Warrior Rising (2 page)

Marie walked closer. She realized her movements were unnaturally smooth and silent and might alarm the couple in the bed, but she didn't care. She would never have to care about such things again.

“I’ll open the safe for you,” John offered, his voice shaking with age and with fear. “There’s no reason for anyone here to be hurt. We don’t have much, but you’re welcome to it. Just… take what you want and go.”

She smiled. Now that she knew there
was
a safe, she didn’t need him to open it. Access would be easy enough, and additional wealth was always welcome.

Marie glanced at one of her soldiers; at the moment she couldn’t remember his name, and didn’t care. “Drain them,” she said calmly, and then she watched as her soldiers did as she commanded. They made surprisingly little mess as they drank their fill. The Honeycutts died without much fuss, too old and weak to put up a good fight.

Once the previous owners of her new house were disposed of, Marie turned to her soldiers and commanded, “Bring me a man. Someone young, and pretty. And clothes.” She wiped two fingers at a spot of blood on her left sleeve. The blood didn’t bother her; the scent of Chloe Fallon’s death still gave her a silent little thrill. But her gown was sticky, and she had to present a regal appearance.

Her soldiers left to do as she had ordered. While they were gone, Marie took a few minutes to explore the house. It wasn’t a castle, but it would do for now. She located a comfortable red velvet wing chair in the formal living room, and sat, spreading her bloody gown around her. In the silence of the house her thoughts rapidly returned to the night’s events and the anger she’d been holding at bay surged forward.

It was bad enough that she hadn’t been able to convince Luca to join her, but for Sorin to betray her, for her right hand man to turn on her… it was unthinkable. How
could
he? Of all the vampires she’d chosen to fight with her, he was the one she’d trusted most. Sorin had always seen first to his own self-interest, and it was clearly in the best interest of every vampire to be able to feed at will, to have free access to the human sanctuaries. But he’d turned on her, had chosen to ally himself with Luca. She would make him pay, and pay dearly, so all who saw would understand what became of those who betrayed her.

When the soldier returned with a suitably pretty young man she rose to her feet and smiled at her obedient child, and at the terrified boy who couldn’t be much more than twenty. He wore blue jeans and ridiculously brightly colored tennis shoes. His t-shirt, too large and badly wrinkled, bore the logo for a band she had never heard of. But his face was handsome, in a clueless sort of way, and his blond hair was well styled. He hadn’t come from his bed, he’d been out at this late hour. Drugs or alcohol or both might account for part of the dullness in his eyes. The rest, the rest was fear.

She showed him her fangs, and before she could touch the pretty boy, he fainted.

He would awaken soon enough, and she would soothe him. She would make more of her own soldiers, to add to those who already followed her. A soldier of her own making would never turn on her, would never betray her.

The boy regained consciousness, swimming back to reality. He looked around, his eyes wide with fear and confusion. As soon as his eyes reached her she smiled, without displaying her fangs this time, and the young man relaxed. She caught his gaze with hers and delved deeply into his brain, seizing control. “Come here, pretty.”

He did.

CHAPTER ONE

Chaos ruled. He should be thrilled.

Sorin paced the cellar hallway where the night before an epic battle had taken place. An itch danced up his spine, the same itch he always got when everything was about to go to shit around him. What the hell was he doing here? It wasn't his war, though for a time he'd believed it was. He should go —
now
. He should get out of here and let the other idiots fight the battles still to come. His mouth twisted wryly as he realized he’d just called himself an idiot, but if the shoe fit… yeah, he needed to leave. He wasn’t necessary for this war.

Proof of that was in the number of Immortal Warriors who were now roaming the mansion along with Luca, his newly turned woman, and a handful — a very small handful — of vampires who didn’t want what Marie wanted: complete rule over the human world.

There had been a time when he'd been right there with her. He was older, stronger, better than any human. Why should he hide? There was no logic in the inferior race — humans — being the ones in charge and making the rules. He didn't deal well with rules, never had. Centuries of hiding who and what he was had shredded his patience. He brooded over the recent decisions he'd made, wondering what the hell had come over him.

Nevada, the little red-haired witch, had to have cast a spell on him. Long before she’d touched his face and instructed him to remember, she'd ruined him. Otherwise why would he have spared Phillip Stargel, the child conduit? So what if he was a child with Down syndrome? He was still a conduit, and Sorin should have taken care of business. But he hadn’t. If there was no spell, why else would he have abandoned the cause and fought alongside that damn Luca Ambrus?

Moreover, why hadn’t he killed Nevada when he’d been ordered to do so?

A witch’s spell explained it all. But — damn it! He couldn't use that excuse. He wanted to, but he couldn't. He'd grown fond of Nevada long before she'd developed her witch skills to the point where she could cast even a simple spell. Her delicate scent reminded him of his mortal daughter, dead hundreds of years ago, but his memory of her smell came roaring back when he was around Nevada.

Maybe Nevada had hidden her skill for a long time, stalling them when she could have removed the sanctuary spell weeks, months ago, before the Warriors could come through in sufficient numbers to put up a good fight. He should confront her. But not now. Nevada had a difficult job ahead of her and she needed to focus her considerable talents on reinstating the sanctuary spell.

Those were words he had never thought would pass through his brain. He’d cursed that spell for hundreds of years, and he should rejoice that it had fallen. Without it, he could go into any human home at any time and feed whenever he was hungry. He wouldn't have to scheme and hide and wipe away evidence of his existence. At the moment, though, he felt no joy. Perhaps, after all these years, he was going soft.

No fucking way.

“You should stop that senseless pacing and save some of your energy for fighting your queen.”

He turned and gave the Warrior — Indikaiya — a narrow-eyed look. Now, there was a woman. Tall, strong, a face like an ancient queen, with a thick blond braid that was long enough to bounce against her very curvy ass. What was the saying?
They don’t make them like that anymore.
No, indeed they didn’t.

He had the feeling she was keeping watch on him, because he couldn’t imagine she enjoyed his company. She was sitting on the floor with her back against the wall, slowly running a cloth up and down the gleaming blade of her sword. Indikaiya’s voice was both soft and hard, the voice of a woman who would do what she had to do, regardless, who would take on any adversary if she deemed the fight worth it. She didn't trust him and he returned the sentiment. She’d as soon kill him as look at him, and only the twisted circumstances had landed them on the same side. At least for now. It remained to be seen if the uneasy alliance of vampires and Warriors would hold.

He flashed what would have been a charming smile if he hadn’t extended his fangs. “She isn’t my queen.”

“Any longer,” Indikaiya added, verbally jabbing at him. “A day ago, she was.”

“A day ago she
thought
she was. Now she knows differently.” Maybe he’d have stayed with the rebellion, but the odds were he’d have walked away. Marie’s ego was hard to take for any length of time, and when she’d needlessly killed Jonas, that had pretty much done it for him. He didn’t suffer fools gladly, and that had been a foolish act. Not only that, he didn’t like to lose.

The war wouldn’t be an easy one, but now that the Warriors had joined with Luca and the humans, his instinct was that they would tip the balance of fate against Marie. Marie was an incredibly powerful vampire, a blood born like Luca, but though she had studied warfare and strategy, she hadn’t been steeped in battle for centuries the way the Warriors had been. Or Luca, for that matter. The vampires following her rightly feared her, and some of them were powerful in their own right, but again, were they as experienced as the Warriors? He didn’t think so.

Perhaps he should be noble enough to be true to his chosen side, to truly believe in what he was fighting for, but nobility was a fine sentiment for people who had the luxury of safety and stability. Since he’d been turned vampire, he’d had to fight for his existence, and nobility took a back seat to survival. To survive, he’d had to become powerful in his own right, to look at the world with clear, pitiless vision and make his decisions based on what was best for
him.

And yet here he was.

“You had your share of responsibility in bringing about this war,” Indikaiya said, her tone cool and even.

He studied her, not rising to her bait. She had — all of them had — been drenched in blood from the battles that had been fought in this house. At least he’d had his own clothes here to change into, and he’d loaned Indikaiya one of his shirts on a devilish impulse, because he knew she wouldn’t take even a handkerchief from him, had she any other choice. She was also wearing a pair of poor Jonas’s trousers. Neither shirt nor pants fit her well, but she didn’t seem to mind.

Why should she? Indikaiya was a Warrior. She could be dressed head to toe in
haute couture
and she would still look other-worldly. It was her bearing, the feral beauty of her strong-boned, sculpted face, the weapons she wore or carried or wielded that marked her as
more
.

Much as he wanted to, he couldn’t argue with her. He’d followed Marie for far too long. He had been a part of bringing her and her rebellion to this point.

Sorin had killed conduits to stop them from bringing in their Warriors. He’d kidnapped Nevada, and he had taken her family as well, in order to force her to cooperate. No, he couldn’t plead innocence. He
had
followed Marie, even when he had his doubts about her decisions.

He shrugged and changed the subject. “Tell me about this place you come from. This… other world.”

She gave him another of those cool, scornful, regal looks that told him without words exactly what she thought of him. A finely shaped eyebrow twitched and rose. “Why?” she asked. “It is a place for heroes. You will never see it.”

He winked at her, hoping he could annoy her out of her coolness. “I’ll probably never see Disneyland either, but I don’t mind hearing from someone who’s taken a spin in the Teacups.”

Her expression was one of puzzlement. Of course it was; he might as well have been speaking a foreign language. Indikaiya wasn’t of this time. Even in borrowed clothes, instead of the short leather shift she’d been wearing when she’d crossed the plane into this world, she was different. She continued to wear two daggers strapped to her waist, and sensible short boots that had seen better days. Jonas’s boots. Her face was free of makeup, but why would a Warrior worry about something like that? Probably she’d never worn it, even in her earthly life. Not that she needed any, not with that bone structure. Didn’t Warriors watch this world, always alert for danger? If she had, she hadn’t paid any attention to the current slang or modern culture.

He could relate. Now and then he caught himself slipping into phrasing from long ago times, manners from another century. It was the price of living so long, a price he had never minded paying.

“Humor me,” he said, taking a step closer to her.

Her eyes flashed a warning, telling him to give her room. Gracefully, effortlessly, she rose to her feet with that sword in her hand, ready for an attack.

“Why should I?” If she could, would she have stepped back to maintain the space between them? He didn’t think so. Warriors didn’t retreat. The only reason she would step away would be to get enough room to swing the sword.

“I’m curious.” He was curious about a lot of things, and he was vaguely surprised to find one of those things was… her. He’d never met a female Warrior before. Truth to tell, he’d always tried to avoid the bastards. Warrior or not, she wasn’t like any woman he had ever known before, and he’d known a lot of women, both biblically and otherwise.

“Satisfy your curiosity some other way. We should go to the meeting now.”

Ah yes, the meeting, where the uneasy alliance of vampires, Warriors, and humans tried to form some sort of organized resistance to Marie’s savage attacks.

“Luca can run the meeting. I don’t give a shit.” He said it flatly, because he was still so royally pissed at himself, at Marie, at Nevada, at this whole damn rat’s nest.

Her voice sharp with impatience, she said, “So you don’t care about the red-haired witch? Killing her would be the obvious way to reinstate the sanctuary spell, as she so foolishly tied the spell to her heartbeat. Some of the others, both Warrior and human, think that sacrificing her would be acceptable, as it would instantly reinstate the sanctuary spell and prevent countless vampires from entering human homes. Those of us who are against the plan are in the minority. I thought you might want to have a say in the matter.”

“Why should I care?”

“I don’t know, but obviously you do.” Her gaze was shrewd; she’d noticed the protectiveness he felt toward Nevada, though he’d tried hard not to betray it.

Because it’s my fault she’s here,
he thought savagely. Nevada’s scent reminded him of his daughter, Diera. Damn her, Nevada had made him remember what it was like to be human. She made him remember what it was like to live and love, to be loved. She’d slipped into his head and he couldn’t shake out what she’d planted there.

Shit. Now he had to argue for Nevada’s life. The irony was unmistakable. He’d killed so many humans over the years, but now he had to protect her. Why her? Why now?