An aching burn of pain woke Kiyo. His eyes flew open and he stared up at the cracked ceiling, frowning at the hurt in his neck and spine as he tried to orient himself.
Niamh.
The memory of her hit with the same force of a sucker punch. Fury filled him as he flew to his feet and swayed. His body wasn’t quite done healing itself.
The fae woman had broken his neck without even touching him.
He growled as he marched toward the door of the apartment, following the faint traces of her scent out into the hallway. Kiyo knew he shouldn’t have listened to Rose. Behind Niamh’s blasé but iron-weakened attitude had been a hard glint of determination in her eyes.
Either she didn’t give a damn she was putting the gate in danger or she was so blinded by her own mission, she couldn’t see what she was jeopardizing.
Thankfully, her scent still lingered, which meant it hadn’t been long since she’d escaped. She’d underestimated how quickly Kiyo would heal. Not as fast as a fae, maybe, but faster than the other wolves.
Her scent led out to the parking lot and beyond, so Kiyo jumped in the stolen car he’d parked out there and rolled down the window. Niamh’s caramel essence tickled his nose and he drove in the direction she’d taken off in.
The whole time he drove, he tried to contain his anger. Playing nice wasn’t second nature to Kiyo, but his fury at her would definitely push her further away.
He’d never regretted taking on a job more.
She hadn’t escaped from the apartment for more than five minutes when the two cars appeared behind her.
Niamh’s pulse jumped. It wasn’t the wolf following her. Wolves didn’t heal that fast. But her knowledge of her pursuers’ identity came from more than that.
Fae could sense when they or others were in danger. The hair on Niamh’s body rose, her pulse rate increased, and a feeling akin to dread swam over her. That hadn’t happened with Kiyo and now she knew why. Rose and Fionn had sent him to protect her.
So the three cars behind her … nothing to do with Kiyo.
It was either The Garm or the Blackwoods.
The bloody wolf had led them right to her. She scoffed in irritation at his interference.
And because of his interference, she was too weak to travel!
Niamh had been heading back into the city to collect her things from the hotel, but even if it was the early hours of the morning and there were only a few cars on the road, she couldn’t lead them into a fight where innocents might get hurt.
She was currently on the motorway and as she passed the buildings on her left, she caught glimpses of thick, dark forestation in the distance. One of Moscow’s national parks, maybe? She knew there were areas of natural beauty scattered throughout Moscow that could make folks forget they were even in a city.
Niamh could head into the park and lose them in there. Her strength might even come back in a place like that and she’d be able to travel.
Mind made up, and seeing no way off the motorway but to cross it, she swerved the car onto the opposite side of the quiet road and shot across and off it. She hit the grass as she took a road on the left, past a Burger King, down a tree-lined street toward the wooded area she’d seen in the distance. Plowed snow sat piled along the edges of the sidewalks in graying, icy borders.
Glancing in the rearview mirror, she saw the two cars were still following her.
Clingy buggers, aren’t they? she thought in aggravation as she approached a glowing-red traffic light perched beneath a railway bridge.
Niamh took a breath and flew under the tight bridge, thankfully not meeting any oncoming traffic. As soon as she came out of it, her headlights lit up a path leading into the park.
Skidding to a stop, the car hit ice and swung haphazardly into the tall curbside. She barely even felt it. She was too busy jumping out of the car. Niamh dashed toward the opening in the snow-dusted trees. She could see the pathway under a thick layer of snow. Tires squealed behind her as her pursuers witnessed her escape. Sweat beaded under her arms as she pushed through the lethargy that still clung to her body.
Come on! She gritted her teeth in frustration as she ran up the snowy path, fast but nowhere near the speed she was capable of. The snow didn’t bloody help matters.
That fecking fecker of a werewolf!
He was going to get her killed!
The path seemed to just keep going, the trees thick on either side, and Niamh could hear the crunching of very fast feet through hard snow in the distance. Panic bloomed in her chest as she hit an intersection in the path.
She turned left, feeling her speed pick up in increments. Fast, but not fast enough.
Breaking off the path, Niamh disappeared into the snowy trees, hoping to lose her pursuers in the darkness. She had superior night vision, but so did most supernaturals.
The birch trees towered above like skinny giants holding out their snow-peppered arms protectively, urging her to hurry. She tried to detect the scent of her pursuers but she didn’t have a nose like a wolf and all she could smell was the freshness of snow, the earthiness of the soil beneath, and the sweet, sharp, clean scent of the birch. There was also the faint mustiness of animal. Not werewolf, but from whatever animal lived in the park.
Niamh picked up speed, calmed by the enveloping darkness of the trees and the fact that the crunching footsteps had grown fainter in the distance. She kept pushing, pushing until she burst out of the trees into an open field thick with snow. Gathering her speed again, she flew across the openness—wet encapsulated her ankles as her feet disappeared in and out of the snow—and into the tree line ahead.
Not long later, as Niamh caught the glimmer of another opening in the distance, a familiar sick sensation built in her gut.
No.
No, not now.
Tears of defeat pricked her eyes as she rushed out, skidding through the snow of another small clearing.
In the distance, she could hear the thrashing through the forest. The thrashing of her pursuers growing closer.
And there was nothing she could do as the first image blasted into her head, throwing her to her knees. She didn’t even feel the icy wetness soak through her clothes.
The pain was too blinding, an electric, white-hot heat that blazed around her head as she saw green.
Grass.
And on the grass, four stone circles. Like a small druid circle. Like standing stones.
Then a face appeared through that image. A woman. A face she’d seen before but not since her death.
And then Elijah.
And Rose.
And herself.
The image was obliterated as another slammed into her skull. A pendant. A jade pendant shaped like a water droplet. It flickered and there was a city. A mountain towering over it. A garden. A water garden. A Japanese garden. The images kept coming, one after the other, each like a mallet to her head.
Self-directed frustration and irritation held Kiyo immobile for a few seconds.
He’d followed Niamh’s scent down the highway, across traffic and down a road that led him under the railway bridge to a park.
And scattered across the road by the entrance to the park were three vehicles. One smelled of Niamh.
The other two of vamps and wolves.
The Garm.
They’d found her.
For a moment, Kiyo wondered why the hell she had led them to a park instead of traveling, and that’s when he realized that she probably couldn’t.
Kiyo’s trick with the iron had depleted her strength.
And if she died today, Fionn would make the rest of his eternity a living hell.
Biting back a curse, Kiyo took off into the park.
He was faster as a wolf, especially in snow.
So as he ran, a blur through the wintry darkness, following Niamh’s scent and the fresh footprints, he called on the change.
Not many wolves could run and change at the same time, but as Kiyo liked to remind himself, he wasn’t like normal werewolves.
Usually, he had time to enjoy the transformation. Changing was like a satisfying pleasure pain. Like a deep stretch of a knotted muscle. Bones cracked and muscles contorted and it all sounded horrific but … it wasn’t. Kiyo, however, didn’t have time to feel any of those things.
He slowed, kicking off his boots, just before he began to run on all fours. Eventually he skidded through the snow, halting in the density of the woods to let the transformation take over. He pushed it. He didn’t savor it. And in a flash, he was staring through the eyes of his wolf with his wider peripheral vision.
He contained the growl he wanted to unleash but didn’t for fear of losing the element of surprise. Kiyo instead left behind his tattered clothes and ran.
He soared through the woods with such speed, even if it had been daylight, all anyone would have seen was a blur so fleeting, they would be sure they imagined him. The wind whipped through his fur; the snow barely had time to soak his paws he was so light across it. He felt the violence building within him at the thought of The Garm harming Niamh Farren.
She was his charge.
She was his job.
His to protect.
And Kiyo did not like to fail.
Hearing voices ahead, his ears twitched as a male voice asked in a thick Russian accent, “What do we do with her?”
“Kill her,” another grunted in exasperation.
“But she’s … she’s seizing or something,” a female said. “Maybe she’s already dying.”
Seizing?
The word caused Kiyo more than a flicker of unease.
Rose said Niamh’s visions physically incapacitated her. She said she resembled someone in the midst of a seizure.
Niamh couldn’t even protect herself.
“Take that piece of iron and kill her!” the exasperated male ordered. Kiyo could see the man through the opening ahead. Tall. Burly. Another wolf.
Kiyo leapt out of the trees at his back, jaw open, and clamped his teeth into the man’s neck. The force of his hit took them both to the ground. He tore out the wolf’s throat, hearing the surprise from his companions as he rolled off to face the others.
His eyes darted to Niamh. She was collapsed in the snow, eyes wide and staring unseeingly at the night sky as her body convulsed.
Rage blasted through him as he turned his attention to the two vampires and two werewolves who bared their incisors and canines at him. Only cowards with no honor would take down Niamh while she was in no state to fight back.
He would enjoy this hunt.
The female wolf came at him first. Kiyo lunged to meet her. She was so distracted by his open jaws, she missed his claws. As she triumphantly punched him with impressive force in the muzzle, Kiyo pushed the change, his front forelegs shifting back to his human arms as he slashed her across the belly with his wolf claws.
As her howl of agony lit the air, momentarily disconcerting her companions, Kiyo made the full shift. Uncaring of his nakedness, he spun back to the female as she dropped to her knees, retracted his claws, and punched through the solid cage of muscle and bone in her back.
The force of the hit shuddered up his arms as his hand clamped around the hot, wet muscle of her heart.
He yanked it out and she sagged lifelessly to the ground.
A roar of fury filled his ears as the remaining wolf and the two vampires sped toward him. Claws out again, Kiyo ran at them, leapt into the air in a spin to give his body enough momentum and force so that when he brought his arm around, his clawed hand out, he cut through the wolf’s neck like his hand was a blade. His teeth rattled with the impact, but the wolf’s head rolled from his body with satisfying results.
The sight caused the two vampires to stare in disbelief.
He doubted they’d seen many werewolves decapitate someone with their bare hand.
Realization that Kiyo wasn’t at all what he seemed flooded their expressions, and the male and female vampire shared a concerned look.
Self-preservation was a typical characteristic of a vampire and they shot off into the woods. Kiyo couldn’t let them get away and back to The Garm.
The less The Garm knew about Niamh, the better.
He raced after them, catching up to the male first. He tackled the vamp to the ground but felt hands wrap around his neck and throw him backward.
Kiyo hit the ground hard but the snow cushioned the impact. He glared up at the female vamp who had surprised him by coming back for her companion. That was something he could respect.
He lunged, canines out, misleading her as he had her werewolf counterpart. She was a blur of movement, lashing out to grab him around the throat and hold off his teeth from her neck.
But Kiyo wasn’t aiming for her neck.
He punched through her chest, up under her rib cage, gripped her heart, and squeezed it until it popped.
She burst into a thick cloud of dust, speckling his face and body.
He grunted in annoyance, stepping back from the ash cloud as a blur moved behind him.
Pain screamed at his scalp as the male vamp gripped hold of Kiyo’s top knot and yanked, pulling Kiyo down toward the ground onto his back. At the last moment, Kiyo thrust his lower body upward and he flipped backward, the movement relaxing the vamp’s hold on him.
He landed with a deadly silence behind the confused vampire and was about to treat him to the same end as his female companion when the vamp suddenly turned, incisors out, and clamped his strong jaw down over Kiyo’s neck.
His long teeth sliced through Kiyo’s throat and the toxins in the vamp’s saliva tickled at his senses, trying to confuse him into believing he was receiving pleasure, not pain.
Goddamn dirty trick, that.
Kiyo gripped the vampire’s head, trying to part him from his throat, but he had the strength of a boa constrictor now that he’d sunk his teeth into him. His arms were a vise around Kiyo’s upper body, and Kiyo knew the vamp had every intention of draining him dry.
It wouldn’t kill him, of course, but it would weaken him.
And mightily piss him off.
Kiyo dug his claws into the vampire’s sides but other than a grunt of pain, it didn’t shift the bloodsucker. As calm as ever, despite his growing anger, Kiyo searched for the most expedient way to kill him.
That’s when he caught sight of the perfectly angled, sharp-ended branch sticking out of the skinny white birch tree in the distance.
Pushing his hand between the tight compression of their two bodies, Kiyo dug his claws into the vamp’s chest around his heart. It was enough to make the vamp loosen his hold.
With a roar of power, Kiyo broke the vampire’s cage, feeling part of his throat come away with the pressure of his removal. Warm blood spurted down his neck as he watched the vampire soar through the air and hit the tree with accuracy.
The vamp stared down at the branch sticking through his chest with a look of abject disbelief.
And then he exploded into a burst of ash dust.
Hot pain throbbed at Kiyo’s throat and he muffled his curse as he dropped to a knee.
Despite the icy wetness surrounding him, sweat soaked his naked skin. Blood ran in rivulets down his chest as his wound slowly knitted together. The blood loss made him slightly woozy, but the thought of Niamh, vulnerable in the clearing, had him pushing to his feet.
When he stumbled out of the woods, he found Niamh staring in confusion at the dead werewolves surrounding her.
Her eyes flew to his, widening at either his nakedness, his injury, or both.
“Vision over?” he croaked out, clamping a hand over his still-bleeding, gaping wound.
Niamh nodded, blinking rapidly. Then she observed, “You’re butt naked. In the snow.”
“Yeah.”
“You have a gory tear in your throat.”
“Yeah.”
Her eyes dropped to the werewolves. “You saved me.”
“Yeah.”
“I wouldn’t have needed your help if I hadn’t been weakened by the iron.” When her eyes flew back to his, there was irritation in them.
“Maybe, maybe not.”
“You’re a man of few words, huh?” At his answering silence, Niamh sighed and pushed to her feet. She swayed, and he noted her skin was paler than usual. At his frown, she waved him off. “The visions take it out of me. We better get going.” Her eyes dropped to his throat. “How long do you take to heal?”
“Faster than the average wolf.”
“That’s your favorite saying.” Her eyes flickered down his body, and he saw a satisfying tinge of red crest her cheeks as she averted her gaze. “Where are your clothes?”
“Had to shift fast. They got ruined.”
With a nod, she marched over to the largest wolf, the one Kiyo had taken by surprise first, and began to remove his jacket.
Seeing what she was about to do—and not too happy about wearing a dead man’s clothes but knowing there was nothing else for it—Kiyo helped her undress the corpse.
“I think this might be the lowest moment of my life thus far,” she said, but there was a hint of humor in her voice.
Kiyo raised an eyebrow.
She huffed. “What? You want me to feel sorry for the supernatural arsehole who had every intention of killing me?”
“Rose said you were the sweetest soul she’d ever met,” he replied. A sweet soul wouldn’t find humor in stealing from a dead man.
A pucker appeared between her brows. “Rose knew me … before.”
Realizing she wasn’t about to elaborate, Kiyo merely grunted and changed into the dead wolf’s clothes. Despite the slimness of Kiyo’s waist, he had a very broad chest and shoulders, so the material of the wolf’s shirt strained against his muscles. The jacket didn’t even fit. The jeans would do, however.
Niamh had averted her gaze as he changed but now she stared at his chest. Her eyes flew to his, that pretty blush still staining her cheeks. “Well, you are an impressively proportioned individual, aren’t you?”
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.