Prideful Savage (A Warrior's Redemption #1) - Miranda Bridges Page 0,4

few days. Now, to make matters even more difficult, he’s killed the male who had best navigated these lands.

Is this the insanity Master Irik foretold?

Or is this how the warrior has always been? He’s despised the shaman since we hired him, for reasons none of us could deduce. His bloodlust has been a liability from the moment he joined our team. I tolerated Tyrez because I had no choice but to serve alongside him. I clench my weapon and lift my arm, the muscles in my jaw ticking.

A flash of heated light zips past my ear before I squeeze the trigger.

Singed flesh permeates the cold twilight air, and then a violent roar shakes the trees around us.

Tyrez morphs into his nonbeast form, and his body, collapsing first to his knees, falls sideways. With a thud, he crashes onto the ground, no longer moving. I lower my arm and fix my attention on Kalach, who blows the end of his ray gun. All eyes, including those of the natives, are trained on him.

“What?” His expression darkens into a familiar, seemingly ever-present scowl. “That fucker had gone as rabid as the rotiks on Erebos. Someone had to put him down. I just wish I’d done it sooner.”

“Perhaps then the shaman wouldn’t have become Ty’s dinner.”

I cut my gaze to Ryzer, the one who uttered the comment in a sharp, accusatory growl. He stands beside his blood brother, both their expressions twisted with rising anger.

“Perhaps, then, Ty wouldn’t be dead either,” Raziel adds, his eyes pinned on Kalach as if trying to burn a hole through his skull.

The oldest of our group, and by far the most experienced in battle, Kalach doesn’t so much as show a flicker of remorse. “I did what you should’ve done.” He juts his chin in the direction of Tyrez. The dead warrior’s blood now bathes the ground beneath him, and the bloodstain of an Incarus is permanent. His memory will remain here as the one who slew a harmless healer who simply offered us help. “I put that sick fucker down before he started going for the locals,” Kalach continues coolly.

Raziel throws his head back with a loud bark of laughter. “Don’t act like you’re the fucking honorable one! This was a sacred land with peaceful inhabitants who meant us no harm, and look at what Tyrez did because of that.” The warrior sweeps a hand around the clearing, a scathing snarl crawling over his thinly pressed lips. “Look at what we did because we didn’t heed the shaman’s warning about the water.” Swatting a hand in the direction of the dead bodies, he turns to me and growls, “Their blood is on your hands, Bravik. Your. Fucking. Hands. You hear me? Because you were the one who refused to listen. You’re the one who got us afflicted, you son of a bitch!”

“That’s enough!” Varyx steps forward, his spear raised. The natives scuttle back into a panicked throng, some of the smaller ones, probably younglings, whimpering.

I hold Varyx at bay with an outstretched arm, my gaze locked on the twin warriors. As much as I’d like to ignore and disagree with the statement, they’re right: I was the one who suggested we hire a guide to the Forbidden Lake. I was also the one who paid Master Irik to be the one to take us there. Now his body, smeared in the blood of a warrior undeserving of quick death, will rot in the soil. I should’ve killed Tyrez the moment I laid eyes on him and he challenged me for the role of team leader—a role I did not want but that Hellisa kindly bestowed upon me as a mocking reminder of my former position.

Damn her, and damn these mutinous warriors!

“So now what?” I ask in a voice that barely conceals my rage. “Do you want to fight and spill more blood for these innocent bystanders? Or should we move on to our next destination and hope, by all the fucking gods and deities in existence, this will be the one to free us?”

In reply, the twins take long, hard looks at the four of us. They clench their fists the moment their eyes land on me, and I prepare to fight them.

“We’ll take an escape pod and conduct the next investigation alone,” Raziel snarls in my ear, and I clench my hands, just managing to resist the urge to wrap them around his throat.

Ryzer pauses briefly in front of me, his eyes narrowed into slits.