Hunted Warrior

by Lindsey Piper

  She wanted to like him.

  She was an idiot.

  In a mere matter of minutes, it became harder to think of him by his given name. He was back to being the Giva, standing tall, holding an intimidating sword that made him appear even more magnificent. Although bare-chested, he seemed to wear a cloak of arrogance only true leaders could shoulder—a leader who wasn’t willing to consider anything but his own stubborn opinion.

  He was no longer the man whose lifeblood had pulsed beneath her fingers as she’d guided him in the use of his gift. He wasn’t the man who had kissed her with such intimidating passion. And he certainly wasn’t the man who, without fanfare, had quietly given her a name she didn’t want to relinquish. If he kept behaving this way, he would ruin the name for her, essentially taking it from her. She wouldn’t want to be Avyi anymore, just as she wasn’t the Pet or Girl anymore.

  With deliberate footfalls, she once again walked alongside him. Cautious moves. The better to become invisible when those who saw her were more likely to beat her than talk to her.

  “You are …” He broke off and shook his head. Strands of straight, bronze hair tumbled over his forehead.

  “What?”

  “Infuriating.”

  Avyi hefted the quiver. Some statements didn’t merit notice. Some actions were better left to the past. But how could she forget what they had done when her gift insisted there was even more to come?

  That was the future. For all the years she’d practically lived there, she needed to stay in the present with this man if she was going to have any chance of bending him to her needs—and fulfilling what her gift insisted would be their sensual fate.

  “The job isn’t done. More will come for you. The dam has burst. Your enemies will jump from the shadows and they’ll all come for you.”

  Malnefoley walked ahead of her with supreme confidence, as if he knew she always would follow.

  The clear blue sky blazed off the perfect, taut skin of his back, which was naturally tan in the way of the Dragon Kings. Most Dragon Kings. She was as pale as sun-bleached sand and always had been. Malnefoley, though … And yes, she thought of his given name when admiring his body. Then, he was more man than symbol. Every muscle flexed as he strode across the wind-whipped plains. A sheen of sweat gathered to trickle down his spine. The belt she’d used to fasten his bandages reminded her of the straps Cage warriors wore to secure plates of leather and metal armor.

  She didn’t trust him. With strength like Malnefoley’s came conceit and pride, and Avyi had never believed that the powerful could be just. The dominant influences in her life had been too cruel for that to be true. Unwillingly, she forced herself to put Malnefoley of Tigony in that category.

  Let him think what he wanted about how the next few days would proceed. She only focused on the next few hours. She needed a means of getting to Italy. That would be much easier with a tall, overbearing man who carried a beast of a sword.

  At least she knew that Florence was her next stop. Beyond finding anything in the maze, she’d been at a loss as to where to go next. Her gift was mercurial, playing hide-and-seek like the carefree child she’d never been.

  “Deny what you will,” she called after him. “Along one path, you stood beneath the dome of the Florence Cathedral.” Goose bumps climbed her nape when she stared the truth of her gift in the face. “Along the path back to Greece … you have no future. You will be murdered, whispering the name Pollakioh with your last breath.”

  CHAPTER

  SIX

  Mal had never been colder.

  Pollakioh.

  When his temper surfaced, he occasionally thought of Bakkhos, but he hadn’t thought of her by name in years. There was no way Avyi could’ve known that name at all. She was pulling open his past in the form of a prediction.

  For the first time, beyond logic or lust, he wondered if her claims had actual merit.

  He needed to aim his suspicion away from the woman who had done so much, so quickly, to upend his self-assurance, to do her best to tend his injury … and to awaken a beastly sexuality that reminded him of the worst moments of his life. Being Giva meant the temptation to second-guess decisions, but he’d long ago established his means of dealing with politics. He was in charge. He didn’t let up until he got his way.

  On this rare instance, being in charge was a far and distant thing. He wanted to level entire plains, just to let off steam.

  He stared across the rocky, leveled waste as Avyi caught up and walked beside him. She had caused his old temper to resurface. He hadn’t been so furious with another person in countless years. His revulsion toward men like Dr. Heath Aster—and the sadistic doctor’s father, the Old Man of the Aster cartel—was an amorphous hatred with a rap sheet of offenses to back it up. What had this woman done except escape from the Tigony stronghold and help save him?

  She’d kissed him.

  Rejected him.

  Shocked him to the core.

  This woman he’d named Avyi was only the Pet. A tool of Dr. Aster’s. A possible part of a greater assassination plot, especially if she claimed to know the circumstances of his death. She was no mythical prognosticator, able to see his future or anyone else’s. She had no proof.

  But … Pollakioh.

  “You have become a living hell in my mind,” he muttered.

  Of course, that had to be the moment when she smiled. No teeth, no great change to the apples of her cheeks or the skin around her wide cat’s eyes. Just the unmistakable and frankly alluring tilt of thin, expressive lips. She was breathtaking. She’d been Dr. Aster’s personal plaything for so long that even if Mal had noticed her physical luminescence then, he wouldn’t have seen her as anything but servile.

  “Only for those who deserve it,” she replied. “And I know you deserve a long stretch in hell, Giva.”

  He banked a shudder and closed off further thought of Bakkhos. Even if she could see the future … No. It was too unbelievable.

  “Why let me find you?” He forced his frustrations down to his feet and out through the rubble. “Why wait out in the open?”

  “I had no fear of your arrival.”

  Mal shot her an incredulous look. “You couldn’t have known I’d come alone.”

  “To summon your personal guard would mean admitting a valuable prisoner had escaped your grasp, and that you needed help. You’re a lonayíp fool, so full of yourself.”

  “No one but a member of the Council has cursed at me since I was a child.”

  “The privilege of the Giva. Never contradicted.”

  She was as graceful as a feline shadow as she transitioned from rock to the solid, smooth plains to rock again. After a half hour of silence, Mal was left with his thoughts, the ache in his shoulder, and the steady, calm respiration of his companion. This should’ve been so easy. Instead, he’d nearly been killed and he was no closer to untangling her riddles. Either she would tip her hand somewhere between Crete and Italy, revealing her tricks and her true allegiances, or …

  Or what?

  She’d find a bow? A young woman named Cadmin? See him in the shadow of a cathedral?

  He would never believe what she claimed unless he was with Avyi when her predictions unfurled—or folded like a house of cards.

  He would be better served to keep thinking of her as the Pet. She was too dangerous to make into some lost, wounded woman-child in his mind. But she was clever and blunt. She was exactly the sort of person he wished, almost daily, he could communicate with in lieu of the Council members.

  “What would’ve happened to our people had I been killed?” he asked. “No so-called reliance on seeing the future. Just think it through.”

  “The Council would’ve collapsed in anarchy. None of the clans would’ve sent children to look into the Chasm and shout the name of another Giva. No successive Giva would’ve been chosen to take your place.” She looked up at him with an expression of utmost sincerity, which layered a different sort of beauty over her feat
ures. “The end of order. The end of us.”

  “We came within inches.”

  “Do you finally realize this is bigger than your wounded pride?”

  Mal flinched. Dragon damn it. She was right. He’d been so turned internally, toward his own aggravation, that he was only now parsing the fortune of his survival and the ramifications of his murder. He cleared his throat. It was necessary to find humility—not something he was used to needing. “Thank you. You saved more than my life.”

  “You’re welcome.” She wore none of the smug satisfaction he would’ve expected. A member of the Council would’ve reveled for weeks in his admission of gratitude.

  She looked up to the clear sky, where sunshine glittered on her pale, luminous skin. Again he was amazed by the blackness of her hair, how it absorbed light, with no more brightness than the bottom of a well. She adjusted her grimy purple linen top where the straps across her shoulder had bunched the fabric.

  “I’m not losing you again.” He grimaced. That sounded far more … intimate than he’d intended. He hedged when he said, “With what you know about Dragon King conception, you could mean the difference between the survival of our people, and our extinction.”

  “So could you. Only, you don’t trust me, and I won’t trust you until you do. This will be a challenge, Giva.”

  “You know my name is Malnefoley. People of my acquaintance call me Mal.”

  “I’m sure the Council does not. They’re ‘of your acquaintance.’ ” She smiled again, to herself, face toward the ground. “We’re not there yet.”

  She had a peculiar habit of simply ending her side of a conversation. Thoughts finished. Words ended. Mal walked on with his irritation at a low simmer. If he could get used to her odd, unnerving behavior, he’d be able to recognize when she spoke sense and when her fortune-teller’s claims set off warning bells.

  They arrived at a village Avyi called Septikos. It couldn’t have housed more than fifty residences and a few rudimentary businesses: a leatherworks, a glassmaker, a pub. And a small hostel.

  “Trouble.” Without warning, Avyi took his hand and stealthily led him into a side alley between a small electronics repair shop and a grocery. “You don’t know the shadows, Giva. I do. This way.”

  “That’s because I’ve never had to hide in them. We have no fear of this place. We’re Dragon Kings, and we walk in the open.”

  “Go ahead. Believe that our influence is what it once was.”

  Her words were so harsh, so certain, that Mal followed her. There was genuine pain in her voice and, more surprisingly, genuine fear.

  Mal wanted to learn everything about her, with his reasons definitely blending into the personal. If he learned her fears, he could ease them—which was ridiculous. If anything, he should be using her fears against her in order to save his skin and accomplish his mission. Her secrets needed to become his hard data. Then he could make decisions for the good of all Five Clans, not for the sake of one woman.

  Avyi crouched behind a rubbish bin, her back pressed flat against a wall Mal didn’t want to examine too closely. He followed her lead by instinct. When was the last time he’d relied on instinct? Perhaps when he’d known, years before, that his cousin, Nynn, was a threat to the Five Clans’ tenuous trust. If the other Leaderships had known of her potential, they would’ve disintegrated into factions so divided that not even the Dragon could repair the damage. Nynn was that powerful—even more powerful than he was.

  He’d used his instinct to realize the danger she posed. And he’d sent her away. That she believed she’d gone by choice didn’t matter. He had been the instigator—and thus the cause of her suffering.

  Old bitterness would not see him free of danger. “Why are we hiding among refuse? Another attack?”

  Avyi shook her head, her face a sickly shade of white beneath her shimmering skin. “Humans.”

  *

  “Humans,” Mal said flatly. “You’re hiding from human beings?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why in the name of the Chasm and the Dragon would humans send you running for cover? Humans are not our enemies.”

  “We aren’t what we used to be—not to them. The myths are true, but they’ve stopped believing even when we still walk among them. Two Dragon Kings in broad daylight, even with that sword, aren’t enough to cow a mob of enraged humans. Believe otherwise and find yourself strung up.”

  He grabbed her arm and gave it a shake, then pinned her against the wall with his forearm across her collarbones. “You’re being absurd. We walk among them. They’re awed by us and they leave us be. They’re not a threat.”

  She fought back against his hold, but as in many things, his physical strength was overwhelming. “And if they attack? Are you ready to kill again so soon? Are you ready to learn what it feels like to take a bullet?”

  “There will be no more killing, if it can be helped.”

  “Passive tense.”

  “What?”

  “If it can be helped,” she repeated. “You really mean, ‘if I, the Honorable Giva, can help it.’ ”

  “Why do humans scare you so badly? If you’re blessed with the gift you claim, you should be able to see danger, not hide without cause.”

  She lifted her chin, trying to make him understand with her eyes alone. No use. He was beyond seeing anything but his own certainty, even when logic dictated that he was a potential—even likely—target for assassination. “How do you know the death I see for you isn’t destruction by a mob of senseless animals? There are humans in Greece, after all. They can become animals.”

  Malnefoley leaned harder across her collarbones. “Your so-called gift comes with a lot of caveats.”

  “Let’s try something you will understand.” Not with her eyes. Not with her words. She would have to convince him with her past, although her past was not her favorite place to revisit. “When I was raised by that Garnis family, we traveled. Endlessly. After stopping at a village no larger than this, we traveled at a much slower pace.”

  She shuddered. Strangely, Malnefoley’s hold eased. Rather than restraining her, he was almost holding her.

  “Had the family accepted me as more than a burden, I might have been able to fit in. I might have even gained an adopted sister. Matako was her name. She was lovely, young, playful. She enjoyed traveling. I did not. I envied her ability to adapt.” Avyi swallowed with some effort. Her tongue felt swollen, her lungs heated by fire. “We arrived in a small village in Kamchatka in far eastern Russia, populated by humans who believed in the old ways, including the existence of devils and witches.”

  “Your troupe of Dragon Kings must’ve fit those superstitions to a T.”

  “We did. Matako was stoned almost immediately. Her family fought. Half of the humans were killed. The rest fled. Matako … She was … pulp. Eventually she healed. As best she could. We had no sword.”

  He slowly shook his head, his understanding plain. No Dragon-forged sword meant no way to put Matako out of her misery.

  “They’d smashed her feet. She couldn’t walk. They’d collapsed her chest. She struggled for each breath. At night—” A shiver cut her sentence in two. “She gasped all night. I can’t sleep sometimes, hearing her still.”

  “But your guardians didn’t abandon her.”

  “They didn’t.” Avyi shrugged free of his loosened grip. “They never passed through a village again. They skirted around. Stole by the cover of darkness. I didn’t sleep in a bed until the doctor bought me.”

  “Bought?”

  It was her turn to shake her head, ending her reminiscence. She’d already revealed so much.

  “Fine,” he said tersely. “But don’t think I won’t ask again.”

  “Fine.”

  “Then why come here? It’s daylight. Did you expect the village to be deserted?”

  She was glad for the shadows because she didn’t like to blush. She’d never been able to curtail that physiological reaction—as telling as a smile or a l
augh. The doctor had liked to see her blush. She had been expressive until she learned to be expressive no more. But her blush had always remained.

  Against all instinct, she stood. She looked down at the Honorable Giva, where he knelt in an alley. That had to be a first. “We need to get washed, find new clothes, and rest up. Comfort aside, we need to blend in as much as possible.”

  “Worth leaving this alley?”

  She shivered. “It’ll have to be.”

  Malnefoley rose with such slowness and grandeur that she thought he’d never reach his full height. He would hold her suspended in a state of anticipation for longer than time. He was so tall. Her forehead barely aligned with the top of his bare breastbone.

  He touched the center of her chin with the pad of his thumb. “So, Avyi, now we explore the fine tourist destination of Septikos?”

  “My name sounds better when you say it than it does in my head,” she said quietly. He paused, scrutinizing her with unexpected intensity. A frown didn’t detract from his heartbreakingly handsome face. He wore seriousness as well as he did expensive suits. Whether he realized it or not, he was meant for responsibility. Without need for her gift, she knew that much.

  His hand slipped back to cup her neck. A shaft of sunshine caught the blue in his eyes and turned them into jewels, and spun his blond hair into thick, precious gold filaments. It took the entirety of her willpower to hold still. She was a rabbit in the grip of a wolf. She’d never wanted to feel that way again, yet with Malnefoley …

  He held her possessively, but with something like respect. She’d never felt such a thing, so it was only a guess. An enticing guess.

  “Do you like your name?” he asked, his voice so low and intimate.

  “Very much.”

  He smiled at her, broadly, brightly, which was nearly as shattering as the powers he could rip from the sky. “I’m glad.”

  Enough of this … this … wiggling unease. She would wind up back in his arms, relishing his taste and his scent, wanting more than she was ready for. She ducked beneath his arm and walked out of the alley. Her knees were watery now, when they’d been steady and reliable facing off against three Pendray.