The Relentless Warrior

by Rachel Higginson

  Guilt and regret slammed me in the chest then and I felt like a bastard for talking to her like that. She’d gotten the brunt of an old anger that didn’t even have any relevance in my life anymore. “Do you need me to show you back to your room?” I called after her with a gentler tone.

  She didn’t even bother to turn around, “Ha! Believe it or not, Jericho, I don’t really need you for anything in my life.”

  I watched her go without saying another word. I didn’t really feel like I deserved a chance to argue her accusation. And I wasn’t sure that I wanted to.

  I’d just dug myself a huge hole and then walked straight into it. But maybe this was where I belonged. What Olivia and I had could barely be called friendship and whatever relationship did exist between us had an expiration date. She was leaving. She wanted nothing to do with me, my lifestyle or my future.

  This brought back the nostalgic reminders of what it had been like to lose Eden, because even though, I had been the one to walk away, I had definitely been the one to lose her. I didn’t want to go through this with another girl that wanted something else in life.

  Something else that wasn’t me.

  Chapter Twelve

  Olivia

  “We’re here,” Sebastian’s crisp accent pulled me out of a dreamless sleep.

  I groaned but sat up. I blinked away the exhaustion and jet lag, sending a surge of this new Magic through my body to give it the energy I needed to move in any way, shape or form.

  After an eternally long flight across an ocean and continents and then a four-hour car ride through the winding, insanely dangerous roads of Brazil, we’d finally reached our destination. And apparently our destination was somewhere in a rain forest with negative light and a hundred different species of birds.

  We’d left the throes of winter behind and landed south of the equator. It was hot, hot as hell. I’d just left temperatures in the teens with wind chills reaching below zero and now I was faced with sweltering heat and high humidity.

  “I can’t breathe,” I whined when the doors to the sleek black Mercedes were opened and the suffocating tropical air flooded the cool interior.

  Sweat beaded my forehead. My t-shirt stuck to my skin. My eyeliner started to smudge in the corners; I could feel it dripping. I scrambled out of the car and immediately tripped on the uneven ground.

  Alright, I’m awake.

  “Are you okay?” Jericho asked as if he could care less either way.

  “Fine,” I bit out. “Just fine.”

  I hopped up to standing again and then used the light of the car to gather my things from the backseat and trunk. I had packed a hiking backup of necessities and a messenger bag of things to occupy my downtime: a few books borrowed from the Castle, a fashion magazine, a deck of cards. I winced remembering my lost-forever Kindle that had been as much of a victim of Terletov’s cruelty as I had. In fact, all my belongings needed proper mourning. I didn’t consider myself a materialistic girl, but it sucked to lose everything important and necessary. There was just no way to spin that in a good light.

  And now I was stuck with borrowed items or hand-me-downs. Okay, that was harsh. I knew most of my donated possessions were new and specially bought for me, but they still didn’t feel like mine. They were expensive, brands I would never waste money on and not really my style. They belonged in one world, while I belonged in another one completely.

  Jericho closed the car doors, Sebastian slammed the trunk and we were shrouded in utter darkness once again. The tree tops were heavy and dense above us, blocking out whatever light the moon might have offered. The animals squawked and growled in the distance and some nearby bushes rustled with ominous vigor.

  “Oh good, lord, I’m going to get mauled by a tiger before I ever meet Terletov again,” I groaned. I sent the Magic soaring through my veins, heightening my senses and bringing my night-vision to life. Now, this was a magical feature I could get used to. Hello, humanity-upgrade. They seriously needed to develop an app for this.

  Sebastian snickered at my obvious sarcasm, while Jericho offered, “You can use your Magic to help you see.”

  “Ten steps ahead of you, Captain,” I shot back. Why was he even talking to me? He’d been ignoring me since Romania and clearly I was raining on his get-away parade. “And you’re about to walk into a tree.”

  He looked up just in time to see the attacking foliage and stutter-stepped to a halt. “Did you put that there?” he demanded as if I knew how to do that.

  Seriously, could I do that?

  “Like, I would waste time on pranking you,” I scoffed. “Especially when you’re so good at doing it all by yourself.”

  He scowled at me.

  “Did you text Talbott when we landed?” Sebastian asked Jericho. “Or are we going to have to meet a welcoming party that tries to blow us up?”

  “I texted,” Jericho grunted.

  We reached a stucco wall that ran through the thick greenery of the rain forest. We were just south of the Amazon, near a booming city called Cuiaba. Tourism was a major form of commerce there and it was the capitol city of the Brazilian state of Mato Grasso. Did I sound informed? I totally Wikipedia-ed it on Sebastian’s phone on the drive here.

  That was after our flight over in a super swanky jet that cost more than my life was worth. Oh and it was just Avalon’s that Jericho was borrowing, like a pair of shoes. And then Jericho flew the jet himself! Sebastian and I hung out in the buttery leather seats watching Will Ferrell movies on the ginormous flat screen and sipping vodka and ginger ales, because Sebastian claimed they settled the stomach, while Jericho piloted the freaking plane!

  I knew these people came from money by how luxurious the Castle had been; but planes, avoiding customs in order to land on private landing strips, hundred thousand dollar cars just locked up in storage in some random South American country and arriving at a private villa in the middle of the night didn’t match up with my middle-class-at-best lifestyle.

  A door in the wall swung open and a massive man stepped out. He towered over the rest of us, huge, bulking and insanely muscled.

  “Titus, how are you, brother?” Sebastian greeted tiredly.

  Titus yawned in reply. “Took you guys long enough.” I was not expecting to see another American. What was with all the surprise Americans?

  “We came here as soon as we landed,” Jericho explained shortly.

  “Not what I meant.” Titus yawned again.

  Jericho’s gaze cut to me and then returned to Titus with a hint of regret. “We got held up.”

  “Yeah, well, we need leadership…” Titus glanced over his shoulder. “Talbott’s not… he’s in a pretty bad place.”

  “You would be, too, if your fiancée had been kidnapped,” Sebastian muttered under his breath. “Again.”

  Wait. What?

  I glanced at Jericho mechanically, but his attention was on the building beyond the gate that I couldn’t make out yet. “At least Lucan simply locked her in the dungeons.”

  “What’s going on?” I demanded.

  Titus’s attention flicked to me for the first time and he lit up with instantaneous sex appeal. Obviously, a well-practiced reaction to the female gender. His whole face came to life while he took me in, his bearish features softened, his eyes danced with mischief and he radiated dangerous charm. Coming from such a huge man that looked downright dangerous completely disarmed me.

  “And who are you?” He stared at me with smoldering eyes and a crooked smile.

  “Uh, er, I’m…”

  “Human,” Jericho bit out.

  My mouth gaped open and Sebastian let out a low whistle. Titus looked back and forth between us with utter confusion drawing down his thick brows. He flicked a finger back and forth between us, slow and heavy. Jericho let out an exasperated sigh and Sebastian grinned wickedly.

  “Why does everyone just assume that?” Jericho groaned.

  Oh, that we were together. Poor him, always getting stuck with the pat
hetic human.

  “It’s the obvious sexual tension crackling between us,” I quipped dryly. “We can barely keep our hands to ourselves.”

  Jericho scowled at me but his hands remained impassively at his sides. Point proven.

  Sebastian’s wide smile kicked up even further and now Titus matched expressions with him, twinkling eyes for twinkling eyes.

  Ignoring Jericho, I stepped forward, clutching my messenger bag. “Can I be shown to my room now? I’m jet-lagged and cranky and I just want to go to bed.”

  “This is a mission, Liv. There is no sleeping.” Jericho actually sounded a little apologetic, but it wasn’t enough to gain him any points. “I’ll show you to your room so you can freshen up, but you’ll have to use your Magic to stay awake.”

  I grunted something like an agreement and fell in step behind him. I could hear Titus ask in a confused voice, “I thought he just said she was human?” I chose to ignore him.

  We walked through the wrought iron gate on a path of red stone. I used my Magic to not only bring my lagging body back to life but take in the foreign backdrop of my new life-experience.

  I’d gone off to Peru with the goal to “find myself” and if this wasn’t that very definition, I didn’t know what was. Granted, I was discovering a new self, one that could shoot lightning bolts out my fingertips and didn’t require sleep anymore… but still.

  I was like Edward Cullen meets Storm from X-men. Next, my hair would turn silver and I would start glittering in the sunlight.

  I could hardly wait.

  To steady my rioting nerves, I breathed in the fresh, tropical air. It settled on my skin, hot and cloying, and dug deep in my lungs with a heavy pressure. The heat pressed against my clothes, forcing sweat to spring from my hairline and lower back.

  Where Peru had been all mountain-glory with thin air and rocky terrain, Brazil was sultry heat and thick jungle. I swiped the back of my hand over my forehead and tugged my thin V-neck t-shirt away from my stomach.

  Eventually the rain forest cleared and we walked into the “front yard” of a sprawling villa. Light from every window and door tumbled onto the mossy grass at my feet, lighting up the breath-taking structure like a backlit painting.

  Cream stucco siding was broken up by arched porticos that led directly into the living space. The thatched roofing gave the surprisingly modern structure a feel of rustic elegance. The red clay floors sat beneath darkly stained all-wood furniture with woven leather upholstery. Lazy ceiling fans with straw paddles thumped listlessly in the heat of the night and a glistening pool sparkled in the moonlight to my right.

  I gaped at the beauty of this hidden retreat.

  All kinds of people lounged around inside the open-styled house. Their curiosity peeked as Jericho led me inside, but there was a tension about the room that prevented their twenty questions from becoming verbal.

  Several of them smiled and called out to Jericho, clearly relieved that he was here. All were men that kind of blended together except for the one woman that kept her distance. She was tiny, Latina and obviously wary of me. Her exotic, deep chocolate eyes were rimmed with just enough eye-liner to make her face demand to be noticed, but that was the only makeup she wore. Her dark hair matched the exact hue of her eyes and was only trumped by the perfection of her tanned skin. She was stunning. And really, really scary.

  I closed my open mouth and forced myself to swallow against the knot of nerves tightening on my throat. This was all just so intimidating.

  Jericho took my hand and pulled me toward the back of the house where hallways branched off into what I assumed were bedrooms. I couldn’t tell if he took my hand because he wanted to reassure me, or if he had been trying to get my attention and all I could do was stand there and stare.

  Either way, I was grateful for the tug in the right direction.

  Someone shouted out a direction for Jericho to go and he followed it as if he’d spent time here before. We walked past an open kitchen with every appliance new and shiny, past a library that contained floor to ceiling bookshelves on every wall utterly crammed with books until they were bursting with the written word, past a dark wood-paneled room with a pool table, and finally past several bedrooms that blinked by with luxury and style. This house was insane.

  “Party house, right?” I teased.

  “Actually, it’s owned by a priest,” Jericho answered stoically.

  Was he for real?

  At the end of the hall he pushed open a door and led me into a quiet space with a four poster bed draped with an ivory mosquito net. The rounded windows were open directly to the outside and flanked French doors that walked out to a red stone patio. The room was simply styled with only a huge crucifix adorning the wall across from the bed. The wood and iron cross hung next to another door that I hoped led to a bathroom.

  “This is me?” I whispered into the silent room.

  “Yeah,” he answered softly.

  “Alright, thanks.”

  He lingered by the door, keeping it propped open with the toe of his foot while he leaned back against the frame. I glanced over my shoulder at him and met his hazel gaze with confidence I didn’t feel in this moment.

  “Whenever you’re ready, you can come out to the kitchen. We’ll hold our meeting there in case you’re hungry.”

  “Alright.”

  “Liv?” He took a tentative step forward, and then another one. My breath caught in my throat and I turned around so that the backs of my thighs pressed into the soft bed. He didn’t stop walking until we were just an inch apart. He towered over me at this nearness, his body radiating heat like he was the sun. “There is a lot going on with Terletov. This conflict is deep, and a lot of people are suffering because we can’t find this man. Sebastian and I are taking over for a man named Talbott. He is in charge of our Guard and part of the Royal Council, but his fiancée was kidnapped last October. He is… he’s broken. There’s no other way to explain it. But he’s also more determined than I’ve ever seen another man.” Jericho paused and glanced up at the ceiling, seeming to put his next phrase together carefully, “What I’m trying to say is that he is walking a very fine line between sanity and… He won’t mean to scare you, but he might. I just don’t want you to get a bad impression of him or fear that he’ll hurt you. His fight isn’t with anyone but Terletov. Do you understand?”

  I nodded with a heart already broken for this man.

  Jericho’s fingers trailed across my cheekbone and a ragged breath left his chest. He closed his eyes against an unknown but powerful emotion and then spun around and stalked out of my room. I watched him go, trying my best to recollect my anger and hurt that had scattered across the floor the second he stepped into my personal bubble.

  How did he do that? How did he just disarm me and turn me into a pathetically weak female?

  I was strong, or at least stronger than him.

  I wanted to take a shower, but didn’t think I had the time, so I grabbed my makeup bag and some

  toiletries and slipped into the incredibly plush, luxurious bathroom to freshen up. I ignored the marble bathtub and the glass shower with four different heads and instead turned to face an atrociously exhausted looking version of me in the mirror.

  This could not be right. My blonde hair laid flat against my head, half frizzed out from the humidity and half flattened to my neck in limp strands. My mascara and eyeliner were smudged under my bottom lashes, enhancing the dark circles of exhaustion and my cheeks were pale, completely lacking color or life.

  This wasn’t me. This was the jet-lagged-emotionally-overwhelmed-ghost version of me. And I needed to fix that before I even thought about leaving this room.

  I focused on my face, and the mess that was my hair and decided to let this Magic thing have its way with me. When I first started to get to know Jericho, I asked him what boundaries and limits Magic had. He explained that there weren’t many. It couldn’t create something from nothing, or put life back in the dead, but most physic
al things could be manipulated in some way.

  However, I quickly learned that while I could warm or cool my own body temperature with Magic, I could not miraculously bring my hair back to life- it must fall into the “dead” category. So I pulled out an elastic hair tie and about a hundred bobby pins and went to work on a tiny little nubbin of a bun at the nape of my neck. Short strands of hair that sometimes passed for longish bangs, fell around my chin, framing my face. I applied a little dry shampoo and let them be. I fixed my makeup, reapplied the necessary good-smelling sprays and deodorants and changed from my stretched out t-shirt and jeans to some black leggings and a silk tunic-styled racer-back tank.

  In a gesture of kindness, Seraphina, Mimi and Eden had invaded my space and brought more climate-appropriate clothes. They’d also helped me pick out outfits that were “mission suitable.” It had been kind of them to help me out, but mostly they just did their own thing and I watched from O’s bedside.

  They were nice girls; I just didn’t know them. And honestly, friends weren’t really my thing. I had my family.

  Feeling satisfied I no longer looked like the walking dead and somewhat stylish, I left the solitude of my bedroom and joined the gathered crowd in the kitchen. I sidled up next to Sebastian, who put a heavy arm lazily around my shoulders.

  “You alright?” he asked with that yum British accent.

  “Yeah.” I sighed and leaned into him. It felt good to feel like I had another ally besides Jericho- especially with Jericho’s swinging moods.

  “You ready to meet all these strangers?” He grinned down at me and that same wicked amusement danced in his golden brown eyes.

  I didn’t smile back. “No.”

  “Good,” he said. “That’s exactly the right attitude.” And then he launched into introductions anyway. “You’ve met Titus. This is Xander and his little brother Xavier.” I snorted because “little” was a relative term. Both brothers were huge; obviously left-overs of some former race of giants. They were tall, muscled and nearly identical with their black hair and chiseled features. I would never be able to tell them apart and I probably wasn’t even going to try. Sebastian continued, “This gentle, demure lady is Roxie. She is a stickler for etiquette and propriety, so do be on your best manners around her.”