RedFire
Chapter 25
They stood on the edge of her family’s property, a good fifty yards down the sandy, unpaved driveway that wound to the main house. Jax had flown them from that wound to the main house. Jax had flown them from downtown out to the property in what seemed like only thirty seconds. For once she hadn’t been frightened as he’d carried her skyward, had been able to appreciate the gleaming golden beauty of the rivers down below them. The sun was setting; russet, gold, and pink tones seemed to have been brushed across the marshes and rivers by God himself.
Jax had been unusually quiet, holding her close in a tender, protective gesture. So much had changed be tween them since the last time he’d flown with her in his arms. Before, she’d wondered if he could be a demon. Now she knew he was the greatest love of her life.
“I hate that you have to do the brother thing,” she told him. Jax didn’t seem concerned about her brothers, though. In fact, he appeared far more interested in studying the place where she’d grown up.
“You’ve already had to put up with my brothers, so it seems only fair.” He gazed upward at the branches of the live oaks that formed an archway around the drive. “The Spanish moss is lovely. Is it safe to touch?”
“Absolutely not.” She caught his arm as he reached out to gather a piece. “Little critters live in the moss. Things that bite.”
A slow, sexy smile appeared on his face. “ ‘Little critters, ’ ” he mimicked, even doing a good job of copying her accent. “Shayanna, I love the way you talk.”
“I love knowing more than you do,” she fired back, lifting to her very fullest height as she met his gaze flirtatiously. “At least about a few things.”
He slid large palms atop her shoulders. For several long seconds he just looked into her eyes, smiling in an unreadable way.
“What are you doing?” she asked, laughing in embarrassment. Her face burned beneath his close scrutiny.
His smile slipped a little. “Memorizing your face.”
She tried to turn away from him, but he kept her moored with his heavy hands. “Shay.”
“Please, Jax, can we at least pretend that you’re not going to leave me? That if we manage to find the stupid looking glass that it won’t mean my losing you?”
He stroked her cheek with his knuckles. “I hate hurting you.”
“Big clue, then!” She shoved him hard in the chest, forcing him to release her. “Don’t do it. Stay here with me.” She took off running, heading toward the house. “By the way, my brothers have always hated most of my boyfriends. They’re going to really get on your ass for breaking my heart.”
All at once he was in front of her; how he got there, she couldn’t say. “I have no other choice, sweetness. You know I’m right.”
Tears stung her eyes, and she moved to the right, hoping to sidestep the giant man.
But he blocked her. “I am right. Say it.”
She burst into tears, unable to fight them. “Don’t do this to me . . . to us.”
He pulled her into his arms, cradling her close. “No other choice, love. No other choice. But we will have eternity together. Know that.”
She believed she would go to heaven because of her faith in God, but this ancient warrior of hers had tripped the light fantastic through impossible spiritual zones. Where would he go?
“I believe in heaven,” she said, pressing her face against his warm chest. The steady, beating heart beneath soothed her. Her tears dampened the cotton of his T shirt. “That’s where I believe I will go when I die. Everything my family believes is in the power of God.”
He stroked her hair. “I have always believed in the Highest God. And I saw heaven, Shay, when I died. What we call Elysium. I was heading there, but turned back.”
She looked up into his eyes. “What—why would you turn back?”
He gazed past her, his voice very quiet. “Because Ares summoned us, offered us our immortality there on the banks of River Styx. And how could I not sacrifice heaven in order to serve humanity? There was never a question.”
As she’d been struck before, she understood what Jax’s potential release from his eternal wandering would truly mean. How could she begrudge him his freedom, this warrior who had spent so long protecting all mankind? And his own people even before that?
Wrapping her arms about him, she sighed—a painful, wistful sigh. “Just know how much I hate this . . . hate knowing I won’t be with you for such a long time. But know, too, that I’m gonna do whatever I can to help you get free.”
“The brother gauntlet,” Shay muttered, drawing in a deep breath as they walked up the front steps to her family’s home. “It’s gonna suck for you, but hopefully they’ll be swift and merciful.”
Jax just smiled at her. Did she honestly think that a couple of Southern good ol’ boys—as she’d described her pair of overprotective siblings—were anything he couldn’t handle? That she even worried about his potential discomfort at all charmed him totally.
As they stepped onto the veranda the front door opened like a rifle explosion. The sandy-haired one from the other night—he figured it was Jamie, based on her description—stormed forward, nearly shoving Shay out of the way.
“Jamie, don’t!” Shay shouted, but the guy’s fist was already halfway toward a brutal impact with Jax’s jaw. Jax caught the hand in midair, clasping it in an iron grip that made her brother visibly wince.
“I’m Ajax Petrakos,” he said, staring down at the shorter man but not releasing his hold on him. “I gen erally prefer familial introductions before the brawling starts.”
The brother squirmed in Jax’s hold. “I generally prefer that bastards like you keep away from my sister.”
“Jamie, stop it right now. I mean it. Ajax is good. . . .” She dropped her voice low, as if she were easing a sui cidal man back from a ledge. “He’s good to me. He’s mine.”
“ ‘Mine’? ‘Mine’?” Jamie howled, giving his hand another jerk. “Let go of me, you freak of nature.”
Ajax couldn’t help smiling proudly. “Indeed,” he said, the word crisply British, “and your sister is mine as well.”
Jamie relaxed in his hold slightly, releasing a weary sounding breath. Jax felt a little sorry for the guy; he couldn’t help himself. If Jamie thought he was tired now—after a full day and night of worrying about Shay, no doubt—the news that his sister was in love with an ancient Spartan was going to drain the living piss out of the man.
“If you’ll promise not to punch me, I will let you go.” Jax gave his would be brother-in law a friendly grin. “But for the record, Jamie? It’s not a great idea to throw punches at a man like me.”
Jamie retracted his other hand, aimed it right at Jax, and once again Jax caught the punch in midair. He now had Jamie captured in a manner that couldn’t be doing much for the demon hunter’s ego.
“Say we’re friends,” Jax told him patiently.
“I ain’t no friend of a demon who kidnaps my sister.”
Shay shoved her way into their physical space, grabbing hold of Jamie’s arm. “Let him go, Jax. If he tries to beat you again, I’ll kick his redneck ass. Geez, James. Fistfighting? What are we, an outtake from Deliverance? Thanks a lot for the good first impression. Mama probably just leaped out of her grave at Bonaventure.”
She wrangled her brother toward the home’s entry and, glancing back over her shoulder at Jax, rolled her eyes. “Welcome to my family, Jax. Despite appearances, we do have nice manners.”
“Not for demons,” Jamie grumbled. “And not for creatures like him.” Shay shoved him hard between the shoulder blades, and he stumbled forward a few steps.
“Big brother, you have no idea what kind of creature you just took a shot at.” She laughed, waving Jax into the foyer. “But when you do find out, you’re going to be mighty embarrassed.”
River listened—if you could actually call sensing vibrations of tone and meaning listening—and decided that Jax wasn’t in danger. The push and pull of whatever physical confrontation he’d just experienced had been easy, not like earlier, when Shay had used him to stab the demon. The tang of that monster’s blood still stung. Neither of them had taken time to clean him properly, either, so the stench of the kill was playing holy havoc with his senses.
As he bumped along in Jax’s care, he thought wistfully of the freshly pressed olive oil that they used to apply to their swords back in Sparta, and wished that a jar of it were handy here. Thinking about the old days set his thoughts wandering to places they had no business going. Still, being locked in his altered form left him with little else to do but think; the dark memories and ach ing longing that he normally worked so hard to ignore pressed hard on his mind.
For all his fighting glory—and he was proud of his special calling as Jax’s right hand blade—the one thing he secretly wished was that he were a true equal with the Spartans. Of course, if he were, he wouldn’t have been able to help them earlier today, and he certainly wouldn’t be useful against Sable as this battle played out.
For some reason he thought of that fateful day by the Styx, the one when he’d accepted Ares’ proposal. He’d been so eager, desperate to join with the Spartans as an immortal protector. There was nothing waiting for him in Elysium, nothing back in Greece herself. But the Spartan warriors, they were his true brothers. He’d leaped forward at the invitation, the first to accept Ares’ gift.
The god had taken hold of him underneath his armpits and, with an incongruous laugh, had hurled River right into Styx. Its molten power hadn’t burned—yet if he’d known that his acceptance meant he was actually going to take a dip in the monumental fire, he probably never would have accepted the offer. The thought would have been too terrifying, not that the bargain itself wasn’t. But by the time River had understood how Ares planned to enact the agreement it had been much too late to ar gue. Besides, the flowing source of the river had actually soothed him, his battle wounds sealing, transformation moving through his whole body. He’d known he was changing, had accepted it without question as waves of rolling power surged through him, about him . . . as he’d felt himself move from mortal flesh to liquid to gleaming hardness.
Ares had withdrawn him from the river and held him in sword form, turning him appreciatively in his powerful grip. As now with Ajax and Shay, River had sensed more than heard what the god said about him there on the banks of the Styx that day. He’d felt the war god’s pride in his creation—pride in River himself. He’d known Ares was placing him within Jax’s solid grasp. They’d always been joined in life, he’d thought dimly. It made sense.
Only after Ajax had turned River’s glinting form within his hands and examined his sword’s hilt with murmurs of wonder—only after master and servant had been forged together completely—only then had Ares changed River back into human form again. He’d stood gasping, awed by what the god had made him.
“From now on,” Ares drawled slowly, staring him hard in the eyes, “you will be called River. Only that name, no other. For you were forged in the mighty River Styx, the greatest weapon I have ever created.”
River’s heart slammed in his chest, excitement and quicksilver power speeding through his body. The war god had given him a special calling. He would be cru cial to the duty the Spartans would carry out. No longer clamoring or praying that he’d be allowed in the fight, he would be indispensable to the warriors he loved and served. No longer a slave, but a true weapon of vengeance.
Ares continued, clasping River’s shoulder: “And I smelted you for Ajax, your fine Spartan master. Only he will brandish you with the glory a fine blade like you is due.”
Still a slave? Master? He’d referred to Jax as his master, but that couldn’t be right.
Jax shook his head. “He goes free,” he said firmly. “That helot is my equal, my brother. Our caste system doesn’t matter here, not in this world.”
Ares glanced between them, amusement sparkling in his eyes. “Are you certain? Am I not a god? Are you not human dust that I’ve deigned to touch?”
“This man,” Ajax insisted, voice rising, “deserves his freedom. To join us as an equal.”
River was too overcome by the power thrumming in his body to care as he should—and he had so many questions. “Please,” he tried again with Ares. “My lord, am I only a sword? Or may I be an arrow also? A spear, perhaps . . . or even a breastplate?”
Ares turned back one last time, his gaze piercing. “You will assume more forms than you can fathom, blessed River. If for warfare, a poison draft, but if for healing . . . the elixir of life. You will serve your master well.”
Then, with a quick wave of his golden hand, Ares dis missed him. The god was clothed in the Spartans’ crimson cloak, and it swished regally about him, just as all the Spartans’ glorious cloaks billowing in the hot wind around them.
At the moment, the difference between the warriors and himself pierced his heart like the silvered weapon he’d become, ripped into his flesh, tore at his soul.
He would never be given a scarlet cloak.
The mighty war god had gazed down on all the gal lantry and fearlessness that he’d displayed at the Hot Gates. And he’d approved. Ares had found him worthy! He’d even given him the touch of life and death itself. But he’d denied River the one thing he’d secretly de sired ever since boyhood, since the day he’d first accompanied Jax to the Agoge.
He’d refused to let River stand shoulder to-shoulder with the warriors he loved and admired . . . and simply belong.
They sat at the kitchen table, the one where they’d al ways eaten Sunday brunch and read the newspaper as a family. The same table where their father had explained their family calling to Shay for the very first time so many years ago. Somehow, bizarrely, it felt perfectly natural to her to have Jax sitting there with the three of them. Although Jamie obviously didn’t agree. He was working his best imitation of the evil eye every time he looked at Jax. Mason seemed more open and relaxed, a surprise after how reserved and closed off he’d been the past few months. Then again, maybe Jax’s strange arrival was enough to shake even Mason out of his withdrawn state. And if that was true, then it was only reason number one thousand why she loved this big Spartan.
“You look like a military man,” Ajax observed as he studied Mason. Oh, boy. This one was gonna be rich. Mason had admired the Spartans from boyhood and had continued studying them all through his time in the marines.
“USMC,” Mason said simply, then released the famous Marine Corps cheer. “Hoo-rah!”
This clearly tickled Jax to no end, although to his credit he did his level best to stifle a laugh. Bad, bad idea, she wanted to warn him. Too late—Mason was already halfway out of his chair.
“You’re mocking the United States Marines?”
Jax stayed perfectly relaxed and reached to sip from the glass of wine she’d poured him. “No, Mason, friend, I am laughing because of what you’ll soon learn of me.”
“And what’s that?” Mason held his position, poised halfway between sitting and lunging for Jax’s throat.
“We share a warrior’s bond, you could say.”
“Who are your people?” Jamie asked, eyeing Jax like an enemy.
Jax glanced toward Shay, who gave a shrug of accep tance. No time like the present. “Go for it,” she said, leaning back in her chair.
Ajax rose to his feet, towering over all of them. Then, tossing back his head, he cried something in ancient Greek and released a slightly different version of the war cry. His own. The Spartan version.
Mason sank into his chair, eyes wide with surprise . . . shock. She knew what Jax didn’t: Mason was easily conversant in ancient Greek. So whatever he’d just said—and then the confirming shout—had clearly gone a long way toward making Mason a believer. Or at the very least, toward confusing her big brother completely.
“I only caught a passing translation of that,” Jamie said, his expression less hostile—and a lot more curious.
Mason shook his head. “It’s impossible.”
“What did you just tell them?” she asked Ajax.
“I stated my military designation and rank and gave my commanding officer’s name, then Leonidas’s as commanding general.”
“Sweet.” She started to laugh. “You’re a name-rank-and-serial number sorta guy. Good to know.”
“I will repeat,” Mason said, louder this time, “that what you’re implying is an impossibility.”
Jax took a lazy sip of wine. “You gentlemen are demon hunters. You’ve seen all manner of creatures and spiritual entities and fought many battles. What’s so hard to believe about what I claim to be?”
“For one thing,” Jamie said slowly, “you didn’t really tell us who and what you are.”
“Neh, I did indeed. I am Ajax Petrakos, son of ancient Sparta. I perished at Thermopylae, and on the day of my death at that great battle”—he paused, reaching across the table for Shay’s hand—“I took a vow of immortality. I agreed to protect mankind. That’s the short version.”
“And the long one?” Mason asked, and Shay noticed that he’d paled dramatically. She’d been right in how she’d called this little meeting. Of course Mason was the one who would believe most easily—and also be the most stunned. For all they’d seen as a family, living Spartan warriors wasn’t even on the hunters’ checklist.
“The long one is too long for right now,” Jax explained. “Suffice it to say that Ares is a meddling war god. He saw fit to protect mankind, but managed to make himself my master in the process.”
“Are there others like you?” Mason pressed, leaning forward in his seat now.
“Seven of us, including King Leonidas himself, our eternal commander.”
Jamie hit his feet. “That’s it; this is ludicrous. Shay, I don’t know what you’re into here, but you’re clearly far more naive than even I’ve always figured. Somebody’s obviously seen 300 too many times and let it go to his head.”
Mason stayed perfectly still, his gaze locked on Ajax. “Jamie, remember the book. What it said about seven warriors . . . something about them making a deal by the River Styx.”
Jamie slid into his chair, apparently mollified, at least for the moment. “Go on,” he said coolly. “Tell us more about how you came to be here with Shay in Savannah.”
She ignored both her brothers. “Show them,” she urged Jax. “It’s the only way they’re really gonna get it.”
He lifted a silky black eyebrow. “The whole kit?”
“Kit and caboodle,” she agreed. “Show them so they’ll shut up already.”
Jamie slid out of his chair and stepped close to Mason, as if they honestly thought they were about to kick a little ass. Shay had to swallow a laugh. When they finally realized just whom they thought to jump, really believed, they were going to feel pretty ridiculous—and way out of their league.
“Just go on.” Shay nodded toward Jax, and he winked back at her.
Jax rose politely to his feet, set down his glass of wine, and, with a gentleman’s bow, proceeded to turn full rap tor right in her kitchen—complete with Spartan shield, breastplate, greaves, and sword. And, of course, the wings. The fantastically beautiful, otherworldly wings.
As her brothers stood by the table, paralyzed at the image, Jax gave them a brotherly grin. “Want to check out the sword?” He gave the weapon’s hilt a loving stroke. “It’s the same one I used at the Hot Gates.”
And with that she thought both her brothers might faint dead on the spot.
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