Sin and Sacrifice (31 page)

“
Better now that the truth
is out and we can all move forward from this. I'm anxious to have
the others in custody and to figure out what happens after
that.”

“
Soon. Dragar's got the
names now thanks to Saul. He's getting a team together while we do
this. It's just a matter of figuring out where they are,” Rhett
said.

Evelyn admired him instead
of the view. To go along with the jeans and dark blazer, he'd
shaved and combed his hair away from his face. He'd never even met
Galiana or Genevieve yet he took pains to look respectable. She
knew he wore a holster under the blazer—probably wore it at all
times—and the knowledge reassured her. Even with the wound she'd
inflicted, Rhett was a force to be reckoned with.

“
How did you get that scar
above your eyebrow?” Evelyn gave in to curiosity at
last.

“
In Jakarta. Barroom
brawl.” He smiled without taking his eyes off the road.

“
...it wasn't from
work?”

“
No. Some drunk picked a
fight when we were off duty. Christian and I almost got thrown in
jail.” Rhett rumbled a laugh, obviously reminiscing.

“
You're pretty close to
your brothers.” She said it as a statement and not a
question.

“
I am. This has been our
life since I can remember.”

“
Do you ever wish you were
doing something different? Living a more normal life?”

“
Define normal. If you
mean do I wish I was sitting at a desk all day punching numbers or
some other typical job, then no. I like what I do, if that wasn't
obvious.” He glanced at her.

Evelyn quirked her lips and
looked out the front windshield.

“
Why do I get the feeling
that wasn't the right answer?” he asked.

“
It's just dangerous,
that's all.” With an abrupt change of subject, she asked, “How do
we know the others aren't following us?”

Evelyn took his few seconds
of silence to mean she'd caught him off guard with the swerve in
topic. Either that, or Rhett was deciding whether or not to pursue
the former subject.

“
We don't. I've done my
best to lose any tail in the city though. What's on your mind,
Evelyn?” he asked.

“
I don't know. I think I'm
just moody about this. It's hard to say goodbye.” It was this and
it was also other things she didn't know how to mention.

“
Is that all?”

“
Mostly. I have a bad
feeling I can't put my finger on.”

“
Do you get those feelings
often?”

“
Not really.”

“
You're not reassuring me
here, Evelyn.”

“
It's hard to reassure you
when I can't even reassure myself.”

Papadopoulos Mortuary felt
as cold on the skin as a midwinter day. It seeped through the
layers of clothing all the way to her bones. The sterile room in
the back wasn't meant for guests or loved ones; it was a place to
store coffins and bodies in the time between viewing and burial.
The gray floor matched the gray walls and even the ceiling fit into
the monochrome theme. It made the glossy, cherry wood caskets stand
out like sore thumbs.

Evelyn stood next to Minna
and Alexandra while an assistant opened the lids so the girls could
say their final goodbye.

In her lifetime, Evelyn had
experienced many deaths of her loved ones, and each time was just
as hard as the last.

Galiana's skin was starting
to mottle near the hairline and closer to the back of her neck. Her
face, a ghastly whitish-blue, looked peaceful. Youthful. The inky
web of her lashes fanned down over the high crest of her cheek. If
she wasn't so pale, even with the light layer of make up, Evelyn
would have thought she'd just been asleep.

An assistant at the
mortuary had been kind enough to obtain clothing according to
Evelyn's direction, so that Galiana would go to rest in a stylish
dress of peach and cream. Genevieve, who'd suffered more physical
facial damage than Galiana, was outfitted in the earth tones she
always preferred.

With Rhett hovering at her
back, she bent to place a small kiss on Genevieve and then
Galiana's cheeks, restricting her tears to silent trails of saline
that dripped harmlessly onto the satin lining the
caskets.

Minna expended her grief in
quiet breaths, murmuring soothing words while she stroked her hand
over their hair and followed suit with a cheek kiss.

While Alex took her turn,
Evelyn dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief Rhett pressed around
her shoulder and into her fingers. She felt him touch the small of
her back reassuringly, his broad stature like a wall looming behind
her.

“
You find some kick ass
sales in heaven, Galiana, and we'll be seein' you sooner than you
think,” Alexandra said.

“
Alexandra.”
Evelyn should have known Alex would say something
like that.

She thought she heard
Minna, Rhett, Dracht and Christian all muffle a laugh. Evelyn
didn't know whether to be amused or beat her wayward sister to a
pulp.

“
What?” Alex said. “You
know you were all thinking it.” Alex went over and kissed
Genevieve's temple next. “Tell Eurijah I'll be taking that necklace
back she 'borrowed' like a thousand years ago when I get up there.
Love ya.”

The irony was that
it
had
been a
thousand years ago when Eurijah borrowed Alex's necklace and was
never able to return it before her untimely death. Evelyn
discovered she couldn't chide Alexandra for being herself. It was
just her way, and probably made it easier to cope with the loss.
Alex hadn't ever liked to show much emotion in front of
anyone.

“
If you two even think of
snibbling and snarffling over me when I die, I'll kick both your
butts when you get to heaven,” Alexandra announced when she turned
from the caskets. She eyed Evelyn and Minna with her brows
up.

The girl was
impossible.

“
Snibbling isn't even a
word. Hush and let's go.” Evelyn pinched Alex's side to get her
moving for the doors. She glanced a last time at Galiana and
Genevieve before the assistant eased the lids back into place.
Knowing that she would see them again was the only thing that kept
her from breaking down completely.

Rhett caught her elbow with
his fingers and steered her toward the back entrance. “Your sister
is something,” he murmured near her ear.

“
She's always been blunt.
I suppose it's a coping mechanism or something on days like today.”
Evelyn pushed the handkerchief into her pocket to return to him
later, after she'd washed it.

“
I'm sorry you won't be
able to go to the cemetery. But at least you'll know that they'll
be buried like you wanted. Once this is all over, we can do a
memorial if you'd like the proper way.” He led her out the back
door and into the sunlight.

“
That might be a good
idea.” Evelyn and her surviving sisters hadn't ever had a memorial
for any of them before. It had felt too risky to gather in one
place in case they were being watched. Usually they were on the run
by then, doing their best to stay one step ahead of the Templars.
Alex would balk at the thought. She couldn't be sure what Minna
would say.

While the others parted off
in pairs to travel back to the stronghold, Evelyn walked with Rhett
to their car. He went around to open the passenger door for her and
closed it once she was inside.

Evelyn tracked him in the
rear view mirror while he made his way around to the driver's side.
She could still smell the subtle scent of his cologne on her
clothes and the seats. When he got in, she examined his profile
while he slid the key into the ignition. The engine growled to
life. They were slated to leave a few minutes before the others,
staggering their exit like they had from the stronghold.

“
Do you think we'll ever
be able to live like we used to, Rhett? In our own houses in the
cities of our choices?” she asked. He glanced at her, the pale
green of his eyes serious.

“
I'm sure you will. It'll
all depend on how much protection we think you need, what you're
willing to accept, and where you all want to live,
really.”

“
We'd planned to move back
here in the not too distant future. Crete, maybe. I don't know what
the girls will want to do now, but I know we won't be splitting up
to live separately again.”

“
You lived apart before?”
He backed the sleek vehicle out of the slot, one arm slung behind
her seat. Once clear, he put the car in gear and cruised toward the
street.

“
We scattered across the
globe after Eurijah was killed. We wanted to make it harder to
track us down. And if they did manage to find us, then at least we
wouldn't put any other sisters in jeopardy by living together. That
was our thinking. But finally, when so many decades went by without
an attack, we felt pretty secure living close to one another again.
Now I doubt I could be separated from them for very
long.”

“
You shouldn't have to
worry about it after this. You can live anywhere you want
to.”

“
Will you and your
brothers go anywhere we go? I mean, won't that be disruptive for
you?”

Rhett stopped at a red
light and searched her eyes. He said nothing for long seconds. “For
a while. At some point I'm going to pick a home base and settle
there, start a family of my own. It isn't something I've considered
so far due to my lifestyle. They'll replace me with someone you can
trust.”

Evelyn was unprepared for
the stab of jealousy that hit her. She had no right to feel so
possessive over him after knowing him such a short time. Or did
she? They'd shared more than just a kiss, and their situation was
far from some casual meeting in a club or at a party. They'd been
chased, shot at, hunted. He'd put himself in the line of fire for
her.

Remembering the look they
shared the night before across the sand pit, her cheeks flushed.
She would have bet in that moment he felt just as possessive over
her.

“
So you can have little
Templars of your own to train and get into the family business, I'm
sure.” She didn't phrase it as a question. Templars were
generational. Of course Rhett would eventually settle down and have
children of his own.

Evelyn hated the thought of
him growing old, growing infirm and feeble.

“
I don't know how the kid
thing works for you. Have you had any?” he asked.

“
Alexandra and I are the
only two that haven't. I chose not to because the thought of
watching them grow old and die didn't appeal to me. Alexandra just
isn't the motherly type, not really.”

“
How did you 'choose' not
to back before there was birth control?”

Evelyn studied his face
while he drove. Confiding in him shouldn't be so easy. “Like our
ability to heal, we have an innate knowledge of when the precise
time is to conceive. So if you don't want to, then you avoid
relations with men until that time has passed.”

“
Very handy little extra
sense. I guess you're not susceptible to disease or anything like
that then?”

“
No. Though if we ingested
enough poison or something like that, we'll die.” She watched his
reactions while he took a longer route back to the stronghold. By
the way he watched the rear view and side mirrors, she knew he was
making sure he lost any kind of tail.

“
Does the immortality get
passed down to the children?”

“
No. That comes from
eating fruit from the Tree of Life.” Evelyn folded her hands in her
lap, memorizing the strength of his jaw, the masculine bridge of
his nose. The scar above his eyebrow only added to his appeal in
her mind.

Rhett met her eyes and held
them at the next red light.

He said nothing else for
the rest of the trip to the stronghold.

The scent of grilled
chicken wafted through the kitchen. Evelyn, impressed with how well
equipped it was, decided to help Rhett make dinner. Not bothering
to change, she'd found a full length apron to don over her
clothing, the strings wrapped twice around her hips and tied off in
the front.

Dusk had settled over the
landscape a few minutes before, bleeding orange fingers of light
through the windows.

“
Smells pretty good,”
Rhett said from the island where he stood piling ears of corn
wrapped in foil from the grill onto a plate. “There's salad fixings
in the fridge, too. We can do that last.”

“
How many months out of
the year do you live here?” she asked, turning over a few pieces of
chicken with the tongs. An overhead vent quietly pulled the rising
steam away.

“
Months? I don't stay for
months at a time anywhere. I move between the strongholds and
houses depending on where I'm needed to work,” he said, setting
down his own pair of tongs.

“
Oh. You don't have a
place of your own for vacations and things like that?” she asked,
glancing over at him.