The Relentless Warrior

by Rachel Higginson

  And my instincts were brutally merciless.

  But now I felt assaulted with as much fear and uncertainty as I did drive to win this. Olivia seemed a natural at fighting, dodging bullets and fighting back with an intuition that I could kiss her for. But still, the fear that she could get hit, or hurt, or taken, clung to my bones and gave me a marrow-deep chill that I could not shake.

  Damn, this was one thing I wasn’t used to.

  Even with Eden, I’d prided myself in being the kind of guy that trusted his female. If Eden said she could fight, I believed her. If Eden said she could handle whatever it was we were working on, I believed her.

  In this moment, I could see that Liv could handle herself, I could watch her fight back viciously, and yet anxiety clawed up my throat and ripped at my flesh.

  “Behind you!” I shouted at her just in time for her to dive out of the way.

  I couldn’t afford the time to make sure she got up again. At least I believed she couldn’t die.

  It didn’t mean I wanted to see her get even a little bit injured, but it would have to comfort my protective instincts for now.

  I dove after some asshole that had run out of bullets and was coming after me with his sword drawn.

  In any other battle, I would have gotten my hands on the guy and drained him of every last drop of Magic possible. But we’d learned early with Terletov not to take any of this Magic. It was tainted beyond evil, something sinister and sick that we couldn’t absorb correctly. We had to gut them, let the Magic dissolve in the air, or we’d suffer something akin to the King’s Curse with what their Magic would do to us.

  Eden, Avalon and their spouses could handle the polluted Magic, but they were honestly the only ones. We didn’t even know if they could live through it because of their stronger Magic, or the valve that opened between all four of them. Even though Avalon and Eden stayed closed-off to each other for the most part these days, now that they were both married and wanted to avoid the awkwardness of their Magic, it still moved between them and now included Kiran and Amelia.

  I pulled my knife out of the sheath at my ankle and engaged. Another goon joined the fight and I worked my body into a machine, accurate, precise and deadly. I got the first guy on the Achilles tendon as I skidded low to avoid a brutal swing of his sword. He arched his back with a shout and then fell to one knee where I took advantage and plunged my deathly sharp blade into his spine.

  I used Magic to force the tip through his flesh, muscle, bone and whatever else lay beneath his skin. The slicing, ripping sound resounded in my ears and I cringed despite the necessity of the killing blow. Before I could be certain he would stay down I was forced to retract my knife and swing out against his friend.

  Our blades clashed above my head, his long sword to my short but sturdy knife. He kicked out at me at the same time I jumped into the air and curled into a ball. I released my knife, along with my weight and pressure while his leg swept beneath me, meeting nothing but air. With my weight gone and his leg not connecting with anything, he lost his balance and stumbled forward. At the same time my feet found solid ground again and I raised my knife so that he fell into it. I braced myself for his weight and took him with a thrust upward, directly into his chest.

  This time when I pulled the knife out, I made sure to leave a gaping gash that would leak Magic like a waterfall. Blood gushed all over my hand and his sickly green Magic burst into the air around us.

  I jumped out of the way and directly into another fight.

  The scent of death, the putrid, nose-tingly smell that seemed to follow these guys wherever they went and the tangy, sharp odor of metal permeated my nostrils and made this battle infinitely more real.

  This was a different fight than Machu Picchu where I’d found Liv. That had seemed juvenile compared to this blood bath. And in a way that could be blamed on the scenery. Ancient ruins compared to a gritty, rundown warehouse gave us new reasons to fight… to kill… to win.

  Besides that, in Peru, these guys had some place to run.

  Not here.

  This would not end until there were a lot of dead people.

  I punched out at another wily bastard and connected with the edge of his jaw. I was aiming for his nose, but I would take any flesh I could find. My knuckles hit hard bone and I let my momentum carry me through so that his head swung around spraying spit, blood and one tooth. At the same time I brought my other hand down and sunk my knife into the curve of where his shoulder met his neck, just above the collar bone. With no bone in my way my weapon slid in easily enough and I dragged the sharp blade across the top of his shoulder to make the biggest hole possible.

  These knives were not common, even among the Kingdom. But after Peru last fall and what happened in the Omaha club, I’d had the Witch at the Citadel make it specifically for me.

  And thank God, I did.

  It was coming in very handy.

  Olivia had been outfitted with a gun we’d picked up at Terletov’s Hungarian estate around the same time last fall and a sharp blade that was Talbott’s. While the same principle applied to her blade as it did to mine, I swear, there was nothing better than my knife. The blade was insanely sharp, cutting through bone like it was butter. Even the tip could cause lethal damage.

  I was in love.

  With the knife.

  And also, probably Olivia.

  Nothing had ever pulled my hungry attraction like watching her fight to bring down a mutual enemy with grace, poise and savage instinct. She was created with this inhuman perception and awareness from even before she was Immortal; I had to believe it was no accident that she survived the transformation. Honestly, this girl was so goddamn sexy, even covered in blood and sweat, I wanted nothing more than to finish this battle and then make her mine.

  The thought alone spurred me into more action.

  But more than the physical attraction that seemed to rule my body, there was this strong emotional connection with us that bonded our Magic and brought us together in some kind of unbreakable tie.

  Our Magic had been united since last night, never leaving each other, never separating. And now in the heat of battle, we were both empowered by the strength of the combination. She made me stronger; she made me faster, her Magic made me invincible.

  There was a reason my kill count was climbing so quickly. I had never been a greater warrior than in this moment.

  I believed for some time now that I was born into the fate I belonged. I was a good killer. I was a good fighter. And I had honed and perfected my skills into a talent that was almost unsurpassed.

  Yet, nothing had been a bigger boost to my talent than absorbing Olivia’s Magic.

  She was like steroids, amphetamines and bones made out of titanium all in the same injection.

  And I think I was addicted with just one hit.

  At some point during the conflict, Terletov moved to the back of the “arena” and seemed to be enjoying this show. Titus, who had refrained from shifting until the bullets were gone and we were only using blades, had shifted to full-bear by now and was backed into a corner. It was one thing to fight as a Shifter when only Magic was in play. But when we were fighting with weapons as dangerous as these, his bulking size and less than accurate movements were not working in his favor.

  On the other hand, Talbott was a killing machine. The man had a vendetta and he was not afraid to murder everything in his way. I could relate to his desperation to get to Lilly now that I had Olivia in my life.

  I’d been reluctant to compare what I shared with Olivia to what Talbott and Lilly had. They’d been a couple for years and their relationship reached depths that I could barely imagine.

  Still, I knew that if someone or something took Olivia away from me, there would be nothing that would stop me from getting to her. I would do anything to reach her, to save her, to keep her.

  And as I realized those confirming thoughts, I started to grasp the depth of my feelings for her.

  “Enough!” T
erletov screamed out, sounding like a true mad man. “No more, or I will slit her throat and let her pretty purple Magic bleed out all over this floor.”

  No.

  I looked up and sure enough, Terletov held a limp, unconscious Lilly by her curly red hair. Her body drooped like a lifeless ragdoll and there was not so much as a breath in her lungs moving inside her body.

  Talbott stilled immediately and because he was our brother in more important ways than blood, Titus and I also stopped. I had my knife hovering over another nameless/faceless throat and Titus dropped a man he had his meaty paw around. In another moment Titus was human again, fully-dressed and still covered in blood. The Magic in Immortals meant that Shifters didn’t have to shred their clothes like in movies; they stayed magically suspended in the place between human form and beast.

  Olivia also stopped exactly where she was, in respect for us, although she’d never met Lilly.

  Terletov’s grin became sadistic as it twisted across his face. “So for this girl, you’ll do what I say? How excellent!”

  “Let her go,” Talbott growled with the promise of brutal violence. His chest heaved with the force of adrenaline in his body and his Magic pushed against everything in this room. Even I could feel the barbed sharpness of his anger in the electricity filling this large, empty building. Or maybe that was my connection to Olivia that had opened me up to the foreign Magics surrounding us.

  “Why?” Terletov’s eyes narrowed and he surveyed his hostage with utter disgust. “You can’t possibly care about this creature. She’s not even worthy to be called Immortal and at this point I could hardly say she’s even breathing enough to be called alive.”

  “You’re wrong,” Liv challenged him. “I can feel her pulse.”

  “Look at you,” Terletov grinned at her. “Such a perfect specimen of Immortality and yet you associate with scum.” His expression turned to disappointment. “I could offer you so much more than this. So much more than what awaits you with that weak King and his even weaker Queen.”

  “You mean, the Queen that has your Magic?” I demanded. I didn’t really think Liv would ever be convinced to change sides, but I wanted to make sure Terletov knew that. “I don’t think she’s interested in joining the losing team.”

  Terletov’s Magic exploded from him in a rush of cold, debilitating Magic. Lilly was thrown with the force of it. I felt my body fly backwards, completely unprepared for that kind of eruption. Liv went into the air too and Titus who was closest to the blast, flew fifty feet in the air and didn’t land until his back hit a far wall. I could hear the snap of his head against hard concrete all the way from here and his unconscious body slid to the ground limp and lifeless.

  Talbott was the only one of us able to hold his footing and that was only by his sheer willpower and love for Lilly. He managed to work against the angry blast of Magic and reach out and catch Lilly. She hadn’t moved of her own free will since Terletov presented her to us and she still wasn’t moving, even after all of that.

  “She’s useless to me now,” he sneered at Talbott. “She couldn’t even do the small job I required of her, her duty to the people she contaminated with her polluted blood.” Talbott clutched her closer to his chest but Terletov kept taunting him. “Do you know how hard I tried? Do you know how many hours I spent trying to syphon what little Magic she has out of those disgusting bones of hers? And yet she gave nothing up. Which is really just too bad. I would have put her out of her misery much earlier if she’d given me what I wanted. Instead, I had to do what I thought best…”

  His words trailed off and I felt sick to my stomach. How much had Lilly been tortured? And how had she managed to hold on to her Magic?

  Talbott was shaking with an untouched rage that seemed to color every part of him into a vibrating, glowing mass of hatred and vindication. But he wouldn’t put Lilly down, and Terletov knew that.

  “I’ll let you deal with that mess,” he said gesturing at Lilly. “While we take our leave.” his cold eyes flashed up to meet Liv’s for just a moment. “Your last chance to come with us. I will have you one way or the other.” And then to me, he said, “I would get your animal to medical treatment as quickly as possible. It seems where I failed to extract the Magic, my blade succeeded. It’s a small leak, but I wouldn’t waste any time.”

  Talbott lifted Lilly’s limp hand where a prick from Terletov’s blade had opened the smallest gash in her finger, letting her Magic escape.

  Damnit.

  We had to get her to Eden. Now.

  And it was at least an eight-hour trip, if we landed directly on the private royal airstrip behind the Citadel.

  We had to leave this minute.

  “We will find you, Dmitri,” I called after him. “And in the meantime we will treat your brother with the same respect as you’ve treated our loved ones.”

  “Better hurry then,” he laughed at me. “You don’t have much time until I come for him.”

  And with that Terletov and his men disappeared out the back of the warehouse. We heard tires screech. We had too many problems to follow them now, and that was exactly their plan. Just as the tides of that battle were turning in our favor, Terletov had initiated his backup plan with Lilly and given us a new priority.

  I ran over to Titus and slapped him hard across the face until he roused. By the time Titus was up and running, Talbott was already laying Lilly down in his backseat. I could see the reluctance to leave her, even to drive the car.

  At that moment, when I was about to offer to drive, my cell phone rang.

  I pulled it from my pocket and answered it before I checked who it was. I needed to warn the Palace anyway that we were coming and what we would be bringing with us, and they were the only people that would be calling me.

  “Hello.”

  “Jericho, Ophelia’s awake,” Eden chattered excitedly in my ear. “She just woke up, she’s asking for Olivia.”

  A relief so strong that it rocked my body washed through me; I met Liv’s eyes with a smile. I mouthed to her that her sister was awake and her whole face lit up through the dirt and grime that covered it.

  “Amazing. We’re on our way now,” I told Eden. “We have Lilly, but you need to be ready for her. She has a gash. It’s small, and she should be able to make it back to the Citadel, but you have to be there as soon as she lands.”

  Eden was absolutely silent on the other end and I shouted “hello” into the phone several times before Kiran talked back to me instead.

  “Did you say that Lilly is alive?” he demanded.

  “Yes, but not for long if we don’t get her help.”

  “Thank, God,” Kiran breathed. “Will she make it here? I want the God’s honest truth, Jericho. Will she make it?”

  I hesitated for a second before I answered confidently, “Yes, if she gets help as soon as we land, then yes, she’ll make it.”

  “Let’s go!” Talbott roared.

  “Jericho, there’s one more thing,” Kiran said quickly, clearly hearing Talbott’s anxiety. “You’re father called here. He said it’s urgent that you head back to Peru.”

  “Well, he can wait,” I snapped.

  “He called two minutes ago. I didn’t know Eden had called you because I was on the phone with him. I can’t believe that it’s a coincidence that he would call you at the same time you find Lilly, but he said to tell you that it’s life or death. He’s not in danger but your mother is.”

  “My mom?” I choked out.

  “And my mum,” Kiran said evenly, but I could hear the silent pleading in his strained voice.

  “Son of a bitch,” I growled. “Are they in Rio.”

  “Your dad is.”

  “Fine,” I all but shouted. “I’ll send Talbott back with the girls and take Titus with me. I’m leaving the Guard with Liv’s family. Do you have anyone that can meet me down there?”

  “Sebastian will go with you. I’ll let him take Xander and Xavier. Maybe Roxie and Seraphina if they can get away.”<
br />
  “Good. Send them.”

  “Keep me updated,” Kiran ordered.

  “Did you want to come too?” I gentled my tone just a little bit. His mom? That had to be tough.

  “I can’t,” his voice cracked a little before he could recover. “I can’t leave Eden. Not when she’s like this and not in a time like this.”

  “I’ll find Analisa, Kiran. Don’t worry about her.”

  “Right,” Kiran answered. “Now go and call me in the air. I’ll give you more details.”

  I hung up and then cursed again. I was going to have to fly freaking commercial to get down there. Goddamn Terletov had planned this very well.

  “They have my mom and Analisa,” I explained to Talbott, who cradled Lilly’s head in his lap and stared down at her unconscious face with such loving intensity I thought she might wake up just from the sheer force of it. “And Ophelia’s awake. Liv, you’re going to have to go back with Talbott and help him with Lilly.” I realized that Liv couldn’t fly a plane and Talbott was in no shape to get her back to the Citadel safely. “Titus you better go with them too. I’ll fly commercial down to Rio and meet up with the rest of the team. I was going to take you with me, but Talbott needs a pilot. Use the back airfield and Eden will be waiting for you.”

  Titus nodded and slammed the door shut on Talbott before climbing into the driver’s seat and shutting his own door. He started the car and then waited patiently for Liv.

  I yanked her to me and devoured her mouth in a hungry, desperate kiss. Letting her go was going to be the single hardest thing I had ever done. I wanted to spend the next five days alone with her after what we just went through simply checking her body over and over for any damage. It would obviously have to be a very thorough examination.

  But I couldn’t do that now. I couldn’t even afford to kiss her for a second more.

  Taking the sides of her head and holding her face as close to mine as I could, I pressed our foreheads tightly together and whispered a promise. “I will come straight back to you. As soon as I can.”

  “Will you be alright?” she whispered and I could feel how impossible this was for her, too.