“So you’ll kill me to get your vengeance?”
That goddamn muscle ticked in his jaw, his voice hoarse as he replied, “Do you really think I can kill you now, Rose?”
She scoffed. “I’m to believe you’ve reconsidered?”
“It seems the Fates have other plans for you and me.”
“Fuck the Fates.” Rose’s fury and betrayal tore through her as she focused on the thought of Gare d’Orléans, the city’s train station. “You’re dead to me, Fionn Mór. Come looking for me and I’ll make it so.”
Then he and the apartment vanished, and Rose was surrounded by people on their morning commute at the train station. No one even noticed her pop out of thin air. Tears and loneliness burned in her throat as she searched the station for schedules and stopped under a row of screens. She couldn’t stop shaking, trembling from head to toe. Nothing made sense. She had no idea where she was going.
She couldn’t go home to Maryland because that would put her parents in danger. God, Rose missed them more than ever. The only two people she could trust.
A face, a lovely one, framed by white-blond, fairy-princess hair floated across Rose’s mind.
Maybe there was someone else she could trust.
Fionn had said Niamh Farren was not to be trusted, but he’d said that planning to kill—
Rose felt a strong wave of nausea and searched for the restrooms. Not caring who saw, she traveled there, making a woman at the sinks gasp in fright at her sudden appearance. Dashing into an open stall, Rose slammed the door behind her and fell to her knees.
She sobbed as she threw up, wondering how she could have allowed herself to grow attached to the fucking fae who was planning to stab her through the heart.
An Breitheamh.
Shit, she should have stolen An Breitheamh.
Exhausted, Rose slumped against the stall and stared unseeingly at the opposite wall.
If Fionn didn’t want her to interact with Niamh, it was because he knew Niamh would reveal his deception. Niamh may or may not be trustworthy, but she was like Rose, and her only connection in this bizarre supernatural existence.
Other than Thea MacLennan. But Thea had changed to a wolf. What help would she be? Rose would only bring her back into a story she was lucky to escape from the first time.
Fuck.
Niamh Farren it was, then.
Rose pushed up to her feet and wiped a hand across her mouth, determination setting in. Fionn could trace her using the shit she’d left at the hotel. Although she wasn’t worried about facing him, being followed was an inconvenience. And once she did what she did next, the Irish bastard would definitely hunt her down. That didn’t scare her. Truthfully. There was so much rage inside her, Rose felt like she could obliterate him if she wanted to.
Bitter, furious, hurt, and dare she admit, heartbroken, Rose emitted so much ominous energy as she strode through the station that the humans gave her a wide berth.
Rose was no longer human.
It sunk in.
Despite the moral implications, she tried out the brain-muddle thing Fionn could do. Fueled by anger, she didn’t allow herself to feel anything about doing it. Instead, she asked at customer service what trains she needed to take to get to Zagreb, booked the tickets, and then focused all her magic on penetrating the woman’s mind.
She pictured herself handing over the correct change and demanded those thoughts transfer.
To her shock, the woman’s expression slackened and she reached out to take the invisible money, typed something into her computer that caused a cash register to pop open below, and then put nothing into it.
She printed off Rose’s tickets and handed them over. “Faites bon voyage.”
“Thanks.” Rose attempted not to feel guilty and failed miserably.
Focus on your rage.
So she did.
The first train would take her to Paris. From there she’d travel on to Stuttgart, Germany, then Munich, and then to Zagreb. Back to the beginning. The last place she’d encountered Niamh Farren.
But first, she needed something.
Now where would Fionn have hidden An Breitheamh?
Desperation.
It was a horrific feeling.
Fionn had always assumed he was desperate to open the gate to Faerie to fulfill his revenge.
However, he’d forgotten what true desperation was.
Desperation had been staring at his wife, standing next to the man she’d married while he’d been trapped on Faerie, ordering druids to curse Fionn with a fate worse than death. Desperation was wishing with every molecule of his being that her betrayal was a bad dream.
Desperation was seeing his children held back by others, grief suffusing their entire bodies as they watched their mother put down their beloved father. Desperation was knowing he might never hold his daughter in his arms again or talk with his boy as only father and son could, and frantically searching for a way to make sure all that wasn’t lost to him.
Desperation was not being able to save those five girls from themselves as they laid their bodies before the druids, offering up their life energy so they could cast the spell that would put Fionn down.
And desperation was the emotion currently overwhelming him as he sat in the apartment, alone, while Rose was out there, fleeing him.
This couldn’t be how it ended between them. Fionn wanted to find her, to convince her he no longer meant her harm, but he knew it was best he didn’t.
From the moment he’d closed his eyes beside her on that bed, knowing deep in his soul from the stories he’d heard on Faerie that something greater inextricably linked him and Rose, Fionn’s plans for revenge changed.
They no longer included Rose.
He’d find the other fae-borne.
Fionn remembered how it felt to kill Rose in the dream. It had felt so real. It had cut deeper than anything ever had in his long life, and Fionn had faced his share of tragedy and violation.
Rose would live.
He’d let her go. Even if it made him feel desperate.
A tingling sensation tickled down his spine seconds before Rose appeared in the doorway to the bedroom. “Ro—”
She disappeared and reappeared directly in front of him, his knees touching her thighs, her expression strangely blank.
“Rose?”
Too late. So distracted by his feelings for her, Fionn had no chance to react.
Rose’s blue eyes gleamed coldly as she touched his neck.
Everything went dark.
Blinking awake, Fionn stared up at the cracked ceiling, momentarily confused.
What the fuck had happened?
Rose!
Fionn flew to his feet, letting his senses take over. She wasn’t here.
But she’d come back for a reason.
Why?
It quickly dawned on him, and a guttural growl of disbelief and outrage ripped out of him. She wouldn’t!
Of course, she would. It was the only damn thing that would open the gate for him!
She’d ransacked the bedroom. Drawers and cupboards were thrown open, the safe in the wardrobe broken into. Tearing out of the bedroom and down the hall, he found the living area the same. Some kitchen cupboards had been torn off their hinges. Blood pounded in his ears as he blurred across the space to the cupboard where he’d hidden the dagger.
The silver box was gone.
The little vixen had taken advantage of his emotions, caught him off guard, knocked him out, and stolen his fucking dagger!
And wait. “Her things?”
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
A tornado through the apartment, Fionn discovered Rose had also wiped the apartment clean of any personal items.
Standing in the bathroom, chest heaving with frantic, short breaths, he glared around at the space. Then he caught sight of the opened bottle of complimentary coconut shampoo in the shower.
Exultant, relieved, he reached out and snatched the shampoo bottle in his hand. Once opened and used, i.e., claimed, that shampoo was now a personal item.