The Reluctant King (The Star-Crossed Series) (16 page)

              Good.

              “Yeah, it’s got to be hard on her with all of us gone,” I stated with a pointed look.

              “Uh, sure, I guess,” Jericho relaxed a little, probably deciding that I was just out of my mind. Which I was starting to wonder about too. “She’s probably worried about Sebastian I guess….”

              “You guys are cute though,” I grunted, barely listening to his responses.

              “We’re…. cute? Avalon are you serious?” Jericho laughed incredibly. “What makes us cute?”

              I cleared my throat and leveled my eyes with him. I didn’t really know what I meant by calling him cute, it wasn’t a word I threw around all that often, but I had said it so now I had to defend it. “You know, always going off together, sight-seeing and what not. You’re
cute
,” I finished, proud of my argument. My temper was slowly rising beneath my skin and I hated that a girl had come between Jericho and me, especially a girl that had clearly made her choice.

              But for the life of me I couldn’t seem to get over her.

              Jericho snorted and then gave me a weirded-out look, “Sure, we’re
cute
. What’s wrong with you?”

              “What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with you?” I snapped, looking around the private passenger car of the train that was chugging through Russia. The autumn tainted countryside flashed by our window quickly, and the dark gray sky above threatened rain. “I shouldn’t have let you come. Amelia will be heartbroken if something happens to you, and you’re just dumb enough to let something happen to you.”

              “Dumb enough?” Jericho shook his head in disbelief at me, but I couldn’t even look at him anymore. I was way too pissed.

              And then I opened my mouth, knowing what I said next was going to earn me a punch in the face.

              “Jericho, I kissed her.” I forced myself to look him in the eye with my confession; although once I stared him down I realized it wasn’t so hard after all. I was very much up for this challenge.

              “Kissed who?” Jericho practically choked on his confusion.

              “Amelia, I kissed her last night. And she kissed me back. And I’m pretty sure she liked it, but to be fair I was the one that initiated it,” I declared, trying not to be proud of my actions, especially because it would kill Jericho if I stole his girlfriend and it really couldn’t feel good to know his best friend who happened to also be King was after her in the first place, especially considering that she was obviously not all that faithful to him.

              “Uh, that’s great man.” Jericho stammered.

              And suddenly I felt really bad for him. Damn it. I had made this into a competition and he had already conceded the victory to me. I was an asshole. Even though I wasn’t willing to step away from Amelia, our friendship was still important and I didn’t have any right rubbing it in his face.

              “Listen, man, I’m sorry,” I apologized sincerely. “I should never have kissed your girlfriend. It wasn’t right. But honestly, at the time I didn’t know you guys were together. I mean, I maybe thought you liked her, but I swear I didn’t know you had made it official.”

              “Wait, what?” If possible Jericho looked even more confused.

              “What?” I asked back, feeling his confusion spreading to me.

              “Amelia and I aren’t together,” he stated plainly. “And I could care less if you kissed her. Actually, it’s probably a good thing that you kissed her.”

              “Wait… what?” I echoed his confusion earlier.

              “Amelia and I are not a couple,” Jericho explained very slowly. “I don’t know what made you think that we were, but honestly, Avalon, I don’t like her like that. We’re friends and all, but I’m not interested in anything more with her.”

              Well, I felt like an idiot.

              “Seriously?” I asked, because it was hard for me to believe that any guy could not fall for her, even if it was just a little bit. “You guys are not together?”

              “Nope,” Jericho confirmed and I relaxed into my seat feeling a huge sense of relief. “What made you think that we were?”

              “
She
made me think that you were,” I grumbled, the sense of relief gone, replaced with cold rejection. “She told me she couldn’t kiss me because of you!”

              “She said we were a couple?” Jericho asked in disbelief.

              “No, not exactly, but she said we shouldn’t kiss and when I asked why, she said it was because of you. I mean, she just made it seem that…. I don’t know dude, that girl is an enigma.” I finished, feeling defeated.

              Jericho laughed out loud and I couldn’t help but feel like he was laughing at me. “I don’t know why she told you that, or why she said she didn’t want to kiss you. I’m pretty sure that girl has had a huge crush on you for years. That makes no sense to me.”

              “Wait…. what?” I asked. Again.

              “Ok, all I know is that at Eden and Kiran’s wedding she was seriously hung up on you,” Jericho gave a smug smile as I sat dumbfounded across from him.

              “She was into me?” I clarified, trying to remember when we had even talked outside of the smacking her on the ass thing.

              “Yes, she liked you. And I was pretty convinced things hadn’t changed by all the sexy glances you two have been throwing each other.” Jericho’s tone was mocking and if there wasn’t an aisle between us I probably would have hit him. “But if she didn’t want to kiss you, maybe she is over you.”

              “This makes no sense,” I complained. “If she wasn’t interested in me, why didn’t she just say that? Why did she use you as an excuse?”

              “I don’t know, maybe she really does like me. But honestly, I only get the feeling of friends between us. I mean, we’ve hung out some over the past few years and there has been no attraction between us. And I didn’t feel anything change in the last couple of days, but I don’t know, I’m not really good at reading girls.” Jericho finished seriously. “I honestly don’t think she’s into me though. I really thought there was something between you two, but I expected you just to brush it off or mess it up or something.” He shrugged his shoulder as if this was the most insignificant conversation ever, while my head spun out of control.

If he had seen something between us, then I wasn’t the only one. I wasn’t delusional. There was something there.

But if Jericho wasn’t an actual reason for Amelia to push me away, then what was the reason? And why was she using my best friend to stop me?

And when the hell would I see her again so that I could find out?

“You really like her?” Jericho asked, clearly not convinced.

I took my thumbnail out of my teeth to answer him with as much conviction as I could verbally convey, “Yes, I
really
like her.”

“Huh, I never thought I’d see the day,” Jericho stared out the window at the scenery that had turned from countryside to city as we moved slowly through Russia’s capitol approaching the train station.

“You still might not,” I grumbled. “She’s pushing me away for a reason, and it might just be because she’s the only female on Earth not completely affected by my boyish charm and alarming good looks.”

Jericho laughed out loud at me and I couldn’t help but relax a little and laugh with him. This was good. Well, not that Amelia apparently had to make up excuses to keep me away, but at least I wasn’t fighting my best friend for her. And even better, since she used Jericho and not anybody else I knew for almost certainty there wasn’t another douchebag to compete with.

I really just needed to find a reason to be around her again and judge the situation with all my newfound knowledge. It also helped that she had a crush on me before; that had to be good news.

And I would find her.

Just as soon as I took care of Terletov and made it safe for her again.

The train finally slowed to a stop in the old train station we used for its inconspicuousness. Jericho and I gathered our tightly packed backpacks. We were well practiced in packing light and practically for missions with no end date and had the potential to run for weeks, or even months.

In the hallway we joined the masses of passengers exiting the train and pushed our way through the crowd. Outside it smelled like grease, metal and cigarette smoke; it smelled like a mission…. it smelled like heaven. I couldn’t stop the big smile plastering my face even though I knew how out of place a smile like this was in Russia.

I felt them before I saw them, their magics all clustered together and waiting impatiently for our arrival. I scanned the crowd, thankful I stood taller than most of the humans scattered across the platform. Jericho stood with me, searching too. We were stilled in a sea of constant movement, and even while everyone bumped and banged into us, I was hardly aware of the human activity while I anxiously searched out the Immortals I hadn’t seen in way too long.

My trained eyes found them across the platform. Xander and Titus sat relaxed on a rusted old bench, while Xavier and Roxie talked in easy conversation, their eyes constantly scanning the crowd and station.

Roxie saw us first, her tiny frame nearly eclipsed by the crowd around her. Her face lit up in recognition and a smile that was rarely ever worn spread across her face. I nudged Jericho with my elbow and nodded my head in their direction. He found them too and I felt as his magic jumped with excitement.

We pushed our way across the platform, the greetings and shouts of hello could be heard everywhere in the station, I was positive. So much for inconspicuous…. But at the moment I could care less. I pulled Roxie to me immediately, crushing her into a bear hug. She wiggled a little, not a huge fan of touching, but eventually she gave in and hugged me back. I kept her tucked into me while I greeted the other guys, until Xander tried to bow to me, then I had to let Roxie go so I could punch him in the arm.

“Don’t’ even start with me,” I tried to sound angry, but I laughed instead.

“Listen to this guy!” Xander announced to everyone. “He’s already started to use his King powers to boss us around!”

“King powers?” I laughed, glad these guys took my position less serious than even I did.

“What?” Xavier chimed in, jumping on his brother’s joke. “That’s what I would call them. Hell, I would get all the ladies with my King powers….” He finished provocatively, making very suggestive movements with his body.

“Oh yeah, except Avalon’s apparently doing the exact opposite of that with his King powers,” Jericho laughed and he was lucky there were several people in between us.

That was echoed by a chorus of taunting from everyone including Roxie.

Psht.

“So what are you doing with your King powers then, Avalon?” Roxie teased.

“I’ll tell you what I’m
going
to do with them,” I announced, giving them each a more serious, and in my opinion a more mature, look.

“What’s that?” Titus asked.

“I’m going to kill this son of a bitch that thinks he can do what we did,” I growled and was met with exactly what I wanted: a chorus of agreement. This was why I chose these people; they were as blood thirsty as I was and willing to sacrifice everything for the safety of our Kingdom.

Chapter Fifteen

              I expected something. I expected really anything…. something telling, something…. revealing. I expected to feel magic from miles away, a facility full of rogue Immortals conducting God knows what kind of experiments.

              I didn’t expect nothing.

              I was prepared for it. But to feel nothing felt…. off.

              Which is what I felt as we approached the remote facility used for training Titans once upon a time.

              We surrounded the place. It was completely isolated in the middle of the Siberian tundra. A camouflaged outpost of buildings built to blend in with their surroundings. We paired off and attacked from every direction, with the mission to meet in the middle. We had been prepared to fight tooth and nail to get there, but when we all met in the center of an empty courtyard completely untouched and without conflict, it was…. a bit disappointing.

              Not to mention confusing.

              Our breath puffed out in front of us in hazy clouds, the ground frozen and covered in snow even now, at the end of September. The courtyard we stood in was the center of several warehouses and training facilities that now appeared empty.

              They
were
empty.

              I would have felt something if they weren’t.

              “One by one? Or each one together?” I asked the group quietly. There were four buildings altogether and we would attack them in pairs if we went separately: Xander and Xavier together, Titus and Jericho and Roxie and me.

              “Together,” Jericho answered for the group.

              I motioned with my fingers which building we would enter first, a dormitory of sorts that had housed the Titans Kiran spoke with only two years ago. Kiran and I went over the layout of this place in details for hours before Jericho and I left this morning.

              I walked up to the entrance and searched the area again for some sign of magic, but still there was nothing. I jiggled the handle and found that it was unlocked, so I pushed it completely open and walked through. My body, magic and mind were on high alert and I waited for the ambush I was positive was still coming.

              What had once been an open room setting was now blocked off into separate apartments. Dry wall had been filled in to separate the room into six isolated living spaces, although I couldn’t imagine the dividing walls really provided that much privacy. I walked to the first room and stuck my head in the first apartment. There was a small, makeshift kitchen with a refrigerator and stove in one corner and a counter space with bar stools that blocked it off as the eating area, a worn couch and old box TV set and then a single bed shoved to the other side of the room. There was no bathroom, but I supposed they still used the communal bathrooms down the hall.