Bound by Forever (True Immortality 3)

Until last year when he arrived at an underground fight with his mate, Rose. Fionn hadn’t known she was his mate then, but Kiyo had understood Fionn was fighting his attraction to the woman. He’d come to the fight to take out his pent-up frustration on Kiyo, and in a moment before the fight, Fionn’s eyes had flashed gold.

He’d demanded Kiyo forget he’d seen it, and Kiyo had obliged.

But the origin stories had filled his mind. Stories of the fae and the gate, how it had been opened over two thousand years ago, and the fae’s interference with the humans on Faerie had brought about the creation of vampires and werewolves. The fae had been true immortals, beautiful, beguiling … and with eyes that flashed gold when their passions were high.

Fionn Mór was fae.

Of course, now Kiyo knew the whole story. Fionn had once been human. An ancient warrior king in what is now Ireland. He’d fought the fae as a human king and in punishment for killing a fae prince, the Faerie Queen, Aine, had enslaved Fionn. In return, his wife and children were spared. But Fionn lived on Faerie for several years as the queen’s consort. Before she’d decided to close the gate between worlds and send the supernaturals and humans back to Earth, she’d turned Fionn into fae to keep him with her.

However, he escaped. Upon his return to Ireland, his wife, now remarried to the new king, wanted to kill him for what he’d become. But in respect for the king he’d once been, Druids cast a sleeping curse over him and buried him in the earth instead. Personally, Kiyo thought that was worse than death.

In the early 1700s, the Blackwood Coven found Fionn. They were a powerful North American coven obsessed with reopening the gate to Faerie. It took them two years, but they eventually broke the Druid spell and woke Fionn. They thought he’d be the one to help them open the gate. The ancient Irishman had plans to do that but only to take revenge on Aine. He waited, as a few others of his time had, for the fruition of a spell that Aine had cast before she closed the gate. She’d prophesied the birth of seven fae children born to humans who would have the ability to open the gate between worlds.

Rose Kelly had been one of those fae.

Fionn found Rose and wanted to use her to open the gate. In a twist of fate, Rose turned out to be Fionn’s true mate. Now he was determined to protect her and to protect the gate from reopening. He knew what the fae could do to the human world. Aine knew. That’s why she’d closed the gate in the first place. But the twisted fae bitch couldn’t help herself from toying with the supernaturals and the humans by casting that goddamn spell.

There were only three fae-borne left.

The now-dead leader of The Garm, a supernatural group made of vamps and wolves, who were religiously against the opening of the gate, had killed three of the fae before his death. He’d died at the hands of the fourth who had been turned into a werewolf by her werewolf mate and was now no longer a person of interest to those who wanted to open the gate.

At the head of that group was the Blackwood Coven. They’d been focused on Rose for a while, but she was extraordinarily powerful, as was her mate. So, for now, they seemed to have abandoned her as prey. They were focused on one of the two fae left. The second was an unknown. Not even Fionn knew who the last fae-borne was.

But the first was lying on the old mattress in front of Kiyo.

Niamh Farren.

Fae-borne.

Hunted by many.

Protected by few.

One of those protectors had apparently been her human brother, Ronan. And Ronan had been killed by an Irish coven hunting Rose Kelly.

Since then, Niamh had lost all sense of self-protection. She used her powers in front of humans, bringing attention to herself from the supernatural world.

From the enemies who hunted her.

Kiyo was now one of her protectors. Fionn was paying him a lot of money to be.

Protecting Niamh from her enemies was one thing.

Protecting her from herself was a far greater challenge.2The smell of bleach tickled her nostrils.

It was quickly overwhelmed by the more pleasant scent of earth and … something else. Like aged ambergris and smoke.

Fear flooded her.

She knew that scent.

The werewolf.

Her vision had led her to a girl in a music venue in Moscow. It was a vision of the girl being raped and then murdered. When she’d spotted the girl, and a human was harassing her, she thought he was the one she had to deal with. Until the werewolf arrived on the scene.

Niamh kept her eyes closed tight, feeling something soft beneath her body.