The Relentless Warrior (21 page)

He’d kissed me until I was a melting puddle of want and warmth, until I couldn’t remember
my own name, until I’d questioned every single thing I was fighting for.

I’d woken up this morning with those same thoughts circling around my head. What if
I was fighting for something I didn’t really want? What if the future I’d imagined
for myself wasn’t a concrete path I’d created, but a journey I was meant to explore
and adapt to.

I reviewed my present and my current convictions: I wanted to be human again, I wanted
to go home to my family, I wanted to go back to school and kick ass.

But in one incredible kiss, Jericho had made me question all of that. What if I didn’t
go back to being human? Could I live like this? Yes. And I could even be happy. What
if when I went back home, it wasn’t to stay? What if I didn’t rely on my family for
everything? Instead, I separated myself in order to protect this new part of me… the
Immortal part of me? What if I didn’t go back to school?

What if I started a completely different life?

Every one of those questions revolved around the one who’d started them all. Jericho.

It seemed ridiculous to get this attached to a boy I’d only known for a few short
months, one that was so different from me. But I couldn’t stop myself.

I seemed to be spiraling into something I didn’t and couldn’t understand. My life
had become this tornado of confusion and upheaval. And while my biggest issues revolved
around Terletov and what he did to O and me, there were bigger questions I had to
ask myself, questions that I felt ill-prepared to answer.

I also needed to be honest with myself.

I liked Jericho.

I really liked Jericho.

Maybe I always had. Since the moment he found me in Peru, he had been by my side,
fighting for me, first, for me to recover, then for me to trust him. Last night he’d
fought for me to face my attraction to him. And while he seemed reserved now, I didn’t
believe he was finished fighting for me.

He’d gotten his way with every other battle. There wasn’t any reason for me to believe
that he wouldn’t continue to win.

Plus, he hated to lose.

I didn’t like being the weak link in this, always giving in, always being the loser.
But until now, I’d never felt like the loser. Whenever he won, it also felt like I
won.

I never felt like I’d ever lost until now.

I shook my head and let my thoughts drift elsewhere. I thought of Ophelia and said
as many prayers for her recovery as I could think of the right words to speak. I thought
about my family back home and the potential danger Rion was in. I thought of Brazil
and how I’d never been here before. These were exactly the opposite circumstance I
wanted to visit another country under. And I hadn’t even gotten a stamp on my passport,
validating my efforts.

The luscious, tropical scenery flipped by the further south we drove. The Amazon was
at our back and the coast lay somewhere in front of us. The only reason I knew that
was because Sebastian eventually explained where we were headed when I couldn’t take
the silence anymore.

Well, he explained that we were driving south towards Rio and Sau Paulo but that he
didn’t exactly know where we were headed either.

Nobody did.

Sebastian said we would just know it when we got there.

I had to assume they were using Magic in some way to guide us, but I didn’t understand
and I didn’t feel up to asking questions.

Jericho remained silent next to me. His jaw ticked with tightness, his hands gripped
the steering wheel until his knuckles were stretched white. His heavy foot pressed
forcefully down on the gas so that we had to be flying over the speed limit.

He hardly said a word for hours, but I could see the gears turning in his head. He
was lost in whatever thoughts were up there,
deeply lost
. His distance hurt, especially after I’d given him so much in that stupid kiss last
night. But some internal, instinctive thought told me this was what he needed right
now. And so I let him have it.

“So Terletov is supposed to be there?” I turned in my seat and directed my question
at Sebastian.

“Supposed to be,” Sebastian confirmed. His body was strung just as tight as Jericho’s
but Sebastian seemed more concerned with the mission ahead of us.

“That’s kind of lucky, then. What are the chances that we show up in the exact country
he’s hanging out in?” I thought it was lucky anyway. I’d only been out of America
twice in my life, once to Canada as a child for a family camping trip and then to
Peru with Ophelia. I wasn’t counting the rest of my intercontinental travel because
truthfully I planned on erasing this entire segment of my life from my memory when
I was human again. But it seemed these people hopped countries on a regular basis.
Terletov had access to the entire world and yet he happened to be in the same country
as us? Only a few hours away? What were the chances?

Sebastian confirmed my fears, “Not lucky. He’s here for us, Olivia. He knows we’re
looking for him and he’s threatening to kill one of the King’s advisors. This is a
carefully thought out plan and we are willfully walking into it.”

I probably should have responded to that in some way but I just didn’t have the mental
capacity to unpack it.

So I just turned around and took a cue from Jericho. Maybe the whole riding-in-silence
thing

was less brooding male and more I’m-trying-not-to-flip-the-freak-out.

As another hour ticked by I wondered if we really knew how to get to Terletov, but
then something remarkable happened. Along the edges of my Magic, I started to feel
the pull of more energy. I instinctively understood that it was different Magic, outside
of my own and belonging to someone else, or multiple someones.

The further we drove, the stronger the Magic felt. Only, it wasn’t Magic… or was it?
I couldn’t be sure. I didn’t like it though. Unlike Jericho’s warm, receptive and
commanding Magic, this energy just felt… wrong.

It wasn’t trying to hurt me or anything, just kind of hovering on the horizon of my
awareness. I wondered if it could feel me too. Something made me think yes.

“Who does it belong to?” I asked with as much nonchalance as I could balance while
still keeping my sanity.

“Who does what belong to?” Jericho asked, the first time he’d used that beautiful
mouth of his since we got in the car.

At the same time Sebastian demanded, “What are you talking about?”

“All that Magic? On our left?” Couldn’t they feel that?

Jericho reacted immediately. I put my arms over my head as we swerved through surrounding
traffic going with us and against us. By the time we’d made it safely across four
lanes of traffic and darted in front of a rickety wooden cart being pulled by a goat,
my throat felt scratchy and raw from all the screaming.

“What the hell was that!” I shouted at Jericho.

He shrugged casually and began the agonizing trip across a super bumpy dirt road that
lead us into a forested area.

I glanced back to see that the other cars had kept up with us and all seemed to successfully
make it across all of the traffic without dying.

My breathing was still irregular and heavy when Sebastian spoke up, trying to excuse
his friend, or that’s what I assumed he was doing. “Neither Jericho nor I can sense
other Magics. We were waiting on a call from Talbott, but it never came. You must
have some Titan in you if you can feel out other Magics. Jericho believed you and
took a chance. Not every side road out here is drivable. He did what he had to in
order to keep us on path.”

I felt warmed because Jericho believed me without questioning me or even asking me
to repeat myself, not really anyway.

“Why can’t you sense other Magics?” I asked Sebastian while gripping the seat beneath
me with every ounce of strength I possessed just to keep from bouncing to the floor.

“Because I’m a hybrid of Medium and Witch and Jericho is pure-blood Witch. Only Titans
can really feel Magic. They must have mixed a little in when they gave you your super
powers.”

I rolled my eyes at his superhero comment.

“Why do you think I only have a little bit of Titan? Maybe I’m all the way Titan,”
I suggested. Since they didn’t really know what I was, it could be possible. I didn’t
really understand the distinction between their “kinds” but apparently there were
some.

Well, except for Shape-Shifters… I got what set them apart.

“You’re part Witch,” Jericho interjected. “You showed us that the first day we worked
on your Magic.”

“And the purple eyes suggest you’re also part Medium,” Sebastian added. “While our
eye colors have a larger range than humans, purple is specific to Mediums.”

“What does that mean? Am I some kind of mutt?” Nervousness attacked my senses as I
waited for the answer to this question. I was already a freak of nature because of
the Magic. I had no desire to be a freak inside the freakish world in which I now
resided.
 

“Not a mutt,” Jericho reassures me. “In our culture the true Immortals hold each of
the different Magics. An Immortal containing all four kinds would be a true Immortal.
Sebastian and I are less pure than you right now.”

His answered shocked me. I didn’t expect that. “What’s the difference between you
guys and an Immortal with all four kinds?”

“A true Immortal would be stronger, faster, more powerful and they would live out
the meaning of our name. They would have complete Immortality,” Sebastian explained.
“And they are extremely rare.”

“How rare?” I asked.

“There’s four of them,” Sebastian deadpanned.

“Six if you count the babies,” Jericho added.
 

I gaped. “Six true Immortals in your entire Kingdom?”

“Babies?” Sebastian demanded. “Amelia?”

“Er, no,” Jericho sounded embarrassed. “Eden’s having twins. I wasn’t supposed to
say anything.”

“Twins?” This time I could hear the smile in Sebastian’s voice.

“Don’t say anything,” Jericho growled.

“He’s cheating, anyway,” Sebastian ignored Jericho’s warning. “You can’t count the
babies yet.”

I sat open-mouthed for a minute, wondering what sort of world I’d gotten myself into
for the thousandth time. “I’m kind of glad I’m not one of them then. I hardly know
what to do with the Magic as is. I couldn’t take the added pressure.”

The boys remained silent. But not in a natural way that happens at the end of conversations.
This silence was ripe with tension and practically palpable as it settled on my skin.

So, I decided to push my luck. “Good thing I’m not all four kinds. That would be crazy
scary.”

“Sure,” Jericho mumbled.

“Oh, my gosh!” I slapped the back of my hand on his bicep before I could rein in my
reaction. “Oh, my gosh, you think I’m all four kinds!”

“It’s just a theory we’ve been working on,” he mumbled.

“We didn’t know if it was true or not, but the purple eyes…” Sebastian trailed off
and looked out the window when I glanced back to catch his eye. “Up for seeing if
you can shift into an animal?” he asked with a playful smile even though he wouldn’t
look me straight on.

I faced forward and slammed my back against the seat. “No, thank you,” I squeaked.
An animal?
Shift
into an animal? I so totally couldn’t even comprehend that statement. I needed to
be human again.

Now!

After long moments of silence while I watched the thick forest fly by the bouncing
sedan, I decided to find out a little more information. “What does it mean? Tell me
specifically what it means to be all four?”

Jericho sighed and then said, “It means you have a lot of responsibility. It means…
it means your life would be changed forever. Not just for a short while, but forever,
Liv. It means Terletov would have gifted you and cursed you in the same breath.”

My hands started shaking and my lungs seized up into frozen, useless organs.

“And it means that you mate once.” Sebastian sounded dismally grim from the backseat.
I prickled at his terminology but he explained himself. “It means you find one person
to share the rest of your life with because once you consummate the relationship,
you transfer your immortality to them completely. You unite your Magics permanently.
There is no going back. You can’t become human after that either. If you unite your
Magic with someone else and you decide to give up your Magic and become human again,
you would kill that person.”

“She wouldn’t kill them,” Jericho snapped, sounding the angriest I’d ever heard him.
The tone of his voice actually made me jump in my seat.

“She
would
kill them,” Sebastian argued calmly. “I saw what happened to Kiran. I saw that he
was about to die.”

“That didn’t happen to
me
,” Jericho argued and suddenly I felt like a spectator to a conversation in a different
language. “When Eden broke up with me, I didn’t die.”