Bound by Forever (True Immortality 3)

Niamh shrugged. She’d probably regret being vulnerable again, but she was who she was. “I want to trust you. There’s something about you … I don’t know.”

A frown puckered between his brows. “You can trust I don’t want to break the contract with Fionn.”

Silence fell anew between them and this time, Niamh let it. She’d never been the type to crush on a bad boy, and she didn’t want to start now. But she couldn’t deny she felt an electric awareness of the wolf or that he didn’t fascinate her. Niamh wished he didn’t. But he was a mass of intriguing contradictions, and she’d always loved a good puzzle.

Feeling her cheeks heat at the thought of Kiyo discovering her crush on him, Niamh clamped her lips closed and decided it best not to speak for a while.

Not long later, they strode out of the woodlands and saw a small cluster of houses in the distance. They were mostly surrounded by frost-speckled fields.

But coming toward them from the direction of the houses, they spotted an SUV.

Kiyo took hold of her arm to halt her, his expression granite hard.

“It’s okay,” she reassured him.

“We’re strangers out in the middle of nowhere, not exactly dressed for winter, and a plane just fell out of the sky,” he reminded her.

“Trust me.”

He still scowled, but he released his grip on her and they waited as the SUV slowed beside them. A man jumped out of the vehicle. He was probably in his late thirties, early forties, and he wore a suede jacket over a thick cable-knit sweater. His brown trousers were tucked into working boots.

“Var kom du ifrån?”

“Do you know any Swedish?” Kiyo muttered under his breath.

“Do I look like I’m a master of languages?” Niamh stepped toward the stranger. “Sorry, sir, we don’t understand.”

The man raised his eyebrows as he came to a stop before them. He gave Kiyo a wary look. “You’re English?”

“Irish.”

“You’re not survivors of that plane crash. It’s impossible.”

“Plane crash? What plane crash?”

“You didn’t see anything?” His English was perfect. “We just received a call that a plane went down in the sea.”

“I’m sorry, we don’t know anything about that,” Niamh lied. She moved closer to the man and put her hand on his arm as their gazes locked. He immediately relaxed and began to drown in her eyes. “Where are we?”

“Ottenby. On the island of Öland.”

“How far to the mainland?”

“It’s just over an hour’s drive to Kalmar.”

“We have an emergency to get to. It’s imperative we get there as quickly as possible. You’ll give us your vehicle, won’t you?”

He nodded slowly.

“And when anyone asks what happened to it, you’ll tell them you sold it to a young couple in need but you can’t remember what they looked like … and that’s what you’ll believe.”

“I sold it,” he agreed.

“Where do you live?”

He turned and pointed back up the road he’d come.

“Not far, then. We’ll drop you off as close as we can. Keys?”

The man pulled them from his coat pocket and held them out.

Niamh nodded to Kiyo who took them from the man’s hand. A wave of uneasiness moved through her, but she ignored it. All three of them got into the SUV, and Kiyo turned it around so they were headed back toward the houses.

He stopped at a crossroad near the houses on the right and large buildings on their left.

“You can get out now,” Niamh said. “And thank you.”

The man got out of the SUV with that dazed expression on his face, and Kiyo pulled away, speeding out of the small town as he tapped the screen in the middle of the dashboard.

“I’ll do that,” Niamh offered, moving to brush his hand away.

He snapped it away before she could touch him.

She sighed heavily as she touched the screen, searching for the GPS. The map appeared, and she entered the name of the mainland town the man had mentioned. Kalmar.

The GPS lady spoke in Swedish. Niamh shot Kiyo a wry smile, but he was staring blankly ahead at the road. Water appeared on their left as they drove north up the west coast of the island. According to the maps, it was called the Kalmar Strait. “You don’t like it, do you?”

“Like what?”

“The mind-warp gift.”

“Is it a gift?”

She considered his question. “No,” she eventually said. “I suppose you’re right. It’s not.”

“You’re messing with people’s free will.”

“I know. But what else would you have me do?”

His hands flexed around the steering wheel. “In this circumstance, we’re doing what we have to do to survive. But it seems to me that you use it whenever the hell you feel like it. To stay in fancy hotels. To fly where you need to fly.” He flicked her a look. “To rob banks.”

Guilt suffused her as she looked quickly away. “Old habits die hard, I suppose.”