Although 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?”
“I have a low opinion of anything that tries to control me.”
“That’s a funny way to look at love.”
Apparently done with the conversation, Kiyo moved to get out of the car.
Niamh grabbed his arm to stop him, and he cut her a bored, questioning look.
Feeling a strange tingling sensation running up her arms from her fingertips, she released her grip. “I just need you to know I’m not messing you about, taking you somewhere you don’t want to go for the hell of it. I’m sorry if I’ve upset you.”
His beautiful upper lip curled into that irritating sneer of his. “I don’t get upset.”
She grinned, mostly just to annoy him. “Well, you do a wonderful impersonation of it, then.”
The wolf’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly on her smile. “Please tell me you’re not one of those ‘I can make sunshine and roses out of piles of shit and pools of blood’ kind of people?”
Niamh chuckled and pushed open the passenger-side door but she didn’t answer him.
Her lack of response to his curtness seemed to perturb him. He grabbed their bags out of the back and handed over hers. His eyes scoured her face, as if he couldn’t quite figure her out.
They separated inside the twenty-four-hour gas station to their respective restrooms. Despite lingering weariness, Niamh’s mind turned over and over at the recent developments. Kiyo’s anger at returning to Tokyo only validated the vision. And he was angry. He was good at hiding how much, but Niamh sensed it. It pulsed beneath his skin. There was something important there, though not just to the werewolf but to her, and possibly others. It was maybe even about the bigger picture. The rest of the vision certainly had been.
For weeks she’d wanted her visions to have a coherent direction and mission. Like the visions before when she was trying to save the other fae-borne.
Well, wish granted. The visions had returned to the fae-borne.
And now Niamh bloody wished they hadn’t.
Despite her turmoil, or perhaps because of it, as Niamh changed into dry clothes, she imagined Kiyo changing in the men’s restroom. Heat bloomed on her cheeks, and other places on her body tingled in delight at the thought. When he’d come rushing out of those trees naked and wounded from defending her, she wasn’t going to lie—a very deep thrill moved through her.
The werewolf might be a brooding pain in the ass who’d tried to coerce her into accepting his guardianship, but all that beautiful fawn skin wrapped around taut muscle made him very fun to look at. Granted, she was somewhat wary that he was powerful enough to remove someone’s head from their body with his bare hands.
Also he moved faster than other wolves. He’d caught her completely off guard back at the club. And only someone fast and powerful could have taken down five members of The Garm by himself.
The airport was only forty minutes west in the light, early-morning traffic. They were both tense, on guard for The Garm in case they’d sent more than one unit after her. Once they abandoned the car in a parking lot, they strode determinedly toward departures.
“Why are you doing this?” Niamh asked as they reached the entrance.
“Doing what?”
“Acting as my bodyguard. I mean, a fairly terrible one who breaks my neck and all, but … yeah, for lack of a better word, my bodyguard.”
“Terrible?” he asked in his bored tone. “I saved your life. I wouldn’t call that being bad at my job. And that’s why: It’s a job I’m being paid to do. Extremely well paid.”
“There’s more to it than that. Someone who is secretly seething underneath at the thought of going to Tokyo wouldn’t go, not even for money.”
With a sigh of irritation, he gripped her arm and pulled her toward the airline desks. “It’s called an unbreakable contract. Basically, a spell. If I fail to protect you, the spell brings me to Fionn. He’s promised retribution.”
Niamh’s brow puckered. “Why on earth would you sign up for that?”
“Because I was bored.” He gave her a hard smirk. “Believe me, I’m regretting it.”
“Why?” she said. “Nothing about the last twenty-four hours has been boring, has it?”
Then she saw it … a definite twitch of his lips and a slight glitter of amusement in his eyes.
Something swelled in her chest at the sight, and she found herself grinning like a moron. “Thought not.”
“Shut up,” he said gruffly. “And let’s book this flight.”
Having the ability to make humans see what she wanted was one of Niamh’s less honorable tricks, but it had come in very handy over the years. She changed the name on Kiyo’s passport, which was currently Ryan Green.
“Very imaginative,” she muttered dryly.
He really could cut the most delightfully dirty looks.
And she presented a piece of paper that the desk staff would see as a passport.
They had no bags to check, so it was a fairly quick business. Kiyo attempted to pay for the tickets but Niamh didn’t want to give anyone a chance to track them. She paid in cash.
Their first flight was to Istanbul, and they had over six hours to wait until takeoff. The thought left Niamh feeling antsy for more than one reason. Six hours was too long to be in one place after being attacked by The Garm. Worse, she hated hanging around airports. Airports seemed to exist on some plane of existence where time slowed to a painful, sloth-like crawl. Her boredom always increased tenfold.
When they moved through security, she had to use mental manipulation again to stop security from questioning her about the pile of cash in her bag. She had over $30,000 in different currencies.
“Did you steal that cash?” Kiyo asked as they strolled out of security.
Guilt pricked at her. “What of it?”
“There is no honor in stealing.”
“I know,” she said so quietly, it was almost a whisper.
Kiyo frowned at whatever he heard in her voice. “Then why?”
“I’ve been on the run for over half my life.” She shrugged. “I did what I could to survive.”
“Luxury hotels, empty penthouse apartments, and piles of cash is merely surviving?”
Realizing he knew more about her than she’d thought—and hearing the judgment in his tone—Niamh clamped her lips tightly shut. He wouldn’t understand, so there was no point engaging in conversation about it.
“Unless, of course, it was your brother who convinced you living it large made up for being on the run.”
His words hit so close to the truth, Niamh felt them like claws in her chest. She turned to snap at him, to tell him to mind his own business, when a roll of familiar nausea turned over in her gut.
She felt the blood drain from her face.
No.
Not now.
Not so soon after the last.
“Kiyo,” she said, frantic.
He stopped, expression alert. “What?”
“Vision.” She got the word out just before the first image slammed into her head. Vaguely she was aware of her body moving and then a strong band of power wrapped around her. It steadied her as images of a young, pretty, dark-haired girl pounded painfully through her brain, one after the other. A man. Older. Connected to her. Owner. Husband. Sexual violence. Beatings. Abuse. Servitude. Exhaustion. Pain. Despair. Loathing. Rage. Despair. Rage.
Despair.
Rage
Despair.
RAGE.
Shuddering as the last image faded from her mind, Niamh realized the usual juddering convulsions were restrained. Cognizance returned, and Niamh lifted her head to lock gazes with Kiyo.
He’d guided her to a corner of the airport, his body covering hers, his arms bound tight around her.
“If anyone saw, they only witnessed two people embracing,” he whispered, his hot breath tickling her face.
The hairs on Niamh’s arms and nape rose as a shiver skated down her spine.
He smelled wonderful. Earthy. Smoky.
And his arms felt safe.
They felt good.
It had been months since anyone had been there to hold her through her visions.
As tears burned her throat and stung her eyes, Niamh dropped her gaze so he wouldn’t see. She pushed gently at his chest.
He slowly released her.
“Thanks,” she muttered, turning away from him.
Her bag had fallen to the floor. She quickly grabbed it and hurried in the direction of the ladies’ restroom.
“I don’t suppose you’ll tell me what the vision was about?”
“Same one,” she lied. “Must be important.”
They reached the restroom and Niamh raised an eyebrow at him. “You know you can’t come in here, right? Why don’t you go buy us some breakfast?” She gestured to the food court. “I’ll meet you over there.”
Niamh wasn’t sure if anyone had ever bestowed such a suspicious look on her before. Everyone else saw a sweet girl with a sweet demeanor who couldn’t possibly lie … not Kiyo. It was like the bastard could see right through her.
With a roll of her eyes, Niamh pushed into the restroom and let the door slam behind her.
There were several other women inside.
She pretended to use the facilities as quickly as possible and then followed one of the other ladies out.
Thankfully, Kiyo was gone, which meant he was at the food court.
Good.
Niamh took off in the direction for terminal transport. By the time Kiyo realized she was gone, it would be too late. And she’d find him again. Something told her that whenever the wolf was in the vicinity, Niamh would be able to find him, even blindfolded.
Ignoring the ghost of his embrace that still clung to her, Niamh got on the elevator that took her down to the terminal’s bus stop. A bus was already there waiting. Perfect timing.
Her patience strained as the bus sat there for five minutes and then finally, the doors closed. It moved, skirting the runway and waiting planes as it drove toward the next terminal.
No one would notice if she raced from this point on because people were always in a hurry at the airport. Niamh dove off the bus in the direction of the girl from her vision. This vision had explained more than the last. Unlike the last, but much like the latest others, this vision was tinged with insistence and aggression. She’d never had visions like these up until a few months ago … like they were trying to make her feel something, not just relay information.
The girl and the man she’d seen were human. She’d been sold into marriage by her own family. And this man was abusive in every way he could be. The girl’s spirit was strong but she was breaking, and she was hours away from murdering her captive. Niamh didn’t exist to play God, but she’d seen what this man had done. He was evil to his core.
The violence he’d enacted … Niamh had seen a lot in her visions over the years, and he sat among the worst of the monsters she’d experienced.
Niamh couldn’t let this girl go through so much only to end up in prison for killing her torturer, her abuser, her enslaver. And if it was worthy of a vision, it was worthy of her dealing with the problem.
“And where is it you think you’re going?” Kiyo suddenly stepped in front of her.
Niamh skidded to a halt seconds before crashing into him.
She gaped in confusion. “How did you … what? How?”
He had a to-go cup of coffee in his hand. He took a casual sip as he stared at her. “You think I’m that stupid?”
“Well …”
“You have a vision and then you urgently need to use the restroom and get rid of me at the same time.”
That burn of irritation she hadn’t felt in hours swarmed her chest. “Look, I’m not running away from you. I just have something I need to do.”
Kiyo chugged back his coffee and then threw it, with perfect aim, at a recycle can twenty meters away. Without taking his eyes off her.
“Show off.”
His expression darkened. “I can’t let you go play savior. Not hours after The Garm tried to kill you. Are you insane?”
“I can’t ignore my visions.” She moved to brush past him.
“Niamh.” He grabbed her arm, and she whipped around to rail at him, the images from her vision causing that burn in her chest to flame. She felt it flooding out of her; her eyes widened as she watched Kiyo’s grow round with shock.
His body shuddered as his grip on her arm became bruising.
“Kiyo.” Concern eased the burn as his eyes fluttered and his body convulsed ever so slightly.
He gasped, releasing her arm.
His dark eyes, filled with disbelief, flew to hers. “What the hell was that?”
“I don’t know.” She shook her head in truth. “What … I …”
“I saw things.” He grabbed both of her biceps and gave her a shake. “What did you do to me?”
“I didn’t do anything.” Niamh yanked at his unyielding hold. “I promise, I didn’t do anything.”
His grip eased, his eyes desperately searching hers. “I saw a girl and a man. But it was more than just images. It was … their life together.” Anger darkened his expression. “She was sold to him. He abuses her. They’re here. And she’s going to kill him.”
Niamh’s legs almost buckled. “Not possible.”
“What was that, Niamh?”
“My vision. You saw my vision.”
How …
She shook her head. That had never happened. Not with anyone, not even with him.
“Not possible,” she repeated. “What are you?”
He released her like she’d burned him. “I didn’t do this. I’ve never experienced anything like that. That was you.”
“No!” She flinched at the loud denial and glanced around to see they were drawing attention to themselves. “We have to move.”
Kiyo studied her intensely for a few seconds. “You’ve never shared a vision with anyone before?”
“Never.”
He released a shaky exhale. He was completely thrown by this, and Niamh could tell he wasn’t used to anything disconcerting him.
“We have to go, Kiyo. Now.”
“Yeah, we do. Back to our terminal.”
Her eyes narrowed, the burn of irritation returning. “I can’t leave her to him.”
“You’re not. He’s about to get what he deserves.”
“But she isn’t. All that pain.” Her eyes brightened with tears of compassion. “I know you felt her pain. If she does this, she spends the rest of her life in prison. Or worse, they cart her back home and they execute her for it. You can’t tell me, after what you saw, that you think she deserves it.”
As hard as Niamh tried to hold them back, tears of sorrow, for what the girl had endured, escaped. Kiyo seemed fascinated, watching the tears roll down her cheeks.
“What do you plan to do?”
“Find him. End him. And help her start a new life somewhere else.”
“So you’re judge, jury, and executioner?”
Niamh shrugged wearily. “It’s my burden to bear. I have a long life ahead of me … maybe. I want to know I made a difference. And I don’t care if it makes me dishonorable or a different kind of monster. If I can rid the planet of his kind of evil, I’ll take Fate’s judgment when She comes for me with my head held high.”
Something happened then. Something Niamh didn’t understand glittered with a sharpness in Kiyo’s dark eyes. Fustratingly, Niamh didn’t understand what that look meant.
“Fine. We can wait until he goes into the restroom. There are no cameras there. I’ll follow him in and deal with him. But we’ll have the problem of the body. It can’t be found while we’re still here.”
Niamh was momentarily taken aback by his willingness to help. It took her a second to reply, “Don’t worry about that. I can turn a body to ash.”
He quirked an eyebrow. “And you didn’t think to do that back at the park?”
Oh shit, yeah.
Her lips twitched. “Must have slipped my mind.”
He huffed. “You can’t find any of this amusing.”
“It’s hysterical laughter,” she promised. “I’ve had quite a shock.”
“You’ve had a shock,” he muttered under his breath as they searched for the abuser.
It was weird watching as Kiyo spotted their perpetrator first. He’d seen him too. There had to be a reason she’d been able to transfer her vision to the werewolf. For twenty-one of her twenty-six years on this planet, Niamh had never once physically shared a vision with another person.
Her emotions seemed to have fueled the transfer, but she’d been plenty emotional after her visions over the years, and it hadn’t happened before. Why was Kiyo receptive to them?
None of it made sense.
They had to wait for over an hour, watching the evil fecker sitting next to his young wife. Niamh spotted him pinching her thigh a few times as he snapped something at her.
Although Kiyo’s expression never changed as they waited, she noticed he tensed ever so slightly every time the man pinched the girl, which meant he’d noticed it too.
And he didn’t like it.
Something warm flooded Niamh’s chest.
“You’re staring at me,” Kiyo said, attention still on their prey.
“You’re nice to look at it,” she answered honestly but evasively.
He gave her a wry look. “You’re trying to figure out how I saw your vision. If you think I might know, you’re wrong. I’m as baffled as you.” His gaze cut back to the couple. “He’s moving.”
Niamh’s attention returned to the man as they watched him head toward the restroom.
“What if he’s not alone?” she asked Kiyo before he moved to follow.
“I’m an alpha,” he replied. “I give off energy that I can turn up. Makes humans flee my vicinity.”
“Sounds very helpful for a being who so clearly prefers his own company.”
“Funny,” he muttered before casually strolling toward the restroom.
As soon as he disappeared inside, Niamh followed.
Just as she reached the door, two men hurried out, looking confused and disturbed.
Alpha energy indeed.
She waited a minute, made sure no one was watching, and then darted inside.
In the farthest corner, she found Kiyo standing over the corpse of the girl’s abuser. Kiyo glanced over his shoulder at her, his expression grim. He seemed to take no pleasure in death. That was reassuring. “Your turn.”
As she approached the man, all the terror and hurt and torment the girl had felt wrapped itself around Niamh until she could barely breathe … and she could technically survive without oxygen, which said much of the size of the girl’s pain and fury.
Kneeling, she placed a reluctant hand on the man’s knee and felt her magic pulse from her palm. Slowly it crawled through his whole being and they watched as his face cracked.
Then he just crumbled.
To ash.
“I’ve never seen anything like that.”
Niamh stood. “We fae have many tricks up our sleeves.”
His gaze sharpened on hers. “We will never do this again.”
She narrowed her eyes at his bossy tone. “I’ll do what I have to do.”
“No.” He shook his head. “I understand now that you feel everything these victims feel, and I appreciate that you want to help them. But this”—he gestured to the ash—“it’s bad enough interfering in supernatural lives when it’s not your job, because we have rules for a reason, Niamh, and it’s all about our survival and avoiding war with the humans. To interfere in their world is so far beyond dangerous … It’s not your right.”
His words penetrated, making her feel guilty and indignant at the same time. “But my visions …”
“I don’t know why they’re coming to you, but every time you do something like this, you leave a signature. And that signature is how the Blackwoods or others like them are going to find you. Is this girl’s life—the lives of the other people you’ve interfered with—worth the lives of every single person on this planet?”
Deep down she’d always known she was playing a dangerous game with the world, but Kiyo had hauled her harshly into the light of reality.
He was right. She knew he was right.
She couldn’t keep doing this.
She couldn’t be responsible for opening that gate because once upon a time, she’d seen what could happen if the wall between worlds fell.
Yet, it was so hard not to answer the call of the visions.
“I just wanted … I want to be useful.”
He exhaled slowly. “The vision, the Tokyo one, is that truly helpful or is it another one of these?” He gestured to the ash.
“It’s important. I promise. It’s about the fae-borne.”
“And you won’t tell me more than that?”
More guilt pricked at her but even after the last hour, she still wasn’t ready to trust him. She shook her head.
His expression closed down. “Fine. Let’s get back to our terminal.”
“But the girl. I want to help her. Change her passport. Give her money.”
“And how do you propose doing that without using magic that makes her aware of our world?”
Niamh scowled because he was infuriatingly right.
“You’ve helped her enough. She’s on her own. Now get your ass back to the terminal.”
His demanding tone licked down her spine like fire, causing her to snap to attention. “Or what? You’ll make me?”
“Niamh, I just killed a human in a public restroom and watched you turn him to ash. This, after receiving visions I had no business receiving from a pain-in-the-ass Irish woman I’m bound to protect by a spell that pretty much screws with my freedom until Fionn’s happy you’re safe. My patience is wearing very thin.”
She sniffed haughtily as she moved past him. “It can’t be wearing thin if it doesn’t exist in the first place.”
His growl rumbled at her back and while it should have frightened her, it didn’t.
It had a much more disturbing effect on her body.
One that made her flush hot from head to toe.