by S. Young
“Not sure exactly. We’re heading south. She doesnae feel too far … so perhaps France.”
France? What the hell could Niamh want in France? Kiyo searched his memory for any mention of it.
“I should come.”
“You shouldnae come,” Conall answered patiently. “We’ve already discussed this.”
“I’m not fae anymore. It’s not dangerous.”
“It’s always dangerous.” An edge entered the alpha’s tone. “You have scars on your body from silver bullet wounds that prove my point.”
Kiyo heard Thea give a huff. “It feels wrong to stay out of it. I owe Rose and Niamh.”
“And I’m fulfilling that debt for you.”
“Conall—”
“Thea,” he bit out, flicking Kiyo an annoyed look. “Please. It’s not just you anymore.”
There was silence. “I know. I’m sorry. I’ll stay. But I want to hear from you every four hours.”
The alpha smirked. “I can do that.”
“I love you.”
“I love you too,” the wolf said, completely unabashed to admit so in front of Kiyo.
He sighed inwardly. It seemed he was surrounded by fools in love.
When Conall hung up, he turned to Kiyo, all business. “Let’s park the car. We need to get a flight to London.”
Traveling with Conall MacLennan had been somewhat easy at first. The wolf had asked Kiyo if he’d ever visited Scotland. He answered that the Highlands were among his favorite places to visit, which seemed to please the Scot. But Kiyo already knew that pride of their country was a huge part of a Scot’s national identity, and nothing endeared you more to them than to compliment the beauty of their homeland.
When Conall noted he must not have visited Torridon before, for he would have sensed him there, Kiyo nodded vaguely. After all, he couldn’t tell the alpha that he’d met Conall’s father and grandfather back in 1961 when he’d stumbled across Pack MacLennan on his travels. At the time, he’d been running in wolf form through the woods near Torridon when he’d come across a cornered alpha. Another alpha and a beta had the alpha pinned. Without even thinking about why, Kiyo had joined the fight.
That cornered alpha turned out to be Conall’s father. Although strong, he was young and inexperienced. The two wolves were from a pack in the Lowlands of Scotland. Kiyo had insinuated himself into a war. When the Alpha of Pack MacLennan discovered Kiyo had saved his son, he welcomed him into his home in Torridon. Always a lone wolf, Kiyo had been intrigued by pack life, but he knew it would never be for him.
Still, he stayed awhile. Long enough to see the end of the Lowland pack. It was a small pack, having lost members and much power over the years. The attack on Conall’s father, Caelan, had been a last desperate attempt to gain leverage over Pack MacLennan, to force a submission.
Lennox MacLennan, Conall’s grandfather, was having none of it. He’d given the Lowland pack many chances to assimilate, but they didn’t want to. They wanted to take over Pack MacLennan. Foolish arrogance as far as Kiyo could see.
He lived with Pack MacLennan for three months before setting off on his own again. By the time Kiyo left, Lennox had wiped out the last of the Lowland pack, and Pack MacLennan was the last werewolf pack in Scotland.
Conall wasn’t even a glitter in Caelan’s eyes at the time as he hadn’t found a mate yet.
There was no way Kiyo could confide his history with the pack without revealing his immortality. Wolves lived longer and aged slowly … but not that slowly.
After his query about Scotland, Conall stopped talking. Much like Kiyo, he wasn’t really a conversationalist. It suited Kiyo nicely. Theirs was a comfortable silence.
However, the urgency and irritation that hummed beneath Kiyo’s stoic facade must have betrayed him because as soon as they got into the rental car hours later after arriving at Heathrow, Conall asked, “Do you have some feeling for Niamh?”
Conall was driving since he was the one following Niamh’s scent. Kiyo tried not to glower at him for the ridiculous question. “Obligation,” he replied flatly. “I’m being paid to keep an eye on her, and I don’t like to fail.”
“So, the somewhat oppressive sense of desperation coming off you is just out of obligation?”
“Desperation?” Kiyo asked, his voice dangerously quiet.
Conall was not intimidated by his warning tone. “I’m an intuitive alpha,” Conall explained. “I often sense things in other wolves, especially other alphas. I hadnae realized it until my mate pointed it out. She had the audacity to suggest it’s why I always win in a fight.” He grinned, shrugging. “Perhaps she’s right.”
“I’m not desperate,” Kiyo insisted.
“You’re something.”
Glaring out the passenger-side window as they sped along the motorway away from Heathrow Airport, Kiyo considered this. It would be a lie to suggest he wasn’t feeling something. “I’m annoyed,” he admitted. “I should have realized what she was planning.”
“Why?”
“What?”
“Why should you have realized?”
Kiyo looked at the alpha. “It’s my job.”
Conall gave a slight shake of his head. “It’s more than that. You think you missed something.”
Damn it, the wolf was intuitive. Kiyo thought on the night before with Niamh, going over every inch of their interaction. And there it was. In among everything. The thing that bothered him most. “After her vision … she asked me … well, something personal. Something she’d been plaguing me with almost from the moment we met. I won’t get into what. But she asked again after her vision, and there was something in her expression when I didn’t give her the answer she wanted.”
“What?”
Kiyo shook his head. “Nothing,” he answered, realizing what this sounded like. “It’s nothing. I’m looking for answers out of nothing.”
“I doubt it.” Conall glanced quickly at him before looking back at the road. “I can guess what you saw.”
He almost rolled his eyes. “Now you’re clairvoyant too?”
The alpha let out a low rumble of a growl, but it was tinged with amusement. “Thea would call me wise, not clairvoyant.”
“Are you sure you’re not using Thea as an excuse to hide the fact that you have an ego the size of Scotland?”
Conall gave a bark of laughter. “Thea would say so.”
The wolf was mate-whipped. Kiyo had come across a pair of true mates decades ago, but he’d forgotten how insufferable they could be until Fionn and Rose crossed his path. And now this alpha. A veritable legend among his species. And he was practically bubbling with contentment and happiness, like an oversized pup, all because of a supernatural mating bond that had shattered his freedom.
Not that Kiyo dared voice that out loud. Even if Kiyo was the stronger of the two of them, he was sure Conall MacLennan could turn lethal in seconds, and he owed Caelan more than to bait or belittle his son.
“You broke her trust,” Conall said abruptly. “Niamh. That’s what you saw in her expression.”
“How could I break her trust when I’ve never had it?”
“Then that’s your problem. Niamh will continue to run from you if she doesnae trust you or think she has your trust in return.”
“She doesn’t have my trust.”
The alpha sighed heavily. “Then you’ll never have her. Niamh will always escape you. And the … failure, you feel”—he said the word failure like he wanted to exchange it for another word entirely—“will only grow worse over time.”
Silence fell between them. Silence Kiyo was grateful for as his agitation grew. He’d thought that was the end of the discussion. Little was said between them as Conall followed Niamh’s scent.
Sure enough, around an hour into their car journey, Conall grunted, “Dover. Her scent is taking us to cross the water for Calais.”
“France, then?”
He nodded. “Aye. She doesnae feel far from Calais.” He glanced at
Kiyo. “Ferry or tunnel?”
Conall referred to the Channel Tunnel that connected Britain to mainland Europe. Kiyo had never used the tunnel before. Apparently, you drove your car onto the Eurotunnel shuttle and it only took around forty minutes to get to France.
“Tunnel. It’s faster.”
The half-hour journey to Folkestone for the Eurotunnel was quick, and they were only another twenty minutes boarding a shuttle. Inside the brightly lit space, Conall pulled the Land Rover to a stop behind the vehicle in front and cut the engine.
For some reason, now that they’d stopped, the silence felt awkward.
As much as it was against his nature to converse easily, Conall was doing Kiyo a favor, and he didn’t want to seem like an ungrateful dickhead. “I appreciate this.”
“No problem. We owe Niamh a debt. And Thea worries about her. Especially now that her brother has been killed.”
Ronan’s death was the reason Niamh was as unpredictable as she was. Kiyo was sure of it. But he didn’t know how to deal with it without digging himself deeper into Niamh’s life and confidence.
“How do you know Fionn?”
Kiyo glanced at Conall. “We met at an underground fight.”
“Aye, I’ve heard of those. They can be quite brutal.”
“No more brutal than an Alpha challenge.” He flicked a hand to Conall’s face, indicating his scar.
He gave a lift of his chin in acknowledgment of the comment. “Do you have any?”
“Silver scars?”
“Aye.”
Kiyo nodded and lifted his shirt to reveal the long scar across his abdomen. “A werewolf hunter. Rogue. Not one of the dark hunters from the Consortium.”
“Human?”
“Yeah. Had a prejudice against wolves.”
“I hope you taught him a lesson.”
“She,” Kiyo replied with a wry smirk. “I thought she was just an attractive human eager for sex. I smelled her arousal. I had no reason to be suspicious. So she caught me unaware … and she taught me a very valuable lesson.”
“You don’t trust women,” Conall responded.
“I don’t trust anyone.” Well, except Fionn. A little.
“Lone wolves often feel that way.”
Kiyo curled his lip at the condescending assumption, but out of respect for Caelan and Lennox, he held his tongue and stared broodingly out of the car at … nothing. The ferry would have been longer, but at least there was water and sky to look at.
Twenty-five minutes passed.
No words spoken between them.
And then, “My father had a photograph. It was of him and my grandfather with a friend of the pack. A Japanese American lone werewolf. It was taken almost thirty years before I was born. My father was barely eighteen and he wouldn’t fall in love with my mother until twenty years after this photograph was taken.”
Kiyo held still, willing his pulse not to race and give the alpha, with his exceptional hearing, knowledge of his anxiety. It was a trick Kiyo had learned years ago.
“I remember my father’s stories of the Japanese wolf. He admired him. Looked up to him. I think it disappointed him that the wolf never returned to visit the pack. He would take out that photograph and tell me of Kiyonari. A brooding, quiet, noble, honorable, cold son of a bitch, with a quick sense of humor, a deep admiration for the Highlands, and natural loyalty that not even his lone status could diminish.”
Now Kiyo struggled to slow his breathing as a strange feeling of emotion and nostalgia filled him.
“I’d recognize you anywhere.” Conall’s gaze burned into his profile and not to face him would be cowardly.
Their eyes met.
“Fionn Mór wouldnae entrust Niamh to an ordinary wolf. And the energy emanating from you is … different. I remember my father speaking of that as well.” Conall’s eyes narrowed. “Wolves live for a long time and age slower than humans, but I know of no wolf who looks exactly as they did sixty years before.”
Damn it. Was everyone to know what he was? He glared at Conall. “You know nothing.”
“I suspect you’re immortal. I have no idea how … but you’re no ordinary werewolf.”
“And what do you want for your silence?”
Conall raised an imperious eyebrow. “You would dishonor me with such a question? Do you not remember your time with the MacLennans?”
Kiyo exhaled slowly, looking away. “I’ve lived a long time with very few people guessing what I am. It’s irritating that Fionn, Rose, and Bran know. Now you too. I don’t like people knowing my business.”
“Obviously. I’ll tell no one. Not even Thea. As long as you protect Niamh, you have my loyalty. You have it anyway … for saving my father’s life.”
They shared a tense look, and seeing the sincerity in Conall’s gaze, Kiyo offered him a nod.
“Is this what Niamh asked of you? The personal thing she wanted to know and you wouldnae tell her?”
Aggravated by the renewal of that conversation, Kiyo cut him a dark look.
Conall grinned. “It was. Bloody fae woman sensed it.”
“Yes. She sensed it.”
“Then why not tell her the truth of what you are?”
“Are you kidding?” Kiyo stared at him like he was dim-witted. “The fewer people who know, the better.”
“I dinnae know the whole truth. Your story. Niamh doesnae need to know either. Just tell her the part about your immortality. Although I must say, I cannae imagine how that came about.” Curiosity glinted in Conall’s eyes. “It must be an interesting story.”
Interesting.
Not the adjective Kiyo would use.
“Just tell her that. Tell her something. You know what Niamh is. That knowledge is dangerous in the wrong hands. So whether you think Niamh trusts you or not, she has to at least trust that you willnae betray the secret of her identity. All the lass is probably looking for is some sign that by offering her knowledge of your identity, her trust in you is not misplaced.”
Letting Conall’s advice sink in, Kiyo had to admit that the alpha made sense. He’d never thought about it that way.
“And you think she’ll stop running from me?”
“I think there’s a far greater chance of it, aye.”
“Then I’ll consider your advice.”
Conall smirked. “You do that.”
10
Saint Denis, Paris
* * *
It had become a habit to stand in front of the mirror and look.
No, not look, Niamh thought. Look suggested vanity.
Search.
She was searching.
Who are you?
She glanced over the muddy-brown hair she’d piled on top of her head, tendrils falling around her face. She fingered a brown lock, remembering the light blond color that hid beneath it. With the touch, a memory flooded her, so sharp and clear it felt like it happened only yesterday …
* * *
Niamh huddled on the bed, her arms wrapped tight around her small knees as she stared hard at the crack beneath the bedroom door. Light spilled through it from the hallway. Everything had been good for a while. And things had been awful for ages before that, so Niamh had been grateful for the good.
When Mam died, she and Ronan had been sent to live in a group home. She’d hated it. It was hard to keep the strange things that happened to her under wraps when there were lots of other people around. She’d shared a bunk bed with Ronan, but they’d shared a room with four other kids.
Ronan had hated the group home too.
He hated having to watch their backs constantly and cover up Niamh’s weird behavior.
But then things got better when Siobhan came into their lives. Siobhan knew what it was like to lose her mam. And her dad. They left her lots of money so she didn’t have to work. Instead she decided to foster kids. Her house was four times the size of the old flat they’d lived in with Mam. When they’d first come to live with Siobhan, she was fostering a baby girl named Shann
on. But three months later, Shannon got adopted. Niamh was sad. She’d grown attached to the little thing. For a blissful six weeks, however, Niamh and Ronan had Siobhan’s undivided attention.
She was the best. And because she didn’t work, she could give them more attention than even Mam had.
The strange part was that in all that time, nothing weird happened with Niamh. It was like being in such a safe place made all the weird stuff stop. Ronan was over the moon.
Then Joe arrived to stay with them, too, but he was only thirteen months old, and as busy as he kept Siobhan, she still had time for them.
They’d started attending a really nice school, small classes, and the kids weren’t too bad. A few were a bit snobby, but nothing Niamh couldn’t handle. Ronan was two years ahead of her, and now that she wasn’t using any powers or getting any visions, he wasn’t hovering so much. Niamh couldn’t decide if she liked it or not.
She hadn’t liked sleeping in separate rooms.
Back when Mam was alive, Niamh and Ronan shared a room in their tiny two-bedroom flat. Living at Siobhan’s was the first time Niamh had slept alone. It had taken weeks for her to get used to it, but she didn’t want to be a baby, and Ronan was fourteen now. She knew he needed his space. And eventually she liked having her own space too. Especially once her period started. She was glad she didn’t have her big brother around when that first happened two months ago.
She was kind of surprised it did. Part of her wondered if her body would work the same way as a human’s. In that respect it did, which Niamh thought was pretty rubbish, actually. Surely being a magical creature from another world should have come with perks like not having a period?!
Siobhan had been really nice about it, though. Siobhan was nice about everything.
Yeah. It had all been grand. Until now.
Niamh’s heart raced as her eyes stayed trained on the crack of light beneath the door.
About a month ago, Siobhan started bringing Miller around. They knew she’d been dating someone because every Friday, either Ronan babysat them or if he was out with his friends, Siobhan got a babysitter so she could attend these dates.