Sleeper_Google, page 34
part #3 of Hunter Series
That was the moment he shoved a sword through my gut.
I fell back to the sand, blood gushing from my abdomen. I put my hand over the wound. Getting gutted really fucking hurts. Warm liquid coated my hand. My own blood. How long would it take for my body to start healing? Would it heal from a heavenly sword?
I wanted to see them. I wanted to see Trent and Gray. I wanted their arms around me so badly in that moment.
What would happen to my dad? Tears blurred my eyesight. I couldn’t give up. If I did, he died and everything he’d gone through would have been for nothing. If I failed, they might all die. Raphael might view my death as his father’s will and the angels could take Jude’s side. I didn’t want to be the chick who caused Armageddon. That was supposed to be the queen’s job.
It’s funny the things that go through your head when you’re dying. Regret. I really regretted that we didn’t do that spell right. We’d given Gladys blood and Donovan had introduced her to Raphael.
Donovan had. Because Gladys belonged to Vampire.
What if Gladys didn’t want to belong to Vampire? What if she resented the fact that she had been stolen and forced into service? What if she wanted her true mistress to claim her? To give her to the warrior?
What if she was a badass bitch of a sword and we had disrespected her by allowing a male to own her?
What had he meant? Raphael had said I came from a long line of warrior women. Felicity said we had once had another name.
I hadn’t fed Gladys properly. Not at all. I hadn’t respected her or myself. I might be the king’s Nex Apparatus but that wasn’t what made me protect this plane. It wasn’t what made me stand in this arena the first time and risk my life for a bunch of people who turned into deer on full moon nights. Being forced into this role hadn’t made me take on a duke of Hell, and it hadn’t truly caused me to pit myself against an angel.
I did that. I did that because something deep inside me couldn’t abide injustice. I did it because I couldn’t do anything else. Because I am Kelsey Owens and I will never back down when I’m needed.
Who was my leader? I didn’t like authority figures, but once my father had followed one. Once my father had thrown aside all ritual and tradition and he’d sworn a blood oath to a companion with no power.
With a groan I rolled to my side, trying to find my sword. I would do better. I would do it right this time. The battle should never have begun because it hadn’t been started properly.
She was there. I reached out and almost had her in my hand when I felt wind rushing over my body.
Jude stood over me, sword in hand. “I’ll send you home, child.”
He raised the sword again and I knew I had one play left in my book.
“Raphael!”
I screamed his name as the sword began to descend.
Chapter Twenty-Two
I waited for the sword to strike. This time it was coming for my heart, and I was certain there would be no healing from that wound. Right before the sword pierced my chest, Jude stopped. His body went completely still and so did the air around me.
“Yes, child?”
Raphael stood above me. From my vantage point the angel looked about ten feet tall. I took in a short breath, trying not to move an inch because while Jude wasn’t pressing that sword down, it was awfully close to my heart. If I lifted up for even a second, I would pierce my own flesh.
“Any way we can have this conversation without a sword pressed to my chest?” I was feeling a bit better so either my healing abilities had kicked in or the whole time-stopping thing was good for blood loss.
He tilted his head and dropped to one knee. “I’m sorry. Without proper reasoning I can’t stop this fight more than I already have. Do you have a confession to make? I will take it, child, though you should know our father already sees you.”
That was good to know. “I don’t want to confess.”
He sighed. “Then we should get on with it.”
“Whoa. I mean I do want to confess. I definitely need to confess.” If it bought me a moment of his time, we could call this whole thing a confession.
His lips quirked up and I wondered how often an archangel got to smile. “Excellent. I am listening, though you know I will have to continue this fight at some point.” He sat down on the sand, crossing his legs and looking relaxed. “But we have some time. They’ll wait for us.”
“I confess I lied to you.”
One brow rose over his right eye. “Really? We haven’t spoken much. I’m not sure what you could have lied about.”
“I lied about the king. He isn’t my master. Not even close. I serve the sword and the sword does not acknowledge the King of all Vampire.” It was a desperate play, but the only one I had. If it didn’t work, that sword was going to take out my heart and then a whole nasty set of dominoes would start to fall.
“Is that how you want to play this?” The question was asked with a hint of menace, as though my day could get worse if I didn’t answer him properly.
“I’m not playing, Raphael. I didn’t realize it until a moment ago. I call myself the Nex Apparatus, but I was forced into this job. The king is a good man, and I don’t mind working with him, but he is not my master. No man is my master.”
“Figured it out, did you?” Raphael asked, the menace gone. “I hoped you would. Will you take back your power?”
I would take back any power I possibly could. “I will.”
“Do you pledge yourself to the sword?”
To the Sword of Light? “Fuck, yeah.”
“Then do things properly this time.” Raphael stood. “I cannot fix you, child, but the Sword of Light might help to hold you together. I can merely send both you and Jude to your corners and allow you another beginning. Do you understand? And do you know what you must do?”
I did. I knew enough about history to figure it out. “Yeah, but her husbands are going to be pissed. I’ll have to take that chance.”
“I think the queen won’t mind. Well, except for the hideous pain, but then she’s known that before.” He clapped his hands.
And I found myself on my feet, yards away from Jude. Gladys hummed happily in my right hand and I kind of held myself together with my left. I watched as Jude’s sword plunged in and found only sand. I heard the confusion of the crowd and I saw Trent putting a hand on Gray’s shoulder, as though letting him know he could look again.
Jude glanced up and scowled as he saw Raphael standing beside me. “What is the meaning of this, brother?”
I kind of stood there bleeding and hoped this was going to work. If I was wrong, this time there would be no coming back.
God, I hoped I was right or I was about to put the queen through something shitty and I would die anyway.
Raphael held up a hand. “It has been pointed out that mistakes were made in the opening ritual of this battle. I seek merely to ensure there is no question of fairness and balance.”
“There was no mistake,” Jude snarled.
Raphael reached out and touched Gladys, his finger skimming over the flat of the blade. “No, there was. The Light has always refused to serve the vampires. She has done her duty, but never served her purpose. She speaks to us, brother. You can hear her, too, and you know she denies that the king is her owner.”
I saw the moment Jude hesitated. It wasn’t more than a tightening around his eyes, but I saw how that fact made him question what he was doing. He’d known I didn’t have full use of the sword. He’d known and not said a word because he didn’t want a fair fight.
He looked me over, taking in the way I was coated in my own blood. He might be able to see through my gut to the other side of the arena. I was a fucking mess.
“Do it, Raphael, and I’ll kill the abomination anyway,” he vowed.
The archangel turned toward the royals. “I’ll ask again, who does the Sword of Light answer to.”
Donovan stood but before he could speak, Zoey Donovan-Quinn was on her feet.
“She belongs to me.” The queen moved quickly. She looked down to Trent, who picked her up and lowered her to the arena floor.
Donovan and Quinn followed, but it was easy to see the queen had figured out our mistake as well. She paid them no heed as she moved toward the archangel.
“I am the Queen of the Companions.” Her voice rang out and I saw more than one woman in the audience stand up as though backing her. Kimberly, Henri’s companion, got to her feet and watched her queen. Liv wasn’t a companion, but she stood, as did Sarah Day. Most of the women of our world stood, though they were not companions. There are so few companions left that I thought it must have felt good for the queen to know how many women stood behind her.
“That is not the proper name for your tribe, Queen Zoey,” Raphael said solemnly, “but I will forgive your ignorance. That knowledge has passed from the plane and times must change. Companion will do. Who do you choose as your champion?” He looked over at me and back to Zoey. “There is still time for you to choose another. This warrior is wounded. I will allow a substitute.”
I was going to argue against that, but Zoey didn’t hesitate.
“Kelsey Owens is now and shall always be my champion, for as long as she chooses.” She moved in front of me. She was wearing jeans and a white silk blouse that was totally going to get ruined. It was all very modern, but in that moment I could see a different Zoey. I could see a warrior queen. “Kelsey Owens, I am your queen. Will you serve me in this?”
As my father had all those years before, I answered her. “I will.”
Jude snorted. “You see how ridiculous they are, Raphael? She is offered the choice of an unwounded warrior and selects the one who is half dead already?”
The queen turned to him. “I would choose a half-dead Kelsey over a fully healed warrior every single time. Her family has always served me with courage, and above all, with faith. I give that faith back to them. She will win this battle. I know it. ”
I hoped she meant that. “That’s not the end of the ritual is it, Raphael?”
“You can’t tell her,” Jude argued.
Raphael stepped back. “I cannot tell them, but I believe the sword will. Follow your instincts. She will inform you.”
“Zoey, I have to…” I began.
The queen reached out and grabbed the blade, letting it slice her hand. Blood began to coat the blade, though Gladys drank it up quickly.
Dev started to reach for his wife, but Donovan held him back.
“Don’t.” Donovan nodded my way as though he knew what I would have to do. “This is woman’s work, Dev. Let her take back the power that was stolen. Let her be the queen she was born to be, the one we love and serve and offer up our lives to. Give this to her.”
Zoey’s eyes met mine and I saw the recognition there. “Is it true? What she’s whispering to me? What we were?”
I nodded because I believed. I believed that somehow this sword had been waiting for us. That she had been captured and kept from her true life because this moment was her purpose. Raphael was right. The truth of our beginnings had passed into legend, but the Light knew. She’d been there when our tribe was born. She’d seen us through wars, but couldn’t save us from enslavement. Zoey had done that, and Gladys was ready to serve another queen, to be the hand of another Hunter champion. “Say it, Queen Zoey. Say what we were. Say what we could be again and then I’ll do what we have to. I’ll do what the sword requires. But name us first. Let all here know our true name.”
Zoey held out her arms as though offering up her body and blood and soul to the cause. “Amazon. We were Amazon. We are Amazon.”
It was what Gladys had tried to tell me every time I held her. She’d hummed in my hand because it had been so long since she’d been fed, since she’d been lovingly fed by her queen. Now the images came fast and furious. The truth of who we’d began as hit me. I could see us training on the banks of the Thermodon, see us bowing to a queen with one breast because she sacrificed when the time came.
As my queen was going to sacrifice for me.
“Do it,” she said, her voice harsh.
“Zoey…” Even Donovan sounded nervous now.
Her eyes never left mine, her will a palpable thing in that moment. “I am your queen and I command you to do your duty. Bring us together. Unleash our power.”
I brought Gladys back and then shoved her straight through the queen’s heart. I kept going until I’d bisected her body and the hilt of the Light was planted firmly in her breast. It was a blow that would kill any human, but my queen was something more. Far more.
My mind flashed with the knowledge of how the vampires first became necessary. Before the vampires, our queen gave her life to win the battle. After we made our deal with the vampires, she didn’t need to die, but we’d made a deal with the devil because it would lead to our oppression.
Zoey looked down and when she looked back up she was grinning, a droplet of blood on the corner of her mouth. “Hold on, Kelsey. This is going to be wild.”
I wasn’t sure what she meant until the world seemed to tremble. At first I thought we were experiencing some sort of earthquake, but when I looked around no one else was moving. They were watching us, all eyes on the crazy chicks with all the blood.
Light flashed out from Zoey’s body. Golden and bright, I felt that light like a crazy, gloriously happy wave shooting into my body, flooding my veins. Gladys was happy, so fucking happy, and she was ready to release all the power she’d gained.
Millennia of power shot into my soul, filling me to the point that I couldn’t contain a scream. It was too much, far too much, but I held on. Zoey reached out even as her body must have been on the verge of death. She reached out and completed the circle our tribe had formed long before on that ancient river. Queen and champion and sword all sworn to protect and defend. We were the warriors of the Earth plane. All that history flooded through me, so much I couldn’t possibly understand it all.
Our history and the blood history that Gladys had gathered. She’d soaked up blood and in doing so, she had taken in the power of those she’d tasted. She didn’t have to kill a being to soak in its strength. Ancient power flowed through my veins and I had hints of monstrous beings. They came from all the planes. Visions of mighty frost giants and an army of red-capped Fae played in my brain. This sword had fought demons and angels and vampires back when they were monsters who frightened everyone who caught sight of them. She’d fought armies of men.
I felt the moment the king’s power struck me. He’d nicked himself once and Gladys had sucked it all down. That tiny bit of blood showed me how damn good it must feel to be Daniel Donovan.
And then I felt him. My wolf. Trent’s easy power rushed over me and I could feel something else. I felt his passion, his devotion. It was there in his blood, or it had somehow transferred through the long hours he’d spent with the blade in his side.
Trent was with me not because Donovan had required it. I wasn’t a job to him. I was his mate and he would die for me.
That meant I was damn straight going to live for him.
A final blast of pure energy hit me, shoving me back away from the queen. The sword came out of her body, somehow staying in my grasp even though I swear I’d lost control of my grip during that moment. Gladys stayed with me and I watched the queen begin to fall back.
She didn’t hit the sand. Donovan was there in the blink of an eye, lifting his wife up and hauling her close. Devinshea ran for the stands, trying to keep up as Donovan rushed toward his box. Before I could take another breath, he had the queen on his lap, feeding her the rich blood that would fix all that damage I’d done.
“It doesn’t matter, abomination. I will still triumph.”
Yeah, fucking Jude was still there, but I wasn’t afraid of him anymore. I was still bleeding, still covered in it, though now the queen’s blood mingled with my own. None of it mattered because I glowed with power. I could see it coming off my skin. It pulsed through me. The only question was which power I should use, which one would win the battle quickly so I could go back to real life.
“Now we are set,” Raphael said. “You may resume your trial, brother.”
He was gone and Jude was obviously not playing anymore. He sideswiped me with that massive wing of his, knocking me over. I turned into a roll, using his own motion against him. He couldn’t shift that wing on a dime and it allowed me access to his back.
I kicked up, wincing and praying my guts stayed where they were supposed to. Something way harder and more insistent than adrenaline was riding me now. The sword moved my hand. I twirled her in a way that would have had my weapons teacher panting. I didn’t have to think. I gave over and let the part of me that fought instinctively merge with Gladys. It was good and right to do it.
This was what I’d been born to do. I wasn’t merely the demon hunter the vamps had turned my kind into. I guarded this plane from all comers. You want to disrupt the balance here, you gotta go through me and my kind.
I kicked out, trying to force him off balance. My foot met the small of his back and I got him to stumble. He hit his knees and I charged. He swept back, his wing catching me again, and then he was in the air.
Fucker. I tried to track him, but he was fast. He soared up to the highest point in the arena and then he was a bullet coming my way. He tucked his wings in and dove. I ran, trying to make myself a harder target, but when I was sure he would hit the ground, he unfurled those wings and caught me up in them. The whole world went white and soft and then I felt that claw scratch deep across my face and I saw blood.
I dropped down and avoided him slitting my throat.
So much blood. Despite all that power, I was getting woozy. My time was going to be up soon.
I held on to Gladys with everything I had.
Jude floated above me, an arrogant look on his face. “I think I only have to wait here for that body of yours to give in. The bodies on this plane are as weak as the souls. You weren’t ready for all that power were you, abomination?”
