Bound by Forever - (True Immortality #3) Page 0,62

was melancholy. Not even I could comfort her.” He stalled, trying to gather the calm to confide the next part. “One morning, I went to her and I found her dead in her room. She’d cut her wrists.”

“Oh, Kiyo,” Niamh whimpered.

He couldn’t look at her.

He could hear the tears in her voice, and if he looked at her and found tears in her eyes, he’d lose his calm.

“Sobo told me the truth then. A group of men who knew of my mother’s reputation had beaten her and gang-raped her.”

“Oh my God.”

Rage still filled him. Rage that would never leave no matter how much time passed. “Sobo said Mother had brought it on herself by acting the whore for the American.”

“That old bitch.”

The rage receded somewhat and Kiyo finally looked at Niamh. Her anger was exactly what he needed. It calmed him more than her tears could. “Yeah, she was. And with my mother dead, Sofu felt no obligation toward me anymore. He lied and told me he was taking me with him on a business trip to Tokyo. I’d lost my mother. I was desperate to believe that perhaps her death had changed Sofu for the better.

“The truth is, I always felt he blamed me for ruining her potential. I think beneath his coldness, my mother was his pride and joy before her fall. And I was a constant reminder of what he’d lost. As a kid, I was desperate to believe that her death had reminded him of what was important. That he’d want a relationship with me. But it was a trick. He abandoned me in Tokyo. I was twelve years old.”

Niamh sucked in a breath. “I was twelve, too, when Ronan and I went on the run. But I had my gifts. What did you have?”

“I had my determination to live.” Deciding he’d confided enough, he continued, “Suffice it to say I landed on my feet. And years later, I hunted down the men who raped my mother. I hunted them down one by one and killed them.” He looked Niamh deep in the eyes, searching for her horror and finding nothing but understanding. “I took my vengeance, Niamh. And it left me with nothing but emptiness. I will never get my mother back. I will never be able to protect her from what happened, and what happened to her happened because of my very existence. But it wasn’t my fault. It was those men who took what they wanted like savage animals. And in killing them … I not only lost my mother, I lost my soul. I won’t let that happen to you.”

Niamh pressed her hand more firmly against his chest. “You haven’t lost your soul, Kiyo. It’s just a little bashed up.”

“Niamh—”

“No. I won’t believe it of you.” She released him but only to push up on her elbow, her hair cascading onto the bed between them. “Thank you. For telling me about your mam. Knowing you understand, knowing that vengeance wouldn’t have helped anyway … I needed to hear that.”

He nodded. As vulnerable as he felt, he was glad it had been worth it. “I know.”

Her expression changed, fear creeping into her eyes. “Kiyo, things have changed. The vision … someone is alive that should be dead. Someone we really, really need to be afraid of.”

15

It was amazing how powerful words were.

How a confidence given could make a person lower their defenses, softened by the trust and kindness of someone confiding in them to make them feel better.

Niamh knew it had been hard for Kiyo to tell her about his mam. She knew because she’d felt the wolf’s heart pounding fast and hard beneath her palm; she’d seen the sweat bead on his forehead and detected the slight musky change in his natural scent.

But he’d told her his terrible, tragic story to help her move on.

And in that moment, Niamh felt herself falling.

It was unwise. She knew that.

Kiyo had high defenses and was unlikely to ever return her feelings, even if she sensed he was attracted to her.

Yet Niamh couldn’t help herself.

And she so desperately wanted someone by her side, in friendship at least, as they battled what was coming next.

“Who is alive that shouldn’t be?”

“Ms. Wainwright, Mr. Kaneshiro.” The female voice startled them, drawing their attention upward to the flight attendant who hovered over the suite. She gave them a patient smile. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask Mr. Kaneshiro to return to his own suite. It’s our policy to