Bound by Forever (True Immortality 3)

Niamh flinched inwardly every time she thought of Thea. Not one of the fae-borne had escaped tragedy, but Thea had been brutally tortured at the hands of a madman.

Her mission back then had been to protect Thea from him, but her visions had revealed that Conall was actually Thea’s true mate and that their joining would save Thea, and them all, in the long run. She’d tried to convince Thea to trust Conall without giving away why. She’d done the same for Rose and Fionn. It worked for both couples. Thea, however, was stabbed in the heart with an iron knife, and Conall bit her to change her into a wolf to save her life. Because they were mated, it worked, and now Thea was safe from this madness, this war for the gate to Faerie.

For a while, Niamh had been concerned for Thea because she seemed intent on finding her. Thea’s determination was born out of a sense loyalty Niamh reciprocated. But she’d stopped having visions of Thea coming for her, so she reckoned someone had finally convinced the newly turned wolf to stay put in Scotland. To stay safe there.

Thank goodness.

Memories of her new vision, the one with the standing stones, came at her, causing her heart to pound.

Niamh couldn’t believe what she’d seen was true.

“People will have witnessed the plane come down. The authorities will be all over this beach soon.”

Niamh looked at Kiyo. He’d said this to her over his shoulder as he led the way up the rock face. He didn’t offer her help but she assumed that was because she didn’t need it. She had the balance of a tightrope walker. Better, even.

“We’ll need transport,” she replied.

“I would call Bran to see if he has any contacts here, but everything we had was on that plane, including my cell.”

Including all her cash. “We’ll need to steal a car.”

She could tell by the tension in his shoulders he didn’t like that idea. The wolf was a contradiction. He was quite willing to kill if necessary and had probably been hired to do just that many times. But he thought stealing beneath him.

When you lived your life on the run, sometimes you had to sacrifice what little honor you had. Grimacing at the reminder of all the immoral crap she’d pulled over the years, Niamh followed the werewolf up onto solid ground and gaped.

Stretching before them was a frost-covered plain and beyond that, trees. Lots and lots of trees.

“Where the hell are we?”

Kiyo scowled and scanned their surroundings. His eyes narrowed on something in the distance to their right. He pointed. “That’s a road.” His finger followed the flash of bright concrete in amongst the frost-dulled green. “And it goes right into those woods.” He turned to her. “We follow that road but keep to the trees.”

“And you think this is definitely Sweden?”

He nodded. “When I checked the map on the flight, we were heading toward the south of the Baltic Sea.”

“But doesn’t that mean we could be in any one of the countries with coasts along the southern end of the Baltic Sea?”

“No. We traveled west.”

Niamh frowned. “How do you know that?”

His expression was shuttered as he strode toward the road in the distance. “I have an excellent sense of direction.”

“Is that a wolf thing?”

He shrugged. “Not that I’m aware of.”

That now-familiar burn of irritation flared in Niamh’s chest. She knew Kiyo could be like Conall, an extraordinarily powerful alpha with his own quirky gift. But her gut instinct told her there was something more here. How did he and Fionn know one another? And why was Fionn so sure that Kiyo was the one supernatural on earth powerful enough to protect a fae? Niamh was stronger, faster, and almost unkillable. Yes, she could be overpowered by too many people at once and was absolutely screwed if they used iron on her, just as Kiyo had proved. Strength in numbers helped.

But that didn’t explain why Fionn chose this guy of all supes to send as her bodyguard.

And it was bugging the crap out of her that she’d received a wishy-washy vision about him that told her nothing except that Tokyo was important.

She thought of that moment on the plane, when he’d wanted her to share her recent vision and Niamh had held his hand. She’d allowed herself to be vulnerable because, for a moment, she’d felt an inexplicable connection with him.

Kiyo had rejected her. Niamh reckoned he’d tried to be as nice as someone like him could be, but he’d still rejected her need for comfort. And in the end, he hadn’t been very nice about it at all.

“Who are you really, Kiyo?”

He stopped mid stride and turned to look back at her. His expression had been blank until his gaze dropped down her body and his eyes narrowed.