The Relentless Warrior (6 page)

“I want to try,” Eden met my gaze and held it.

I tried not to shiver against the blackness of her eyes. It just wasn’t natural. She
belonged in a horror movie. I mean, logically, I knew she was nice, or, er, nice enough.
But meeting her coal black eyes made me feel like at any moment she was going to flip
over and start walking on her hands and feet with drool dripping down her chin.

“No,” Kiran said firmly. “You saw what happened to Jericho.”

“But I could help,” Eden said gently, her eyes still fixed on me.

“You could also hurt the babies. Eden, no,” Kiran reinforced, but this time it was
more pleading desperation than command.

“Damn it,” Eden spit. “If only my smoke worked! This is so stupid!”

Jericho chuckled, “E, it’s not like I’m so much weaker than you. Your super Oracle
powers wouldn’t have any more luck than my ordinary Magic. Whatever Terletov did to
Olivia, he made it irreversible. Or at least impenetrable without a cure.”

“If only we could be sure,” Eden mumbled. “Well, Avalon comes home in a few days.
He can try!”

“No,” Kiran barked. “You might have closed down your telepathic connection with him,
but you’re still connected to Avalon in every way that matters. If something were
to affect his Magic, then it would spread to you. Just like the King’s Curse. I’m
not going through that again, Eden. And I’m sure as bloody hell not endangering the
babes. Sorry, Olivia, but you must understand my wife’s condition.”

“Of course,” I agreed quickly. “I didn’t ask her to do anything! I knew it wouldn’t
work.”

“It will work,” Jericho argued. “Or something will at least.”

I pulled myself to standing- which was no easy task and looked down at Jericho who
still sat slumped but perfectly still under Eden’s hand.

“You should stop all that, Jericho,” I warned him. “Or you’re going to start believing
all these lies you’re telling me.”

“They’re not lies!” He was quick to defend himself and shot into standing so he could
be at eye level with me.

“Kiran could try!” Eden piped up helpfully- or non-helpfully, depending on whose side
you took.

“We are also connected, Love,” he explained exasperatedly. “Stop trying to hurt your
Magic
and
the babies. You’re like a hamster, I swear. I’m going to have to separate you from
them, I just know it!”

“I am not a hamster!” Eden shrieked. “And I’m not trying to hurt them. I’m just trying
to come up with a solution! One that doesn’t involve Olivia suffering anymore. And
I love the babies,” she finished on a mumble, wrapping her slender arms around her
delicate stomach. She sniffled while tilting her face away from Kiran, “Besides,”
she said. “They’re Immortal. No matter what I do to them, they’ll be just fine.”

Kiran cursed under his breath and yanked two frustrated hands through his hair. “I
give up.”

“Me too!” I commiserated. “There’s nothing that can be done. I think we’ve established
that. I’m going to go check on O then.”

Jericho stopped my retreat with a yank of my sleeve and huffed out an impatient sigh
that reminded me of Kiran’s vexation with his wife. “There
is
something we can do, Liv. You’re not going anywhere.”

“Ugh! What? What is it that you think I can do that will possibly help me?”

“You can learn to use it.”

I clamped my mouth shut, mostly because he was right. Apparently it wasn’t going anywhere.
I might as well become a little familiar with it. What was that saying?
Keep your friends close and your enemy’s closer
…? This situation might not exactly apply, but this Magic did feel like an enemy.
It felt very much like an imposter struggling to take over my entire body and bend
it to its will.

It was time to fight back.

But first, I had to learn how to use it.

Chapter Five

Jericho

 
 
 
 
Olivia grunted a feral sound of frustration and whipped her head violently to the
side, trying to get her bouncing hair out of her face. I suppressed an amused smile.

Olivia and Eden had been working for a while but my skin still tingled from our failed
attempt at extracting the Magic from her blood. It was like nothing I’d ever felt
before. It was like nothing I ever wanted to feel again. That hurt like a
son of a bitch
.

Kiran walked over to me as Eden explained the electrical current now attached to Liv’s
blood. We watched with macabre curiosity as the girls reluctantly shared the same
space. It was obvious to anyone that Olivia did not want to be here and she was taking
those frustrations out on Eden. Kiran’s jaw clenched with frustration but he remained
silent. Whether it was because Eden could easily take care of herself, or because
Olivia had already been through so much and he was simply granting her grace this
time, I couldn’t be certain, but I was thankful for his silence.

The instinct to protect Olivia was like a burning and consuming fire inside me. I
didn’t exactly trust Kiran to remain benevolent. Eden was his life and he would do
anything to keep her from getting hurt. Likewise, I had been out of the field for
long enough I was itching for a fight. There was a warrior buried inside my casual
demeanor that had been deprived of fight, starved of conflict and vindicating bloodlust.
Kiran and I were matches poised, waiting to be lit. Add in the layer of our past competition
for Eden’s attention and the feelings between us weren’t exactly friendly.
 
There wasn’t any need to provoke that sleeping giant.

Well, it wasn’t exactly like we didn’t get along. More like we simply co-existed.
But there was no lost love between us. That was for damn sure. The silence between
us was the strongest evidence to this.

An hour passed with Eden handing out patient direction and Olivia getting nowhere.
She was frustrated, exhausted and because I was paying such close attention, I could
tell she was also buzzing with the excess energy floating inside her tainted blood.
She was pushing through her irritation, but barely. And her eyes kept drifting to
the huge double doors that would lead her back to her sister.

It was time to intervene.

“Isn’t there a different tactic we can take?” I asked, stepping forward and joining
Eden and Olivia in the middle of the expansive dance floor. “She obviously can’t produce
Magic, and I don’t blame her. This concept is entirely foreign to her, how is she
supposed to
feel
what to do or
let go
of something that feels like an intrusion to begin with?”

“What are you suggesting?” Eden asked, seeming open to any idea at this point.

“Is there a gentle way to force it out of her?” I asked carefully.

“What do you mean, force it out of me?” she demanded. She shot me a betrayed look
and shook her head at my smirk. Her just-below-chin-length blond hair bounced around
her elegant jawline and her big blue eyes grew wide with disbelief.

“I won’t hurt you again,” I promised her. “What I mean, is that whenever Eden’s Magic
exploded out of her, there was usually a reason behind it. She got angry, or really
worked up.
Something
was driving the Magic to need escape.”
 

“I don’t want anything to explode out of me!” Olivia complained, looking somehow determined
and frightened at the same time. She had such a tough exterior but behind those deep
blue eyes was a vulnerable girl that called to some primitive part of me. She had
been through hell, at my people’s hands. I wanted to fix that for her, pay for their
sins, and make up for the unnecessary but lasting trauma she’d suffered. And I didn’t
really understand my pull to this girl. She was human and as soon as we could fix
her she would be gone- back to her human life in her human world.

I wondered if it had anything to do with how unnervingly beautiful I found her. I’d
been through all kinds of girls between Eden and now- enough to forget any kind of
painful past. But I’d never been able to find a girl that could compete with Eden’s
wild black hair and matching depthless eyes. She was beauty personified for me.

Until Olivia.

Her porcelain pale skin, her electric blue eyes and all that shiny golden hair seemed
to step directly out of my fantasies- fantasies I didn’t even know I had until her.
And while half the time we were at each other’s throats thanks to the stress we were
both under, the other half of the time I wanted to drag her back to my room and relieve
the tension between us in an entirely more creative way.

Kiran and I looked at Eden expectantly. She scrunched her dark black curls and cleared
her throat before sending us a sheepish smile.

“The thing is….” she started and then let out a nervous laugh. “Most of my episodes
were brought on by a trigger.”

“Exactly,” I quickly agreed. “We just need to find that for Olivia.”
“Jericho, my trigger was Kiran!” she exclaimed exasperatedly, as if I should have
known that.

Okay, probably I should have known that.

Kiran smirked in that cocky way of his and I rolled my eyes at Liv. She shot me a
confused look, clearly not understanding why I would find that irritating. Where was
Avalon when I needed him?

“So unless there’s an obnoxious, potentially already engaged soul mate wandering the
Citadel grounds, you’re telling me Olivia can’t be triggered?” I asked in disbelief.

“Hey!” Kiran glared at me.

“Really?” I challenged, raising my eyebrows.

His face broke out into a wide grin and he let out an amused chuckle. “Alright, you
can have that one. I was a bit obnoxious.”

“Wait, this Magic is triggered by
love
?” Olivia clarified. Her voice dragged over the word “love” like it was the filthiest,
most disgusting word she had ever heard.

Eden was quick to dispel the idea, “Not necessarily love, per se, but the mixture
of feelings and excitement that come with falling for someone. It’s the easiest trigger
I can think of. Or at least it was for me. Of course… I was sixteen at the time. Anyway,”
she shook her head and quickly moved on. “Is there a boyfriend back home? Or someone
perhaps in this castle you’ve had your eye on?” Her eyebrows waggled while her gaze
shot to me suggestively. I shook my head, scraping a hand over my mouth. Eden was
not known for her tact. “We would use all that delicious tension to, you know, build
some more…. energy inside you. Eventually it won’t have a choice but to escape in
some way.”

“By blowing something up,” Olivia deduced dryly.

“Or setting something on fire.” I offered, helpfully optimistic.

Liv snorted at my attempt to lighten the mood but shook her head, “Nope, my ovaries
went on sabbatical several years ago. The boys back at school are all grade-A douche
nozzles and you guys are basically aliens. Unfortunately I’m not feeling an interplanetary
connection to anyone skulking around your creepy medieval castle while you hold me
and my sister hostage. However, if the Stockholm Syndrome instinct ever kicks in I’ll
shoot you a text.”

Eden found Liv’s sarcasm hilarious. I, however, was strangely wounded- or at least
my vanity was.

“Aliens?” Kiran demanded. “We’re not aliens. We’re just slightly different than humans.
More evolved.”

“Sure, all the humans I know can shoot lightning beams out their fingers and turn
into animals,” she groaned. “Did you say frustration was a big part of your trigger?
I’m starting to feel quite a bit of that. Maybe we can skip the whole butterflies
and rainbows and dwell on all the pissed off rage I’m drowning in?”

Holy hell, she was a spitfire. Strangely instead of feeling any of the annoyed, wounded
pride feelings I should have been feeling, mostly I wanted to kick Eden and Kiran
out and then see how fired up I could really get her. I was quickly becoming obsessed
with all that hot lava simmering under her surface. The way her eyes flashed with
heat or how her full mouth puckered whenever she was annoyed. She was so different
than anything I’d ever known. And human or not she was starting to grow on me in a
way that made me want her to think of myself as more attractive than an alien- at
the very least.

“Sure, we can use that,” Eden laughed. “I remember a lot of that too, at the beginning.”

“So do I,” Kiran muttered.

Eden ignored him and went back to instructing Olivia on letting the electrical feeling
build inside of her. I stepped out of the way, knowing that if anything could motivate
Liv it was anger and frustration.

My cell phone buzzed in my pocket and I pulled it out to check the caller ID. Expecting
Avalon, I was more than surprised to find Talbott calling me. He was with Avalon right
now, but soon they were supposed to part ways. Avalon would return to the castle and
Talbott would stay with Gabriel.

Those two men were the most motivated Immortals on Earth at this point; Talbott to
save his future-bride after she was kidnapped from Omaha last fall at their engagement
party, while he lay unconscious on the floor, helpless to save her; and Gabriel to
rescue his life-long best friend, Silas, who was taken from the same gathering.

The thought made dangerous anger rise in my throat like bile. I would find Terletov
if they couldn’t. I would hunt him down and kill him with my bare hands.

“Hello?”

“Jericho?” Talbott asked. He sounded different- like a hollow version of himself.
Even without being able to see him, even after hearing only my own name I could tell
he was haggard and exhausted by grief. His Romanian accent was thick and dragging,
like it was too much work for him to try speaking English coherently. This was not
the Talbott I knew, the Talbott that greeted me with a smile and laughter only months
ago.

“Yes, what is it, Talbott?” My concern was rising with every second that ticked by.

Kiran turned after hearing his bodyguard’s name and followed me to a remote corner
of the ballroom.

“Avalon is headed back now. We ran into more conflict near the Paraguay border. He’s
bringing Amelia home. I think he plans to stay with her.” His voice was devoid of
emotion- even for Talbott’s standards. He recited facts like he was reading an encyclopedia.
I felt frustrated by my inability to say something comforting. But at this point,
I couldn’t even think of something reassuring to bullshit to him. It was probably
best to ignore the entire sentiment.

“Good, he belongs here,” I answered, hoping that meant I didn’t.

“He should be there tomorrow afternoon.”

“The Paraguay border?” I asked. There was an itch on the back of my neck, under my
skin and out of reach. That was familiar to me. Too familiar.

“We followed a lead back to Peru, through Bolivia.”

“Did you find anything?”

“Nothing but dead bodies and empty facilities,” Talbott sighed.

“How many?” My heart stopped moving in my chest, completely turned to stone by dread.

“At least a hundred and fifty.” Talbott sounded like he was choking on the words.
“Not all Immortals.”

The blood drained rapidly from my face, I felt it flow from my brain to my toes in
a rapid rush of panic, “More humans?”

“A lot more humans.”

“What the hell, Talbott?” I bit out. My vision was washed in red, my hands shaking
with barely controlled rage.

“We’re hunting a ghost, Jericho.” His voice was muffled for a moment and I imagined
him running a hand over his face in frustration. “There is nothing but a trail of
his victims. We’re stuck chasing him while he moves three steps ahead of us.”

“And Lilly?” I asked because I couldn’t help myself, even though I felt like the worst
kind of bastard for bringing her up.

There was silence for a long time, so much so that my head started to hurt from the
pressurized force of it.

Finally, on the end of a drawn out breath he whispered, “Nothing.”

“But no bad news?”

“Just….. nothing.”

The silence came from my end now. I should have known better than to bring her up.
But I had hope for her. The girl had been through much- too much. She knew how to
survive. She’d been surviving her entire life. And hopefully she had Silas.

“I’ll check back tomorrow, when I expect Avalon to arrive,” Talbott said with finality.

I quickly thought over the points of our conversation, just to make sure I got everything
and all my questions were answered when a thought- an out of place, impossible, horrifying
thought- popped into my head.

“Hey, Talbott,” I said before he could hang up. “Did you say you’ve gone from Peru,
to Bolivia and now you’re almost to Paraguay?”

I pulled up a mental map of South America and traveled the same route in my head,
all the way around Brazil.

“Yes,” Talbott sounded just a touch more alert now. This was the soldier in him, the
instinct to pick up a lead.