The Warrior

by Rebecca Royce

  “We lost two people last night to the blood suckers.”

  His smile fell. “I know. It could have been a lot more if you hadn’t been there. You fight remarkably well for a One, but that’s no surprise.”

  What? “Why isn’t it a surprise?”

  “Your parents were natural born Warriors. No one could touch your father.”

  That was hard to imagine. When he wasn’t brooding, he spent half his time wandering drunk in the woods. Apparently, Vampires didn’t like the smell of booze or he’d have gotten eaten weeks ago. Hey, there was a thought. We could get everyone loaded all of the time.

  “Thank you for the compliment, Patrick.”

  He sighed. “You’re welcome.”

  He pointed at the measuring stick. “Go take that to Chad.”

  “He needs it?”

  “Yep.” He nodded. “He and some of the others are down in the habitat hauling sandbags.”

  “Okay.”

  I liked going down to Genesis. It was the only time I ever got really warm. I walked to the elevators as I tried to figure out what Patrick had been talking about and found I couldn’t make sense of it. He wanted me to be happy. I was mostly happy. How happy did I have to be?

  I nodded at Frank, who still guarded the entrance to the habitat since we didn’t want monsters getting down there, I pushed the button to call the elevator.

  “Beautiful day, Rachel.”

  I smiled at him. “If you say so.”

  “Oh come on, the sun is in the sky, there isn’t a cloud to mar the beauty of the blue above us.”

  I realized something. “Frank, you’re not wearing your sunglasses.”

  “Yeah, I got used to the light.”

  “You did?”

  “Sure. I gave it to one of the younger non-Warriors who still needed them.”

  I touched my glasses. Frank whistled as he walked around the perimeter. I turned my back so he couldn’t see me as I faced the elevator. Slowly, with shaking fingers, I pulled the glasses off.

  I waited for the pain to hit my pupils. Only it never came. I blinked a couple of times as I realized what Frank had said happened to him must have happened to me too even though I hadn’t realized it.

  I had gotten used to the sunlight.

  And Frank was right. There really wasn’t a cloud in the blue, blue sky.

  The elevator dinged and I stepped inside. I held on for dear life as I let it take me below ground to the place that had been my home for sixteen years. It shook, violently. I would never trust the darn thing.

  It banged open and I stepped inside the habitat. Sure enough, on the bridge to the non-Warrior part of town stood a group of male Warriors hauling sandbags. A large collection of them was piled up next to the elevators presumably to be brought Upwards at some point.

  But that wasn’t what caught my attention.

  All of the Warriors were shirtless.

  My breath caught in my throat. I’d never seen a guy my own age without his shirt before.

  “Hey, Rachel.” Chad waved his hand to get my attention. He didn’t need to do that. All of my attention was completely fixated on him.

  My cheeks heated up. Had Patrick Lyons sent me down to Genesis to see his son shirtless?

  “Hi, Chad.”

  I was lucky I could form words over the humiliation that thought produced inside of me. He couldn’t have done that. No way. No how. It would be too weird. No, Chad had needed the measuring stick.

  I walked forward holding the stick out in front of me. “Your dad says you need this.”

  He scratched his brown hair, some of it falling over his eyes. He needed a haircut, and the thought made me smile.

  “I do?”

  There. He had just confirmed my worst nightmare. Patrick Lyons had sent me down her to gawk at Chad’s abdominal muscles, and the strangest part was that I was actually doing it. I stood there, staring at Chad like I’d never seen him before.

  He put out his hand. “I’ll take it, but I can’t imagine what for.”

  “Maybe to measure your biceps.”

  I put my hand over my mouth. No, I had not said that aloud.

  His grin was priceless as his eyes lit up. “Um, yeah. Maybe.”

  I turned around. I had to get out of there now. “Hey, Rachel.”

  I stopped moving. “Yes?”

  “We still need to tattoo you, girl.”

  I stared at him. “Are you kidding? I think my first trip up marked me enough.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  If I hadn’t seen genuine confusion in his eyes, I would have thought he was playing me for a fool.

  I pointed at my cheek. “My permanent reminder.”

  “Oh.” He shrugged “That’s not the same thing. Besides, I hardly notice that anymore.”

  Goosebumps tingled on my arms and I wondered, for a second, if there were Werewolves around. No, I realized, there weren’t. It was Chad. His words had made me feel better.

  They’d made me…happy.

  So I smiled at him, grinned really and he did the same to me.

  “Good luck with the sand bags.”

  “Thanks. Good work on patrol last night.”

  I nodded. “Thank you.”

  Man, I might be totally inept when it came to talking to boys, but Chad’s father had been right, there were lots of things to be happy about. If I looked at them without my sunglasses on.

  ***

  My name is Rachel Clancy

  I lived through my sixteenth birthday…barely.

  I’m scarred, skinny where I should be round and round where I’d like to be skinny.

  The world ended thirty years before I was born.

  I’d like to think we’re starting again. Even if the details of it were things I’d rather not have to get involved with.

  I’m happy, most of the time. And some day, maybe I’ll stop listening for wolves calling into the night, coming back to get me.

  Driven

  The Warrior – Book Two

  By

  Rebecca Royce

  ~DEDICATION~

  For the amazing author Annie Nicholas who never let me forget I had this series in my heart. Thanks for the pestering.

  My name is Rachel Clancy.

  Forty-six years ago, life as humanity understood it ended. Armageddon. Well, that’s what we call it, anyway. What other term works as well to describe the day the Vampires and Werewolves slaughtered nearly all of humanity?

  For me, all of that happened so long ago I almost never think about it. I’m much more concerned with what just happened and what will be occurring next.

  Six months ago, when I turned sixteen, I changed the way life was conducted in the small portion of the planet I called home. I’m not sure exactly how any of it actually took place. When I let myself dwell on that time, which I don’t very often, it usually feels like it was something someone else did. Like I wasn’t there at all.

  But I know that I was.

  I have the scars to prove it. One of them on my cheek—long and jagged—out in the open to show the world I survived a Vampire attack. The other is hidden on the inside of my soul—not visible to anyone but me—and it was placed there by a boy, a Werewolf, who betrayed my innocence and will forever hold the title of being the first guy to break my heart.

  It’s May—we have started keeping track of the months again like they did before Armageddon Day. The weather is beautiful and warm in our tent city; which sits over the remains of Genesis, the habitat that I lived in for my first sixteen years of life.

  I can’t help but feel that something is coming. Something bad that we can’t stop. I haven’t told anyone about this sense I have. It’s not like I’m psychic or anything. I’ve never been able to predict the future. I’m not even particularly good at figuring out what’s going to happen to me next. But I can’t let this go—not this time—and I’m wondering if I’m going to have to let someone know about the dread that is eating away at my stom
ach lining.

  Maybe I’m just being dramatic, but I can feel a black cloud of death on the horizon, and it’s going to swallow us all.

  Chapter One

  “How much longer is this going to take?” I call out my question for the tenth time and still no one answers me.

  As I squirmed on the table, I dug my hands into the cushions that have been laid down for my ‘comfort’ and wondered, for the millionth time, why I agreed to this torture. Well, I don’t really have to wonder. I know why. I told the guys they could tattoo me today because I knew if I didn’t, they would never stop pestering me about it.

  One medium-sized ink design on my left shoulder blade that I had apparently earned by surviving my Warrior duties and not dying on my sixteenth birthday. The only problem: I had no idea which design they’ve chosen, and I hadn’t been given a say. Technically, I should have been ‘inked’ immediately after arriving back at Genesis after my first mission Upwards.

  That hadn’t been how it worked for me. My first successful mission, if you could call it that, given all I did was survive when the people in charge would have preferred my death, had ended with them throwing me in jail. After that the Warriors revolted and brought the Genesis community up from our below ground existence and back to the surface of the Earth.

  At the time, tattoos had been the last thing on any of our minds. That had suited me just fine. I would have been cool with the idea of forgetting it all together. Only my friends hadn’t forgotten, hadn’t thought it was okay to leave it alone, and now I was paying the price for succumbing to peer pressure.

  “Relax, Rachel.” Micah’s voice finally answered me.

  I didn’t know how I felt about the fact that he answered, considering he was the one making the permanent markings on my back with his needle, ink, and whatever else he used to cause so much pain. It was as though a bee stung me over and over again, which really sucked. I had only been stung once, just one month earlier. If I had known this was going to recreate that experience, I would have run and hidden from it.

  “What are you doing to her?”

  Tia’s voice sounded in the room, and I let out a breath I’d been holding. She’d been in training all day and hadn’t been able to come with us for this torment. The fact that she was now here meant that Micah had been poking at me for hours.

  “We’re almost done.” Micah didn’t sound at all admonished. Tia might be my best friend but she was his little sister, and her opinion mattered only slightly more than that of an imaginary clown or a dead rodent to him.

  I closed my eyes and groaned again.

  “Why aren’t the two of you comforting her?”

  Yes, that was a question I myself had asked silently for some time now. Both Chad and Deacon had insisting on attending this craziness, and neither of them had uttered a word since they’d stepped inside the room. I was used to them acting like juveniles around each other. Both of them seemed to be convinced I was seconds away from choosing which one of them to be my boyfriend. They both acted like if they gave an inch in the other’s presence I might pick the other guy. It was nonsense.

  I wasn’t picking a boyfriend. I’d been down that road and I’d been left sitting on the ground, abandoned with my heart broken. I needed that pain again like I needed to get scratched by another Vampire.

  “All done.”

  I could have screamed with relief. Instead, I sat up and turned around to catch Tia’s attention. “Well? What is it? How does it look?”

  She smiled, tears streaming down her cheeks. “It’s a little red right now, which is to be expected considering your pale skin, but I have to say it’s beautiful. Micah did a great job.”

  Tia was beautiful, like a star from one of the movies I used to sometimes watch when we lived in the habitat. She reminded me of Audrey Hepburn with slightly lighter colored hair. She’d been my best friend since we were babies. I was six months older, so I guess technically we’d been best friends since her birth. Even though I don’t remember it, I supposed there was a time in my life when I didn’t have Tia to rely on.

  If she told me it was beautiful, then I knew it must be.

  “What is it?” I slid off the table onto shaky legs. Both Chad and Deacon reached out to grab me. I appreciated the effort, but not the grandstanding. Once I was steady, I made a show of pushing their hands away.

  Micah shrugged. “It’s a fairy. A pixie, actually.”

  For a second, my heart stuttered. Jason, the Werewolf who had broken my heart only six months earlier, had nicknamed me that. He’d referred to me as “pixie girl.” I’d never told anyone, not even Tia, about that. How could any of them have known?

  My silence must have made Micah nervous since he started speaking really fast. “I’ve always thought you reminded me of a fairy, like out of a children’s book.”

  Chad finally remarked. “He told me about the idea before you left for your first night out and I thought it fit you because you’ve always had this kind of ethereal way about you.”

  I hadn’t even seen at it yet, and I was ruining everyone’s happiness. I smiled what I hoped was a bright and cheerful grin and walked to the mirror to examine my new symbol.

  “I’m just surprised. I’ve never thought of myself as a fairy, or a pixie.” I had learned to lie to make others more comfortable. It frightened me how adept I’d gotten at it.

  I stared at the design in the mirror. Tia was right; I was a little bit red and it burned like I’d had a hot iron pressed on my skin. Even with all of that stuff, I could see that Micah had done a beautiful job.

  The fairy was multicolored. Red-headed, like myself, she was dressed in lilac. Her wings were gold with a splattering of silver dust throughout. Unlike me, the fairy on my back was unscarred. Her blue eyes stared out into the distance at the world, seeing something the rest of us couldn’t.

  For a second, I wished she lived. She’d be useful to have in battle. She could tell me when someone was coming at me from behind. I smiled. If wishes were granted, I’d be living with a bunch of friendly Werewolves spending the day basking in the glow of my boyfriend’s adoration.

  Oh well. Wishes might come true, just not for me.

  I turned around and grinned at Micah. “It’s perfect.” I walked to him and pulled him into a friendly embrace.

  I’d spent years crushing on Micah. But after I’d come back from my time away in the woods, and had my heart utterly trampled on by Jason Ulises Kenwood, I’d found that my feelings for Micah had vanished right along with my unscarred face. Now, we really were like brother and sister, which was how Micah had always treated me.

  His older brother, Chad, however, was an entirely different story. I’d come back to find out he’d harbored intense feelings for me for years, without my ever having known.

  I looked at Chad and the boy he thought was a rival for my attention, Deacon. They were both awfully quiet.

  “Don’t like it?”

  Deacon jumped off the table he’d been sitting on. “No, I think you’re too badass for fairies.”

  Micah whirled around. “Don’t hate on the art, man.”

  There was no love lost between Deacon and the Lyons family. I feared all of that animosity had to do solely with me. It made me ill when I thought about it. Deacon’s family, if they were still alive, resided underground in warehouses operated by the Vampires and the Werewolves. They could, this very second, be consumed by the monsters I fought every day. Deacon needed a family just as I had always needed one. Truth was, I was supposed to be independent, but I still liked knowing the Lyons were there for me since my own father was not.

  Deacon barely raised an eyebrow. “She asked what I thought.”

  “Yeah.” Micah nodded. “What would you have given her?”

  Deacon smiled and my heart turned over in my chest. I don’t know what it is about him that did that to me. Maybe it’s the dimple, maybe it’s the ‘I don’t really give a crap’ attitude he walks around with, but from the moment I firs
t spotted Deacon in a cage in a Vampire cavern, I’ve been unable to stay away from him. It’s almost like we’re connected somehow. I’m not sure I like it.

  “I would give Rachel a sword. She’s a Warrior, boys, not a fairy princess.”

  He nodded to me and left us in the room. I felt the loss of his presence immediately, but I was probably the only one who did.

  A few months earlier, I’d tried to set him up with Tia. They were both gorgeous. If they ever got married, their children would have gloriously high cheekbones. But, he kept insisting he would wait until I got over my “Wolf-Fetish”.

  Chad exhaled loudly. “Well, now that he’s gone, can I say that I think the tattoo is beautiful? If he’s too dense to see you’re both a fairy princess and a warrior, then he doesn’t deserve you.”

  My cheeks heated at Chad’s words. If Deacon’s presence made me stammer, Chad’s made me heat up inside. Poets, if there were any left living, would envy his ability to use speech. The weird thing was, he meant every word he said, which made no sense to me because I clearly didn’t see whatever he saw when he looked at me.

  I’m scarred to the point that little children point and stare at me when I walk around. I was never beautiful, and now six months before my seventeenth birthday, I’m barely recognizable. Yet, these crazy boys wouldn’t leave me alone. Maybe they all needed glasses.

  Wow, I needed to change the subject. I was uncomfortable in a way only Chad could make me, and my back burned from my newly acquired ink.

  “Tia, are you ready?”

  The long awaited event of Tia’s entrance into full-fledged Warriorhood should happen tonight. She’d been waiting for this moment for so long. I was sure I could get her talking about it and some of the attention off of me.

  Tia shrugged. “Yeah, it’s not like any of you are going to let me fight.”

  Micah rolled his eyes and walked away from her. “I promise you, there are plenty of monsters to go around.”