Bound by Forever (True Immortality 3)

He hadn’t known a fae could blush. He found he enjoyed the notion. A smirk tickled Kiyo’s lips, but he didn’t respond. Instead he marched back into the woods. “We need to move.”

Her light, crunching footsteps sounded behind him as she hurried to follow. “What about shoes?”

Finally feeling the cold seep into his feet, he shrugged. “My boots are in here. We’ll find them. Then go. The sooner we get the hell out of Moscow, the better.”

“I guess I’m stuck with you, then.”

“I guess so.”

“About the getting out of Moscow part …”

If she was about to argue about that, Kiyo would lose his patience. He didn’t have much of it to begin with.

“I know where we need to go next. That’s what my vision was about.”

In all the fighting, he’d almost forgotten about the vision. He glanced at her. She was so tall, they were nearly on eye level. “Oh?”

“Tokyo. We need to go to Tokyo.”

Shock hit him first.

Then anger.

Because surely this fae woman was totally and utterly yanking his fucking chain.4Although Niamh was grateful the werewolf had come to her rescue, ultimately that wasn’t why she’d decided to stick with him.

Part of her vision had been about him. His name had tickled her mind as images of Tokyo came at her. The mountain was Mount Fuji so the garden must be in Tokyo … and it all had to do with Kiyo.

Unable to return to either her hotel or Kiyo’s apartment, Niamh had used her steadily building strength to conjure a backpack Kiyo had described that was in the dingy flat. It had his passport and a change of clothes inside it.

Niamh conjured the emergency bag she kept ready to go in her hotel.

“So this vision … it’s about me, right?” he asked as he reluctantly drove toward the airport. “That’s why you want to go to Tokyo and all of a sudden, you want me to come with you.”

She sighed, knowing it was too obvious to hide the truth. “Yeah. There’s something there about you, and it’s important. I don’t know what. My visions don’t work like that. They come in waves … almost like chapters in a story. Each chapter provides a little more information and usually it happens the closer I get to my destination or quarry.”

“Tell me what you saw.”

Niamh remained stubbornly silent. She didn’t know why this new flood of information in her vision included Kiyo, but she knew she didn’t trust him enough to confide in him. About any of it.

“Are you kidding?” His voice was worryingly calm and low.

Glancing at him, their eyes met as he took his off the road to glower at her. She wondered what his smile was like.

“Seriously? You want me to haul my ass back to a city I haven’t been to—” He cut off abruptly.

Interesting. “You haven’t been to …?”

“You tell me nothing, I tell you nothing.”

“Can you really blame me?” Her tone was conciliatory. Niamh wasn’t the type to be at loggerheads with someone. It wasn’t in her nature. And it seemed she was stuck with the werewolf for a while. “Think about it from my perspective. You kidnapped me using the only weapon on earth I’m vulnerable to. For a start, not many folks know what I am or what can hurt me, so you’re immediately in my ‘be wary of’ category.

“Plus, when I came out of my vision, there were dead bodies everywhere, hearts ripped out, and one of them was decapitated. When you appeared in all your naked glory, you had no sword in hand—actual sword, I mean.” Her cheeks bloomed hot and she cursed the nonsense blushing this man incited in her. She’d rarely ever blushed in her life before. Damn him. “So, one can only conclude that you ripped a man’s head off with your bare hands.”

The werewolf didn’t respond. Instead he gestured to a gas station. “We can change here.”

Niamh rolled her eyes at his evasiveness. “Fionn wouldn’t hire just anyone to watch out for me. He’d hire the strongest supernatural he knew that he could trust.”

Kiyo flicked her a considering look as he glided the car into a parking spot.

“He trusts you, but that doesn’t mean I do. I only started to trust him a few months ago, for goodness’ sake.” She sighed. “It’s going to take a lot more than a bloody fight in the snow to assure us of one another’s intentions. I can’t tell you about the vision. Not yet. If ever. But I promise you that we absolutely should go to Tokyo. I feel it in my gut. And my instincts about these visions have never let me down. I’m the reason Rose and Fionn are together. Did they tell you that?”

“They’re together because they’ve become Fate’s bitch. True mates.”

Niamh raised an eyebrow. “You have a low opinion of the bond?”