Hunted Warrior

by Lindsey Piper

  Mal hoped it wasn’t a world for the better. He needed to know his people were a force for good. He would make it so.

  He snorted under his breath. Avyi pulled her luggage alongside him and shot him an assessing look. “What was that for?”

  “I’m thinking more like you than I want to.”

  “Do you believe in the Dragon yet?”

  “Avyi, don’t.”

  She shrugged. Some of that feline grace had returned to her poised movements—part teasing, part defensive mechanism. “I’m not worried. You will, Mal. Or we’ll all be dead. Either way.”

  “Now you’re a fatalist?”

  “No,” she said simply. “I’ve never been a fatalist or an optimist. Otherwise all those unborn children would’ve driven me crazy. Seeing the ones who would live. Seeing the ones who would never survive. They just were. That was the only way I could manage. That’s the only way we’ll get through the next few days. It just is.” She glanced to the side. “Except for Hark and Cadmin. I’m insisting that the Dragon make a few special cases.”

  Silence was almost motionless now, in her features and her expressions. She’d turned off everything. Despite that, Avyi was not discouraged by having her newly revealed sister turn into a stony-faced warrior. Maybe that was because Silence was a Dragon-damned impressive warrior. Even there in the airport, she radiated violence and the confidence of a woman ready to rip off limbs.

  “To Battersea,” Mal said firmly.

  Avyi tilted her head. “Not the Townsend complex?”

  “We’re taking the offensive. I happen to know that the Townsends have already encamped their Cage warriors in cells beneath Battersea.”

  His fey, raven-haired woman smiled like a conspirator.

  His woman? Dragon save us both.

  “You ‘happen to know’?”

  Mal smiled without mirth. “It’s good to be Giva.”

  “That’s new.”

  They crossed town in a limo and found a hotel near the power station, which was now defunct and crumbling, held aloft by various investors and its status as a protected monument. Mal unpacked their weapons. They’d wait until night, only a few hours off. Silence seemed on edge, despite her composed nature. The energy shimmering out from her skin was practically strong enough to fuel Mal’s gift. She was lit dynamite.

  “Can you tell us anything?” Avyi asked, while they stood looking out the suite’s window toward Battersea. “Find a telepath? Anything?”

  “No, but I plan to.” It was the first she’d spoken since leaving Florence. “You two rest or …” She shook her head. “Stay here. I’m going for a walk. If there are Dragon Kings in cells, I’ll know. I’ll find out how many, which clans, how strong—the recon we need before suiting up for nightfall.”

  Mal caught up as she walked away. She flicked her gaze down to where his hand enveloped her upper arm. “Just recon. Not engagement. We have enough to do without needing to rescue you, too.”

  Orla became Silence once again, with a single smile. It was a cold smile, one made of the hunger for blood and revenge. “Who says I’ll need rescuing?”

  In clothing that nearly matched Avyi’s militaristic style, they looked more alike than ever—lithe, pale, graceful. Silence was tall and so very blond, while Avyi was petite with that trademark raven-dark hair. But the resemblance between the half sisters was otherwise remarkable. Mal wondered why no one had ever made the connection before.

  “Silence,” he called to the departing woman. “Stay true to that name. Think like a warrior, not a lover. Information first, then action. Hark is dead or he’s not. Don’t make the mistake of taking on anyone by yourself. You came for us in Florence for a reason.”

  The woman paled. Then she swallowed and nodded. “Yes, Giva.”

  She’d used the title dismissively before. Now, the word was infused with respect. He fed off the surprising shift in tone and knew she would obey his instructions.

  She bid her shorter sister good-bye with a swift kiss to Avyi’s crown. She was dressed in black, weaponless, and fierce. Then she was gone, with the door closed behind her.

  Silence had called him Giva and had meant it. But to become the leader they all needed, he had to tell Avyi the secret that plagued him. If she still chose to follow him after learning the truth, then he was the man worth claiming the mantle of the Honorable Giva.

  “Avyi.”

  He opened his arms and enveloped her in an embrace that stabbed unexpected pain in his chest. He’d never felt compelled to open himself so fully. Now he risked losing her forever, when her esteem was the most important thing he’d come to value. But he deserved no one’s respect or affection if he lied for the rest of his life, even by omission. And he very much wanted the respect and affection she seemed eager to bestow—a lost girl grown into a woman who craved love. He didn’t believe in love enough to give her what she needed, but at least he could be strong enough to admit his wrongs.

  “There’s something I need to tell you.”

  *

  Avyi’s heart tightened on a stuttering rhythm, then picked up at double speed. She couldn’t breathe, although she couldn’t say why. Orla would be fine. She was too skilled and clever not to be. She’d return in a few hours with information vital to any rescue attempt. The source of her consternation wasn’t her sister but the man who held her. He was so tense, so distant—and all so suddenly. Whatever had come over him was a swift-moving storm that rivaled his gift in its power.

  As if she might find answers before he spoke, she searched her visions and predictions for anything that hinted at this moment. Mal was holding her, and he was at war with himself. Was this the new beginning he’d offered her by name, or some terror yet to be unleashed?

  She stepped away. Dr. Aster’s occasional embrace had made her feel equally wary. That she could find anything comparable between Mal and the doctor added another dose of nausea to her roiling stomach.

  “Then tell me,” she said simply.

  Mal turned away, with his blue eyes on the power station that loomed outside their hotel window. So near, yet with so many unknowns. Just like Mal. There was no stopping this version of him. Whatever decision he’d made was what he would do.

  For good or for ill.

  “I told you about the Tigony tradition, when a young person climbs to the top of what the humans mythologized as Mount Olympus.”

  “Yes,” Avyi said, edging back until she sat on a desk chair. “You stayed up there so long.”

  “Four years. My parents were power hungry and vicious politicians. My grandfather was the worst. Nothing got past him. I hated the old bastard.” Mal crossed his arms. The leather jacket he wore accentuated the breadth of power across his wide back and muscled chest. “I did everything I could to counter him, vex him, make him know that I wouldn’t grow up to be a manipulating ass just like him.”

  His jagged laugh cut through his words.

  “I had big ideas and no clue what sort of perverted will I was up against. I was still young and believed there were rules.” He lifted his eyes to hers, shook his head. “There are no rules in the quest for power. That’s all politics is. We like to think the Honorable Giva is somehow above that fray, but really, he’s at the center of the tempest. Struggles among the clans, egos, rivalries. It’s the headiest thrill to always be right, never questioned or contradicted.” A pause. A rueful smile. “You knew that from the beginning. Sometimes it’s just about being right. It’s made me complacent, even selfish. I think that’s what must’ve happened to my parents and grandfather. Who demanded anything of them? Who denied them anything?”

  Avyi watched him, particularly the torturous recrimination that turned his features from handsome to haunted. She needed to touch him, or at least try, even if he pushed her away. Were they at the point where he could still push her away?

  Yes.

  They were still so tenuous.

  She crossed to where he stood, took his hand, and pulled him to the bed. “L
ie down with me. We’ve been traveling for hours. Tell me here.”

  He hesitated. Unbearable stiffness turned his limbs to heavy wood in her hands. Finally he acquiesced by taking off his jacket and tie. Then he kicked off his shoes and unfastened the top two buttons of his dress shirt. He lay beside her, where the darkness enveloped them in a place of safety. If not forever, they could at least be safe enough for Mal to reveal whatever he needed to free from his chest and his soul.

  Avyi didn’t want to know.

  But it was her responsibility to hear as much as it was his to tell.

  “I thought I would best him,” he began again. “I would stay on the mountain longer than anyone. I wouldn’t come down until I knew every aspect of my gift, as if I’d memorized the exact placement of a thousand blades of grass. I would not be a Tigony who lost control and used his powers when an argument was lost. That’s what we do. We’re Tricksters. We talk and cajole. But at the end, we’re no more than spoiled children who lose our tempers.”

  “I’ve seen your temper.” She touched his silky hair, where it shone in the near-darkness. If they were going to make love that night, it would all be by touch. And if they were going into battle before dawn, they were definitely going to make love. “But I’ve seen you changing, too.”

  “You don’t live in my head. I throw tantrums every other minute.”

  “That doesn’t count,” she said. “What counts is what you do to push those selfish voices down and make the most of a moment.”

  “Who are you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  He slipped his hands around her waist and nestled her head beneath his chin. She liked that far too much, because it felt perfect. She wasn’t a woman who was used to perfect. Then again, the circumstances were anything but ideal. Maybe this was a compromise she could believe in—just enough mythology, and just enough reality.

  “You grew up under horrific circumstances, and you grew into womanhood as the sentient possession of a madman. Yet here you are telling me that I can make the most of a moment. How?”

  “To do otherwise would be to become something unholy. Imagine what sort of evil I could do in this world, if I unleashed all my bitterness and rage.” She shivered against the picture she created. “I live in fear of taking the wrong side again. Do you know that? I stayed with the doctor because I thought I was doing some good. I hated him, but part of me knew that without the myths he spun about his own brilliance, those children wouldn’t be conceived, wouldn’t have been born. He was sick. He was the person who kept me chained from the age of twelve. But he lured all those Cage warriors into battle on the promise of something beautiful.”

  “Even if you were the element necessary to make it all work?”

  “Who was I to take credit? I got the privilege of seeing each child, feeling their love, and touching a small part of their lives. A hundred loves. So maybe I stayed too long and perpetuated the wrong ideas, because I wanted those touches of love more than I wanted justice or truth.” She exhaled and nuzzled where his shirt parted to reveal the smooth, hot skin of his upper chest. “I’m always on the lookout for doing something for the wrong reasons.”

  “Why are you with me?”

  “Because I want to be,” she said plainly. “Now tell me what terrible thing you did after you came down from the mountain. Because it was terrible, Mal, wasn’t it? You didn’t want it to be, but it’s kept you small.”

  “Avyi.”

  Her name was a warning—a warning she didn’t heed. She never did when he said it with such menace.

  “It’s kept you small, my Giva, when you are a man meant to stand taller than giants.”

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY

  When the Tigony come down from the mountain, confident in their mastery, they’re given a reward. I had no idea. No one ever talked about it.” The tightness in his chest was cutting off his air. For every breath he struggled to catch, he reminded himself that Avyi was in his arms. For the future to matter, he needed to exorcise the crimes of his past.

  “I was given a small home in a village called Bakkhos. The word is what the Romans would eventually transform into bacchanalia in honor of one of their gods.”

  “A wild party. With sexual overtones of excess and wanton greed.”

  Mal nodded. He arched his neck toward the darkened ceiling but found no answers, only images of blood. “The village was the reward. Dragon King priests or priestesses were given to the young Tigony women and men who survived their arduous task. We were adored. We were introduced to sex in all its forms, tutored, treasured, pampered, and frustrated beyond reason until release was overwhelming and total. I wanted for nothing for two years. My priestess was named Pollakioh.”

  Avyi gasped. “The name you would whisper if you were murdered in Greece.”

  “That’s when I first started to give your predictions credence. There was no way you could have known her name without some sort of otherworldly gift.”

  He exhaled heavily. “She was astonishingly beautiful and easy to talk to. I think that’s why they were chosen, because of those exceptional traits.”

  “So she tempted the spoiled only child of the Tigony ruling house with even more unmerited admiration?”

  “I forgot how blunt you can be.”

  “Only supplying what you know but might not say.”

  “Yes,” he said, with a heavy weight to the word. “That’s what it was. I was a young god. Invincible and in love with a seemingly untouchable goddess who did more than let me touch her. She was quick-witted but never contradicted me. She brought me everything I wanted, even in anticipation of my wishes. But I never saw any of it, not until later in hindsight. I was so caught up in myself that the way she treated me—practically reverentially—was, to me, just how things should be.”

  “That doesn’t sound real.” Avyi’s words were hushed and warm against his skin. “Like a dream of paradise.”

  “And what does it say about me that I didn’t recognize it as such? No one in my position in the village did.”

  “It says the system was ancient and very well practiced.”

  He petted up her ribs, under her T-shirt, gratified when she leaned closer to give him better access. “There were humans in the village, too. They must’ve been selected with equal care. They served the priests and priestesses, kept the village in good repair and working order, but otherwise, we had nothing to do with them. What I didn’t realize was that each one, male or female, was a virgin. Even had I known, they were so far below us as to be invisible.”

  The next breath would be the one when he revealed what he’d done, so he took extra care, taking in the scent of Avyi’s hair where he nuzzled her temple. Had he truly been able to give himself over to his belief in the Dragon, he would’ve prayed that these wouldn’t be the last seconds he held her.

  “Two years to the day after my arrival,” he said roughly, “Pollakioh ushered me into a temple. It was a temple no one ever seemed to use. We had another for the regular worship of the Tigony dragon. I was curious, not apprehensive. What cause did I have to be apprehensive? But waiting on an altar at the far end of the temple was the virgin girl who tended my household. She helped with the cleaning, the cooking, and other menial tasks.” He swallowed. “She was bound, gagged, and naked.”

  “Bathatéi,” Avyi whispered—the curse made almost musical, but no less intense.

  “Pollakioh was joined by my grandfather. I’d never been so surprised. He went about stripping and binding Pollakioh in the same manner. She knelt on the altar beside the serving girl. I was handed the family’s Dragon-forged sword and a ceremonial knife with the Dragon carved in the hilt. Grandfather gave me a choice. I could take the serving girl’s virginity before slitting her throat, or I could behead my lover of two years.”

  Mal needed to sit up. His stomach roiled with the need to burst free of his body. He clenched his muscles tight. His body would hold everything in, just as his mind had for years. Avy
i joined him, with her torso draped across his back. She rested her cheek between his shoulder blades. “It had all been a trick,” she whispered. “A test.”

  “An initiation, yes. I could either become culpable in the Tigony’s secret, long-standing tradition of human sacrifice, or I could kill a fellow Dragon King who’d been my constant companion. She’d tended every need and had done her job so very well. I looked at her and I loved her. I looked at the girl and felt nothing but pity … and rage. Not at her, but at a system designed to bind my clan in a practice so old, barbaric, and sick that no one ever spoke of it. And no one ever refused to participate. Everyone was bound to its secrecy.”

  He wiped his face with his hands, then held where Avyi was holding him around his waist. “I killed Grandfather first. I killed Pollakioh next. I could tell from their expressions that neither had expected it. The way of things was to choose the girl whose name I didn’t even know. Who was she but a human? Defile her and sacrifice her. How easy it could’ve been. But I didn’t act out of righteousness. I acted because I was embarrassed and ashamed. I’d been taken for a fool, tricked into falling in love with the equivalent of a Tigony goddess who’d never thought me anything but a chore. I was just another young man to bring into the secret fold.”

  “You did the right thing.”

  “No, I didn’t. Because the girl knew as well.” He shuddered. “I removed her gag and she smiled. ‘No one has ever chosen to spare the human,’ she’d said. Even the humans in the village knew. They all did. They believed that to be given their first, only, and extraordinary sexual pleasure by a Dragon King, and to die in the throes of that ecstasy, was the ultimate blessing from the gods. I could practically hear two years’ worth of laughter. The snickering and talking behind my back. ‘Look, the great Malnefoley has fallen for his priestess. Exactly as was planned.’ ”