Bound by Forever (True Immortality 3)

Emotion thickened Niamh’s throat.

“She used to tell me I was special and that I’d do something special with my life. They weren’t just words—she dreamed big for me. Her belief was almost enough to make me feel a part of the world. Almost.” He sighed wearily, turning to stare up at the ceiling. “I was angry at her when she killed herself. I didn’t understand how she could leave me alone.

“When I got older, I understood that what was done to her broke her. Those men took away her dreams and violated her into darkness. I stopped being angry and started to feel guilty. I kept thinking, what if I had talked with her … reminded her who she was and tried to pull her back into the light.” Kiyo turned toward Niamh, and her eyes filled with tears in answer to the ones she saw in his. “I couldn’t do that for her. But I will fight to my last breath to do that for you. Astra can’t have you.”

Niamh didn’t know what part of the high-octane events of the last twenty-four hours had spurred the lowering of Kiyo’s defenses. She didn’t care.

That hope she felt earlier was rising.

Sliding her hand along the mattress, she took hold of his again. His pulse fluttered weakly beneath her thumb as it rested on his wrist.

Determination filled her as they stared into each other’s eyes, lost in the undeniable connection that bound them together.

They laid like that in the quiet for a while.

Just holding on to it. Just holding on to each other.27By nightfall, Kiyo was unconscious.

The sheets beneath him were soaked with his sweat and his skin was scorching to the touch.

Niamh stared down at Kiyo, resolution hard in her veins.

He wasn’t getting better, and there was a part of her that knew with deep certainty that even if the silver didn’t kill him because of his immortality, he wouldn’t get better.

He’d exist in this plane of pain and fever for the rest of his life.

And Niamh wouldn’t have that.

Her pulse raced but she ignored her own fears and conjured a pair of thick gloves. Pulling them on, Niamh took a deep, deep breath … and then conjured the pure iron blade.

Her hand dropped with its weight and she could feel it trying to burn through her glove. Lethargy threatened, but she curled her hand around the hilt and brought the sharp blade to her bared left wrist.

“Argh!” she cried out, needing to release the misery of what felt like a thousand fire pokers slicing into her.

Kiyo jerked on the bed as if he’d felt her pain, his lids fluttering wildly.

Blood pooled out of the wound. The wound that was slow to close.

Slow enough to let her feed him.

Ridding the blade with her magic, Niamh crawled onto the bed, pushed her opposite arm beneath Kiyo, and forced his lips to her gaping wound.

Blood smeared them.

“Drink, Kiyo!” she begged, panicked the wound would close too quickly.

He grunted but didn’t wake.

Hoping he’d forgive her, Niamh sent a jolt of adrenaline into his heart with her magic.

His eyes flew open and his lips parted on a rasping gasp.

Taking advantage, Niamh stuck her wrist right in there. “Drink, damn it.”

Kiyo’s eyes flared with understanding and he sucked at her wrist, careful with his teeth as he did so.

Within seconds, the veins slithered down his face, disappearing, inch by inch until eventually they were no more.

He released her, her blood smeared across his chin. Then his eyes narrowed on her wound. Her wound that hadn’t even begun to close yet. “What the fuck did you do?” he snarled.

Their eyes locked and she shrugged. “Saved you from an eternity of agony. You’re welcome.”28Glaring at the wound slowly healing over on Niamh’s wrist, knowing it would leave a permanent scar, Kiyo didn’t know whether to yell at her or kiss her.

Moments before he’d been swimming the red-tinged depths of fevered unconsciousness, certain he was lost to it forever.

Now he’d never felt stronger or more powerful with Niamh’s healing blood in his body.

She’d taken iron to herself.

For him.

He looked up from her wrist still clutched in his hand and saw the determined defiance in her expression.

And he fell.

Who was he kidding?

He’d been falling for days.

Fighting it every step of the way.

Hurting her.

Pushing her away.

Yet after experiencing the worst pain he’d endured in a long life of violence, worse even than that first change into werewolf form, Kiyo couldn’t remember why he was fighting her so hard.

He just knew that when he thought she was in danger from him, he couldn’t bear it. He’d born the unbearable in his one hundred and fifty years, but he’d known that if he’d come out of this only to realize he’d bitten and killed Niamh Farren, he would have asked Fionn Mór to find a way to end his miserable existence.