Bound by Forever - (True Immortality #3) Page 0,48

truth.

She’d killed a man.

She didn’t deserve nice.

A touch of darkness had bled into her soul.

“Don’t feel guilty,” Ronan had lectured her a few days later as they sat in the first-class carriage of a train heading for mainland Europe. Niamh had used her ability to trick humans into seeing whatever she wanted them to see to get them on the train without passports. When she accidentally did it to her mam the first time, her mam was so angry, she made Niamh vow never to do it again.

Ronan wanted her to use it all the time now.

“We need to survive. And that’s what you did back at Siobhan’s. You survived.”

“They’re looking for us.”

It was all over the news back in Cork. They thought Miller had kidnapped them.

“Aye, well, that’s why you should do something about your hair.” Ronan gestured to her long, light blond hair. She didn’t know where it came from. Although she and Ronan shared the same green-blue eyes, he had brown hair. Just like their mam. They didn’t remember their dad. He left before Niamh was born. Mam had said he was a loser, anyway. But she also said he didn’t have blond hair. No one in her family had blond hair like Niamh’s.

“I don’t want to dye it,” she said petulantly.

“Dye it, cut it,” he insisted. “And stop dressing like a fairy princess.”

“But I am a faerie,” she teased, trying to break the tension between them.

Ronan scowled. When she was younger and she first started spouting stories about Faerie, her mam and Ronan thought she just had a wild imagination. As she got older and her powers started to present themselves, Ronan at least began to believe Niamh was one of the fae. She explained about the Faerie Queen’s spell that had brought about Niamh’s existence in the human world along with six other fae children, but Mam insisted it was nonsense.

“I gave birth to you!” she yelled in exasperation on Niamh’s tenth birthday. “I remember the bloody pain! I’m your mother, and stop saying otherwise, you ungrateful shit, or they’ll put you in the nuthouse!”

It was the nastiest thing her mam had ever said to her. She hurt any time she thought of her mam and how one day she was alive, and the next, she was gone. And they’d never really known each other. While Niamh and Ronan had an unbreakable bond, Niamh and her mam had never forged one. Ronan was close to Mam. Her death hit him the hardest.

It hit Niamh hard for a different reason. She’d always thought that one day, her mam would eventually believe her, and the bond would grow between them.

They never got the chance.

“Don’t say that stuff out loud,” Ronan reprimanded her. “And from now on, stop dressing in a way that will get attention and dye and cut your bloody hair,” he repeated. “We need to move around without being noticed.”

But Niamh refused.

In her vanity, she refused.

“You’re going to get me killed,” her brother said in exasperation.

Niamh blinked rapidly, coming out of her memories.

“You’re going to get me killed, Nee.”

How many times had Ronan said that?

And she’d just taken it for granted that she’d be able to protect him.

“I couldn’t even dye my bloody hair for him,” she muttered angrily.

Turning from the mirror, Niamh strolled into the sitting room of the small apartment in the shitty neighborhood.

A small blond was huddled in the corner.

Lights of gold encircled her wrists and ankles, holding her in place.

She’d never used such magic before. Every day, Niamh learned something new about her capabilities.

She’d also used her magic to silence the witch. She couldn’t bear her nonsensical pleading: “It wasn’t me. She made me. She made us.” Assuming she referred to the leader of the O’Connor Coven who’d led the charge that day, Niamh didn’t want to hear it. An adult was responsible for their own decisions.

When she’d hunted Meghan O’Connor down to a café in Sèvres, she’d waited until the witch left the café and followed her. The entire time, Niamh had felt like she was being watched, as though someone was following her following the witch. The sensation made her fear that Kiyo had, by some miracle, found her. But when she glanced behind and all around, there was no one there, and she needed to focus.

So she abandoned the feeling with reckless pursuit. Meghan entered a park and as soon as they were alone, Niamh traveled until she was right behind her and hit her carotid with energy