The Everlast Series Boxed Set

by Juliana Haygert

  Levi sighed. “I’m guessing you want to go right now?”

  I crossed my arms. “The sooner, the better.”

  “Can I at least convince you to go tomorrow, after we’re rested from the battle and during daylight?”

  My brows shot up. “We?”

  “Yes, we,” he said. “I’m coming with you.”

  With her mouth agape, Ceris stood. “What?”

  Levi looked at her, his expression passive. “I’m going on an important mission with my brother. Hope that we’ll find what we’re looking for.”

  Ceris pressed her lips together and her cheeks grew red. With a huff, she marched out of the living room.

  I had to bite my cheek not to laugh. Then I glanced at Levi; he was serious and calm. I sighed. “Thank you.”

  He shrugged and returned to his book.

  18

  Nadine

  Even though my body and mind were exhausted, it was hard to fall asleep. And after my latest nightmare—which involved Keisha and Micah—I couldn’t go back to sleep.

  In my dream, Micah had turned against us and killed us all one by one, starting with Keisha. He saved me for last and took his time between saying sweet things in my ear, which in another situation would have made me kiss him, and torturing me.

  So, at four thirty in the morning, I was in my workout clothes, in the gym, hoping to burn off some energy so I could go back to sleep—nightmare-less—later.

  I turned on the treadmill and ran. I focused on keeping my mind clear, my only attention on the rhythm of my breathing and the soft thud of my footsteps.

  Almost an hour of nothing passed.

  “Morning, darling.” Micah’s voice startled me, and I tripped, almost falling from the treadmill.

  Cursing, I hopped off and turned to him, intent on ignoring him because if I let myself stay near him, I would lash out. I would breakdown and accuse him of things I knew weren’t his fault.

  Then I saw him and my heart skipped. I froze in place, my next breath stuck in my throat.

  It wasn’t even his unnatural good looks that had stopped me—he looked fresh and clean, as if he had just taken a shower and shaved. The black pants and black tee and bare feet made him looked relaxed. And his face … I couldn’t even think when paying attention to the sharp lines of his perfect face. What had stopped me and disarmed me was the tray in his hands.

  “What’s that?” I asked, glancing at the tray.

  He stared at it. “I thought it was obvious. Waffles, eggs, toast, and coffee. Breakfast?”

  I swallowed. “You made all that?”

  He nodded. “Just now. Brought to you fresh from the oven.”

  After what he had done, I wanted to hate him. I wanted to scream at him. But after my shock had passed, after I accepted I was mourning and that I had to mourn Keisha, I admitted it hadn’t been Micah’s fault. I knew deep in my heart he had never meant to hurt her, and it was terrible of me to blame him for it.

  Like him, I had killed one of ours and I knew how that guilt, that weight, could eat at one’s soul and mind.

  I pressed my lips together and shook my head once. “Why?”

  He tilted his head to the side. “I …” He set the tray on one of the weight-lifting benches. “Look, I know you hate my guts right now, and I want you to know that I understand why you hate me. The Fates know there are too many reasons for that.” He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “I came in here with a peace offering, knowing all too well that it was a long shot. A really long shot. So, here it is. Your breakfast.” He picked up one of the coffee mugs from the tray, and then turned toward the door.

  Now I felt like the biggest jerk.

  “Wait,” I said. He stopped and glanced at me over his shoulder. “Hmm, thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.” I thought he was going to keep going. Instead, he whirled on his heels and faced me again. “I … I also came in here to tell you something.”

  I raised one eyebrow. “Oh?”

  Micah cupped his mug with both hands. “I’m leaving in a few minutes.”

  The air was knocked out of my lungs. He was leaving? Again?

  I tried to compose myself and relax my shocked expression. “May I ask where you’re going?”

  He averted his eyes. “All you have to know is that I’m going on a mission with Levi, and, hopefully, we’ll be back in a day or two.”

  All you have to know …

  That stung. It was like after everything I had done for them, after all we had been through together, I was still a disposable piece on the game board. They didn’t need me. They didn’t want me here. They couldn’t care less about what happened to me. Why share anything important with Nadine? Because she didn’t matter.

  “All right,” I said, noticing how my voice wavered and feeling completely embarrassed for it. His gaze came back to mine and I held his stare. Firm and unflinching.

  “I just … I wanted to say goodbye this time, before leaving.”

  I held my breath. Here he was breaking my heart while being so thoughtful. Why couldn’t I really hate him? It would be so much easier. “Good luck,” I whispered.

  A muscle in his jaw ticked and he nodded. “Thanks.”

  “That’s too much food.” I pointed to the tray. “If you’re not leaving right now, and if you don’t mind the current company, it would be okay for you to eat some.” That had been the lamest attempt at peace in the history of our world. God, I was so lame.

  One corner of Micah’s lips tugged up. “To be honest, I wasn’t going to eat anything right now, but I think I’ll make an exception because of the current company.”

  And just like that, we sat on the floor, one on each side of the bench, and ate breakfast in a comforting silence, simply enjoying being together without bickering or pushing each other’s buttons.

  19

  Micah

  Like the rest of the world, the library at the Saint Catherine’s Monastery was in ruins. Although, for once, it didn’t seem to be because of Imha and her minions. It simply looked as if it had been abandoned for too many years and left to the negligence of time and weather.

  “How old is this place?” Levi asked as we walked toward what looked like the main gate.

  I scoffed. “Too old.”

  The narrow entrance passage was covered in rubble. The stone walls had crumbled and littered the access. Using our magic, Levi and I jumped past the stones to a more open area, which under so much destruction looked like a courtyard.

  “I think it’s through here.” Levi turned to the right, leading to an even bigger open space—another courtyard. Again, the ground was littered with the crumbling walls and broken stones.

  Before coming here, we had looked for maps and images of this place in old books and magazines. We sort of knew where the library used to be, though we weren't sure if the secret underground room was underneath the library or elsewhere.

  We used magic again to skip past the debris and ended up facing a small chapel.

  I stopped and looked inside the abandoned chapel. “Isn’t it odd that books of our creed would be hidden in a Catholic church?”

  Levi glanced inside the building. A big crucifix hung precariously from the farthest wall. “Perhaps that’s why they were hidden here. Because this is the last place anyone would look for them.”

  “Perhaps,” I muttered.

  Beyond the chapel, there was another building—curiously intact. The library.

  Carefully, I opened the door and stepped inside. Despite some shelves tilted to the side, supported by walls or other shelves, and a few scattered books and papers, the place looked undamaged.

  “Now we look for a secret door leading down,” I said.

  Levi nodded and went to the right. I turned to the left and started walking around the tables, desks, and shelves. I wasn’t sure what I was searching for, but I looked under the desks, shelves, and rugs, behind frames on the walls and doors. The only sound inside the library was the c
reaking of the old, rickety wooden floor as we stepped on it.

  After one hour, I met Levi at the back of the library.

  “Anything?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “Nope.”

  “It certainly won’t be obvious.” His gaze scanned the area around us.

  That got me thinking … “I have an idea.” I headed toward the entrance of the library and found what looked like a reception desk. I walked behind it and, as I expected, I found several file cabinets. I started opening them and tried to make sense of how things were sorted.

  Levi opened a drawer from another file cabinet. “What are we looking for?”

  “Anything about religions,” I said, going for the R. After an endless minute, I pulled a card out. “Here. Religions of the World. Shelf R7, row fifty-four.” I jumped over the desk and rushed to shelf R7 with Levi right behind me. Following the numbers, it was easy to find row fifty-four. “Here,” I said, taking out volume one of twelve. There were twelve volumes of Religions of the World.

  Levi rubbed the back of his neck. “Now what?”

  “Wait,” I said as I opened volume one and looked through the appendix. Not in this one. I found it in volume six. “Here.” I pointed to the title on the appendix page. “The Everlast Creed,” I read out loud, smiling.

  Levi’s brows shot to his hairline. “How … I didn’t think our creed would be listed in a rather modern book.”

  I flipped to the copyright page. “It isn’t that modern. First edition published in 1795.”

  “Compared to our ages, very modern.”

  I snorted and flipped the book back to where the history of our creed began. I skimmed through it. “This shit is all wrong.”

  “What do you want? For them to tell the truth about us? Yeah, right.” Levi tilted his head and tried to read the book with me. “What are you looking for?”

  “I’m not exactly sure,” I said, still skimming through the many pages of garbage.

  A drawing of the creed’s symbol took over an entire page, and below it the caption said, “To find it, you just have to be close to the earth.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” Levi said.

  Didn’t it?

  I knelt and felt the old wooden floor. Then I saw it, a wider space between three boards, going under the shelf.

  I shot to my feet. “Help me here.”

  Together, we pushed the shelf, moving it back until it wasn’t over the boards. A few books fell on the floor, but we pushed them aside.

  Levi and I knelt on the floor again and started pulling on the three boards. They came out easier than I thought they would. Below where the boards had been, a narrow and steep stone staircase led down.

  “Whoa,” Levi said. “I wasn’t expecting this. How did you know?”

  “I didn’t.” I smiled. “Let’s just say I tried to do what Nadine would have done. She’s always saving our asses and finding everything for us.”

  He smiled back. “That she does.” He looked down at the stairs. “So each time a high priest wanted to come here, they had to do all this? That is a lot of work.”

  I shrugged. “Perhaps they didn’t want it to be easy.”

  “Perhaps,” Levi said. “Ready?”

  I nodded. “Let’s go.”

  The stairs were narrow and dark, but as we went down, the steps widened. Two sets of flights later, we arrived at a landing and the light coming from upstairs no longer illuminated the stairwell. On the wall to my left and right were unlit torches in sconces. I conjured a bolt of energy in my hand and lit those torches. Levi grabbed one of the torches and we walked the perimeter of the room lighting the rest of them.

  We met in the center of the room.

  “Damn,” I whispered, glancing around. We were in a large cavern with a high ceiling and many, many shelves and books. The shelves along the walls went from the floor to the ceiling, and the shelves in the middle of the room were almost as tall and looked like they would tilt if we tried to jam one more book in them.

  I got close to one of the shelves and used the torch to illuminate the books.

  The History of the Everlasting Circle. There were seven different volumes.

  The Real History of the Everlasting Circle. This collection had ten volumes.

  Deities of the Everlasting Circle from A to K and Deities of the Everlasting Circle from L to Z.

  All About Demons.

  I kept walking.

  There were several books about each of us; there were too many books about me. I wanted to pick up a few and skim through them, but that would only delay our main search.

  In the back of the room, I found not books but scrolls.

  “By the Everlast.”

  This shit was old. Most of the scrolls looked like they would crumble into dust if picked up, but what if what we were looking for were on them? Nobody had heard of any group of ladies in so long, it had to be old. Ancient even.

  “There are some books on legends here,” Levi’s voice came from somewhere on my right. I found him a few shelves away, holding his torch high as he leaned over a shelf. “Here.” He pointed to the books in front of him.

  Legends of the Everlasting Circle.

  Myth or Truth: the Stories behind the Legends.

  The Real Legends of the Everlasting Circle.

  Heroes: Born or Made?

  I placed the torch on a makeshift sconce on the side of the shelf, pulled the book about heroes, and opened it to the appendix. “Here,” I said, pointing to the heading of chapter eight: Why Ladies of Diana are confused with heroes.

  “Ladies of Diana?” Levi asked. “It doesn’t ring a bell.”

  I flipped the pages until I had chapter nine open.

  Like heroes, the ladies of Diana possess an affinity with weapons, increased strength and stamina, and faster healing abilities. However, the ladies of Diana may possess other special abilities—depending on their ranking—that aren’t available to heroes.

  Sounding like the author was trying to sell heroes at a grocery store, the chapter went on mostly about heroes, listing their abilities.

  I dropped that book. “We need to find a book about the ladies of Diana.”

  “All right,” Levi said, turning. He started to the front of the room.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To see if they have some kind of cabinet file with all the volumes listed, like we found upstairs.”

  I nodded, but he didn’t see it. That would be helpful, but if this place was supposed to be a secret, would they—whoever they were—keep a list of all the books and scrolls in here? I wasn’t so sure.

  Regardless, what we were looking for had to be around here. I knew it.

  A few more minutes passed. By then, I was kneeling low on the floor, looking at the titles on the lower part of the shelf. As if it were calling, I turned around to the shelf at my back and stared right at it.

  Diana: A Legend or a True Goddess?

  What the fuck? A goddess?

  I pulled the book to my lap and opened it. The first chapter was titled “Who is Diana?”

  I quickly flipped to the right page.

  Diana is said to have been a major goddess parallel to but outside the Everlasting Circle. Rumors are that she vanished many millennia ago for unknown reasons.

  As the goddess of justice and wisdom and courage and honesty, Diana could pass judgment even over the gods and goddesses of the Everlasting Circle. A natural huntress, Diana was said to possess a powerful spear that could render anyone immobile while she assessed their sins—even gods.

  A goddess outside the Everlasting Circle? That didn’t make much sense.

  I looked again at the appendix for the chapter on the ladies of Diana.

  I sensed him two seconds before he spoke in my mind.

  Miss me?

  I growled. What the hell are you doing here, Amiel?

  Aren’t you happy to know we followed your aura again? And here I thought this was just the perfect opportunit
y to take out Mister Life and Balance.

  I glanced at Levi. He was hunched in front of a desk buried under scrolls and piles of paper, searching for gods knew what.

  I’m tired of your games. Show your face if your man enough.

  Oh, that is exactly my plan.

  What?

  My mind didn’t have time to process what the hell he was telling me, because he suddenly appeared a few feet from me.

  “Hello, Lord Mitrus,” Amiel said with a wicked grin. My wicked grin.

  Body tensing, I jumped up and readied myself for a fight—feet apart and arms up in front of me.

  Behind Amiel stood Jed, Keon, and Riel with equally crazed expression on their faces.

  “Aren’t you going to ask if we brought the cup?” Amiel asked.

  The question had been on the tip of my tongue, but I resisted. I resisted because if I uttered those words, it meant I was considering killing Levi, and that wasn’t right. That would never be right.

  “What in the Everlast …?” Levi’s voice rang behind me. “What are you doing here?”

  Amiel’s grin widened. “I’m so glad you asked that, Lord Levi. I’m more than happy to answer that question.”

  I clenched my fists. “Amiel,” I said, a warning tone.

  “You see, Lord Levi, Lord Mitrus wasn’t completely honest with you about what happened at Nasya’s island,” Amiel said. “He didn’t tell you about our deal.”

  “Deal?” Levi muttered.

  “A deal we’re here to see through,” Amiel said.

  “What is he talking about, Mitrus?” Levi asked.

  “Bullshit. That’s what he’s talking,” I snapped.

  Amiel chuckled. “The deal we made with Lord Mitrus was that he was free to have the Cup of Life to give to his precious Nadine. On one condition.” The eyes shone evil. “He had to kill you.”

  “What?” Levi asked, his voice barely above a whisper. “Mitrus, what is he talking about?”

  “You should check his pockets, Lord Levi,” Amiel said. “I bet you’ll find his weapon hidden there.”