Authors: Alexandra O'Hurley
Deviant Knights (20 page)
He would protect her.
Even
from
Michel, if it came to that.
But if she were
the one, the woman who could right those past wrongs, he would lay down his
sword and back away.
Kadence
stood off to the side of the room, adding her borrowed belongings
into another bag.
Thierry, in his
infinite wisdom, had supplied her with a couple changes of clothing, running
shoes, and basic toiletries.
Hopefully
it would be enough to get them to
There, he could procure her the things she
needed.
He yearned to see her dressed as
she was the night they’d met.
Closing his eyes, he was back at Per Se, her
warm body walking into the restaurant lobby.
Her thick russet waves curled upon her head, the dress coasting over her
ample curves.
He’d known from the moment
he’d laid eyes on her that she was special.
Though, he hadn’t known exactly what made her so at that point.
Now, once he’d gotten a sampling of what she
had to offer him, he wanted to give her diamonds and amethyst stones to match
her eyes.
They would drip from her
throat and ears.
They would sparkle, but
with only half the light and fire she had.
She deserved to be spoiled.
Being alive for seven hundred years had its
benefits.
The
Templars
had created the first forms of banking in
They’d
become enormously wealthy and powerful, loaning money to countries and
monarchs.
Eventually, it was also what
had gotten most of his brethren slain.
King Phillip of
Templars
more gold than he could
possibly repay.
It was easier to have
them called heretics and slain than to make good on his debt.
But the knowledge of the system, coupled with
their intelligence and their ability to spirit away some of their treasures,
had allowed them to start over.
The
remaining
Templars
had invested very well over the
years and had wealth far greater than the top twenty billionaires—combined.
That vast fortune was broken down in small
batches, hidden in homes, companies, banks, and even countries, where it could
not be traced back to them.
They enjoyed
the finer things in life, and they went where they wanted, when they
wanted.
But they also attempted to not
exploit it to a point that ultra-exclusive purchases would bring undue
attention to them.
No one needed to know
of their existence, besides the Illuminati they already fought against.
No
Bugatti
Veyron
for Michel, no matter how much he wanted the
one-of-a-kind automobile.
No trips to
the moon, no matter how much Thierry had wanted to go.
No private South Pacific island for
Guillaume.
No purchases that would turn
the public eye on them and make the masses wonder how they could afford such
expensive novelties.
But they did live a lavish lifestyle, enjoying
their spoils.
Gems would befit his
woman.
His woman.
If she’d have him.
She’d not agreed to be his.
She’d hesitated when questioning what he was
asking of her.
He’d told her exactly
what he thought she wanted to hear, that he wasn’t asking for forever, when in
fact, he was surely never letting her go.
Her dreams were an insight into her future, him in her bed, every night.
In time, she would agree.
He would slowly woo her onto his side.
He would defend her and be her
protector.
He would push her sexual
boundaries at night.
And hopefully, she
would trust him more each and every day…slowly dropping her shields lower and
lower.
He loved the insights he’d already seen.
When she’d allowed him to bind her hands the
night before, she’d shown she trusted him.
He’d valued that trust and made sure not to make her regret it.
She’d looked to him, expecting his support
when Michel had demanded his due.
She
trusted him, and he was honored to have it.
Then she’d given of herself without demanding anything in return to
offer succor to Michel.
His friend was broken inside.
And he needed the love of a good woman.
A woman who could take away
his pain.
If
Kadence
wasn’t
that woman, he hoped Michel
would find her.
Gabriel just hoped it would be sooner than later.
“Gabriel, I need to ask a question.”
“Of course,
querida
.”
“Michel used a condom.
You haven’t.”
Gabriel was caught off-guard by her
comments.
Where was this coming
from?
“I have no diseases, if that’s
what you’re worried about, nor does Michel.
We, as Immortals, are immune to those diseases.”
“Pregnancy?”
“In nearly seven hundred years none of the few
we have left have fathered a child.”
“So you don’t know for certain?”
“No…not exactly, but none of us are celibate,
but
Phelippe
.
After that much time, we would have fathered many children.”
“Do you often have…relationships?”
“What do you mean?”
“How long do you typically spend with one
woman?”
What was she asking?
How long he planned to bed her?
She had nothing to worry about.
She wasn’t going anywhere.
“I’m not kicking you out of my bed anytime
soon,
querida
.
I thought we discussed this last night.”
“I’m not talking about me.
I’m talking about the other women you’ve been
with.
What?
A week?
A month?
A year?”
“What does it matter?”
“Just answer the question.”
“I don’t know…a couple of weeks.
Perhaps a month.”
“And would you stay around?
Would she be able to find you again, later?”
Gabriel started to get an inkling of where she
was going and he did not like it at all.
“Probably not.”
“So, how would a woman ever have the chance to
tell you she was with child?”
Gabriel’s mind swirled at her question.
He had always assumed it impossible due to
their longevity.
But she raised a valid
question.
“The next time we speak to
Gaia, we shall ask.”
“Gaia?
Speak to her?
She has a corporeal form?”
“If you can call it that, she is more mist than
anything.
She visits us on occasion when
she has something important to impart.
It could be weeks, it could be years.”
“Until then, you need to wrap it up.”
“Wrap?”
“A condom.
This is not the time to test
your theory.”
He nodded, wishing he didn’t have to.
The touch of her against his naked skin was
explosive.
But he would respect her
decision and protect her.
Gabriel
couldn’t get the vision of
Kadence
ripened with his
child out of his head.
His cock swelled
slightly at the thought.
He had only
known her for such a short time, but already his mind drifted to a future with
her.
He’d already loved her twice without
protection.
What if she were already pregnant
now?
Hackles rising, he knew inwardly that he
couldn’t father a child.
He kicked the
thoughts out of his mind, scolded himself for thinking of such madness.
His lifestyle was not one to bring a child
into.
Constant fighting with the
Illuminati, moving all over the world to protect precious treasures, it wasn’t
a life for a child to be involved in.
It
was bad enough she was involved, but she appeared to be embroiled whether she
was with him or not.
Profeta
de mal.
The seer.
Thierry’s words excited him.
Finally, she was a woman who could know all
his secrets, accept him for what he was, and stand at his side in their
fight.
And warm his bed at night,
holding the darkness at bay.
It was hard not to yearn for a little normalcy
in his life.
A wife, a
child, a future to look forward to, to make a million tomorrows easier to bear.
Seven hundred years was a long time to go
from encounter to meaningless encounter.
Kadence
was his chance for a little taste of
what other men didn’t appreciate enough.
Of course, it all depended on her.
Grabbing her pack, they both exited the room and
moved to the car.
Another flight to
Neuerburg
awaited
.
Chapter Sixteen
Kadence
tried to calm herself once the car was in motion.
Alain drove her and Gabriel in a sleek, black
Humvee
.
Michel
followed behind in Thierry’s gray
Humvee
.
Two more
Humvees
with some of the security team of the villa drove at the very front and the
very rear.
She felt like she was in the
army, a row of near tanks rolling down the hillside.
She hoped the armor-plated vehicles would
protect them from attack.
She couldn’t get the images from her dream out
of her head.
She saw Michel’s head
rolling off his neck and shuddered at the vibrancy of the vision, her stomach
knotting with disgust.
Winding down the streets of
day in the most glamorous city in the world without seeing any of it.
She’d been too tired as they wormed through
the city the first time, so she gazed at everything she passed this time,
getting as much of an eyeful as possible.
Anything to keep the hideous
sight of Michel’s death out of her mind.
The queasiness ended in her gut.
She cracked the window a bit and let the
warm, sea air wrap around her.
Everything was so lovely.
The sun had just set, but the lights of
bright and festive.
It was so unlike the mood of the occupants of
the car.
They were all on edge, waiting
for the other shoe to drop, wondering if they were walking into a
massacre.
If the details came true, then
she supposed it would lay credence to Thierry’s theory.
She wondered if that was why Michel had demanded
they not change their plans.
Was it to
prove she had the gift of foresight?
Was
it yet another hoop he was forcing her through to determine that she was
legit?
Hell, she didn’t even know if she
was legit.
But she knew she wasn’t the
evil incarnate he worried she was.
Michel had seemed to open to her a little.
He’d conveyed that
Paloma
had been his lover.
Five hundred years
before.
Once
Kadence
had recovered from that little shocker, she’d felt anger over
Paloma’s
treachery and fury over his incarceration.
She innately knew that he held back a lot of
the story from her.
But she also knew
that it had cost him a lot to tell her the little he had.
The look of surprise on Gabriel’s face had
spoken volumes.