The Relentless Warrior (20 page)

“Ok,” she gasped. “Later.”

“Later,” I confirmed. And then she walked into her bedroom and shut the door.

Our Magics separated in that moment and the feeling nearly brought me to my knees
it was so acute.

I had a job to do know, a job to finish. But then I would pick this up right where
we left it.

I would pick
her
up right where I left her.

Poor Alexi, he had no idea what kind of motivation I was working with.

He did not stand a chance.

Chapter Sixteen

Olivia

I stared up at the giant insect-like man and felt death creep around the edges of
my body. His exaggerated bug eyes seemed to see every part of me, everything in my
past and in my future. It didn’t matter if I tried to run, it didn’t matter if I stayed
put. He would kill me no matter what.

And after me, my sister.

Ophelia lay in an unconscious heap on the cracked, dry ground behind me. Her body
was limp like usual and her eyes moving rapidly behind her sickly transparent eyelids.

Did it even matter if I sacrificed myself for her?

If the evil creature in front of me didn’t kill her, would she just die anyway?

Those thoughts flitted through my brain as fast as hummingbird wings, mixed with opposing
thoughts that gave me courage, mingled with confusing flashes that gave me hope, and
intertwined with the core-deep feeling that someone I knew would save us both.

I tilted my chin and met the monster’s cold, black stare. I silently dared him to
attack, challenged him with everything that I was. He gazed back, hungry and salivating
with greed. He didn’t care how much resolve I’d found; he would destroy me no matter
what.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

Our world was shaken up by the loud sound. The ground quaked, debris fell from some
unknown place and the half-human, half-super-sized-preying-mantis stumbled.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

And then the hideous creature said my name, “Olivia.”

But it wasn’t his voice.

I sat up in bed, clutching the soft, silky sheets in order to ground myself.

Dream. It was just a dream.

My heart pounded against my ribs and blood rushed in my ears. I sucked in gulping
breaths of air and mentally willed my new Magic to relax. The energy sizzled out from
my body, burning the room in hazy light that looked like a deep purple in the dark
room.

Someone knocked on the door again and this time I yelled out for them to enter.

“Come in,” I croaked in a voice raspy with sleep.

The door slowly opened and light from the hallway spilled in so that I had to cover
my eyes against the brightness.
 

“Liv?” Jericho asked with a voice that he had to force to be gentle. “Hey, sorry.”
He walked all the way in the room and closed the door behind him.

My nerve endings electrified with awareness. We had shared the most intimate kiss
of my life earlier, but why was he here now?

Finishing his kiss?

Or apologizing for the mistake?

“Is everything alright?” I asked because I was a big chicken and I didn’t want to
hear about how he never meant to kiss me or spend so much time with me.

“No,” he answered and my heart leapt from my chest to my throat where I nearly choked
on it. But then he went on. “We learned some pretty disturbing information tonight.
One of our high ranking officials is in some pretty serious danger.”

“What kind of danger?”

“The kind that ends in death.” Jericho sounded flippant, but I could feel his pain
as if it were my own. I didn’t know if this hyperawareness was a side effect of the
whole Magic thing or if Jericho just projected his feelings more than most. I had
always seemed able to read him better than others, but this kind of connection left
me gaping with aching helplessness and desperation. “We’re leaving in ten minutes.
We want to save this situation before… before we can’t.”

I scrambled to my knees on the bed when the physical ache pouring from Jericho became
too much. “But he’s more than a government official, right?”

He nodded. “He’s a very good friend.”

I didn’t need anything more than that. I slid off the bed and flew to his arms in
the next moment. My arms wrapped around his neck and I buried my face in his chest.
He reacted immediately, with arms tightened around my waist.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

He didn’t say anything, just hugged me tighter.

Finally, after moments of just holding onto each other, he pulled back and whispered
into my hair. “We need to get going. Are you alright to pack your own things?”

“I’m fine,” I told him. “I’ll meet you out there.”

He pulled back even farther so that I was forced to look in his dark eyes, mostly
that deep chocolate color. There was no green. I could see that even in the dark.
His face was etched with worry, but when our eyes met he softened just a little.

“We need to talk,” he said. “Not now, but after we get through today, we need to talk.”

“Sure.” I didn’t know how to feel about that. I wanted to talk to, I reminded myself.
Well, maybe I didn’t want to talk. Mostly, I wanted to just pretend like that kiss
never happened. He was too good, that kiss was too world-shattering for me to know
what to do with. I just wanted to go back to my list of things to accomplish before
I became human again. Jericho was seriously messing up the order of my priorities.

“Liv,” he all but growled. “We
will
talk after this is over today. You’re not going to get out of this.”

“I don’t want to get out of it.”

A small smile pulled at the corner of his lips. “Liar.” And then he leaned in and
captured my mouth with his before I could say anything to defend myself. His kiss
was short, sweet and just hot enough to leave me breathless and squirmy. When he pulled
back he seemed much lighter, the severe tension and the heavy hurt had all but receded.
With a tone of complete mystification he said, “You’re eyes have changed. They’re
purple now.”

“Wait, what?” I didn’t understand any of that. Well, in some way I comprehended his
words, but the meaning didn’t make sense to me.

He didn’t explain. Instead he said, “Don’t hate me for thinking they’re super sexy
like this.”

I just shook my head. What could I say to that? I still felt the nagging panic that
my eyes might have changed to a completely unnatural color. He pressed one more kiss
on the top of my head and reminded me to pack quickly and meet him outside.

I shut the door behind him, immediately flipped on the lights and then sprinted to
the en suite bathroom. I blindly grasped for more light switches in there as well.
Once the vanity lights switched on, I gripped the cool granite counter and met the
eyes of someone else.

Purple.

Not blue with a purple tint.

Not so dark blue that you could mistake them for purple.

Straight up purple.

Panic blurred my refined edges, the borders of myself I’d smoothed and sandpapered
to keep my mind from slipping into hysteria. This new reality that I’d been shoved
into had been overwhelming, freaky and seriously strange. But I’d held it together.
I’d forced myself to remain calm and see this out.

I couldn’t let a little change in iris push me over the cliffs of insanity.

This was something small. Something so little compared to my blood electrifying and
my sudden and super-human abilities.

But somehow this made everything more real.

More permanent…

Not to mention my entire body felt empty now that Jericho was out of the room.
What was that about?

This was the second time. The first was after our kiss. We’d gone our separate ways
and my Magic had drained immediately. I felt like I’d slipped into some weird, obsessive
depression. It was like my Magic had a mind of its own and desperately wanted to seek
Jericho’s out again.

It didn’t make sense to me.

But it should be noted, that I was not naturally clingy. The blame could be put entirely
on my Magic. Which I didn’t even want! Not to mention, should it really be
thinking for itself
?

So very many things about what just happened completely freaked me out, I didn’t even
know where to begin! Or what to think about first.

After three more seconds of internally spazzing the hell out, I sucked in a calming
breath and did what I did best in these scenarios; I compartmentalized everything.

I pushed the weirdo, co-dependent Magic into a sealed tight little box and labeled
it:
Ignore for now
. Then I dropped the whole purple eye color development into a slightly less guarded
chest and labeled that one:
Deal with soon
. And then I got my act together.

No matter what was happening with Jericho and me, I respected him enough to want to
help his friend. That meant I needed to pack up and be ready to go when he wanted
to leave.

So I did just that. I quickly washed my face, tied up my short hair with a very high
messy bun, secured it with as many bobby pins as I could find and then threw on some
appropriate travel/mission clothes. By the time I’d gathered up whatever of my possessions
were lying around the room into my borrowed hiking backpack and turned off the lights,
the rest of the household was congregating in the front room.

“Morning, Sunshine,” Sebastian grinned at me when I walked into the room. His eyes
flicked up to the backpack that felt bigger than me and threatened to topple me on
my ass and his grin turned wicked. “You look about to tip over. Need some help?”

I shook my head and wondered if there was somehow a possibility we’d drive by a Starbucks
on our way to the takedown. “I’m tough,” I told Sebastian and then winced when I thought
about my purple eyes.

“I can see that,” Sebastian said sounding serious. He inclined his head toward the
door and I followed him out. “Jericho wants you in his car.” There was an awkward
pause in which he waited for me to explain what was going on between us to which I
kept my mouth shut. If I didn’t even know how to explain it to myself, how could I
explain it to Sebastian? I couldn’t. So I didn’t. “You’re so pocket-sized.” And then
he pushed on my backpack, knocking me off balance.

I stumbled wildly, flailing my arms and straining my back against the heavy weight.
Unconcerned with my surroundings, just hoping to stay upright so I didn’t end up on
the ground like a turtle on his back, I rammed into another warm body.

 
I knew it was Jericho before I even looked. Firstly, my Magic felt whole again, absolutely
and utterly complete. Secondly, his torso, head and muscled arms were so pathetically
ingrained in my memory that it would have been a bigger shock to me if I
didn’t
recognize him.

“You alright?” He asked with a hand stretched out to steady me.

“Fine,” I squeaked.

He cast me a sidelong glance but didn’t argue.

The three of us walked back to the car we arrived in and I tried to ignore the bloodied
and battered man Titus and the two brothers were shoving into the backseat of another
car. The guy they’d kept down in the basement last night looked
bad
. So bad.

My stomach churned and my eyes watered.

I had been a victim of torture not all that long ago and not surprisingly, I’d developed
very strong convictions about the whole thing. As in, it was never okay.
Not ever.

“It had to be done,” Jericho said quietly as if guessing my thoughts. I turned my
face to him and let him explain. “What happened to you was disgusting and in every
sense of the word, wrong. But that man will heal. We did nothing to him that his body
cannot recover from. You were changed in a way that could potentially alter you forever.
What Terletov did to you was selfish, greedy and for his own gain. What we did to
his brother over there was in an effort to save other people. He knew things that
we needed to know. There was one way to get him to talk and we utilized our advantage.
If we wouldn’t have, if we would have let him sit in silence and keep his secrets,
people would die this morning. People I care about.”

I nodded slowly. His reasoning made sense. It wasn’t a pretty answer, and it wasn’t
a morally rich answer. But it was truth. And I could accept his position.

“They still might die if we don’t get going,” Sebastian threw out dryly.

We got to the sedan and I shrugged my pack off to hand to Sebastian. He took the heavy
backpack like it weighed as much as a pillow and tossed it in the trunk next to his
and Jericho’s. Just as I was getting ready to tell him thank you he caught my eye
and took a rushed step forward. He grabbed my forearms to hold me still and gazed
into my eyes with a very tense expression.

“Your eyes are purple,” he announced almost angrily.

Oh, right. “Yep.”

Sebastian glanced at Jericho and then back at me. I could feel Jericho hovering behind
me and even though I expected him to intervene or move us along, he just stood their
silently.

“Did you do this?” Sebastian demanded and I understood right away that even though
he was looking at me, his question was in no way directed at me.

“I’m not sure.” For the first time since I met him, Jericho’s voice sounded small.

I tried to whirl around and deal with Jericho and the way he sounded
guilty
, but Sebastian’s grip on my arms tightened and I couldn’t move. “Olivia,” he said
in a low voice. Jericho put a protective hand on my shoulder but let Sebastian talk.
“You’re changing.”

Feeling uncomfortable by his uncharacteristic intensity, I reverted to my usual way
of dealing with serious issues: sarcasm. “Thanks, Mom. Are you going to explain what
it will be like when I get my first period, too?”

He didn’t even wince at that. His bright brown eyes darkened and his mouth turned
into a steeper frown. His eyes flicked to Jericho and then back to me. “The window
for any kind of reversal is closing fast. Are you ready to live with this?” I didn’t
say anything. I couldn’t. Finally, the gravity of his attitude and harshness of his
words settled over me, and an entire new series of fears started cycling through me.
But Sebastian wasn’t finished yet, “And when I say live with this, I mean live with
this
forever
. Do you understand how long forever is?”

“Sebastian, dude, knock it off.” Jericho no longer sounded nervous. He sounded pissed.
“You’re scaring her,” he growled.

“She needs to be scared, asshole,” Sebastian snapped. “And apparently I’m going to
be the one that has to scare her. Since you obviously it won’t be you.”

Sebastian’s words carried a meaning I didn’t quite understand but I could feel how
important they were, and how unsettled Jericho became because of them.

“I didn’t know her eyes would change.” Jericho’s grip tightened on my shoulder, his
fingers dug into my bone and the heat of his hand spread over my arm, all the way
to my chest.

“You need to stop this until she’s sure.” Sebastian lifted a hand off my forearm and
pointed an angry finger at Jericho. “You need to think about her.”

“I have been thinking about her,” Jericho returned. “You don’t need to worry about
that. But you do need to worry about getting your ass in the car. We’re leaving.
Now
.”

Sebastian stared us down for a good thirty seconds before following the order. I let
out a slow breath after the back passenger door slammed behind him. The air had grown
so thick with the tension between the two guys I had all but frozen in the middle
of their confusing argument.

I looked over my shoulder to gage Jericho’s reaction but he was staring at the back
of Sebastian’s head. His grip on my shoulder was still tight, but he seemed unaware
of holding onto me.

I turned around completely and forced his hand to move. His fingertips slid down my
arm and across my stomach before they came to rest at his side. He looked down at
me with such confusion and indecision in his eyes that his little-lost-boy expression
made my heart hurt. I reached up a hand to cup his jaw but he flinched, cocking his
head back and out of my reach.

“Are you all right?” I whispered as the ache in my chest spread to every finger and
toe, infecting my entire body with anxiety and rejection. I knew his reaction to my
touch was small, insignificant even; but I could feel his Magic withdraw from mine
at the same time he seemed to emotionally shut down right in front of me. He was distancing
us and I didn’t understand why, or why what Sebastian said had affected him so powerfully.

“I’m fine,” he answered flatly. “But we need to get going.”

I nodded and followed his order just like Sebastian. I climbed into the front seat,
which was apparently my place since Sebastian had spread his legs across the entire
backseat. His head tipped back against the glass and his eyes were closed. I imagined
a Do Not Disturb sign across his forehead because that was the message he was sending
out.

Jericho started the car and pulled out of the long drive before I even had a chance
to buckle or calm my racing heart. I hadn’t given myself much time to think about
last night or how kissing Jericho could have a long term effect. But now I was assaulted
by doubts and regrets for my actions.

What had I done?
I had worked to keep Jericho at a distance for a reason. I hated that the one night
I’d dropped

my defenses, he’d managed to break through and pull me into him. I never talked about
my past, and I really never talked about my feelings, unless they were angry ones.
Somehow he’d managed to get me to open up about both.

And then he’d kissed me.