Bound by Forever - (True Immortality #3) Page 0,114

Niamh into his arms, cuddling her tight against him as he rested his chin on her head. “You okay?”

She nodded, squeezing him. “It was the same as before. Nothing new.”

“Not quite.”

Niamh pulled away just enough to look at him. “What do you mean?”

“I know where those gardens are. And the jade pendant was new.”

Niamh frowned. “No, it wasn’t. It’s always been in them.”

Kiyo shook his head. “Not the one I saw last time.”

She considered this. “Actually, I think you’re right. But it was in the first one I ever got. What does it mean?”

“The gardens belong to the house I was renting in Osaka back in the 1800s when I was taking my revenge against my mother’s rapists. I was cursed in those gardens.” His grip on Niamh tightened unwittingly as he remembered. “The jade pendant belonged to Mizuki Nakamura. The miko who cursed me.”

Niamh pushed away from him. “Then we have to go to Osaka. Kiyo … that pendant.”

Something like panic clawed at his gut as realization struck. “It’s a talisman.”

And I’d bet my eternity that it holds your curse within. Destroy it and … She clung to him now, fear pouring from her.

“Best-case scenario, I become mortal. Worst-case scenario … I die.”

Which was exactly what Astra wanted.

A fierceness overcame Niamh with such strength, her eyes bled gold and strands of her hair lifted of its own accord. Electricity crackled around her. “That’s not going to happen,” she vowed, her voice sounding different.

“Komorebi …” He reached for her, his tone calming. “The show, while arousing, is unnecessary. We’ll find the pendant.”

Just like that, the surrounding energy flamed out and her eyes were aquamarine again. She looked at him in wonder. “What did you just call me?”

“We need to get back to the hotel. Can you do your thing when no one’s looking?”

“Answer my question first.”

“I called you Komorebi,” he answered impatiently. “Now can we go?”

Niamh stepped into his waiting arms, smiling up at him like he’d just given her the whole world. “You told me Komorebi means a beautiful forest with sunlight peeking through the leaves of the trees. And you think of it every time you ready for a run through the woods.”

“Yeah,” he muttered, feeling too much. Way too fucking much for it to be comfortable.

She slipped her arms around his neck. “Trust you, my darling, my brooding wolf, to give a woman the most romantic endearment on the planet.”

His grip on her tightened but he just grunted in acknowledgment.

Niamh leaned up to whisper across his lips. “Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me.” She pressed her mouth to his, and he felt a strange disorientation.

When he opened his eyes, they were standing in the middle of their hotel room.

31

“Finally!” Niamh cried. She lifted her head from the tablet they’d borrowed from the hotel staff. “I’ve got a hit that sounds promising.”

Half an hour ago, she’d started googling Osaka and Mizuki Nakamura. Considering Mizuki was an old woman when she’d cursed Kiyo in 1898, he wasn’t hopeful they’d find much on the internet. While Niamh searched, he’d stewed in restless anger over the fact that he’d just assumed Mizuki had used a human sacrifice to curse him. She’d brought a young girl with her to the gardens that night. Mizuki told him she was the most impressive miko she’d encountered in years. Both he and the girl thought she was there to help Mizuki deal with him.

Instead she’d killed the girl, siphoning her energy to curse Kiyo.

In the morning, when he awoke after being knocked unconscious by the curse, the gardens he laid in had begun to die.

All of that pointed to the fact that Mizuki had channeled her power through nature.

He’d never suspected that she’d used a powerful talisman to contain her spells and curses for longevity.

Feeling impatient with self-directed anger, he strode across the room and Niamh handed him the tablet.

“It’s a blog entry from a travel blogger in the US.”

Wondering at the relevancy, Kiyo read the paragraph Niamh pointed to.

Of course, I can’t write a post on Osaka without mentioning the atmospheric and creepy tavern my sister and I stumbled upon on our last night there. Buried within the Sakai ward near the port of Osaka Bay is the home of the WEIRDEST experience Lucy and I have had since arriving in Japan. We’d been talking with a local girl about how fascinating the miko culture was. For those who missed my post on that, mikos are shrine maidens. Or female shamans to