Unlike every other being on Earth, Kiyo was a true immortal.
Eternity was a terrifying prospect Kiyo avoided the thought of by working as a mercenary and battling in underground fights.
Eternity in prison … he didn’t dare contemplate the hell it would be.
So, he’d do as Fionn asked, even if Niamh Farren turned out to be the biggest pain in the ass. He was being generously compensated to do so.
Kiyo exited and rounded the car to the passenger side where Niamh’s head rested. He didn’t want to take the chance of opening the other side and her using what strength she had to kick him to Timbuktu. Moving at wolf speed, he fastened the handcuffs around her wrists. She couldn’t hide her flinch.
Frowning, Kiyo double-checked the iron wasn’t burning through the leather.
It wasn’t.
Her reaction had to be the weakening effects of the iron.
“I know you’re awake.”
Her eyes flew open and it was like the breath was knocked from his body.
Her irises were liquid gold.
The gold suddenly melted, and she stared up at him with the most extraordinary aquamarine eyes. Striations of gold remained in them.
He was surprised by the fear he saw in her gaze. He hadn’t imagined a powerful fae capable of fear.
But she didn’t know his intention, and she wasn’t completely invincible.
Plus, he’d gotten the drop on her. Of course she was afraid.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he promised. “I’ll explain everything once we’re inside. But first … apologies for doing this to you again.”
Her lips parted in question, but Kiyo broke her neck before she could speak.
Sliding her carefully out of the car, he gathered her into his arms, annoyed that her dress was now showing an indecent amount of skin, skin he’d touched and was adamantly ignoring the silken softness of.
Using his supernatural speed, he hurried across the lot, into the building, and up the five flights to the apartment he’d acquired for his purposes. Once inside, he laid Niamh on the graying mattress and pulled her dress back down around her thighs.
Retreating, he stared at her sprawled across the mattress on the floor of the dingy apartment. Her long, brown hair cascaded around her face in wavy tendrils. It wasn’t her natural hair color. The first surveillance photos Fionn’s research guy, Bran, had provided showed Niamh with light blond hair.
Tension drained out of Kiyo’s body as he settled into the grubby armchair that made up the small collection of furniture in the two-room apartment. Kiyo had kept the three table lamps lit for his return, preferring the warm light of those to the glaring overhead bulbs.
The beige paint was peeling off the walls, marred with food stains and fingerprints and even graffiti. But you couldn’t see that now. Nailed on top, without an inch of space between, were thin sheets of pure iron.
He’d made Niamh a cage.
Kiyo wasn’t sure how Fionn would react to his methods, but what else did he expect? Niamh Farren could teleport herself out of any room, and Kiyo needed to disable that skill long enough to explain who he was and why he’d come.
And if he felt she wasn’t amenable to the idea of him guarding and stopping her from using her powers without circumspection, then he’d have to consider keeping her here indefinitely.
Thinking of the vile bathroom he’d scrubbed clean with bleach only hours ago, Kiyo really hoped Niamh would get over his aggressive methods and trust he was who he said he was.
Months of living in this shithole as a prison warden instead of a bodyguard didn’t exactly appeal to him.
But Fionn Mór was not someone you crossed. Kiyo had known Fionn since the late ’60s. Kiyo had left New York several years before because it was no longer safe for him to remain there. Although he’d kept to himself and moved from borough to borough, he’d begun to encounter one too many older people who remembered him from their youth.
Since then, Kiyo had lived the life of a nomad, a mercenary for hire. He’d been a silent assassin, hostage negotiator, soldier, bounty hunter, kidnapper, bodyguard, and thief, to name but a few occupations in the unseen wars of the supernatural world. Even in the human world. There were humans who were aware of the supernaturals, some to fear and avoid, others who paid a great deal of money for the advantages of supernatural power.
The supernatural world questioned Kiyo’s longevity, considering he was a werewolf, and there had been those who’d tried to kill him as an abomination, and failed. There were those who’d tried to use him and failed at that too.
Among all the supernaturals who had guessed at his immortality, only one man had garnered a modicum of Kiyo’s trust. Fionn. Kiyo had thought him a powerful warlock. They’d met fighting each other in the underground matches, and Kiyo was satisfied to have found someone who could finally challenge him. Fionn never pried into his personal life and vice versa. As the decades passed with Fionn never aging, Kiyo had surmised the Irishman had been cursed with immortality as he himself had.