Bound by Forever (True Immortality 3)

“I have a low opinion of anything that tries to control me.”

“That’s a funny way to look at love.”

Apparently done with the conversation, Kiyo moved to get out of the car.

Niamh grabbed his arm to stop him, and he cut her a bored, questioning look.

Feeling a strange tingling sensation running up her arms from her fingertips, she released her grip. “I just need you to know I’m not messing you about, taking you somewhere you don’t want to go for the hell of it. I’m sorry if I’ve upset you.”

His beautiful upper lip curled into that irritating sneer of his. “I don’t get upset.”

She grinned, mostly just to annoy him. “Well, you do a wonderful impersonation of it, then.”

The wolf’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly on her smile. “Please tell me you’re not one of those ‘I can make sunshine and roses out of piles of shit and pools of blood’ kind of people?”

Niamh chuckled and pushed open the passenger-side door but she didn’t answer him.

Her lack of response to his curtness seemed to perturb him. He grabbed their bags out of the back and handed over hers. His eyes scoured her face, as if he couldn’t quite figure her out.

They separated inside the twenty-four-hour gas station to their respective restrooms. Despite lingering weariness, Niamh’s mind turned over and over at the recent developments. Kiyo’s anger at returning to Tokyo only validated the vision. And he was angry. He was good at hiding how much, but Niamh sensed it. It pulsed beneath his skin. There was something important there, though not just to the werewolf but to her, and possibly others. It was maybe even about the bigger picture. The rest of the vision certainly had been.

For weeks she’d wanted her visions to have a coherent direction and mission. Like the visions before when she was trying to save the other fae-borne.

Well, wish granted. The visions had returned to the fae-borne.

And now Niamh bloody wished they hadn’t.

Despite her turmoil, or perhaps because of it, as Niamh changed into dry clothes, she imagined Kiyo changing in the men’s restroom. Heat bloomed on her cheeks, and other places on her body tingled in delight at the thought. When he’d come rushing out of those trees naked and wounded from defending her, she wasn’t going to lie—a very deep thrill moved through her.

The werewolf might be a brooding pain in the ass who’d tried to coerce her into accepting his guardianship, but all that beautiful fawn skin wrapped around taut muscle made him very fun to look at. Granted, she was somewhat wary that he was powerful enough to remove someone’s head from their body with his bare hands.

Also he moved faster than other wolves. He’d caught her completely off guard back at the club. And only someone fast and powerful could have taken down five members of The Garm by himself.

The airport was only forty minutes west in the light, early-morning traffic. They were both tense, on guard for The Garm in case they’d sent more than one unit after her. Once they abandoned the car in a parking lot, they strode determinedly toward departures.

“Why are you doing this?” Niamh asked as they reached the entrance.

“Doing what?”

“Acting as my bodyguard. I mean, a fairly terrible one who breaks my neck and all, but … yeah, for lack of a better word, my bodyguard.”

“Terrible?” he asked in his bored tone. “I saved your life. I wouldn’t call that being bad at my job. And that’s why: It’s a job I’m being paid to do. Extremely well paid.”

“There’s more to it than that. Someone who is secretly seething underneath at the thought of going to Tokyo wouldn’t go, not even for money.”

With a sigh of irritation, he gripped her arm and pulled her toward the airline desks. “It’s called an unbreakable contract. Basically, a spell. If I fail to protect you, the spell brings me to Fionn. He’s promised retribution.”

Niamh’s brow puckered. “Why on earth would you sign up for that?”

“Because I was bored.” He gave her a hard smirk. “Believe me, I’m regretting it.”

“Why?” she said. “Nothing about the last twenty-four hours has been boring, has it?”

Then she saw it … a definite twitch of his lips and a slight glitter of amusement in his eyes.

Something swelled in her chest at the sight, and she found herself grinning like a moron. “Thought not.”

“Shut up,” he said gruffly. “And let’s book this flight.”

Having the ability to make humans see what she wanted was one of Niamh’s less honorable tricks, but it had come in very handy over the years. She changed the name on Kiyo’s passport, which was currently Ryan Green.

“Very imaginative,” she muttered dryly.

He really could cut the most delightfully dirty looks.

And she presented a piece of paper that the desk staff would see as a passport.