Warrior Ascended

by Warrior Ascended (lit)

“So why was the case dropped and called a random act of violence?”

  “It was my grandmother. She made a big stink of it at the time. She suggested the only reason the media was putting on their circus was because of our money. She found a way to squelch it—it wouldn’t do, after all, to have such a scandal befall our family. But I’ve always known.”

  The grandmother was a serious piece of work, that was for sure. “Her will was enough to evade the police?”

  “Her iron-clad will can evade anything.”

  They both fell into their own thoughts as they pulled into the next station, then switched train lines with no issue. It wasn’t until they were nearing their final stop, Westminster station, when Ava grabbed his arm.

  “Do you feel it?”

  Brody scanned the train yet again, unable to identify a Destroyer in their midst. “I don’t see him.”

  “I feel it. That weird electricity. It’s across my back. Does he have a taser or something?”

  Brody gathered her closer, pulling her away from the metal handrail that hit her at waist level. “Our stop is next. Are you ready to run for it? Our hotel is on the other side of the river. We just need to get inside.”

  Was it their driver who’d managed to get himself free or a new threat? Brody figured he’d know soon enough who’d targeted them when the guy gave chase in the station.

  Although he kept his voice calm and level, Brody’s lion had opened up, his tail flicking in annoyance at the stray wisps of electricity that kept hitting him in the back as he shielded Ava from the Destroyer’s view. He kept the tattoo in line, knowing that a lion popping from his aura on a morning rush hour train would go over about as well as a cockroach in a five-star restaurant.

  Likely even worse.

  “We’re next. Ready to run?” When she nodded, he conjured up a vague memory of the station from a hit he had helped Kane with several years before. “When we get to the top of the stairs, we need to get out on the street. There’s a bridge across the Thames. Head that way, in the direction of the London Eye.”

  Ava’s pupils had dilated in huge orbs, drowning out the brown of her eyes to small circles. He leaned in, pressing his lips to hers in a quick kiss, damning his earlier vow and pushing some warm, soothing, encouraging energy toward her. “You can do this, Ava.”

  While he wasn’t sure he’d had nearly enough time to make an impression, the stiff set of her shoulders eased.

  “Ready?”

  She nodded her head. “Yep.”

  The doors swooshed open and he pushed her. “Go now!”

  Her long, lithe body darted from the train and he followed, ignoring the pain that shot through his muscle fibers. He ignored the signs that his strength wasn’t at one hundred percent as they ran up the station steps toward fresh morning air.

  Rain greeted them as they hit the exit of the station, and Ava nearly slipped on a slick spot on the floor. He grabbed her arm, steadying her, but the quick stop gave the Destroyer time to close the distance and launch a fireball at them at close range. With a hairsbreadth of time, Brody shoved Ava away from him and took the hit, the strength of the electricity doubled by the puddle of water he stood in.

  He pitched forward, his hands heading for the floor, when Ava grabbed his arm. His weight nearly toppled both of them to the ground, until she planted her feet at the last minute in a wide stance, providing much-needed balance. “You got your feet?”

  He nodded, holding firm to her hand as they started moving. “Yep. Come on.”

  They cleared the station, the morning throng of people again helping to keep the Destroyer at a good distance. Ava’s feet flew toward the bridge and he followed, his lungs burning with the exertion.

  The London Eye rose up in front of them as they ran across the bridge, over the Thames. Although it looked like a large Ferris wheel from a distance, the Eye was actually an observation wheel, with individual, closed viewing bays. He briefly toyed with the idea of hiding in one of them, then discarded it. The Destroyer might keep himself in check in a throng of people where he would draw undue attention, but the structure of the Eye would offer too much temptation to simply dismantle it, making it look like a very violent accident.

  Ava looked back over her shoulder, whatever fear she’d had on the train now spurring her into action. “Brody! He’s gaining on us.”

  “You go. I’ll deal with him.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  He kept pace with her, his mind reeling for some course of action that would get them out of this without a public display.

  And even if they managed to get into a more discreet location, there was no way Ava wouldn’t see.

  No way she wouldn’t know what he was.

  Did he dare?

  They’d nearly cleared the end of the bridge when Brody felt another fireball as it passed him. The shock of it dropped Ava to her knees, just far enough out of his range that he couldn’t quite grasp her as she fell.

  As he watched, Ava tumbled down a set of stairs that led toward the riverbank, her screams reverberating in the cold morning air. The need to go to her fought with the blazing rage that welled up inside of him. When he saw her stand, helped to her feet by a morning jogger, he shifted, his body taut with tension as rage beat a rapt staccato under his skin.

  The asshole stood a few feet away, the distance just far enough to make a neck-shot impossible as he leered at Brody. It was their driver. Although Brody had remembered his face, the disheveled uniform confirmed it. He’d obviously made quick work of the police.

  The Destroyer licked his lips. “I’ll give you a minute to look, seeing as how it’s the last time you’re going to see her. The woman dies today. Right after I rip you apart.”

  Brody launched himself at the Destroyer, ignoring the smacks of electricity the asshole started throwing immediately. His lion was feral, desperate to get out, but still, he held him back.

  He’d let the lion go postal on the Destroyer’s ass after he’d had his fun.

  With swift kicks he worked on the guy, forcing him against the ages-old stone of the bridge. Brody was barely aware of the passersby who gave them a wide berth, their fight looking for all those who observed it like a bar brawl gone bad.

  A bar brawl one greasy-ass Destroyer wasn’t walking away from.

  Brody reached for his ankle, his movement toward his Xiphos as natural as breathing, before he forgot it wasn’t there. Fuck! Damn airline regulations.

  That split second was all the asshole needed to press his advantage, taking them both tumbling the last few feet toward the stairs, then down them.

  Brody caught sight of Ava, huddled under the bridge, her eyes wide with fear as she watched them. She was alone, the jogger who’d helped her nowhere in sight. Every instinct he possessed wanted to draw their fight away from her, but . . . if he could only drag the Destroyer under the bridge, he had a real shot of taking care of him without an audience.

  He dodged another fireball—this one weaker than the last—then responded with another roundhouse kick to the guy’s midsection. Tired or not, the Destroyer’s footwork kept him out of range for Brody to get to the neck to land the death blow.

  Impatience warred with strategy as his lion quivered in barely leashed fury.

  Three more steps until they’d cleared the bridge and any pairs of prying eyes.

  Two . . . Brody grunted as he took a fireball—more like a sparkler—to the shoulder.

  One!

  His lion leaped from his aura, clamping its powerful jaws on the Destroyer’s neck as its equally lethal paw scraped at the guy’s midsection.

  Brody watched with bone-deep satisfaction as the Destroyer immediately began to disintegrate. Dark, inky black oil oozed from the neck as the skin shriveled to a husk. His lion shook its head, more of the oil flicking off in small spatters from the edges of its mane.

  It was then that he heard Ava’s screams.

  Whirling, realization flooded his veins at what, exactly, she was s
creaming about.

  His lion.

  Although contained within the frame of his aura—a connection that tethered them to each other with roughly three to four feet to spare—when fully engaged a full-grown lion fought right next to him. The lion watched his back, having complete range of motion as well as an ability to turn around.

  And, of course, the lion also had an ability to shred his enemies to pieces should they dare to get too close to his back.

  In the great balancing act that was the gods’ playground, everyone had something. The Destroyers got electricity out of their life force.

  Themis’s Warriors got really kick-ass tattoos.

  He’d actually bitched a hailstorm about it at first, the concept so ludicrous he’d let his leonine pride run his mouth. Words he’d ended up eating many times over seeing as how it didn’t even take one full battle before he’d come to appreciate the merits of something that could watch his back.

  He had his lion. Kane his scorpion. Grey his ram. Their Aquarius, Aidan, could actually create flood waters against his enemies.

  Why had he ever doubted Themis’s wisdom? Brody still wondered from time to time.

  Ava’s screams echoed off the old stones of the bridge and he moved forward to soothe her—until another round of ear-piercing shrieks stopped him in his tracks.

  With deep, calming breaths, he willed the lion back into tattoo form, the large beast folding up on itself as Brody kept his face firmly toward Ava.

  “Where’d it go?” Her eyes were wild in her face as she focused her attention on the air behind him.

  “Away.” He reached out to put a hand on her arm, but she snatched it from him.

  “You saw it, didn’t you? You had to have seen it. It was . . . was . . . attached to you.”

  “Ava.”

  “What are you?”

  Without waiting any longer to consider all the angles—and damning common sense and discretion to hell—he reached out and grabbed her, whirling them both headfirst into a jump to the one place the Destroyers could not go.

  The home of a Warrior of the Zodiac.

  Chapter Nine

  A va heard the loud whistle of air, then nothing, and then a loud whistle again as her body felt as if it were flying apart. Muscle-deep pain gripped her before she hit a very soft surface.

  Her muscles no longer hurt and that high-pitched whistle was gone.

  Where was she?

  She heard a groan and then a very large, very naked man rolled on top of her, pinning her to what her rapidly-assembling senses realized was a bed.

  And who was this man?

  The scent of sex was heavy in the room as her senses sparked to life with a vengeance.

  “Get off my woman.” Ava heard Brody’s growl before she saw him. Felt the pulsing violence before she registered his movements as he bodily lifted the naked man off her.

  The naked guy might have a body the size of a small truck and a six-pack of abs she could have played a tune on, but his actions were anything but lethal as he slumped, semi-conscious, against the wall. He seemed as out of it as a drunk after a wedding, but the broad width of his chest suggested someone who shouldn’t be messed with.

  Who were these people?

  What were she and Brody doing landing in someone’s bedroom? A very sleek, modern bedroom, with chrome-edged furniture and a mile-wide bed covered in black sheets.

  Egyptian cotton, if she wasn’t mistaken.

  And why, oh why, had she put her trust in Brody? She hadn’t been able to empty her memory of the image of his big arms around her, holding her through the night as she’d slept after the nightmare. The feel of his arms was practically imprinted into her skin.

  But was that a reason to abandon common sense?

  And where had that lion come from? There was no way that was a hallucination.

  As the big naked guy on the floor registered his surroundings, Ava watched him leap up at Brody, the slight stagger to his walk the only indication he’d been passed out cold less than a minute before. Unable to help herself, she took in the sleek lines of his very impressive—and very naked—body, sculpted to perfection.

  Brody held him off. “Don’t fuck with me, Kane. You missed the meet, you had yourself wrapped around my woman and you’re buck naked. Get the fuck out of here and get dressed.”

  The big man—Kane—glanced over and offered up a small “Sorry” before he disappeared.

  Vanished.

  And then the fear she supposed she should have felt morphed into real fear—honest-to-goodness get-me-the-fuckout-of-here fear.

  Panic rode Ava in hard, galloping waves as she gasped for air. Her heart was pounding so hard, she couldn’t imagine how she wasn’t having a heart attack.

  For the nine-hundredth time since she was attacked and pulled out of her quiet little life the night before last, she tried desperately to make sense of what was going on.

  Even in all the mind-numbing shock of those days after Daddy died, it was never like this—surreal to the point of a horror film.

  Where were they?

  Who were these men? And how were they any different from the ones who attacked her at home and in the airport?

  She clutched her stomach, hysterical pants clogging in her throat.

  “Ava, you have to calm down.” Brody held her arm as he gently sat down next to her on the bed.

  “Don’t touch me!” She pulled her arm away as more breaths caught in her throat. With crablike motions, she scrabbled to the head of the bed, putting as much distance as possible between herself and Brody.

  And then he was moved closer, reaching out toward her with seeking fingers and soft, murmured words. She shifted again and nearly fell off the bed before he caught her, then pulled her close, rubbing soothing circles on her back with his large, warm palm.

  And God help her, she liked it.

  “That’s better. Shhh, now. I promise you’re safe here.” They sat like that until her breathing returned to normal; until she was ready to talk to him.

  “Where are we?”

  “Kane’s home. The security specialist I told you about. The one who was supposed to meet us at Heathrow.”

  “But where are we? How did we get here? One minute we’re standing on the banks of the Thames and the next we’re here.” She turned to look at him, her gaze roving the strong sweep of his jaw and the firm lines of his neck where she could almost swear she saw his pulse.

  He was human. He had to be. She’d know if he wasn’t.

  Wouldn’t she?

  “I’ll explain to you what I can.”

  He’d explain what he could? “Oh no, buddy. You dragged me here. You can damn well tell me who you are and how you did that . . . that . . . little trick.”

  “I can’t tell you. It’s for your protection.”

  “Bullshit.”

  Her panic twisted into hard, jagged spikes of adrenaline that pummeled her nervous system.

  “I am not fragile. I don’t need to be coddled or taken care of.”

  “Could have fooled me.”

  Words spilled from her, frustration and anger seething in every word—every thought—she’d been desperate to get out for years. “You’re the one who dragged me here. What do you expect me to think? I’m not some whimpering coward who needs protecting.”

  “Oh really?” His words spewed out through gritted teeth. “You really don’t think you need protection? That’s rich.”

  “Where do you think you can get off—”

  “I’ve watched you for four days and I can see it. See you hide. From life. From men. From yourself.” He ran a hand down the sleeve of her sweater. “This, for example. This awful, ugly sweater an eighty-year-old woman wouldn’t be caught dead in. You wear it like a freaking mantle of protection—the impenetrable fortress of Ava Harrison.”

  Shocked to her core, she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. The sheer insult of it was enough to bring tears to her eyes, but she wasn’t crying.

/>   Quivering in frustration and anger and need and raw fury, yes.

  Crying? No.

  “You know nothing about me.”

  “I know you’re kind and hardworking and warm and passionate. And I know you hide it under ninety-hour work weeks and drab clothes.”

  “I don’t know what I’m doing here, but since my spinster wardrobe and I are clearly such a burden, show me to the door and you’re rid of me.”

  She leaped off the bed and headed for the doorway. Although larger than most city apartments, it was still an apartment. It wouldn’t be that hard to find the door and get on her way.

  They had to be in London—she hoped. She’d find a cab, get to the hotel and get cleaned up for her meeting at the museum.

  Except, of course, that all her clothes were sitting in the trunk of some disintegrated felon’s car.

  Her feet sank into heavy, plush carpet as she crossed the room. A long hallway greeted her, suspended over a large loft to serve as the walkway to the second story.

  She’d barely passed the second bedroom when she felt Brody’s hand on her arm.

  “Please give me a chance to explain a few things.”

  “Why? So you can insult me again?”

  “Are you going to make me jealous by jumping into bed with another one of my friends, then ogling his naked ass?”

  A small snort escaped her. While it wasn’t the most lady-like gesture, it sure beat quivering panic. “As your prisoner, no doubt.”

  “You’re not a prisoner. But you also don’t need to be stupid. In the last eighteen hours you’ve been attacked twice. And neither time by me. Don’t you think you may want to channel a wee bit of that rage at your situation and away from me?”

  “You’d go a long way toward making me feel better if you told me a few things.”

  He nodded. “That’s fair.”

  “And maybe let me call Dr. MacIntyre to reschedule our visit today. Assuming you have a phone.”

  He smiled and nodded. “Fair again.”

  “Okay, then. Let’s talk.”

  As she waited for him to say something, the moment spun out in silence. His blue eyes locked on hers as her senses heightened, sharpened, expanded.