Sin and Sacrifice (33 page)

“
Why not?” he asked,
reaching past her. With care, he pulled one particular sword from
the grips that held it vertical to the ground.

Evelyn took two steps to
the side to give him room. “I've always had a fear of them, I
guess. I'm sure you can understand why.”

He angled the blade so that
it was pointing straight up. Christian followed the shining steel
with his gaze right to the tip. The grip he had around the hilt
looked firm but comfortable, as if he'd spent a lot of time with
the weapon. A corner of his mouth crooked into a half smile when he
met her eyes past the glinting metal.

“
I can understand that,”
he said with a nod. “Did you see them in action once before or
something?”

“
A very long time ago,
yes.” Evelyn laced her arms across her front. Overhead, beyond the
dome in the ceiling, thunder growled through the sky. A few seconds
later, lightning flashed a spear of illumination over the pit. It
sounded like a big storm was rolling in.

“
Must not have been very
pleasant, judging by the look on your face,” he added. “Then there
was the way Galiana died.”

An immediate pang lanced
through her. She winced, looking up from the hold he had on the
hilt to his eyes. The upright position of the blade blocked a
portion of his face.

“
There was that.”
Reminded, her voice lowered to a murmur. “I'm sure Rhett's told you
that I'm not a fan of violence anyway.”

“
He didn't mention it.”
Christian lowered the blade an inch at a time, until the tip
hovered just beneath her chin.

She was positive that
Christian wouldn't ever mean to distress her, but staring down the
glinting steel put a sudden ache in her stomach. Not wanting to
touch it, she swallowed down a knot of unease.

It's just Christian. He
doesn't know how much I hate these things.

While they stared at each
other, with the storm growing in intensity outside, Christian
touched the tip of the sword against her skin. A light rest of
cold, hard steel. Evelyn flinched at the contact.

“
...can you move that,
please? It makes me uncomfortable.” She half expected him to say it
was a lesson. Like the one Rhett taught her that night in the hotel
room when he stalked her.

“
And it
should
make you
uncomfortable. You've caused me more trouble than you realize.” His
eyes, usually blue as a summer sky, turned flinty.

Shock froze Evelyn in
place. Thunder pounded the night as if a great hammer was trying to
crack through the heavens.

Any second, she expected
Christian to laugh and withdraw the blade. This was some awful
joke, a twisted version of a reality she didn't recognize. She
didn't understand the displeased look on his face,
didn't—
couldn't—
comprehend the antagonistic nuance of his mood. It took her
several agonizing, long minutes to realize he was serious.
Christian wouldn't lower the blade until he'd said what he came to
say, or did what he came to do.

She licked her lips,
suddenly nervous.

“
I don't understand.
What's going on, Christian? What's this about?” She couldn't detect
any crack in his metaphorical armor, no weak spot or vulnerable
angle.

“
You're going to come with
me, that's what this is about. Don't even think of screaming or
calling out for Rhett. He's been detained. Start walking toward the
front doors.” He kicked his chin that direction without ever taking
his eyes off her.

Her first instinct was to
do exactly that. Call out for Rhett. “What do you mean he's been
detained?”

Christian said
nothing.

Mind racing with
implications and suggestions, all of them ugly and unbelievable,
she took her first step. Christian kept the blade uncomfortably
close to her throat, moving the tip so he could stay at her side
instead of in front of her.

“
Have you been working
with the other Templars this whole time--” The idea bloomed into
place when no other ready answers presented themselves. Christian
cut her off.

“
Be quiet. Don't ask
questions.” He spoke low. No nonsense.

Frantic to make sense of it
all, she took another cautious step. Surely he hadn't done
something to Rhett. And where were her sisters? Dracht? Dragar? Had
Christian turned traitor against his own family? Questions raced
through her mind while she tried to figure out what to
do.

Instinct dictated that if
she allowed him to get her away from the stronghold, she might
never get a chance to escape. She couldn't let him just walk out
the door with her without putting up some kind of fight.

On the other hand, her
rational half refused to accept that Christian meant her any real
harm. He'd spent hours protecting her, keeping her safe. And yet
here he was, sword at her throat, indicating he meant to take her
away.

Impossible.

The options at her
disposal, when she considered them, seemed dismal and
bleak.

“
What the
hell
do you think you're
doing?” Rhett's voice, deadly and low, came from behind
them.

The instant she recognized
who it belonged to, she pitched away from Christian, using the
distraction to put some distance between them. The tip of the blade
nicked her skin, a small wound well worth the risk of freedom.
Stumbling in the sand, she fell to a knee and twisted in time to
see Rhett, wet with rain, blood streaming down from his hairline,
stalking Christian.

He had a sword in his
hand.

Scrambling back, she found
the edge of the pit and climbed out onto the tile.

Christian, forced to face
off with his brother rather than go after her, took up a defensive
posture. Lips thin, he narrowed his eyes.

“
Don't tell me the other
Templars turned you. I know you're smarter than to believe the junk
they were spewing,” Rhett said. Like a predator, he circled until
he'd put himself between his brother and her.

“
They were just a tool,
good only for their fanaticism and ability to track the girls down.
It allowed me to monitor their moves and not draw suspicion onto
myself.” Christian tightened his grip on the hilt of the sword.
“You weren't supposed to see this.”

“
See what? What were you
going to do with her? Christian, what in God's name are you doing?”
Rhett jerked his head to remove wet strands of hair from his
vision.

“
There are a lot of things
you don't understand. Things I can't tell you. We--”

“
That's bullshit,
Christian. You're my
brother.
You can tell me anything.”

“
I can't tell you this.
I
won't.”

“
That's your choice. I
can't help you if you don't confide in me.”

“
I didn't ask for your
help.” A muscle twitched at the corner of Christian's
eye.

Rhett spat a wad of blood
into the sand. His discontent seemed to increase with Christian's
latest answer.

“
Who jumped me outside?”
Rhett demanded.

“
Is he dead?”

“
He would have been if you
hadn't taken the clip out of my gun. Why don't you put the sword
down.” Rhett made a short gesture with his blade.

Christian ignored the
request. His posture became more predatory, matching the slow stalk
Rhett made over the sand. Preparing to take it to the next
level.

Lurching to her feet,
Evelyn watched the brothers with increasing horror. Suddenly, the
confusion over how the Templars stayed so close on their tail
clicked into place. Christian had been with she and Rhett almost
the whole time. He'd turned them in. Kept track of every move,
every detail. Had he even been the one to send her the text
message? He'd delivered her belongings to her, had access to her
phone.

Oh God.

She darted a look from one
face to another. Christian, always hard to read, was not any easier
to dissect now. She couldn't tell if he felt remorse, anger,
frustration—nothing. Rhett appeared controlled, steely,
hyper-focused.

They faced off in the
middle of the sand pit, circling, circling, swords held out in
front of them. She knew she should probably run. Get away while she
could. But Rhett might need her and she couldn't seem to move
anyway. Locked in place, all she could do was watch with her breath
in her throat.

Outside, the storm picked
up intensity, rain hammering the roof and the dome.

“
I'm not letting you take
her anywhere,” Rhett said, the words a clear warning.

“
You don't have a
choice.”

Christian lunged forward,
moving in to attack.

Chapter
Fifteen

Hidden in the shadows of an
alley between a vacant laundromat and an empty bookstore, Dracht
regarded the house across the street. It was an older, white
clapboard home with a wrap around porch and freshly painted eaves.
The interior had long been stripped of everything, even carpet, the
windows shuttered from the inside. Its location in a rough part of
town made it less than desirable to use in rescue situations, but
it worked beautifully for this.

Crouched next to his
father, he heard the other Knights check in over the headset while
he squinted through the torrential downpour for
movement.

Three of the nine remaining
sect members had been apprehended in the woods behind the safe
house. Lookouts that Raoul had subdued before the others could be
alerted. Benecio had forced one of them to call the other six in,
luring them toward the trap Dragar had set in motion.

One by one, dark
silhouettes crept through the night, through the rain, toward the
front stairs of the house. Two split off along the side for the
back and the other four came straight on, removing the front door
from the hinges with a vicious kick.

While they were distracted,
Dracht sprang to his feet alongside Dragar and sprinted across the
street. The rush would have been quieter if the rain hadn't
dampened the asphalt; his boots clapped through a few shallow
puddles, drawing the attention of the last Templar about to go
through the doorway.

Even in the dark, through
the silvery deluge, Dracht saw the gun in the Knight's
hand.

It swung wide and took aim
at his father.

Dragar, possessed of decent
speed and agility for his age, nevertheless couldn't dodge bullets.
Dracht dropped to a knee right there on the parkway, raised his
firearm, and squeezed off two shots. Instead of going for a
non-fatal wound, he went for the broader target of the Templar's
chest, unwilling to risk his father's life if he missed a thigh or
a shoulder.

The Knight pitched back,
landing half in and half out of the doorway.

“
Shit,” Dracht muttered.
Their cover was already blown. He could hear shouting from inside
the house. A moment later, something buzzed past his ear. He hit
the ground and rolled, aligning himself behind the trunk of a
tree.

Dragar never stopped,
taking a zig-zagging path forward, shooting at the facade of the
house to keep the other Templars pinned down.

Dracht blew his cover and
ran straight across the short yard for the porch. His father,
shooting from somewhere to his right, had to stop and reload just
as he thumped to the side of the open door. Breathing hard, holding
his gun with both hands, he listened for movement. The Templars,
trained as well as the rest of them, had gone totally silent. But
they were there, he knew, just waiting for the right time to
strike.

“
We have two in custody.”
Raoul's voice, out of breath, came over the headset.

Two contained, one
dead.

Three down. Three to
go.

In periphery, he saw Dragar
lope onto the porch, bent in half to pass under the front window
across from him. One on each side of the blown out doorway, Dracht
made eye contact with his father. He nodded and pulled a small,
round disc from the belt at his waist. Tugging the tab, he tossed
it into the darkness, over the prone body blocking the threshold,
and waited for the gas to smoke the Templars out.

At least here, under the
awning, he didn't have to fight the rain to see. Dracht crouched
down again, balanced on the balls of his feet. He didn't want to be
eye to eye with anyone who might come out shooting.

As it turned out, that was
exactly what happened. The first Templar barreled through the open
door, stumbling on the body, gun blasting in Dracht's direction.
Three bullets whizzed above his head. He knew his father couldn't
fire because he risked hitting him instead of the sect member. In
those spare seconds when they were forced to wait, Dracht saw
Dragar gather himself and knew what he meant to do.

Dragar lunged after the
Knight. Colliding, they tumbled down the stairs into the blinding
rain. But Dracht had to worry about the other two who couldn't be
far behind the first one.