The Relentless Warrior

by Rachel Higginson

  I’d woken up this morning with those same thoughts circling around my head. What if I was fighting for something I didn’t really want? What if the future I’d imagined for myself wasn’t a concrete path I’d created, but a journey I was meant to explore and adapt to.

  I reviewed my present and my current convictions: I wanted to be human again, I wanted to go home to my family, I wanted to go back to school and kick ass.

  But in one incredible kiss, Jericho had made me question all of that. What if I didn’t go back to being human? Could I live like this? Yes. And I could even be happy. What if when I went back home, it wasn’t to stay? What if I didn’t rely on my family for everything? Instead, I separated myself in order to protect this new part of me… the Immortal part of me? What if I didn’t go back to school?

  What if I started a completely different life?

  Every one of those questions revolved around the one who’d started them all. Jericho.

  It seemed ridiculous to get this attached to a boy I’d only known for a few short months, one that was so different from me. But I couldn’t stop myself.

  I seemed to be spiraling into something I didn’t and couldn’t understand. My life had become this tornado of confusion and upheaval. And while my biggest issues revolved around Terletov and what he did to O and me, there were bigger questions I had to ask myself, questions that I felt ill-prepared to answer.

  I also needed to be honest with myself.

  I liked Jericho.

  I really liked Jericho.

  Maybe I always had. Since the moment he found me in Peru, he had been by my side, fighting for me, first, for me to recover, then for me to trust him. Last night he’d fought for me to face my attraction to him. And while he seemed reserved now, I didn’t believe he was finished fighting for me.

  He’d gotten his way with every other battle. There wasn’t any reason for me to believe that he wouldn’t continue to win.

  Plus, he hated to lose.

  I didn’t like being the weak link in this, always giving in, always being the loser. But until now, I’d never felt like the loser. Whenever he won, it also felt like I won.

  I never felt like I’d ever lost until now.

  I shook my head and let my thoughts drift elsewhere. I thought of Ophelia and said as many prayers for her recovery as I could think of the right words to speak. I thought about my family back home and the potential danger Rion was in. I thought of Brazil and how I’d never been here before. These were exactly the opposite circumstance I wanted to visit another country under. And I hadn’t even gotten a stamp on my passport, validating my efforts.

  The luscious, tropical scenery flipped by the further south we drove. The Amazon was at our back and the coast lay somewhere in front of us. The only reason I knew that was because Sebastian eventually explained where we were headed when I couldn’t take the silence anymore.

  Well, he explained that we were driving south towards Rio and Sau Paulo but that he didn’t exactly know where we were headed either.

  Nobody did.

  Sebastian said we would just know it when we got there.

  I had to assume they were using Magic in some way to guide us, but I didn’t understand and I didn’t feel up to asking questions.

  Jericho remained silent next to me. His jaw ticked with tightness, his hands gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles were stretched white. His heavy foot pressed forcefully down on the gas so that we had to be flying over the speed limit.

  He hardly said a word for hours, but I could see the gears turning in his head. He was lost in whatever thoughts were up there, deeply lost. His distance hurt, especially after I’d given him so much in that stupid kiss last night. But some internal, instinctive thought told me this was what he needed right now. And so I let him have it.

  “So Terletov is supposed to be there?” I turned in my seat and directed my question at Sebastian.

  “Supposed to be,” Sebastian confirmed. His body was strung just as tight as Jericho’s but Sebastian seemed more concerned with the mission ahead of us.

  “That’s kind of lucky, then. What are the chances that we show up in the exact country he’s hanging out in?” I thought it was lucky anyway. I’d only been out of America twice in my life, once to Canada as a child for a family camping trip and then to Peru with Ophelia. I wasn’t counting the rest of my intercontinental travel because truthfully I planned on erasing this entire segment of my life from my memory when I was human again. But it seemed these people hopped countries on a regular basis. Terletov had access to the entire world and yet he happened to be in the same country as us? Only a few hours away? What were the chances?

  Sebastian confirmed my fears, “Not lucky. He’s here for us, Olivia. He knows we’re looking for him and he’s threatening to kill one of the King’s advisors. This is a carefully thought out plan and we are willfully walking into it.”

  I probably should have responded to that in some way but I just didn’t have the mental capacity to unpack it.

  So I just turned around and took a cue from Jericho. Maybe the whole riding-in-silence thing

  was less brooding male and more I’m-trying-not-to-flip-the-freak-out.

  As another hour ticked by I wondered if we really knew how to get to Terletov, but then something remarkable happened. Along the edges of my Magic, I started to feel the pull of more energy. I instinctively understood that it was different Magic, outside of my own and belonging to someone else, or multiple someones.

  The further we drove, the stronger the Magic felt. Only, it wasn’t Magic… or was it? I couldn’t be sure. I didn’t like it though. Unlike Jericho’s warm, receptive and commanding Magic, this energy just felt… wrong.

  It wasn’t trying to hurt me or anything, just kind of hovering on the horizon of my awareness. I wondered if it could feel me too. Something made me think yes.

  “Who does it belong to?” I asked with as much nonchalance as I could balance while still keeping my sanity.

  “Who does what belong to?” Jericho asked, the first time he’d used that beautiful mouth of his since we got in the car.

  At the same time Sebastian demanded, “What are you talking about?”

  “All that Magic? On our left?” Couldn’t they feel that?

  Jericho reacted immediately. I put my arms over my head as we swerved through surrounding traffic going with us and against us. By the time we’d made it safely across four lanes of traffic and darted in front of a rickety wooden cart being pulled by a goat, my throat felt scratchy and raw from all the screaming.

  “What the hell was that!” I shouted at Jericho.

  He shrugged casually and began the agonizing trip across a super bumpy dirt road that lead us into a forested area.

  I glanced back to see that the other cars had kept up with us and all seemed to successfully make it across all of the traffic without dying.

  My breathing was still irregular and heavy when Sebastian spoke up, trying to excuse his friend, or that’s what I assumed he was doing. “Neither Jericho nor I can sense other Magics. We were waiting on a call from Talbott, but it never came. You must have some Titan in you if you can feel out other Magics. Jericho believed you and took a chance. Not every side road out here is drivable. He did what he had to in order to keep us on path.”

  I felt warmed because Jericho believed me without questioning me or even asking me to repeat myself, not really anyway.

  “Why can’t you sense other Magics?” I asked Sebastian while gripping the seat beneath me with every ounce of strength I possessed just to keep from bouncing to the floor.

  “Because I’m a hybrid of Medium and Witch and Jericho is pure-blood Witch. Only Titans can really feel Magic. They must have mixed a little in when they gave you your super powers.”

  I rolled my eyes at his superhero comment.

  “Why do you think I only have a little bit of Titan? Maybe I’m all the way Titan,” I suggested. Since they didn’t really know what I w
as, it could be possible. I didn’t really understand the distinction between their “kinds” but apparently there were some.

  Well, except for Shape-Shifters… I got what set them apart.

  “You’re part Witch,” Jericho interjected. “You showed us that the first day we worked on your Magic.”

  “And the purple eyes suggest you’re also part Medium,” Sebastian added. “While our eye colors have a larger range than humans, purple is specific to Mediums.”

  “What does that mean? Am I some kind of mutt?” Nervousness attacked my senses as I waited for the answer to this question. I was already a freak of nature because of the Magic. I had no desire to be a freak inside the freakish world in which I now resided.

  “Not a mutt,” Jericho reassures me. “In our culture the true Immortals hold each of the different Magics. An Immortal containing all four kinds would be a true Immortal. Sebastian and I are less pure than you right now.”

  His answered shocked me. I didn’t expect that. “What’s the difference between you guys and an Immortal with all four kinds?”

  “A true Immortal would be stronger, faster, more powerful and they would live out the meaning of our name. They would have complete Immortality,” Sebastian explained. “And they are extremely rare.”

  “How rare?” I asked.

  “There’s four of them,” Sebastian deadpanned.

  “Six if you count the babies,” Jericho added.

  I gaped. “Six true Immortals in your entire Kingdom?”

  “Babies?” Sebastian demanded. “Amelia?”

  “Er, no,” Jericho sounded embarrassed. “Eden’s having twins. I wasn’t supposed to say anything.”

  “Twins?” This time I could hear the smile in Sebastian’s voice.

  “Don’t say anything,” Jericho growled.

  “He’s cheating, anyway,” Sebastian ignored Jericho’s warning. “You can’t count the babies yet.”

  I sat open-mouthed for a minute, wondering what sort of world I’d gotten myself into for the thousandth time. “I’m kind of glad I’m not one of them then. I hardly know what to do with the Magic as is. I couldn’t take the added pressure.”

  The boys remained silent. But not in a natural way that happens at the end of conversations. This silence was ripe with tension and practically palpable as it settled on my skin.

  So, I decided to push my luck. “Good thing I’m not all four kinds. That would be crazy scary.”

  “Sure,” Jericho mumbled.

  “Oh, my gosh!” I slapped the back of my hand on his bicep before I could rein in my reaction. “Oh, my gosh, you think I’m all four kinds!”

  “It’s just a theory we’ve been working on,” he mumbled.

  “We didn’t know if it was true or not, but the purple eyes…” Sebastian trailed off and looked out the window when I glanced back to catch his eye. “Up for seeing if you can shift into an animal?” he asked with a playful smile even though he wouldn’t look me straight on.

  I faced forward and slammed my back against the seat. “No, thank you,” I squeaked. An animal? Shift into an animal? I so totally couldn’t even comprehend that statement. I needed to be human again.

  Now!

  After long moments of silence while I watched the thick forest fly by the bouncing sedan, I decided to find out a little more information. “What does it mean? Tell me specifically what it means to be all four?”

  Jericho sighed and then said, “It means you have a lot of responsibility. It means… it means your life would be changed forever. Not just for a short while, but forever, Liv. It means Terletov would have gifted you and cursed you in the same breath.”

  My hands started shaking and my lungs seized up into frozen, useless organs.

  “And it means that you mate once.” Sebastian sounded dismally grim from the backseat. I prickled at his terminology but he explained himself. “It means you find one person to share the rest of your life with because once you consummate the relationship, you transfer your immortality to them completely. You unite your Magics permanently. There is no going back. You can’t become human after that either. If you unite your Magic with someone else and you decide to give up your Magic and become human again, you would kill that person.”

  “She wouldn’t kill them,” Jericho snapped, sounding the angriest I’d ever heard him. The tone of his voice actually made me jump in my seat.

  “She would kill them,” Sebastian argued calmly. “I saw what happened to Kiran. I saw that he was about to die.”

  “That didn’t happen to me,” Jericho argued and suddenly I felt like a spectator to a conversation in a different language. “When Eden broke up with me, I didn’t die.”

  Eden and Jericho dated? What!

  Jericho dated the Queen???

  Stupidly those thoughts trumped every other epiphany for the few moments I was allowed to have them.

  “You and I both know that what she gave Kiran was different than what she gave you,” Sebastian growled. His words made it seem like he was angry about something in their past, but his attitude pointed to something in our present. I didn’t understand, but I was too nervous to ask any important questions. “You’ve never played naïve before. I have no idea why you would start lying to yourself now.”

  Jericho huffed out a frustrated breath and shot me a long, agitated glance from his periphery.

  “No big deal,” I shrugged to ease the tension. “I won’t sleep around. That’s easy.” I held my body completely still in order to keep from glancing at Jericho.

  I mean, we’d kissed… for just a few minutes. It was no big deal. And not anywhere close to what Sebastian was suggesting.

  “Yeah,” Jericho echoed me. “Easy.”

  Sebastian made an amused snorting sound but got cut off abruptly when Jericho slammed on the brakes suddenly. My body slammed into the seatbelt and it took me a minute for my head to clear and for the roadblock in front of us to make sense.

  There were at least a dozen men spread out in front of us, armed with swords and guns at their hips. They were menacing and evil looking and their Magic was super potent- almost like it was rotten, like spoiled eggs, if eggs could be Magic. Terletov stood in the middle of them all, a sword raised over his head and an evil, menacing sneer twisting his features.

  On the ground in front of him was another man. His dark skin was painted with crimson blood and his appendages were limp and broken at odd angles.

  The sword was meant for that man.

  “Silas,” Jericho’s voice broke on the name, and then we were scrambling out the door and I was thrown into my very first Immortal fight.

  Good thing I was a fast learner.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Jericho

  “Step back.” My hands were shaking and my blood felt on fire with rage. I was an inferno of intent and fear.

  Terletov stood over Silas as he lay on the ground beaten and broken. I had never seen him look so utterly defeated before. He couldn’t even keep his eyes open, although he tried. He kept coughing, rasping gasps of breath that would rattle his chest and spray sticky, foul-smelling blood from his mouth.

  Terletov just grinned at me- sick, sadistic, crazy.

  “Step back from him or I will gut you,” I warned him with as strong a voice as I could manage. It wasn’t that I was afraid of him or that my nerves were getting the better of me, rather fury seemed to have wrapped around my body in a vice-grip of restrained wrath. I had just seconds before I would explode and bring down the sword of justice. My magically-enhanced gun rested in my hand, ready and willing to inflict as much damage as possible and my Magic tingled at my fingertips, just waiting to unleash hell.

  Silas whimpered on the ground a sound that would haunt me for years to come. Silas didn’t whimper. Silas didn’t beg or plea or grovel. He was an ancient Immortal- centuries old. He’d survived Cedric, Lucan and a revolution. He had kept colonies of people alive for hundreds of years.

  This was not the same ma
n that I’d met in the desert to exchange plans with. This was not the man that sat on Avalon’s council and kept the reluctant Monarchy in line. This was not the man that once saved a gypsy village from the wrath of an evil king.

  This was a shell of that man.

  Red rage blurred my vision and I fought to keep it together until it was time to engage. I felt Talbott by my side, Sebastian on the other. Olivia had found her way behind me, which I was more than grateful for. We hadn’t exactly gone over her role should we engage the enemy, but she seemed to be smart about this. And Sebastian had gone over the procedure of firing a gun and fighting with Magic on the plane over here. Not that it was enough to prepare her for this moment, but it would have to be enough.

  Hopefully she would stay by my side and be smart, because I could not babysit her just now.

  I would protect her with my life, but I didn’t have time for the unnecessary stunts and acts of bravery. I understood that Terletov had done unspeakable things to her, and for that he would pay. But she couldn’t go rogue and expect results.

  Not now anyway.

  “So you got my message?” Terletov grinned at us. His eyes moved slowly from Sebastian to mine, to Talbott and beyond. I felt, more than saw, when he found Titus standing somewhere behind me. His entire energy changed immediately, somehow growing more aggressive, hungrier, angrier. Titus was our only Shifter. Of course, Terletov would want to deal with that. “I’m so happy you could join us. Your friends have been waiting for you.”

  Friends?

  Was Lilly here?

  Please God, let Lilly be here.

  “Friends?” Talbott echoed my thoughts.

  “Yes,” Terletov sneered. “Friends.”

  He then kicked Silas in the side and the old Shifter arched his back, contorting in some kind of unspeakable pain. Movement from their ranks drew my attention off Silas and revealed Gabriel standing near the back of the crowd. He was handcuffed, beaten and bloodied, but nothing like Silas. Not destroyed. Not devoid of everything that gave him life and vitality.

  I had Xander calling Gabriel nonstop since Alexi had given up this information, but he never got through. I know why now. He was already here.