Warrior Rising Read Online Free Page B

was one scary dude. He was fond of black leather and massive swords Nevada couldn’t lift with both hands. Even now, when he was on the right side… scary.
    “He is on our side now,” Rurik said. How could he stay so calm?
    Our side was the only thing that gave Nevada real hope. This mansion which had once been quiet as a tomb was now teeming with, well, people, for lack of a better word. People of all sorts. Humans who knew what was going on and wanted to stop it as well as vampires who liked the status quo and didn’t want to see that sick bitch Regina take over the world. Marie, her true name was, not Regina. She looked like a pretty teenage girl, but she was an ancient sociopath with fangs, and somehow she’d decided she was supposed to take over the world. D.C., at least. D.C. to start.
    And then there were the Warriors. Immortal Warriors, like Rurik. They looked human, but then so did the vampires, most of the time. Their existence had been as much of a shock to Nevada as the truth about vamps. When a room was full of these Warriors, it was like a history book exploded and the pages came to life. From every age, from every country, they’d been called to battle. The way Nevada understood it they had once been human, but they’d all been soldiers, fighters, protectors. After death, they waited in another world, an alternate universe of some kind. They waited to be called by blood descendants. Conduits, those descendants were called. The Warriors waited for a fight like this one. They’d been here before for smaller battles. Some of them, anyway. Rurik seemed to know a lot about this world. Indie — which is what most of the humans called Indikaiya — seemed much more not of this world. She was older than Sorin, probably. Hard to tell, since she didn’t talk much.
    In so many ways, the Warriors were more of a mystery than the vamps.
    “You look very tired,” Rurik said. “Have you been traveling?”
    “Traveling?” It took a moment, but Nevada soon realized what he was asking. “Oh, no. Remote viewing takes too much energy, and I need every ounce I’ve got to get this spell fixed.” She’d used the newly found gift to check on her family when they’d been held in the large, dungeon-like basement of this mansion. Rurik had first seen her that way. Humans and vamps couldn’t see her when she traveled, but Warriors were another matter. Something about traveling between worlds.
    She did not want to talk about herself. It was easy enough to change the subject.
    “I’ve heard about people who don’t understand how they survived a particularly hairy situation. Like, maybe they were invisible to their enemies, or they thought they were going to be hit by a bus or a bullet and then they weren’t. Was that you?”
    Rurik raised a hand to his chest. “Me?”
    “Well, Warriors. Do you… pop in often?”
    “Sometimes. Sometimes not.” There was that smile again. It was so heartbreakingly real . “I would gladly return to this world to end your enemies.”
    Nevada shook her head. Was this his way of flirting with her? “Why? Why are you being nice to me? I’m such a colossal screwup!”
    “No. You are a fighter, as we all are. You are a brave and noble woman.”
    Brave? Noble? Something inside Nevada snapped, and she could see clearly once again. “I’m a wimp. The vampires threatened my family, they held me hostage, they forced me to cancel the sanctuary spell. And I did it. I should’ve let them kill me and my family. I should’ve sacrificed us all to save the world.” The words spilled out. “I didn’t. Sacrifice sounds noble, in theory. You know what? It’s damn hard. Besides, maybe I have the right to sacrifice my own life, but my parents? My brother and my sister? I don’t see nobility there, not at all.”
    “You did what you could. You were willing to die…”
    “I still am,” she whispered.
    Rurik’s expression was suddenly both angry and sad. Even he knew there might be no