Immortal Sacrifice: #4 The Curse of the Templars

by Claire Ashgrove

  “Aye, and he made it no secret he would like to have you in his bed.”

  A low sound, resembling a lionesses’ growl, rumbled in her throat. She reached behind her and threw the pillow at his chest. “I didn’t sleep with James! I slept with you!”

  He grabbed the pillow in a deadly fist, wanting naught but to shred it into pieces. Instead, he slammed it into the bed near his thigh. “And how long did you wait until you welcomed another between your legs? A week? Mayhap a month?”

  Isabelle threw back the covers and sprang from the bed. “I’m leaving now.”

  “Aye, mayhap you should.”

  “Yeah, that’d make it easier, wouldn’t it?” She rifled beneath the quilt until she located her sweater. In one swift yank, she had it over her head and thrust her arms through the short sleeves. The eyes on her bronze serpents glinted in the dull grey light. “Easier to ignore your responsibility, just like you’ve ignored me since you walked out of our hotel room. This was a mistake. I shouldn’t have come to you. Shouldn’t have believed in you.”

  Unable to form words, he watched helplessly as she jerked on her jeans. Her words cut like daggers. Her claims rendered him speechless. She spoke of impossibilities. The curse of the archangels stripped him of the ability to be the father she declared him to be. Neither he, nor any other knight, could reproduce.

  A fact he had taken comfort in, should truth be told. Whilst he held no distaste for children, he unexplainably feared them. The siblings his mother had borne had all succumbed to illness, their tiny bodies too frail to weather disease. He had seen one too many peasants’ babes freeze to death in the vile cold of winter. Heard too many grieving mothers and witnessed too much sorrow in bereft fathers’ eyes.

  Farran alone was a testament to the heartbreak children could create. His loss had nearly destroyed his salvation.

  Isabelle shoved her feet into her shoes and stormed through the bedroom door.

  Caradoc needed to say something before he made a greater mess of things. Leaping from the bed, he stalked to the door as Isabelle reached her purse. “Isa.”

  “What?” she snapped, not bothering to look at him.

  “It cannot be my child.”

  “She. Not it— she.” She turned around and something hard hit him square in the sternum.

  Caradoc looked down to find her wallet at his feet. He bent over to collect it.

  “She’s the most delightful human being in this world. Her laugh is brighter than any sunshine.” Isabelle’s voice waivered, and she paused. More quietly, she added, “She looks just like you.”

  With shaking hands, Caradoc popped the snap on the black leather, and her wallet spilled open, revealing a bright assortment of pictures. As he folded the plastic casings to the first one, the door to his suite slammed shut.

  * * *

  Too enraged for tears, Isabelle raced for the solitude and sanctuary of her room. She barricaded herself inside, and in a moment of uncontrolled outrage, hurled her purse against the locked door.

  Another man’s child!

  She understood Caradoc didn’t want children, but she’d never dreamed he would accuse her of lying about September’s parentage. She’d be more than happy to drag him to the nearest clinic and prove him wrong with a DNA test. But that would mean having to talk to him, something she didn’t ever intend to do again.

  Good thing September would never realize her fantasies about a knight in shining armor disguised a calloused asshole. James—for God’s sake! The thought made Isabelle’s skin crawl. She’d had three, three, lovers before Caradoc. Brent when she was eighteen and in college. Allen the summer she’d been twenty-two. Michael through her twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth years. She hadn’t slept with anyone else until two years later when she met Caradoc.

  Hadn’t wanted to since.

  Defeated, she slumped into the nearby armchair. She’d have to talk to him again; he had her credit cards, her driver’s license, and September’s social security card. But doing so could wait until tonight. She needed the rest of this morning to collect herself before the afternoon auction began. The very same James that Caradoc had referenced wanted her to try for an emerald and sapphire bracelet that supposedly had once been a part of his blue-blood lineage. He’d already informed her that his cousin, Eloise, had hired Brian Greengy from De Beers to acquire the same bangle.

  The pitter-patter of rain soothed her anger to a dull fizzle. She’d known better than to tell Caradoc. In her defense, she hadn’t planned on such an abrupt announcement. But his insults went beyond any form of appropriate. In a thousand years, she’d have never imagined he could be so rude. So demeaning.

  Guess that’s what happens when a man who doesn’t want children has one thrust on him.

  Did he think she wanted support? Surely, he knew her well enough to realize she was more than capable for providing for September’s financial needs. She did a pretty good job at her emotional needs too. Some things were lacking, but no more than any other single-parent home. September wanted a father. No, not a father. Her father. But beyond that, September only cried when she scraped her knee or bumped her nose. She laughed constantly. In some ways, her heart exceeded the size of Isabelle’s, for she was capable of finding the absolute best in every one she met.

  Even the thug who had hounded Isabelle when September was no more than a baby. Funny how she could remember the way Alphonse brought her soft candies every time he came to deliver threats.

  Yet September would move past her father’s absence. And thankfully, she’d never know she wasn’t wanted.

  That is, if Isabelle could protect her from that horrific creature hiding in a cemetery. She had to keep her daughter alive before she could move beyond anything.

  At least the few hours of sleep she’d had cleared a few of the cobwebs from her mind. The nightmare didn’t feel as daunting. Terrifying still, but not unmanageable. If she analyzed it while her head was clear, she might be able to find out what else the vision was saying. Discover a means of pre-empting the disaster.

  There’d been a name on the mausoleum—a new detail. What had it been? Valentine? Valgente? Vallucci?

  She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to recall the letters that had scraped against her hand. But the only visions that registered were those of her and Caradoc. His body sliding against hers. His mouth on her breast. His hands in her hair.

  Muttering, she shoved out of her chair and stalked into her bathroom. Time to wash him off, once and for all.

  Chapter 19

  Oblivious to his state of undress, Caradoc sank to his knees as his heart fell to his heels. The little girl beneath his fingertips mirrored her mother, driving home the reality that Isabelle had borne a child. Long flaxen hair, so similar to Isabelle’s, hung to the child’s waist, curling at the ends. He could not make out the true color of her eyes; in some photos they looked green, in others blue, still others gave them a tawny cast. The cherubic upturn of her nose, however, was all Isabelle.

  What had she said the babe’s name was?

  Slowly, Caradoc closed the wallet at the same time he closed his eyes. Naught made sense. For nearly nine hundred years, the Templar had existed. Though they had agreed to an oath of chastity, he could think of none who obeyed that tenant. ’Twas beyond the nature of men, and not once in the passing of centuries had any man’s seed taken root in a womb. If what Isabelle believed were possible, one of his brothers, if not more, would have seen his bastard grow into a man.

  He might have seen his own.

  And Catherine—Mikhail denounced Iain’s suggestion she might have descended from a founding knight. If ’twere possible would he not have investigated the matter further as opposed to denying her sanctuary within the temple?

  Still, the implausibility did not excuse Caradoc’s behavior. He had been brutal to Isabelle. She genuinely believed ’twas his child, and without the full understanding of why it could not be, she could not comprehend the wrongness of her claims. He owed her
the truth, if she would hear it after his barbaric explosion.

  The irony did not escape him that she would find his immortality as unbelievable as her child’s parentage. ’Twas uncanny the trials Gabriel chose for this joining of seraphs. ’Twould seem as if the Almighty did not wish for his knights to succeed, particularly in light of the relics they had already lost.

  He hauled himself to his feet and collected fresh clothes from his wardrobe. A shower would have to wait, and in truth, he enjoyed the light scent of Isabelle that clung to his skin. At this moment, it might well be all he had left of her. He had truly made an ass of himself.

  Caradoc dressed as quickly as he could then grabbed her wallet before leaving his room and jogging down the hall to hers. Breath held, he knocked.

  When the sound of running water drifted through the wall, he put more effort into his clenched knuckles. If any mercy remained in this world, she would hear him before she climbed into her bath. Though he held no great expectation such would occur.

  To his surprise, floorboards squeaked beyond her door. Footsteps moved closer. The deadbolt gave.

  Caradoc took a step back as Isabelle opened the door enough to allow her wet head to poke out. Soap bubbles covered her hair. The quick vision of her unadorned shoulder and the water droplets on her face fisted his stomach in on itself. God’s teeth, he was not prepared to confront her without clothing.

  “Oh,” she grumbled before she put her weight into the door and eased it closed.

  Frowning, he jammed the toe of his boot into the narrow space she’d created and slapped an open palm against the wood.

  “God, why can’t you take no for an answer?” she protested as the door pushed her backward.

  “’Tis not in my nature.” He gave another gentle shove, creating enough room for him to twist his shoulders and slip inside. With his force removed, the weight of her body sent the door slamming into place.

  “What do you want, Caradoc?” Isabelle clutched at the top of her towel, holding it secure. “Did you forget an insult?”

  He winced appropriately. Accepting the venom in her voice, he laid her wallet on the flimsy table nearest to the door and made his way to the closest chair. There, he sat, elbows on his knees, hands clasped between them. He said the only thing he could think of to diffuse her anger. “She is a beautiful child.”

  His attempt worked. Isabelle blinked. Her defiant shoulders gave a fraction. “Yes, she is,” she agreed quietly.

  Caradoc gestured at the opposing chair. “Will you sit a moment?”

  One eyebrow cocked as if he had just asked her to fly to the moon, she glanced down her body. “I’m kinda in the middle of something.”

  “It can—” He stopped himself, ordered the frustration from his words, and chose a more cordial question. “Could it wait a few moments?”

  For a fleeting moment, he thought she would refuse. That she would insist bathing was more important than a conversation. But as objection tightened her mouth, in the next moment, she offered him a slight nod. “Give me a second.”

  She took a full minute, but when she returned, soap no longer crowned her head, and she wore the same tank top and loose pants she had worn the night her screams brought him to her door. Her wet skin made the thin white fabric cling to her breasts and afforded him a mind-numbing glimpse of tight nipples beneath. He swallowed hard and forced his gaze to remain on her face.

  Isabelle sat in the chair, one leg crossed over the other. “What’s on your mind?”

  “Your child—”

  “Our child. September.”

  Aye, her name was September. He almost smiled. ’Twas the month they had spent together. Caradoc nodded. “Isabelle, you will find what I have to say an infinite stretch of the imagination. But I beg you to set aside logic and listen.”

  “Beg? That’s a new one for you.” One corner of her mouth twisted with a smirk.

  He ignored the thrown barb but made the decision to omit her status as a seraph. The battle to convince her of his immortality would be terrible enough. If he could win this clash with realism, he could approach the other when they worked through the aftermath.

  Rubbing his palms together, he chewed on the inside of his cheek. “This is not easy for me to speak of. I have told no one. Bear with me, should I choose the wrong words.”

  Her nod was little more than an abrasive jerk of her head.

  “I told you I was a scholar. ’Twas not quite true.”

  “A lie—why am I not surprised?”

  Caradoc lifted a hand to beg off her rightful anger. “’Twas not a lie, but an omission. I was sworn to secrecy in the year 1122 when a man who I had fought with many times, Merrick du Loire, returned from the Holy Land and asked me to serve at his side as a commander of the Knights Templar.”

  A full moment of silence passed before he found the strength to look at her face and witness her certain disbelief. When he did, she merely held his gaze, her thoughts unreadable.

  * * *

  “He’s a knight, Mommy. He rides a big horse with a really long mane and a tail that drags on the ground.”

  Isabelle laughed. “And I suppose that horse is white like a unicorn?”

  “No, Mommy, it’s like a storm cloud. With darker spots.”

  The conversation ricocheted through Isabelle’s mind, September’s voice as animated and insistent as it had been last fall when she’d told Isabelle about the dream for the first time. Isabelle would have sworn on her soul that her daughter had conjured an image from the fairy tales they read together before she went to bed.

  Ever-so-slightly, she tightened her grip on the chair’s arms, but trained her expression into stillness. To her relief, Caradoc continued.

  “I went at his urging. The Order’s purpose is naught like anything history teaches. We exist to fight for the Almighty and keep this world free of the dark lord Azazel’s hunger for power. I took oaths binding me to duty. With them came an immortal life full of curses.”

  Immortal. Oh, hell.

  Isabelle’s world tilted sideways as September’s voice whispered through her memory again. “Daddy will protect you from the shadow, Mommy.” Despite the death grip she maintained on the chair, a tremor ran through her hands. The shadow. She’d lumped that into September’s fear of the boogieman beneath her bed. But now…

  Damn, oh damn, oh damn.

  “One of those curses, Isa, is my inability to father children. ’Twas no vasectomy as you believed. ’Tis a burden on my soul. A product of the evil that my duty has brought to my veins.”

  But. He. Had.

  Despite whatever curse had been put on him, despite whatever he believed, Caradoc was a father. She didn’t know how to make him believe, but the truth lay in the little blond-haired girl whose hazel eyes matched his.

  “You have naught to say, Isa?”

  “Other than your angels made a mistake—no.”

  The perturbed pinch of his mouth claimed he disagreed, but to his credit, he didn’t argue. Instead, he sighed as if he were relieved. “You do not believe I have concocted this?”

  As much as she’d like to believe he’d made the whole thing up, she couldn’t. For the last year, she’d been hearing about Caradoc through September. Their damned daughter knew more about him than she did. At least about his past.

  Isabelle shook her head. “No. You’re a knight. Your horse—or at least one of them—was grey with dapples.”

  It was his turn to clamp onto the arms of his chair like someone had yanked the floorboards from beneath his feet. “Aye, Augustus. I had near forgotten about him. How do you know such?”

  “I don’t. September does.”

  His handsome features contorted with confusion. He pushed a hand through his hair, pinched the bridge of his nose.

  “Our daughter’s gifted, Caradoc.” With a soft chuckle, Isabelle straightened her damp tank top. “She walked at six months and was speaking full sentences at thirteen. She told me about you. Described you right down
to the coat of arms inked on your back. She’s how I could put it on my ankle.” Leaning forward to mirror his earlier posture, she set her elbows on her knees and reached across the table between them to touch his hand. “She told me you were an immortal knight. I didn’t believe her until just now.”

  Absently, he turned his hand over to capture hers. He stared out the window, his thoughts hidden behind a mask of stoic silence. Reemphasizing the truth, she repeated once more, “Your angels made a mistake.”

  “It cannot be.” He swung his head around to meet her gaze. “Isa, there were forty-thousand men in the Order at one time. Not a one of them has sired a child. You must be mistaken.”

  Mistaken. Was he really that dense? She retracted her hand and stood. “I’m not mistaken. I know who I slept with and when. September will be three in June—do the math.” With a shrug, she wandered into the bathroom. “Maybe you’re the first.”

  Maybe, if all the rest of the men in his Order treated women as casually as he’d treated their brief affair, there were more children fathered by immortal knights running around. Though she wouldn’t voice that thought. She was tired of arguing. The truth stood before him in black and white. He could accept it or discard it. The choice was his.

  Through the mirror’s reflection, Caradoc filled the doorframe. “Isa, I am sorry for the things I said.”

  She nodded, not yet ready to forgive. He’d surpassed meanness, and until he could accept that she’d been with no one else, he could apologize all he wanted, but it wouldn’t change the fact that he believed she’d slept with another man.

  “What time is it?” she asked.

  “Almost noon. We slept late.”

  “Damn. I need to get to Shapiro’s.”

  His eyes caught and held hers, their rich hue full of unspoken emotion. “Stay here with me today.”

  Breaking the mesmerizing pull of his gaze, she grabbed her hairbrush and yanked it through her hair. As she flipped it into a tight bun at the base of her neck, she answered, “I can’t. I’ve got a piece to acquire at two.”