Bound by Forever - (True Immortality #3) Page 0,21
“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.”