Warrior's Rise (7 page)

Making up his mind, he pulled the padlock free and gently pushed the door open. He peered inside, squinting to let his eyes adjust to the sheer blackness of the room. As his vision cleared, he drew in a breath and his eyes widened. Slowly, his lips curved up into a smile as an idea took form. “Oh man…” he whispered. “Jackpot.”

* * * *

“Is anyone else, like…terrified?” Aki questioned and she shoved her shoes on in preparation of the day’s activities.

Darien smirked. “He did seem awfully excited at breakfast, didn’t he?”

Colt rolled his eyes. “So long as we’re not shooting anything, falling out of boats, or hiking to our death, I’m pretty sure we’ll be fine.”

“It was nice of him to apologize yesterday,” Lucy commented absently as she sat on the side of the bed and swung her legs.

Darien gave a thoughtful frown. “Yeah, what did you say to him anyway?”

She looked up at him with an impish smile. “I said a lot of stuff, but the thing that seemed to have the most effect was that he was acting just like your father.”

Darien raised his eyebrows.

She shrugged. “Apparently he had a dad a lot like yours, and I think the comment kind of stung.”

He snorted. “You mean there are other people who have dads like mine? That just goes to show that people shouldn’t procreate.” He sighed. “All right, we ready to go see what kind of new torture he’s invented for us?”

Lucy giggled and jumped up to follow him; the others trailed behind as they headed out to the meadow at the far end of the camp.

“Holy crap!” Colt exclaimed as they approached. He laughed. “Dang! Where did all this come from?”

Darien looked up and arched an eyebrow. Logan was standing with his hands on his hips, looking very pleased with himself, surrounded by several targets and more medieval-style weapons than he’d ever seen. Several swords of all different styles, a double-bladed axe, a spear, and a few longbows with full quivers.

Logan held his arms out and grinned. “You wanted fantasy? What’s better than learning medieval-style combat? Come choose a weapon.”

Doug blinked. “Are you serious?” He bent down and studied the sharp blade of the axe. “This looks really dangerous.”

Logan snorted. “You want to be able to fight trolls, don’t you? Besides, they don’t make authentic medieval weapons anymore. I found all of these in a storage shed. Probably came from some sort of collector’s magazine. Come on, guys! This has to be better than everything else I’ve made you do, right?”

“Totally!” Colt exclaimed, hefting a sword up and swinging it. “This rocks!”

Aki tentatively tried to pick up a sword that was almost as big as she was and the weight of it practically knocked her over.

Logan chuckled and reached out to take the weapon from her. “Better stick to something your size.” He bent down and picked up a set of three small knives. “Here, these are throwing knives.” He pointed to one of the targets. “Why don’t you give it a whirl?” He laughed. “Although, I should have given you a mace. You’re good at wielding things like that.”

Aki laughed and her cheeks turned pink, but she took the knives from him and turned towards the target. She glanced back at Darien.

Darien chuckled and motioned for her to go ahead while he selected a bow and arrow for himself. This was ten times better than anything else they’d done so far. Actually, it was ten times better than most of the activities they’d
ever
done. These weapons looked really authentic. Maybe Logan wasn’t completely awful. When he used his brain, he managed to come up with some really cool ideas.

Aki turned back to the target, stared at it for a second, then rapid-fired all three of the knives like some sort of cracked-out ninja. The first one went flying so far past the target that they’d be lucky if they ever found it again. The second one went flying into a different target off to the side and she accidentally let go of the third one while she’d brought her hand back in preparation, sending it hurtling backwards haphazardly. Colt let out a shout and ducked just as the projectile gave him a haircut.

Darien’s eyes widened.

“Holy crap!” Colt shouted. “What are you doing? Trying to scalp me? This is fantasy camp! Not Indian warrior camp!”

Logan moved over to the confused-looking Aki and gave a forced chuckle. “Okay, yeah, why don’t you just watch for a little while?” He took her by the shoulders and made her take a few steps away from the weapons. He glanced over at Darien. “Why don’t you try?”

Darien arched an eyebrow, but headed over to one of the targets, slinging the quiver of arrows over his shoulder. For some strange reason, it felt good to have them there. The weight of the quiver across his shoulders felt natural, warm… He studied the bow, glanced at the target, then pulled an arrow from the quiver, lined up the shot and fired the arrow dead center.

Darien shrugged. He couldn’t explain how or why he’d known how to shoot the arrows. It just felt natural, like breathing. He’d just…known.

Darien waited till all of his friends were out of the way, then tested the weight of one of the knives in his hand. It only took him a moment before he sent it spinning directly into the center of a different target.

“No way!” Doug breathed in obvious amazement.

Darien smiled and sent the other two after the first in succession. Two more bull’s eyes. His smile turned into a grin and he looked down at his hands. They were tingling. His blood felt like it was rushing through his veins. It was the most exhilarating feeling he’d ever had, kind of felt like when he first kissed somebody. That heady rush of adrenaline that made you feel like you were on fire. He closed his eyes and relished the feel as he fisted and un-fisted his hands.

He snorted. “You kidding me? Look who you’re talking to. Me and ‘sword’ don’t really fall in the same category. I’m a rifle and shotgun type of guy.”

Logan narrowed his eyes at Colt, stared him down for a second, then snatched the spear out of Darien’s hand. He turned to face the target, studied it for a second, then went to launch the spear, but misjudged the weight and whacked himself in the head with the back end of it as he let it fly. Uproarious laughter erupted.

Logan turned to face them all, rubbing the back of his head. He gave them a halfhearted scowl. “Sure, laugh it up,” he grumbled. “It wasn’t your melon you just cracked.”

“
What
is going on here?”

Darien, as well as everyone else, stopped laughing and turned at the angry, demanding voice. He raised his eyebrows as he saw Miss Willow striding in their direction, looking more furious than he had ever seen.

Chapter Seven

Logan opened his mouth to answer her, but she didn’t even give him the chance.

“Where did you get these?” she cried. She came to stand in front of him, her green eyes blazing like they had done in her office the day before.

He frowned. “They were lying in that storage shed thing, collecting dust. Thought the kids might like to give them a whirl.”

She snorted. “Give them a whirl? These are
not
for camp use! Or didn’t the lock on the door clue you in?”

His frown deepened and he folded his arms. “The lock was busted, for your information, and besides, they weren’t doing any good just sitting in there.”

“They were sitting in there because I put them in there!” she shouted. “And they are not meant to be used!”

Okay, Willow was hot. He would give her that much, but he was really getting sick of her yelling at him. He scowled. “Then why did you decide to stash them at a
kids’ camp
?” he roared. He took a small amount of satisfaction in the fact that she seemed taken aback by his ferocious response. It was only a momentary satisfaction because she recovered quickly.

“These weapons are dangerous!” she yelled. “They’re not toys!” She shook her head and gave him a deadly glower. “I don’t care what the judge says. I want you out of my camp within the hour.” She started to stride away.

“But nothing happened!” Colt protested. “No one got hurt! It was actually a really cool lesson! Darien smoked us all! Look at all the bull’s eyes he hit!”

She spun on her heel. “I don’t care how many of anything any of you hit! Someone could have gotten hurt!” She turned her furious eyes back to Logan. “What kind of an idiot thinks that it’s okay to just let children play with deadly weapons?”

Darien shook his head. “Whoa, wait a second,” he said. “First of all, last time I checked, we weren’t three and knew not to run with scissors. Second, he actually put together a really decent lesson. You can’t just sack him for no reason.”

“What? You’re defending him now? Just yesterday you were
demanding
that I get rid of him!”

Logan was having a difficult time wrapping his mind around why Willow was so enraged. He could understand being concerned. He could even understand being upset, but in his opinion, she was overreacting on an amazing level.

“He apologized to us!” Aki joined in.

Willow snorted. “Well, great. I’m happy for you. I don’t care.” She looked back up at Logan. “I have had enough of your shenanigans and enough of your careless attitude. All your presence is causing here is chaos and mayhem and I
will not have it!
” Her emerald eyes turned to a dark, smoldering jade. “I want you gone.”

He frowned. “I just can’t win with you, can I?” he exclaimed. “First, I’m a jerk because I don’t want to be here and I’m making the kids do activities they don’t want to do. Then I’m a jerk for actually trying? What do you want from me?”

“Simple,” she all but growled. “I want you out of here.”

Logan watched her walk away. Her back was stiff and her fingers were bunched into fists. He frowned. Something was seriously up. He rolled his eyes. “Fine, whatever. The less time I have to be around you, the better off everyone is gonna be,” he snapped.

“Dang it, I didn’t even get to try the bow and arrow,” Lucy’s disappointed voice came.

“Here, just take one shot while her back is turned,” Colt said. “What’s she gonna do? Fire you too?”

Logan ran over in his mind the way the weapons had been stored in that structure. They’d all been hanging, like they’d each had their own proper place. It had been more like an armory than anything else. Why would any normal human store a bunch of medieval weapons like that? It was weird. And if she had no intention of letting the kids use them, or even see them, why were they there?

Right as he was about to start after her and continue the confrontation, a searing pain split through his shoulder and he swore it had caught fire. He smothered a roar of pain and looked down.