Warrior's Rise (18 page)

He smiled and touched her hair. “Why are you embarrassed? Because you swore you’d never let yourself be attracted to me? Because your body is going against your own pride?”

“Something like that,” she muttered. She cast him a sour expression. “Why did it have to be you, of all people?”

He knew the look he gave her much resembled one of the arrogant ones that had gotten him his way with so many other women. He knew it was one she particularly hated. It felt good because, while he was only teasing her, it was a small snippet of his old self, of something familiar, if nothing else. “Because I’m irresistible.”

She rolled her eyes and groaned.

He grinned and lay back on the bed, pulling her with him. He half expected her to sit up and say goodnight, but to his surprise, she positioned herself next to him and rested her head on his chest. He put his arm around her and tangled his fingers in her hair.

“Of her. Of what she’s going to do when she finds my people. My people aren’t warriors. They are peace-loving. They don’t know anything about combat. That arsenal of weapons at the camp, they are for my people if Cyrcinus should attack, but no one knows what to even do with them!” She shook her head. “She’ll kill them all if we don’t surrender. She wants us as slaves again, but if we resist, she won’t hesitate to kill us all. We haven’t fought since she killed all the Alveda d’Kai back when I was a child. We ran. We hid. We’ve been hiding ever since. Only the Alveda d’Kai ever fought. The Avari have always been no better than cowards.”

He hated how disgusted she sounded. “Willow, being a pacifist isn’t the same as being a coward, but your people do have to prepare if attack is inevitable. She’ll never leave you alone if you don’t fight her.”

“I know.”

She sounded so sad and feeble. It tugged at his heart and he found himself saying words he didn’t even understand. “You are mine to protect,” he stated. “Your people are mine to protect. They will be safe. I swear it.”

* * * *

Logan was pulled from his sleep for the second time that night and he glanced down to see Willow still snuggled against him, resting peacefully on his chest. Why she had stayed there, he didn’t know, but he wasn’t going to ask questions either. He couldn’t even remember the last time he had gone to sleep with a woman in his arms. He didn’t tend to stick around when he had an…interlude. Sticking around gave attachment a chance to form and he wasn’t one for that. At least he hadn’t been.

Gently, so as not to disturb her, he moved Willow off of his chest and onto a pillow. She stirred, but didn’t wake up and he got out of bed. He frowned at the eerie, unsettling feeling in his chest and stuffed his feet into his shoes.

The room he was sleeping in was one that maybe would have been a soldier’s bunk, if there had been any soldiers. It wasn’t actually in the main part of the house, but in a room with direct access to the courtyard. He slipped out the door and was startled to see Darien standing in the middle of the courtyard with a sword strapped to his back, looking very at home in the moonlight and fog.

Logan frowned and approached him. “Darien, what are you doing?” he whispered.

Darien looked up at him. “I don’t know. I feel funny. Something’s wrong.”

Logan studied his own uneasy feeling for a moment before he deciphered it with sickening clarity. “Yeah, you’re right.” He looked around warily, then started toward the main gate. “She’s close.”

Logan turned and planted his hand firmly on Darien’s chest, stopping his progress. “You stay here. She doesn’t know about you yet. It’s best if we keep it that way.”

Logan almost grimaced at one: his own stupidity and two: the fact that he didn’t have a clue what to do with a sword. He turned back to Darien anyway and took the weapon he offered him, though it felt awkward and heavy in his hand. He needed his rifle.

Resigning himself to the fact that the sword was all he was going to get at the moment, he turned back and headed out the gate, intent on finding Cyrcinus before she located the Avari village and they all had some serious trouble to contend with.

Chapter Eighteen

A sword should be simple enough. Pointy end went into the other guy. If he remembered that, he should be fine, but it still felt awkward to him as he slipped through the forest, using all of his hunting skills to be stealthy and undetectable. He was using his instincts to guide him, and when his heart started to pound with a surge of adrenaline, he knew he was close.

Sure enough, in a clearing up ahead, he saw the moonlight reflecting off of Cyrcinus’ glistening black hair. He suppressed a snarl and discarded his sword as he walked. He had a serious bone to pick with this woman and he knew he could do a lot more damage with his hands than he could with a cumbersome hunk of steel that he had no idea how to use.

Silently, he stepped into the clearing and approached her while her back was turned. “You never called,
Circe,
” he taunted. “What kind of woman kisses a man like that and then doesn’t call?”

She whirled and rustling in the trees around them let Logan know that she had a sufficient amount of guards accompanying her. No doubt they already had several different kinds of weapons trained on him.

Her eyes widened for a moment. “You’re alive,” she murmured.

He cocked his head and folded his arms, ignoring the men in the trees for the time being. “Yeah, sorry about that.”

Her surprised look morphed into smugness and she stood tall. “So, I take it they told you what you are, then? Too bad. It was fun playing with you when you were clueless.” She began to circle him in a lazy saunter, tapping her chin with her finger. “I find it highly intriguing that you’re still living. Every other Alveda d’Kai died in agony when I administered that poison. Maybe I didn’t give you enough.”

He spun and faced her. “Or maybe I’m just stronger than you thought I was.” He purposely left out Darien. Darien could heal him if anything happened. Logan, however, had no powers of his own. If something happened to Darien, there was no hope. Cyrcinus couldn’t find out about him.

She raised one elegant, ebony eyebrow. “Maybe so…” Her lips slithered into a smile. “There is something to be said for that kind of strength. It could be a great asset to me.”

She gave a sultry laugh. “Come on, dragon warrior. If you were going to kill me, you would have already, and I see you don’t even have a weapon. You wouldn’t be speaking with me at all unless you were interested in negotiating.”

Okay, he hadn’t really thought of it from that angle. He was actually just kind of winging this one in hopes to keep her off the trail of the Avari village. But, now that she brought it up, he may as well go with it. He met her amber eyes. “What are you proposing?”

She smirked. “You are definitely a most extraordinary and unusual Alveda d’Kai to have survived my poison. That means something to me. You see, the fact that you are half human means nothing. It is your dragon warrior heritage that interests me. Decades ago, my people were betrayed by yours and they turned from being our guardians to being that of the Avari. If the Alveda d’Kai were to enter into an…” she waved her hand and raised an eyebrow “…alliance with the Supporo, I might be persuaded to leave the Avari be. Do I want them enslaved again? Yes, of course. It is their rightful place to serve the Supporo, but I would be willing to make the sacrifice if I could produce a strong and powerful heir.”

He blinked. Was she—? Had she just asked him to be the father of her child? He frowned. “You are offering the Avari their freedom if I—”

“Become my mate. Yes.”

A laugh was torn from his throat before he could think better of it. Even
he
wasn’t that desperate.

Her eyes narrowed.

“You really must think you’re something, don’t you, lady?” he taunted. “You may have fooled me once with your feminine wiles, but I have a little bit of a problem with my prospective bride trying to whack me.”

She frowned at his terminology.

“You know,” he drew his finger in a horizontal line across his throat, “try to do me in? Makes it slightly difficult to trust, oh I don’t know, anything you say.”

She laughed again and stepped closer. “Oh, you’re not a stupid man. Even if you act like it. I would hate to think that you would make a stupid decision. Rest assured, this
is
the best course of action. If you refuse me, I
will
attack the Avari, and those who don’t pledge their allegiance to me will be exterminated by my own hand without pause.”

She said it with such gloating arrogance and it made his blood boil. Who did this woman think she was? Reacting before thinking, as he was accustomed to doing, he suddenly found his hand around her throat, pinning her back against a tree and squeezing just enough to make her gasp. It would be so easy to snap her neck. She wasn’t as tough as she thought she was.

The hair rose on the back of his neck. That was why she traveled with a bunch of guards who now surrounded him with their swords poised at him.
Way to go, Logan. Smooth operating, as always.
He loosened his grip on her, but didn’t release her.

She gazed at him with malicious mirth. “Your life means nothing to me, dragon warrior,” she snarled. “My men will slaughter you in an instant if I command it. I’m giving you one more chance to reconsider.”

“Being your mate would be nothing more than being a slave,” he sneered.

She shrugged. “Then you have to ask yourself, which is more important? You being a slave and the Avari people you love being free? Or you being free and the Avari being enslaved?”

Logan thought about what Willow had said. None of her people knew anything about combat. Cyrcinus, obviously, had trained troops. They would be slaughtered in a battle against her forces… Unless the Avari could be taught how to fight, to stand up for what was theirs. He met Cyrcinus’ eyes. There was nothing in them but cold, calculating malevolence. He would be a fool to trust anything that came out of her mouth. His fingers tightened around her throat again and he brought his face closer to hers. “I appreciate the offer,” he all but growled, “but your stench makes me nauseous.” She scowled and he knew his life was over. Going down in a blaze of stupidity. He prepared himself for the many sword blows, but surprisingly, they never came. What did come was a shower of well-aimed arrows that struck each one of the guards in some sort of vital organ. They all fell in a neat pattern, circled around Logan like a display of macabre art.

Cyrcinus’ eyes widened and Logan felt her pulse pick up speed beneath his palm. He turned his eyes back to her and knew his grin was absolutely sinister as his grip tightened even more. “Not so brave now, are you, princess?” he snarled. A fiery pain lanced through his midsection and he gasped, which only made it hurt that much worse. He let go of her and staggered back, then stared in shock at the dagger he saw protruding from his stomach.

Cyrcinus bolted off into the trees and Logan fell to his knees, feeling beads of perspiration break out on his forehead as he tried to fight against the horrible pain. “You have got to be
kidding me
!” he roared.

“Logan!”

Darien burst out into the clearing and flung his bow and quiver of arrows aside as he knelt next to him.

“Nice shooting,” Logan rasped as he forced air into his lungs and eased himself into a sitting position. “Even though I could have sworn I told you to stay back at the village.”

“Well, it looks like my disobedience came in handy, didn’t it,
bro
? What the crap did you do with your sword?”

Logan felt the blood draining from his face and it made him dizzy. “Look, do you think you could lecture me
after
I yank this thing out of my gut?” He closed his eyes and stilled as he gripped the hilt of the dagger and steeled himself. He pulled the dagger free, which created the same fiery, white-hot pain and he let out a rage-filled shout as he flung the dagger aside. “I’ve been assaulted in my subconscious, poisoned,
stabbed
!” He struggled to keep breathing normally as he placed his hand over his wound. “I’m really starting to hate this woman.” He glowered. “And I’m getting
really
pissed off!”

“Logan, here.” Darien moved Logan’s hand and placed his own over his rapidly bleeding wound. He blinked, then looked up at Logan in confusion. “I have no idea how to do this.”

Logan smothered a whimper. “That’s comforting, Darien! Sometime
today
would be nice! Or maybe before I bleed out!”