to finish her, Fionn seemed unaware of Ethan’s sister who ran across the apartment, jumping over the coffee table, iron dagger raised above her head in both hands, ready to bring it down on him.
Fionn.
A fist hit Rose in the face, but she barely registered it before she traveled across the room, appearing at Fionn’s back, facing Ethan’s sister as her dagger came down.
It plunged into Rose’s chest before she could defend herself.
Agonizing pain blazed through her entire body, like fire licking at her insides.
“ROSE!” Fionn’s voice bellowed in rage behind her as she slumped to her knees.
Her vision grew unfocused, her mind lost to everything but the pain. What looked like a bloodied human head fell next to her. Images of Fionn, a streak of vengeance across the room, sword in hand, slicing through the coven, came and went between moments of utter black.
“Rose …” She heard his deep voice and the black retreated to the edges of her vision, revealing Fionn’s face. “It didn’t get you in the heart. I’m going to pull it out.”
She wanted to tell him to hurry, to make the pain stop, but she couldn’t. Agony stalled the words.
Something tugged in her chest, causing her torment to increase tenfold.
But then it was over.
The pain began to recede, and her vision came back into focus. Her breathing eased and feeling returned to her limbs.
A hand brushed the hair from her face, and Rose looked up to see Fionn kneeling beside her, his expression strained.
“You’ll be okay.”
She’d never heard his voice so soft.
“Why?” he growled, the soft crushed by his hard tone as he leaned his face so close to hers, their lips almost touched. “Why would risk your life for me?”
A broken sob cut through the air before Rose could come up with the answer to the most complicated question ever. The truth was, she hadn’t thought. She saw the dagger that was meant for Fionn, and the thought of his death propelled her into action.
Turning toward the wretched sound, Rose’s took in the apartment now littered with horror.
Fionn had killed the entire coven, except for the witch Niamh had expelled from the apartment.
The crying was coming from Niamh, who knelt over her brother’s body, shuddering.
“No,” Rose wheezed, stumbling to her feet to go to her friend.
Fionn reached for her, but Rose pushed his hands away, tripping over bodies that would haunt her nightmares. Falling at Niamh’s side, Rose saw Ronan’s slumped figure. His unseeing eyes stared up at the ceiling, his features resting stiffly in the fearful expression he’d worn before he’d …
They were too late.
The coven had stolen his life. All for nothing. The spell wouldn’t have taken Rose down, let alone both her and Niamh.
Fionn observed the siblings with a grim countenance, and Rose looked past him to the carnage he’d created. Fury filled her. Those hateful, narrow-minded, traitorous, murdering fools had brought this on themselves. Rose just wished Fionn had shown up sooner.
“Niamh.” She rested a hand on the girl’s shoulder. Niamh flinched when she looked at Rose. So lost, in far more pain than Rose had been when the iron entered her body.
“I tried.” Niamh clutched at her own wrist. There were smears of blood on it but no wound. “It kept healing over. I tried.”
Tears flooded Rose’s eyes. “I know. I’m so sorry.”
“I saw it coming. I saw it happen before—” Niamh retched, sagging sideways to vomit on the hardwood as far from her brother’s body as she could get. Her back heaved as she tried to eject all the bile and grief inside her.
Fionn lowered to his haunches and surprised Rose by gently lifting Niamh’s hair out of her face. When her body calmed, she sat back on her heels and looked at Fionn.
Whatever he saw in her made his usually granite expression soften. “You’ve nothing to fear from me, ceann beag.”
This surprised Rose. What did it mean?
“Not directly,” Niamh’s voice was hoarse, her words flat, dead. “I see that now. But you can still bring devastation to this world, Rí Mac Tíre.”
Confusion crossed his face. Rose felt much the same. If Niamh had nothing to fear from Fionn, but he was still a threat, then the other fae-borne was still in danger of Fionn. At least according to the psychic.
Niamh pulled away and turned to Rose, who almost flinched at the deadness of her eyes. “Promise me, Rose.”
Rose understood, and although she had no idea if she could ever forgive Fionn, she could trick him. She could