Warrior's Rise (11 page)

He gave a decisive nod. “Fine.”

“But I’m sleeping on the floor. You’re the one who’s injured.” She grabbed her pillow and a blanket and followed him out into the living room. She lay down and listened as Logan got situated on his cot. She waited until she knew he was sleeping, then flung the covers back and stood, going to her couch where she pulled a long, sharp sword out from underneath it. She sat down and set the blade across her legs, adrenaline making her entire body tingle.

She would wait out the night there.

Chapter Ten

Willow stared down at Logan, studying him while he slept. Thank goodness it was morning. That had been the longest night of her life. She welcomed daylight. Cyrcinus wouldn’t try anything in the daytime when bunches of kids were running around the camp.

Even in his sleep Logan looked troubled. His brow was slightly furrowed and the hard line of his jaw seemed clenched. She wasn’t surprised. Poor man. She actually felt sorry for him. Not only had he been shot in the arm with an arrow, but he’d been the victim of an attack on his subconscious. That was something Supporo did to Avari, or other enemies. It was not something commonly practiced on human beings… But then, for some reason, Cyrcinus didn’t think Logan
was
a human being. She thought he was Alveda d’Kai. Why? Had she seen the mark Lucy had drawn on him? No, she knew the Alveda d’Kai well enough to know that the mark only appeared when the warrior was in an intense emotional state, and didn’t tend to show up in blue ink. There was some other reason… And what in the world had caused Logan to react so strangely to Cyrcinus’ attack? His eyes… She had never seen anyone look like that before. He’d growled. It had almost been frightening.

She frowned as she thought of her brother. He’d seen something in Logan that had reminded him of a warrior. Had he meant dragon warrior? How would he know? The Alveda d’Kai had been eradicated during the rule of their father. She had been ten years old. Tiyenen had only been six. The only dragon warrior he would remember was an old, crippled man who had died ten years ago. Something strange was going on. She needed to go home. She needed to talk to her brother.

Her attention snapped back to Logan as she heard him shift and let out a sigh. His eyes fluttered open and he glanced up at her with a startled frown. She smiled and held her hand up in greeting. “Just me.”

His frown deepened and he sat up. “What are you watching me for?” he grumbled. He put his head in his hands and tangled his fingers in his hair. “Man, my head still hurts.” He looked up at her with a start. “Are you okay? Were you okay last night?”

Her heart warmed at his concern. All right, the man was obnoxious, but he wasn’t a total waste of a person. “I’m fine, Logan,” she said. “Everything is fine.”

She gave a soft laugh at the fact that he kept referring to his head as a melon. It made a picture of him with a watermelon on his shoulders keep flashing through her mind. “Sure.” She went into the kitchen.

She studied him for a second longer, then went to go pour him a cup of coffee. “I have to go somewhere,” she said, “but I’ll be back by tonight. You’re welcome to use my shower if you want. Just please lock up when you’re finished.” She added the cream and sugar and went back over to him, handing him the mug.

He took it and looked up at her. “You mean you trust me in your house all by myself?”

She raised an eyebrow at his dry, sarcastic tone. “Well, you were just about ready to slaughter an invisible woman who wanted to kill me last night so I figure you’re pretty safe.” She smirked. He gave a soft chuckle, but she noticed that his smile seemed stretched and forced. “You should take it easy today,” she suggested. “Maybe have the kids participate in whatever activity one of the other counselors has planned.”

He waved her words away. “I’m fine. Once my headache goes away, I’ll be good as new. I think maybe I just had some sort of weird reaction to those pain pills the doctor gave me.”

Overconfident, overbearing Logan Savage sounded so unsure when he said that statement that her heart twinged. She had no idea what it would be like for a human’s mind to be attacked like that. Had Cyrcinus done any kind of permanent damage? She
had
to talk to Tiyenen. “All right, well I’m going to go,” she said. “Please take it easy today, Logan.”

He glanced up at her and smirked. “Concerned over little ol’ me?”

She met his eyes. “You tried to protect me against a nightmare while you had an arrow hole in your arm. That was pretty decent of you.” She arched an eyebrow.

He gave a dry chuckle. “Yeah, well, regardless of what you think of me, I have more substance than your average degenerate.”

Her lips turned up slightly. “I’ll see you tonight.”

He gave a halfhearted wave and she slipped out the door. She was to her car and all but tearing out of the camp parking lot within record time. Her heart was thrumming against her ribcage with adrenaline. Something inside of her was screaming that everything she knew was about to change, that war was imminent. She had spent almost all of her adult life hiding from Cyrcinus, keeping her people hidden, traveling and living in both the fairy world and the human world. Now, Cyrcinus had found her hiding place in the human realm. It wouldn’t be long before she located the Avari tribe in the fairy realm as well.

In a short span of time, Willow had driven from the camp to the Oregon Vortex, a tourist attraction full of strange phenomena and electromagnetic activity, a whirlpool of force and energy. The Native Americans had referred to it as forbidden ground, and the entire area was full of optical illusions and unusual occurrence. Some people thought it was a hoax. Other people thought it had something to do with aliens. Only Willow knew what it, and other vortexes around the country, actually happened to be.

It was too early for tours to begin and she was thankful for that. Trying to slip undetected past a hundred or so people with cameras was difficult. She went up to the gate and knocked on the window of the guard station. She waved and the guard smiled, motioning her inside, hardly looking up from his paper.

Willow plunged past the gate and inside the vortex, getting the strange, motion-sick feeling she was accustomed to as she traveled deeper. She went to the tree at the entry point, touched it, and stepped past it, immediately emerging into her own realm. With no time to spare, she jogged the small stretch of forest between the portal and her home. As she came upon the Avari village nestled amongst the trees, her heart warmed. People were going about their daily routines and stopped when they saw her, gasping and bowing in respect and reverence. She wished she could speak to all of them, but she didn’t have time. She had to find Tiyenen.

“Sis!”

She came to a dead stop and wheeled around at her brother’s voice. She spotted him standing in a pod of young, attractive women, all batting their lashes and trying to give him gifts. She rolled her eyes. Of course. Her brother was almost as much of a womanizer as Logan. It didn’t help that he was part of the royal family. That made his appeal go up by about ten notches to most of the women.

“She attacked Logan. She called him ‘dragon warrior.’” Tiyenen paled and Willow frowned. “Something strange is going on, isn’t it?”

“Of course I do. It was horrible. I was only a little girl, but I remember it like it happened yesterday. She killed all of them except for Hokan.”

He nodded. “Because he was old and crippled and not a threat.” He shook his head. “But there was one more, Willow. One more dragon warrior who ran away out of cowardice.”

She blinked at him in bewilderment. “What?”

He took her by the elbow. “Come on. I was going to come see you in a few days and tell you this, but since you’re here and asking, now is as good a time as any.”

Willow went with her brother, intrigued, but strangely apprehensive. She got the unsettling feeling that everything in her world was about to change.

* * * *

Logan paced restlessly around his cabin for several minutes, scowling at nothing. He’d cleaned up the mess left from the leak and vowed that he was going to fix the roof so that this wouldn’t happen again. Although, sleeping in Willow’s house had been far from torture.

Pain stabbed through his head, then retreated as quickly as it had come. He winced and let out a frustrated sigh. He felt so weird.

His entire life he’d always felt like he didn’t fit. It was why he’d always put on such a brash bravado, to make himself fit. It was a complete and total lie. He’d lied to everyone around him and he’d lied to himself. He’d lied to himself so well that he’d actually believed his own deception. Now, suddenly, it was like the false personality he’d put on himself had been stripped away by some sort of hidden, lurking who knows what that decided it was sick of being in the shadows. It made absolutely no sense and he had no idea where it had come from. Had it been Willow telling him he was basically worthless? Had it been a bunch of kids calling him a loser and then freely forgiving him when they had no reason to? Had it been a little girl giving him flowers and forcing him to look into the darkest part of his soul? Or had it been some whacked-out dream that had felt so real he still shivered when he thought about it? Nothing made any sense whatsoever all of a sudden and all he could hear was that woman’s voice.
You’re next, dragon warrior…
What the crap was all that about anyway? And why did his heart do somersaults every time he remembered it?

He turned on his heel and paced some more, his mind running at high speed. His father had taught him to feel next to nothing, to never let anything bother him, to be strong, solid, cold. That was how he’d lived his life. No real attachments. No real commitments. If he kept everything superficial, he’d never have to feel anything. Now he felt like some part of him that he’d locked away years ago was wreaking havoc on all of that. He’d always felt a strange restlessness within him, for his whole life, lurking beneath the surface, waiting to pounce. He’d never had any idea what it was. He’d always ignored it by indulging in excess. Drinking, carousing, general debauchery. It had given him momentary peace, like a temporary high. Now it was back and raging with a vengeance. And he just kept hearing that woman’s voice…

Lucy.
He stopped pacing as her name popped into his head without warning. She knew all about dragon warriors. They were her obsession… He felt ridiculous for even thinking it, but maybe if he knew more about the myth he would be able to decipher his dream. Otherwise, it was just going to slowly drive him insane.

Making up his mind, he turned and left his cabin, heading over to the kids’.

Chapter Eleven

“His name was Rory and he was from the Alveda d’Kai tribe of the Three Rivers,” Tiyenen said as Willow followed him through the gate and into the royal house of the Avari, her home. “When Cyrcinus mass murdered all of the Alveda d’Kai, he ran while everyone else tried to fight. He somehow managed to escape into the human realm.”

Willow frowned and grabbed Tiyenen’s elbow, turning him to face her while they came to a stop inside the main hall.

“Lady Avaris, you’ve returned!”

She glanced over to see three guards bowing. Two at the main door and one at the entrance of the corridor that led to the dining hall and bedrooms. She forced a smile. “For a short while. Please, I wish to speak with my brother in confidence.” They nodded and filed out. Willow turned back to Tiyenen. “Why did we not know about this?”

Tiyenen sighed. “It was a great disgrace to everyone that Rory abandoned his people, and abandoned the Avari as well. He became dead to everyone; no one spoke his name again. Even when I spoke to Elder Ember, he was reluctant to talk about it.”

“Was that all he said?”

“Yes, but that’s not all I know. Elder Ember said that, the last he’d heard from an Avari informant in the human world, Rory had adopted the name Rory Rivers and was living as a human. I went into the human realm and did a little research.”

Willow’s eyes widened. “You went out into the human realm? T!” She shot a worried glance at his pointed ears, bedecked with several hoops in both lobes and one at the top of his right ear that were anything but inconspicuous.

He rolled his eyes. “Relax, Willow. I wore a hat. Come on, I’m not that stupid.”