room. “True.”
“Go home to your pack. Be with your mate. Stay safe. I’ll look out for Niamh.”
Thea’s lovely dark gaze filled with concern. “It feels wrong to abandon you to this.”
Rose smiled. “Thea, you’re not abandoning me to anything. This—being fae—it’s what I am.” Her smile dimmed a little as she looked down at Lori’s body. “It comes with its consequences, and I’m not saying that’s easy. At all.” Her sad eyes returned to Thea. “But I’m not afraid of what I am. I’m not afraid of immortality.”
Thea gave an embarrassed huff as she looked to her mate for reassurance. “It was arrogant of me to assume the others like me wouldn’t want their abilities or the immortality.”
Conall kissed her forehead. “Not arrogance, Thea love.”
“I agree with your mate, Thea. But like I said earlier, even if I didn’t want this, there is nothing you can do. Same goes for Niamh.”
At Conall’s questioning expression, Thea shook her head. “I can’t change them to wolf. Only a mate can. That’s why I survived your bite.”
“What?”
“It’s true,” Fionn offered, his voice hoarse with the emotions churning inside him. “I heard it personally from within the queen’s private court.”
“Fuck,” Conall cursed, giving his mate a commiserating squeeze. “I’m sorry.”
She shrugged and then threw Rose a wry smile. “Doesn’t seem to be a problem, anyway. Rose is powerful.”
Fionn took in the room again, grimly. He was proud that Rose could defend herself, but he worried about her conscience. She wasn’t born to be a warrior like he was, to compartmentalize death at her own hands.
“Enough chitchat. We need to leave,” Conall said.
“Right.” Fionn gestured to the room, sending his magic out to every single body. As one, they crumbled to ash.
“Holy shit,” Thea whispered.
“Looks like you only touched the tip of the iceberg of your powers when you were fae, Thea,” Conall muttered, looking a little awed himself.
“Uh … yeah,” she agreed.
“Why are we worrying about the Blackwoods?” MacLennan shot a look at Fionn. “If you can do this.”
“Because the Blackwoods are powerful enough to trace their coven to here. Even if they don’t find bodies, they can use spells to discern whether they’re alive or not. This”—he gestured to the ash—“is to hide the evidence from the humans.”
“It’s like what I did to Eirik.” Thea stared at the pile of ash that was Layton Blackwood. “But without the glowing-sunlight thing.”
“No, what you did is different. It’s easy to turn what is dead to ash. Harder to do it to a living thing.” Fionn considered Thea. “You must have been very powerful as a fae, Thea.”
“Yeah, still … I prefer this version of me. Way less complicated.”
“Right. Like I said, chitchat’s over. Let’s go.”
At Conall’s order, Rose pulled away from Fionn and followed the alpha couple out of the room. She held her head up and didn’t look at the piles of ash.
Fionn followed behind her, dread filling him.
Why had she pulled away?
Fuck. Fionn growled inwardly, his hands tight fists at his sides. This was the downside to the mating bond—the overwhelming, complicated mix of emotions eating at his insides.
Forcing himself to stay alert, instead of gluing his attention to his mate, Fionn followed the small group upstairs and out of the empty warehouse. There was no one else here.
They’d killed every supernatural who’d been guarding the place.
Once outside, it was decided Fionn and Rose would escort the alpha couple back to the village so they could collect their rental car and get the hell out of Ireland. The couple’s pride seemed a little pricked by Rose’s stubborn refusal to leave them until she knew they were well on their way, but Thea gave in first. And then convinced Conall too.
Despite Rose’s sudden distance with Fionn, there was no way in hell he was leaving her side, so he escorted the wolves as well.
An hour later, Rose and Thea hugged goodbye.
“You know where I am if you need me,” Thea said.
“Yeah. And I’ll find a way to make it so you can contact me if you need me too,” Rose said.
The women hugged again as Fionn gave Conall a nod that issued the same overture. Conall nodded back, returning the offer.
Finally, they drove off in a rented Land Rover, leaving Fionn alone with his quiet mate.
He looked down at her wrists.
They’d be scarred forever, a constant reminder of what Layton Blackwood had done.
Fionn had never felt the burn of iron, but he’d heard it was excruciating. His fury began to build again at the