Warrior Ascended Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Epilogue

  GLOSSARY

  Teaser chapter

  WARRIOR REVEALED

  With deliberate movements, he removed his long-sleeved black T-shirt. His breath gave off little puffs of air, but he seemed immune to the cold. He had his back to her and his eyes facing skyward, so she could see a second tattoo—this one of a lion—where it sat high on his right shoulder.

  Unable to tear her gaze away, she drank in the perfection of his body. Broad shoulders gleamed in the moonlight as the tight play of muscles along his back responded to his every movement. His torso grew narrow as it descended to his stomach and formed into lean hips. A small network of scars crisscrossed his lower back.

  Where had they come from? The scars were faded white with age, faint on his skin, but visible nonetheless.

  He shifted slightly and extended his arm. An intricately designed tattoo decorated his exposed left arm. The ink had interlocking circles with a zodiac symbol she couldn’t identify clearly visible in the center of the pattern.

  Brody tossed her a glance over his shoulder, a broad smile on his lips. “Ready?”

  SIGNET ECLIPSE

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  First published by Signet Eclipse, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  First Printing, March 2010

  Copyright © Frances Karkosak, 2010 All rights reserved

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  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  eISBN : 978-1-101-18565-0

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  For Mom and Dad.

  You have given me so many gifts, but one stands out as I type this—the courage to believe in myself.

  Thank you for believing in me.

  Thank you for your love and affection, your sense of humor, and your willingness to always guide with compassionate honesty.

  Thank you for keeping the waters of our safe harbor ever calm.

  And thank you for saying no to space camp and diving lessons. Being an author is way more fun.

  I love you and I am so blessed to call you mine.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  My deepest thanks to:

  Becky Vinter, editor extraordinaire. Your belief in this book and your dedication to making it shine have been a gift beyond measure.

  Holly Root, agent extraordinaire. Your warmth, talent, and absolute classiness make you such a joy to be around. Your belief in my work means so much to me and I am so happy to be on this publishing journey with you. (The fact you love red wine is really only a small side benefit.)

  My family—every single crazy branch—the Karkosaks, the Foxes, the Milardos, the DeMarios, the Krafts, the Deorias, the Tabarrinis, the Naradkos, and the Freeses (and if I go into married surnames the lovely and wonderful people at NAL will likely ask me to pay for extra pages). Most especially to my beautiful, awesome sister, Beth, who bit her nails right along with me the day “the Call” came and who this past year gave our family my beautiful, awesome niece, Amelia.

  The Writer Foxes—Alice Fairbanks-Burton, Lorraine Heath, Jo Davis, Tracy Garrett, Kay Thomas, Suzanne Welsh, Julie Benson, Sandy Blair, and Jane Graves. You ladies are my writing rocks and I love you all. (And the fact you all also love red wine is really only a small side benefit.)

  An extraspecial thank-you to Alice Fairbanks-Burton, critique partner and cheerleader beyond measure.

  To my peeps—the many wonderful people who make up my cheering section each and every day—you know who you are. And extraspecial thanks to the sisters of my heart—Christine, Carley, Roxane, Gregory, Beth G., Heather, Ellen, Margaret, Karen, Meridith, and Mary. Most are lucky enough to have one or two deep friendships to sustain them, but my cup of friendship overflows—with red wine, of course!

  Finally, those of you well versed in Egyptology will no doubt notice I’ve taken some liberties with the tomb of Thutmose III. Any errors are admittedly mine, in the hopes of putting an intriguing spin on the lives of the ancients and their potential to influence our lives, even today. . . .

  Leo Warrior

  Proud and passionate, my Leo Warriors will guard theirpride with fierce devotion.

  Those they love will never be left unprotected and theirenemies they will hunt to the ends of the earth.

  Generous and loyal, my alluring and enigmatic Leo willcharm the most distant of women with born ease.

  But when he falls in love . . .

  —The Diaries of Themis, goddess of justice

  Prologue

  The Fifth Age of Man

  Zeus cast a look at the woman he’d once loved with mad abandon. Prim stature, back arrow
-straight, auburn hair curling down that slim back in luscious waves.

  It was the hair. It’d always been the hair. He’d seen her on Mount Olympus with her Titan sisters and the rest had faded away until only she remained.

  Only Themis.

  Clearing his throat, as if the action could clear the memories, he kept his voice purposely gruff. “Why did you drag me from the comfort of my bed?”

  They stood before the Mirror of Truth—a large viewing screen in Themis’s lodgings. She still refused to live in the grand home he’d left her, preferring instead this one-room servant’s lodging. The mirror—the only possession she took with her after their separation—stood proudly in the center of the room so she could maintain her ability to monitor justice day and night.

  Zeus glanced around him, the quality of her living quarters leaving a pool of acid churning in his stomach. “I should have banished this hovel years ago. I gave you a palace to live in and you chose this.”

  Themis lifted her chin. “I will not live in splendor when my brothers and sisters live, century after century, imprisoned in Tartarus.”

  “They betrayed me.”

  “We see it differently.”

  Unwilling to battle with her on this subject yet again, Zeus turned his attention toward the viewing screen. An empty vista spread out before them, a broad clearing amidst a forest of trees. The daylight was fading, the afternoon hues of gold creating pockets of color on the barren soil.

  “What am I looking at?”

  “You never did have any patience.” A slight air of amusement threaded her words.

  “A god doesn’t need patience.”

  The small smile that ghosted her lips faded completely. “Then you wear the mantle well since you have never had any.” Her blue gaze was pointed as she delivered that barb. “Or any other virtue, for that matter.”

  “What is this about?” He waved a hand, gold rings making a satisfying flash in the sun’s dying rays. The newest one—a large gold circle encrusted with gems—particularly caught the light; a most suitable gift from his wife, Hera. “This is nothing but an empty field.”

  “Oh, how I wish.” She exhaled a soft sigh just as the sound of hoofbeats broke the silence and a band of peasants broke through the forest into the vast clearing.

  Within moments, the field before them filled with death and mass destruction, war cries intermingled with the screaming of the disheveled peasants as a band of soldiers tore them to pieces.

  Fire rained down on two peasants who carried a bloody third between them. Their clothes caught fire, dropping all three to their knees to writhe in agony in the dirt.

  A young woman ran across the field, her skirt flying in her wake as tears of pure panic flooded her eyes—eyes that stared lifelessly at the sky moments later as one of the soldiers pulled his sword from her heart.

  A small man, attempting to change direction and move away from the battling soldiers, veered in a zigzagging pattern as he ran while an angry rider bore down on him, trampling him in a burst of speed.

  Zeus watched the display, the action on the field over nearly as fast as it had begun. Small fires continued to smolder as the sound of hoofbeats faded, the riders dispersing back into the forest from which they’d just come. Lifeless bodies littered the ground.

  “You call me here to look at this? To what end, Themis? You think I find joy watching a band of peasants?”

  “A band of peasants who were just murdered because they’ve no ability to defend themselves.”

  “So now the world is free of a dozen suffering souls. What of it?”

  “You can fix this.”

  Zeus turned toward Themis, the sense she’d planned this conversation for some time taking hold. “Fix what?”

  She flung a hand toward the screen. “This. This death and destruction. This vast wasteland humanity has become. It doesn’t have to be this way. It isn’t right.”

  “Right? What of right? They’re humans.”

  “But there is no reason for it. There was a time, when we first created them, when humans lived in a golden age of peace. Now it is the strong versus the weak; the powerful few oppressing the vast, miserable masses.”

  “Ah. That’s the root of it, now, isn’t it? The injustice of it all. Even though these humans make their choices freely and live their lives as they see fit.”

  “I can’t bear it.” Without warning, the ever-stoic, ever-strong woman at his side fell into a fit of weeping that was so deep—so real—it took his breath away.

  Could she really care for them? For these silly humans who did nothing but toil away their days in miserable, work-filled pursuits? These humans who had nothing but the gall of living hard lives, full of work and pain, only to die at the end?

  Could they really matter to her?

  “They’ve done this to themselves. Changed through the ages. Turned on one another.”

  She looked up at him, large tears rimming her eyes, wet, spiky lashes framing the irises of pale blue. “To themselves? How? They have no protection. No recourse from pain and suffering.”

  “They are mere humans. Mortals. They’re not worthy of your tears. Why are you wasting my time with this?” The gruff anger was back; the bruised pride he didn’t want to acknowledge but couldn’t ignore. She had watched him walk away without so much as a tear; yet she cried for these weak humans as if the very fiber of her soul were being rent apart.

  “But I can’t let them stay like this. I have the power to help them if you’d only allow it.”

  “To what end? So you can prolong their miserable lives so they still die in the end? What benefit is that? What kindness do you do them if they still perish?”

  “It’s not simply about death in the end. They can have lives. Experiences. I can give them that. Make their lives better. Worth living.”

  “This is a waste of time. Mine, certainly, but yours as well. Human lives are brief. Meaningless.”

  “You owe this to me, Zeus.”

  He should have known it would come to this. There was nothing to be gained by seeing her again, only further castigation for something he had no control over—a love for Hera that simply consumed him. “I owe you nothing.”

  “You know I can’t do this on my own. You must help me.”

  The pleading in her eyes—coupled with millennia of lingering guilt—weighed him down. “Help you do what?”

  “I know a way to help them. I have a solution to all this.” She waved a hand at the field still visible before them, even though they were in another dimension, watching from Mount Olympus. “A way to help them.”

  He might crave Hera with a passion that defied logic, but he could never deny Themis. His Themis. His partner for so many ages. “Tell me how you think to fix this.”

  “Not fix it. You know I am bound to maintain the great scales of balance. Justice must always be served.”

  “So let them figure it out on their own.”

  “But they can’t. They can’t do it on their own. I can balance the horrors for them. Provide them with help.”

  Despite himself, he was intrigued. The eager light that had come into her eyes was proof she’d thought this through long before calling him to her side. “You can’t give them immortality.”

  She nodded, that riot of curls that ran the length of her back an enticing flash of flame. “Of course. But I wish to give them protectors—from the evil that lives in the world.”

  “What do you propose?”

  “Warriors. Warriors to protect them through the ages, to help them rise above the muck of their lives, to protect them from the weakness of their natures.”

  “Isn’t it true balance to let them deal with the consequences of their nature? Besides, if they know they have helpers, they will not be motivated to better their world.”

  Her hands clenched, but that was the only outward sign of her frustration. “But they’re not all like this. I wish to provide a light in their darkness. And if my warriors must work in secr
ecy, then so be it.”

  “And who will you name to this? Who can possibly give them the protection you so desire?”

  She glanced up at the rapidly darkening sky. “The inspiration is in the heavens.”

  The heavens? She’d put someone above them? “No one will rule above me. No one.”

  That small, castigating smile was back. “Cool your ire, former beloved. I wasn’t suggesting anything that would usurp—either now or in the future—your precious power.”

  “What then?” He heard the petulance in his own voice, yet couldn’t stop it. He’d fought his very own father for his position and he’d never let it go. “I won’t allow others who can rise above us. I won’t even consider those who might find a way.”

  “I was suggesting the heavens as inspiration. Nothing more.”

  “Inspiration?”

  Night had fully fallen on the field as stars twinkled. Themis turned back toward the screen, pointing heavenward. “The beauty of the stars. The balance there.”

  “Balance?”