Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 90897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 454(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 454(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
Niamh cleared her throat. “Well, I received visions of how our odds of survival, of all mankind’s survival, depended on the fae-borne finding their true mates. When we have people we love who we want to protect, when we have something worth fighting for, we fight harder. So I nudged things along a bit. I don’t know the exact outcome of things, but I can see what path might lead to the right result. I told Thea to trust Conall because I could see in one of her paths was a future of losing her immortality to werewolfdom with her mate. That’s what happened. It eliminated her as a threat to the gate.
“Then I discovered Fionn, here, was planning to use the fae-borne to open the gates to take revenge on the Faerie queen.” Her tone was dry with amusement for some bizarre reason.
Elijah stared suspiciously at the large male and he felt Echo’s guard rise too.
“Oh, no need for that,” Niamh said as if she sensed their thoughts. “I saw that Rose was his mate and that not only would he not hurt her but that she’d take him off the path of revenge. So, I nudged them together.
“Kiyo and I …” She smoothed a hand over her mate’s chest, her expression tender. “I didn’t see him coming. Fate did all the work there. Thank goodness.”
Her mate’s expression softened ever so slightly as he pulled her a little deeper into his side.
“And you.” Niamh’s head whipped to Elijah, and he stiffened. “The most emotionally stable of us all.”
Elijah pointed to himself as Rose chuckled. “Me?”
“Yes, you. Born with parents who loved and protected you. You already had something worth fighting for, but it wasn’t enough. To defeat Astra, we needed something else.” Her gaze moved to Echo. “We needed to take our other enemies down too. Like The Garm. So, imagine my surprise when I get a vision showing me that your mate was the vampire daughter of William Payne.”
Echo’s gaze flew to Elijah’s as Niamh’s words flowed through him.
He was surprised but not nearly as much as he should have been.
It made sense.
This deep connection, need, for Echo. He felt like he was tethered to her.
What did surprise him was there was no surprise on Echo’s face. “You knew.”
“I suspected,” she whispered.
And she didn’t plan on telling him?
The room and its occupants were tense with awkward silence. Finally, Niamh broke it. “That’s why you didn’t burst into ash, Echo. You’ve fed from Elijah, haven’t you?”
Not particularly pleased at discussing their intimacies in front of strangers, Elijah let out an uncharacteristic growl.
“No offense meant,” Niamh assured him. “I’m going somewhere with this.”
“Yes, I fed on him.” Echo lifted her chin as if daring the others to judge what she was.
“Well, a vampire with a fae mate gets a nice little gift from the mating. A fae mate’s blood protects you from daylight. It turns that vampire into a Daywalker. It was one of the reasons Queen Aine of the Fae decided to chuck all the supernaturals out of Faerie. She considered there would be many a vampire desperate enough to attack the fae over the lure of becoming a Daywalker. To try to experiment with their blood and see if there was a way around the mate loophole part of the deal.”
Elijah’s heart raced in his chest at the news.
All Echo had ever wanted was to walk in the sun again. To live as she once had. His blood could do that for her?
She looked at him and as if she couldn’t hold her guard up anymore, tears blurred her beautiful eyes. “Elijah?”
He crossed the room, a blur of movement, to be at her side. His arms moved around her as she swayed into him, trembling. It was so unlike her. Echo was usually so tough. But this … this changed everything for her.
“How often?” he demanded of Niamh. “To maintain being a Daywalker. How often does she need to feed from me?”
Echo gasped at his question, staring up at him in wonder and awe.
It made him feel about fifty feet tall.
“Just that once. Even if you were … even if something were to happen to you, Elijah, Echo will remain a Daywalker for the rest of her immortality.”
When he met his mate’s (his mate!) gaze again, he saw the many things she wanted to say but couldn’t in front of their new companions. He nodded, telling her silently he understood. They’d talk later.
Turning back to Niamh and the others, he demanded, “So what now? How do we end this threat?”
“We need backup,” the Irish fae told them grimly. “I’ve seen a final battle. And we can’t do it alone. We’re going to need Conall and Thea MacLennan.”
“So, we’re still traveling to the Highlands?” Elijah asked.
“We are. All of us. We stick together from now on.”