The Immortal Warriors Boxed Set: Books 1-11

by H. T. Night

  I was trying to make myself comfortable and was fidgeting with my straw. It slipped out of my hand.

  “Are you okay, Tommy?” Lena asked.

  “No, I’m great. I’m just a little tired, that’s all.” I peeled back the paper and placed the straw in my drink.

  “Yeah, I’m tired, too. After we were done watching movies, I was up all day thinking of Josiah.”

  She finally said the boy’s name. Thank God.

  I admitted, “When it came time to sleep, I tossed and turned, too. I am worried about him. It seems like it was just yesterday I was yelling at him to shut the door when he took a piss. He is a brave little fucker to go out and do this all alone.”

  Lena smiled at me. “Is it selfish that I want him to come straight back?”

  “Selfish? No, not selfish. You’re only human. Wait... you know what I mean. You love Josiah. He is madly in love with you. It is natural for you to feel what you’re feeling. On some level, I feel the same way. He’s a good kid. Tough as shit.” I looked at Lena and raised my glass of water. She joined me in a toast to Josiah. “To the little shit.” Lena and I clanked our water glasses together.

  “What is going on with you and Yari?” Lena asked.

  “Me and Yari?” I laughed. “In the history of the world, if two people were ever on the same page, it’s that girl and me.”

  “How so?” Lena asked.

  “In regard to one another, we agreed very early on what exactly we were to one another.”

  “Which was what?” Lena said, smiling from across the table.

  “You seriously want me to talk about our sex life?”

  Lena laughed. “Well, I won’t be having one for the next few weeks. I might as well hear some juicy details from you.”

  I shook my head at the thought of Josiah having any type of sex life. It was mind-blowing, to say the very least. I looked across the table at Lena and she was staring at me for something. “The truth is actually very boring.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that.” Lena looked on expectantly.

  “Okay, we agreed that there would be no emotions involved in our relationship. Our relationship would only consist of friendship.”

  “And sex,” Lena chimed in.

  I smiled at Lena and nodded. “Yes, sometimes sex.”

  “I couldn’t ever do that.” Lena shook her head.

  “You also haven’t lived for over a hundred years like Yari has. She’s tired of fawning over men who push her in relationships.”

  “What about you?” Lena asked. “You’re not over a hundred years old. Why are you doing it?”

  I smiled at Lena. “We all have to move on. I figured this was a good transition relationship.”

  “From the sounds of it, you don’t have much of a relationship at all.”

  “Not a romantic one.” I took a sip of my water. “What we have is a great platonic friendship.”

  Lena looked at me and shook her head in disapproval. “You do know that this isn’t going to end well.”

  I smiled at Lena. “Don’t you worry about me. You have enough to worry about with Josiah running around Europe. He’s not even in the cool parts of Europe.”

  She frowned. “He’s been gone less than a day and I miss him as if he has been gone for a year.”

  I nodded my head in agreement. I felt the same way, but I wouldn’t admit that to her. I had had enough ribbing from her this evening.

  Chapter Seventeen

  For the next couple of days, I worked out in the mornings and spent the evenings with Lena. She was camping out in Josiah’s room and sleeping in his bed. We were both missing Josiah. She was waiting for another phone call from him, and I didn’t want to miss any calls either when he called.

  Lena and I were playing Scrabble at the house. I could tell Lena was feeling comfortable around me because she would stay in her pink PJs most of the day. They weren’t skimpy or anything. I could just tell she was comfortable.

  “You hungry?” I asked as I counted up our final Scrabble score.

  “Not really,” she replied. “I’m still full from my mega-feeding at lunch.”

  “You are seriously becoming a vampire pig.”

  “What are you talking about? You eat everything that’s not pinned down in this house.”

  “That’s a bit of an exaggeration.”

  “You do eat a lot, Tom.”

  “All I did was ask you if you were hungry. Remind me to never do that again. Do you want to know the score?” She didn’t do too well, so this was definitely a slight dig on my part.

  “A lot to a little,” she said.

  “That sums it up.” I grinned.

  “I need to take a shower,” Lena said. “I stink.”

  “I wasn’t going to say anything.”

  Lena punched my arm. “Not only do you annihilate me in Scrabble, you feel the need to taunt me further.”

  “You’re the one announcing you have B.O.”

  “You’re supposed to say, ‘No you don’t, Lena. You don’t stink at all. You smell like a rose garden.’”

  “A rose garden?” I laughed. “I would imagine they smell pretty nice. If you’re going to pull my teeth,” I said, “you actually do smell nice. I was surprised that you announced that this is what you call B.O.”

  Lena smiled at me. “See, Tommy. It isn’t hard to be nice.”

  “I’m always nice,” I said.

  “You can be an asshole.”

  “What?” I was shocked that she said that. “An asshole?”

  “Look, Josiah worships you, so you must have some redeeming qualities,” Lena said with an extremely serious tone to her voice.

  “Wow,” I said. “I think I don’t want you to take a shower in my home now.”

  Lena held a serious stare and just looked me in the eyes. After about fifteen seconds of this, she started laughing.

  “Why are you laughing?”

  “See, you don’t like it when people mess with you either.”

  “So, you don’t think I’m an asshole?”

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” Lena laughed.

  “Go take a shower.”

  Lena took an extraordinarily long shower. After about ninety minutes, I decided to knock on the door and make sure everything was okay.

  I knocked twice and loudly. “Lena!”

  “Yeah,” she said, over the shower.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked.

  “Sure is. Thank you. I’ll be out in ten minutes.”

  “You can take as long of a shower as you like. I was just worried something might have happened. The longest showers that Josiah ever takes are for five minutes.”

  “Thanks, Tommy!” she yelled over the shower. I don’t think she heard anything past, ‘Take as long as of a shower as you like.’

  I smiled and went back to the recliner where I was sitting and watching some Impractical Jokers. These guys were funny. I’d decided while I was waiting for Lena to put Impractical Jokers in my DVR. I was like this with TV shows. Last week, it was the TV show, Friends. I had been too young to watch the show when it had originally aired. Now that I was their age, the show was hilarious.

  I was digging around the ‘On Demand’ section, looking for more TV shows to record, when Lena exited the bathroom and went to Josiah’s room in a towel.

  I found a Big Bang Theory on the television that I hadn’t seen. I decided to watch it. I loved that show. I’d always felt that Josiah and I were like those two guys in the show, except for the fact that they are physicists. And incredibly smart. And oddly skinny. I guess we didn’t have much in common, aside from the friendship factor.

  After watching the episode, I was now convinced that Josiah was slowly forming a diva complex similar to Sheldon’s. I was flipping through the channels and wondering if Lena went to sleep in Josiah’s room.

  Soon after this thought, she opened his door and walked out to the hallway. I could see her perfectly from my recliner. She was wear
ing white shorts and a green top. She walked out and sat on my couch. She smelled incredible. She didn’t have the longest of legs, but in the shorts she was wearing, her legs went on for days. She had put on some makeup. Lipstick and mascara. The makeup made her already beautiful face light up like a Christmas tree.

  “Were you planning on going somewhere?” I asked.

  “No. Are you kicking me out?”

  “Of course not,” I said. “I just noticed you’re more put together than you have been all day.”

  “Thanks.” She laughed.

  “Lena, you were wearing your pajamas up until now. Now, you’ve changed. That’s all. I wasn’t assuming anything.”

  “I just like to feel good. And when I look good, I feel good. Especially after a shower.”

  “I totally get that.”

  Lena stared at me and didn’t say anything. It was the very first time I took her in completely. Up to this point, I was fighting my natural attraction because she was Josiah’s girl.

  “Well, you look pretty,” I said. I couldn’t believe that came out of my mouth. I was trying to explain myself and now, I’d just made things weird.

  “Thanks.” Lena smiled at me.

  Damn, her ivory smile sent shivers up my spine. What the hell was wrong with me? This was Josiah’s girlfriend. Any feelings I had for her were a giant no-no. “What are you watching?”

  I looked at Lena, who was sitting cross-legged on the couch. She was small enough that she could do this comfortably.

  I turned off the television. “Do you mind if I ask you a question?”

  “You want to ask me a question? Uh-oh. Do I hear a you-better-love-my-friend speech coming on?”

  “Not exactly,” I said. “But let’s start with that. You better love my friend...” I smiled.

  “Or else what?” she said.

  “Or else you suck real bad because he is definitely in love with you.”

  Lena laughed. “Love... such a gigantic word, but yet, such a tiny one.”

  I thought about Maya and how that was so true. I took a pause and asked Lena the question I was aiming to ask her before her diatribe on love.

  “Is this something that you truly want?” I asked.

  “You will have to be more specific than that, Tommy Jenkins.”

  “Being immortal. Was this something you longed for, or was this something brought on to your life unforgivably?”

  Lena looked at me and was in thought. “No, this was something I very much wanted. I just didn’t realize who I wanted to spend my life with was going to be Josiah.”

  “You were planning on marrying Atticai?” I asked.

  “That was the plan,” she said. “I was naive and only saw things I wanted to see. There were a lot of good characteristics to Atticai, but at the end of the day, he wanted to sacrifice me. Josiah saved me. I never looked at myself as a girl who needed saving. Then, within months, Josiah saved me two times.”

  “Is that what made you fall in love with him?”

  Lena looked at me and thought about it. “It helped. But who Josiah is and what he stands for is why I love him.”

  “It’s why I love him, too,” I said.

  “What about, you, Tom? Is this the life you wanted?”

  “Oh, hell no,” I laughed. “I never imagined in million years I would have grown up to be… well... a werewolf. I thought all this immortal stuff was fiction until I met this werewolf, Sasha.”

  “Was she the one who turned you?”

  “Nope. How I was turned was a difficult matter. But here I am. A werewolf. Now, I have to figure out how to live my life without being punished for wreaking havoc in town. By wreaking havoc, I mean killing everyone in my path while I am turned.” I smiled at Lena. “Josiah helped change all that by allowing me to become a cognitive werewolf. So, I can change at will.”

  “So, here we are,” Lena said, “A couple immortals watching late-night TV. Waiting for the glue that keeps our heads on straight.”

  “Josiah does that for you?” I asked Lena.

  “He sure does.”

  Lena and I watched a movie called Prince of Tides. It had Barbra Streisand in it, and was extremely sad. Not the best movie to go to sleep on. But, when it was over, Lena went to bed in Josiah’s room and I went to bed in my room.

  The two of us were becoming very good friends. This would only make things weird. I knew it, but for some reason, I didn’t care.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The next morning, we both woke up around 9 a.m. We were in the kitchen when Lena’s phone rang.

  “Hello,” Lena said quickly into the phone. “It is you,” she said. “Are you the Duke of Earl yet?” She grinned. “Date didn’t go well. Really? She wasn’t Helen?” Lena laughed out loud. “Don’t tell me you had never seen her picture before? Oh, my gosh, that is so funny. I hope she didn’t rob you. Should I tell Hector an English gypsy stole his diamond-plated credit card?”

  I poured a bowl of Fruit Loops cereal and offered one to Lena nonverbally. She declined.

  Lena was asking Josiah questions that didn’t interest me when she repeated something Josiah said.

  “She paid three vampires to fight you?” Lena looked at me, appalled.

  Now, I was paying attention. Josiah was being attacked in other countries?

  “Did you beat up the vampires?” Lena asked. She sounded worried, but soon had relief on her face. Josiah must have kicked some ass. I wanted to talk to Josiah now. This was the second time Lena had talked to him and I had kept quiet. I reached out my hand to take the phone from Lena.

  “Hold on, Josiah. Tommy wants to talk to you.”

  I took the phone from Lena. “Hey, Josiah!” I said, excited and loud.

  “What’s up, bro?” Josiah responded. He sounded like he was in the next room, yet half a world away.

  “You were already in a fight?” I asked.

  “You know me, Tommy. Confrontation tends to find me, no matter where I am.”

  “You and me both, brother. You and me both!”

  “It’s all we know.”

  “But still, Josiah, I know you. You need to pace yourself. You can’t waste ass-kickings on every Tom, Dick and Harry vampire and werewolf you meet. One of these days, you’re going to get caught off-guard.”

  “I’m always caught off-guard,” Josiah agreed. “That’s when I’m the most dangerous!”

  “That’s true.”

  Lena was motioning for me to give her the phone back.

  “What’s wrong, Tommy?” Josiah asked.

  “Be safe. It’s driving me crazy that I’m not there with you.”

  “You know I had to do this by myself. But that means a lot to me.”

  “It better. Well, I don’t want to take all your time. This poor little lady has been waiting around for your call for the last twenty-four hours like a puppy dog.”

  Lena smacked my arm.

  “Ouch!” Lena had hit me hard. “What, Lena?” I said. “You’re trying to tell me you weren’t gazing lovingly at your phone waiting all day for your knight in shining armor to call?”

  Lena hit me on the arm even harder. That one would bruise if I wasn’t such a bad ass.

  “Hey, Josiah, you better put your woman on lockdown. She is out of control right now! Later, buddy!”

  “Bye, Tommy,” Josiah said.

  I handed the phone back to Lena.

  I decided to quit being nosy and I went to my bedroom. Lena and Josiah continued to chat for another couple minutes.

  England? Romania? Dracula’s castle? When did all this shit start happening to my best friend? I needed to do some laundry. That would be the extent of the cool shit I would be doing this evening.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Lena had spent every day and night with me for the past three weeks.

  At first, we were both treating one another like brother and sister. We both loved and respected Josiah and would never intentionally do anything that would hurt him. I kept tellin
g myself that. I had no clue if Lena was dealing with the same feelings for me. A part of me was hoping she was feeling them, too.

  At the end of the day, Lena wasn’t my sister. Although we were immortals, I was a man and she was a woman. So, naturally, some mild flirtation started happening between us. It seemed harmless, at the time. I would comment that she looked nice that day, or she would mention how she liked the way I did my hair. That went on for a couple of weeks. Harmless, right?

  Then our flirting, I was sad to say, stepped over the line. We started to give each other shoulder massages. Touching was never good. It led to more touching. The first time she gave me a massage, I thought she had the touch of an angel. When it was my turn to give her a massage in return, her body seemed delicate and soft under my hands. It was difficult for me to put too much pressure on her. I was afraid that I would hurt her. So, my massages turned into sensual back rubs.

  Not a good thing.

  Lena and I were able to get along extremely well. We laughed most of the time and I could understand how easily Josiah had fallen in love with her. She was so comfortable to be around. She had a joy that was at the center of her being, and no one and nothing could take that from her. Not Atticai, not turning into a vampire, nothing. I wasn’t sure if I admired her, or if I thought she was crazy for not being affected by all the insanity that surrounded her.

  I decided to go with admiration. She had a beautiful soul and I was seeing more and more of it each day. No one ever woke up and decided to have feelings for their best friend’s girlfriend. I was put in a situation where it was impossible for me not to see how wonderful she was.

  Each day, I tried to resist, even as my feelings continued to grow. Each day, I failed. I felt like Joey on Friends when he was falling in love with Rachel. This was not good. Not good at all.

  Part of my problem was that we were alone together too much of the time. Of course, a man and a woman spending every day together would result in an emotional connection. So, at night, we started doing a variety of activities outside of my place instead of sitting around watching movies all night. I was hoping this would change things. Instead, it gave the illusion that we were going on dates.