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I hope you guys get excited for The Relentless Warrior! I cannot wait to tell Jericho's story. I have wanted that boy to find love since. Well... Since I introduced him in Reckless. He is one of my most favorite characters ever written!!
And of course, I couldn't give him just any girl. He needs someone as challenging, headstrong and independent as Eden. Only someone more perfect for him, someone made for him.
Sooo without further ado. Here is Chapter One from The Relentless Warrior.
Chapter One
Stop knocking.
Stop it.
That’s the only thing that ran through my head as I flipped over onto
my back. I squinted at the clock, trying to make out the time: 3:28am. A string
of curses flew out of my mouth in a raspy, tired grumble.
I had been asleep for all of an hour and a half. This just wasn’t fair.
“Jericho, mate, open up!” Sebastian shouted out from the other side of
the door.
More cursing from deep in my chest. Why
me?
“Give me a minute,” I yelled back, the duty side of my brain winning
out over the self-preserving, sleepy side.
I sat up slowly and peered through the darkness for my pants. I had
stumbled in here, utterly and completely bone-tired after another excruciating
and exhausting day. I had started stripping before the door even closed and
lost clothes along the way before collapsing face first onto my claimed guest
bed. Since this was my routine for the last however many days, my floor was an
intricate maze of trails of discarded clothing.
“O’s thrashing about again, Jericho,” Sebastian explained impatiently
through the heavy wooden door. His voice was all refined British gentleman that
belied his mixture of human culture and Immortal. “It looks like another
seizure. Olivia is screaming for you. She’s out of control.”
O. Ophelia. One of the human girls we rescued from Macchu Pichu. She
hadn’t once been conscious since we brought her back to the Citadel, but at
least she stayed alive.
So far.
A week ago she started having these violent seizures that bruised and
battered her body. They lasted anywhere from full hours to sometimes only for a
few seconds. I hoped this was one of her shorter episodes, because they
completely freaked her older sister out. Not that they weren’t scary, even I
could admit they were awful to watch and did not bode well for her condition.
But with each new symptom that decreased Ophelia’s health, her sister became
that much more impossible to handle.
Olivia.
A flood of unpleasant feelings rushed and tumbled my insides.
Frustration. Irritation. Disbelief…. Attraction.
That girl knew exactly how to get under my skin. And it was like she
loved to live there. Right under it, making me feel itchy and irritable and….
off-centered. She was relentless with her demands and issues, constantly
nagging whoever was in charge of watching over Ophelia. And then she brought all
her problems and complaints to me! Like I could be the one to heal her sister….
Or like it was my fault they were here to begin with. Like I was responsible
for all her suffering, for everything they’d been through.
I found some athletic shorts buried underneath yesterday’s leftover
dinner and socks that I was sure were rotting and gave them a long sniff to
make sure they didn’t smell as awful as the socks. I needed to send my clothes
to be washed, but I hated being a guest in the Citadel, let alone using the
servants to carry out my bidding. Even though, technically Avalon was paying them now and servants were now
considered employees, being here brought back all the memories of the evil
Monarchy I fought against for so many years.
And worse, it brought back every repressed and buried recollection of
Eden.
Well, almost all of them.
With a shaky breath and steely determination I pulled on a t-shirt from
a different dirty clothes pile and slipped into some running shoes, not
bothering with searching out socks in this mess. I didn’t bother looking in the
mirror either while I rinsed my mouth out with mouthwash, and then gave myself
the mental pep talk I knew I would need to deal with Olivia for the next….
however long this would take.
I left my bedroom with all the willpower and fortitude I hoped I was
capable of to be patient and understanding and then locked the door to my room
behind me. I wasn’t worried so much about somebody stealing something from me,
more embarrassed of the volcano of destruction I had turned the elegant room
into. I should really use the maid service at this point, but my hesitation had
more to do with embarrassment over the filth I was capable of than resistance
to change. Plus, I was never in there for more than a few hours at a time
anyway. Either Olivia needed to yell at me, Ophelia’s situation was
deteriorating or Avalon was on the phone demanding that I carry out his
bidding.
This Terletov situation had turned into a nightmare. And with Lilly and
Silas still missing, the Kingdom was dissolving into utter chaos seemingly
overnight. Avalon and Amelia were currently campaigning across the globe,
hoping to bring peace and confidence back to our people while Talbott and Gabriel
hunted frantically for our kidnapped loved ones. All the while I was stuck
here, in a claustrophobic, haunted-with-ugly-memories-castle, with an
ex-girlfriend and an angry, bitter human girl that hated me.
“How bad is it?” I asked Sebastian when I realized he waited for me.
“Not as bad as it has been,” he remarked tiredly, pushing off from the
stone castle wall and falling into step with me. “Well at least she wasn’t that
bad when I left her. I wouldn’t have woken you, except….”
“Except Olivia enjoys making me miserable,” I finished for him when he
trailed off. I rubbed my hands over my face in an attempt to wake myself up, a
job my magic was failing at.
“I think she enjoys more than that,” Sebastian intoned suggestively. I
would have hit him if I could have found the energy. Instead I made a
disbelieving grunting noise.
“I need sleep!” I groaned, running rough hands through my hair and
tugging at the roots.
“That you do,” Sebastian agreed as we ambled down the staircase and
through dark corridors to the opposite side of the castle.
After we found the humans on Machu Picchu, Sebastian and I set up a
sick ward in the south tower as soon as we returned to the Citadel so that Gabriel’s
nuns, Olivia and Ophelia could recuperate. The nuns were under the least amount
of strain of the humans, so they didn’t take long for them to heal and get back
to their work in Peru. Olivia also healed quickly, or so she said, although
there were moments when we were together that she was completely freaked out,
like something was still wrong with her. It was clear whatever was left
haunting her, whether painful memories of her time in captivity or injuries
from her torture, the feelings were completely separate from her sister.
Whatever happened with Ophelia left her vocal and angry. Whatever was going on
inside of her, she kept private and quiet. Her reserve had inched deep inside
my curiosity so that I was almost desperate to find out what was bothering her.
As obnoxious as she could be, I felt responsible for her pain and suffering. It
was my people that did this to her, and it was my failure that kept her sister
from getting better.
Damn it all to hell.
Sebastian and I climbed the south stairwell in silence, lost to our own
thoughts. We were put in charge of the Citadel until Kiran and Eden came back,
at which time we were supposed to be relieved of our duties. But now with Lilly
and Silas gone, and Eden pregnant, we were left in a sort of limbo. Eden and
Kiran were back, but not really back at the same time. Somehow, without anyone
ever really making it final, Sebastian and I were put in charge of this sick
ward that now consisted only of Ophelia but was left maintained and stocked for
the unsaid but expected future patients.
Everyone knew without a shadow of a doubt there would be more patients;
it was only a matter of time. My prayers at night were pleading and desperate
that whoever would come through these doors wouldn’t be my friends, my loved
ones. I knew my silent petitions were the worst kind of selfish, but after
watching Olivia grieve her sister, I couldn’t help but beg to God that wouldn’t
be me on my knees, brokering promises with higher deities next to the bed of
someone I cared about.
I had lost too much already to Lucan.
And to Kiran.
“Go easy on her,” Sebastian practically whispered as we neared the top
of the staircase. “She’s exhausted, and she’s been through hell. She’s just
worried about her sister.”
“I know,” I growled in response. As if Sebastian was Mr. Sensitivity.
Plus, where did he get off telling me how to behave? I had been practically
attached to Olivia for two weeks trying to get her through this. “What else do
I need to know?”
“Eden’s in there,” Sebastian said somberly before slipping into the
bedroom where I could hear the bed creaking under Ophelia’s seizing.
My heart stopped.
Damn it, Eden.
I placed a hand against the doorframe to steady myself, and sucked in a
sharp breath. I was over
Eden. Completely
over her. It had been years since we were together, and I was the one that
ended things between us.
So my heart shouldn’t hurt when I was in the same room with her, and my
breath shouldn’t quicken whenever she was around. She was a married woman that
was now pregnant. There was nothing left between us, not even echoes of a love
we shared or kisses we stole.
Still, she was this ethereal creature that occasionally haunted my
dreams and left ragged scars on my wounded heart. I knew she chose the better
man for her. Kiran and Eden were created for each other out of the same mold,
destined for each other since the beginning of time or whatever soul-mates crap
was left to spew in this world. Even Amory had acknowledged the undeniable fate
they shared.
I was just the speed bump along their road to eternal happiness.
Well me and a shitload of other problems.
It was less about still being in love with her and more about wondering
if I would ever recover from the heart lobotomy she performed on me after just
a few short months together. Eden was the kind of supernatural creature legends
were told about, the unearthly being that haunted dreams and drove men to
insanity. When my life was lost and all hope dead and buried, she was the North
Star that pointed me home, the lone light in utter darkness.
And her heart had always, always belonged to another.
I had been a fool to fall for her. And I was still a fool for letting
her affect me.
I finally found the determination to enter the sprawling room that was
usually reserved for regents and cabinet members. Ophelia’s frail frame flopped
stiltedly on her large rumpled bed while a few of Avalon’s Titan Guard tried to
restrain her without hurting her or causing more bruises. She bruised so easily. They weren’t very
successful, but I knew they were as afraid of Olivia’s wrath as I was if
anything happened to her beloved sister.
Olivia was there, sitting on the side of the bed, her deep blue eyes
tired and tear-filled, her hands gripping the sheets so tightly her knuckles
turned white. Her dark blonde hair was pulled up tonight, sitting on top of her
head in a very messy ponytail; not the kind that girls tried to style artfully,
but the kind that made me think she hadn’t touched her hair in at least
twenty-four hours, the kind that was actually messed up. She lifted her eyes
when I entered the room and her sharp gaze caught mine from across the room and
held it.
My lungs lurched in despair after taking her in, my chest contracted
empathetically from her obvious agony. I hated that this human girl was
suffering, that her sister was suffering.
She didn’t deserve this…. hell, nobody deserved this. And even though I
had nothing to do with her initial pain, or how she got involved in this whole
mess to begin with, I couldn’t help but feel the stinging bite of
responsibility. Whether I wanted her or not, I made her my issue and I wouldn’t
rest until her and her sister were tucked safely back home, completely free of
my people and what they did to her.
I tilted my chin, beckoning her closer. She stared me down for a moment
longer with those intense, unnerving blue eyes before fleeing from the bed and
crashing against my chest. The solid thud of our bodies colliding reverberated
through the room above the struggling of her sister. I wrapped my arms around
her instantaneously, even before she was fully pressed against my body and then
held her as tightly to me as I could without crushing her. I knew, from many
nights before, that she needed to feel my heart beat against hers to remind her
that there was still hope, that she needed the warmth of my body to heal her
open wounds and that she needed my strong arms wrapped around her, caging her
in and offering her protection.
She needed me. Nothing else mattered. Not lack of sleep, or keeping a
job that I wasn’t qualified to oversee, not dealing with her outrageous demands
or denying the overwhelming instinct to hunt down this evil for righteous
vengeance that swelled up inside my blood. Even while it shouted and screamed
at me to find my missing friends and extract retribution for all the wrongs
recently done.
Nothing.
“What took you so long?” she sniffed with a muffled voice since her
face was smashed against my chest.
“I was sleeping,” I whispered in her ear, using my most soothing voice.
My hackles rose and inside my head I was eager to defend myself. But I kept my
irritation where it originated and stayed quiet. She needed me and I wasn’t
here, that was the only thing she could understand right now. So I wrapped her
up in my embrace, even closer than before and did my best to make up for my
absence.
“She’ll be alright, Liv. You know she will be.”
“I don’t know that,” she
sniffled, burying her face deeper into my chest. She was tiny against me. At
least eight inches shorter than me, she fit perfectly molded to me; her body
bent to mine naturally. Her hair tickled my jawline as I bent to press a
comforting kiss on the top of her head. We were a bizarre pair, most of the time
we stayed at each other’s throats, spurring the other on to make this situation
better by shouting at each other and barely restraining the urge to rip each
other apart. But there were a few times, like right now, when I knew she needed
me more than breath, when my friendship was all that mattered in the world, in
these moments we became the closest of allies.
“Yes, you do,” I reminded her gently. “She was much worse last night
and she came through it. It’s scary, but she’s strong Liv. And she has you. You
won’t let anything happen to her.”
She shook her head to let me know she agreed with me and snuggled in
deeper. I leaned against the wall to support the force of her. For such a
little thing, she was so strong and not just physically. She was a fighter and
even I could be scared of her at times.
I lifted my gaze to the room, but kept my cheek resting on the top of
her head, because I knew she wanted as much physical contact as possible. She
just needed to be comforted and that nearly broke me. Especially while her
family, her real family and the people that actually cared about her, were
still off in America completely ignorant of their daughter’s struggle for
survival or the hell their children had lived through.
My eyes scanned over Ophelia as her seizing receded and she let out a
strangled whimper before falling still on the bed. The Witch, who had been the
only other constant staple to this room walked over to check her vitals, his
billowing ivory robes flapping behind him. I watched him for only a moment,
familiar with the routine before I scanned the rest of the crowd for Sylvia.
She had been an important addition to the castle recently and not just for Eden
and her well-being but also for Ophelia. Even though it was an Immortal issue,
she understood the human body better than any of us.
My searching stopped when my gaze met Eden’s across the room. Her
thick, insane mess of black hair tumbled over her shoulders and her onyx eyes
glittered with concern. She was breathtaking. And I was afraid she would always
be breathtaking…. that she would literally always steal my breath when she was
near, that I would never recover from her.
A small, curious smile pulled at her full lips and I watched as her
gaze dipped to Olivia’s head in question. I shook my head as if to assure her
it was nothing like that, but she didn’t look convinced, which I found
obnoxious. I had the absurd urge to take Eden aside and assure her there had
been plenty of girls between her and now and that if I wanted Olivia I could
have her. But I didn’t because she was going through something horrible and
that would be insensitive. But obviously, that was irrational. I would sound
contrite and bitter, like I was using those girls to get over her, the Queen.
And what would hurt the most would be that it would sound like the
truth…. That I was just trying to get over her, trying to find someone, anyone
that would replace the dynamite-sized hole in my heart our breakup had created.
For just a minute, or an hour, or however the feeling would last before reality
set back in.
But I still had my pride.
And Olivia. I would never do that to Olivia. Never. There wasn’t
anything physical between us other than the determination to make her sister
better and get her home. For some, unexplainable reason she latched on to me
through this whole ordeal and I would never take that away from her. How could
I when everything else had been ripped out of her arms?
“Who’s that?” Olivia whispered against my chest. I looked down at her
and followed her gaze across the room only to realize she was talking about
Eden.
Eden and Kiran had been back to the Citadel briefly after they were
attacked, but Olivia was still unconscious at that point. They left almost
immediately to escort the nuns back to Peru and have a visit with Gabriel
before he took off to find Silas. From there they spent time with Kiran’s
mother before returning to Romania. Analisa was shut off from the world, recovering
from years of trauma with an abusive, crazy bastard for a husband and hadn’t
heard about Terletov or the new baby.
The golden couple only recently returned to the castle, and apparently
introductions had yet to be made. I looked down at Olivia to answer her
question and almost laughed out loud at the extreme distrust I registered in
her expression.
“That’s the Queen,” I whispered against her disheveled head of matted
hair. “I’m sure she’s here to help.”
Olivia snorted sarcastically and I wasn’t sure if it was because she
didn’t believe there was help for her sister or because she didn’t think Eden
could help. Either way I found her amusing, she was such a firecracker.
“She’s pretty, isn’t she?” Olivia asked, but it didn’t sound like a
compliment.
I made a noncommittal noise and then put some space between us,
suddenly not comfortable with how wrapped up in each other we were with a room
full of people watching us. “Tell me what happened tonight, and how her seizure
started.”
“Only if you promise not to leave again tonight,” she demanded
fiercely. I looked down at her, taking in her steely expression and the way she
pressed her lips together in determination. She was a gorgeous girl, with
perfect skin that heated to a pretty pink when she was angry, pouty lips that
she was constantly mashing together making them bright red and stand out even
further against her softly tanned skin and if it wasn’t for her huge, deep blue
eyes I would have believed that she was completely full of herself. But it was
in those depthless eyes that I saw the myriad of emotions that defined her and
right now she was flooded with fear. Of course I would stay, I was her friend,
or at least her friend during this terrible time in her life. If she needed me
to stay, I would stay.
“I won’t leave you again tonight,” I promised and the terror that was
there before dissipated into the briefest expression of relief.
I was tired and grumpy and completely overwhelmed, but that little bit
of relief, the little bit of stress I just removed from the overwhelming weight
piled on Olivia’s shoulders made certain that sleep was not important.
Olivia needed me.
So excited for more of Jericho's POV!!
ReplyDeleteSo excited for this book!! Great start!! :-D
ReplyDeleteSo excited for this book and the continuation of this series. I love everything I've read from you so far and have been telling all my fellow reader friends about you.
ReplyDeleteAwesome as usual Rachel!! Jericho so needed his voice to be heard...cant wait for the rest :) keep up the FANTASTIC work <3
ReplyDeleteJericho has been one of my favs from the moment he entered the story. Loved the chapter and can hardly wait for the rest! Please hurry! =)
ReplyDeleteLoved it Rach. Thanks for posting it on your blog! Now I can't wait for the book! You rock my world!!!
ReplyDeleteI just found these books and have already read them all!! I am so excited to read about Jericho! I have loved him from the beginning.
ReplyDeleteI have read this series several time & will read them again!!!!!!! I LOVE THEM !!! When does this book come out?
ReplyDelete