The Relentless Warrior

by Rachel Higginson

  “Yep.” Jericho seemed to have trouble with words longer than one syllable. Had I really pissed him off? Probably slapping him was overkill…

  “And you’re not… concerned with Eden’s feelings?” Sebastian asked his question like he was asking something else entirely. It was an odd question, even if she was Queen. My curiosity peeked further.

  “Not at all,” Jericho answered casually. “I’ve got more perplexing females to sort through right now.”

  “Huh,” Sebastian mumbled.

  “Huh,” I whispered into the empty hall. And then I escaped up to my sister’s room where things seemed to be less confusing and more in control.

  Which was some kind of sick joke since she was in a torture-induced coma.

  Chapter Seven

  Jericho

  “Where are you going?” Kiran asked in the same tone that Sebastian had been using with me since he caught Olivia and me in the ballroom yesterday. Some surprise, a lot of asshole mixed in, rounded out to completion with some concerned confusion.

  Bastards. All of them.

  So, I’d almost kissed Olivia? So what? It wasn’t exactly the breaking news everyone was treating it as. I’d kissed plenty of girls in my twenty-four years.

  “Out,” I barked in reply.

  I stalked past him and into Ophelia’s room where Titans surrounded her. Olivia sat leaning over her, whispering secrets to her comatose sister. O lay oblivious to it all, eyes flickering quickly behind closed lids, golden blonde hair spread out on the pillow beneath her head.

  My demeanor and surely attitude softened immediately as I watched Olivia laugh at something she was telling her sister. She didn’t even acknowledge my presence, didn’t even look up to scowl at me for not coming in earlier today.

  But I couldn’t help the way I relaxed around her. I hadn’t been worried about her. I hadn’t been thinking constantly about what it would have been like to kiss her.

  And I finally had gotten a full night’s sleep.

  Or at least I had lain in bed for an entire eight hours convincing myself I wasn’t doing those things.

  “Tell her you’ll be back in a little bit, Liv. You’re coming with me.” We hadn’t spoken since she slapped me in the ballroom. I thought it was probably best if I didn’t give her the option to decline my invitation. Plus, my good feelings for finding her so settled and peaceful quickly disappeared the longer she chose to ignore me.

  She finally glanced up, her sapphire eyes flashing to a darker color. “Where are we going?”

  “We’re taking a break,” I offered, careful not to reveal how.

  “I took a break yesterday. I want to stay here today.” She kept her gaze intently on her sister, brushing away hair from Ophelia’s sweat-shiny forehead.

  God, she was stubborn. Almost as stubborn as me.

  Almost.

  “No, you worked on something life-changing yesterday that tore your whole world apart. Today, we’re doing something that’s not work and won’t destroy every single thing you’ve ever thought was true in life.” I smiled wryly but she just kept glaring at me. “I won’t keep you long, I promise.” I softened my tone and gave her a pleading look, one that always worked with the ladies. Slowly I watched my charm break down her doubly-enforced defenses.

  She was just so traumatized from her time with Terletov and shaken up from yesterday’s ballroom exercises. I hated that she was fragile; not because I didn’t understand, but because I knew that wasn’t her. She wasn’t a weak person and she wasn’t the kind to play victim. I hated that my world had forced her to be both.

  I couldn’t exactly relate to why she hated Magic so much, but I tried to understand it.

  There was nothing that represented strength more to me than my Magic. It was my life’s blood, my most defining feature, everything I lived for and lived to protect. And she hated it.

  That thought alone did terrible things to my mind and self-esteem. How could I make her see that this was a good thing? That she wasn’t this monstrosity she’d worked up in her head? She was something more now. I wouldn’t say that she was better because she possessed Magic, but she was just more. And even if she hated what the Magic had done to her family and her, she didn’t have to hate herself.

  Or me. A voice whispered in my head. I stamped it down quickly. There was something absolutely crazy about thinking of Liv like that.

  Something crazy about wanting to kiss her.

  But now wasn’t the time. I needed to push her to accept this new part of herself; I wanted to show her there were good parts of this world too.

  I hated that I asked so much of her. I really hated that I couldn’t just wrap my arms around her and let her cry it out. But she wasn’t ready for that. Hell, I was ready for that. So, I would do this instead. I would do what I could and hope she found that luminescent internal strength that blinded me. I wouldn’t let this be what ruined her, I wouldn’t let her give up now.

  “Fine,” she growled. “But this better be fast.”

  She stood up from the bed and arched her graceful back. She wasn’t very tall, even for a girl, but her limbs and frame were very nicely proportioned. She had the body most girls dreamt about, with muscular but willowy legs, deliciously shaped curves that drew a man’s eye and a long, slender neck. She was like a pin-up girl that packed a punch, and I found myself mesmerized by her.

  She had showered sometime since I saw her last and her blonde hair was loose and wavy around her face. It wasn’t as long as I usually preferred hair on girls, but it looked soft and silky to touch. It framed her face and, depending on her mood or the weather or whatever, she either wore it straight or wavy; either looked good on her. She was just…. gorgeous. I couldn’t say that in a different way.

  After all these weeks I finally realized how attracted to this girl I was. I had been ignoring every part of her body that demanded my attention, stamping down the male instinct in me because she was traumatized, vulnerable and… human.

  But knowing there was Magic inside her flipped my switch. Suddenly I wasn’t the elevated Immortal and she wasn’t an untouchable human. Now, she was just a girl and I was just a boy.

  And we met on even ground.

  I wasn’t sure what to do with any of that, so I wisely decided to go back to ignoring those pieces of her that made my fingers itch and my entire body harden.

  She would be gone soon enough. I had committed myself to a lifetime of being the playboy bachelor and for the last three years I had been doing a bang-up job.

  Literally. Ha!

  I wouldn’t draw Olivia into that web of debauchery. I respected her too much for that. But I also respected her enough to keep my distance.

  Whatever happened yesterday, wouldn’t happen again.

  I enjoyed her as a friend. We were good at the whole love-hate thing. We could keep that up, especially when the hate part ran a little hotter than the love part. She was good at witty banter; she was smart and funny and so ridiculously sarcastic that she kept me always on my toes. It wasn’t just that I was attracted to her; I liked her.

  And I hadn’t been able to tolerate other people in a long time. Even Avalon had been on my nerves lately.

  She needed my help. And I had been told on more than one occasion, mostly by Avalon and Sebastian, that I got off playing the white knight, the savior to every damsel in distress.

  It was patronizing and obnoxious.

  But maybe they were right. And right now she was a girl that needed help and I saw an opportunity.

  If that was true, then helping her learn to use her new Magic, so that she was proficient enough to protect herself, would remove her damsel attributes and my intrigue.

  “Stop whining,” I ordered. “Grab your coat and shoes.”

  She muttered something under her breath, but obeyed. I stood by the door while she threw on a coat and tennis shoes that had been donated by somebody in the castle when she first got here. When she arrived she only had the tattered clothes she wa
s wearing, and by her request, we burned those.

  When she was ready, we walked silently through the castle hallways. I took her through the ballroom again. The enormous room was already in the beginning stages of repair. I didn’t know what Eden thought about the whole thing, because I had so far successfully avoided her, but it looked like she hadn’t hesitated to get her maintenance men on it. They used Magic to repair the bulk of the damage, but because she was particular and for some reason respected this place, they were going slowly and meticulously from section to section.

  We stepped through them without drawing anything more than a friendly nod in our direction; apparently they didn’t associate us with the destruction… yet. I lifted the tarp that still sealed the shattered windows and we walked over broken shards of glass and into the bright winter afternoon. Blustery January wind gusted at us, whipping us in the face and crawling beneath our layers of clothing to grab hold of our bones. I sent a current of Magic through my body and led Olivia further onto the balcony.

  Thick, pure white snow covered the Citadel grounds and beyond. The balcony had been shoveled clear, and so were the steps leading down to the wild maze of gardens below; but the railing was packed high with inches of the powdery stuff. Our breath puffed out in front of us in frosty clouds; the chill was there, instantly on every inch of our skin. Without Magic my lungs would have frozen in my chest and the snot in my nose easily turned to icicles. But Magic kept my blood pumping and my skin heated.

  My Magic was a seamless part of me, reacting before there was conscious thought or action. But from my experiences with Eden, I knew this would take careful consideration on Liv’s part. She just wasn’t used to the benefits Magic offered her.

  I was setting out to show her the good parts of Magic, the life-changing-in-an-easy-way parts. I wanted her to embrace this new aspect of herself and what it could do for her.

  Because while she was determined to rid herself of the Magic infused in her blood, I wasn’t sure that was possible. Not if she didn’t want to end up like the withered and emaciated Immortals we kept finding discarded like trash all over the world.

  “What are we doing out here?” Olivia asked carefully.

  “We’re going for a walk,” I shrugged. “I want to show you something.”

  “But it’s freezing,” she argued. “Remember I’m just a lowly human. I’m susceptible to things like frostbite, hypothermia, misery…”

  “But you’re not just a lowly human anymore. You’re Immortal, or at least part-Immortal. So those aren’t issues you struggle with. You’ve evolved.” At her purely death-ray glare, I amended quickly, “So to speak. You just have to use Magic.” I grinned at her silent outrage, watching her carefully out of the corner of my eye as we walked down the steps and started trudging through shin deep snow.

  “Magic keeps me immune from the cold?” she asked skeptically.

  “Do I look cold to you?”

  For the first time she seemed to take in my t-shirt and jeans, my not-blue skin and my leather flip-flops. She reached out and ran her hand up my arm, feeling the warmth of my skin in her cold palm.

  “Huh.” She narrowed her eyes and didn’t remove her hand. “That’s Magic?”

  “Sure, it’s Magic,” I agreed. “It doesn’t always have to be a weapon.” I used Magic in front of me, melting more of the snow, clearing an easy path for her to walk. Then when we faced the impossible maze of barren, snow covered branches I gently lifted them out of the way so we could follow the path toward the back wall of the Citadel. “It’s a living force inside of me, Liv. If I’m good, the Magic is good. If I’m bad, the Magic can be bad, but it doesn’t always have to be. The majority of Immortals are peaceful, with the exception of those you met in Peru. A few years ago, we were ruled by an evil man, too, and there were plenty of people that supported him. Still, the population as a whole wasn’t evil; they didn’t use their Magic for bad things. They just didn’t use their Magic for good either. You met someone terrible and he changed you, but you are a good person, Liv. Your Magic can be good, even if it’s different. Your Magic can be useful, even if you don’t want it.”

  I watched as her skin heated inside her, her body temperature rising to normal. She was a natural at this, which was so shocking to me. I wondered if it was Magic in particular or if it was her level of intelligence that helped her catch on so quickly. Immortals had the tendency to look down on humans for everything. They weren’t as smart as us, fast as us, talented as us, wise as us; whatever it was, we excelled.

  But Liv was an exception to every rule. She was an exception to every one of my rules.

  “Alright,” she grumbled. “This isn’t so bad.”

  I shot her an I-told-you-so look and she finally broke her surly attitude and her luscious mouth tilted into a smile.

  “What’s with you today?” I asked as we made our way to the Citadel wall. I noticed my Magic was almost independently refusing to lift the stark branches far enough out of our way, so that we had to lean into each other to squeeze through the tight spaces. I should have probably analyzed that, but I was preoccupied waiting for her answer.

  “What do you mean?” she looked ahead of us, lifting her arm to hold up a branch, before changing her mind and testing her Magic on it.

  Her Magic snapped the branch in half and sent it flying down the path until it impaled a wall of dead shrubbery. She shot me a sideways glance daring me to say something. I bit back my grin and wisely chose to ignore it.

  “You’re acting weird today,” I nudged her with my elbow. “Since yesterday, you’ve been acting weird.”

  “I’m not acting weird,” she defended herself quickly. “You’re acting weird.”

  “How am I acting weird?” I demanded. This conversation was feeling a little juvenile, but it was

  like I was trapped inside it, unable to leave without answers. And if I had to play the part of immaturity in order to win, I would.

  I was competitive like that.

  “You know how!” She huffed.

  I paused our conversation to open the hidden door for her. Kiran and Avalon used to meet this way back when Lucan was still alive. There was a special key that required Magic and the right royal DNA or a Titan. But since Lucan died, Kiran had switched up the lock so that a certain number of us could use it. This entrance was still very hush-hush, even though the land on the other side of the door was private, guarded and difficult to access. It wasn’t exactly human hikers we worried would find it, but the rest of the Immortal Kingdom.

  “I don’t know how,” I assured her after I’d melted more snow with my Magic and led the way up an incline.

  “Ever since you found out I’m… I’m… like you! You’ve been looking at me differently!”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I sounded confident, but internally I was starting to worry. Was that true? Was I looking at her differently now that she wasn’t so fragile? So…. mortal?

  Or had I always been traveling this path?

  “It was like the minute you knew I was magical,” she whispered that word like it had filthy connotations, “You got hungry!”

  I cocked my head back, abashed by her word choice, “Hungry?”

  “Yes, hungry,” she hissed.

  I wanted to argue, but we were over the ridge now and a private lake stretched out before us. Snow rose from every bank in thick, mounds of perfect white purity. The lake itself was iced over at the beginning of December, with drifts of snow scattered across its smooth surface. The only disruption to the untouched purity was animal prints as they tracked from one side of the lake to the other. Huge trees rose from every side, snow replacing leaves, and icicles hanging from their branches like Christmas lights.

  “Oh my gosh, Jericho,” she exclaimed in a breath of astonishment. “This is amazing.”

  She walked ahead of me, moving the snow out of her way a little less gracefully than me- and by that I meant she sent it up in a blizzard of flurries around
us.

  She looked at me over her shoulder, her teeth nibbling on her bottom lip, her expression impish and excited. I had that obnoxious urge to kiss her again, to explore her mouth with mine, her body with my hands. I wanted to find out exactly how hot the Magic made her skin, how sweet the inside of her mouth tasted.

  I shook my head, trying to clear it of those thoughts. Was I really looking at her like I was hungry?

  Maybe I was. It had been a while since I’d even been alone with a girl other than Liv.

  I definitely needed to fix that. Now.

  “I know you’re planning something extraordinary. So just get on with it. I’m too impatient to play guessing games,” she was laughing while she ordered me around. I should have been irritated with her commanding presence, with the way she just assumed she would get her way.

  But it was not irritation racing in my blood or pounding against my chest. It was something so much more like obsessive curiosity and affectionate indulgence.

  “So bossy,” I murmured playfully as I moved to stand next to her on the bank.

  She waited with eyes lit with anticipation and her fingers fidgeting anxiously. I couldn’t stop the smile that spread almost ear to ear across my face. I kicked off my flip-flops and stepped onto the frozen ground that didn’t feel cold to me at all.

  I walked further onto the iced-over lake and released some Magic from my feet, from my hands from everywhere around me. The air sizzled with the force of my electricity, crackling and popping as I freed whatever I wanted into the atmosphere around me making whatever I wanted happen.

  The ice beneath my feet melted and I sunk down with a drop as the solid ground disappeared around me. My jeans were wet, but it didn’t bother me; I would just dry them with Magic when I stepped out.

  The water at my feet heated to hot tub temps and sluiced over and between my toes like a Jacuzzi. It was fantastic. All around me the water stayed frigid and the ice stayed frozen, but this small space was just for me.

  “Come here,” I demanded without turning around. She wasn’t the only one that liked to get her way.