The Relentless Warrior (2 page)

Chapter One

Four months later…

Jericho

Stop knocking.

Stop it.

That was the only thing that ran through my head as I flipped over onto my back. I
squinted at the clock, trying to make out the time: 3:28am. A string of curses flew
out of my mouth in a raspy, tired grumble.

I had been asleep for all of an hour and a half. This just wasn’t fair.

“Jericho, man, open up!” Sebastian shouted out from the other side of the door.

More cursing from deep in my chest.
Why me?

“Give me a minute,” I yelled back, the duty side of my brain winning out over the
self-preserving, sleepy side.

I sat up slowly and peered through the darkness for my pants. I had stumbled in here,
utterly and completely bone-tired after another endless and exhausting day. I started
stripping before the door even shut and lost clothes along the way before collapsing
face first onto my claimed guest bed. Since this was my routine for the last however
many days, my floor was an intricate maze of discarded clothing.

“O’s thrashing again, Jericho,” Sebastian explained impatiently through the heavy
wooden door. His voice was all refined British gentleman that belied his mixture of
human culture and Immortal. “It looks like another seizure. Olivia is screaming for
you. She’s out of control.”

O. Ophelia. One of the human girls we rescued from Machu Picchu. She hadn’t once been
conscious since we brought her back to the Citadel months ago, but at least she’d
stayed alive.

So far.

A week ago she started having these violent seizures that bruised and battered her
body. They lasted anywhere from full hours to sometimes only a few seconds. I hoped
this was one of her shorter episodes, because they completely freaked her older sister
out. Not that they weren’t scary; even I could admit they were awful to watch and
did not bode well for her condition. But with each new symptom that decreased Ophelia’s
health, her sister became that much more impossible to handle.

Olivia.

A flood of unpleasant feelings rushed and tumbled my insides. Frustration. Irritation.
Disbelief…. Attraction.

That girl knew exactly how to get under my skin. And it was like she loved to live
there. Right under it, making me feel scratchy and irritable and…. off-center. She
was relentless with her demands and issues, constantly nagging whoever was in charge
of watching over Ophelia. And then she brought all her problems and complaints to
me! Like I could be the one to heal her sister…. Or like it was my fault they were
here to begin with.

I found some athletic shorts buried underneath yesterday’s leftover dinner tray and
socks that I was sure were rotten. I gave the shorts a long sniff to make sure they
didn’t smell as awful as the leftover food that had been sitting out for way too long.
I needed to send my clothes to be washed, but I hated being a guest in the Citadel,
let alone using the servants to carry out my bidding. Even though, technically Avalon
was paying them now and servants were now considered employees, being here brought
back all the memories of the evil Monarchy I fought against for so many years.

And worse, it brought back every repressed and buried recollection of Eden.

Well, almost all of them.

With a shaky breath and steely determination I pulled on a t-shirt from a different
dirty clothes pile and slipped into some running shoes, not bothering with the gross
socks. I didn’t take the time to look in the mirror either, while I rinsed my mouth
out with mouthwash, and then gave myself the mental pep talk I knew I would need to
deal with Olivia for the next…. however long this would take.

I left my bedroom with a silent, pleading prayer to be patient and understanding.
I locked the door to my room behind me. I wasn’t worried so much about somebody stealing
something from me, but more embarrassed by the volcano of destruction I had turned
the elegant room into. I should really use the maid service at this point, but my
hesitation had more to do with embarrassment over the filth I was capable of than
resistance to change. Plus, I was never in there for more than a few hours at a time
anyway. Either Olivia needed to yell at me, Ophelia’s situation was deteriorating
or Avalon was on the phone demanding that I carry out his bidding.

This Terletov situation had turned into a nightmare. And with Lilly and Silas still
missing, the Kingdom had dissolved into utter chaos overnight. Avalon, Amelia and
Talbott were currently scouring the globe for our friends while I was stuck here,
in a castle, with an ex-girlfriend and an angry, bitter human girl that hated me.

“How bad is it?” I asked Sebastian when I realized he was waiting for me.

“Not as bad as it has been,” he remarked tiredly, pushing off from the stone castle
wall and falling into step with me. “Well, at least, she wasn’t that bad when I left
her. I wouldn’t have woken you, except….”

“Except Olivia enjoys making me miserable,” I finished for him when he trailed off.

“I think she enjoys more than that,” Sebastian intoned suggestively. I would have
punched him if I wasn’t so tired. Instead I made a disbelieving grunting noise.

“I need sleep!” I groaned, running rough hands over my face.

“That you do,” Sebastian agreed as we ambled down the staircase and through dark corridors
to the opposite side of the castle.

After we found the humans on Machu Picchu, Sebastian and I set up a sick ward in the
south tower as soon as we returned to the Citadel so that Gabriel’s nuns, Olivia and
Ophelia could recuperate. The nuns were under the least amount of strain of the humans,
so it didn’t take long for them to heal and get back to their work in Peru. I didn’t
know exactly where they returned to, though. I was told that Gabriel’s church had
been burned to the ground in their absence- something else that was probably eating
him alive.

Olivia also healed quickly, or so she said, although there were moments when we were
together that she was completely freaked out, like something was still wrong with
her. It was clear whatever was left haunting her, whether painful memories of her
time in captivity or injuries from her torture, the feelings were separate from her
sister. Whatever happened with Ophelia left her vocal and angry. Whatever was going
on inside of Olivia, she kept to herself. Her reserve had inched deep inside my curiosity
so that I was almost desperate to find out what was bothering her. As obnoxious as
she could be, I felt responsible for her pain and suffering. It was my people that
did this to her, and it was my failure that kept her sister from getting better.

Ugh.

Sebastian and I climbed the south stairwell in silence, lost to our own thoughts.
We were put in charge of the Citadel until Kiran and Eden came back; then we would
be relieved of our duties. But now with Lilly and Silas gone, and Eden pregnant, we
were left in a sort of limbo. Eden and Kiran were back, but not really back at the
same time. Somehow, without anyone ever really making it final, we were put in charge
of this sick ward that now consisted only of Ophelia but was left maintained and stocked
for the unmentioned, future patients.

Everyone knew without a shadow of a doubt there would be more Immortals coming, maybe
even humans, too; it was just a matter of time. Although, so far, everyone else we’d
found had been dead. We were always too late to give them help.

My prayers at night were pleading and desperate that whoever would come through these
doors needing medical attention wouldn’t be my friends or my loved ones. I knew my
silent petitions were the worst kind of selfish, but after watching Olivia grieve
her sister, I couldn’t help but beg to God that wouldn’t be me on my knees, next to
the bed of someone I cared about.

I had lost too much already to Lucan.

And to Kiran.

“Go easy on her,” Sebastian practically whispered as we neared the top of the staircase.
“She’s exhausted, and been through hell. She’s just worried about her sister.”

“I know,” I growled in response. As if Sebastian was Mr. Sensitivity. Plus, where
did he get off telling me how to behave? I had been practically attached to Olivia
for months trying to get her through this. “What else do I need to know?”

“Eden’s in there,” Sebastian said somberly before slipping into the bedroom where
I could hear the bed creaking under Ophelia’s seizing.

My heart stopped.

Damn it, Eden.

I placed a hand against the doorframe to steady myself, and sucked in a sharp breath.
I was over Eden.
Completely
over her. It had been years since we were together, and I was the one that ended
things between us.

So my chest shouldn’t hurt when I was in the same room with her, and my breath shouldn’t
quicken whenever she was around. She was a married woman that was now
pregnant
. There was nothing left between us, not even echoes of a love we shared or kisses
we stole.

Still, she was this ethereal creature that occasionally haunted my dreams and left
scars on my wounded heart. I knew she chose the better man for her when she picked
Kiran. They were created for each other out of the same mold, destined for each other
since the beginning of time or whatever soul mates crap was left to spew in this world.
Even Amory had acknowledged the undeniable fate they shared.

I was just the speed bump along their road to eternal happiness.

Well me and a shitload of other problems.

It was less about still being in love with her and more about wondering if I would
ever recover from the heart lobotomy she performed on me after just a few short months
together. Eden was the kind of supernatural creature legends were told about, the
unearthly being that haunted dreams and drove men to insanity. When my life was lost
and all hope dead and buried, she was the North Star that pointed me home, the lone
light in utter darkness.

And her heart had always,
always
belonged to another.

I had been a fool to fall for her. And I was still a fool for letting her affect me.

I finally found the determination to enter the sprawling room that was usually reserved
for regents and cabinet members. Ophelia’s frail frame flopped stiltedly on her large
rumpled bed while a few of Avalon’s Titan Guard stood around her awkwardly. Syl had
told us to let her be when one of these happened, but it was almost impossible to
stand and simply watch. They weren’t very successful at hiding their discomfort either,
but I knew they were as afraid of Olivia’s wrath as I was if anything happened to
her beloved sister.

Olivia was there, sitting on the side of the bed, her deep blue eyes tired and tear-filled,
her hands gripping the sheets so tightly her knuckles turned white. Her light blonde
hair was pulled up tonight, sitting on top of her head in a very short ponytail; not
the kind that girls tried to style artfully, but the kind that made me think she hadn’t
touched her hair in at least twenty-four hours, the kind that was
actually
messed up. Her hair was short to begin with; I idly wondered how she got it to stay
up that high.

She lifted her eyes when I walked through the door and her sharp gaze caught mine
from across the room and held it.

My lungs lurched in despair after taking her in, my chest contracted empathetically
from her obvious agony. I
hated
that this girl was suffering, that her sister was suffering.
 
She didn’t deserve this…. hell, nobody deserved this. And even though I had nothing
to do with her initial pain, or how she got involved in this whole mess to begin with,
I couldn’t help but feel the stinging bite of responsibility. Whether I wanted her
or not, I had made her my issue and I wouldn’t rest until she and her sister were
tucked safely back home, completely free of my people and what they had done to her.

I tilted my chin, beckoning her closer. She stared me down for a moment longer with
those intense, unnerving blue eyes before fleeing from the bed and crashing against
my chest. The solid thud of our bodies colliding reverberated through the room above
the struggling of her sister. I wrapped my arms around her and held her as tightly
against me as I could without crushing her. I knew, from many nights before, that
she needed to feel my heart beat to remind her that there was still hope, that she
needed the warmth of my body to heal her open wounds and that she needed my strong
arms wrapped around her, caging her in and offering her protection.

She
needed
me. Nothing else mattered. Not lack of sleep, or keeping a job that I wasn’t qualified
to oversee. Not dealing with her outrageous demands or denying the overwhelming instinct
to hunt that swelled up inside my blood. That bloodthirsty drive shouted that I find
my missing friends and extract vengeance for all the wrongs recently done, but it
couldn’t compete with my call to protect this girl. Nothing could.
 

“What took you so long?” she sniffed with a muffled voice since her face was crushed
against my chest.