The Immortal Warriors Boxed Set: Books 1-11

by H. T. Night

  I went up north for my monthly getaway. Being a werewolf sucked. Was there any benefit to it? I couldn’t find one. I was deadliest when I had the least knowledge of what I was doing. I was hoping that if I waited it out, it would get better. But as of right now, being a werewolf was a curse. It had never been a blessing.

  I missed Maya more on those weekends. There was a part of me that wished sometimes she would reveal herself to me out there. Talk about your isolation. I had asked her, but to be honest, I felt her presence least when I was up there, which was probably the reason why I longed for her so much.

  Maya had chosen to reveal herself to me only in Southern California. One thing for sure when was when I sensed Maya was going to reveal herself. It was a feeling like no other. If you could mix euphoria together with an abundance of anxiety, then that was the cocktail that suited how I felt the most.

  Tonight was one of the nights. I felt Maya’s presence and I knew we were close. She was going to reveal herself very soon to me. I decided to jump into my black Mustang and take a ride along Highway 215, near Hemet, California. There was a nice lonely road out there called Domegiano Road. It was a good half hour of nothing. That was where I was headed.

  I often smoked a cigarette on nights like this. Even knowing Maya was watching me, I honestly didn’t care. I think there was a part of me still rebelling in my relationship with my angelic girlfriend. That was exactly what I had. She was my everything. No other girl existed. Just knowing Maya was near me was enough, even if I couldn’t see her.

  “Maya?” I said out loud in my car. I had put out my cigarette and put the window up. “I feel you,” I said. “I can feel your love. It’s overwhelming.” Tears dripped from my eyes.

  “I don’t know when I can see you again. I’m dying, Maya. I’m dying inside. I don’t know how to live my life without you. I lived my life before I knew you, but now, knowing who you are and that somewhere out there in the night, you do exist and you can hear me is as heartbreaking as it is comforting.” I paused and stopped myself from becoming too emotional. “You are the love of my life. You are the reason why I breathe, and without you, I find it hard to inhale. I’m working hard, Maya. I’m working hard and I’m seeing huge improvements in my MMA fighting. This newfound commitment is serving me well. Yet, when I get hit, I don’t care. It hurts, and no MMA fighter wants to get hit, but sometimes, I allow my opponents to take extra shots on me. I don’t know—maybe I want to hurt on the outside of my body with the same intensity I hurt on the inside.”

  I stopped talking and just drove. Maya wasn’t going to reveal herself to me. Not tonight. Not for a while. I had a lot more road ahead of me. I thought about my entire life as I drove the open road on this cold night.

  Romantically, I was in an extremely odd place. I could feel the love of my life every day, but I couldn’t see her, and until she revealed herself to me, it just ate away at me until I saw her again.

  All my focus was getting back to where I was in the eyes of the California Commission. I’d been out of the game and I was pretty sure they heard what I’d been through as far as my loss. Hopefully, they’d cut me some slack for taking some time off.

  I reapplied for the MMA California Commission License because my fighter license ran out. I met up with two of the bigwigs in the organization, and I told them I was ready and I wanted them to give me the best fighters to fight in my weight class.

  The main thing I did to help my fighting career was I started going to my gym three times a day. I would train MMA two of the sessions and the third session, I lifted weights again. I had the type of body that reacted to lifting weights. I was sore that first week, but it was becoming easier and easier each day to train. I was getting cut. Maybe not as cut as Josiah, but I was a beefier. No matter how much I lose, I always have a little bit of a gut. Not Josiah. His waist seemed to be getting smaller.

  It had been two weeks since I had seen Maya and I wasn’t doubting I had once seen her. I began doubting if I would ever see her again.

  I had finished my nighttime weightlifting session and jumped into my black Mustang and headed home.

  I was at a red light about two streets up from my gym in Anaheim. My gym was near Arco Arena, where the Anaheim Ducks play their hockey games. Suddenly, I heard something that made me scream and immediately get in whatever fighting stance I could while sitting down in front of a steering wheel.

  “Tommy, it’s Maya,” the voice in the car said to me.

  I looked around outside and I couldn’t see anything. My hands were up and I was ready to brawl.

  “Tommy, I’m in the car with you,” the voice said calmly. It was clearly Maya. “I’m going to reveal myself to you,” she continued. “I just didn’t want you to freak out and drive off the road.”

  “It’s a little late about freaking me out,” I said, putting both my hands tightly around my steering wheel. “But I do have control of my car, and I would love to see you.”

  Maya had suddenly revealed herself to me. She was sitting in the passenger seat of my car with no seat belt. She was wearing light-blue jeans with a form-fitting white sweater.

  “Am I the only person who can see you?” I asked.

  “Not exactly,” Maya said. “Once an angel reveals herself in human form to a human being, any human can see the spirit.” Maya paused, and then said, “If anyone sees me but you, I will lose all contact with you.” I looked over at her and she was looking me in the eyes. She said, “Thank you for talking to me.”

  “Which time?” I asked.

  “Every time you looked to the stars to talk to me, I was there listening. Your words comfort me, Tommy. More than you know. I’m the one who is supposed to be the divine one. I come to you so I can try to give you comfort and I am the one hungering to know what you’re feeling and needing your comfort. Always listening, loving you deeper.”

  “I was beginning to think I was the crazy guy who talks out loud to himself.”

  “No, you’re the crazy guy who speaks to me.”

  “I have been trying, Maya,” I said softly. “I have quit drinking, and I’ve been training like a madman.”

  “I know, Tommy. You’re doing extremely well. I am so proud of you.” I looked over and saw tears dripping from Maya’s eyes. I reached over to wipe them off and my hand went right through her face. Even though she appeared to be flesh and bones, she wasn’t. She was a spirit.

  I was quickly reminded of how much it sucked that I couldn’t feel her touch. Maya wiped her own eyes and leaned back so my hand would quit going through her. Apparently, it weirded her out as much as it did me. I took my hand back and put it next to me.

  “How long do you have?” I asked Maya.

  “Twenty minutes,” she said, oddly specific.

  “That’s it?”

  “I’m sorry, Tommy.”

  “Maya, if you only have twenty minutes, why did you reveal yourself in the car?”

  “What’s the difference?” Maya asked.

  “The difference is I want to look into your eyes. I can’t do that and watch this stupid, dark road.”

  I began driving down Katella Road as fast I could go without getting a speeding ticket.

  “Why didn’t you just stop the car? Pull over. No one is out here.”

  That was an odd thing for her to say right after she just told me she couldn’t be seen. Katella was a major street, but where we were was industrial and everyone had gone home for the night. There was no one out there. “You said you couldn’t be seen?”

  “I can be seen, but not recognized. Out here, no one will even want to take the time to recognize me. It’s almost midnight.”

  “I never knew you to be such a gambler.”

  “I learned from the best,” Maya said, smiling at me.

  So, that was what I did. I pulled to the left and just parked my car in an empty parking lot of some industrial building.

  I stayed seated, and from where I was parked, I could see the moon. It was a half
-moon. That meant I had less than a couple of weeks till I needed to do something about the whole werewolf thing.

  “Am I the love of your life?” Maya asked me.

  “Of course you are,” I said. “You should never have to ask that question ever again.”

  “How long do you think it will be until you have to be with another woman?”

  “Never,” I answered quickly.

  “Seriously, Tommy. You can’t mourn forever. You need human touch. The kind that only a woman can give you.”

  “Why do you want to know?” I asked.

  “It will just prepare me.”

  “Maya, I don’t know. I can’t imagine loving anyone ever again the way I loved you.”

  “And you won’t, Tommy. You will never love someone ‘the way’ you loved me. But you will be able to love someone in her way again.”

  “Eighteen months,” I said.

  “Eighteen months?” Maya asked back. I wasn’t sure if she thought it was short or too long. “That is pretty specific.”

  “It’s a weird question. Seemed like the allowed time.”

  “Okay,” Maya said. “I shouldn’t ask you something that is so unpredictable. You can’t control when you will meet someone. Just do me a favor. When you are ready to date, just give me the heads-up. I need to feel that safety.”

  “I will do it any way you want, Maya. I never want you to quit seeing me, and if that means I’m going to be alone, then that seems to me to be a giant possibility.” I meant it. Nothing compared to the love I have for this woman.

  “Don’t say that, Tommy. As much as I want you all to myself, I am not allowing you to experience everything this life has in store for you.”

  “Don’t say that, Maya.” I was getting upset. I didn’t want to hear it was okay to date.

  “Tommy, it’s true. I’m not saying make it happen tomorrow, but you need to move on with your life in the form that you’re in. We are now in two different worlds, and my world can only reveal itself to yours with strict rules.”

  “I guess the only answer I can give you is I’m going to live my life.”

  “Okay, that’s fair.”

  “Because you seem to want it both ways. You say you want me to move on, yet you need to know well ahead of time when I’m ready to do that. The truth is... Maya? I don’t know. I’m not sure how long I can go without your touch.”

  “Tommy,” Maya said, staring intently into my eyes. “I know what you’re feeling and I’ve been dealing with it much longer.”

  “Can I ask you a question?” I said to Maya.

  “Of course, Tommy. Anything.”

  “In your world, are you able to feel? I mean, are you able to touch?”

  “Yes,” Maya said. “But we are not allowed to touch your world. Well, on extreme occasions, yes.”

  “What qualifies as an extreme occasion?” I asked.

  “When the human I’m looking after, who happens to be the only man I ever loved, tries to ride his motorcycle over the side of a cliff,” Maya said sarcastically.

  “That was pretty extreme,” I said.

  “Tommy, what were you thinking that night? I knew you were hurting, but I never saw you as someone who would give up in that type of way.”

  “I wasn’t thinking clearly. I’m not proud of that, and you saved my life. I was at an all-time low. Since that night, I’ve thought about that moment a lot. Along with all the others. I thought my life as I knew it to be or wanted it to be was over. And the one I was left with, I no longer wanted to live in.”

  “How do you feel now?” Maya asked.

  I looked at her beautiful angelic face. I knew I would never be able to touch or feel her again, but I could see her in all her beauty. I could feel her words go through me during the present time. “I feel fortunate for any time you are able to have with me.”

  “I’m talking about wanting to take your own life,” Maya said. “Tommy, if you had gone through with that. It is—”

  “Is what?”

  “Something my world isn’t allowed to tell your world.”

  “You don’t have to worry.” I paused and remembered that night. “There were about three seconds where I realized I had gone too far and I was going to fly into the canyon regardless if I tried to stop my bike or not.” I paused. “During those three seconds...”

  “What?” Maya asked.

  “During those three seconds, I never wanted to live more in my life. Everything was suddenly clear, and then you tackled me off my bike. I’m still unsure how a petite, young woman wearing a beautiful white dress was able to take down an MMA fighter. Even if he was on a bike.”

  “I got skills,” Maya said, smiling at me. “So, what you’re telling me is that you want to live.”

  “I always have,” I said, giving her a giant smile. “I just lost my way for a few weeks there. You saved my life. I couldn’t save yours.”

  “You did everything you could. Tommy, you’re not a doctor or a miracle worker. You were there for all three of us in our final minutes. You were our comforter.”

  “I didn’t do enough. You all died.” I started to shake. This conversation was the hardest one I had ever had in my life.

  “Did I?” Maya asked. “Did I die? Or did I just move on to another world? Tommy, I’m going to have to go. We have risked being out here on an open highway enough.”

  “Okay,” I said. I stared at Maya’s eyes and whispered, “When will I see you again?”

  “I’m not sure, Tommy. I might not be seen. But I will be next to you. Until I am removed from being your guardian angel, I will always be by your side. You can’t see me, but I’m here. Even when you least expect it.”

  I nodded my head and blew Maya a kiss. She caught it and threw one back at me. I caught the kiss and we said our goodbyes, and soon, she just faded away. I stood there staring at the spot where she stood for a good couple more minutes. Then I jumped into my Mustang and headed home.

  Chapter Five

  Over the next five months, I had three fights, and I won all three fights fairly easily. One guy took me to the second round. I got to him and knocked him out a minute into round two. The other two fights were over before they started. Two quick knockouts.

  I was shocked how well received I was coming back in the MMA community. No one seemed to know anything about my werewolf ties, which was a good thing. The way I saw it, I was first an MMA fighter. That was my job. Nothing and no one will tell me I can’t fight for a living.

  I was doing my best keeping those two worlds—my werewolf and MMA worlds—as separate as I could. Every month, I headed back at up to the ranch that I had gone to previously. Even there, I was welcomed back with open arms. At the end of the day, you can be a shit if you’re heartbroken, in most people’s eyes. But you need to get your act together. That was what I did. I was eating right, exercising every day, in the gym, and all the while taking only one day off a week. I did this having little contact with Maya. Don’t get me wrong, I felt her presence every day. It was just not the same when I can’t see or hear her.

  Maya revealed herself twice to me during this time. Both times, I just had a feeling she would and I went for a drive. The first time I drove toward Vegas and she revealed herself to me around Barstow. The second time I decided to head to Hollywood. I was on the 101 and there she was next to me in my car.

  Then, on a Saturday night, one week after my last fight, I felt it was time and I jumped in my Mustang. It had been two whole months since the last time she’d revealed to me, but I knew tonight was the night. I went back to Katella Road near the Arco center. Maya didn’t seem to care if anyone could see her when we were in the industrial area and there was no one to be found for blocks. The last two months she was highly paranoid about being seen. I wanted her to be more comfortable.

  I went to the exact spot in the parking lot that we were in last time.

  I was feeling a little randy. I needed a drink. I needed one bad. I didn’t know why on this n
ight I felt I needed alcohol. I sat and I sat and I sat all night. She never came. I didn’t have the sixth sense. It was now proven to me twice. I waited out there until four in the morning. Then I went into my vehicle and went home and to bed.

  I opened my bedroom door, and I was startled. I yelped like a barnyard animal. Maya was standing in my room waiting for me. She was wearing a silky white gown that looked to be an evening dress. Whatever dimension she was from, they sure were a classy dressing group. I don’t recall Maya ever having a dress that looked this incredible on her. I was sexually turned on by an angel. What the hell was wrong with me?

  “Would you like to sit on my bed or do you just mainly stand?”

  “No, I can sit,” Maya said. “It is just humans that can’t feel my touch. I don’t just fall through the earth. I’m under the same rules as you are with inanimate objects.”

  I nodded, not wanting to spend my time with her talking about things that weren’t too important to me.

  “What did you think of my last fight?” I asked Maya.

  “You beat him up.”

  “I didn’t beat him up,” I said.

  “What else would you call it?”

  “I won a professional MMA match.”

  “You did that by beating another man senseless.”

  “It’s my job.” I couldn’t believe she was giving me shit about fighting, even in the afterlife.

  “Tommy, the fact that you win is a relief to me. When I see how bad you hurt some of these guys, I just wonder what is going to happen when you meet your match. When you’re not the victor, but the guy lying on the mat being taken away by the paramedics.”

  “That is procedure when a guy doesn’t get up.”

  “Why wasn’t this human able to walk?”

  “I knocked him out and his legs were wobbly afterward. Trust me! Don’t feel any sympathy for any of those men I beat. They cash the same checks I do. I receive nothing more if I win. I just have the opportunity to make more money in the next fight. All three of those men fed their families because they had the balls to get into the ring with me. They might have lost to me, but all three of those guys I beat—hell, all eight men I’ve beaten—I have more respect for all of them for getting into the ring and fighting me than I probably have for the billions of men who haven’t. A lot of guys wouldn’t risk their careers on a submissive artist like me.”