Immortal Sacrifice: #4 The Curse of the Templars (31 page)

If he didn’t have that sword still in his hand, she’d be half-tempted to push him back and make a run for the door.
He’d catch up to her at the auction, but she’d at least be in position to make her bids.

The glimmering blade in the corner of her eye squashed that notion flat.
She didn’t really think he’d hurt her. But no telling what might happen if he tried to tackle her and she inadvertently collided with that length of steel. Injury would be accidental, but it still carried the distinct overtone of fatal.

“Hurry up,” she mumbled.

“You are prepared then to admit there are things in this world you are not familiar with? Things that may sound unbelievable, but in fact, are naught but truth?”

Isabelle rolled her eyes.
“Yes.”

“Isa, you are acting like a child.
If you wish to save September, cease.”

That was enough to snap her to attention.
She glared. “The only way to save September is to get to the auction, acquire the necklace, and exchange it with Paul tonight.”

“Nay.
The only way to save September is to gain your immortality, for you will need it when we go to Paul.”

Immor-
what?
Her thoughts skidded to a halt. The protests she harbored died into silence. She couldn’t have heard him correctly. He’d said
his
immortality, not hers. She squinted. Hadn’t he?

“My what?”
A nervous laugh vibrated in the back of her throat.

“Aye, you heard me.
Your immortality.” Shifting his weight, he braced his foot more solidly and set his sword by his bent leg. With the faintest hint of a smile dancing at the corners of his mouth, he took the armband between both thumb and forefinger, his wrists resting on her knees. “I asked you last eve about angels.”

No.
Dread returned with a ferocious snarl that coiled her stomach into a knot.
No, no, no.
She didn’t want to be an angel. Not in this lifetime or any other. She wanted to go on being human, free to make her own decisions, to laugh, to cry,
to love.
She wasn’t ready to give up the pleasures of life to devote herself to a pious, higher calling.

Most of all, she didn’t want to give up Caradoc, and from what she knew of angels, they didn’t have husbands or lovers at all.

Afraid to hear the answer, she whispered, “What are you trying to say?”

Caradoc gave her the first genuine smile she’d seen since she’d woken up to his playful loving.
“You are a seraph, Isabelle. A descendant of the Nephilim. The blood of angels carries on in your veins.”

The room tilted sideways, and she clutched at the tangled sheets to keep herself from toppling with it.
If she embraced this, she must also embrace the fact September might be also; he’d insinuated as much last night. And if September was being called to a higher duty, the possibility Isabelle’s nightmare might come true had just doubled. What other explanation could justify why a grotesque being wore her blood?

“You’ve got to be kidding.
I can’t be an angel, Caradoc.”

“Aye, this armband marks you as such.”
He tipped it into the light and tapped one of the tiny snake’s head. “’Tis marked with the Templar cross, and is as old as time. ’Twas given to the Nephilim who chose to forfeit their power and become simple man. They would be called again, the serpents to return when the Almighty most needed their service.”

He paused, his voice thickening.
More quietly, he added, “When the Templar most needed salvation.”

Isabelle struggled to grasp Caradoc’s words, but the increasing buzz inside her head made it impossible to focus on anything he said.
Seraphs, immortality, Templar salvation—all she could see was September’s lifeless body crumpled at that sightless angel’s feet.

“I don’t understand,” she confessed in a small voice.

“You are
my
seraph, Isabelle. We were fated before time began. And when we say the oath we must, you will gain my immortality. Bonded thusly, we can save September.”

The air fled her lungs in a rush.

Chapter
30

His. Fated.
Eternity
. Isabelle sat dumbstruck, unable to do more than blink while he picked up his sword and eased the brass armband down the long blade. It came to a stop at his hand, the unadorned leather pommel just barely visible between his grip.

“’Tis written in the scrolls most sacred to the Order, a promise from the Almighty himself.
When the Templar are at their weakest, light shall return to our damaged souls and the curse we suffer shall lift.”

His eyes held hers, radiating sincerity.
And affection—she’d never seen so much genuine feeling pour from him. Even when they made love, when he confessed his feelings for her, those orbs of green-gold hadn’t glittered as fierce as they did now. The warm light soaked through Isabelle’s dizzying thoughts and pulled her focus to what he was saying.

“This curse…The beasts I am sworn to slay eat away at my soul.
At my brothers’ souls. In time, without the Almighty’s promised healing, we shall all perish to evil. We shall become the very things we hunt, and our purpose will be to aid Azazel.”

Her breath caught, the full meaning of his words punching her in the gut.
Dying. Caradoc was slowly being eaten away by the evil he combated. And she…She somehow held the power to stop his death. Suddenly her lungs felt too small, the room too narrow.

“The prophecy we were taught—and had quite forgotten until
Merrick discovered Anne—declares you as the jewel
. The one who digs in dust precedes the finding of the jewel.
I should have known this, mayhap, but ’twas impossible to see what lay before me when all I knew was heartache and regret.”

His free hand moved to collect hers.
Slowly, reverently, he brought the back of her knuckles to his mouth and pressed a gentle kiss to her skin. Chills rolled up her arm, through her shoulder, down her spine. She struggled to sit still, to stamp down the need to squirm. Never, in all her life, had she felt so…cherished. That one simple gesture went beyond all the incredible intimacy they shared.

“There can be only one seraph for each knight.
Only
you
, Isabelle, can stand as my mate, my
wife.
You fill my heart, and ’tis my honor to offer you my oath of loyalty.”

Before she could fully digest his meaning, he laid his sword at her feet and shifted his weight to one knee.
Head bowed, he squeezed her hand. “Isabelle Speranza, I shall honor and defend you until the Almighty sees fit to call us both home. Naught will sway me from this purpose. Naught will alter my unending love for you.”

A rush of fierce emotion swamped her.
I love you
, held meaning. Deep meaning. But though she didn’t fully understand the depth of his intentions, she understood what he’d offered ran deeper than the simple sentiment so many used frivolously. He was offering her more than love. More than a life together. Something she didn’t know how to return, but would search the ends of the earth to find that answer. “Caradoc,” she whispered through a roughened throat.

Lifting his head, he picked up his sword once more and repositioned the armlet so the two heads faced a tiny golden cross embedded in the steel near blade’s point of balance.
He looked to her, and a touch of apprehension clouded the warm light in his gaze.

“As with all things, you have a choice.
You may choose not to accept this calling to duty. I shall not lie to you—immortality is not a gift. ’Tis a certain curse. You will outlive those you care for. You shall spend nights combating evil more horrifying than you can imagine.” He paused, inhaled deeply, and his features hardened. “The beast you see in your nightmare is a demon. They are not the worst of Azazel’s creations, by far. They can shift shapes into that of a human, unlike nytyms who can only assume the form of simple animals. Compared to my fallen Templar, those who are now Knights of Azazel, a demon is no more dangerous than a fly.”

Uncomfortable with the idea that there could be something
worse
hunting September, Isabelle gave in to a shudder. Caradoc’s firm grip on her knee, however, drew her back from the dark hole that threatened, refusing to allow her to dwell on possibility.

“I do not want you to choose this oath for my sake, Isa.
I do not desire an eternity with you if ’tis not what you wish. You would be miserable, as well as I. I would rather—”

“Yes.”
The word came out in a breathless rush, empowered by the torrent of emotion that overflowed her heart. “I choose you.”

For the passing of one quick heartbeat, Caradoc’s expression reflected surprise.
Then, with the next, serenity returned, the faint hint of a smile uplifting the corners of his mouth. “The
Villa Valguarnera
is a gate to Azazel’s realm. I recognize now the statue you described, the mausoleum you have touched in dreams. Bound as a seraph and knight are meant to be, we will keep September safe.”

Isabelle forced herself to cast aside the fog in her head that jumbled everything into a twisted mass of disbelief and shock.
She nodded, swallowed hard. “Tell me what to do?”

Caradoc lifted his broadsword, pointing the blade to the ceiling.
He lowered his voice, closing his eyes as he recited a Latin phrase. “
Meus vires, meus mucro, meus immortalis animus, fio vestry.
”

As Isabelle watched the flutter of his long lashes, the room shifted to a time she’d long forgotten, a dream from her teenage years.
Though she hadn’t moved, and everything surrounding her looked the same, she looked on as if seeing through someone else’s eyes. Caradoc kneeling before her. Opening his eyes to look into hers. Unspoken emotion flowed between them, so strong she could almost reach out and feel the ribbons that bound them together.

His voice rang hollow, like he spoke from another realm, an eerie whisper that she already knew would come, and exactly what he would say.
“It means,
my strength, my sword, my immortal soul, becomes yours.”
Taking her hand, he set it over his. “Now you must…”

She didn’t need him to elaborate—she already understood her role.
It had been taught to her; she’d seen herself sitting here. And though she’d forgotten the long-ago dream, it came back in full force, as if she’d witnessed this event while she slept in Caradoc’s bed, only hours before.

“Meus vita, meus diligo, meus eternus
lux lucis, fio vestry,”
she whispered.
My life, my love, my eternal light, becomes yours.

As it had fifteen years or more prior, a blinding light flared through the room.
Pristine in its brilliance, intimidating in its magnificence. Where their hands joined, a blue-white luminescence radiated, slowly spreading down the length of the unadorned blade. Against Isabelle’s fingertips, the brass serpents moved of their own volition. She stared, mesmerized, as one tiny snakehead elongated, separating from its partner, lifting to look at her, then Caradoc. Then, its twin shifted, pulled apart as well, until one synchronized undulation of its scaled body shook off the deep patina and uncoiled it completely.

To her amazement, miniscule fangs emerged from both jaws.
The first head reared back, struck forward as if it intended to sink poison into the fleshy part of her palm. Barely missing her skin, the viper’s teeth embedded into the golden cross at the base of the broadsword’s blade. A fraction of a second later, the second head struck out and clamped into another golden cross inlaid in the circular pommel.

Magic, miracle—Isabelle suspected the action was both.
But as the light receded, returning the blade to a polished length of metal, the serpents came to rest, their singular body forming uneven quillions where none had been before. Using her free hand, she ran a fingertip down the polished bar. Awe prevented her from speech.

“’Twill keep the darkness at bay,” Caradoc murmured.

“I know.” She looked up through lowered lashes. “You told me that before. The summer I learned to drive.”

A wry smile wove its way across his inviting lips.
“Another dream?”

Before Isabelle could answer, an unfamiliar sensation burst inside her chest.
Heat, cold, and something in between—something not all together unpleasant, and yet nowhere near comfortable—built, forcing her to suck in a gulp of air. She pressed her hand to her breastbone, winced as the feeling crept outward, through her veins, beneath her skin.

“Immortality,” Caradoc whispered.

Isabelle could only manage a tight nod. And then the odd sensation vanished, leaving her feeling as if she’d been caught by a fierce winter breeze. Robbed of breath, uncomfortable, invigorated, and altogether undamaged. “Wow.”

“It has passed?”

“Yeah.”

Pulling on her forearm, Caradoc guided her into the sweet haven of his embrace.
His mouth feathered across hers. Unwilling to let him slip away, she caught his retreating lips and wound one arm around his neck. At the hungry tangle of their tongues, her entire body sighed with contentment. His. The one thing she had yearned for, the only dream that had ever mattered, she held in the palm of her hand. She belonged to Caradoc, and he belonged to her.
Eternally.

Caradoc drew the kiss to a lingering close.
“Come. We must leave.”

September.
In the magic of the moment, she’d almost forgotten about the necklace. Spurred on by his gentle reminder, she leapt out of his arms and to her feet. “So what’s the plan?”

Dragging fresh clothes from his dresser, Caradoc tossed them on the bed and stripped out of his cotton sleeping pants.
“We will go to Shapiro’s together. We will both bid on the necklace, but I shall allow you to win the auction. Then, tonight, we will take it to this demon, but we shall not turn it over. ’Tis likely we shall have to fight, but we
will
return with September.”

She didn’t like it.
Not one bit. The proof of everything he’d claimed he was and the cause he fought for lay right before her eyes, staring up from tiny eyes that wound around a sword’s hilt. She’d witnessed the impossible, believed it in the core of her being. But gambling with September’s fate battled every mothering instinct she possessed.

“You’re certain this will work?”

Caradoc chuckled. “He is a demon, Isa. They are powerful, but they are not yet smarter than man. Even if this Paul is possessed by him, the greed of evil overrides sense.”

“So, it’s pretty much a done deal?”

“Aye.” He stuffed his arms into his suit jacket and hastily fastened the buttons at his waist. “You said the being did not have wings. ’Tis naught to fear. I have been slaying demons for centuries.”