The Relentless Warrior

by Rachel Higginson

  She stood there, silent and sentinel to the staircase escape I so desperately wanted to take. With the smallest hints of sympathy she said, “It wasn’t right, what happened to you. But we’re going to murder him. You shouldn’t doubt that. You’ll get your revenge.”

  A small smile curled the corners of my lips. “Thanks.” I tried my best to sound genuine. “I appreciate that.”

  I had just started to wonder if I was less concerned with the outcome of this mission than I was with how the middle part was working, the most damage on my head- the Jericho part of this mission.

  “It’s not all about the mission, though, is it?” She turned around and started down the steps.

  I felt a little annoyed at her perception, but not enough to lie to her. “No. I’m not just freaked about the assignment.”

  “Jericho’s a good guy,” she shrugged. “Damaged, cynical about love, and maybe a bit… skeptical that anyone would choose him. But he’s still a good guy.”

  I cleared my throat in an effort not to choke on my tongue. “That’s very… insightful.”

  She threw me a rueful look over her shoulder. “Only because Jericho’s love life has been an open book since the beginning. He’s been through a lot in the heartbreak category. It’s natural for him to be careful. I mean… I don’t know how he’s been with you or anything, but he’s the most speculated bachelor in the entire Kingdom. We want to see him settled more than anyone else.”

  “Is there a list?” I gaped. It was so weird to think of these people as a real, functioning society. I imagined them with a Most Eligible Bachelor’s Calendar that arrived in the mailboxes of Immortals around the world once a year with Jericho on the front cover, shirtless, glistening in baby oil and holding a puppy. Ridiculous.

  “Not a legitimate list, but we talk. We’re a small Kingdom. You can’t really blame us. Plus, in case you haven’t noticed, he’s hot.” She reached the bottom step and paused. Looking around to make sure nobody was in hearing range, she said, “People want to see him happy.” She turned and started walking again, but not before she threw over her shoulder, “He deserves to be happy.”

  What did she mean by that? And was she assuming I could be the one that made him happy?

  What?

  What?

  Not possible. Whatever was happening with Jericho and me was a temporary attraction. I was on my way out. And he didn’t seem like the settling down kind of guy, no matter what Roxie thought about him.

  Plus, there was the simple fact, that even if he was… I wasn’t. I didn’t have time for this in my normal life, let alone this fairy tale realm in which I hunted bad guys and shot lightning out of my fingertips.

  I stood there for a few moments too long, trying to slow my spinning brain.

  “We’re waiting for you,” Sebastian called from down the hallway effectively snapping me out of my internal maze.

  I looked up at him and smiled confidently. “Sorry.”

  Sebastian’s face froze and then became a mask of horror. “Whoa! Stop right there! You cannot fall in love with me. You might not care, but I’m concerned with your brother’s life! I’m putting a stop to this right now.”

  Recognizing his teasing tone, I rolled my eyes. “Oh yeah? You’re really worried about my brother?”

  “Obviously,” he snorted. “He’s the reason I’m ending this thing between us right now, before either of us gets in too deep.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Who’s name?” I was just a few feet from him and took the flirty moment to admire Sebastian as a man, good looking, laid back and funny. Other than the whole doom and gloom prophecy from the Gypsy Witch, why couldn’t I fall for an easy guy like him.

  “My brother’s,” I reminded him. “What is his name?”

  His eyes narrowed for a moment and then he came up with, “Odysseus? No… Olag? Oliver Twist?”

  “Getting warmer.” I stepped passed him into the kitchen where everyone had gathered.

  He followed me in, announcing in that crisp accent of his, “Do not fear, peasants, I have convinced Olivia to stop falling in love with me. It took some… persuading on my part, but eventually she saw things my way.”

  The room collectively groaned.

  “Pretty sure, all she had to do was talk to Seraphina for thirty seconds before she realized you were a bad idea,” Xavier quipped.

  I was a little surprised when Sebastian didn’t have a retort to that.

  “We found something,” Talbott called our attention to the front of the room. “This house has been stocked with food and clothes that don’t belong to Jericho’s family. Whether his parents gave permission or not, someone else has been staying here.”

  “Can you call your dad and figure out if he’s loaned this place to one of his buddies?” someone asked.

  “We’re not exactly on speaking terms,” Jericho shrugged.

  A pang in my chest sent unwanted feelings of empathy for Jericho oozing through my body. Whether he wanted to admit it or not, he missed his dad. Their falling out had meant something hurtful to him. He didn’t have to say that for me to see the pain in his eyes and stiffness of his body when he told me about his parents earlier.

  “What’s our next move?” Sebastian asked, getting back to the task.

  “We’re going to go see my parent’s other weekend house. Check out the activity there and then…”

  Before Jericho could finish his thought Talbott had surged to life and leapt across a long, bamboo-topped kitchen island. He had been listening stoically to Jericho’s plans when suddenly an electric charge zipped through the room and seemingly straight into Talbott. His whole body jerked into motion. His face became a steel mask of determination and his Magic ballooned through the room with aggressive force.

  “What the hell?” I heard someone demand.

  My Magic started thrumming, too, like a warning beacon that had been triggered. Something electric was outside this house, sizzling with Magic. I didn’t question my instinct, but just let it lead me.

  Talbott had gone after something and from his behavior, I had to assume it was something bad. Nobody else seemed to get it, though, so as I turned to run after him, I called out, “There’s something out there!”

  I raced after Talbott with everyone else hot on my heels. We burst through the front door and spread into a defensive formation. I fit somewhere in the middle, more of a spectator to their practiced movements than an active part of the play.

  Magic clashing in the air, beyond where we parked, pulled at every single one of my senses and set me off in that direction. Thick, gray Magic flashed in front of us, clashing with a putrid green that I swore I could smell. It was just barely masked by the scent of singed earth and burning wood.

  We broke through the line of cars and nearly ran straight into Talbott and an older gentleman with silver-streaked black hair and a large, patrician nose. Magic flew back and forth between the two men angry and dangerous.

  “Don’t kill him, Talbott!” Sebastian shouted out.

  I had half a second to wonder why Talbott would be tempted to kill him, since he was not familiar to me, before the rest of the group surrounded him and brought him to his knees with their combined Magic.

  Jericho was at his throat in another second, his hand clamping around the corded muscles with a vice-like grip. I sucked in a breath and watched the struggle play about before me.

  “Alexi?” Jericho seemed to guess the name.

  “The one and only,” Alexi grinned up at him, some blood trailing from the corner of his smile-tight lips. “Were you expecting someone else? Perhaps… my brother?”

  Jericho’s grasp tightened and the older man coughed out his struggle to breath. “I wasn’t expecting anyone at my home.”

  “And here I was under the impression that the son of the politician had been disowned,” Alexi goaded. The group as a whole took a step forward, closing the circle and making their threat well known.

  Jeric
ho laughed cruelly, “I’m the politician now.”

  “For a self-destructing King and an unfaithful people.” Alexi moved in a flash to grab something from the back of his pants but Jericho was too fast for him. Jericho threw him to the ground, maneuvering Alexi in such a way that his head took the brunt of the impact, cracking loudly on the smooth driveway.

  I flinched in reflex and felt my blood go cold. I watched in wide-eyed horror as Jericho retrieved a gun from Alexi’s pants and checked the chamber. More dread sluiced through my blood while Jericho pointed it deep into Alexi’s neck. The skin around the barrel puckered and wrinkled, while the cold metal dug into the man’s skin.

  “That won’t kill me,” Alexi gasped, sounding fearful for the first time.

  “I don’t want to kill you,” Jericho growled.

  Never had I seen such an image of pure testosterone-driven rage. I’d never witnessed a man so purposed in his task or possessed by conviction and decision. Jericho practically glittered with fury and I could have sworn my heart stopped beating with the tension of the moment.

  “I won’t tell you anything,” Alexi growled out.

  “We’ll see about that,” Jericho promised. Without taking his eyes off the man on the ground he called out orders to the rest of us, “Get him on the floor of my car. We’re taking him back to Gabriel’s.”

  They carried out his orders immediately. Jericho handed the gun over to Sebastian who kept it trained on the stranger. I just stood there, like an idiot. It wasn’t that I’d been necessarily afraid to act… I just didn’t know how.

  While the rest of the crew crawled into their cars, Jericho walked over to me and tipped my chin up with two of his fingers . “Are you alright?” he asked in a low, careful voice.

  “I’m fine,” I told him. “I just didn’t…” I cleared my throat and changed directions, “You guys are really efficient.”

  His mouth curved in a half-smile. “We are efficient.” His eyes gazed down into mine with unwavering intensity. “Ready to go?”

  I felt breathless in my response, not because of his question, but because of the electrified Magic rolling off him in dizzying waves. His Magic had wrapped around mine minutes ago or that’s what it felt like. I felt cocooned, pressed against an invisible chest. I felt consumed.

  “Sure,” I answered. “Is that a bad guy then?”

  “Terletov’s brother,” Jericho answered in a voice that told me to wait on any more questions.

  He opened the front passenger’s side door for me and I crawled in the car, gawking at the way the man had been apprehended with his hands tied behind his back, lying face down on the tiny, backseat floor.

  Sebastian kept the gun pointed at the back of his head and Talbott rested his feet on the man’s prone calves. I turned back around, feeling more than a little uncomfortable.

  “They are going to come looking for me,” Alexi’s voice sounded muffled and strained against the rough carpet.

  “I hope they do,” Talbott answered.

  Jericho set off into the dimming Brazilian sunset. Nobody acknowledged the man on the floor after that and he seemed to understand nobody was anxious to hear him speak again. By the time we pulled to a stop in front of the house we were staying at, tension had ignited into a blazing wildfire of danger.

  I had no doubt that this man’s life would probably end tonight. I couldn’t say why I felt that way, but instinct and something innately Magical echoed in my brain over and over again, as if warning me… or maybe preparing me for what could happen tonight.

  Jericho jumped out of the car and helped Sebastian and Talbott extract the man, since his hands and feet had been bound with some kind of handcuff system that carried a live-current. Or maybe I could just sense the Magic that sparked inside the metal. Either way, the man looked in utter discomfort and misery.

  However, after hearing that he was Terletov’s brother, I couldn’t exactly feel bad for him.

  We marched him into the house; Sebastian and Talbott took him directly to a door that opened to steps, apparently a basement. Jericho waited at the doorway while Xander, Xavier, Titus and Roxie disappeared down the steps.

  I stood awkwardly in the entry way, waiting for some kind of direction.

  I didn’t think I wanted to be a part of what was about to happen downstairs.

  Jericho closed the door after Roxie and walked over to me. His eyebrows were drawn low on his forehead and his eyes had smoothed out- no more happy crinkles.

  “Are you alright?” he asked in a low voice.

  “Why wouldn’t I be?” I challenged.

  “Because you just watched us kidnap a man and hold him at gun point.” Jericho took another step toward me.

  I snorted. “I didn’t sign up for this because I thought you guys passed out lollipops and balloon animals.”

  “Always so tough,” Jericho murmured in that amused tone that drove me crazy. “Well, whether you expected this or not, this is about to get very real. We are going to torture that man until he tells us what we want to hear. Probably, Talbott will kill him afterwards.” Jericho cleared his throat and looked away for a moment. “I hope Talbott kills him afterward.”

  “Because you can’t?” I didn’t believe Jericho couldn’t. I believed Jericho would be capable of whatever he needed to be. But maybe the thought of murdering an unarmed man bothered him.

  “No,” he turned back to me, meeting my eyes and holding my stare. He was letting me see all of him… opening himself up so I could see this part of him along with all the others. “If Talbott doesn’t want to, I have no problem finishing this.”

  “Oh,” I answered weakly. “Good.”

  He quirked an eyebrow at me, but changed the subject. “I need to go down there with them.”

  “Do you want me to go, too?” I asked uncertainly .

  “No.” His fingers came up and gently traced a line along my collarbone. “There’s not enough room. It’s not a full basement. More of a… storage room. I’ll probably send Roxie up too.”

  “I don’t think she’s going to like that,” I told him.

  He smiled, his full, bright, blinding smile then. God, this man was perfection.

  “I’ll come find you in a little bit, alright?”

  “Sure.” I stepped away from him, the tenor of his voice changed and I didn’t think I liked the way it made me feel.

  “We should talk,” he said.

  “Sure.”

  Yeah, definitely did not like where this was going.

  “Alright.” He took another step forward so that we were only inches apart. I felt my breathing pick up and that damned Magic instantly react.

  “Alright,” I repeated brightly. I playfully punched him in the bicep. “Go get ‘em, champ. Show ‘em who’s boss.”

  “Me,” he laughed lightly, but the sexy atmosphere he’d been bringing with him disintegrated into the air around him, fizzling out with my mood-killing strictly-friends desperation. He took a few steps back and reached for the basement stairs. “I’m the boss,” he called out confidently and then descended into unseen basement.

  I shook my head and muttered to myself. “That’s exactly what I’m afraid of.”

  I stood there, unseeing and lost in thought until Roxie popped into the doorframe a few minutes later.

  “Hey,” she greeted me. I snapped out of my funk and met her amused eyes. “Want to go for a swim? You look like you need to cool off.”

  I scowled at her words but almost winced at how good her offer sounded. “I don’t have a swimming suit.”

  “I’ve got a few,” she told me. “And you better take me up on this offer.”

  “Why?” I asked, following her down the hallway to her room.

  “Because I’m not usually nice to people. For you, this is like the equivalent of seeing a white unicorn in the flesh.”

  “Do those really exist?” I asked sincerely. It was a legitimate question. I didn’t think Witches, Shape-Shifters or Psychics were real either
until a few months ago. For all I knew, this meant Sasquatch, the Lochness Monster and Elvis were all really alive.

  Roxie snorted a laugh. “Obviously not.”

  “Obviously,” I echoed weakly.

  Swimming with a girl that hated most people while a stranger got tortured in the basement of a mansion that belonged to a priest… At this moment, I was pretty sure my life could not get more f-ed up.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Jericho

  Blood. Gore. A man, pulling against his constraints so that he can fall to the floor and die.

  Yeah, typical.

  While my stomach for this kind of information-torture-marathon was strong, my soul still managed to get the deathly ill feeling that this kind of activity would send me straight to hell.

  And it probably would.

  “He’s unconscious,” Titus grunted, wiping his blood slicked hands against his jeans.

  “Well, that’s what happens when you hit a man in the face,” Sebastian lectured studiously. “Repeatedly.”

  “I thought it would encourage him to talk,” Titus shrugged.

  “Me too,” I admitted.

  The three of us stood staring down at Alexi Terletov with mingled disgust and pity. This was a man somehow connected to Dmitri’s plan of world domination. But at the same time… not tied to it at all.

  I remembered back to the fall, when I had been out hunting with Avalon. All of the men we’d captured or found had been murdered seconds after we found them. There was always a contingency plan with them. They knew too much, so Terletov could not risk them spilling their guts, in a metaphorical sense.

  But nothing had happened with Alexi when we’d caught him. Although he had the faint putrid smell that the other captives had, he hadn’t reeked of that deathly, pungent evil odor. Nor had a sniper taken off his head before we could load him in the car. He had a gun but hadn’t shot any of us.

  Was this a trap?

  Or had Alexi been abandoned by his brother for reasons unknown?

  I squatted down on my heels and peered up at the slightly younger version of Dmitri Terletov. Alexi’s hair was just barely salt-and-peppered, but as dark as Dmitri’s. His aristocratic nose was bloodied and healing from a severe break dealt not a half-hour ago. His black and blue eyes were also struggling to heal, but there was a tiredness about them that would remain, a deep gray that tainted the bags under his lashes and made his cheeks sallow and sunken. He was a mess before we got to him.