Warrior Rising Read Online Free PDF Page A

other choice. “They will have to come through me,” he said, his words a solemn promise.
    The spell she’d cast to end the sanctuary spell was connected to her heartbeat. She’d been so certain she would die as soon as it was done! With her family away from this prison, and the original spell once more in place, they would be safe. Everyone would be safe.
    But they hadn’t killed her, even though Regina, self-proclaimed queen, had ordered Sorin to do it. Nevada had made Sorin remember his past, his time as a human, and he’d let her live.
    She should’ve left well enough alone, but it was too late for should’ves and might’ves.
    “Do you need anything of me?” Rurik asked.
    She shook her head, then turned to business. “I’m making progress on the new spell.” She wanted someone to know. Anyone. “I’m still days away from finishing it but… but…” Her voice broke, a little. “I have to fix this! I unleashed hell on the world, and even if I can reinstate the original spell or come up with an entirely new one, nothing will be the same again. Nothing. Too many people know now. Too many people have seen.”
    Rurik seemed unconcerned. “They will forget.”
    “How?” Her hands fisted. She wished she could forget!
    “Dark days come and they go. Life continues on, and people believe what they wish to believe.”
    “You make it sound so simple. Everything has changed. Everything! You will eventually go back to wherever it is you came from, but for humans, for people like me, death and destruction is knocking on the door.” That was not entirely true. Thanks to her, death no longer needed to knock.
    Rurik knew that as well as anyone.
    “As I said, if you need anything I will be near.” He gave her a kind of formal and old fashioned bow, a gesture so out of place, so unnecessary, that she laughed. It wasn’t a pleasant laugh, but was more of a short-lived hysterical cackle.
    Rurik left the room, closing the door behind him. In a weird way his visit had revived her. She felt a rush of energy, and was no longer seeing double. Anger and desperation were as good as caffeine, maybe.
    Nevada turned her mind to her work. Nothing else mattered, not even a hunky man from another world, a protector with a Russian accent and a killer smile. A man who winked at her in the midst of chaos.
    She could do this. She figured vamps didn’t have a newsletter or a phone tree, so the news that they could now enter any home uninvited couldn’t have spread far and wide. Not yet. It would. Soon. In her head she could see a map of the country, of the world , where reports of violent deaths grew and grew and spread outward like something out of a movie about a world-ending epidemic. The movies had it wrong. The world wouldn’t end thanks to a virus or a nuclear bomb. Humanity didn’t need to worry about an alien invasion. Life as humans knew it would end when the vampires took over, the way some of them had wanted to do for a very long time. If they were to win, they’d probably keep some people alive, enough to produce blood for feeding, and be servants and produce the luxuries that they enjoyed. But most would die.
    Nevada wondered how many people would ever know that this all happened because a naive college girl who didn’t realize she was a witch by blood was willing to sacrifice the world in order to save her family. A family now no more safe than anyone else, so it had been a stupid thing to do. She wondered where her family was, if they were safe. Sorin said he’d find them, but even though he’d spared her she still didn’t trust him. She didn’t trust anyone, not entirely.
    Nevada almost lovingly touched the two books on her worktable, readying to dive back in, ready to try to make sense of words that all too often meant nothing to her. She whispered to herself, “If I were like Indie, we wouldn’t be in this predicament. If I was strong and determined and knew how to carry a sword like it was a part of me,