Frowning, Niamh glanced down. Her white T-shirt was plastered to her skin, leaving very little to the imagination. And now that she was aware of it, her skinny jeans were soaked through and rasping like sandpaper against her legs.
Kiyo was in much the same condition. His T-shirt delineated the powerful muscle she’d seen in the woods back in Moscow. She remembered his nakedness and the scar on his belly. At one point someone had come at him with silver.
She noted a slight tremor move through him. A shiver.
The wolf was cold.
It occurred to Niamh that it was February on a Swedish island, and they’d just been in a sea that was probably subzero. The ground beneath was crisp with frost and sparkled in the sunlight. Werewolves ran hot, but they still felt the chill.
She walked toward him, and his whole body locked with tension. Niamh reached out a hand to touch him and his snapped up in reflex. He grabbed her wrist, holding her away from him. “What the hell are you doing?”
A needle of hurt stung near her heart.
He still didn’t trust her.
Was it because he didn’t trust anyone … or because she was fae?
“I was going to use my magic to dry your clothes.” Niamh tugged on his hold but his grip tightened. “Let me go.”
His dark eyes searched hers, the suspicion fading to bemusement. Slowly Kiyo uncurled his hand from her wrist. “Fine.”
Feeling less charitable toward him than she had been a minute ago, Niamh hesitated.
The wolf cocked his head, contemplating her. “Did I hurt you?”
For a moment, she panicked he could see right through her. Then she realized he meant her wrist. Niamh gave him a somewhat mocking smile. “It takes a lot to hurt me.” Reaching out, she placed a tentative hand on his shoulder and poured her energy into drying the clothes on his body and also into his skin to warm him up.
“Why do I think that’s not true?” Kiyo’s question was almost a whisper.
Her eyes lifted to his as her energy moved through him. “What?”
“You said it takes a lot to hurt you. I doubt that somehow.”
Seeing his clothes were now dry, she wrenched her hand away. “Because I’m soft, you mean? Soft and weak.” Refusing to meet his gaze, Niamh strode past him, her clothes drying as she used the same magic on herself. “I meant physically. It takes a lot to hurt me physically.”
The werewolf moved to catch up with her. “I meant what I said on the plane. You’ll survive longer if you start thinking about your own survival over others. Emotion is weakness.”
A pang of sympathy cut through her. “Oh, Kiyo, what happened to you to make you think such a thing?”
His expression darkened at the sight of her pity. “Don’t condescend. I’m old enough to be—”
Suspicion lit through Niamh at his abrupt silence. What had he been about to give away? “I don’t care if you’re older than me.” She skirted the now-intriguing subject of his age. “It doesn’t mean you know better. And if you think emotion makes a person weak, then you’re greatly mistaken. Emotion makes you strong.”
“It causes you to think irrationally, to make mistakes.”
“Maybe,” she agreed. “But it’s also what fires you. What is the point in any of this without emotion?” She gestured around them, indicating their very existence. “Whether it’s passion, lust, love, anger, vengeance, compassion, ambition, determination … emotion gives us reason to live. If you don’t have that, what’s the point?”
“Okay, I’ll concede to that. But there is such a thing as too much emotion. You care too much. You grieve for strangers and put yourself in danger for them without knowing if they’d ever do the same for you. And, news flash, ninety-nine percent of them wouldn’t.”
She heard the angry edge in his voice and it soothed her. Kiyo might like to think he was emotionless, but he was an opinionated son of a bitch and he was genuinely irritated by her putting her life in danger for others. Because it made his job harder or because he cared what happened to her? Niamh would like to think it was the latter, but it was probably the former. After all, they’d known each other all of forty-eight hours.
“It’s who I am.” She cut him an apologetic smile. “I care about people.”
“Even when they don’t deserve it?”
She considered this just as they reached the man-made road. It had two lanes and led right into the woods ahead. They walked along the side of it toward the trees. “Most people deserve to be cared about. The man back at the airport in Moscow … he didn’t. He was evil, in my book. Missing a conscience. It’s not his fault he was born that way, but it was his fault he gave into the darkness. So, no, people like him don’t deserve it.”