by Lynn Viehl
She searched the interior, removing two loaded handguns that had been taped under the front seats and a bundle of cash in various currencies and several expertly forged passports wedged behind the false back of the glove box. She pressed her lips together as she found one final stash, a lozenge box with a variety of capsules, vials, and even a small syringe, all neatly concealed beneath the top layer of cough drops.
So the courier served another master, one who wanted to deliver more than a message no one could understand. Whoever had sent him must have thought her an idiot.
She shut off the car and sat looking at the convent. The Englishman’s kiss had left her lips tender and her thoughts in a tangle. He had wanted her; she’d felt the evidence of that pressing like an iron bar against her bottom. So why had he refused her? Had she not offered herself properly? She knew the Darkyn had strange ideas about correctness and protocol; Flavia had never tired of recounting her years with the Italian lord she had served. Simone also knew that when in dire need the immortals always wanted sex as much as blood.
Perhaps he prefers men to women. But if that were so, then she should not have aroused him. He had kissed her and touched her with such passion, in fact, that she had expected to be taken without any discussion at all.
Simone understood physical desire, and how to control and channel it, but his mouth on hers had caused all her training to vanish. In the space of a heartbeat she had been rendered mindless, all flesh and feeling. Her father had always said mastering the art of physical pleasure was to gain an enormous weapon against which there was almost no defense. In this as in all things, he had been right, and she had nearly become a victim of her own senses.
Would it have been so terrible?
Living in a house of women for so long had made her forget what strong and beautiful brutes some men could be. Even in that Korvel had surprised her, for while his strength far surpassed her own, he had handled her with restraint, as if she were something precious.
What would he think of her if he knew what she had burned to do to him? As he kissed her she had clenched her hands and her teeth, not to resist, but to keep from using them to tear at his clothes. She had wanted to make him as naked as she was, to see the column of his shaft so that she might stroke it and hear him groan before she guided it to the clenching ache between her thighs.
She had never known a desire for sex. Even as she wanted to blame him for her bewildering emotions, she knew the fault was her own. He had no power over her other than his physical superiority; he could make her do nothing against her will.
He can’t make me do anything.
She got out of the car and walked to the old chapel, where she slipped in through the side door. Because the sisters had no need of light she had learned to move through the small, dark sanctuary just as blindly, and made her way instinctively to the simple altar where the village priest sometimes stood to deliver one of his outdated sermons.
She knelt down behind it, tracing the outer seam of the pedestal until she found the hidden latches to release it. The bag stuffed inside had not been removed from its hiding place since she had placed it there. At times she had amused herself by imagining it being found someday, far off in the future, to puzzle whoever had wrested it from the convent’s ruins.
Now it would vanish from those distant sands of time, just as she would.
“I do not hear you praying, child,” a querulous voice admonished from the pews. “You must be taking out that bag from the altar.”
Simone slung the bag’s strap over her shoulder and walked down to where Sister Marie sat in the front pew. “There is no bag, sister.”
“Of course not. Just as there is no hidden panel in the upstairs linen closet, nor a very large man who drinks blood in your room.” Marie closed the Braille Bible in her hands. “The truly pitiful thing is how often you treat us like ignorant children. We were all once tresori, child.”
“You are too good at making me forget that.” Simone sat down beside her. “Is something wrong back at the house?”
“Other than that horrible marmalade Paulette insists is not too tart? No. Flavia sent me to give you this.” She handed a sheathed blade to Simone. “Into the heart or through the spinal cord will see it done. Strike quickly, and it will be virtually painless.”
She removed the slim, long knife from the leather, and saw that it had been forged from copper. “Did she tell you?”
“What the council demands of you? I can guess.” She turned her head toward the altar. “Once, when I was young, I thought them nothing but silly old men who saw monsters in every dark corner. They are not that, child, but they are mortal. As such, they sometimes make mistakes.”
“What are you trying to tell me?”
“Anyone may give you a blade, Simone.” The old woman knelt down and folded her hands, positioning the first bead of her rosary between her fingers. “Whether or not to use it is always your decision.”
After washing himself and donning the garments Sister Simone had set out for him, Korvel tested the strength of his leg on the stairs. While the wound still throbbed, he felt none of the numbing coldness that would indicate any copper remained in his flesh. The young nun’s blood as well as the bloodwine the abbess had brought to him had done much to restore his strength, although he would need to feed several more times before he fought again.
Not from her, Korvel decided. He would not risk causing either of them to fall under the spell of thrall and rapture.
Outside the convent he saw Simone loading a bag and several boxes into the back of a Land Rover. She moved with speed and efficiency, and while she still appeared pale she demonstrated no signs of weakness. During her tresoran training she had probably been conditioned to withstand the effects of regular blood loss. Over the centuries mortals who were born to serve the Kyn had gradually developed tolerances and immunities that ordinary humans lacked, such as a resistance to l’attrait.
She cannot resist my ability. No mortal female ever had. I could have had her a dozen times, and she would only have begged for more.
Her unremarkable clothing and the black cap she had used to cover her braids should have rendered her unnoticeable, but Korvel found his gaze drawn to the trousers, which emphasized the elegant length of her legs. When she bent over to arrange something, the sweet curves of her buttocks made him clench his fists, but he didn’t look away.
Lust roiled inside him, but he could withstand the longing of his body. He knew why he wanted Simone: because he could not have her. Tresora or not, she was a nun. His honor would not permit him to violate the innocence of her body or the vows of chastity she had already taken.
She glanced up as he joined her. “It is only a few hours’ drive to Marseilles. We have friends there who will assist us in tracking the thieves.”
“Before we go I must return to my car and retrieve my belongings,” he advised her. “I left it on the road by the turnoff into the hills. Give me the keys.”
“I know all the roads, as well as the quickest routes, Captain,” she pointed out. “You do not.”
Centuries of commanding instant obedience from the most vicious warriors among the Kyn had not prepared Korvel to be questioned by a mortal female. That she was right only further annoyed him. As he ducked into the passenger side of the Land Rover, he asked, “Can you drive faster than a cabbage farmer?”
“I don’t know.” Now she sounded irritated. “I’ve never raced one.”
As soon as Korvel shut the door she started the engine and made a three-point turn, driving around the convent to a gravel-and-dirt road that divided two fields. He saw several men with large canvas bags slung across their torsos; each stood crouched over the short, leafy rows of vegetables. All the dead mortals he had seen at the château had been elderly, and all the women at the convent were blind. “Sister, why did the council not send men to protect the scroll and its guardian?”
“Until yesterday, no one knew it was here.” The Land Rover bounced
as she turned onto a narrow dirt road. “Helada has no need of protection.”
“You know the guardian personally?”
Her lips twisted. “All my life.”
He saw a wispy column of smoke rising in the distance. “Among the Kyn, Helada’s reputation is legend. In more than six centuries no one has ever laid eyes upon him. It has been said that he kills anyone who does. Now you tell me that you have known him for years.” When she didn’t reply, he added, “Why did he spare your life?”
“That is a very long story, Captain,” she said as she braked to a stop. “One that will have to wait for another time.”
“Why?”
She nodded at the windshield. “Your car is on fire.”
Korvel turned his head and swore as he saw the flames and smoke pouring out of the Audi. One of the rear windows had been smashed in, and the smoke carried with it the stink of grain alcohol.
Simone walked to the back of the Land Rover, where she retrieved a small fire extinguisher and walked down to the Audi. By the time he reached her she had begun spraying foam through the broken window.
“Sister.” He caught her arm. “The petrol tank.”
“It hasn’t spread that far yet.” She continued using the extinguisher until the flames disappeared and all that was left was a smoldering ruin. She lowered the nozzle, peered inside at the sooty foam coating the interior, and then glanced down each side of the road. “Were you followed here?”
“No.” Korvel wrenched open the driver’s-side door to see what could be salvaged. The heat had melted his mobile phone into a blob of plastic, and the nylon bag containing the rest of his belongings had been reduced to a pile of ash. As the foam dissipated he saw the glitter of glass spread across the backseat. The soot-blackened shards were too curved to have come from the smashing of the window. “They used a bottle of alcohol for the firebomb.”
He went to open the trunk and found it filled with smoke. The flames, however, had not reached his sword.
Korvel removed his coat to strap on his blade harness. As soon as the sheathed sword pressed against his shoulder blades the damnable sense of feeling naked disappeared. “What sort of field training did the council give you, sister?”
“Field training?” She frowned. “None.”
He eyed her. “But you are tresora. You must have had some instruction.”
“I know what my duties are, Captain, and I am capable of attending to them.” Her expression turned bleak. “We should go.”
“I need a satellite phone.” When she didn’t produce one, he made an impatient sound. “Take me to a secure phone line, then. I must contact the high lord and relate what has happened to the scroll.”
“This is a farming village, Captain, not Paris. Your call will have to wait until we reach the city.” She started walking back to the Land Rover.
Korvel followed her to the vehicle. “What was the council thinking? You are completely unprepared for this.”
She stopped in her tracks and slowly turned around. “How is it that you were prepared?” Her eyes shifted past him. “You came here alone, with no one to have your back. You tried to fight mortals armed with copper blades, and you’re still limping from a wound that should have killed you. You don’t know where they are or how to find them. Oh, and now you have no phone.”
He clenched his jaw. “I did not try to fight those mortals,” he told her. “I killed them. All of them.”
“Did you? Then tell me, Captain, where is the scroll? And who burned your car?” She tossed the fire extinguisher into the back of the Land Rover and got in, waiting only until Korvel was inside before taking off.
He reined in his temper and breathed deeply until he felt calm enough to speak without shouting. “Forgive me, sister. I spoke without thinking. I never intended to insult you or your service to me.”
“I do not serve you.” Now she spoke through gritted teeth. “I belong to the council. They command me.”
“As you say.” He had no experience with sentinels; she was as much as mystery to him as the Scroll of Falkonera. “But with no combat training, you cannot hope to retrieve the scroll on your own. It took only four of those men to render you helpless, and if I had not come upon you, they would have violated and killed you.” He saw her hands tighten on the wheel until the knuckles whitened. “I am sorry to remind you of your ordeal. What matters now is the scroll. I need your help to find it, just as you will need me to take it back. I suggest we focus on working together to…” He trailed off as he realized how much his scent had intensified, and stared at her. “Why am I arguing with you?”
She gave him an odd look. “Because you are English, and a man?”
“You should be agreeing with every word I say to you.” Indeed, even an experienced tresora with years of service could not hope to evade its effects in such a small, confined space. He caught her chin and made her look at him. Both of her pupils were normal size, and all he saw in her lovely green eyes was annoyance. “You are not merely resistant to l’attrait. You are entirely immune to it.”
“All sentinels are. The council considers it a prerequisite, so they test us to see whether we were born with the immunity before we enter training. Tresori of our rank could not carry out some of our duties if the Kyn were able to influence or control us.”
“You mean you could not spy on us for the council.”
“I am not a spy.” She jerked her chin away and turned her face back toward the road.
“At the château, and later, in your room, you were not bespelled.” When she said nothing, he demanded, “If I cannot compel you, they why did you behave as if I had?”
She moved her shoulders. “I serve the council.”
“Is that your answer to every question?”
“There is nothing more I can tell you.” She pressed her lips together before she asked in a softer voice, “When your master gives you an order, does he explain it to you? When you command your guard, do you offer them reasons as to why they should obey?”
“No,” he admitted. “Never.”
“It is the same for us.” She touched the place on her sleeve that covered the tresoran tattoo on her inner arm. “We take an oath. We are commanded; we obey.”
She wasn’t lying—her scent would have changed—but he sensed that a much more complicated version of the truth lay concealed by her simple statements. Since he could not bring her under his influence, he couldn’t compel her to elaborate, either.
“You have never engaged the enemy,” he guessed out loud, and was surprised again to see her nod. “That is why the council ordered you to bring me along. To serve as your guard and your blade.”
One corner of her mouth curled. “You sound as if you are insulted.”
He should have been, and would be, had he not come to the same conclusion. “The Kyn are more accustomed to having mortals serve us.”
“We must both do things unfamiliar to us,” she agreed. “But we can take comfort in that we serve the same purpose.”
They both lapsed into silence. She had clipped short the nails on her long fingers, Korvel noted, and more of the faint, odd scars covered both hands from knuckles to wrists. Despite the evidence of the wounds she had suffered in the past, her hands looked strong and capable, as they had felt when she had touched him. He dragged his thoughts away from those moments and instead wondered why her fingers were bare. She should have been wearing the traditional plain gold band presented to a novice when she took her vows and became a bride of Christ.
Perhaps she left it behind at the convent, with her habit and her rosary. Why had the council permitted her to become a nun in the first place? Because no one would suspect her.
She did not look at all like a nun now, however. Korvel eyed the boy’s cap on her head, wishing she would take it off. No mortal female he had ever known, not even Alexandra Keller, had possessed such long, beautiful hair.
“Why do you never cut your hair?” he heard himself ask.
&nb
sp; “It is a personal vanity,” she said. “My father always kept it short when I was a child. Why was yours so long?”
“I kept forgetting to attend to it.” Korvel decided her father was an idiot. He wanted to unpin her braids and unravel them, one by one, so that he might comb his fingers through the fiery golden strands and feel their silkiness against his skin once more.
Stop thinking about her damn hair.
She turned off the road from Garbia to take a ramp onto a wider, busier roadway. “Do you know Marseilles?”
“I have not been here since the monarchy fell,” he said, glad for the distraction, “and then came only to smuggle my kind across the channel.”
She frowned. “That was a terrible time to visit.”
“It was.” He didn’t want to think about the mortal madness and mass murder he had witnessed during the French Revolution. “How did you come to be so familiar with the city?”
“My father frequently traveled there on business.” She pulled into the next lane to pass a slower-moving van and just as deftly changed the subject. “I have never been to England. Is it as miserable as my countrymen say?”
Korvel felt amused. The poor opinion the French held of his homeland was one that had been perpetuated since the time of William the Conqueror, and still showed no signs of ever changing. “Most of our cities are as old and crowded as yours, and the people equally self-absorbed. Our weather is not as fair as yours, but the countryside is not so different. Garbia reminds me of the village where I was born.”
“Never tell anyone in Garbia that,” she advised. “Do you ever go back to visit your people?”
“No.” Korvel’s eyelids drooped as he thought of the night he had been dragged from his bed by the old baron, who had informed him of his mother’s death simply by tossing him out into the snow before bolting the doors against him. “The last of my mortal kin died many centuries ago.”
“I forget how long you have lived.” She glanced at him. “I don’t mean to offend you, Captain. I know that I should speak only when spoken to in your presence; I have simply never met one of you in person.”
