Immortal Need

Immortal Need

Watchers Book One

By

LeTeisha Newton

Immortal Need

Copyright © February 2013, LeTeisha Newton

Cover art by Clarissa Yeo © February 2013

Formatting by Bob Houston eBook Formatting

Amira Press

Charlotte, NC 28227

www.amirapress.com

ISBN: 978-1-627620-45-1

No part of this e-book may be reproduced or shared by any electronic or mechanical means, including but not limited to printing, file sharing, and e-mail, without prior written permission from Amira Press.

Dedication

To the writers of SYTYCW2013—you know who you are—who were determined to stand behind me with this project. To Azziza Aremo, B.A. for doing the initial edit during the competition. And to my husband, as always, for loving me and standing beside me through everything. I am blessed every day I wake up beside you.

Chapter One

The dense sucking sound of the bullet slamming into his side made bile rise to his throat, just before fire and agony spread in its wake. Sevani spun, pulling one dagger from his left hip and tossing it. The blade sank deep, cracking through bone, into the center of a gunman’s forehead. Cursing, Sevani hurried to the dying man and slid him to the ground quietly. He gripped his blade and wrenched it out, and blood pooled in the hole left behind.
Serves him right.
Sevani wiped the blood off his weapon, onto his pant leg, before sheathing it into the holder on his rib cage. Sevani slid against a wall in the long hallway to catch his breath, one covered in gold-and-white paneling. Blood wasn’t going to be a nice addition, especially on the edge of Van Gogh’s piece
The Starry Night
, which Sevani now rested on.
Isn’t that supposed to be in a museum
, he thought, and then shook his head, knowing he had better things to worry about. He hated bullets, he really did. Lei, his backup for the night, was a few steps up the hallway crouching behind an ornate antique table.

The mansion hid multiple enemies, but Sevani had to get to his charge. His bluish-gray eyes scanned the darkness, his full lips pressed in a thin line. Sevani knew his body would begin to heal, veins reknitting, skin closing, but it didn’t mean it didn’t hurt like hell. Whenever he healed, it stung just as bad as receiving the injury. He took a deep breath, exhaled roughly. The bullet had hit him deep in the gut. This wasn’t going to be a quick fix. He was grateful for his black attire, shirt tucked tightly into his cargo pants, to hide the wound. Enemies saw blood and circled, like sharks, for the kill.
Not today.
The silver glimmer of his blades strapped to his body weren’t just for show. He killed his enemies before anyone had a chance to take him down. He’d strapped on eighteen different blades down the sides of his body, and his great sword was held tightly in his fists. He grunted, shut down his emotions, and ignored the pain. He couldn’t afford to stop now. Too much was at stake. He must keep going. Pushing back his thick black hair over his shoulder, he shrugged his broad shoulders. Thickly muscled, he was too large of a target if he didn’t move quick enough. He’d have to remember that. He’d brought Lei on this mission, the only Watcher not busy at the moment, and he knew the immortal would open his mouth sooner or later, and Sevani’s determination would go with it.

Three…two…one.

“Old and slow. Man, you gotta see Valerie soon for some more seeds. Maybe it’s the long hair? I think they believe you’re a girl,” Lei said with a smile.

Sevani chose not to respond, even if inside he smiled—just a little. Lei stood a hair over six foot three, with cropped blond hair and dancing green eyes. His slender frame belied the strength in his body and the accuracy of his shot. The man could shoot the wings off a fly without even taking time to aim. He was also the warrior who had absorbed the changes over time, gravitating to human technology, and their weapons specifically. Even now, clad in black cargo pants, boots, and a fitted T-shirt, Lei was covered in guns. They were attached all over his body like Sevani’s knives and sword. Two handguns were strapped to his hips, an assault rifle was slung across his back, and four more guns were strapped to his thighs and under his arms. Sevani would bet the man even had a couple tucked into his boots and the band of his pants. He may be thousands of years old, but he wasn’t
old
. He still looked no more than his early thirties.

“Quiet, Lei, and shoot, or are
you
getting old?” Sevani sneered.

A gun blasted just shy of his ear, and he knew Lei had taken down the man who’d shot Sevani. With his ear ringing now, he growled at Lei and kept moving.

“One down, who knows how many more to go,” Lei quipped with a smile while shooting past him at a dead run.

They’d fought, and survived, enough scrapes together in their existence to not have to direct each other during battle. Both men moved in opposite directions, Lei firing his handgun and reloading clips with dizzying speed, even as Sevani swung his sword.

God save humans and their infernal technology. I like my sword.

It may have been old school, but it worked, and Sevani wasn’t going to make the switch anytime soon. He feigned left, dodged another bullet as it whizzed by, and swung his blade with deadly accuracy. Blood sprayed into the air and over him, almost feeling cold to his heated skin. He would not fail. He couldn’t. Failure meant…well, he didn’t want to think about that right now. When Freya gave an order, he listened. The woman knew how to keep a man in line, even an immortal one.

“Save the girl,” she’d said, blond hair whipping around her heart-shaped faced as if caught in the wind, her sky-blue eyes sparkling with power. “Or feel my wrath!”

Yeah, like that was even an option.

Sevani and Lei were a part of the Watchers, four immortal souls who handled Freya’s bidding. With the exception of Valerie, they’d all committed some crime against the goddess in their human lives, and Freya had taken them for punishment. Instead of just torturing them, however, she had devised a plan of forcing them to protect the very thing they were guilty of sinning against. Valerie, the only female Watcher, was the one immortal who had not sinned against the goddess, but her reason for being there was still nebulous at best. The four were all past the need to share their stories centuries ago, and now just focused on the job. Besides, no one, especially Sevani, wanted to dwell on what they had done. For some of them, it was too painful to even think about.

In the first years of their immortality, they were no more than fiends, fighting against the goddess, receiving varied punishments, only to rise again and fight once more. Oh, how the men wished for an afterlife of peace, but instead, they were burned from the inside out, their skin melted from their bones as Freya watched. Or, they were buried alive for the insects to eat slowly until their screams drove them crazy. Or, they were picked apart, piece by piece, by a murder of crows. The goddess had a multitude of ways of making them suffer.

Born immortal, Valerie carried with her the seeds of immortality, something that Sevani, Lei, and Alexander had to consume every fifty years to stave off death and aging. Only Valerie had soothed them, shown them the awe of immortal life, and the freedom they had, even in bondage. The strong men felt small next to Valerie, who was trapped on a higher level, because she could give the gift of immortality. Whatever Valerie had done to get on Freya’s bad side paled when compared to the thought that she would always be controlled by a god or goddess, always, no matter the occasion. She was too precious to be let free. The immortals fought to become men once more, Valerie their balance, and Sevani led them all.

His curse was perhaps the worst of them, and the others banded behind him. His penance, once he’d become lucid, had been to protect women who would be murdered by men who were supposed to care for their well-being. Each of their curses mirrored what they had failed to do in life. Sevani mourned the anger, and pride, that had forced his hand. In the past, he’d loved Nila with everything in him. She was soft and sweet, shy and virginal, everything he’d wanted in a wife. And, she loved him, or so he believed. The couple lived for five years happily married, and though they had yet to have any children, his feelings for her hadn’t diminished when others said she may have been barren. No, he had lived and breathed for her, and the thoughts of that fateful day wouldn’t fade.

The day he came home, after a hunt, to a quiet house was the worst day of his life. He didn’t smell food cooking or hear Nila’s usual humming as she went about her day. Sevani thought Nila was sleeping and decided to surprise her. He put the game meat down and moved silently through their house. The mud-packed abode wasn’t large, but it had been enough room for them and the start of a family. He moved to the back of the home when he heard Nila’s laughter. In that moment he smiled, loving the sound, so much like the ringing of small bells. And then he heard a deeper rumble, a male voice. Everything in him shattered and blew apart. He took his sword in hand and stormed into their bedroom.

In the bed where the two had started their marriage, Sevani ended Nila. As she screamed and cried, as she told him she had been sure it was him, and even as the man who’d been with her disappeared as if he was never there, Sevani’s blade struck. In his anger, he couldn’t stop himself. The point plunged into her chest and through her heart. They were frozen there, a tableau of him grasping the hilt, the blade going through her body and slicing into the bedding under her, as she sat up, held by steel. Her tears never stopped as she cupped his face, her thumbs caressing his cheeks.

“I thought it was you,” she whispered, her sable hair falling around her and her green eyes watery. She smiled as she took her last breath, and he knew then, in his soul, that she had spoken truth.

He had killed the woman of his heart in a jealous rage, and magic had been at work. The hated god Loki, who had a hand in killing Freya’s son, Baldur, had come to Nila as Sevani and bedded her so that she would be killed and stripped of her place at Freya’s side in Ragnarok. Loki would do anything to win the fabled war, and Sevani had been severely punished, over and over again, for centuries.

Now, so many eons later, they all fought to survive, to do the bidding of their goddess. Not for her, but for each other. Their unflinching support of Sevani meant that he would never give them reason to worry for him.

He pushed steadily forward, that thought firmly in his head, cutting down man after man as he neared his charge. Her name was Tanya. His latest mission had the unfortunate luck of being born into a drug-cartel family, and had chosen to testify against them when they murdered her husband. Her determination was admirable, along with her need to avenge the death of the man she loved. He would have done much the same, but her brother, Guillermo, didn’t see it that way. He only saw betrayal and sought to end Tanya with everything he had before she could testify.

Big mistake for Guillermo.

Sevani whirled around the corner, not even taking time to lift his sword. Instead, he let go of the hilt with one hand and tossed one of the daggers strapped on his right side at the man leaning against the corner aiming at Lei’s back. The blade embedded to the hilt in the man’s neck. He didn’t even gurgle as he slid to the ground. Lei spun at the sound.

“Now who’s getting old?” Sevani asked. Lei flipped him off but turned and disappeared farther into the mansion.

Tanya was not innocent, that was for sure. By the very opulence of her home, it showed that she benefited from her relation with the cartel. She had used enough of the blood money to make herself comfortable. Everywhere Sevani stepped as he moved, he saw priceless artwork, golden candelabras, and antique vases. Unfortunately, though, being marked as one of Freya’s warriors in the afterlife wasn’t about moral goodness, but some code that Sevani had yet to decipher. All he knew was that Freya would take this woman’s soul, after death, but only if that death occurred as her destiny at birth had proclaimed.