Release (The Protector Book 3) (18 page)

“I think you’re being a little hard on yourself.”

“You are welcome to your opinion, but you know that isn’t true,” Tiki said, taking a deep breath. “I spent years in search of myself then, until I finally met Krulear. She fed me and gave me guidance, allowing me to travel with her. After several years she offered to see for me. She tasted my blood and saw my future. She told me I would have the opportunity for redemption. The walls to the Earth dimension would fall, and from that, a hunter would invade my world. That hunter is you, Chase.”

“You think I’m your redemption?”

“I know you are. I do not know why we met when we did. I do not know how we met like we did. I have been teleporting from dimension to dimension for centuries, and I have never heard of this happening. It is fate that we came together, Chase. You can argue your logic should you so choose, but fate has no logic.”

“I…” My voice trailed off and I was at a loss for words. I couldn’t argue with Tiki, and part of me didn’t want to. This was the first time he’d had ever opened up to me. Granted, it was the first time I had tried to get him to, but regardless, I didn’t want to spoil it.

“I see a lot of my former self in you, Chase. But in you I see a hope that did not exist in me. I pray to the gods that I am able to help you in a way nobody could have ever helped me. I don’t wish you to experience what I did. I don’t wish that loss on anyone.” Tiki turned to face me and his face was still, but I could see a sadness in his eyes that hadn’t been there before. “If you’ll excuse me, I must get my rest.”

“Tiki…”

“Goodnight, Chase Williams.” Tiki walked past me, his bare feet silent against the hardwood floor.

“Goodnight,” I whispered.

My eyes were lost in the fading embers of the fire. Tiki’s story played out in my mind and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t envision him as angry or arrogant. The Tiki he spoke of seemed like an impossibility to me, but I saw the look on his face, and I knew Tiki wouldn’t lie.

I tried to imagine what he had gone through and what it might feel like, but I couldn’t. I thought my exile was horrible. Being the son of an infamous hunter was the bane of my existence. I was hunted by the Underworld and mercilessly killed any demon that crossed my path.

Even now, having seen that the world didn’t exist in only black and white, I held my own opinions above everyone else’s. I too reacted with only emotion and look where it had gotten me. My mother was dead, Willy was missing, and the family that had built itself around me was starting to fall apart.

Now I was asking them all to travel to a world full of creatures more powerful than them—than all of us. I wanted them to risk their lives to fulfill a prophecy I was a part of—even though we didn’t know what that prophecy was—and they would. Each of them was prepared to fight and battle their way through the unknown.

Tiki was right; I was the Protector, and as such, it was my duty to ensure they all remained safe. I wasn’t so naïve as to think I could do this alone—I knew I couldn’t. But what I could do was make sure I wasn’t working against them. When I needed help, I had to ask for it. And when push came to shove, I had to make decisions
with
them, not for them. This wasn’t about me, it was about us. We were all in this now and there was only one way out of it, and that was together.

Chapter 17

I closed the door to my room and Rai chirped wildly from her open cage. I reached in and stroked her feathers. A low purring came from her throat and she nibbled gently at my fingers. Light flashed in her eyes, and from where I was standing, it almost looked as if she was smiling.

I fell onto my bed and stared up at the clean, white ceiling. I had stared at it so many times over the past few months, and still I wasn’t used to it. This ceiling represented the fact I was no longer in my old apartment; it also meant my mother was gone.

That image of her charred body lying motionless in the blue and red grass of Drakar formed in my mind. The waves crashed around us, the wind blew, and lightning flashed in the sky. I had put all my magic into her that night, trying to bring her back, but I was too late. My careless, erratic anger got her killed and I couldn’t change that, but I could stop it from happening to anyone else.

The image shattered as I heard a soft knock and my door creaked open. Rayna slipped inside and quietly closed the door behind her.

“Hi…” she whispered. She stood in front of the door in black pajama pants and a long-sleeved pink t-shirt. Her hair was pinned up in a golden clip, the red strands swallowed by black.

“Is everything okay?” I asked, pushing myself up and resting against the headboard.

“Yeah…” she said, sitting on the edge of the bed. “No, not really. I was hoping we could talk.”

“Of course. I’ve been wanting to since I got back, but things have been a little crazy.”

“That’s an understatement.” Rayna took a deep breath and turned to face me on the bed. “I wanted to apologize for how I behaved today. It was immature and I…I don’t know what got into me. I’m letting everything with us, and Jonathan, and Riley get under my skin.”

“It’s fine. There’s—”

“No, it’s not fine. Jonathan has been reaching out to me, but ever since I first shifted with him, I’ve ignored him. I always wanted to meet my father, and now that I have, it’s just…not how I envisioned it.”

“It’s going to take time, Rayna. You’ve survived a lot of years without him, and suddenly he’s just back in your life and he wants to be involved. That’s a big adjustment. As for everything else, well, it’s not like we’ve had a chance to breathe. We’re all just pushing forward the best we can.”

“No,” Rayna said. “I haven’t been. Karissa was right. I’ve been horrible and rude to her, and it
is
because I’m jealous. I know we talked and everything else needs to come first, but ever since then, things have been weird between us. I didn’t have anyone to talk to anymore besides Tiki, and well, you know how that can be.”

I laughed. “Talking with Tiki is sometimes more work than relaxing, but you know I’m always here.” I reached out and covered her hand with mine. “And maybe I was too quick to pull the trigger. Maybe everything else doesn’t need to come first…”

Long eyelashes lowered as Rayna blinked and her cat eyes looked into mine. “What?”

“I mean what if this is the end? What if I can’t beat Riley, then what? We’re—”

“Chase, how can you say that? You
will
beat him.
We
will…”

“I’m just saying in the off chance that we don’t, I don’t want to…be gone and never have told you how I feel.”

Rayna’s lips parted but she held back whatever she wanted to say. Her eyes searched my face and I curled my fingers around her hand.

“I care about you. I don’t know why I said we should focus on everything else.”

“It makes sense, Chase. I wasn’t trying to say it didn’t. We do need to focus on Riley and the Brothers. We don’t need to have our judgment clouded with…distractions.”

I shook my head. “You’re not a distraction. If it wasn’t for you, I’d be dead in an alley somewhere and some Underworlder would be carrying my head around like a trophy. I’ve been on the run ever since I was exiled, and what was happening between us was new to me. My nerves were a mess and I was quick to back out.”

Rayna didn’t respond. Her eyes fell away from me and her fingers played with the edge of the blanket.

“Before you, I was angry at the world. You showed me what it was like to let someone in and taught me what it was like to trust. When I lost the most important person in my life, you reminded me what it was like to feel. You need to know that if we go after Riley, or he comes back, and I don’t make it—”

“Stop saying that!”

“We need to be realistic here. We’re not winning this fight right now, and I’m not saying we won’t, but it’s an uphill battle. I’m not some invincible warrior who always comes out on top. I realize that now, and I can’t go in on blind faith.”

I dropped my gaze to the bed. My heart raced and adrenaline shot through my veins. I removed my hand from Rayna’s and squeezed it into a fist so she wouldn’t see me shaking. I didn’t say those kinds of things to people. Ever. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d told my mother I loved her.

Realizing that made my heart ache, and my eyes were drawn to the brown box that held the last gift she’d ever given me: two silver daggers with the golden face of an eagle at the base.

Rayna’s hand touched the side of my face and her fingertips slid down my cheek. Goosebumps shuddered along my arms as her nails glided down my jawline, coming to rest on my chin. She pulled me forward, forcing me to look into her eyes.

“My faith isn’t blind. I saw who you were and I see who you’ve become, and I know in the depths of my heart that you’re going to make it through all this. And I know more than anything that you’ll never stop fighting.”

I wanted to respond but I didn’t have the words. She was right; I would never stop, not until either Riley or I was dead. Lately though, the latter was looking like the more realistic outlook.

“That’s what makes me smile when there isn’t anything to smile about—your determination. It’s what makes you who you are.” Rayna slid closer to me, her fingertips never leaving my chin. “It’s what makes me have that strange feeling spark in the pit of my stomach when you‘re close.”

Silence filled the space between us, but it wasn’t the awkward quiet that had seemed to follow us around these past few weeks. It was the most comfortable quiet I’d ever had.

My eyes were fixated on hers and I could feel magic vibrating beneath her skin. It was warm, and the muscles tightened in my chest, triggering my own elements.

Water, fire, earth, and air spiraled through my core. In a sensation of hot and cold, they washed through my body towards hers.

There was a connection between us that couldn’t be defined by any one thing. She had the ability to pull my magic out of me, even when I wanted to contain it. I didn’t know if that was the witch inside her, the hunter, or something else altogether. She could calm me when I was angry, and when I was surrounded by darkness, she showed me light. Rayna was it for me. What started out as friendship had turned into something more. I didn’t know what, but I knew I was going to fight like hell to find out.

I reached out and her hand fell from my chin. She leaned over me and my hands found her hips, pulling gently to urge her forward. She slid closer and our eyes never strayed from one another.

Crackling heat and crashing waves floated from my body and channeled into hers while her earth element cascaded through me in a way my own couldn’t. Everything would come to life in a new way as if she had given me my first breath, my first touch, and my first taste of rain all at once.

Rayna hovered over me, her lips nearly touching mine. My fingers curled under her shirt and I slid it up to her stomach, letting my fingers run down her sides. Her magic spiked beneath my touch and she shuddered.

Warm breath slipped between my lips and rolled over hers as they drifted above me. Her intense gaze filled me with a heat no magic could replicate.

My fingers trailed up her stomach, over her chest, and slowly traced the sides of her neck. I cradled her face in my palm and closed the distance between us. Our lips touched and magic ruptured between us, her body collapsing onto mine.

Her lips were soft, parting gently as I pushed my tongue over hers. My hands slid down her body, wishing I could pull her closer. I ran my fingers through her hair and unclipped the clasp that held it all together.

Rayna’s hands gripped my chest, and raven hair fell over my face. Soft tendrils of red slid down my neck as she pushed against me and we kissed. My hands gripped her hair, and I couldn’t resist pushing against her. When she pressed back, the magic crackled between us.

Static electricity stalked the air around us and sparked as we touched. My hands roamed lower down her body and pulled her tight against me when a man’s voice cleared his throat.

The power between us shattered and panic rocketed though my body. Rayna froze on top of me, her eyes fixated on mine and filled with fear.

I slowly peeked out from beneath her to see Marcus standing in the doorway. Gray sweats stretched around massive legs and a white muscle shirt hugged his body. His bulging arms looked even bigger when they were crossed and uncovered.

Rayna adjusted her shirt and rolled off me. “It’s not what it looks like…I mean…we were just...don’t you ever knock?”

“I did knock,” Marcus said. “Twice.”

“Then that was probably a sign saying you’re not invited to just walk in,” she said.

Marcus’s expression didn’t change and Rayna look flustered, shaking her head and pushing past him.

“Well, I apologize if the lack of privacy in our home bothers you. In case you’ve forgotten, we have a house full of injured—” Marcus flinched as the door to Rayna’s room slammed shut.

This could not be happening right now, I thought. Please tell me this wasn’t happening.

Marcus sighed and turned back to me.

Oh god this was really happening.

I ran a hand through my hair and cleared my throat.