by S. Young
Then, after two months of dating the guy, she decided it was serious enough to introduce him to them.
Niamh had gotten a bad feeling off Miller from the moment they’d met.
He was overly affectionate with Siobhan in front of them, always kissing her, petting her, pressing his lips to her neck or patting her arse, and Niamh thought it was a bit much, considering they didn’t know him. Ronan had commented on how much he didn’t like it either.
But it wasn’t just that. It was the way he looked at Niamh when he didn’t think anyone was watching. And he winked at her a lot.
Yet nothing was worse than the last week. He’d started touching Niamh. Nothing terrible at first. Placing a hand on her shoulder when he asked her something. Then on her lower back, when he sidled up to talk to her in the kitchen.
Then brushing his fingers through her hair when they were alone, telling her what beautiful hair she had.
Stroking her knee when he sat down on the couch beside her and Siobhan was in the kitchen feeding little Joe. Telling her what gorgeous legs she had.
Hot looks and compliments that Niamh understood too well. She’d always known things other girls her age didn’t know. Born with the sight, Ronan said. She’d seen things someone her age shouldn’t have seen, understood things about human and not-so-human nature that had chipped at her innocence. Or hammered away at it, really.
And she knew that Miller was after what was left of her innocence. She knew because anytime Niamh felt danger, the hair on her neck rose. Her pulse raced. Dread filled her tummy.
Since as long as she could remember, she’d had a sixth sense for danger and understood exactly what all those feelings meant.
And this evening, when Miller came over for dinner, her whole being went into high alert.
Looking into his eyes, she knew. Whatever sickness was inside of him, he couldn’t hold it back any longer and he was planning to hurt her.
Niamh didn’t know what to do.
She loved Siobhan.
And Ronan was happy. Finally happy.
Niamh didn’t want to ruin anything.
Perhaps she could deal with it herself and no one would ever know. She’d give Miller a fright and he wouldn’t want to speak of—
A shadow flickered across the crack of light beneath her door. Niamh’s pulse throbbed and she could barely hear a thing over the rushing of blood in her ears. Energy crackled around her and she felt it tingling on her fingertips, even her toes.
The doorknob turned.
Chest heaving, arms tightening around her knees, she watched as the door opened inward without a sound and then closed behind the tall figure as he stepped inside. She could see him looking at her in the dark. He wouldn’t know how clearly she could see him. Niamh had excellent night vision. He had sweat on his upper lip, and he was breathing too heavily.
He moved quietly toward her.
“I’ll scream.”
“What for?” he whispered as he lowered himself onto the bed. He reached out and placed a hand on her knee and everything within Niamh revulsed. “I’m not going to hurt you, little one.”
Lies.
“I just want to make you feel good.”
And then he lunged, covering her mouth with his hand as he attempted to push her small body beneath his.
He grunted as Niamh resisted, stronger than any human twelve-year-old could ever be.
And something dark flickered inside her.
Something foreign to who she was.
Something angry and vengeful.
Because she couldn’t imagine she was the only child he’d tried this with. Had he succeeded with others?
The thought turned the rage to a flame and as they grappled, the energy tingling through Niamh’s extremities grew hotter and hotter and hotter—
Miller hissed in agony and scrambled off her, staring at his hands in horror.
Niamh did too.
His fingertips glowed like golden fire … and then they just …
The golden fire chased black ash, and the ash began to crumble. His finger, palms, wrists, arms all crumbling to dust.
Niamh gaped at his face and watched as it cracked and blackened and caved in on itself.
Until there was nothing left but a pile of ash on the bed and floor.
Skittering away from it, Niamh fell off the other side of the bed. Sickness swarmed from her gut and she threw up on the carpet, heaving until there was nothing left.
Sensing someone’s presence, Niamh looked up and saw her brother standing in the light spill from the open door.
His attention swung between her and the ash.
“What happened?” His eyes blazed fiercely.
“Miller,” she replied, falling back on her rump. Tears spilled in hot rivers down her cheeks. “He tried to hurt me.”
Ronan skirted the vomit and kneeled beside her, pushing her hair off her face. He looked murderous. “What did he do? Where is he?”
“He was going to hurt me, Ronan.”
“I had a bloody awful feeling about him,” he choked out. “It woke me up. I’m sorry, Nee. I should have said something sooner. Did you hurt him instead?”
Her lips parted to speak but she couldn’t quite say it out loud. Instead she stood and Ronan put his arms around her, holding her. She pointed to the ash on the bed.
She felt her brother stiffen. “Nee?”
She sobbed, trying to muffle the sound so she wouldn’t waken Siobhan. “I didn’t mean it,” she gasped softly. “I don’t know how I did it. It just happened.”
Her brother released his hold on her, stumbling toward the bed to stare closer at the ash. “Are you saying … you incinerated him?”
Nausea rolled through her again. “I didn’t mean it.”
Ronan stared back at her. And for the first time, she saw fear in his eyes.
It made her cry harder.
“Shh, Nee.” He patted her shoulder tentatively.
He was afraid of her.
“We have to go.” He ducked his head to hers to meet her eyes. The fear hid behind panic. “No one can know. They’ll take you away.”
“Maybe they should.”
Anger clouded his features. “Don’t ever say that. This was self-defense, Nee. The bastard was a sick fuck. You hear me?”
She nodded quickly.
“Okay. Pack a bag. Quietly. Pack only what you need.”
“But what about Siobhan?”
Sadness flickered across his face. “She can’t protect you.”
“But how—”
“Just pack a bag and meet me at the front door.” He darted out of the room.
Niamh stared at the ash.
They couldn’t leave it there. It was evidence.
As easily as the horrible magic had come to her to defend herself against Miller, it didn’t come so easily as she tried to open the window with it. Ronan didn’t want her using it a lot, so she was out of practice.
And exhausted from what had just happened.
Sending her energy like powerful arms and nimble hands toward the window, she pushed down the handle and watched it open silently.
Then, with a flick of her hand toward the ash, it swirled into the air like a cyclone, the room sparking with the electricity of her magic. With an aggressive thrust of her hand, the ash cyclone swept out of the room, through the window, and out into the night sky.
Trembling with weariness, Niamh used what little energy she had to locate the things she needed without moving from the spot. Then she used her magic to clean up the vomit, tidy her bed, and teleport downstairs.
Ronan was already at the front door and he jumped a mile when she popped out of thin air.
He surprised her by saying, “You probably should practice.”
“Why?”
“Because a fourteen-and twelve-year-old won’t survive out there without magic.”
His words followed Niamh as they disappeared out of the nice house on the nice street in the nice neighbor
hood. She ached for Siobhan, and her mind railed against the truth.
She’d killed a man.
She didn’t deserve nice.
A touch of darkness had bled into her soul.
“Don’t feel guilty,” Ronan had lectured her a few days later as they sat in the first-class carriage of a train heading for mainland Europe. Niamh had used her ability to trick humans into seeing whatever she wanted them to see to get them on the train without passports. When she accidentally did it to her mam the first time, her mam was so angry, she made Niamh vow never to do it again.
Ronan wanted her to use it all the time now.
“We need to survive. And that’s what you did back at Siobhan’s. You survived.”
“They’re looking for us.”
It was all over the news back in Cork. They thought Miller had kidnapped them.
“Aye, well, that’s why you should do something about your hair.” Ronan gestured to her long, light blond hair. She didn’t know where it came from. Although she and Ronan shared the same green-blue eyes, he had brown hair. Just like their mam. They didn’t remember their dad. He left before Niamh was born. Mam had said he was a loser, anyway. But she also said he didn’t have blond hair. No one in her family had blond hair like Niamh’s.
“I don’t want to dye it,” she said petulantly.
“Dye it, cut it,” he insisted. “And stop dressing like a fairy princess.”
“But I am a faerie,” she teased, trying to break the tension between them.
Ronan scowled. When she was younger and she first started spouting stories about Faerie, her mam and Ronan thought she just had a wild imagination. As she got older and her powers started to present themselves, Ronan at least began to believe Niamh was one of the fae. She explained about the Faerie Queen’s spell that had brought about Niamh’s existence in the human world along with six other fae children, but Mam insisted it was nonsense.
“I gave birth to you!” she yelled in exasperation on Niamh’s tenth birthday. “I remember the bloody pain! I’m your mother, and stop saying otherwise, you ungrateful shit, or they’ll put you in the nuthouse!”
It was the nastiest thing her mam had ever said to her. She hurt any time she thought of her mam and how one day she was alive, and the next, she was gone. And they’d never really known each other. While Niamh and Ronan had an unbreakable bond, Niamh and her mam had never forged one. Ronan was close to Mam. Her death hit him the hardest.
It hit Niamh hard for a different reason. She’d always thought that one day, her mam would eventually believe her, and the bond would grow between them.
They never got the chance.
“Don’t say that stuff out loud,” Ronan reprimanded her. “And from now on, stop dressing in a way that will get attention and dye and cut your bloody hair,” he repeated. “We need to move around without being noticed.”
But Niamh refused.
In her vanity, she refused.
“You’re going to get me killed,” her brother said in exasperation.
Niamh blinked rapidly, coming out of her memories.
“You’re going to get me killed, Nee.”
How many times had Ronan said that?
And she’d just taken it for granted that she’d be able to protect him.
“I couldn’t even dye my bloody hair for him,” she muttered angrily.
Turning from the mirror, Niamh strolled into the sitting room of the small apartment in the shitty neighborhood.
A small blond was huddled in the corner.
Lights of gold encircled her wrists and ankles, holding her in place.
She’d never used such magic before. Every day, Niamh learned something new about her capabilities.
She’d also used her magic to silence the witch. She couldn’t bear her nonsensical pleading: “It wasn’t me. She made me. She made us.” Assuming she referred to the leader of the O’Connor Coven who’d led the charge that day, Niamh didn’t want to hear it. An adult was responsible for their own decisions.
When she’d hunted Meghan O’Connor down to a café in Sèvres, she’d waited until the witch left the café and followed her. The entire time, Niamh had felt like she was being watched, as though someone was following her following the witch. The sensation made her fear that Kiyo had, by some miracle, found her. But when she glanced behind and all around, there was no one there, and she needed to focus.
So she abandoned the feeling with reckless pursuit. Meghan entered a park and as soon as they were alone, Niamh traveled until she was right behind her and hit her carotid with energy until Meghan passed out. She traveled to her rental car, the witch in tow, and drove thirty minutes north to the shithole neighborhood she’d chosen to carry out the murderous deed.
When a neighbor came out of her apartment as Niamh easily carried Meghan’s limp body upstairs, she’d made an amused, casual remark in muddled French about her girlfriend not being able to day drink. The neighbor just shrugged and pushed past them.
Niamh stared at the terrified O’Connor witch.
She should have just killed her in the park.
Why was she drawing it out like this?
Who are you?
Her conscience sounded like Kiyo again.
Please, please don’t hurt me.
She flinched, remembering Meghan’s pleas when she’d first gained consciousness hours before.
Do you know who I am?
The witch had shaken her head.
Your coven murdered my brother trying to take down Rose Kelly.
Meghan’s eyes widened with recognition. I remember you. You threw me out the window.
You survived. Ronan didn’t. Your coven murdered him.
I’m sorry. It wasn’t me. She made me do it. I’m sorry.
Me too.
Niamh glared at the witch now. I’m so sorry, Ronan.
11
As Conall slowed the rental car to a stop, Kiyo scowled at their surroundings. The neighborhood was one big dumpster fire. Between buildings was garbage and piles of discarded junk. Old, stained mattresses were stacked next to an ancient, rusted-out washing machine, flanked by rotten pallets and black garbage bags long decimated by vermin.
The buildings themselves were old and run-down. Some were covered in graffiti. Washing hung out of the windows of apartments on the upper floors while plywood had been nailed across windows on the lower floors.
It was the exact kind of place he’d choose to hide out if he’d, say, kidnapped a fae woman or was planning on hurting someone. What was Niamh doing? His gut knotted.
“This car might not sit here too long,” Kiyo observed grimly, trying to hide his anxiety.
“Aye.” Conall shot Kiyo an equally grim look. “This is a side of Paris I’ve never seen before.”
“Every city has places like this. No matter how beautiful the rest of it is.”
“Even the Highlands has places like this,” Conall agreed as he pushed open the driver’s-side door. “If the world existed as a wolf pack does, wealth would be distributed equally, and no place on earth would look or feel like this.”
If he wasn’t so concerned about tracking down Niamh, Kiyo might have smirked at the wolf’s idealism. Conall had apparently inherited it from his grandfather who could wax lyrical for hours on the advantages of pack life. And Kiyo had to admit, one of the things he’d admired most about Clan MacLennan and its chief was that everyone within the pack was provided with a pack stipend. No one would ever go without in their pack.
Following Conall out onto the sidewalk, Kiyo caught sight of two men farther down the street, leaning against an apartment building, staring at them. Or at the car.
He stared defiantly back, emitting as much alpha energy as he could and watched in satisfaction as the two men not only averted their gaze but hurried away in the opposite direction.
“You’d make quite the leader if you ever fancied creating your own pack,” Conall said.
He turned to find Conall watching him w
ith a glint of admiration. Kiyo cocked an eyebrow.
“Your energy,” Conall explained. “I didn’t expect it, and it almost took me to my knees.”
“But didn’t.”
The Scot grinned. “Not once I fought it off with my own.”
He gave him a distracted nod. “Where is Niamh?”
Conall’s smile disappeared. He lifted his chin toward the building behind him. The one with the mattresses and other used shit spilled out on its “lawn.” They hurried toward it and found the entrance system broken. The building door swung open easily.
“Up here,” Conall said in a low voice.
Kiyo had to admit, he was envious of Conall’s tracking ability. It guided them to an apartment door on the third floor. Kiyo knew it was accurate because he could smell Niamh. He smelled that spicy-sweet scent of hers in the tight, graffiti-covered stairwell, and it grew stronger the closer they got to the apartment.
Something like nervousness twisted his gut, which made as much sense as his anxiousness. Kiyo was never nervous or anxious.
What the hell was happening to him?
And what the hell was happening to Niamh?
His urgency and worry overpowered that twist in his gut, and he grabbed the door handle and yanked until it broke. He and Conall moved into the apartment at speed and came to an abrupt halt at what they found in the small space.
Kiyo stared at Niamh, vaguely aware of Conall closing the apartment door behind them.
Niamh was huddled in the corner of the sparsely furnished room, her arms tight around her knees. Her cheeks were pale and tear streaked, her eyes huge in her face and filled with the kind of grief and pain that cut through Kiyo like a katana.
“Kiyo.” Conall’s voice stopped him just before he moved to go to her.
He glanced back at the alpha. Conall gestured to the wall adjacent.
Kiyo followed his gaze and found a small blond woman. Her back was pressed against the wall, her own face saturated with fear. His eyes narrowed at the sight of the gold rings that encircled the blond’s wrists and ankles. He’d never seen anything like it. The rings were made from light. Golden light.
Fae magic.
His eyes flew to Niamh. “Who is she?”