He remembered Niamh mentioning she’d played matchmaker to not just Rose and Fionn but Thea too. “So I have to go to Scotland and get him to track Niamh using this item of hers?”
“Yup.”
“Wouldn’t it be faster to just call Fionn and get his ass back here?”
“He’s really, really far away.”
“How far?” Kiyo snapped.
“Like Oceania far.”
Dammit. “What the hell is he doing out there ?”
“Living his fucking life, wolf, all right? He didn’t know you were going to be so incompetent you’d lose the luscious Niamh in the first seventy-two hours.”
“You better hope you and I never meet, vamp.”
“Because I’m calling you a failure or because I think your charge is delicious?” He drawled the word delicious like he was imagining sinking his fangs into Niamh’s throat.
Kiyo held the phone away from him, afraid he’d crush the thing in an effort to ram his fist down the line and crush Bran’s windpipe.
“You still there?”
A growl rumbled from deep in his belly. “You’re straining my patience.”
“So I can hear. All right, then. Conall lives in a place in the Highlands called Torridon. We’re going to get Stephen to fly you to Inverness, which isn’t far. I’ll have Conall meet you there. I’ll call Stephen to let him know the change of plans, but you better get your arse to the airport now.”
Kiyo hung up to do just that.
He found the Honda Bran had left for them outside the hotel. As he drove toward the airport, he tried not to dwell on how angry he was. Not just at Niamh.
He was furious with himself.
Because something told him he could have prevented her taking off.
That didn’t mean he wasn’t still raging at the fae.
“She better have a good excuse,” Kiyo muttered.
And more than that … if anything happened to her …
If the Blackwoods or The Garm got to her first—
Don’t think about it.
He’d reach her first.
The alternative wasn’t an option.9“It isn’t the nicest place we’ve stayed, but it’ll do.” Ronan flopped down on the L-shaped sofa, his arms spread across the back of it.
The apartment in the center of Munich was somewhat deceiving. It didn’t look like much from the outside, but the inside was ultramodern and chic. Whenever they came to a new city, depending on the circumstances, they usually looked up all the places to rent and found the nicest to take over while it sat empty. They were squatters, basically. Sometimes, though, Ronan was in the mood to be looked after, so they stayed in luxury hotels to enjoy the perks of room service.
“How long will we be here?”
“Long enough to see what’s wrong with Rose.”
“I miss Rome.” He glowered at her.
He didn’t miss Rome. He missed the married Italian woman he was shagging every night. But Niamh had been overcome by the need to be in Munich. She wouldn’t take no for an answer, no matter Ronan’s reticence. She’d told him she’d go alone. But no matter how much he grumbled about it, Ronan wouldn’t let her out of his sight.
So they flew to Munich and within five minutes of landing, Niamh got a vision of Rose Kelly.
She would be at the train station tomorrow, and she needed Niamh’s help.
“You know how I feel about you spending time with these people. It’s one thing to set them on the right path, another to be in their company for more than a few minutes. It’s too dangerous.”
Her brother wasn’t wrong, but Niamh couldn’t turn her back on Rose. Unlike most of the others, Niamh had been born with the knowledge of who they were and even had snippets of the fae history buried in her consciousness. Worse, she’d had visions of alternative versions of the future depending on the decisions certain key players made.
The other fae-borne, all but one, had walked around blind, fumbling to find their way in a human-dominated world, confused by their strange abilities. When three fae-borne were hunted and killed by Eirik before Niamh could get to them, two of them didn’t even know what they were.
It was Niamh’s duty to try to save the others. She’d succeeded with Thea Quinn, now MacLennan. And she’d succeed with Rose, no matter what.
“Are you even listening to me?”
Niamh turned and looked down at her brother. “I need to do this.”
His expression darkened. “I need to be in Rome.”
“I told you to stay.”
“You know that’s not an option.” Something dark flickered in his countenance. “Everything I do is for you. I gave up my life in Ireland for you. I’m not going to let you wander alone now, am I, after all that?”
This life suited Ronan. She knew it did. He liked not being tied down anywhere. Liked the money and the travel and the unknown. He could protest until he was blue in the face, but she knew her brother didn’t care about leaving Ireland. He just liked to remind her that she owed him.