The Relentless Warrior (32 page)

Eden gave everyone a meaningful glance and the same instructions. I pushed off the
wall and readied my broken body for a fight, ignoring my various aches and pains.
This might be our only shot to get out of here.

Her fingers tapped against her jeans. One. Two. Three.

The color blue exploded out of her like a thousand indigo smoke bombs at once, dousing
the room in hazy darkness. I inhaled the healing power of the smoke I did not understand
but chose to accept anyway, and went to work.

Guns started going off in every direction, so I dropped to the floor and shot my Magic
out from down here.

I connected with several pairs of feet, and sent them slipping backwards like they’d
just stepped on an electrical banana peel. Once they were down, I could kind of make
them out because the smoke was thinner down here.

I launched myself at the guy nearest me and went to work clawing at his face with
my short fingernails and injecting him with as much Magic as I could. He had a gun
in his hands that we started wrestling for. I couldn’t let him get another shot off.

We were grunting at each other, ripping and punching, our bodies slapped against the
hard floor and every once in a while, the hard metal of the gun would connect with
a sharp smacking sound against the stone. Similar struggles happened everywhere around
us and nobody could tell which side was winning.

A gun went off, followed by a sharp shriek and then the sound of a body dropping to
the ground. Another infusion of blue smoke darkened the room again and I had to assume
helped whoever had taken the bullet.

It was impossible to stay hurt with all the smoke around us, which was both good for
us, but also bad because we couldn’t get the upper hand on the guys who held all the
weapons.

Eden seemed to read my mind because she called out to the room at large, “You have
two seconds to get the upper hand and then I’m taking it back!” With her warning,
I leaned down and bit the guy that I was wrestling with on the neck. I had hoped for
a vampire like feel, but in reality it was more like a mangy dog with how viciously
I grabbed hold of his jugular. Eden called out, “One! Two!”

I tasted blood on the guy’s skin and then the smoke disappeared. The guy beneath me
let go of the gun, surprised by my savage attack. I turned it on him as quickly as
I could and unloaded two shots right into his chest.

He fell limp immediately and I looked up just in time to fire my gun again- straight
into the crotch of another bad guy.

Oops.

I hadn’t really meant to be so cruel, but it just happened to be at my eye level.

The door opened right as we were in the middle of the melee and I turned my gun to
shoot whoever walked through the door. As soon as the body appeared I planned on unloading
the rest of the clip as fast as I could. I didn’t know what was left in the weapon,
but whatever was there would find its way to Terletov’s chest.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a man raising his sword to bring it down on me,
but I forced myself to stay focused on the door.

In just another second…

Jericho.

Oh my goodness, it was Jericho.

I swiveled around and shot at the man just three inches from me. His sword was raised
over his head and I could feel the heat of the blade as it arced down toward me. I
fired the gun at his abdomen and threw myself backwards. I didn’t quite escape the
sweep of the sword tip and it sliced open my own stomach as the bullet ripped a hole
through his. He dropped to the ground and I cursed at the horrifying pain.

I fought against the blinding agony and pushed to my feet, swaying only once I’d gotten
all the way up. I swallowed back the nausea and then opened my eyes just in time to
fight off another attacker.

The room was mass chaos, blood, gore and Magic seemed to be leaking everywhere. My
gaze swung wildly around after laying out another henchman who trained his gun on
me. Bullets whizzed around me and everywhere I turned it seemed I had to dodge another
sword.

My sister pressed into the corner, covering Sylvia with her small body. They appeared
to be going unnoticed so far, but I couldn’t imagine it would stay that way for long.

Swinging back the other way I found Jericho just a few feet away from me, fighting
off three other bad guys. The room had filled with his team, all come to save the
day.

Sebastian, Xander, Xavier, Seraphina and Roxie all expanded our ranks with some serious
fire power and some even worse attitude. They were on a mission.

“Where’s Terletov!” I heard Avalon shout at the newcomers.

“Xander has Alexi!” Jericho called back with a casual shrug of his shoulders. “The
diversion won’t last forever! We should probably get going!”

“You lead!” Avalon commanded him.

“Get me Sylvia and Ophelia first.” Jericho’s gaze met mine and he lifted his eyebrows
in this cocky way that made me feel silly for doubting where he’d been or his ability
to save us. Of course, he would come.

And of course he would put my sister first.

That was just the kind of good guy he was.

I gave him a smile and then mouthed, “We need to talk.”

“I know,” he mouthed back across the fray.

And he did know. I could feel it.

Part of me couldn’t believe I hadn’t realized he was back at the castle the moment
he got here. His Magic was everywhere around mine, completely solidified inside and
outside of mine as a combined entity.

We were united.

We didn’t need marriage, or sex or even more than a few hot make-out sessions. The
intensity of our feelings for each other was so strong that we had come together in
this perfect connection naturally. And as I gazed into his brightly lit green eyes
from across the bedlam between us, I knew…

I loved him.

I did.

I had been falling in love with him for so long now that I hadn’t even noticed I was
already gone.

He had saved me. And not just from acute peril, but from myself.

I had been alive, but not really living. I had been going forward but without direction.
My goals were nothing more than markers to measure progress, but there had been no
feeling behind them, there had been no passion.

Jericho had given me all of that: life, purpose… a future.

I hadn’t known if I wanted this world, or how I would live out this endless existence
and give up my humanity. But that wasn’t the point.

None of that was important because no matter what happened beyond this moment, I didn’t
want to do it, or be it, or live it without Jericho.

Whatever he was, I wanted to be. Wherever he went, I wanted to go. And that was it.
That was the simplicity of love.

But it was everything to me.

Except that this was the absolutely worst place to have this epiphany.

Good thing, Jericho could cover for me.

He appeared in front of me with a knowing half-smile and held out his hand to me.
“Ready, Liv?”

His words pressed down on me as more significant than even this life or death moment.
“Ready.”

“Then let’s go,” he ordered gruffly. “And when we’re safe, we’re finally going to
have that talk.”

“Yes, sir.” Okay, just because I loved him, didn’t mean I had to stop being a smart
ass.

His smile grew, “Introduce me to your sister so she’ll trust me, you mouthy wench.”

Mouthy wench? Brat. Still, I was smiling. I then realized that O was next to us, shaking
from fear and hugging Sylvia. The battle raged around us.

I had to shout to be heard, “O, this is Jericho! Jericho, this is my sister Ophelia!”

“I’m her boyfriend,” Jericho explained as if this was the place to come up with titles.

“Your boyfriend?” O cocked her head back, completely surprised by the news.

“I told you there was a boy,” I grinned at her.

She looked up and down Jericho’s restless frame. He stood before us in all his coiled
muscle, tussled hair, chiseled face and overall sexy glory. She shook her head and
then looked back at me as if she didn’t understand how someone that good looking could
be a real person.

Shaking herself out of it, she said, “Get us out of here alive, and you can have my
approval.”

Jericho shot her a devastating grin. “That’s the plan.”

And then he moved into action. His team surrounded us as if they had this exactly
planned out and cleared a path to the exit. More gunshots and swords clashing sounded
out behind us, but Jericho was pushing us through the door before I could turn around
and assess the damage.

Out in the hallway was more fighting chaos. It seemed some of the Titan Guard had
been freed and there were more of Terletov’s henchman to create quite the battle.

“This way.” Jericho took off, jogging through the darkened corridors as if he knew
exactly where we were going. Which he probably did. He got on a radio and shouted
some instructions to Xander, but then tucked it away and focused on where to lead
us.

After a few fast turns we seemed to be descending into the castle instead of finding
a way out. I forced myself to trust Jericho and his friends, even while nerves continued
to prick at my neck and arms.

“Where’s Eden and Kiran?” Jericho suddenly growled when we’d rounded yet another turn
and stood before a set of stairs that led downward.

Avalon seemed to think really hard about this, like really hard. He stopped in the
middle of the hallway and didn’t say anything, but everybody seemed to be waiting
on his answer.

Finally, he looked up with a horror-stricken face. “They were detained.”

“What do you mean, detained?” Sebastian snapped.

“The Guard fell,” Avalon quickly explained. “There weren’t enough of them. They… he…
he stopped them.” A string of curses came next and then he shook his head violently.
“They want us to go on. He’s… Terletov’s found out about the babies, but Eden’s promised
him his Magic back.”

More cursing spewed from all the men and most of the women around me.

“They want us to go on,” Avalon kept explaining.

There was a way he was communicating with Eden or Kiran right now, that was obvious.
I just didn’t understand how they were talking. Although at this point, it didn’t
really matter. I was far enough into this world, that I knew how often the impossible
happened.

“No,” Sebastian said vehemently. “We’re not leaving them behind.”

“They have a plan,” Avalon growled. “And they cannot be killed.”

“That does not mean we abandon them!” Sebastian shouted back.

Everyone looked around frantically, waiting for us to be found. But it had been quiet
for a while as we descended into the bowels of the castle. I had a feeling that Terletov
and his men didn’t know about this section we were traveling and it gave me hope that
this was a way out.

“Bastion,” Seraphina said softly. “Avalon will always know what’s going on. We won’t
go far. If they need us to come back for them, we will.”

Seraphina’s words seemed to frustrate Sebastian more than anything and he let out
an angry growl. But after a few moments he settled down and turned to Jericho. With
a sarcastic but trusting tone to his voice, he asked, “And what do you think, General?”

Jericho looked at me and then Ophelia, his eyes lingered on Sylvia, and then Angelica
before finally landing on Talbott and Lilly. When he looked back to Sebastian, his
shoulders sagged and I could feel the defeat rolling through his Magic.

“We have to go, Sebastian.” His voice was a harsh rasp that dipped so low it vibrated
through my chest. “We’re too vulnerable. We have to get these people to safety.” He
paused and rubbed his hands over his face. When his hand fell to a side, I snatched
it quickly, squeezing it to give him strength. He looked down at our joined fingers
and he took a deep reassuring breath. “Seraphina’s right. We’ll stay close until we
know for sure that they’re safe. There’s nothing else we can do at this point.”

Sebastian shook his head, but his shoulders sagged, resigned. “Fine,” he snarled.
“Fine, we’ll go.”

And then we went.

We continued down into the depths of the castle. Eventually the lights dimmed and
then disappeared and we used our Magic to light the way.

At one point there was discussion to whether we had to suppress our Magic all together,
which I didn’t totally understand. It was decided, via Avalon and his conversation
with Eden, that Terletov’s men weren’t actively looking for us since they had Eden
and Kiran and so we continued on in the same way.

The passageway eventually narrowed out until we had to squeeze by single file. I never
once let go of Jericho’s hand, letting him pull me along, holding my absolute trust.
My sister was behind me and I held her hand too, until we came to the ladder.

Sebastian and Avalon opened a panel in the floor. I couldn’t see past the heads in
front of me, but basically it looked like a black hole.