The Stone Warriors: Nicodemus Read online

  Praise for D.B. Reynolds’s

  STONE WARRIORS...

  Of Damian . . .

  “I have to admit, I really didn’t think I would like this new series as much as I LOVE the VIA series . . . boy, was I WRONG! I loved the storyline, the camaraderie, the bantering, the humor, and most especially, Damian!!!! He is a Warrior God, as he continually and hilariously likes to remind Casey.”

  —Dorsey-Swept Away by Romance

  “Witty banter, tons of action and sizzling chemistry are woven into an engaging and compelling plot that sets the tone for what promises to be a fantastic new series by this talented and very clever author.”

  —Karla—Swept Away by Romance

  Of Kato . . .

  “Here’s a riddle for you; what’s hotter than a summer heat wave? I thought you would be way ahead of me on this one. Correct, this absolutely mind bending, mind boggling, vicious, sexy down right dirty, delightful novel from Ms. Reynolds.”

  —La Deetda Reads

  Of Gabriel . . .

  “I definitely recommend this fabulous addition to the series. It’s a great read and I can’t wait for more!! 5 Vampire Warrior Stars!!!”

  —Wrath Lover Reviews

  Of Dragan . . .

  “As usual DBR gives her readers a compelling, fast paced, sexy, and exciting storyline with fantastically intriguing beautiful characters. I can’t wait for more!!!!!”

  —Wrath Lover Reviews

  Other Books by D. B. Reynolds

  VAMPIRES IN AMERICA

  Raphael * Jabril * Rajmund * Sophia

  Duncan * Lucas * Aden * Vincent

  Vampires in America: The Vampire Wars

  Deception * Christian * Lucifer

  The Cyn and Raphael Novellas

  Betrayed * Hunted * Unforgiven

  Compelled * Relentless * Detour

  Vampires in Europe

  Quinn * Lachlan * Xavier

  The Stone Warriors

  The Stone Warriors: Damian

  The Stone Warriors: Kato

  The Stone Warriors: Gabriel

  The Stone Warriors: Dragan

  The Stone Warriors: Nicodemus

  Nicodemus

  by

  D. B. Reynolds

  ImaJinn Books

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events or locations is entirely coincidental.

  ImaJinn Books

  PO BOX 300921

  Memphis, TN 38130

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-61026-156-2

  Print ISBN: 978-1-61194-999-5

  ImaJinn Books is an Imprint of BelleBooks, Inc.

  Copyright © 2021 by D. B. Reynolds

  Published in the United States of America.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

  ImaJinn Books was founded by Linda Kichline.

  We at ImaJinn Books enjoy hearing from readers. Visit our websites

  ImaJinnBooks.com

  BelleBooks.com

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  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Cover design: Debra Dixon

  Interior design: Hank Smith

  Photo/Art credits:

  Background (manipulated) - © Mikhail Dudarev | Dreamstime.com

  Man (manipulated) - © Svitlana Ponurkina | Dreamstime.com

  :Knjh:01:

  Dedication

  To all the readers who were with me for this Stone Warriors saga, thank you with all my heart.

  I hope you enjoyed the ride.

  PART ONE

  Chapter One

  Somewhere in the mists of time . . .

  EXCITEMENT WAS like a drug in his veins as Nicodemus Katsaros stormed onto the battlefront, his stallion dancing with anticipation, the beast a weapon on four legs, trained for war from the day he’d been born. Just as Nicodemus had been. The second son of a great ruler, he’d been slated to serve as the general of the king’s armies, with his older brother becoming king upon their father’s death. But magic had intervened. Nico, as he was called by the four warriors who were his best friends, had been born not only with royal blood in his veins, but more importantly, he’d been born with the gift of magic.

  There were others in this day and age with some level of magic, from hedge witches to great sorcerers. It was the size of the gift that mattered, the potency of the magic.

  Nico’s magic was initially seen as one more skill he would bring to the service of his father, the king, but that perception didn’t last long. Nicodemus Katsaros wasn’t just any magic user, he was the greatest sorcerer alive. By the time he was sixteen, Nico had surpassed his father and brother, and every other sovereign of his time, as both conqueror and ruler. Other sorcerers, big and small, came to challenge him, to claim the lands and people he’d already conquered. And one by one, they’d failed.

  This morning’s battle, with banners flying and horns blaring, would be the greatest of Nico’s life, possibly the greatest in history. For this morning, he would face Sotiris Dellakos, the only sorcerer who still dared oppose him for the right to rule the known world. This day would bring the final confrontation in what had become years of fighting between them. From the first time the teenaged Nico had defeated the much older Sotiris, the two had been waging war with each other, clashing over bits of land and the men to farm it, marching back and forth across their world until there wasn’t a yard’s worth of dirt that hadn’t been trod upon by armies and left sown with the bones of the dead.

  But this day, this battle, would be different. Nico felt it in the blood surging in his veins, in the power burning in every muscle and sinew as his body responded, eager to do battle with the despised Sotiris. When the first horns sounded, he glanced left and right, sharing fierce grins with the four fighters who joined him on the line, their horses dancing with excitement, held in check by the strength of the men who rode them. These were Nico’s brothers in arms, the four greatest warriors alive, drawn to his side from the four corners of the earth, pulled by his magic to this fight for the very survival of their world.

  Damian, a golden blond god of war, sat perfectly still as he surveyed the enemy’s forces, their placement, and arms. His military mind took in and countered every detail with the same exquisite precision that had made him an object of worship by those who fought by his side, and those whom he’d defeated, too. He’d been with Nico the longest—from childhood—and was closer than any brother by birth. Beyond Damian sat Kato, his exotic looks and black, ensorcelled blade defining him as the child of a distant land, and to those who understood such things, as the son of a powerful witch. To Nico’s other side was Gabriel, perhaps the greatest fighter of the four. Tall and heavy with muscle, his arm flexed easily under a huge, double-edged blade that even Damian would have been hard-pressed to wield. His black hair was pulled into a ruthlessly tight queue and his dark eyes flashed with an eerie glow in the misty gray light of morning. And finally, beyond Gabriel, solemn and watchful, sat Dragan, goddess-blessed and unique even in a world where magic filled the very air they breathed. Muscles bunched in powerful shoulders as he kicked his feet loose of stir
rups bare seconds before wings sprouted from his back to rise high over his head, wings that were leathery and taloned like those of the dragons he’d been named after. In a few seconds, the horns would call the advance. Dragan’s great wings would beat the air and he would take to the skies, one of Nico’s greatest weapons, and very nearly undefeatable.

  The first horns sounded in unison when Nico’s banner rose high. He lifted his hand, prepared to write his challenge to Sotiris on the skies above the battlefield for all to see . . . but his senses screamed a warning in the very seconds before he cast the spell. His hand dropped and his gaze sharpened when he scanned the enemy’s position, looking for whatever it was that had struck his magical awareness like a blacksmith’s hammer on forged steel.

  He saw it then, a spell flowing over the battlefield in a massive wave of sorcerous energy, a sickly glow crawling unheeded and with no effect over Sotiris’s troops, only to pick up speed when it hit the empty field between their forces. Alarms sounded in Nico’s mind when he tried and failed to discern the purpose or possible effects of the spell, growing louder when the wave dipped to the ground and narrowed as it drew closer to his own forces.

  Spurring his mount forward, he rode out to confront the attack— for there was no doubt as to what this was—and sent a roiling blast of his own magic to meet the sickly wave. “Beware!” He sent the mental warning to his four warriors, when the weapon’s target became clear to him, and cast a defensive shield in the wave’s path, all the while struggling to discern the nature of Sotiris’s spell. The two of them had fought multiple times over the years, but nothing the bastard had cast before had tasted precisely like this. There was something different . . . something that wasn’t Sotiris. It didn’t make sense, but everything Nico knew of magic and sorcery, everything he’d read or learned from others, was telling him someone else had either designed or powered this weapon.

  But how? There were no sorcerers left in this world who could compare to Nico and Sotiris. They’d all been defeated or killed in years past, and not only by Sotiris. Nico’s thoughts were speeding like fingers flicking pages, searching for an answer. But it was already too late. The wave was nearly upon them and he couldn’t destroy it, not with what he knew. His only chance was to block it, to hold the damnable thing at bay until its power drained away, used up by its own struggles to break through Nico’s shield.

  Abandoning his horse, he stepped back until he stood before the line of mounted warriors, then grabbed hold of his sorcery and cast the strongest, most powerful shield he’d ever devised, raising it to the same height that the encroaching energy wave had achieved in skating over Sotiris’s forces. Nico had cast this shield spell enough times that even with the extra protections specific to this attack, he would still have enough power left to sustain a renewed attack of sorcery against Sotiris, and come out victorious.

  Nico widened his stance when the destructive wave was only feet away, bracing body and mind for the collision. He still didn’t know what this weapon was, or what it would do. He only knew he had to kill it, had to stop this unknown threat from striking his brothers.

  He was the only one who could.

  The energy wave stuttered when it hit his shield, and a surge of triumph had Nico throwing back his head, a shout of victory poised to roar from his throat. But his shout became a horrified cry when Sotiris’s spell passed through his own as if they belonged together, as if they’d been designed by the same sorcerer. But that was impossible. Wasn’t it?

  Nico spun, his mind racing as he fought to comprehend what had happened, to decide what to do next, how to save his brothers. But he’d no sooner had the thought than Dragan disappeared, going from physical, to ephemeral, to wisps on the wind in the space of a breath. Nico shouted in denial and prepared to defend Gabriel, who sat next to him with rage roaring from his throat and darkening his face while he searched for an enemy that no one could see.

  A moment later, Gabriel too was gone, his furious cries still filling the air as if unaware that the man who’d voiced them was gone.

  “Nico.” Kato’s call had him turning from Gabriel’s fate and racing to defend the last two of his brothers before they too were gone. Kato’s dark power had risen to meet the destructive wave, and for a moment, it seemed as if the enemy’s attack would falter, but then, with a final regretful glance at his leader, Kato too was gone, dissipating like fog in sunlight.

  Impossible, Nico thought again, and gathered every last ounce of sorcery he possessed to defend Damian, his lifelong companion, the brother he’d wished into existence when his magic had been a fraction of what it was now. He couldn’t lose Damian. Who would help him search for the others, give him strength when he faltered, and share his joy when their brothers were found and they were all together once more?

  Damian jumped from his saddle with the ease of a lifelong horseman, his exceptional strategic awareness telling him his only chance was to stand shoulder to shoulder with Nico, to fuse their strengths into one against this enemy. They would face this together as they had so many other challenges, and they would defeat it. The bilious wave would have no chance against the joined power of a god of war and the world’s greatest sorcerer. Nico reached out a hand to Damian, wanting the physical connection, knowing it would make their joining easier, their merged power stronger.

  But all he felt was Damian’s absence. He turned to stare in shock where his oldest friend had always been, and he knew fear for the first time in many years. Not since he’d been a small child at the mercy of his older brute of a brother had he felt the kind of despair that now flooded his lungs as if he was drowning. He was alone. All alone. The weight of it had his head falling forward, his chin hitting his chest. Silence surrounded him, as unnatural as the attack had been, as eerie as the disappearance of the warriors who’d been solid and real only minutes earlier. Were they dead? If not, where had they gone?

  A laugh arched over the silent battlefield, demanding his attention.

  “You stand alone, Nicodemus Katsaros. You cannot win. But come, there’s no reason for these many good men to die for nothing. Release your people, and I vow they will return to their farms and towns unharmed . . . if you surrender to me.”

  Nico considered the offer for a moment. But no longer than that. He’d been unable to stop whatever spell Sotiris had somehow created to throw at his brother warriors, with such devastating results. But there were thousands of human lives still at stake. Not only his soldiers, but their families—women and children, and the many grandparents who were the life’s blood of the towns and villages, teaching the others what they needed to know, how to survive every disaster. Including this one.

  “You’ll need more than one spell to defeat me and mine, you bastard,” Nico gritted out. “Surrender yourself, or prepare to die.” He spun and strode to his horse with more energy than he would have believed possible only minutes before, but there was a battle to fight—a battle he’d have to win if he was ever to recreate Sotiris’s spell and discover what hell the bastard had condemned his brothers to.

  Sotiris laughed, then flicked his fingers in a mocking salute before turning his horse and racing back to where his own troops waited.

  Nico didn’t linger to watch his enemy’s retreat. He had mere moments to recalculate a battlefield strategy that had been worked out weeks before, as soon as this valley had been chosen, with its low, surrounding hills and flat central plain. That strategy had been refined multiple times as his scouts brought fresh intel on their enemy’s preparations, and then finally this morning, once he and his brothers had seen Sotiris’s final deployments for themselves.

  But as with every such assessment in the years since he’d confronted Sotiris directly, the core of his strategy assumed not only his presence—which was a given—but the active participation of the greatest warriors alive, his brothers-in-arms. And now in the space of seconds, he somehow had to make it w
ork without them.

  His mind raced as his generals joined him to consult on the best possible strategy in the face of such an unprecedented loss. They were all experienced and battle-hardened, mostly from his own wars, and yet when he scanned the faces of the men surrounding him, he saw the dread they couldn’t hide. To a man, they thought the battle was already lost. That with the four great warriors gone, defeat could be the only outcome. And they were looking to him for a miracle that would make victory possible. Seeing their surrender to whatever hope he could offer, to whatever magical weapons he could pull out of his ass to save the day . . . it exhausted him before the battle had even started.

  But he wasn’t fighting this battle for the generals, wasn’t going to win it to ease their fears. He was fighting it for the farmers and shopkeepers who stood in ranks behind him. He was winning it for his brothers, who had to be alive somewhere in this world or another, this time or another, and waiting for him to find them.

  It never occurred to him that they could already be dead. Sotiris would never have been that kind.

  Too short a time later, he strode once more to his battle stallion, mounted with a single, fluid leap, and to the cheers of his men, cast the image of his banner onto the sky, where it hung over the battlefield as if rippling in the heavens. It was an easy feat for one of his power, just as it would have been for Sotiris . . . if he’d thought of it first. If the bastard did it now, everyone would know he was simply copying Nicodemus— who’d won every battle they’d ever fought before.

  Today was to have been the end of conflict between them, the ultimate victory leading to peace. But that wasn’t going to happen now. Nico acknowledged the truth to himself, if not to anyone else. He still intended to win. But it would be a costly victory, one paid with greater bloodshed and death than he’d thought possible. The loss of his brothers had made peace between him and Sotiris forever impossible.