Kiss of Vengeance (True Immortality 2)

Hmm.

The whole nonhuman thing, despite her abilities, would take a while to process. She wasn’t sure she ever would fully process it—until everyone she knew aged while she remained the same. According to Fionn, that was already happening. She’d stagnated somewhere around her twenty-second birthday.

Panic constricted Rose’s breathing. Immortality sounded great and all, but it would be excruciating to watch her parents die. They would only be the beginning. Any connections she made in the human world, she’d eventually grieve. This whole fae shit was fucking with the natural order of things.

Putting morbid thoughts aside, Rose strolled out of the bathroom and halted upon finding a backpack and shopping bags on the bed.

Inside the bags, she discovered two new pairs of black skinny jeans that fit her to perfection, a slim-fit hooded sweater, two T-shirts, three sets of lacy underwear, socks, toiletries, and a hairbrush. Clearly the backpack was so she could carry all this stuff with her when they left.

Rose veered between being moved by Fionn’s thoughtfulness and the discomfort that he’d paid for all of it. The clothes were designer, the fabric soft, and weirdly exact to her taste. However, since her clothes were in desperate need of a wash, she’d decided not to snub the gesture.

She pulled on the demure but still sexy underwear before she paired her new jeans with a black cotton T-shirt with a retro motel print on the chest. The word “Paco” caught her attention, and she checked the label before she pulled it on. It was a Paco Rabanne shirt.

The jeans were by Citizens of Humanity.

Holy shit. Fionn did not mess around with apparel.

After blow-drying her hair, Rose was pleased to find some makeup in the bag with all her new toiletries. Again, high-end makeup.

“Where did it all come from?” she asked Fionn as soon as they met in the hotel lobby.

He’d arriving dressed in something other than a suit—black trousers and a black, slim-cut sweater that did wonderful things for his shoulders and arms. Everyone in the lobby watched him approach her, and Rose had to force herself to close her mouth so she didn’t look like a gaping groupie.

“I had Bran hire a personal shopper for our arrival.”

“How did you know my measurements?”

He held the hotel entrance open for her. “I’ve been around a long time, Rose. I know women’s bodies.”

That matter-of-fact response should have been annoying.

Instead, it gave her all kinds of tingles. She’d bet her powers that Fionn Mór knew how to satisfy a woman in bed.

Throwing that dangerous thought away, Rose replied, “Well, aren’t we a little obvious? We’re staying in a three-star hotel dressed in designer gear. It doesn’t add up.”

“Are you complaining about the hotel?”

“Fionn, I’ve lived in crappy apartments for years. This hotel is a luxury in comparison. That wasn’t my point and you know it.”

“We can’t stay in a five-star. We’d draw too much attention there. But I refuse to wear anything but the best.” He cut her a look, something like self-deprecation in his eyes. “I’ve been used to the best for a long time, whether lying my head to rest on a bed of furs or wearing bespoke suits from Savile Row.” He shrugged. “I won’t apologize for enjoying fine things.”

“I’m not asking you to. But I’m not sure I’m comfortable with you buying me $300 jeans.”

“Well, it was that or leave you to stink.”

She scowled. “I wasn’t that bad. Hey, where are we going?”

“Dinner. I’m hungry. After that, we will train.”

“And while we’re eating, will you be explaining what it is we’re here to steal back?”

He shook his head. “Too many ears. I’ll explain while we train.”

Dinner was a strangely comfortable affair at a nice restaurant less than a block from La Sagrada Familia. They spoke little other than for Fionn to ask how Rose was doing after the conversation with her parents.

He’d slept on the train the rest of the way to Dijon, and then Rose had fallen asleep on the train to Montpellier. A little more rested, they’d chatted on the train to Barcelona about her life in Maryland and she’d made a game out of how Fionn ably deflected personal questions.

Apparently, his sharing time was over.

It was frustrating and challenging trying to get him to divulge anything else about himself.

Now it was midevening in Barcelona and she followed Fionn for two blocks before she realized he was walking them in circles back toward La Sagrada Familia.

“What are you doing?” she asked as she shrugged into her jacket against the evening breeze.

“Losing any possible tails.”

“If we were being followed, wouldn’t we sense it?”

“I’m just taking precautions.”

“Well, while you’re at it, tell me about Bran.”

Fionn frowned down at her. “What about Bran?”

“How do you know him?”

He shrugged. “We met at an underground fight back in 1946. Bran was turned overseas. Ireland may have remained neutral in the war but thousands of Irish soldiers fought with the Allied forces against the Nazis. The war was ending, Bran was readying to return home. A vampire attacked him upon his arrival in France. He’d been out drinking, celebrating. She seduced him and then she turned him. Her name was Marielle.

“He was only twenty-one.”

“Bran had a difficult time coming to terms with what he was. He couldn’t return to his family or the girl he’d left behind, and it didn’t help that Marielle, bored with her new vampire lover, abandoned him in London. That’s where Bran and I met. He was angry and wanted an outlet, so he heard of the fights and came to take a beating. Which he did.”

“Underground fights?”

“Places for vamps and werewolves to take that natural aggression they don’t want pouring out around humans. They beat the living daylights out of each other with it instead.”

Rose shook her head in disbelief. “I’ll never understand men.”

“Men?” He smirked. “You’ll find all genders at an underground fight. It’s nothing to do with gender. It’s about a place to vent frustrations without hurting humans.”

“You do this too?” She wondered if fighting helped Fionn vent the anger he must still carry toward the Faerie Queen and the people who’d betrayed him.

“I do. I pose as a vampire.”

“How? You don’t have fangs.”

“I have magic.” He shot her a dry look. “And the ability to make people think I have fangs. It doesn’t always work. Vampires can sense each other, as can werewolves. The ones who looked closely enough at me could sense something was off. And then there are your more intuitive supes who can tell the difference between each kind of magic. The former and the latter have assumed in the past I’m a cheating warlock.”

“Is that how Bran found out the truth?”

“Bran was in over his head at the fights. Too young. Too inexperienced and truthfully, not aggressive enough, even for a vampire.” Rose thought she detected affection in his voice. “Bran’s a lover, not a fighter. Despite being forced into war as a boy.”

“He’s your friend.”

Fionn scowled, hesitated, and nodded. “He’s my only friend.”

Empathy ached through Rose. “I’m not very good at friendship.”

He drew to a halt outside the closed entrance to La Sagrada Familia. “For friendship to grow, trust must develop. With Bran, I didn’t tell him the truth until thirty years after we first met. The vampire is a genius, a curious one, a born researcher, and he’d developed an impressive network of contacts over the years. We met for lunch in Moscow in 1979 and he told me he knew what I was. It occurred to me that instead of killing him, perhaps I should trust him since it would have benefited him more to keep this knowledge to himself.

“Trust is hard for me. It didn’t come naturally. However, Bran was determined to be an asset to me, to

have purpose, and he was interested in my mission: waiting for the fae children to be born. It took years of loyalty, but he’s now the only being in the world I fully trust.

“You can trust him too, Rose.” Fionn’s expression was deadly serious. “If anything should happen to me, go to Bran.”

Her stomach flipped unpleasantly at the thought of anything happening to Fionn. “Nothing will happen to you. I won’t let it.” Her grin was flirtatious. “After all, I’d hate to be deprived of my daily dose of eye candy.”

Fionn’s shoulders relaxed a little and he rolled his eyes. “Stop flirting with me, Rose.”

The eye rolling only made her want to flirt with him more.

As if he sensed this, he sighed in exasperation and strode past her to gesture up at the church. They stood in front of wrought iron gates that guarded the steps up to the entrance. Construction cranes towered between and above the unusual church spires. “It’s time to train.”

Rose stared up at the building. The basilica was incomplete, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t astounding. Gaudí’s design of the Roman Catholic church was like something out of a sci-fi alien flick. Rose glanced from the astonishing architecture to Fionn. “Here?”

“We won’t be interrupted by supernaturals here. They tend to avoid religious places.”

“You mean vampires hating crosses is a real thing?”

Fionn shook his head. “No. Please do not think of fighting a vampire with a cross.” He examined the building. “Many young supernaturals, including witches and warlocks, feel physically discombobulated on hallowed ground. There are a few theories as to why. Mine is that faith en masse creates energy—in a way, its own sort of magic. That energy is strongest in places like churches. I believe it’s an antithesis to the energy supes are created from, the energy witches and warlocks tap into, and that’s why it makes them feel physically discomfited.”

Genuinely intrigued, Rose studied the building. “Why do you think it’s an antithesis?”