bodies. Kiyo didn’t know if they were unconscious or dead.
She lifted her tortured gaze to his, and Kiyo had the strongest urge to go to her.
To comfort her.
It made no sense.
Then the plane lurched, stealing him from the disturbing thought. “What the hell?” he bit out, getting to his feet only to stumble against a seat as the plane lurched again.
“The coven!” Niamh flew at him. “They must have been controlling the plane.” She wrapped her arms around him, shocking him. “Hold on tight! Don’t let go!”
Kiyo did as she demanded without thought and abruptly everything went black.
And then cold.
Wet and cold and darkness surrounded him, pressure pushing down on his chest.
It took him a moment to realize where he was.
In water.
Drowning in the dark depths of the sea.
6
Breaking through the surface, Niamh gasped for breath. Even though she’d never die from lack of oxygen, her “human” mind liked to trick her into thinking she would. She blamed it on having been raised among them. “Kiyo!” she yelled as she scanned her surroundings. In the distance, she could see the coast.
Traveling had limitations. As much as she would have loved to have taken them to land, they’d been flying over the Baltic Sea, which was at least a thousand miles long. Considering she could only travel around six miles or so, it was a bloody miracle she’d gotten them this close to land.
Well, gotten herself this close to land.
Panic clawed at her. “Kiyo!”
Nothing.
“Oh my God, I’ve killed him.” Her teeth chattered. Not from the cold, since she barely felt it, but from emotion. From grief.
First all those people on the plane … “KIYO!”
“I’m here!”
Relief flooded her as she turned. Kiyo was swimming the front crawl at a rapid pace toward her. Niamh swam to meet him. A human would have struggled in the choppy water but they reached each other in good time. Fighting the urge to throw her arms around him in relief, knowing he wouldn’t welcome it, Niamh gave him a tremulous smile. “Sorry. That gift has its limits.”
Kiyo’s narrowed eyes flew above her head, and it was then she became aware of the terrible, mechanical whining sound. She turned in the water, kicking to keep afloat, and stared in horror as she watched the plane come down in the distance.
“It’s gonna hit the water and we’ll probably feel it,” Kiyo said, his voice urgent.
“Waves, you mean?”
“Yeah.”
That wouldn’t be a problem for her but werewolves weren’t immortal. They could drown. At least, if Kiyo was worried, she assumed he could.
The wolf was a giant mystery.
“Okay. I might have another bout of traveling in me.” She pointed to the coast. “I can get us there.”
“Do it.”
Niamh moved into him, her body hyperaware this time of being pressed tightly to his. His hands had just settled on her hips when she gathered her energy around him.
The blackness of traveling was quick.
They fell onto the beach, this time not separating.
Kiyo’s grunt reverberated through Niamh’s body since he’d taken the brunt of the fall and she was straddling him. Their eyes locked, and a thrilling shiver cascaded through Niamh that had nothing to do with the soaked clothes stuck to her skin.
He was still holding on to her hips and she felt his fingers flex, squeezing her.
Heat pooled in her belly.
His dark gaze dropped to her mouth.
The sound of something making terrific impact in the water broke the electric moment, and Niamh was brought crashing back to reality. She pushed her exhausted body from his and stood to turn and face the sea.
Waves rippled, coming toward them. They grew smaller and smaller as they headed for the coast.
“All those people.” The grief hit her anew.
“Why do they keep doing this?” Kiyo asked, irritation lacing his words. “They’ve sent so many coven members after you fae-borne, and you’ve all triumphed over every one of them. Why won’t they stop? Is it idiocy or arrogance?”
“Fanaticism,” she answered. “They’re so obsessed with the idea of unlimited power, they’ll sacrifice themselves to get it.” Niamh looked over at him. His hair had come out of its top knot and fell in wet, thick strands around his face, the ends hitting his chin. He had grains of sand in his hair; his back was covered in it.
His beauty hurt her a little. She wished it were enough to distract from what had just happened, but not even Kiyo could do that. “They killed all those innocent people. I killed them,” she confessed.
“It wasn’t your fault,” he replied gruffly. “You’re not responsible for someone else’s actions.”
“No, I mean, I killed the coven members.”
She could feel his eyes burning into her.
“So? You were defending us.”
“I could have just knocked them out.”
“They’d have died in the crash, anyway. Drowned.”
“I’ve killed people.”
At his silence, she remembered his words on the plane.
“You’re soft. You care about strangers and it makes you weak. That’s not to be admired, Niamh, when that weakness could cause a war. So stop being so weak. You could learn a thing or two from me, and it might just keep us all safe.”
Niamh didn’t want to be cold like him, but s
he also didn’t want to be vulnerable in front of him. Sucking back her tears, her grief, she turned and made her way wearily up the beach.
Kiyo followed. “You okay? You’re moving slow … for you.”
“Traveling exhausts me. I’ll be fine in a bit.”
Silence fell between them.
She broke it. “What now?”
He studied the cliff tops ahead of them. There was a pathway cut into rock that would lead them off the beach onto grassy fields. “My guess is that we’re on one of the Swedish islands.”
As they walked up the beach, Niamh studied the werewolf. There was something about him she was missing. It wasn’t as though she had a ton of experience when it came to werewolves. She’d run away from a few, either because they were members of The Garm or they sensed she was different and got overly curious about her.
But Kiyo seemed much stronger than most. Definitely faster. Werewolves were fast, but they were generally slower than other supes. Of course, some alphas were exceptions to the rule. Just over a year ago, when she started having visions of one of the other fae-borne, a woman called Thea, she’d seen Thea’s true mate. Niamh never met him in real life but she knew from her visions that he was one of the strongest and fastest werewolves ever. His name was Conall. He was the alpha of the last werewolf pack in Scotland, and he had a gift for tracking. Once he had someone’s scent, he could track them anywhere in the world. He’d been hired to track down Thea by the man who had tortured and experimented upon her.
Niamh flinched inwardly every time she thought of Thea. Not one of the fae-borne had escaped tragedy, but Thea had been brutally tortured at the hands of a madman.
Her mission back then had been to protect Thea from him, but her visions had revealed that Conall was actually Thea’s true mate and that their joining would save Thea, and them all, in the long run. She’d tried to convince Thea to trust Conall without giving away why. She’d done the same for Rose and Fionn. It worked for both couples. Thea, however, was stabbed in the heart with an iron knife, and Conall bit her to change her into a wolf to save her life. Because they were mated, it worked, and now Thea was safe from this madness, this war for the gate to Faerie.