by Addison Fox
The line shifted slightly, the battle-ready tension palpable in the men and women who stood between her and her brother. Despite the tense moments, no one interfered, understanding that she needed to ask the questions.
“Make what right with Eris?”
“Em. You wouldn’t understand.”
And there it was. The same excuse he’d used their entire lives, varied slightly depending on the occasion.
You wouldn’t understand, Em.
You don’t know what I’m dealing with, Em.
Get off my back, Em.
“Try me.” When he didn’t say anything more, she shifted tactics. “What did you mean you’d make things right with Eris?”
Magnus shot a derisive glare at the line of Warriors. “You all think you’re so tough. So immune. She’s worth a hundred of you. And more powerful, too.”
“So what makes you think you have the power to call her off?”
“She’ll listen to me on this.”
Somehow, she doubted it. But whatever lies Eris had woven around her brother had pretty much eliminated his already questionable judgment.
“Magnus, I can help you. We can help you. These are good people, and we can find a way to make this right.”
Drake shifted, reaching for the hand she still had on his back. In that moment, Emerson realized just how true the words she spoke really were.
“And you think I’m delusional. They’re a group of vigilantes who go around keeping their own brand of law and order. Hell, this one”—Magnus pointed to Rogan—“is fucking Eris. You think that makes him a hero? You think that makes all of them heroes?”
“It certainly doesn’t make your behavior okay.”
“It doesn’t make it wrong, either.” With that, he leaped, the move far more decisive than his nervous behavior would have indicated.
Magnus hit the end of the line. Kane bore the brunt of the attack, with Ilsa caught in the fray as all three fell to the ground. Emerson watched as a symphony of movement rose up and out of the fray of bodies before Magnus moved back again, balancing on the balls of his feet.
Kane lay in the corner of the room, a large cut on his head pouring with blood as Ilsa hovered over him. Quinn was still on his feet, but he’d taken a few hits as well, as evidenced by the split lip and ripening bruise on his eye.
“You can’t take down all these people, Magnus.”
“Not by myself. It’s a good thing I brought help.” The snake she’d been so afraid of seeing again slithered from Magnus’s shoulders and fell to the floor next to him. Coiled, it lifted its head and hissed at all of them.
“Ava. Ilsa. Montana. Emerson. In the kitchen,” Brody ordered them. “We need more room.”
The snake had already anticipated the move and slithered toward the swinging door, blocking any movement. In that moment, it became evident Magnus had a sizable advantage. The reach of the snake would ensure he could manage two ends of the line, and the bunched nature of how they stood there in formation would keep the Warriors’ tattoos from full range of motion or freedom.
They were trapped.
Emerson leaned forward and whispered in Drake’s ear, “Do you have the diary?”
“Quinn’s got it locked in a safe upstairs.”
“Good.”
“What are you going to do?”
“It seems I’m the only one with an advantage at the moment. Jump in as soon as you have an opening.”
Stepping around Drake, she lifted her hand and felt the power well up from her stomach, through her chest cavity and down her arms. Diligently avoiding thinking about the fact that the person who was going to receive the blast was her brother, she let go with a stream of fire directed at the snake.
The heat welled from her fingertips in a rush, the fire a surprisingly potent weapon that grew and expanded in her palm. Emerson tried to make sense of it, even as she kept her focus on the snake.
What was this?
She’d used her gifts before, but never with such precision or strength. Not only was the fire more potent—more focused—it seemed to grow the more she used it, like a building inferno.
She glanced down and saw that her other hand was still linked to Drake.
Was it possible?
Breaking the hold of their fingers, she recognized the loss of power immediately. Felt the change in every cell of her body. The fire was lighter somehow, and it went wild, as if a cross-stream of air lit under it. The steady stream that had held the snake in place wavered, giving the animal a break so it could slither in closer to the Warriors.
Unwilling to waste time trying to figure it out, she reached for Drake again, the connection garnering immediate results. The flame returned, more focused and so hot it edged in blue as the fire coated the snake’s body in a steady arc.
Magnus screamed in pain, stumbling away from where he engaged in a fight with Quinn, answering the question of how closely connected he was to the snake.
“Drake. Don’t let go of me.”
“I have to get in there.”
He started to move forward, but she held on to him. “The fire’s not as focused when I’m not touching you.”
“Quinn, Rogan,” Drake ordered, “you take the lead.”
The two Warriors ran forward and Emerson kept the stream of fire on the snake as they moved in next to Magnus. The animal had completely stopped moving and lay coiled, its skin charred black. When they had her brother firmly in hand, she pulled back on her magic.
“What the hell was that, Em? How’d you do that?”
“I’m done, Magnus. Start explaining, or I’m going to make sure these lovely people lock you up like a fucking criminal.”
“No, seriously. I’ve never seen you do anything like that. What did you do? Where’d you get magic like that?”
She shrugged, suddenly self-conscious to have it called out. “It’s inside of me.”
“It’s unheard of. Grandma can’t do that. Mom couldn’t do it, either. How’d you get power like that?”
“It’s not power, Magnus. It’s magic. It’s a gift and it needs to be used as such.”
“It’s remarkable.”
The snake shifted slightly, the charred scales fading into a new, bright pink as Magnus’s immortality healed it. They didn’t have much time.
“Can Drake and I have a few minutes with my brother? I can bind him if you’d prefer.” She winced at the thought, but knew it was the only way to gain their agreement.
Rogan and Quinn hesitated, but it was Drake who supported her. “Please let her have a few minutes.”
“Let’s go check on Kane.” Quinn and Rogan moved through the swinging door to the kitchen, the implied threat of how close they were not lost on anyone.
Shifting her attention back to her healing brother, Emerson created a circle of fire around him, careful to keep the flames away from him as she did so. “Magnus, please let me help you. Whatever you’ve gotten yourself into, we can get you out of.”
Her brother laughed. “Just like that night after the park. You wanted answers that night, too.”
Despite the warmth emanating from her body, icy-cold dread coursed through her bloodstream. “What do you mean?”
“Come on. You knew it was me. You had to know.”
The tears she’d refused to shed all those years ago welled up now, his acknowledgment as painful as if no time had passed at all. “He was an innocent man, Magnus.”
“In the wrong place at the wrong time. I didn’t do it on purpose.”
“But you did it. You killed him.”
“I’ve had a long time to live with it, and yes.” His dark gaze never wavered. “Yes, I did.”
The usual urge to rant and rail at him never manifested. Instead, all she felt was an unbearable sadness.
Her brother was lost. Maybe he had been for a very long time, but the truth staring back at her was the final straw.
The snake moved again and she took a few steps back, the flames going higher with
her anxiety. “Could you at least put that…thing…away.”
Magnus lifted an eyebrow. “Unlike your ring of fire, here, I’m not going to use it on you.”
“Like you weren’t going to use it on her before?” Drake shot back, his anger from earlier clearly not gone. “You could have killed her with your lack of control.”
“It’s weakened.”
“It lives in your aura,” Drake pushed at him. “It’s not something separate.”
“Look. I just want the diary back. Give it to me and I’ll go away. If you believe nothing else, believe that.”
“Why’d you take it from her? You had to know Eris would want it back.”
“Insurance. And a deep desire to know exactly what I was.”
Drake’s voice dripped with disdain. “It must have been a big surprise to realize it was in Greek.”
“Look, I just took it. I didn’t have time to flip through it first.”
“Why not just ask her what she did?”
“I needed to know everything.”
“So you took a deal with a goddess and didn’t know the terms? Bad move, Magnus.”
Magnus shot Drake a dark look but didn’t back down from his point. “She made promises. You’ve been through the experience. Surely you can understand I’d like to know what I’m up against.”
“Actually, I can’t. But then again, I didn’t sell my soul, which is the effective equivalent of what you did with Eris.”
“Yeah. And I’m pretty sure there’s no getting it back.” With that, Magnus evaporated before their eyes.
Chapter Thirteen
Drake took in the chaos of the kitchen as he and Emerson cleared the swinging door. Ilsa held her hand over an ice pack against Kane’s head while Montana doctored a cut on Quinn’s lip. All in all, they’d escaped relatively unscathed, but the nervous tension of battle hadn’t yet evaporated.
“He’s gone?” Quinn mumbled around the towel against his mouth.
“The snake regenerated, Magnus made excuses and then he disappeared.” Drake tucked Emerson under his arm, the need to hold her a palpable thing inside of him. “What I want to know is how the hell he got in here in the first place.”
Quinn threw the towel onto the counter. “I haven’t figured that out yet. Best I can tell, he did something to the front door.”
“No one walks up and gets into this house, Quinn.” Not even Emerson. He’d just given her the codes months ago and only her grandmother’d had them before that.
“I’m working on it,” Quinn snapped. “The front door was locked but not fully activated.”
“Which meant it was me.” All eyes in the room turned on Rogan, a heavy silence accompanying the collective scrutiny. “I was the last one in.”
Magnus’s taunts when he’d first arrived crystallized in Drake’s mind. “Convenient.”
“How’s that, Fish?” Rogan’s green gaze never wavered as they stared each other down.
“You fuck Eris, then show up here and leave our front door unattended.”
“You think I left the alarm off on purpose?”
Quinn and Brody moved to the center of the room and placed themselves between him and Rogan, but Drake was beyond caring.
He’d trusted Rogan. Believed in him, just as he believed in all his brothers. And the man’s fucking dick had put Emerson in danger. Had put all of them in danger. “What do you want me to think?”
“Drake. That’s enough,” Emerson hissed at him.
He heard her—heard the subtle undertone in her words to stop—but couldn’t back down. Wouldn’t back down. “You’ve got a different explanation than the fact that you’ve been fucking our enemy?”
Rogan took another step closer. “Since you’re fucking the enemy’s sister, I don’t think you have a lot of room to talk.”
“Fuck you!” Drake dived at Rogan. Anger writhed through his system, coiling with the ferocity of the snake that had attacked them. His fist connected with Rogan’s cheek on a hard thud, the crack of bone unmistakable.
No one would talk about Emerson that way. The fact it was one of his Warrior brothers made it that much more unacceptable.
“Drake!” Abstractly, he heard Emerson’s screams as he landed another punch on Rogan. The archer managed to get one back on him before Quinn and Brody pulled them off each other. Drake felt himself being dragged across the kitchen, but his gaze never wavered off of Rogan.
“I didn’t do this, Drake. I didn’t purposely let him in.”
Quinn’s grip was tight where he had him pinned against the wall and Drake shoved at him, desperate to get a few more shots in on Rogan. “Get off me.”
“Calm the hell down.”
“I’m fine.”
Their Taurus wasn’t so easily fooled. “I’m not letting go of you until you prove to me you’re not going to march straight back over there and pick up where you left off.”
“Drake.” Emerson laid a hand on his shoulder and he dragged his gaze off Quinn. “Drake. It’s okay. Stop this. Please. Just stop.”
His shoulders relaxed under Quinn’s grip and he felt the bull respond in kind. The moment he had range of motion, he pulled Emerson into his arms.
“It’s okay,” she whispered against his chest.
He pressed his lips to her hair. “I want to get you out of here. Where do you want to go?”
“Home. Take me home.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Then let’s go upstate to my aunt’s house. The one I told you about with the cows. It’s mine now. And I have the tools there I need to do some work. We need to figure out what the hell’s going on.”
“Let’s go.”
Drake had explained they couldn’t port since he didn’t have a visual of where they were going. Which was how, after the blowup in the kitchen of Warrior Central, she found herself taking the trip upstate in a sweet little Audi sports car she’d had no idea he owned.
They’d cleared the city limits twenty minutes before and his grip on the steering wheel hadn’t lessened; nor had his mood lifted above tense and distracted.
With a series of strokes that were borderline covetous, she ran her hands over the dashboard. “If I’d known you had this car, I’d’ve bugged you to let me drive it months ago.”
He glanced over at the comment and she saw his hands relax a bit on the wheel. “What makes you think I’d let you drive it?”
“You’re crazy about me, Ace. You can’t deny me anything.”
“I would have no problem denying you driving privileges in my Roadster.”
“Not if I’d employed some creative ways to convince you, involving my lips and tongue and your very persuadable cock.”
The car was a sweet driving machine, but even precision steering couldn’t keep him from veering slightly off the road at her words. Emerson couldn’t hold back the laughter at his response, the sheer joy of being desired and wanted too wonderful to hold back.
Especially after the fight she’d witnessed.
Drake had defended her against his fellow Warrior. And while she likely would have been pissed if he hadn’t, the pure violence in his movements had caught her off guard.
He and Rogan had fought together for millennia and, despite knowing each other for only a year, he’d taken her side. Believed in her.
Defended her.
“Why’d you do it?”
The smile she’d managed to draw out with her earlier comments faded in the light of a pair of oncoming headlights. “No one speaks of you like that.”
Tiny flutters swamped her belly, but she couldn’t hold back her point. “His question wasn’t entirely out of line.”
“He insulted you and he insulted what’s between us, Emerson. It’s that simple.”
“You really are a surprise, Drake.”
“How so?”
“You’re just so…” She broke off, trying to figure out the right word. “Solid. You come off like nothing fazes you and then you have these moments whe
re this fiery passion inside just leaps out and swamps you. I don’t know who you are.”
“I’ve told you before, I’m a simple guy. What you see is what you get. But just because I’m simple doesn’t mean I’m easy.”
No, she had to admit, he wasn’t easy at all. In fact, he was downright hard and prickly and difficult when he set his mind to something.
Emerson was suddenly grateful for the darkened interior and the limited amount of lights on the back country roads. There was an intimacy here she didn’t normally allow, as if the lack of light and the seat belts that kept them to opposite sides of the car gave a place to comfortably sit back and observe.
To get a sense of what made him tick.
“How do you hold it back? The passion?”
“I watch and wait and I don’t feel the need to act on every little thing. But when it matters, I’m not hiding how I feel and I’m not standing down.”
“Obviously.” A thoughtful pause filled the air before she added, “You and your brothers act pretty decisively and not always in agreement.”
“We’re all different. Just because we’re immortal doesn’t make us any less human, with all the foibles and faults that come with it.”
“Are you sorry you punched Rogan?”
“No.”
“Not even a little bit?”
He turned toward her as much as the drive would allow. “No, Emerson, I’m not sorry. Not in the least. What he said was the deepest insult to you and it won’t happen in my presence.”
Not for the first time, visions of the knights and Warriors she’d read about all her life in books and stories filled her mind’s eye. This old-fashioned streak was something she could get used to.
Maybe, she admitted to herself, she already had.
With that thought came another. “What if he has feelings for her?”
“Rogan? For Eris?” Drake let out a heavy snort, the implacable stubborn streak she associated with his Warrior brothers making its appearance. “Impossible.”
“How do you know?”
“Oh, come on. He’s getting his rocks off, nothing more.”
“The same could be said for us.”
