A Nature of Conflict (The Redemption Saga Book 3) Read online

  A Nature of Conflict

  The Redemption Saga

  Kristen Banet

  Copyright © 2018 by Kristen Banet

  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 written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Glossary

  1. Sawyer

  2. Sawyer

  3. Zander

  4. Sawyer

  5. Elijah

  6. Sawyer

  7. Sawyer

  8. Sawyer

  9. Vincent

  10. Quinn

  11. Sawyer

  12. Sawyer

  13. Jasper

  14. Sawyer

  15. Elijah

  16. Sawyer

  17. Sawyer

  18. Sawyer

  19. Vincent

  20. Sawyer

  21. Quinn

  22. Sawyer

  23. Zander

  24. Sawyer

  25. Jasper

  26. Elijah

  27. Sawyer

  28. Quinn

  29. Sawyer

  30. Sawyer

  31. Quinn

  32. Sawyer

  33. Zander

  34. Sawyer

  35. Elijah

  Dear Reader,

  Abilities

  IMPO and IMAS

  About the Author

  Also by Kristen Banet

  Some in the world will want you to fail.

  Some will want you to fall.

  Some won’t let you keep moving,

  On this journey to something better.

  Fight back.

  Fight hard.

  And remember,

  You are not alone.

  Glossary

  General Terms

  Ability Rankings - Common, Uncommon, Rare, Mythic. A simple system created to judge how rare abilities are among the Magi.

  Burnout - When a Magi uses all their magical energy and must consume life force to continue.

  Doppelganger - Magi with the sole ability to shape-shift into other human beings. (Legend)

  Doppler – Slang for Doppelganger

  Druids - Female Magi with a plethora of natural abilities. They take over large areas of uninhabited land as caretakers. (Legend)

  Imp - Derogatory term for agents with the IMPO.

  International Magi Armed Services (IMAS) – The Magi’s military in case of war against non-Magi or an uprising against the WMC.

  International Magi Police Organization (IMPO) – The Magi’s organization for tracking down Magi criminals across the globe.

  Legend – A unique groupings of Magi. They are of equal power and have the same abilities per group. Incredibly rare. Many non-Magi legends have their roots in these Magi.

  Magi - Humans with magic. They have anywhere from 1 to 5 abilities and a magical Source.

  Reading - A ceremony after a Magi comes into their magic, where a Magi who can ‘read’ (see Ability Glossary), discovers all the Magi’s abilities. This information is then recorded for the Registrar.

  Registrar - A documentation system for recording all Magi and their powers during their teenage years. Viewing a Registrar entry requires approval by the WMC. Magi are required to submit to having a Registrar entry made via a Reading. There are lists Magi can join for public use, such as lists of healers in case of a global crisis, also kept with the Registrar.

  Source - The well of magical power inside a Magi. It’s two-fold in how it can be measured—strength and depth. How powerful a Magi is versus how much magic they can do before running out of energy.

  Vampyr - Magi with the sole ability “borrow” abilities from others. They can also become immortal by “feeding” off a non-Magi’s life force. (Legend)

  The World Magi Council (WMC) – The governing body over Magi. A group of 15 individuals voted into power every ten years.

  1

  Sawyer

  It was a nightmare, and Sawyer recognized it as it began. It was too dark, something that had never bothered her before. She wondered for only a second which scene her mind would replay this time.

  When Axel took a swing at her, she blocked it and swung back - wild, uncontrolled, untrained. Her hand slammed into his magic shield, something he always kept carefully wrapped around himself once their relationship turned sour and began to rot.

  A backhanded blow cracked across her cheek, flinging her to the floor. She was eighteen. She knew how to kill, but she didn’t know how to take a hit, defend herself. So much had changed.

  Despair began to take over as the nightmare spiraled out of control. She couldn’t get away. She wasn’t strong enough to defeat Axel; she never had been. She always got it worse when she tried to fight back.

  “Fight back,” someone ordered, his tone hard, resolved. “Actually fight back. You’re in control here. You have the power.”

  Sawyer looked away from Axel, grunting as he kicked her ribs. She saw Jasper standing nearby, looking horrified but not interfering. This was their deal. He was going to teach her to take control of her subconscious mind, change the outcomes of her nightmares.

  Seeing him made her remember this was just another nightmare, another lie her past was making up in her head. In her head. She could win here. She could fight.

  She grabbed Axel’s foot before it came down a second time and twisted his ankle hard, listening to it snap. Axel screamed and fell back. She jumped over him and swung down several times, his shield finally cracking under the onslaught, finally shattering until she could connect with his face.

  “Wake up,” Jasper commanded. “You won.”

  She was pulled out of her nightmare in the blink of an eye.

  Sawyer groaned as she woke up, rolling to the edge of her bed to get up and instead running into a body between her and freedom from the confines of her comforter. She pushed herself up and looked down, annoyed with the pale chest between her and her desk.

  “Fuck,” she mumbled, seeing Zander’s flame-red hair, the freckles that covered his face and chest. The tattoos that made his body intriguing – the ones he hadn’t had when life separated them years before.

  She’d forgotten that he’d ended up in her bed the night before. They had argued. Again. Over something petty, she remembered, something stupid. She didn’t remember exactly what that had been, but their arguments tended to end in her bedroom or his, forgotten on the floor with the discarded clothing.

  The sex was always fantastic, at least.

  She moved to the other side of the bed and left that way, hoping not to wake him up. She didn’t need him worrying about her nightmares. This was between her and Jasper, regardless of how the other guys felt about that. They all wanted to help. Elijah wanted to cuddle her through it - an excuse to have physical contact in a bed. Quinn wanted to watch over her, and that was just Quinn. Zander…well, maybe that was what they had argued about, now that she thought about it. She still didn’t remember.

  Vincent just wanted her sane.

  Easier said than done.

  She found sweatpants and a tank top, pulling them on before staggering sleepily to her desk and collapsing into the chair. She reached blindly for the journal Jasper had given he
r to record every instance of a dream or nightmare she had. She flipped the journal open and groaned as she began to search for a pencil. She heard her door open and close softly. She didn’t need to look for who it was. She could feel his magic enter the room.

  “Here,” Jasper whispered gently, holding out a writing utensil of some sort.

  She snatched it and rubbed her eyes. “Good morning,” she mumbled, beginning to recount everything of her nightmare on the page. Every detail remembered, every feeling.

  “Good morning,” he replied. “It’s four in the morning. You almost made it through the night.”

  “Oh goodie,” she grumbled, scratching down her thoughts. “Work out in an hour.”

  “That’s right.” He chuckled and grabbed the second chair.

  She didn’t like that there was more furniture in her bedroom now. Between the extra chair at her desk, the two couches they had brought up, the TV, and the weapon safe, there was too much goddamn furniture. They had made her room into a place where they could come up, sit down, and bother the piss out of her. She half hated it.

  “We’ve been doing this for two weeks,” Sawyer declared impatiently, slamming the journal closed when she was finished. She knew Jasper was going to want to read it, but she hadn’t let him yet. “Making it through the night is not a milestone.”

  “Yeah, it is.” Jasper sighed and shook his head. “You can’t give up now.”

  “I always need you to remind me to fight. It’s getting annoying.”

  “One day, you won’t need the reminder.”

  “And then what?” Sawyer snapped. She was in a shitty mood. She didn’t know why, really. This wasn’t the first time he had come up to talk to her in the aftermath of another nightmare. They had started right after they got back from Texas, and two weeks later, she was losing her patience.

  “Then you start winning on your own. Then Axel stops being a threat in your subconscious.”

  “I’m literally beating the nightmares back.” Sawyer snorted, rolling her eyes to the ceiling and staring up at it.

  “It works,” Jasper said, shrugging. “I did my research, contacted a few other dream walkers. For your specific case, keeping your privacy intact meant this was the best option. The other idea is a therapist.”

  “Oh, yeah. That’s never going to fucking happen,” Sawyer muttered, turning a glare on Jasper.

  “I know, which is why we’re going with this.”

  A groan from the bed silenced any response Sawyer was thinking of making. She glanced to Zander in the bed as he rolled and buried his face into a pillow.

  “I’m amazed you don’t find this weird,” she whispered, keeping her voice low so they didn’t wake up the temperamental redhead.

  “I do and don’t,” Jasper offered. “I don’t find it weird that you are sleeping with him, Vincent, and…well, not me. We aren’t there yet, but we’re in a thing now and have kissed. What I find weird is being in the room while he’s there in your bed, sleeping. It’s like I’m invading any privacy you two might want. I do it too often.”

  “You aren’t a problem,” she promised softly. “We argued yesterday.”

  “I know. Everyone knows. You two make it well-known when there’s something wrong.”

  “I don’t remember what we argued about.”

  “He slapped your ass as you left the entertainment room. You punched him in the gut for it,” Jasper reminded her.

  She heaved a sigh and rubbed her face. A snicker from Jasper told her that he found it funny. She wondered who else was probably laughing at them over it. “For fuck’s sake,” she mumbled.

  “Yeah, then you argued about inappropriate physical contact and the rest of us ran off,” Jasper finished, smiling. He stood up, looking uncomfortable for a moment. “I’m going to read until our run.”

  She rose at that and kissed his cheek softly. He turned into it and slowly, tentatively took her mouth for a deeper kiss. She ran a hand over his smooth skin, the flat, defined planes of his chest. It pulled a groan from him.

  “That’s a sight to wake up to,” Zander’s voice cut in, sounding sleepy and pleased. Jasper and Sawyer stepped apart and she glared at Zander. “Don’t stop on my account.”

  “I’ll see you later,” Jasper whispered. His cheeks were flushed, and she knew he was embarrassed. He didn’t appreciate Zander’s ‘who cares who’s watching’ attitude. It just wasn’t for him. “Are we still on for-”

  “Movies?” she finished. “Yeah. We’re still on for that.”

  “That’s sweet,” Zander teased. “You two are actually doing the dating thing. Movies and dinners and kisses. It’s adorable to watch.”

  “I’m going to kill him,” Sawyer whispered to Jasper.

  “Your call. I’m out of here.” Jasper chuckled. “He’s all yours.”

  “He’s yours too,” Sawyer called as Jasper retreated. She muttered a curse before turning to Zander. “You need to be like that?”

  “Why was he up here?” Zander asked innocently.

  Sawyer was glad to see he was waking up in a good mood. She knew she was about to ruin it, though. “I had a nightmare. He pulled me out and came up to make sure I was okay.”

  “You could have woken me up,” Zander mumbled, his contented mood vanishing. She knew Zander wasn’t going to like that she hadn’t just cuddled with him for security…and maybe some morning sex.

  “Jasper was in there with me. He knows more than you and everyone else does about them. He’s seen them. You don’t need to be in every piece of my business.” Sawyer crossed her arms and glared at him. “We’ve been over this.”

  “How often does he come in here?” Zander demanded.

  “Every few nights. A few of those while you’ve been here.”

  “No one else?”

  “Zander, you’re the only person I actually sleep with.” That was a truth they all knew. Zander was the only person who she spent the night with. She and Jasper weren’t having sex and Vincent was…She had shit to work out before she crawled back into that bed, with its black silk sheets. “So, no. No one else.” Sawyer sighed, shaking her head. “We’ve got forty-five minutes until we need to meet for the run. I’m going to get ready and maybe even get down there early. You can sit there and pout, or leave. Your choice.”

  “I just want you to talk me about this,” he mumbled.

  “I have nightmares,” Sawyer snapped. “Of Axel beating the fuck out of me. Of Henry dying. Of killing people. It’s hard to talk about. It’s a fact of life for me. It’s new enough just trying to let Jasper help me. That was a big fucking step for me. Don’t be an ass about this, Zander. It’s four in the fucking morning and I’m not in the mood to argue about this.”

  “Jesus fuck, Sawyer,” Zander said with a groan. He threw the blankets off and rolled out of her bed. As he walked closer, his gorgeous, inked form nearly diverting her attention, he opened his mouth again. “I’m sorry for caring.”

  She looked up at him, all of his six foot five and pissing her off. “Don’t you fucking go there with me,” Sawyer snarled. “Get out.” She pointed to her door.

  “Don’t-”

  “Shut. Up. And. Leave.” Sawyer commanded, saying it slowly so it would get through his thick skull.

  He glared down at her and she bared her teeth in warning.

  “You spend too much time with Quinn,” he muttered, his eyes on her mouth.

  She twisted the snarl into a grin. “He doesn’t shove his foot in his mouth every time he fucking opens it,” she retorted. “I appreciate that about him.”

  Zander didn’t say anything after that, collecting his clothes and putting on his sweats before storming out of her room. She ran a hand over her face.

  Two weeks of this. Since coming back from Texas, she and Zander found a way to argue over fucking everything, and she was running out of patience. How often they slept together, where they slept, whether she would let him shower with her, who ate off whose plate. Everyone thought it wa
s funny, but she had thought once they settled the relationship stuff it would have stopped.

  It had gotten worse.

  Sawyer sat back down at her desk and ran a hand over the journal. Complicated. The very thing she had worked so hard to avoid. It was making her annoyed, cranky. She liked simplicity, knowing where she stood, and that was still out of her reach and even more unreachable than it had been.

  She flipped through her journal, thinking about the nightmares for a moment. Better than thinking about the rest of her complicated life. She’d had some strange ones after Texas, of children she didn’t know, couldn’t save. She and Jasper had talked about that for long hours. After a week, they had returned to her normal nightmares: Axel, and Henry, and nameless victims.

  She didn’t do anything else except stare at the journal until it was time for her to get up and get ready for morning PT. She made it down there before anyone else except Quinn, who - like every morning - was as shirtless as the day he was born. His back was to her, showing her the myriad of crisscross scarring that she didn’t know the origin of. Scout and Shade were in the grass, lying out, panting softly from the run he had already taken them on.

  “Good morning, Quinn,” she greeted him as she walked down the steps of the back porch.

  “Good morning, Sawyer,” he replied.

  “Sleep well?” she asked, stopping beside him and just staring into the woods as well.