Bound by Forever (True Immortality 3)

“Take him down but try not to kill him,” Sakura commanded.

Kiyo assumed she was talking to Daiki and Haruto, but the air shimmered across the room in front of him and the feeling of magic prickled his skin.

Fifteen werewolves, male and female, appeared out of thin air, standing in a row between him and Sakura. Some carried silver blades.

They lunged at him.

Kiyo was faster than any of them. He moved as a blur and was able to take five down by breaking their necks before he felt the first blow across the back of his head. He used the momentum from the hit and fell forward in a shoulder roll, grabbing up the silver katana one of the downed wolves had been carrying. Springing to his feet, he turned to face ten members of Sakura’s pack.

The first was easy. The male came at him without a weapon, and Kiyo slashed the katana across his gut, low near his groin, and the wolf fell to the ground howling in pain. The next had a sword, and Kiyo had to defend with his katana while kicking out behind him as other wolves tried to approach.

A moan of anguish from Niamh made its way to him through the grunts and clangs of the fight, and his impatience became a well of strength. He kicked out with a roar at the male in front of him, sending him and the three wolves behind him soaring across the basement. He lunged at the nearest female, dodged the air around her as she slashed out at him with a silver knife, and spun around to punch a hole through her back. Tearing her heart out, Kiyo held it as he scowled in warning at the rest of the wolves.

They’d momentarily frozen, shocked by the death because until now, he’d just been incapacitating them.

“You still will not kill him,” Sakura’s voice echoed around the room. “But take him down. I grow impatient.”

Kiyo was a cyclone, a tornado of vengeance. Within seconds, four more wolves lay on the ground without their hearts.

Snarls of outrage filled the basement and the remaining wolves launched themselves at him in unadulterated fury. They closed in on him, giving him little room to move as fists and feet hammered into his body. One snapped his wrist and the katana slipped from his grasp.

A burn scored up his back and then down his hip as two of them slashed him with silver. Ignoring the pain, Kiyo unleashed his claws and spun, feeling their clothes and skin tear, the impact juddering up his arms.

As they fell back, wounded, Kiyo found a way out of their circle.

It was more expedient to snap their necks. He took out three in seconds but as he approached the last, she turned, blood dripping from her chest where his claws had raked her. Fire blazed up Kiyo’s neck as she swung a katana at his throat, connecting. Despite Sakura’s orders, her intention had been to decapitate him. The curse binding him in immortality rebounded on the blade, and it shattered.

Terror flooded her expression as she realized the extent of his invincibility. Something flickered inside him, a soft feeling he’d blame his mate for, and it stopped him from killing the wolf. Instead he snapped her neck. As her body crumpled atop one of her downed comrades, Kiyo touched the cut on his neck and hissed.

Blood was leaking from several areas of his body.

Silver poisoning the wounds.

He was bruised and battered.

Covered in sweat and dust from the disused basement.

But there was still enough fight in him to take down a fucking army.

And he was going to kill Sakura for this.

“Impressive,” she said, walking toward him. “It was a test, and you passed. What would it take to stop you? Twenty, thirty, fifty werewolves? Oh wait … I know.” Sakura lifted her arm and something gold winked in the light as it unraveled from her hand.

It was a necklace.

Kiyo halted in utter shock.

Dangling from the end of the chain was Mizuki’s jade pendant, the stone shaped like a water droplet.

“Hai.” Sakura smirked, slipping the necklace over her head. “Before you think about killing us to get to her, think again. Or I will smash this jade to pieces and we will watch you crumble to dust.”

How the hell did she know?

Sakura took a few steps toward him. His wounds seemed to hurt more the longer Niamh had to lie there with the iron inside her. He wished she’d speak to him in his mind. Assure him she was okay.

Sakura snapped her fingers. “Look at me. Not her.”

Revulsion rolled through him. “All of this because you and I fucked three decades ago.”

Daiki snarled behind her. Kiyo cut the puppet of a wolf a murderous look.

“How arrogant to think this is about that.” Sakura shook her head, sighing dramatically. “Oh, I admit that I was obsessed with you for a while. Kept track of you on your adventures out in the world, hoping you would come back to me.”