Warrior Ascended

by Addison Fox

  Kane dropped next to him, so quiet Brody nearly missed it.

  “You’re going to have to teach me how you manage to drop two-twenty in solid muscle with the stealth of a cat.”

  “Talent,” Kane answered with a smirk. The two of them started down a long corridor, the walls of the subway tunnels rising above them in an arch. “At least I’ve still got something.”

  “You’ve still got a lot.”

  Kane shook his head as they came to a new tunnel entrance. They moved through it, the air darker and damper than the higher level they’d been standing on. “Not if I don’t figure out who the bitch was who stung me in London.”

  “You find any leads?”

  “I’m running a few things down.”

  “You think she’s a part of this?”

  Kane shook his head, his mouth a grim line, his jaw hard. “Nope. That was personal. I just need to figure out why. What she wanted and why she burned me.”

  Brody was prevented from saying anything else as a loud noise rumbled down the corridor they’d just left. With barely a second to react, Brody and Kane turned as the Chimera leaped into the tunnel with them. Brody’s lion answered in kind, roaring to life and filling up his aura.

  The animal raced toward them, its lion head open-throated in a full roar while blood dripped from the mouth of the goat that emerged from the lion’s back.

  Kane swung his sword in a broad, sweeping motion. “Fuck, even that’s bad for Enyo. I thought they’d killed off the last of these.”

  “Leave it to Enyo to still have one as a pet.” Brody leaped in, brandishing his sword in unison with Kane. In mirrored movements, they severed the head of the goat and the lion. As the body fell to the floor, Brody added the death blow to the snake that grew out of the Chimera’s tail.

  “Come on.”

  They followed the twists of the tunnel, then saw a set of stairs. Brody beat a path first, Kane’s footsteps hot on his heels.

  A light beckoned ahead, and Brody could see two matched archways. Even as they moved forward, careful in their footsteps so they wouldn’t alert anyone to their presence, Brody knew it was futile.

  No one was here.

  The air was too still, the subtle hum of another’s presence absent.

  They rounded the corner of the room, and an empty bed stared back at them, confirming Brody’s suspicion. “She’s gone.”

  “The needle?” Kane arched an eyebrow.

  “Now!”

  Brody walked the perimeter of Cleopatra’s Needle, counting off paces, orienting himself with the location. With each step he took—each potential pathway he traced—he thought of the millions of things that could go wrong.

  What if this wasn’t even the right place?

  What if they’d misread Quinn’s damn intel?

  What if Enyo had already killed her?

  “Brody! Over here.” He followed the sound of Quinn’s voice until he found their Taurus hidden in the trees, a listening device set up in a copse of trees.

  “Surely we’re not planning on making small talk?”

  “I want to get as much information as we possibly can. And, I’m working on a new idea. I want to get a voiceprint of Enyo. See if access to her voice and modulations unlock anything.”

  “Will that do anything for you?”

  Quinn shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. It never hurts to be prepared.”

  “No voiceprint at the risk of Ava’s life.”

  Quinn simply stood there and stared at him. As the moment stretched out, Brody felt an itch at his lower back. “What?”

  “You can’t seriously be asking me that? I’d lay down my life for that woman, Brody. Surely you know that?”

  “You didn’t like her at first.”

  “I didn’t know her. Didn’t know why you were bringing her into our midst. Didn’t know anything. Now I know.”

  “Sorry.”

  Quinn blew on the edge of one of his listening devices. “There’s something else I know.”

  “What’s that?”

  “That woman is your mate. As surely as I’m standing here, she is your woman.”

  Brody ran a hand through his hair. The blustery fall breeze had whipped his hair around and he’d wished for a cord to hold his hair back more than once since they’d been outside. “My mortal woman.”

  “Does that matter?”

  Did it?

  Would immortality make Ava any different? Any more right for him?

  “Don’t ruin what you have because it’s not your version of perfect. Maybe it’s perfect just the way it is.”

  “Quinn. I’ve been afraid of losing her in sixty years. What if I lose her today?”

  One minute he was standing there; the next he was flat on his back, his jaw throbbing from where Quinn’s fist had implanted itself.

  He took a few deep breaths, willing his lion against his body. “What the hell was that for?”

  “How dare you suggest we’re going to let something happen to your woman?”

  And as Brody continued to stare up at him, Quinn stuck out his hand. With a firm grip, Brody took the offering of friendship, regaining his feet.

  “We’re not losing her, Brody.”

  The brief car ride didn’t offer any additional illumination of what was going on or where they were going, but it did shed some light on her uncle’s role in Enyo’s organization. Although she’d suspected since the evening before, his bound hands confirmed it.

  He was one hundred percent, wholly disposable.

  Even by his mother.

  “Shocking, isn’t it?” Enyo smiled at her, the bloodred of her lips curling up in mockery.

  “No more shocking than anything else that’s happened to me in the last week. Hell, my entire life. It’s all revolved around those damn stones. Every single thing about my life ties back to those.”

  “Lucky girl.” Enyo pulled out a compact from a small clutch purse hidden in the door of the limousine. “Of course, luck really is a relative term.” She dashed powder along the bridge of her nose. “It comes and goes so very, very quickly.”

  Ignoring Enyo, Ava found her thoughts drifting again to the bleak reality that was her family.

  What the hell sort of family had she come from? Was it really possible she’d spent her entire life oblivious to all of them? To their evil natures and greedy ways?

  Or had it been the fear? That damnable fear and loathing her grandmother had been more than willing to shove down her throat.

  Always present. Never tolerant.

  The car came to a halt and Deimos and Phobos immediately began to drag her and Wyatt out of the car. She could hear Wyatt as Phobos held him in what she could only assume was the matched, viselike grip of his brother.

  In seconds, Phobos dragged him across a clearing, into what Ava now realized was Central Park. Ava heard her uncle’s screams as they moved farther and farther away from the car.

  “Where are you taking me?” Panic coated Wyatt’s voice in great, quivering waves. “Why are you asking me to leave my family? I brought her to you!”

  Ava watched her grandmother and Enyo as they followed at a distance behind Wyatt. A smile spread across her grandmother’s face, the expression so telling—so bereft of motherly love and affection—Ava felt nausea roil in her stomach in great, billowing waves.

  Deimos grabbed at her hands, dragging her in everyone’s wake. “Time to go, Ava.”

  As her captor dragged her farther into the park, Ava kept an eye on her surroundings. The heels she’d worn to Grandmother’s sank into the damp, autumn earth as they traipsed off the paths. And as they walked, Ava had absolutely no doubt where they were heading.

  She’d been there recently, in fact.

  In her nightmares with Thutmose’s high priest.

  The obelisks that had presented the entrance to Thutmose’s great city now held places of honor around the globe: one here in Central Park; another in London on the banks of the Thames.

  As Cleop
atra’s Needle came into view, Ava knew. Knew on a soul-deep level that this was where it would happen.

  This was where she would change.

  This was where she would either die or find new life.

  It was all here.

  Now.

  As Deimos dragged her along, she realized something else, horror dawning brighter and brighter with each step.

  A dark shape hung from the top of the ancient obelisk, drawing the eye as it followed the sleek lines toward the sky. And then they were close enough and she knew exactly what it was.

  Wyatt lay, impaled on the top of the needle, his body hanging over the top and marring the obelisk’s journey to the sky.

  Great, agonizing screams flew from her throat as she took in the sight of her uncle, so recently alive, now staring down at them with sightless eyes.

  Instinctively, Ava wanted to curl up into herself, close out what was happening and retreat to a small place inside that no one could reach. But not anymore.

  She would not be defeated.

  As a swirl of wind kicked up, carrying Phobos’s and Deimos’s laughter toward her, she was helpless to stop the rage that beat inside of her. Helpless to stop the need for vengeance that pulsed to the very depths of her soul.

  Brody watched from a distance as one of the demon twins strung up Ava’s uncle on the top of Cleopatra’s Needle. Despite his loathing for Wyatt Harrison, his honor as a Warrior depended on giving aid to humans in need. If it hadn’t been for Kane’s quick grab of his ankles, he would have been in the thick of the action before he thought better of it.

  And fully exposed as Ava came into the clearing.

  Followed by Enyo and . . . Ava’s grandmother?

  “Brody, stay back. You need to wait on this. See what they’re going to do.”

  Someone prodded Ava from behind. Pure, undiluted rage swam through his veins as he realized it was Deimos and it took sheer force of will to keep his lion against his body.

  How dare he touch her?

  “Brody. Don’t make us hold you back. We need to give them time to set up,” Quinn muttered against his ear. “We have to get the lay of the land.”

  He nodded. He knew the truth of Quinn’s words; he knew he needed to wait even as every single fiber of his being cried out to go to her, to save her.

  “We need to know what she’s capable of.”

  Brody whirled on Quinn. “You told me you wouldn’t let her take unnecessary risks. You told me you’d save her before that happened. That’s why we brought the last two stones—for Ava.”

  “Yes, Brody, for Ava. So if Enyo throws some surprises at us, we can give them to her and see what she can do with all five stones. In the meantime? We need to sit and wait. We have to know how she reacts. What if they cloud her judgment so badly she turns on us? You. Don’t. Know.”

  “Ava won’t hurt us.”

  “Not voluntarily, no. You saw what happened to her with one stone. One. You saw what it can do. Don’t tell me you’ve conveniently forgotten?”

  Of course he hadn’t forgotten. But surely she would do better with all the stones. They’d balance one another so she could use them.

  You. Don’t. Know.

  Quinn’s fucking words pounded in his head.

  And then Enyo appeared in the clearing, at the base of the obelisk. Her arms were raised and great beams of light exploded from her fingertips. Within the beams, Enyo balanced a clear pouch that looked as delicate as jellyfish skin.

  Even from this distance, Brody felt the coiled power hover in the air. Like the threat of a thunderstorm, the heavy air grew, expanded and oppressed everything in its path.

  Ava tried not to look at Uncle Wyatt. She tried to keep her eyes averted, but it was hard—nearly impossible not to feel some sense of remorse for what he had become.

  For what her whole family had become.

  Was this the result of her father’s life’s work? Was this all it meant?

  Enyo lifted her hands higher, the gossamer bag opening at the top. With her gaze focused on some point in the distance Ava assumed only the goddess of war could see, the woman began to laugh.

  Then she lowered the clear, translucent bag, reached in and pulled out—

  Oh my God.

  Bile rose immediately in Ava’s throat as her stomach cramped. A human head—or what was formerly human; it was Brody’s brother, Ajax.

  “Now, Dr. Talbot!” Enyo screamed in the direction of the needle. “I suggest you come out from wherever it is you’re hiding. You can claim your brother’s body. I believe he’s really dead this time. And you can try and save your girlfriend while you’re at it.”

  Brody?

  Hope burst through her chest, a rainbow in the midst of this emotional hurricane.

  And then he was there. And he was looking at her. And his blue eyes locked with hers, his gaze giving her strength she never knew she had.

  With deliberate movements, he moved into the clearing, taunting Enyo the whole way. “You just can’t stand anyone who tries to get in your way. On this one, however, you miscalculated. Do you really think I give a shit about my brother’s body? I haven’t missed him for the last ten thousand years. I’m certainly not about to start now.”

  Enyo tossed Ajax’s head in Brody’s direction, sheer rage in her movements. “I’d say things went down a bit differently than that. I got in his way. And clearly”—Enyo shot a nasty sneer in the direction of Brody’s late brother—“I call the shots.”

  Brody stood, tossing his Xiphos with lightning-quick movements from hand to hand. He was magnificent. Her Warrior.

  Her man.

  The gossamer pouch Enyo held dangled from her hand, the top still open. As Ava watched the fight unfold between the two of them, the air around them began to change, like the building fervor of a team of horses or the increasing crash of waves as a hurricane blew into shore.

  Images of the last few weeks—the renewed memories of her mother and father, the freshly made memories with Brody, the horrors of the past night as she learned the truth about her family—all began to coalesce around her, drawing on the deep power of her emotions.

  Unable to hold herself still, Ava stretched out her arms, amazed when three stones floated from the pouch Enyo held to hover above them all in the clearing.

  “Ava!” Quinn hollered from behind her as he stepped into the clearing. “Catch!” With that, he tossed the two remaining stones up, where they got caught in the vortex, hovering along with the other three.

  The five reunited stones spun in the air of their own accord, a frenzy of activity on the wind.

  Hands up, her hair whipping in the wind, Ava drew power from the air around her. Like her innate ability to breathe, the power beat through her very essence.

  Natural.

  Real.

  Raw.

  She drew the power from the stones, pulling it into her hands and then reflecting it back. Bright, beautiful waves of light, matching the color of each stone.

  Deep indigo, bloodred crimson, yellow ochre, emerald green, incandescent white; they all swirled around her.

  What was happening to her?

  Great magnetic waves of force pummeled her body, even as she stood straight and tall in the clearing. From the moment Enyo stepped in front of the needle and opened the satchel, Ava felt her body operate independently of her own thoughts.

  Great, gusting waves of power washed over her, in her, through her.

  She felt it fill her up—nerve and sinew; flesh and bone. Her entire body was filled with power—with the sheer joy of it, like a thousand orgasms, released all at once.

  She. Was. Incredible.

  The stones spun around her head. Curious at what she could do with them, she extended her hands toward her uncle’s body. With deliberate movements, she lifted him off the top of the needle and gently moved him through the air to lay him at Grandmother’s feet.

  When the woman didn’t move—didn’t even deign to look at her son—Ava felt a s
mall short circuit in the currents around her, a break in the power coursing through her as she stopped to stare at her grandmother.

  Who was this woman? She’d lived her entire life as a lie—a polite facade designed to fool the world.

  She should be punished.

  “Come here, Ava. Come closer to me.” Enyo had her own arms outstretched, pulling her closer. “You feel it, don’t you? The beauty of power. The strength in it.” She was close enough that Enyo closed the distance between them to whisper in her ear. “The way it makes you feel. You are no longer nothing. You have nothing to fear. All power is yours.”

  As Enyo’s voice washed over her, Ava knew it was fake. She knew the goddess told lies.

  But, oh God, did the power feel good. Great, huge, coursing waves of it.

  She’d never be afraid. Ever again.

  Never run from any situation.

  Never . . .

  Brody stepped out of the clearing, his arms outstretched as Enyo’s had been.

  “My Ava. Don’t do this. Don’t give in to her. Her promises are empty.”

  The stones faltered in her hands as she moved them. Then, she pulled back.

  “And yours aren’t?”

  “No, my darling. They are full of love for you.”

  And then Enyo was in her other ear, hissing like a snake. “He’s a man. They make promises that are handy. Promises to get what they want. Look at what my father did to me. Themis and Zeus’s great bargain, eh? Where was my choice? My decision in all this?”

  She didn’t want what Enyo offered; she knew she didn’t.

  Brody didn’t offer empty promises.

  He offered love.

  As she turned toward him, a loud scream broke through the field as Deimos and Phobos headed straight for Brody.

  With a feral war cry of his own, Brody charged back at them, his lion at full throttle next to him.

  Ava watched the colors of the stones dance before her eyes. Somewhere, reason clawed at her, trying to tell her something.

  Trying to break through.

  “Kill them,” Enyo whispered in her ear as Quinn and Kane launched themselves into the fray, the Warriors and the demons locked in battle.