Deviant Knights (11 page)
Authors: Alexandra O'Hurley
Painfully.
He could no longer take his existence for
granted.
Kadence
was proof that the unknown still lingered on the fray, ready to pounce at any
moment, when they least expected it.
And because of that unknown, she was still a
fire in his blood.
He was in a constant
state of arousal when she was near.
It
had been two hours since his release in the last train, and still he ached to
thrust inside her welcoming heat.
The
strain of holding back had overcome him and he’d spent like a schoolboy,
bursting from his own hand.
He felt
shame that she’d seen that.
But he
refused to touch her until they determined what she was and how she fit in
their equation.
Chapter Nine
Kadence
walked between the two men, hopping out of one train, bound for
another.
Days had blurred together, her
body so stiff and sore from the trip that she couldn’t wait to arrive in
This would be their last leg.
Michel had promised this ride would be less
than thirty minutes, from Nice to
Michel
Once they settled into the next train, she
relaxed as best she could and tried to rest.
Who knew what would come next.
She’d better sleep when she could.
She’d seen glimpses of the
soaking up sun, and forgetting the hell of the past three days that had felt
more like three weeks.
She closed her
eyes and envisioned that scene.
Smiling
to herself, she could almost hear the surf lapping at the beach, gulls
screeching overhead, could almost feel the radiant heat sweltering from above.
And knew it would not be.
These men had opened her eyes to a world she’d
had no idea existed.
She would forever
be looking over her shoulder, seeking the evil around her, and waiting for it
to attack.
Beheadings and evil children
were already invading her dreams.
What
she wouldn’t give to go back in time.
Would she refuse the dinner invitation, knowing what she knew now?
Yes, they’d both given her pleasure, but at what
cost?
She would never have the life she’d once
had.
Struggle or no, it had been easy,
compared to what the future looked like from this vantage point.
Kadence
drifted to
sleep wishing she’d never seen Gabriel’s face.
****
The
train came to a halt in their final station and Michel let out a small
hiss.
They’d made it to
Air thick with tension, they rose in silence
and began to file out of the train.
Questions had been plaguing them all, the heavy possibilities gnawing on
them almost as much as the prospect of being followed by the Illuminati.
The dual fears had eaten away at him.
Adding in the lust he felt and fought—unsuccessfully—his
nerves were fraught.
His mind told him
to use caution.
His body told him the
opposite.
And the more time they’d spent
with her on the train, the more he sensed she bore them no evil intent.
But his long years had taught him that trust was
not something handed over easily.
He’d trusted once, a long time ago.
A beautiful woman who’d captured his heart.
Who’d then only stabbed him in that same
organ with her guile and deceit.
It had
been so long ago, in another time, another place.
But the scars were deep and he remembered it
all like it was yesterday, not five hundred years before.
Since his
Paloma
had betrayed him, he’d never held another close to his heart, using women for
their bodies until he grew bored and moved on.
Not that it was often, but he’d had passions to
slake over the long, lonely years.
After
all she’d done to him, watching her with her lover, as that lover had ensured
he’d lived through hell, she’d reveled in his torture.
Since
Paloma
, no
woman had ever gotten close.
Kadence
was the acceptation, although she still wasn’t past his walls.
He sensed she was already much further under
his skin than he allowed.
Her simple
presence brought him a peace he’d rarely felt, even in the midst of their
passage to safety.
His nerves were shot,
but he still sensed a completion to his soul and that unnerved him.
But the questions in his mind made him want
to push her away.
He didn’t know what
and who she really was.
Thus far, she’d shown no outward appearance of
working with his enemies.
But neither had
Paloma
.
He’d sensed a problem when it was already too
late.
He always trusted his gut, except
for when it came to women.
Especially a woman like her.
She had the potential to hurt him more than
Paloma
ever did.
She made him feel things that
even
Paloma
had not, and so she posed the biggest
threat to him.
That is, if he allowed
himself to let her in.
Gabriel flanked one side of
Kadence
,
escorting her to the waiting limo.
Michel was at her other side, his black duffel over one shoulder.
They ran toward the car, in a hurry to
finally be done with the trip and in a safe home.
Michel paused, a sensation running through
him.
Something was not right.
Sensing they were not alone, he turned to the
left and stopped in his tracks.
Paloma
.
She stood not fifty feet from them, looking not
a day older than the last time he’d seen her smiling down at him in his
cell.
Two Illuminati henchmen flanked
her.
The three gazed through the crowd,
looking for him and Gabriel, but had not witnessed them yet.
“What is it, Michel?”
Gabriel’s voice sounded distant, although he
stood right next to him.
Michel wasn’t
there; he was in 1560, lost to the torments he’d borne.
Paloma
turned and their eyes met. Visions of it all passed through his
mind, frozen to the spot, unable to move.
Michel felt his friend step close and then he
was being dragged into the limo.
He was
physically pushed into the vehicle and it took several moments for
comprehension to filter through him.
and expensive cars sped past him in through the window.
Between the exhaustion of the trip, his
longing for
Kadence
, and now, his five-hundred-year-old
ex-lover appearing before him very much alive, his mind was a muddle.
Surprise was an understatement.
****
Gabriel watched Michel closely.
The man was obviously in shock.
Paloma
had been
instrumental in Michel’s torture.
If
Gabriel and Thierry had not intervened and gotten him out of the hands of the
Inquisitors, who knew what could have happened. The guillotine would have ended
Michel.
He could still remember pulling
the Frenchman’s near-lifeless body from the cell, coated in blood.
Open, festering wounds had covered him and
bruises filled the skin still intact.
Had it not been for Michel’s few seconds of lucidity to call out to
Gabriel’s voice, there would have been no way to discern it was him.
She should have been dead long ago.
Nearly five hundred years had passed.
But seeing the men flanking her had left
little question in his mind.
Paloma
was Illuminati.
She must
have been given Immortality by the powers that be.
The only questions that truly remained were how
Paloma
had found them, and why now, after all these years,
had she surfaced?
And was
Kadence
drawing them close?
Chapter Ten
Michel tried to wrench himself from the grips of
madness, knowing that the moments of weakness had left himself and the people
with him in harm’s way.
Weaknesses got
you killed.
Paloma
would forever be a weakness.
Visions of his weeks in agony ran through his
mind.
The beatings, long and arduous,
hadn’t broken him.
The bruises would
eventually heal, the bones mend.
When
they’d begun to cut away his flesh, yes, it had hurt, but it would grow back,
as it always did.
Luckily for him,
they’d tortured him non-stop, so they did not notice his quick healing.
If they determined that he was not exactly
human, he knew that the end would follow shortly thereafter.
He’d be burned at the stake for being an
abomination.
When that didn’t work, they
would probably use the guillotine.
The loss of his head meant sure death.
When their fists and knives had not gotten the
proper response, they’d gone to extremes to get him to confess his sins.
Paloma
and her
lover had fucked in the room as he was forced to watch.
If he closed his eyes, they would flay bits
of his skin off, forcing him to keep them open.
Over and over again, he’d watched the filthy pig of a man touch the
whore’s body.
She had smiled at Michel
as the bastard had rutted behind her like the fat animal he was.
In his mind, he’d repeated over and over again
that she was a traitorous bitch and he should feel nothing when she allowed the
letch into her body.
But his chest had
ached with every thrust.
His teeth had
felt like they’d shatter from the clenching of his jaw.
His fingers had curled, wanting to be around
the captain’s neck.
After busting the chair he’d been bound to, a
soldier’s sword had gone into his chest when he’d advanced on the pair.
His body broken and swollen, his skin covered in
blood, she’d shown no remorse for the things her lover’s men had done to
him.
In his nightmares, he could still
hear her lusty moans of satisfaction as his body slid to the floor, gutted by
steel.
She’d laughed like a wild woman
as the room had faded to black.
He’d awoken the following morning on a cartful
of dead bodies.
The stench had made him
roll over and retch, the lack of food and water causing nothing to come
out.
A guard had seen him arise and had
screamed for others to come, to see the dead man come back to life.
Minutes later, he was forced to his knees
before a cardinal.
The cardinal sat in a throne of a chair, his
fingers
steepled
before him as he gazed at Michel for
long moments.
Michel forced the man to
see him, to catch his eyes, and it was then that he noted the tick in the
Cardinal’s cheek.
His reserved, calm demeanor
was just a ruse.
The man was either
angry or scared.
Potentially
both.
And either emotion could
lead to rash choices.
“Catholicism is in perilous times, Frenchman,”
the Cardinal spoke to him in his native tongue.
The rolling French seemed natural.
He wondered if the man were French himself.
Perhaps that would aid him.
“Yes, indeed.
I agree.”
“Demons walking on the Earth,
tempting others to forego their religion, their god.
I’ve heard the stories.
You are an abomination.”
The last word slid out slowly, as if the man
spoke in slow motion.
