by S. Young
Niamh nodded, disbelief making her dizzy.
“And that these visions felt different?”
Yes. Aggressive and insistent and like they want me to feel something rather than relay information like the others. Oh my God. Realization caused a wave of nausea. Kiyo was right.
“She’s been pushing you for months, and then I arrived and tried to talk you out of it—”
“So she pulled out the big guns: Meghan O’Connor.”
“And it didn’t work. So she sent you another vision at the airport.”
“Where I could feel her following me.” Niamh nodded as it all began to make sense, the kind of sense that sat right with her, finally. Despite the awful realization that she’d been manipulated, relief also filled her. Now that she knew, she could take back control. She was at the airport, trying to push me to kill the child abuser.
“It’s possible, right?”
No, Kiyo. It’s not possible. It’s what’s been happening. These visions never really felt like my true visions. I couldn’t put my finger on why, and I was too distracted by my pain to stop and think. She grabbed his arm. It’s Astra. She’s been using my grief against me. Her grip on him tightened. “Thank you. Thank you, Kiyo.”
He looked somewhat uncomfortable with her gratitude, but he nodded. “So, what’s next?”
“I think she knew,” Niamh said. “Perhaps she saw that you would help me. My guard is up now because of you.” Concern slammed through her fast and hard. “You’re a threat, Kiyo. You’re a threat to her plans. That’s why you’re in my real visions. What the hell is in Tokyo that can hurt you?”
Kiyo pulled away from her, his elbows resting on his knees. “Why can’t you see what she’s after? Why were you blind to the fact that I might be able to help you? Why didn’t you see me coming?”
I don’t know. Maybe because you never intended me danger. I don’t get visions about things that directly affect me personally, unless I’m in danger and I can’t see my own future.
He looked away, seeming to process this.
Kiyo?
A muscle ticked in his jaw. “I’m not aware of anything that can harm me. I was cursed with immortality by someone who knew that eternity would be a form of hell for me.”
At this confession, Niamh ached for him. She hated that he found immortality such an awful prospect. It reminded her of Thea and how she’d felt about the possibility of forever, alone as one of the fae.
“No one is invincible in the human world, Kiyo.” Niamh tentatively touched his arm this time. True immortality only exists on Faerie.
His head bent toward her, his eyes hard as he whispered, “I’ve had everything imaginable happen to me over the last century and a half. Trust me, nothing can kill me. You saw what happened when the dagger pierced my heart.”
Trust me, Kiyo, she replied. You’re not invincible, and there’s something in Tokyo to prove it. She may not know about it now, but Astra will learn of it. That’s what my vision, this real vision, is warning me about. We have to go to Tokyo to protect you. She curled her hand around his arm and felt longing ripple through her as he glanced down at where she held him. But the longing felt foreign … it wasn’t her longing. It was his. His for her.
It couldn’t be.
Only true mates could sense each other’s feelings, and Niamh knew that happened between them from the moment they met.
She shook off the bizarre sensation, putting it down to her crush on him.
Ironic, she joked, trying to ease the sudden tension. Fionn hires you to protect me and yet it seems by merely getting involved in this crazy faerie story, I’ll have to protect you instead.
Kiyo looked decidedly unimpressed with her teasing, pulling back his upper lip to snarl under his breath.
Niamh laughed, if only to cover that his snarl caused a rush of sexy, tingly feelings low and deep in her belly and between her legs.
Damn the wolf for distracting her so badly when they were in the middle of a bloody war.
16
What was around two o’clock in the morning for them was nine in the morning in Tokyo.
Jet lag didn’t affect Kiyo, but he wished he’d had more sleep before landing at Narita International.
Almost three decades had passed since the last time he was in Tokyo, and the events of his last visit meant he was on high alert as he led Niamh through the airport.
“Bran booked us into the Natsukashii in Chūō City. I don’t know what it’s like,” he said, “but if it’s too conspicuous, I’ll move us somewhere else.”
“Conspicuous?”
“If it’s a luxury hotel.” He frowned. “I know you like nice hotels, but we’re trying to stay under the radar.”
Niamh scowled at him. “I can live without luxury, believe me.”
At her clipped tone, Kiyo dragged his eyes away and continued following the signs for the express train at the airport.
It was amazing what a few hours could do.
Suffice it to say, Kiyo had not liked the sudden vulnerability he felt when he realized what he’d divulged to Niamh. He could see how much his words had helped her, and so he was satisfied. He wouldn’t regret telling her about his mother.
But there was an air of connection between them that was worse than any attraction he felt.
And Kiyo needed to nip it in the bud.
After returning to his own suite, he’d feigned sleep so he wouldn’t have to talk to her. Upon waking, he’d been monosyllabic in reply to her perky chatter. There was an aura around her that hadn’t been there before. A lightness. As if the knowledge of this Astra bitch’s manipulation had taken a weight off her shoulders.
When the flight attendant offered them a Japanese bento box for their breakfast, Niamh’s friendly prattle and delight over the traditional meal should have been annoying. It wasn’t.
“I can’t make the chopsticks work.” She practically pouted. She who could conjure nearly anything on the planet.
Trying to suppress a smirk, Kiyo leaned into her suite and gestured for her to lift her hand with the chopsticks. He took one from her. “Hold the upper chopstick like a pencil,” he instructed, “about a third of the way from the top. Got it?”
He proceeded to show her how to use the eating utensils, ignoring her beaming smile all the while. Niamh had gripped noodles from the bento box with her chopsticks and managed to use them with an ease that made her laugh in triumph. “Arigatō.”
Kiyo had raised an eyebrow at her use of Japanese and her decent pronunciation. His expression had caused her to laugh again.
“It’s the only word I know.”
Something about the exchange on top of their earlier cozy, soul-bearing conversation made him clam up.
At first, Niamh, sensing something was wrong, had asked him about it. His cool, clipped responses had caused her to withdraw. Kiyo knew putting distance between them was absolutely the right thing to do when he realized he felt guilty for hurting her feelings.
Kiyo was not a guy who felt guilty for hurting anyone’s feelings.
Thankfully, Niamh had gone from upset to pissed.
He could handle that better.
“Where are we going?” She hurried to keep up with his long strides.
Kiyo flicked her another look.
Earlier, when she’d returned from the plane’s restroom, he’d had to do a double take. Instead of the jeans and T-shirt he was used to seeing her in, she was dressed as she had been in the many surveillance photos Bran had sent him. Her hair fell down her back in braids and loose curls, and she wore a dress the color of fall leaves. It was fitted tightly to her upper body and had long sleeves but the skirt was loose and floated around her ankles. She wore a pair of flat, brown leather boots, dangling feather earrings, and a ring on nearly every finger, each one a different moonstone.
Kiyo was simple when it came to women. He preferred no guessing games; he liked them confident and sexy and only interested in casual encounters. That’s why his
tastes usually veered toward women who dressed in clothes that left little to the imagination.
Yet, something about Niamh’s ethereal femininity sparked a heat in him he didn’t understand.
He didn’t want to understand.
So instead of asking her about the fashion change or where she got all the shit she was wearing, he ignored her.
“Kiyo,” she huffed impatiently. “Where are we going?”
“Express train. It’ll take us about an hour to get into the city from here.” He slowed to a stop in front of a large route map. Studying it a second, he relayed, “We can get shinkansen at Shin-Nihombashi.”
“Shinkansen?”
“Bullet train.”
Excitement fluttered in her words and she seemed to forget she was annoyed with him. “Ooh, I’ve always wanted to go on one of those. Is it true they travel at two hundred miles per hour?”
She sounded like a kid at Christmas. His lips twitched as he began to walk again. “At their top speed. We won’t hit that. Shinkansen will get us to Chūō City in only two minutes.”
“Two minutes? Wow. Something that moves as fast as me. Who knew.”
He would not be charmed by her.
He wasn’t charmed by anything.
Soulless bastards were immune to charm.
“Oh my goodness, is that a vending machine with noodles in it?” she asked.
He followed her gaze to a bank of vending machines adjacent to food stalls. “You choose what dish you want, pay, it gives you a ticket, and you take it over to the food stall.”
Niamh nodded, still wide-eyed. “What does the vending machine with the umbrella mean?”
“Just what it says. You can buy an umbrella from it.”
“No way!” She slowed to a stop. “Can I get one?”
It was hard not to smile. In fact, he lost the fight entirely as he turned to her. “You want an umbrella? You, with all the magic?”
Niamh grinned. “I’ve never had an umbrella from a vending machine before.” Her eyes flew back to it and then caught on another. “Oh my God, there’s a banana vending machine!”
A chuckle escaped him before he could stop it, and her eyes flew back to his in surprise. He took a step toward her. “We might get to where we’re going faster if I tell you that there are vending machines all over Japan and they have pretty much everything in them. Now, can we go?” he asked gently.
Niamh threw the umbrella vending machine one last longing look before she hurried to follow him. “Who needs magic in Japan?”
To his eternal gratitude, Niamh was too busy watching the country pass by to talk to him on the express. She disarmed him, making it difficult to be cool and distant with her. On the train, however, he’d given her the window seat. She took in the soft green countryside, tinged with the paleness of mild winter. This express train took the more scenic route, nature eventually melting away to city as they entered Inzai. Niamh leaned closer to the window as she took in the sight of the city in the distance.
“There are no English signs anywhere.” She turned to him at one point.
He frowned in query.
“All the signs are in Japanese.”
Kiyo smirked. “Shouldn’t they be?”
She blushed. “Of course, it’s just … somehow it’s more disorienting in a language that’s so unfamiliar.”
“Don’t worry. The Japanese love to practice their English. You’ll get by. Plus, you have me.”
She gave him an irritatingly unhappy look and turned back to watch the world fly by.
He didn’t want to think about what that look meant. He didn’t want to think about much, but between telling Niamh his mother’s story and being back in Tokyo, memories and nostalgia threatened to pull him under.
While it had been almost thirty years since he’d returned to Tokyo, it had only been a few years since he’d visited Japan. For a nomad, Kiyo was willing to admit, at least to himself, that he liked to touch base with his homeland often. Perhaps it was because when he moved to the States at the end of the nineteenth century, he did not return to Japan until the 1970s. It was only then he’d realized how much he’d missed it.
Tokyo had become a no-go zone because he’d pissed off some very powerful people there, which was one of the reasons he needed an inconspicuous place to stay. But that didn’t stop Kiyo from traveling elsewhere. The one place he’d never returned to was Osaka. Instead, over the decades, he’d developed a fondness for Kyoto. The city on the island of Honshu had kept much of its tradition, even as it developed into a modern city. Moreover, it was surrounded by the bounty of Japan’s natural beauty, and on the full moon, there was no better place for Kiyo to roam freely. He owned a home in the mountains just so he could.
He wished like hell Niamh’s vision had taken them to Kyoto and not Tokyo. The full moon was in three days. He’d have to travel to the mountains to make the change and avoid his enemies at the same time.
Drifting back to the world from his thoughts and memories, Kiyo was startled to realize they were approaching their station. He’d sat in silence with Niamh the entire hour. Her expression was remote as he relayed it was their stop.
“The station will be packed.” He gripped her by the biceps as they descended from the express train. “Stick with me.”
Although she felt tense beneath his touch, she didn’t resist as he guided her through the crowded station, following the signs for the bullet train to Chūō City. He glanced at Niamh as he led them through the station. Her face was full of wonder and curiosity as she drank in every inch of their surroundings. For someone who knew of the supernatural underworld, of Faerie, who had powers beyond any human’s imagination, who had seen visions of the worst atrocities humans and supernaturals could commit, Niamh Farren had “the wonder.”
She was a person of immense mental and emotional strength to have the knowledge she had and yet still be able to find beauty and newness in the world.
So busy looking at her, Kiyo bumped into someone, a businessman who snapped at him in Japanese. The impact brought Niamh’s eyes to his, and somehow he found himself drowning in her.
“What is it?” she asked softly in that lilting Irish accent.
No human could have heard her over the din of the station.
“Nothing,” he lied, and forced his gaze forward again.
At the platform for the bullet train, he released Niamh’s arm and stared stonily up at the departure information.
“What does it say?”
“Our train will be here in a few minutes.”
Seconds later a bullet train whizzed past them on the opposite platform.
“Wow!” Niamh nudged him, seeming to forget she was irritated. “Is that how fast I am?”
Humor bubbled on his lips but he kept it under control. “You’re probably faster.”
“Really?” She considered this and then grinned, pleased. “I guess I’m kind of epic.”
“I guess you kind of are.”
Something must have slipped in his tone because her answering look was much warmer than any of her expressions had been since the plane. The urge to lean in and kiss her lush mouth was suddenly overwhelming. He’d been fighting it for days, and he was tired of resisting.
Kiyo definitely needed to get laid.
But it wouldn’t be with Niamh.
The woman was far too dangerous.
Niamh’s eyebrows furrowed and her attention flew back toward the platform behind them.
A warning shiver skated down his spine. “What is it?” he echoed her words from before.
Before she could speak, their train appeared, slowing to a stop at the platform. Niamh moved toward it, shooting a troubled glance over her shoulder.
“Niamh?”
“Get on the train.” Her voice was cool, authoritative.
Kiyo followed but Niamh didn’t move away from the doors. She stared out at the platform as people boarded.
“Niamh?” He searched the crowds, too, as his i
mpatience with her evasiveness grew.
“I sense danger.”
Eyes narrowing on the platform, it was just as the doors were closing that he saw three men rush through the commuters toward them. His eyes connected with one of the males who bared his teeth in fury as the train moved away.
Daiki.
Kiyo sighed heavily. “Yeah, we have a problem.”
“Other than the ninety-nine problems we already had?”
He looked down at her scowling, pretty face. “I told you I haven’t been to Tokyo in a while.”
“Yes?”
“The last time I was here … I pissed off the largest werewolf pack in Japan.” He glared out the doors as the world passed by at high speed. Inside the train, however, they didn’t even feel it. The train seemed to glide. Kiyo wished it would glide them right off the damn continent.
“You pissed off the largest werewolf pack in Japan, how many years ago?”
“Twenty-five, twenty-six.”
“And they’re still pissed about it?”
“Apparently. One of those men is an alpha. High ranking in the pack.” Kiyo inwardly groaned at the thought of the pack’s current alpha. She wasn’t alpha back when Kiyo knew her, but her uncle had died and she’d won the right to lead the pack by being the fastest, strongest bitch in Eastern Asia.
Clearly, she was also still pissed.
Women. They had memories like elephants.
“It must have been really bad what you did to them.”
“No. They just know how to hold a grudge.”
Niamh shook her head in irritation as the train slowed into their station. “I hope you’re happy.”
“About what?”
“Because of you, my first trip on a bullet train was utterly ruined.” The doors opened and she hopped off the train with a haughty sniff of annoyance.
Kiyo might have found it cute if she hadn’t just stumbled into a fucking ambush.
17
Too late, all the hair on Niamh’s body rose as she stood on the metro station platform. Pulse racing, her eyes flew to the source of the danger. A line of great big hulking men and athletic women guarded the exit. Passengers approached them warily, skittering by when they opened their guard to let them through.