Sin and Sacrifice (25 page)

Evelyn regarded him from
under the spiky, damp fringe of her lashes. Another surge of hope
sliced through her.

“
I only know what they
told me when they were trying to extract information out of me. Do
they have Alexandra and Minna? I don't know if I trust you or not.
You have to understand how long they've hunted us, how many they've
killed.”

“
I'm afraid so. Dracht and
Dragar and several others are looking for them still. Christian was
with me but stayed behind when he got a call from Father
Valanzano.”

“
Who's Father
Valanzano?”

“
Our connection through
the church. I
know
they don't know what's going on. I've already had two
conversations with him and he's deeply concerned that the Templars
are apparently following their own agenda. He's as confused about
why they want you as we were,” he admitted.

Evelyn had to lift her chin
to keep eye contact when he stopped right in front of her. Even now
she felt that strange electricity between them, something that
wanted her to trust and believe in him. She didn't flinch when he
set his broad hand on her shoulder to squeeze. It was a gesture of
comfort and perhaps understanding. Right that second, she didn't
want to be plagued by doubts. She wanted to believe all the things
he'd ever told her, everything he'd made her feel.

Sinking against him, she
wrapped her arms around his middle and held back the sobs by sheer
force of will. He caught her up against him close and tight,
putting his mouth in her hair.

If he'd wanted her dead,
she reasoned, she already would be by now. He had most of the
information, all except the exact location of Eden and how many
sisters were left alive.

He'd been telling her the
truth all along.

“
We'll figure it out.” The
words were a rumble.

“
I'm sorry I shot you,”
she said with a shaky voice.

“
Considering what you've
just told me, you didn't have a choice. You closed your eyes at the
last second and didn't hit anything major. C'mon, let's get out of
here. I need to call Dracht and Christian to see what they've found
out. I don't really want to tell them what you've told me over the
phone even if these lines are technically supposed to be secure.”
Rhett pressed a kiss against her crown and leaned back to use both
thumbs, smearing the pads across her cheeks.

“
Yes, let's go. And
Rhett,” she paused, “Thank you.” She half expected him to say he
was just doing his job, like he'd done in the safe
house.

“
There was no way I was
letting you into their hands again. No matter what.”

Dracht and Dragar crouched
alongside the outside wall of a house that had appeared abandoned
from the street. The neighborhood, straight up middle class, had a
few homes in the row that needed more than a little bit of TLC.
Islands of desolation with knee high grass, chipping paint, and a
general air of neglect.

This house was one of
them.

Weapons drawn, muzzles up,
they listened for movement inside.

Nothing moved in the night
around them. Other than the sound of their shallow breathing, the
only noise came from the distant bark of a dog.

Against his hip, Dracht's
cell phone vibrated. Not an opportune time to take calls, he paused
long enough to dig it from his pocket and check the ID.

Rhett.

“
Yes?” He spoke soft and
low so his voice wouldn't carry. He knew Rhett would understand
that he was in the middle of something important.

“
Don't let any more of
them die,” Rhett said. “Do whatever it takes. The girls will
not
trust you or any of
the Templars and if they fight you or try to run, tell them that
Evelyn has confided in me.”

“
So what is it? Do they
have some heirloom or knowledge--”

Rhett cut him off. “You
won't believe it and I'm not going to repeat it over the phone.
Just tell them that we know the snakebites are
reminders.”

Dracht couldn't figure out
what the hell Rhett was talking about. He knew the women had marks
on their wrists that resembled snakebites. That must be what he was
referring to.

But a reminder of
what?

Taking the information at
face value, he set his own questions aside for now. He had no time
to grill his brother.

“
I'll get back to you.”
Dracht ended the call on that note and traded a look with Dragar,
who had heard at least his side of the conversation.

They had no time to
waste.

A thump from inside drew
Dracht's attention back to the home. On the move, the large men
skulked toward the back of the residence, searching out a rear
entry. Two more Templars waited on either side, blending in with
the shadows while another three were en route.

One of the other Knights,
acting strangely, had led them here an hour earlier when he'd left
a mandatory meeting Dragar had called in an attempt to flush out
the traitors. Hundreds of Templars were out on missions, spread out
over the globe doing their duty. It was the others, the ones who
worked in Athens that were on their list of Knights to watch. They
knew a couple names already; now they just needed to contain the
rest of the ring and get the girls to safety.

With the windows boarded
up, it prevented them from seeing in. It also prevented anyone
inside from seeing them, as well, which suited Dracht just fine.
They probably needed all the surprise they could get.

The back door, situated
under a grimy green and white awning, had a lopsided screen in
front of it, barely hanging on by the hinges. Dracht didn't scowl
though he wanted to. That was going to make noise either way when
they opened it to go in.

Leaving the shadows after a
glance at his father, he rushed the back door and looked for any
chains while Dragar yanked open the screen. Dracht saw nothing that
would impede his entrance on the outside and lifted a boot to kick
the shit out of the door. It banged open and he went in low and
fast, gun out in front of him sweeping left to right in the
gloom.

At the end of a short
hallway, the space opened up into a larger room. Candlelight
spilled over the scene from the left, the same direction a grunt
alerted him to danger. Sinking to one knee, he pivoted and
swiveled, aiming low. He recognized the size and shape of his
brethren, two of them standing over a body roped to a
chair.

“
Don't move!” he
shouted.

Dragar, at his back, came
around the other side.

The slithering hiss of
steel could be none other than a Templar sword, and, acting on
instinct, Dracht swiveled the muzzle to the right just as Dragar
passed; he pulled the trigger and blew out the thigh of a Templar
arcing a strike aimed at his father's back. The sword clanged off
the ground eight feet away.

He didn't want to go for a
kill shot unless he had to. They needed them alive for
questioning.

Through a cacophony of
shouts, Dragar's gun discharged. In strobe flashes, from his
kneeling position, Dracht saw another girl in a chair against the
wall, saw one of the Knights fly backward from the bullet impact,
recognized a third who never got a shot off when Benecio darted
past them and tackled him to the ground. Their backup rushed in to
secure the scene and subdue the Templars.

Dracht pressed to a stand
and advanced on the first girl strapped to the chair. Dread made
the blood thick in his veins; the way she slumped in the seat with
her head forward looked like she might already be dead. The poor
light did not help him identify which one it was until he gently
tipped her head up and back, getting a look at her swollen, bloody
face.

The one named
Alexandra.

He felt for a pulse,
working quick, prepared to attempt CPR on her to try and bring her
back.

“
Is she still alive?”
Dragar asked, one knee planted in the chest of a Templar while
another bound his wrists.

“
She is. Unconscious, but
alive.” Dracht holstered his weapon and unbound the girl's hands
from behind her. More signs of torture showed through bruises on
her arms but she seemed intact. Unlike the last one they'd
found.

“
Here's another,” Dragar
said after leaving the fallen Templar in Raoul's care. He stood
next to another chair in the corner, tugging the gag out of a
girl's mouth.

“
Get away from me, you
pig,” Minna spat, glaring upwards.

“
Here now, we're not going
to do to you what they did,” Dragar said.

“
Don't
touch
me.”

“
I have to in order to
remove your binds. We're here to help you and you'll help us in
return if you cooperate, Minna,” Dragar said. The personal use of
her name seemed to surprise her.

Dracht listened while he
freed Alexandra from the ropes around her wrists and ankles.
Lifting her like a bride, he glanced over to Raoul and Benecio to
make sure they had control of the other Templars. They would be
taken for treatment and held for questioning. The girls needed
treatment as well, at least the one in his arms. The other spitfire
sounded fine if her temper had anything to say about it.

Rhett had warned him the
girls wouldn't respond well to their presence.

He carried Alexandra out
the back of the house where another three Templars waited. Around
the side, Dracht walked the girl to a waiting sedan and carefully
climbed into the back with her. Another sedan waited behind this
one to ferry Dragar and Minna to the Templar stronghold.

Settling Alexandra across
his lap, Dracht scooped long pieces of tangled black hair away from
her face. While the vehicle rolled into motion, he wondered
silently what she and her companions had done to deserve such
volatile treatment. The men who represented the sword were not
unused to violence, either facing it or committing it, but
generally their targets were something other than a flock of
females.

You won't believe
it,
his brother had said. It piqued his
interest.

The sedan took all the
shortcuts through Athens while Dracht phoned in an order for a
medic to meet them at the house. He wouldn't risk taking any of the
women to the hospital unless he thought they were in mortal
danger.

Turning into a long drive,
the car stopped at a tall gate, gained admittance, and sped toward
a structure that stood like a monolith against the night. Four tall
columns decorated the front where a broad porch ran the length of
the building. Intricate architecture had been carved onto the
facade by what looked like master's hands, the depictions of war
exquisite and detailed.

On the eaves above the
door, carved into the stone between two rearing horses, sat a
Templar shield. In the middle, the same iron cross that decorated
the back of every Knight.

Dracht disembarked at the
steps with the girl in his arms, bearing down on the double front
doors that sported the same carvings as the facade. One of the
doors swung open like they were expected.

They were.

Dracht took the girl in
through a wide foyer and straight back past a swooping staircase
with marble lions on the banister. The large room they ended up in,
lit by sconces on the walls and a fire in a fireplace big enough
for him to walk into, had couches and divans spread out over a
spacious area. He marched Alexandra to one such divan and laid her
down, careless that she might bloody the material of the
furniture.

Just as he stood to see if
the medic had arrived, she started stirring. Dracht motioned to
another Knight, the one that had gotten the door, to go see about
the doctor in his stead.

Dracht stared down at
Alexandra but didn't loom. He knew she probably wouldn't have a
great reaction to being in a new place with a stranger standing
over her, especially one wearing a shoulder holster packed with
guns.

“
Alexandra?” he asked,
putting her name out in front with the thought it might calm
her.

The clothes she wore were
bedraggled and grimy. Pieces of her hair were matted with blood and
god knew what else. He watched her struggle through disorientation
and confusion, awareness coming in small bursts. With a sudden
lurch, she sat up and looked at him.

“
Who the hell are you?”
she demanded, choking on blood.

“
My name is Dracht. We've
called for a medic to see to your injuries. Understand, Alexandra,
that we're here to help you.” He repeated the words and let her see
the sincerity in his dark eyes.

“
Oh, I just bet you are.”
She pushed unsteadily off the divan to her feet, keeping a wary
distance between them.

If he didn't know better,
he might have thought she'd been on one hell of a
bender.

“
I'm supposed to tell you
that your sister confided in my brother. She said to say that the
snakebites are reminders, whatever the bloody hell that
means.”