He rounded her and glanced from one man to the other. Without saying a word, he ordered them to zip up and get out. As they fled, he kicked in all the stall doors to make sure no one else was inside the room.
“Get behind me,” he ordered.
“Like hell.” Rose widened her stance beside him, facing the door. “I want to fight.”
The words were barely out of her mouth when the restroom door blew open and the witch and warlock strode inside. Energy crackled around them.
“There’s nothing natural in here for them to use,” Rose said, fisting her hands at her side.
“It need not be in here. If they use magic as a weapon, they draw that power from the nearest tree or animal outside.”
“There’s no use teaching her our ways, warlock,” the witch said, throwing her red hair over her shoulder with an arrogant smirk as the restroom door banged shut behind her and her companion. “She won’t be around long enough to use the information.”
Good. They still didn’t know what he was.
“What did you say?” Rose stepped toward the witch.
Fionn felt a stirring of pride inside him at her courage and forced himself to stand back to see what she could do. It wasn’t easy for him.
The warlock stepped forward. “No time for conversation. Rose O’Connor, you’ve been tried and sentenced to death by the high court of the O’Connor Coven of Dublin. I, Ethan Mulhern, Dark Witch Hunter of the O’Connor Coven, will serve as your executioner. Do you have any last words before I carry your sentence through?”
Fionn almost rolled his eyes. You always got one who had to act to the letter of tradition.
Rose looked back at Fionn and gestured with her thumb at the warlock. “Is this guy for real?”
Amusement tickled his lips.
Rose grinned at him and he felt her lovely smile as a physical thing. “I guess I do have something to say, then.” She turned to the hunters. “Want to help me practice?”
The chuckle escaped Fionn just as the tingling of magic intensified in the air.
“Uisce, uisce!” the redhead chanted. In answer, water blasted out of the tap of the nearest sink, flew at Rose, and encircled her head like a bubble.
“Anthea!” Ethan snapped at his companion.
She held up her hands, magic surging from them as she held the water in place over Rose, trying to suffocate her. “We don’t have time for tradition. Do it.”
Fionn’s instincts were to kill the witch but if Rose was to survive, she needed to learn to fight back. It took every ounce of self-restraint not to intervene.
At first Rose clawed at the water, her fingers slipping through the liquid and making no purchase. The water couldn’t kill her but it could distract her long enough—
He tasted the metallic tang of iron in the air and saw Ethan unleash a pure iron blade from a small scabbard. It glinted silvery gray in the light.
“Rose!” Fionn yelled, warning her. “The water can’t kill you but that blade can!”
Immediately she stilled, panic receding as he watched her realize that human frailties were no longer hers. For twenty-four years, she’d been conditioned to understand that she could drown.
But fae couldn’t drown. Their bodies healed from oxygen deprivation. That didn’t mean it wasn’t damn uncomfortable.
The blade whipped through the air toward her, and the bubble of water burst at the same time she held up a hand against the dagger.
Blood rushed in Fionn’s ears.
A millisecond before it would have pierced Rose’s palm, the dagger changed direction and sliced through the air and into the warlock’s throat. He made a gurgling, choking noise as he fell to his knees, his hands hovering over the blade.
“Ethan!” Anthea cried, face reddening with grief and fury. Her dark eyes blazed at Rose.
Rose was transfixed by the sight of the dying warlock and unaware of Anthea’s gathering vengeance sparking at her fingertips.
Fuck.
Fionn was a blur of movement across the room as he grabbed the witch’s head between his hands and snapped her neck.
It took less than two seconds to kill her. She slumped lifelessly to the floor just as Ethan fell to his back, his eyes fluttering closed. Silence descended over the restroom.
Fionn stepped over the witch toward Rose, whose attention had moved to the female.
“What did you do?” her voice was hoarse.
“Broke her neck.”
She managed a nod before she dove into the nearest stall and heaved over the toilet bowl.
He waited for impatience and disdain to flicker through him.
It didn’t.
Instead, he fought the urge to go to Rose and press a comforting hand on her shoulder.
The first kill was the worst. He’d made his when he was thirteen, but he’d been born into a violent time. It was different for Rose, who belonged to a society that did all it could to preserve life. Sometime in the future, her mind would let go of the idea it was human, and thus her body would stop reacting as such. Throwing up would be a thing of the past.
For now, as she emptied the contents of her stomach, Fionn lowered to his haunches beside the dead witch and warlock. He laid a hand on each of their legs. Despite their deaths, their skin cells still carried oxygen, still lived. Unlike the warlocks he’d killed in the woods, whose bodies would be taken care of by the O’Connor Coven before the public could find them, these two would have to be disposed of.
Anything dead was devoid of energy, a mere husk. A husk could be broken down to dust.
It could take up to twenty-four hours for the human body to decompose.
They didn’t have twenty-four hours.
“What are you doing?” Rose asked, her voice hoarse.
He glanced over his shoulder at her. She stood by the stall door, pale but alert.
“We can’t leave them here.”
“What will we do?”
Fionn turned back to the bodies. “Filleadh ar an talamh.” He stood and watched as the bodies crumbled to dust.
Rose huffed. “What …”
“A spell.” He turned to her.
“Is that all it takes?” she whispered. “A few words?”
“We need not use words as commands for magic, but witches and warlocks do. For years, I’ve covered my tracks as fae by pretending to be a warlock. Using words to cast spells has become something of a habit.” He studied her carefully. “Are you all right?”
Anger, defensiveness, guilt all blazed from her as she bristled at the question. “His blind condemnation got him killed.”
“True. But that wasn’t my question.”
“I just killed a guy so no, I’m not all right. But I will be. Won’t I?”
Fionn studied her carefully. “How do you feel about your powers now?”
She lifted her hands to stare at them with a mix of horror and awe. “They saved me.” Her fierceness echoed through him. “I saved me.”
Something like pride filled him. “Right answer. You’ll be all right, Rose Kelly.” He would never refer to her as Rose O’Connor again. The bastards didn’t deserve her.
“I killed him, Fionn.” She lowered her hands, devastation promptly obliterating the awe.
A feeling akin to sympathy flickered through him, taking him by surprise. He cleared his throat of the emotion and replied coldly, “It was self-defense. Say it.”
She swallowed. Hard. “It … it was self-defense.”
“Again. Louder.”
“It was self-defense.” Rose glared at him.
“Good. It won’t make it easier. Killing someone is never easy, Rose, and the first time you’re able to walk away from it without feeling that death mark your soul means you’re losing your soul.” He nodded at her.
“Do you feel each death mark your soul? Even after all these centuries?”
Pain he kept locked down tight shuddered from within the emotional cage he’d created to contain it. “Every single one,” he
promised.
And Rose’s death would be the last and deepest mark upon his soul. Aine’s would come after Rose’s, and Fionn knew that the Faerie Queen’s murder would not make a mark upon him.
The day Aine died would be the day Fionn lost his soul.
Thus, the day Aine died would be the day Fionn followed her and Rose into the dark abyss of death.