by S. Young
“It wasn’t my mission. You took advantage of me when I was at my weakest.”
“I don’t see it that way.”
“Of course you don’t.”
“But I’m sorry if you feel I did something to betray you. That was never my intention. You’re my sister.”
“We’re not sisters,” Niamh hissed, energy crackling angrily around her.
Astra smirked. “There she is. Buried beneath that placid persona is my furious, raging, powerful sibling.”
Niamh immediately calmed.
Astra laughed. “But there’s that self-control of yours I loathe.”
“You can’t change me,” Niamh warned her. “I am who I am, and I know I’m on the right side. You can’t make me help you open the gate. I will fight you every step of the way. You’ll never get me close to that gate.”
Astra gave her a small, smug, knowing smile. “I thought so too. I mean, I don’t need you willing, but with you so focused on your pet wolf, it would be very hard to get you where I need you to be. However … I had a vision. It turns out Kiyo is going to be very useful to me, after all.”
Worry burned through Niamh. Despite how hurt she was, her first instinct was still to protect the bastard.
“Haven’t you wondered?” Astra leaned forward again, her gaze filled with scorn. “Why you feel such a deep, abiding connection to the dirty lupine? I know you have, Niamh.”
Her pulse raced as suspicions she’d kept buried fluttered to the fore.
Astra nodded, expression smug. “Yes, you have. Because you know the signs. And he wouldn’t be able to share your visions unless you shared an incredible bond. The only reason you’ve discarded the idea is because you can’t sense his feelings nor he yours.”
Her adrenaline kicked into high gear. “How do you know all that?”
“My vision helped me understand quite a bit.”
Before Niamh could respond, the familiar scent of earth and smoke caught her attention.
Astra grinned triumphantly. “Perfect timing.”
No!
Niamh glanced behind her, fear filling her at the sight of Kiyo hurrying toward them, his angry gaze focused on Astra. Niamh knew when he recognized Astra from the vision they’d shared because he began to run.
No! Kiyo, no! She pushed up from her chair to stop him, but a blur moved past her, kicking her hair around her face.
And suddenly Kiyo was struggling as Astra held him in her viselike grip. Niamh flew at them, not caring if any humans witnessed their strange interaction.
“Stop!” Astra shouted, raising a syringe over Kiyo’s chest. Niamh skidded to a halt.
Kiyo’s shoulder jerked, as if he was preparing to fight, but quite abruptly, there was a crack and he went limp in Astra’s arms. It was a strange sight—an elegantly built woman, holding a tall, muscled, unconscious male like he weighed nothing.
Niamh’s palms were slick with sweat as she stared at Kiyo’s broken neck. Rage rushed through her. She moved, ready to rip Astra’s head off, when the fae lifted the syringe.
“Ah, ah,” she warned.
Niamh’s eyes narrowed on the silver liquid inside it.
“Do you know what my vision was about, Niamh?”
She shook her head, baring her teeth at the fae bitch.
“It was about what happens to a fae when the most important bond in her life is snapped and taken from her.” Astra smiled sweetly. “It’s enough to make even the lightest soul welcome in the shadows.”
Understanding dawned too late.
Niamh rushed at the fae, screaming her outrage, but the syringe had already been plunged into Kiyo’s heart.
And then Astra was gone.
Kiyo sprawled unconscious in the middle of the park as onlookers watched on in confusion and fear.
Niamh fell hard at Kiyo’s side and pulled up his shirt. Silvery veins had already begun to spread from his heart.
She tried not to panic.
Kiyo was immortal.
He already told her he couldn’t die.
Sensing humans crowding in, Niamh lifted his unconscious body into her arms, pretending to struggle.
“Do you need help?” a young Japanese woman asked in English.
Niamh shook her head, pushing past people to get Kiyo into the restaurant. She ignored the shouted protests from those around her and dragged him all the way into the restroom.
A wide-eyed woman let out a gasp of shock as Niamh hauled Kiyo into a stall.
His head lolled horribly on his neck as she shut the stall door behind them.
Holding him tight, Niamh thought of the hotel.
After a moment of disorienting darkness, she opened her eyes to find them in their hotel room.
Kiyo swayed in her arms and she lifted him with ease.
Lying him down on the bed, Niamh stepped back on shaking legs to study him.
He looked like he was merely sleeping.
“Kiyo,” she whispered. “Why did you come back?”
Creeping forward again, she lifted his shirt to take another look.
The silver veins had lengthened. The spot around his heart was inflamed.
He couldn’t die.
He was immortal.
Astra didn’t know that.
He couldn’t die.
Niamh studied the scar across his belly.
Silver could hurt him. It had left a permanent mark.
What the hell would the silver do to his insides?
25
Niamh had never conjured anything as far away as Kiyo’s cell phone. Her whole body shook with exertion as she concentrated.
Fifteen minutes later, her hair and clothes damp with sweat, the cell finally popped onto the bathroom counter in front of her. Weary to her bones, Niamh had no time to celebrate. Instead she dialed Bran’s number and relayed to him what had happened.
“Isn’t the moon still in phase?” Bran asked, his tone far too casual for Niamh’s liking.
“Yes,” she snapped. “What of it?”
“Werewolves’ healing abilities are accelerated when they’re in wolf form. As soon as he changes tonight, the transformation will dissolve the silver in his blood. It has to. All my research on Kiyo tells me there is nothing on this planet that can kill him.”
In the end, it was Bran’s calm certainty that reassured Niamh. She thanked him and hung up after he told her to keep him posted on Kiyo’s status.
Niamh strode out of the bathroom and almost swayed into the door frame. She’d overexerted herself. If she’d practiced her powers half as much as Astra had, she’d be able to do all the things she’d done in the last twenty-four hours without it affecting her.
A groan drew her out of her self-recrimination.
“Kiyo.” She hurried over to the bed just as he opened his eyes.
After a moment of disorientation, he let out a grunt of pain and clutched his chest. As he pulled at his shirt to have a look, Niamh explained, “It was Astra. She injected you with silver. Right into your heart. I can only assume this was her chosen method to draw out your death for as long as possible.”
A sheen of perspiration coated Kiyo’s skin. He looked haggard and pale as he turned his head to her.
“I’m sorry.” Her hands hovered over his body uncertainly. “I wasn’t fast enough to stop her. But Bran reckons when you change tonight, your wolf will heal you.”
His face strained with a sudden shock of pain, his eyes squeezing shut as he grimaced.
Powerlessness swamped her. “Kiyo.”
Kiyo shook his head. “Don’t,” he gasped. “Not your fault. Argh!” He clutched at his chest.
“What can I do?” she asked, frantic.
His eyes shot open. “Bran … right,” he hissed. “Fuck … change will heal …” He gasped for breath, the misery in his gaze undoing her.
Tears burned in her throat.
“Knock me out,” he groaned, flinching either with pain or broken pride. “Until tonight.”
; Wet escaped her eyes as she pressed her fingertips to his carotid and sent a flare of magic inside to squeeze it.
His body went limp.
Before she could give in to the panic slithering from the pit of her stomach, Kiyo’s cell rang. Hurrying into the bathroom, she saw Bran’s name on the screen.
“Yes?” she answered.
“Niamh?” It wasn’t Bran. It was Fionn.
“Yes, it’s me. Can you help?”
“That’s why I’m calling. I think Bran is right and the transformation will probably heal Kiyo, but is there anything I can do in the meantime?”
A sob swelled out of her, but she choked it down.
Fionn must have heard it anyway. “I can come to you. Rose will have to stay behind, but I can come to you if you need me.”
The offer made her feel less alone, but she doubted Fionn could get there before the full moon. There was nothing to be done but wait.
Yet something occurred to her. “You know things I don’t about our magic.”
“Yes …”
“I’ve had to knock Kiyo out. He asked me to. The pain was too much.”
Knowing it had to be an incredible amount of pain for Kiyo to ask that, Fionn cursed in old Irish.
“I’ll have to continually hit his carotid to keep him knocked out until the change, unless you know a way for me to keep him in a stasis of some kind?”
Rose’s mate was quiet a moment before finally replying, “You can hold him in that moment of unconsciousness by creating a cocoon around him with your magic. Pour your emotions, your want for him to be pain-free, into it. It should hold him within for as long you want.”
Feeling more useful, Niamh thanked him.
“Niamh, who is this woman?”
Knowing it was time to warn Fionn and Rose, she told him about Astra and her vision. About how she had the ability to use her mind manipulation against Rose and Elijah if they weren’t prepared.
“But we can still stop her?” Fionn asked once she’d finished.
“You know all futures are possible. And she wouldn’t be going to these lengths with Kiyo if I wasn’t destined for another path.”
Fionn considered that and then asked gently, “Does Kiyo know?”
“No,” she choked out, knowing what he was asking. Perceptive bastard. “And I doubt he’d want any part of it, even if he did.”
“That’s not how it works, a leanbh.” His tone was gentle with a tenderness that surprised her. And although Niamh couldn’t remember as much Irish as she should, she was pretty sure he’d just called her “my child.”
She frowned. She was the same age as Rose.
“Tell him. Once he knows, you’ll only be stronger together against Astra.”
She ignored the thought because the hope of it hurt too much. “That castle of yours,” Niamh replied. “The one with the spell that hides and protects it from the world.”
“You know about that?”
“I know about a lot of things. Take Rose there, Fionn. Until this is over. Astra can’t get her hands on all three of us.”
“What about this man, the last of the fae-borne?”
“I was hoping a vision would come telling me how to help him.” She laughed bitterly. “But look what happened the last time I followed a vision. I came to Tokyo because my instincts told me I needed to be here to protect Kiyo. And look what I’ve done to him.”
“Your visions are never wrong, Niamh. Kiyo will survive this, and you’ll figure out why you’re there.”
She had to believe he was correct.
Otherwise she was completely lost.
“Okay,” she agreed. “Okay.” She looked up to stare at her wan complexion in the mirror.
“Remember who you are, Niamh.”
He was right.
She needed to remember who she was.
“Look after Rose,” she demanded.
There was a smile in his voice when he promised he would.
“Remember, the only limitations to your magic are the ones you place upon it. Call if you need me, a leanbh.” He hung up.
The silence in the bathroom seemed palpable without Fionn’s reassuring voice echoing off the tiles.
“Remember who you are, Nee,” Ronan whispered in her mind.
Leaning toward her reflection, Niamh placed her hand on the mirror. Energy pulsed from her and she watched as the reddish-brown hair that reminded her too much of Astra dissolved in a shimmer of pale blond.
Strangely, her skin glowed again, and a renewed strength filled her.
It wasn’t about returning to her natural blond. She threw back her shoulders.
It was about returning to herself.
Marching out of the bathroom and straight to the bed, Niamh lifted her hands over Kiyo’s body, closed her eyes, and imagined her energy surrounding him, cocooning him in warm sleep where no pain could touch him. The air glittered like the sun on her skin until the process felt complete in her mind.
She opened her eyes and stepped back in wonder at the sight of Kiyo looking peaceful beneath a barrier that shimmered gold and pulsed with vitality.
His strained features had smoothed in his sleep, assuring her he no longer felt pain.
Satisfied, Niamh rounded the bed and climbed onto the other side to lie with him.
There was nothing to be done now but wait until sunset.
“Astra, you evil cow,” she said hoarsely, “if anything happens to him, I’ll drive an iron blade straight through your black heart.”
Time crawled.
Just when Niamh was sure the day would never come to an end, the sun began to set. She knew it was time.
Releasing Kiyo from the magical stasis, she sat up on the bed and watched him struggling into consciousness. He did it with a start, his eyes flying open, stark with pain, as he clutched at his chest.
Niamh reached for him, brushing his hair off his damp forehead. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” she tried to reassure him.
His eyes flew to her, somewhat panicked. “Niamh?”
“The moon is about to rise. The change will heal you.”
Kiyo’s face flooded with remorse and he gasped out, “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
He tried to grab hold of her other hand but his coordination was totally off. Niamh reached for him instead, still petting his hair. “Try to lie still.” There was silver near his throat.
The veins had climbed right up his torso.
Panic prodded her.
She fought it back.
“What I did,” he choked out. “What I said. The lodge.”
Realizing he was apologizing for his behavior, Niamh shook her head. “You can say sorry later when you’re in your right mind.”
“I am …” He winced, hissing. “Oh fuck … Niamh … I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” She pressed a kiss to his temple. “Shh, it’s okay.”
Kiyo squeezed her hand so tight it was almost painful, but she endured it as she held him to her while they waited for the moon to rise.
Fear soon swamped Niamh as moonbeams flooded the dark hotel room with light.
And Kiyo didn’t change.
“What’s happening?” she asked.
Kiyo had settled somewhat, seeming to suffer the pain without shuddering and jerking as much. “The silver … affecting … change.”
She cursed under her breath.
He needed to bloody transform.
“Argh!” he suddenly roared in agony, bolting upward on the bed, ripping himself from her. His arm snapped the wrong way but then snapped back into place.
“What’s happening?” Niamh cried.
Growls ripped from the depths of his belly and he lurched onto all fours. Cracks rent the air as his limbs broke as if to change but then broke back into human form.
“Kiyo.” Her hands hovered near him. She was desperate to touch him, to help.
Claws protracted from his fingers, long and sharp and black and deadly, and he bellowed
as he tore his shirt from his body.
How Niamh thought to protect their privacy during such a terrifying moment, she’d never know, but she sent out a flare of magic around the hotel room to soundproof it. “Kiyo.” She rushed at him, staring in horror at the silver veins pulsing beneath his skin, all over his torso like tree branches. They reached up toward his throat and down his shoulders, stopping just before his biceps. She placed a hand on his sweat-slicked shoulder and he roared in outrage and swiped at her.
Niamh startled, falling off the bed.
His eyes widened in horror. “Niamh.”
“I’m okay.”
Snarls and grunts fell from his mouth as his jaw elongated, his mouth filling with sharp teeth. Niamh rushed toward him, and he held up a warning hand just as his spine snapped.
“Kiyo!”
“No!” he yelled, eyes wide with terror. “Go! I’m not …” He panted for breath. “I’m not in control.” To her shock, tears wet his eyes. “I could kill you. Please. Go.”
The thought of leaving him like this broke her. Tears spilled down her cheeks. He couldn’t kill her. Not being what he was to her.
But he could bite and change her.
And he’d eventually be lost to her.
Niamh considered it, thinking it might be worth it to stay, to comfort him.
Kiyo saw her indecision and roared as his legs snapped. He clutched the bedcovers, ripping them to shreds with his claws. “LEAVE!”
Niamh sobbed. “I can’t!”
Horror filled his eyes. “Please,” he begged.
And she saw it. The possibility of hurting her was unbearable to him.
He didn’t know he couldn’t kill her and being here was making this worse for him.
“Okay,” she nodded, swiping at her tears. “Okay.”
She traveled.
But only into the locked bathroom.
Sliding down to the cold tile floor, Niamh pressed her ear to the door and cried quietly as she was forced to hide and do nothing while Kiyo endured an entire night of torturous torment. She sat hoping, hoping to the depths of her soul, that the stunted transformation would eventually heal him.
26