Kiss of Vengeance (True Immortality 2)

“You can?”

“I can just … sense it.”

Sh

e nodded. “I haven’t slept in twenty-four hours.”

“You can sleep on the train. For now, coffee.” His brief weirdness gone, they waited silently until it was their time to order.

As they wandered away from the cart, coffees in hand, their voices lost in the cacophony of the train station, Rose asked, “Do you need coffee?”

“Like any being, we need rest to reboot our energy. Caffeine can work as a quick fix for that. We don’t need as much rest as werewolves and vamps, and certainly not as much as humans, but we do need it. Your powers are new within you, so you’ll still tire quickly, but within a few days, you’ll be at full strength and you’ll need less rest.”

She nodded. “So how does the whole magic thing work?”

“Our natural abilities are ours. They belong to us as magic belongs to us, for we’re made of it. Travel, speed, strength, telekinesis, mind control, camouflaging … all of that’s ours. We do tire using those abilities, but it takes more prolonged use to tire us than it would for humans. It’s different for witches and warlocks.” Fionn paused to sip his Americano. “To use magic they harness the energy from the world itself, and that comes with a price.”

“But how?”

“The warlocks who attacked us. Did you not see what happened to the trees they snapped the branches off?”

“No.”

“They began to die, Rose.” He paused in the middle of their wandering and Rose halted beside him. His expression was neutral, but Rose felt a welling of frustration and perhaps even sorrow inside her that did not originate from within her own emotions. “Their magic requires energy and they pull it from the natural world. A flower dies so a young witch can cast a glamour spell. Trees die so warlocks can turn the branches into weapons. Animals die so items can be used to trace the person it belongs to.”

Something awful twisted inside Rose’s gut, and she understood the frustration and sadness Fionn hid beneath his calm facade. “And what was required to die to put you into a deep sleep and then reawaken you? What needed to die to cast the spell that blocked my power?”

“The latter? Most likely animals. Usually lambs.”

Rose winced. “The sacrificial lamb.”

“Exactly. They represent purity and new beginnings. They offer a great amount of energy for a spell. A witch or warlock who intends the least harm will pull from plants, vegetation, and animals only when they must. A user of dark magic or a desperate practitioner of magic will use people.”

“Surely not?”

Fionn nodded, grim faced, and then he began to walk again. Rose hurried to keep up with his long-legged pace. “There are councils,” he continued, “that keep them in check. Bring dark-magic users to justice. But they can be corrupt. The Blackwoods are on the North American Council and although it cannot be proven, I know they use dark magic. They used it to bring me back just as the druids used it to send me into slumber for over a millennium. Nothing else would have sufficed.”

“They sacrificed a human?”

He glared straight ahead as they stepped onto a moving walkway. “Five girls, representing north, south, east, west, and center, offered themselves up in sacrifice to the druids to put me to sleep.”

Holy crap. “You’re kidding.”

“Five was a sacred number to the druids. The girls believed their spirits would be rewarded in death.”

“They allowed girls to die for you even though they hated what you’d become?”

“The sacrifice was to honor the king I’d once been,” he replied, and there was no hiding the bitterness in his tone this time.

Rose flinched inwardly. He’d sacrificed everything for his people, and they’d betrayed him for it. “And to wake you up?” Her question was almost a whisper.

“As I had unwillingly been put to sleep, they killed an unwilling warlock to bring me back.”

She felt a muddle of strong emotion pouring out of him. “They bother you … even more than the fae. Witches, warlocks.”

He looked down at her, his countenance hard. “Make no mistake, Rose; the fae are infinitely more dangerous than a mere witch or warlock. And let’s face it, witches and warlocks do not differ from ordinary humans who have sacrificed much in the pursuit of power.”

Rose frowned as they stepped off the walkway. “If you disdain humans so much, why try to save them from the fae?” She walked fast to keep up with him. “Fionn?”

He halted below the departure and arrival screens. “Because,” he said, his deep voice rumbling as he studied the screens, “the corrupt powers may influence this world, but they make up a percentile of a population of people, most of whom are good. The world has grown complicated.” He turned toward Rose, his expression so fierce it made her temperature rise. “So complicated, it’s hard for them to feel like they’re good. I see it. I see how lost they are. And I don’t know if they’ll ever find their way or if corruption will bring them down as it once did civilizations before them. But I have hope. I have a purpose. Without either, we’re nothing. Even if I’m wrong to hope, what choice do I have but to continue to do so?”

A sweeping, powerful feeling of admiration and longing that Rose had tried to keep minimized flooded her. How could she feel so much for someone she’d only met? It was ludicrous. And yet it was true.

Surprise flickered in the depths of Fionn’s green eyes, and she realized he’d seen something of what she was feeling in her expression.

He looked away, a muscle ticking his jaw. “The train will be here soon.” His tone was dismissive.

Deflated Rose turned from him.

It was unlike her to allow her emotions to overwhelm her. It was unlike her to attach feelings to strangers.

And Fionn was a stranger.

Even if he didn’t feel like one.

Even if he felt like that elusive something she’d been searching for her whole life.

Inwardly she scoffed at the stupidly romantic and naive notion. Fionn wasn’t here to sweep her off her feet like some moronic damsel in distress. He was here to teach her to protect herself.

Perhaps it was time she started taking that seriously because who she was meant she had to protect herself from everybody.

Even Fionn.

He wasn’t lying. He did have hope. He did have purpose.

Just not the noble kind Rose assumed he meant.

Something niggled at him as he pretended to study the departure screens. An uneasiness.

Guilt.

Not guilt, he snapped at that annoying whisper. Fionn didn’t feel guilt. It was just uncomfortable to sense Rose’s emotions and find admiration in them, to see her look at him with something akin to fucking hero worship.

And attraction. He’d felt that too and seen it in her eyes as she stared up at him after his manipulative speech, and he’d caught her staring at his mouth several times over the last few hours.

Heat pooled in his groin. He stubbornly refused to acknowledge the reaction.

“Fionn.” Her voice curled around him, tugging on him, and although he didn’t want to look at her, he found he had to.

Then he tensed at her tight, worried expression.

He opened his mouth to ask her what was wrong, and that’s when he became cognizant that his racing heart wasn’t because Rose wanted him. A tingle down his spine and dread in his gut accompanied the fast heart rate. His mouth tightened. “They’ve found us,” he gritted out, staring at the crowds.

She searched with him. “What am I looking for?”

“Don’t just use your eyes, Rose. Use your senses. That racing heart, the dread … it will intensify when you find the source of the danger.”

“Would they attack here? In public?”

“Many a supernatural fight has been explained away as human in nature.”

“So that would be a yes.”

Her dry tone made him smile despite himself. “That would be a yes. Come, we don’t want them to know where we’re going. We’ll lead them into the restroom to deal with them.

”

Rose followed him, keeping up despite her short stature. She was spry, fast, and a quick learner. All of this was good because he had no intention of seeing her dead before they arrived in Ireland. “I thought they could follow us anyway because they have my jacket?”

“Bran is taking care of that. For now, this is the last destination for these particular coven hunters.”

“Are we going to kill them?”

He caught her anxious expression. “If we have to.”

“Even so”—she looked up at him, determination blazing on her face—“let’s try not to.”

Impatience gnawed at him but his current strategy involved keeping her happy. “Fine.”

“Do you feel that?” she asked a few seconds later as they followed the signs for the restroom.

His pulse had escalated; he assumed that’s what she referred to. “They’re following us.” Fionn pushed Rose toward the men’s restroom and she barged inside ahead of him as he cut a quick glance over his shoulder.

He saw them.

A male and female. They were looking right at him.

Fionn disappeared inside the restroom after Rose who stared up at two humans glowering at her from the urinals. He closed in behind her, his upper body brushing the back of her head, and bent down to whisper in her ear, “Your thoughts are theirs. Like the telekinesis, communicate with your magic. Send the order into their minds and demand what you want. Tell them to leave.”

She’d stiffened against him, and he saw her flesh prickle with goose bumps where his breath fell upon it. Awareness shafted through him with hot suddenness and he stepped back.

“Do it. We don’t have time.”

“Then you do it.”

“Rose—”

She whirled around to glare at him. “I’m not ready to do that shit to anyone. Capisce?”

Capisce? What were they, the bloody Italian Mafia?