The Relentless Warrior (31 page)

But there was a very important point he’d overlooked.

While he, in his own words, was born and bred a statesman, an aristocrat with the
ability to sway masses and follow royal orders. He’s sat behind a desk or in front
of a crowd his entire life. He threw money at causes and funded uprisings.

But he had never really
fought
for what he believed in.

Not once.

On the other hand, my training was born on a battlefield, my position gained and secured
through blood, sweat and loss.

I wasn’t a politician. I was a soldier.

And I knew how to fight for what I wanted.

When I finally engaged my father, it was pathetically easy. All my life I had this
image of him of being something he wasn’t. I had believed that he was strong, relentless…
ruthless.

But in the end he was weak.

And I took his Magic before he put up much of a fight.

I started pulling on a force that had been with me since birth. I didn’t have the
ability to sense other people’s Magic, but there were certain energy fields that would
always be familiar to me, like my parents.

It nearly killed me to watch him realize what I was doing. His dark eyes grew big,
his mouth twisted first with frustration then with painful realization. The handcuffs
dropped to the floor, clattering against the polished wood.

He tried to talk to me, but the effort to hold onto his Magic kept his words from
anything more than grunts and curses.

He fell to one knee and I nearly lost my resolve. His hulking, towering frame rattled
with the effort to stay upright and then he jerked to one knee like Goliath before
David. I sucked in a steadying breath and continued to pull.

His arm reached out to me, pleading,
begging
me to stop, but I couldn’t. I was beyond sympathy and compassion. This wasn’t exactly
what he deserved; I couldn’t be the judge of that. It wasn’t my place. But this was
what he had brought our relationship to.

If I didn’t stop him, then he would stop me.

The most frustrating part was that this was so unnecessary. He could have retired
with grace. He could have stayed here and lived out the end of his life in a satisfying
way.

But he couldn’t stay out of it.

He couldn’t even keep his racism and prejudice to himself. Instead, he had to join
up with the worst kind of evil and plot and plan until it was impossible to forgive
him, or save him.

He was beyond me, in the same kind of way I had to assume I was beyond him.

The tables could easily be switched and I could be lying on the ground, grasping for
breath, clutching at my chest, cursing my own blood, but he underestimated me.

To his own peril.

“This is where we’re different, Dad,” I knelt down when the last of his Magic had
been absorbed into mine. My body felt heavy with grief and my heart cracked open from
the job I just completed. “We might both be statesmen, but I wasn’t born this way.
I became what I am today through combat, through blood. You’re a politician.
I’m a warrior
.”

He was on all fours, barely able to hold the weight of his body. His labored breathing
came out in ragged gasps; his limbs trembled with the effort to sustain his hulking,
weakened frame. When he lifted his usually perfectly groomed head, his hair was wild
and his eyes panicked and pale.

“You’re too late,” he wheezed with a sinister smile. “Terletov has the Citadel.”

The weight pressing against my back tripled at his words. So worried about his schemes
and evil deeds, he couldn’t care less about what was happening between us.

Obviously, we grew apart over the last several years. Even before Lucan fell, we’d
parted ways. I couldn’t support him while I fought for a new regime. Yet, in all these
years, I tried to persuade him to see truth, to see justice.

And in that same amount of time he’d tried to convince me of the opposite. But never
before had I realized the extent of his prejudice or how deep his belief system went.

“I’ve fought for that Citadel before,” I growled in pure frustration. “Terletov won’t
be able to hold it. Not for long.”

“Your gaze is too narrow,” he gasped. “You don’t see the larger plan.”

“Dad.” My voice sounded hauntingly sad, even to my own ears. “You’re going to die.
Doesn’t that mean something to you?”

“I fought for a good cause.” He shook his head as if agreeing with himself. “I did
my part. There is nothing else that matters to me.”

“Not even me?” I asked because I couldn’t stop myself.

A weak laugh fell out of him and he collapsed onto the ground. With all the energy
he had left he rolled over and held his hands to his rattling chest.

“You failed me since the moment you were born,” he confessed. “I wanted a strong son.
I wanted a son that would carry out my legacy and serve his family with honor. Instead…”
he sucked in a tortured breath. “Instead, I got you.”

Those words should have shattered me. That deathbed confession should have splintered
me into a million insecure, disappointed, fragmented pieces.

Instead, I felt empowered.

“And I got you,” I growled before I took the last bit of Magic he owned. There was
nothing left of him. Now he was the shallow shell he’d tried to make me into with
his words.

His body contracted violently with the loss of life in his blood. His back arched
awkwardly and his limbs bent in stiff, tightened angles. His face contorted with pain
but he didn’t look at me. He kept his stare fixated on anything in the room but me.

And I felt… nothing.

Not yet, anyway.

Shock, possibly. But maybe there weren’t any lingering emotions to feel. Maybe whatever
familial connection we shared had been severed years ago.

Maybe we had always been fighting on opposite sides of the war. No, not maybe. Definitely.

There would be sorrow that came later, there would be pain and grief; I knew that.
But right now I just needed to get to Olivia. I could deal with the rest later.

“He’ll kill me,” my dad rasped when I moved to leave him.

“Maybe not,” I shrugged. “I’ve heard he has all these new techniques for exchanging
Magic.”

“He won’t…” His voice was nothing more than a strangled whisper. “I’ve let him down.”

“Then at least you’ll die for the cause you believe in,” I called over my shoulder.

Outside of the house, I could finally breathe again. I leaned against the siding and
rubbed my hands against my face.
Holy shit, what a day.
 

The air was cleaner out here and I sucked it in with gulping breaths. My dad. My freaking
dad betrayed me.

And all this time…

No, now wasn’t the time to worry about this.

I walked to the end of the driveway, thinking I would have to grab a cab. My parents
would have cars in their garages, but I just couldn’t bring myself to take something
of theirs.

Not ever again.

A cab would be a little difficult to find this far from the civilization though. The
estate wasn’t exactly close to city limits.

Turned out I didn’t need to worry about any of that. Just as I reached the end of
the driveway, Sebastian pulled up in a sleek, black Hummer, containing the team I’d
sent for.

This was the first thing to go right in days, maybe weeks.

Xander rolled down the window in the front passenger’s seat and cocked an eyebrow
at me, “What’s going on?”

Where to even start, “The Citadel fell. Terletov took it over an hour ago.”

I felt the atmosphere in the Hummer shift dramatically as the information rolled over
them like an ocean wave.

Sebastian leaned forward and demanded, “What are we doing here?”

“This wasn’t meant for you guys.” I shrugged, trying to keep my anger in check. “My
dad used this to get me out of there. He didn’t know I would call you in.”

“Analisa? Your mom?”

“They’re taken,” I confirmed. “But I don’t know where.” I glanced back at the house,
wondering if he would give me that information if I asked… or applied pressure.

I shook my head, knowing he wouldn’t.

“So what do you want to do?” he pressed. “Go after them or back to the Citadel?”

“Is there really a choice?” I pulled open the back door and Seraphina and Roxie scooted
over so I could jump in. “I don’t know where to start with Analisa. I’m not sure my
mom is in any danger. But I know where to find Olivia.”

“Olivia?” Sebastian snapped.

“We’re good, Dude,” I told him. “Now get me back to her.”

“And your Kings and Queens, right?” Xavier didn’t even try to hide his amusement.

“Sure, them too.”

“This is going to be a hell of a fight,” Sebastian sighed. “But I guess your dad did
us a favor in getting us out of there, yeah?”

I didn’t even know how to respond to that. Was it a favor? Could we have done something
to stop Terletov? Or was the Citadel changing hands inevitable?

I wondered if I could trust his information to begin with, but when we tried getting
in touch with anyone that should be inside, we were all unsuccessful. The faint tether
to Olivia’s Magic I held seemed to weaken and strain with every passing moment.

My father hadn’t lied about the Romanian castle.

But had he also saved me? Had he also given me an opportunity to save those inside?

I didn’t-
couldn’t
- believe that he did it on purpose. But Sebastian was right; we were the only hope
now.

“We need to prioritize,” Xander spoke up. “We don’t know how many men he has, we’ve
never known. But I don’t think it’s a small number if he took the castle.”

“So it’s more important we get people out then try to take the Citadel back,” Roxie
agreed.

“How did he even get in?” Seraphina practically glittered with anger. I had always
held a fair amount of doubts for that girl, but it was moments like this when she
seemed as dedicated to this cause as any of us.

“The tunnel?” Xavier guessed.

We sat in silence because none of us could answer her question.

“How are we going to get in?” Roxie asked the more important question.

“The same way we always do,” I answered, grinning. At least I knew that we couldn’t
be stopped. Breaking into and out of the Citadel was basically like breathing for
all of us.

Terletov had no idea what he was up against.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Olivia

That horrified screaming sound… that couldn’t be me, could it?

Could it?

But then my lungs felt the ungodly burning and fissures of pain pierced and stabbed
at every nerve ending. As consciousness slowly seeped back into my addled brain, I
realized my body convulsed on the ground like an out-of-water fish and my mouth was
wrenched open to allow for the deafening shrieks that were falling out of me.

The pain lessoned just a smidge and I forced my body into submission.

It was one thing to be tortured.

Another thing entirely to act like a total wuss about it.

I would not scream again.
I wouldn’t.

That resolve lasted for all of two seconds before the sword cut into my side again.

“Stop!” Eden screamed over me. “Stop hurting her!”

Over the last few weeks I’d seen the damage one of these Immortal swords could do
to someone. With even a small prick, their Immortal bodies were helpless against the
damage. Lilly was a perfect example of how one small cut could mean life or death.

Except when it came to me.

The special bonding that Terletov had forced on me confirmed all my doubts that the
Magic was reversible. And he kept slicing me open just to prove his freaking point.

I was getting sick and tired of it
.

The blade slowly slid out of my kidneys- maybe… kidney-ish area- and my hands flew
to the rapidly healing wound. My blood vehemently rejected the idea that Magic would
leave my body and decided to punish me for the effort.

“Do you see now?” Terletov’s malicious voice called out over me. I rolled to my back
with my hands still pressed against my agonized flesh so I could see his face hover
above me. A droplet of sweat rolled down his forehead to the tip of his nose before
jumping off to splat in the crevice of my neck.

Ick.

“What a gigantic douche you are?” I wheezed. “Yes, we all see.”

He kicked me in my wounded side and I gritted my teeth so hard I expected them to
all crack down the center.

But I did not scream.

“Do you see now what I will do if you do not comply?” he snarled at Eden. “Give me
my Magic back so that I can stop this.”

“No!” I shouted, determined to be the biggest pain in the ass I could be.

We’d been here for hours. The Castle had been divided into those Terletov wanted to
manipulate and those he needed to control. All of Jericho’s friends stood against
a wall, facing me. They were held at sword point, beaten to some degree and looking
a little bit nervous.

The tension in the room had broken just a little bit after Terletov initially stabbed
me with the sword. I thought they all assumed I would die. Eden’s blue smoke had immediately
surrounded me until I was both choking on the heaviness and sucking it in for comfort.

After repeated target practice on all my major organs though, the room had relaxed…
a little. I wouldn’t die, so that was good. But I would be forced to suffer unending
pain in front of them.

I hadn’t been his first choice, but it seemed the rest of the group was more than
willing to die for their cause- although most of them couldn’t die either.

Kiran, Eden, Amelia and Avalon all shared some unbreakable Magic that was just as
strong as mine. Lilly was worthless to Terletov and seemed already on the brink of
death. Talbott had eagerly expressed that if Lilly were to die, he would be more than
happy to follow her. Angelica and Titus were more than willing to volunteer as martyrs.
And Sylvia and Ophelia had been held back as a last resort. Terletov’s evil stare
had flickered to my sister a few times, but I had a feeling he would use me to my
full potential before he started in on my sister.

Plus, I think over the last week, I’d pissed him off the most.

I wanted to explain to him that these people didn’t really know me and could probably
care less, but Eden’s agonized scream made me second guess that statement.

Besides, I wasn’t exactly in a place where I could speak at the moment- you know,
with the constant gasping for breath and whimpering going on.

“I can’t give you your Magic back!” Eden screamed at him. “That’s not how it works!”

“Eden,” Kiran bit out. “Enough.”

Terletov stepped over me, hardly acknowledging my presence prostrate before him. His
shiny, polished shoes took careful steps to Eden. As soon as he was close enough,
he placed a hand around her throat. She didn’t flinch and she didn’t react, she just
left her hands at her side and shot Kiran a warning glance.

“How does it work then?” Terletov’s voice was grating fingernails against a chalkboard,
sharp as razors.

“Let them go, and I will give it to you.”

“I’m not letting them go,” Terletov laughed. “Do you see what I’ve done? Do you see
how
 
easily I’ve taken your precious Citadel?” He looked around while maintaining his
grip on Eden’s delicate neck. “Do you know that we’ve needed a permanent place for
a while? Your hunting parties seem very adept at finding us just minutes too late.
We had to stop risking that, being found while we were in the middle of our… experiments.
We need a stable place to set up our research facilities. And this will do quite nicely.”
I could see his mouth tip up into a satisfied smirk from my position on the floor.
“So no, your people will not be going anywhere. In fifteen minutes, in fact, you will
prepare a statement to your Kingdom and advise them of the change in leadership.”

“It’s the middle of the night,” Kiran drawled. “I doubt anyone will be paying attention.”

This seemed to frustrate Terletov more than anything else that had happened since
we were herded in here. He released Eden with a mighty shove and she slammed against
the stone wall before she could get control of her body. Her head smacked against
the hard surface and her hands flew to her stomach protectively.

Kiran reacted before I could suck in a surprised gasp. He attacked Terletov with his
bare hands, tackling him to the ground. Terletov’s nose broke open with a satisfying
crunch of bones underneath Kiran’s fist. Kiran continued to pummel Terletov’s face
even when the monster pulled the sword and sunk it into Kiran’s side.

Kiran barely seemed to notice, his fists never slowed down, his aggression never weakened.

“You don’t touch my wife,” he screamed in his enemy’s face.

Eventually Terletov’s men intervened and pulled Kiran back- it took no less than seven
armed men.

Terletov stood up slowly and brushed the fight from his trousers as if they were stray
crumbs. I cringed at the blood flowing freely from his face, even as he began to heal
in front of my eyes.

I stole a glance at O and noticed she was leaned against Sylvia as if she were on
the verge of fainting. I felt bad that this was the day she decided to wake up.

I was glad she was conscious again, but what a welcome. Yeesh.

After patting at his face with a handkerchief, Terletov took several moments to calm
down.

“Your father would be so disappointed in you,” he spit out. “Look at you. Look at
you defend her. You’re nothing but a lapdog to traitors of the Crown.” Avalon took
a step forward at this and Amelia tugged on his arm, anxious to hold him back. “Do
you know that he and I worked together to capture her? Did you know that he invited
me to that dinner specifically to take her out of here?” I didn’t exactly follow what
they were talking about, but I struggled to sit up and listen. “He wanted her gone,
away from you. He saw how she was destroying the Kingdom he fought for, fought to
keep, fought to strengthen. And he wanted her to disappear.”

“He didn’t approve of you either,” Eden hissed. “And you didn’t approve of him. I
remember that you were disappointed with his weakness.”

Terletov chuckled and nodded easily, “Yes, that is true. But the enemy of my enemy
is my friend and all that.”

“Is that why he let you go?” Kiran laughed bitterly. “We’ve thought you escaped this
whole time.”

“Of course he let me go. Why would he keep me? I carried out his plan.”

“Almost,” Eden reminded him gently. “You
almost
carried out his plan.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Terletov growled. I had to assume that Lucan’s plan had been
to kill Eden, or something, from the soft taunting way she reminded him that she was
still very much alive. “I’ve done something he couldn’t. The Kingdom is now mine,
the Citadel is now mine and soon my own Magic will be mine. There will be no end then.
We will eradicate the Shifter problem for good and by doing so we will create as many
of these super Immortals as I want to.”

“Immortal humans,” I panted on the way to my feet.

“What?” he snapped, returning his attention to me with no small amount of reluctance.

“We’re Immortal humans,” I explained patiently. “Not super Immortals. That sounds
stupid.”

The Throne room held at least thirty of Terletov’s men and only eleven of us and Lilly
didn’t count. It was hard to see a way out of this and still my thoughts drifted to
Jericho. He would come back eventually, and then what? Would he walk in here, right
into their trap? Would he fight to save me?

What if he didn’t?

Or what if he did and didn’t make it?

He wasn’t like the rest of us in the room. The four members of royalty were the True
Immortals, Jericho explained before and I didn’t think Ophelia was in much danger
of losing her life either.

But Jericho didn’t have that forever guarantee.

He could die.

“Make that up on your own, did you?” Terletov leered at me.

I was standing now, pressed against a stone wall for support. I could feel my body
rapidly heeling, but I couldn’t stand by myself yet. My limbs shook, my spine wanted
to crumble in on itself and my brain wasn’t quite working at full speed yet.

Every once in a while a flash of pain would vibrate through my body so violently that
my vision would black out for just a moment.
This sucked.

“Er, the Gypsy lady,” I told him. It felt strange calling her a “queen” in front of
Terletov. I couldn’t exactly place my hesitation, except that maybe I hoped to protect
her by not associating with a title Terletov would covet. Not that he wanted to be
a queen… but the royalty moniker in general.

“Ileana?” he laughed at me. “They took you to see the ancient Gypsy?”

“No,” I said honestly. “She came to see me.”

“And what did she say to you?” he demanded. “Tell me what she said.”

Okay, so Jericho and his friends weren’t the only ones that took her “prophecy” seriously.
“Riddles mostly. I didn’t understand what she was talking about.”

“Don’t lie, Olivia,” he growled at me. “I do not forgive liars.”

“Well, maybe this will make sense to you then,” I snapped because I was actually being
truthful with him. “She told me not to fall in love with Sebastian. We talked about
The Twelfth Night; you know, the Shakespeare play. And then she called me an Immortal
human and Ophelia a human Immortal. So there you go, you can figure it out.”

“Sebastian is who Olivia falls in love with in the play,” Terletov pointed out.

“Duh.”
I know, real mature.

“She is… strange,” he finally conceded.

“I know.”

“Where is Sebastian Cartier?” Terletov’s shrewd gaze swung to the royalty pressed
together on the other wall like a criminal line up.

“He went out for a bit. We were out of milk,” Eden answered with a straight face.

Before Terletov’s head could explode, a knock on the door pulled his attention. One
of his slightly greenish men opened the door and gestured for him to join him in the
hall. Terletov looked us over for another moment and then marched from the room.

I instantly relaxed against the wall I had propped myself on. It wasn’t that we were
alone now; the aggressive guard stood carefully on watch all around us. But Terletov’s
energy was especially insidious and I couldn’t help but breathe easier with his absence.

I met my sister’s gaze across the room and gave her a reassuring smile. She lifted
her eyebrows until they disappeared behind her swooping blonde bangs. Sylvia put her
arm around O and that seemed to relax her some, but not much.

Kiran and Eden whispering to each other drew my attention back to them and I watched
silently while they seemed to form some kind of plan. Eden lifted her eyes and met
my curious stare.

She mouthed, “On three,” and then looked pointedly at the men that were holding swords
and guns. When she returned her focus to me, she mouthed, “Don’t get hit.” And then
made a gun with her fingers.

Right, don’t get shot. It didn’t matter what kind of Immortal you were, those bullets
put you down for the count. I could at least be positive I was not entirely immune
to those.