Retribution (Book 3 of The Dominion Series) (14 page)

I go back to the cafeteria and eat supper by myself, surrounded by almost two-dozen other students, all eating, deep in thought as we mentally prepare for our bouts tonight.

Finally, my trainer arrives and takes me out to the garden where floodlights have been set up and the other students are standing in five rows of four students. The sun has set and it's about nine o'clock at night. We start going through the routines, the instructor barking commands at the front of the field. With my two wooden Wakizashi swords in hand, I perform the moves, my braid tucked into my tunic and my feet bare in the cool grass.

Movement in my peripheral vision distracts me and I glanced to the right of the field where three priests in black vestments escort three tall men onto the field from a doorway. Dressed all in black and carrying black-visored helmets, the tall men have Wakizashi swords –
real
ones, similar to the wooden ones we used for practice.

Adepts with fight sight – it must be.

They march to the rear of the field and each stands inside one of three rings marked out in chalk lines on the grass.

I glance back to the doorway when we switch to a series of side thrusts, and watch as a dozen observers in street clothes entered the field, speaking with the priests, but I don't see either Michel or Julien. The new arrivals walk up and down the rows of students. Two stop beside me, watching me go through the routine.

"How do you think they'll do?" a woman says.

"It's sink or swim," a man says, his voice smooth and foreign, sounding British. I see him out of the corner of my eye when I perform a side lunge.

A priest.

"This is their final test. They have to beat an experienced Adept in battle. This will separate the wheat from the chaff."

As I go through the routine, I wonder if I'll be wheat or chaff. Julien promised to be here to watch and I glance around but don’t see him. I don’t see Michel either, but perhaps they don’t want to distract me. I can only imagine what’s passed between them if they’ve met up before the test.

The trainers start pulling students out of the formation, taking them back to the rings. I heard shouts, cries of pain, the collective 'oohs' and 'ahhs' from the observers, scattered applause, but I'm unable to turn around and watch. Finally, one of the trainers motions to me, taking his baton and placing it in front of me so that I have to stop.

"Your turn," he says and motions towards the back with his head. "Move it!"

I run to the rear of the field and what I see turns my blood to ice. The three Adepts fight students inside the circles, and as I wait, one pushes a girl out of the circle, wounding her with a slice to the arm. She’s unable to beat the Adept or fight to a draw, which is required to pass. Medics tend several of my fellow students who failed the test, gashes on their limbs.

I step up, watching as the Adept takes his place in the center of the ring once more. He wears a visored helmet so I can’t see his face. The guard shoves me from behind and I step into the circle, my heart racing and my wooden weapons at the ready. In a crouch position, I wait. The Adept bows to me but I don’t bow back. We fight for the required three minutes and the official raises a flag, signalling an end to the match. I’ve fought to a draw.

I've passed.

Standing at the edge of the field I see Julien. He’s dressed all in black with a long black leather trench and a blue scarf around his neck. Perhaps he didn’t want to distract me, but regardless, I run to him, ignoring the calls of the guards behind me. He’s smiling when I reach him, his arms open, his blue eyes wet. We kiss, the kiss deep and passionate and I feel a rush of love and some surprise from him, as if he didn’t believe I’d choose him. He must know Michel's been here.

“I knew you’d pass,” he says, his face in my neck. “They trained you well.”

We kiss again and he pulls me against him so tightly, I think he’ll break my back.

“Julien,” I say and pull back. “Michel…”

“I know,” he says and cups my cheek. “We’ve,” he says and hesitates. “Spoken.”

“Then you know I have to choose…”

He nods. “Of course you’ll come with me. You
have
to.” He takes my face in his hands, strokes my cheek with a thumb. “You don't want that life – the one Michel's promised you. A life with him as his slave,” he says, his voice angered. “You want to be with me as my partner. My
love
.”

I step away, shaking my head.

“Michel said something very bad is coming. He said he needs me to fight Dominion.”

Julien shakes his head. “There’s more than one way to fight Dominion, Eve. You were meant to work as a Blood Witness. With me. It’s what your mother wanted. This is what we were meant to do.”

“Michel said—.”

“I
know
what Michel said, Eve," he says and steps closer again. "He doesn’t know everything. He thinks he can predict the future, control it. He’s a bit insane, I think.”

“We’ve been together, " I say, but quickly add. "We haven't had sex, but he fed me and we slept in the same bed.”

He nods. “I’d kill him if I could bear it, cut off his head and burn his body, but I can’t. He only did what I would have done if the roles had been reversed.”

“You aren’t mad at me?”

“How could I be?” he says and shakes his head, touching my face with the backs of his fingers. “What we’re doing to you…” He sighs. “Now, go back to your room and pack up your bags. I'll send some guards with you. Michel's … busy. He won't bother you. Then, come to me. You don’t want to go with him, Eve. He’s trying to defeat Soren all by himself, but he won’t be able to without risking your life. I
won’t
do that. I’ll protect you. Don’t let his talk of doom and gloom make you choose out of fear. I
love
you. I’ll love you completely and totally. You are
everything
to me. I’ll give you everything you want.” He kisses me. “I’ll make you happy. He won’t.”

He turns me around and points to the entrance to the dorm. “Now, go. I have to sign you out and then I’ll be waiting by my rental car in the parking lot. Hurry. We don’t have much time.”

“What do you mean, much time?”

“Just go.”

I leave the field, and two of the guards follow me into the dorm and stand outside the door to my tiny room. I pack up my things, my hands shaking, my heart pounding in my ears. I’m not really even thinking. I just pack, my mind blank.

Then I hear a scuffle outside my door.

I turn to face it and when the door opens, it’s Michel. He closes the door behind him and adjusts his clothing, which are bloody and there's a hole in his shirt over his heart as if he's been staked.

He’s just taken down both guards outside my door. Julien’s guards.

When I see him, my heart jumps. “Michel,” I say, my throat closing up. "What happened to you?"

"What do you think happened?" he says and touches the fabric. "Julien staked me."

"With a wooden stake?"

"Yes."

"He wouldn't."

"Oh, he would," he says, shaking his head. "He planned on keeping me in stasis for an indeterminate time back at the SCU. What he didn't know is that I'm immune to that now."

"You can't be killed with a stake?"

He shrugs his shoulders. "Hurts terribly and disables me, but is no more effective now than a metal weapon."

"Because of your ascension. But why doesn't Julien know?"

"He doesn't know everything, Eve. I can't even tell him or risk his life as well."

"Michel, you can't
do
this – you can't try to save the world all by yourself."

He steps closer to me. "I have no choice."

I feel incredible guilt that I was going to leave with Julien. “Michel, I'm going to--.”

“I
know
what you were going to do,” he says and takes my hand, immobilizing me with his powers, pulling me over to the bed. He sits down and then pulls me onto his lap so that I straddle his hips the way I did that day in his cottage.

“As usual, Julien sweeps in like some conquering warlord and overwhelms you with his words of love, his passionate nature. He’s relying on his ability to overwhelm you, Eve, to convince you to go with him – just like he did that day on the beach.”

“Maybe I
want
someone like him," I say and I can see those words, that thought, hurt him, watch the pain cross his face as if he's been struck. "And what about you?” I say, angered despite what he's done to me. “What are you relying on to convince me to go with you?”

“Only your sense of duty.”

I shake my head. “Julien says you’re deluded.”

“He’s hardly unbiased.”

“What am I supposed to do, Michel?” I say, genuinely confused. “I love you both, each in your own way.”

“I know,” he says and brushes hair off my cheek. “But come with me, help me stop Soren. I
need
you.”

I look at him, at his beautiful face, his eyes so blue, thick black lashes fringing them, his long hair a mess, tucked behind his ears. I stroke his face, his cheek, and he leans into my hand, his eyes closing. When he opens them again, his eyes are wet.

“Julien
wants
me.”

“
I
want you, too. Every moment of every day, Eve. Don’t think he loves you more than I do.”

I don’t know what to say. Julien loves me more intensely. I feel the difference when they touch me. When they connect to me. Michel’s passion is steady and strong, but Julien… Julien’s passion is almost desperate. Like he’d do anything for me. Michel will follow his course, no matter what I choose. The mission comes first, like he said.

Julien will give up the fight.

I just don’t know whether to believe this vision of a hellish future Michel talks about.

"I can't go with you if you lie to me. If you hide things from me. I have to have the truth. All of it."

He inhales deeply, his brow furrowed.

"What did Huxley write?
You shall know the truth and the truth shall drive you mad.
"

“Better a cruel truth than a comfortable delusion," I reply. "Edward Abbey.”

He closes his eyes for a moment.

“I can’t
tell
you the truth, don’t you understand?” he says and pulls back, taking my face in his hands. “If I do, I kill you! How many times do I have to tell you this?”

“You’re insane.”

I try to push him away, try to extract myself from his arms but he won’t let me go, and he’s almost desperate, pulling me against him, using his greater power to lift me up and turn me over, pinning me beneath him on the bed, his hands holding mine above my head.  Only a day ago that would have aroused me, but now it only feels like assault.

“Eve, I
love
you,” he says and kisses me, forcing himself on me, his hand cupping my cheek.

Finally, when I don't give in, he stops and breaks the kiss, momentarily pressing his lips against my neck where he bit me. Then he rises up and lets go of me. He wipes his eyes and adjusts his coat. He walks stiffly to the door, leaving me on the bed, my heart pounding.

He stands in the entry for a moment as if he’s trying to regain control over himself.

“When you realize the mistake you’ve made, send me a message if you can. Find a way. If I don’t hear from you when it all falls apart, I'll come for you.”

Then he leaves.

I sit on the bed and cry, weeping, because despite my anger at him for all the lies and deception, part of me knows he did it all out of loyalty to his mission. He thought he was doing the right thing. It wasn’t because he wanted to win me. It was because he felt he needed to keep me from knowing his plans. But I can’t be with a man who doesn’t trust me enough to tell me the truth.

I go to Julien.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

"If I had a flower for each time I thought of you I could walk through my garden forever."

Alfred Lord Tennyson

We drive away from the abbey and when I glance back, Michel is standing at the courtyard gate, watching. I can’t help it. Tears fill my eyes and I hate myself for hurting him. It
will
hurt him to see me go. It will break his heart – he said it would. But I can’t go with him to this life he told me about based on nothing more than his visions of some dark future that hasn’t happened.

More than that, I can’t imagine saying no to Julien. He needs me more than Michel. Michel will go on with his grand plans to be the hero no matter what I say. If I
did
go with Michel, he’d expect my submission and feel empowered to punish me if I didn’t submit to him as he demanded in order to keep up a façade of us as Master/slave. Well, he can find someone else to play that role.