She looked down to his lap and saw Michel was not immune to what he observed, his hardened cock pressed firmly against the zipper of his pants. Fine beads of sweat formed on his brow. Shallow breaths came from his slightly opened lips. He was suffering due to the control he attempted to exert over himself. As rightly he should if he meant to not share his needs with her. He’d been cold and aloof all day, and she was sick of it.
His hand slowly began to move, slithering over his firm thigh to his cock, palming the heavy mass through his pants. She watched him touch himself, reveling in the hiss of pain he released as he stroked the turgid shaft. Popping open a button, he then lowered the zipper and gripped the stalk of flesh and brought it through the open vee. The swollen head was violently purple, as if he’d been hard for hours, bereft of his release.
Gabriel’s tongue dipped into her channel as Michel began to fist his cock with his eyes locked on her gaze. The colorful scenery of the French countryside whizzed past the window, light filtering through as the sun began to set behind the trees, dappled their skin. The running shift of dark and light played over Michel’s face, making it harder for her to see his response to her. She needed to see him, to know how much she affected him.
Kadence could barely breathe from the sensations running through her. Fingers and a tongue lavished her sex, her clit, but it was partnered with the visual delight of a man giving himself pleasure.
Michel understood his body completely. He pulled on the shaft just so, building a delicious tempo. Gabriel looked to her, catching her gaze for a brief moment before she turned back to the fascinating sight of Michel masturbating. She’d never seen such a sight up close and was enamored with it. It was both exciting and educational. She could see exactly how Michel preferred to be touched. How she would touch him when her chance came.
Kadence noted Gabriel briefly turn to look over her shoulder from the corner of her eye. He quickly returned to the spot between her legs and began to build a delicious rhythm, the one she’d just begged for. He nearly matched the pace of Michel’s big hand with the sucking pulls of his lips to her clit. Her heartbeat thrummed in her ears as she reached ever closer to release.
Michel’s balls tightened to the base of his cock, his whole body going rigid as his hand began to move faster than she could see. A blur of motion, he pumped the thick cock until she heard a cry rent from his lips. Gabriel pressed two thick fingers inside her channel as he sucked harder on her nub. A stream of cum shot from Michel’s cock onto the discarded newspaper he’d moved to the floor before him.
Thick ropes continued to spurt from the bulbous tip. Seeing his release was heady. She’d never seen a man bring himself over the edge before, and it was exhilarating. As though she were seeing into his innermost thoughts and desires, she felt closer to him at that moment than when he’d had his cock in her mouth, his lips to her pussy. Watching his release brought on her own, Gabriel’s tongue spearing into her sex as she vaulted into a wave of passion, a fervent cry coming from her lips.
The train began to slow as her cries did.
Gabriel stood, pushing his hard cock around in his pants, looking her over with a smug grin. “We must de-board here and catch the next train. Move quickly.”
Quickly? Her limbs were like rubber. There was no moving, let alone quickly. Michel was already at his feet, a large duffel in hand. He’d recovered so quickly. Perhaps these two men were so familiar with pleasure that they’d lost the appreciation for it. She wanted to laze there in her seat and revel in the pleasure they’d given her. Gabriel eyed her and she stood, unhappily. Shimmying, she brought her dress back down around her thighs.
The train stopped and she wobbled in her heels. Just her luck she’d get taken to Europe and she’d be wearing knock-off Louboutins and a dirty, two-day-old, wrinkled dress. She’d tied her hair into a loose twist when she’d used the tiny train restroom, and washed up with the bag of toiletries the men had provided her. But she still felt filthy, exhausted, and disheveled. What a way to make an impression on the French.
Standing between both men, she was sandwiched. Gabriel stood before her and Michel behind, as they walked out of the car and down a long corridor to an entrance. She stepped into the near dusk, barely able to see anything behind Gabriel’s wide shoulders. Ushered into the station, rapid French was spoken by both men as they procured the tickets needed to proceed. She felt like she was on another planet. Nothing seemed familiar as she looked around.
She’d never been outside the United States. She’d never been to more than the states it took her to drive through to get to New York from Ohio. Looking around, she wanted to soak it all in, see as much as she could. A little boy of about three stood directly across from her, his hand in his mother’s as she stood talking on her cell phone. He had a small bear under his arm and quite frankly looked like any other young tyke she would see anywhere. It made her more comfortable to see the child. It stamped a sense of normalcy on the events taking place.
Waving softly to the boy, she smiled at him. His bright, blond tousled hair was sweet, his large blue eyes so baby-like. He ducked his head into his mother’s thigh, hiding his face from her. One eye peeked out, still watching her. She smiled again and he slowly faced her once more. He slowly began to smile back at her.
And then the smile began to warp.
His mouth spread wider than a normal mouth should. It grew black at the edges and his eyes shined black as well. The eyes spread wider and grew larger as his face grew pinker. Biting back a scream, she grasped Gabriel’s hand tightly. Fear surged through her as the child…the whatever it was…waved his cloven hoof at her.
Gabriel turned to look at her, but her gaze was transfixed on the child. If the thing attempted to move, she was ready and prepared to flee, even in heels.
“What is it, querida?”
“The boy…”
“What about the boy? He is cute, no?” Michel interjected as he pushed the tickets into the breast pocket of his jacket and then waved at the demon-child-thing.
“He is absolutely anything but cute. He looks like a demon. Can’t you see it?”
Gabriel looked again. “I only see a boy.”
“He’s evil and we need to get out of this place. Now.” She gazed at both men to emphasize her point before turning back to the creature.
They were on another train before she knew it.
****
Michel eyed Kadence warily as they settled into the car. “What exactly did you see in there?”
Kadence relayed what she’d seen, her lips quivering slightly as she spoke. Her whole body trembled as if she were freezing. She had the jacket wrapped around her and Michel’s sports coat over her lap and she still huddled as if in shock. It was perfectly clear that she truly believed what she had just encountered. Was this the residual effects of whatever she’d taken into her body? Could she now see evil in whatever form it was? Or was it something else, completely sinister?
“What do you think it means?” Her lavender eyes were insistent. She wanted answers, fear rolling off her in waves.
“There’s no reason to speculate, ma cheri. When we reach our destination, I hope to find answers. Until then, rest. Night is upon us.”
He nodded to Gabriel, whose turn it was to rest some. Gabriel nestled back into the seat, pulling Kadence into his arms, casting her a quick look before closing his eyes. After an hour or so of listlessness, the lulling of the train over the tracks seemed to relax her and she began to drift.
Michel rubbed his face, trying to wake himself up. It had been much too long since he’d had to survive on short dozes to tide him over. Once a battled hardened soldier, able to ride without sleep for days, he’d become soft.
Soft men died.
Painfully.
He could no longer take his existence for granted. Kadence was proof that the unknown still lingered on the fray, ready to pounce at any moment, when they least expected it.
And because of that unknown, she was st
ill a fire in his blood. He was in a constant state of arousal when she was near. It had been two hours since his release in the last train, and still he ached to thrust inside her welcoming heat. The strain of holding back had overcome him and he’d spent like a schoolboy, bursting from his own hand. He felt shame that she’d seen that. But he refused to touch her until they determined what she was and how she fit in their equation.
Chapter Nine
Kadence walked between the two men, hopping out of one train, bound for another. Days had blurred together, her body so stiff and sore from the trip that she couldn’t wait to arrive in Monaco. This would be their last leg. Michel had promised this ride would be less than thirty minutes, from Nice to St. Michel, Monaco.
Once they settled into the next train, she relaxed as best she could and tried to rest. Who knew what would come next. She’d better sleep when she could.
She’d seen glimpses of the Mediterranean on their trip thus far, and she couldn’t stop imagining lounging on the beach, soaking up sun, and forgetting the hell of the past three days that had felt more like three weeks. She closed her eyes and envisioned that scene. Smiling to herself, she could almost hear the surf lapping at the beach, gulls screeching overhead, could almost feel the radiant heat sweltering from above.
And knew it would not be.
These men had opened her eyes to a world she’d had no idea existed. She would forever be looking over her shoulder, seeking the evil around her, and waiting for it to attack. Beheadings and evil children were already invading her dreams. What she wouldn’t give to go back in time. Would she refuse the dinner invitation, knowing what she knew now?
Yes, they’d both given her pleasure, but at what cost?
She would never have the life she’d once had. Struggle or no, it had been easy, compared to what the future looked like from this vantage point. Kadence drifted to sleep wishing she’d never seen Gabriel’s face.
****
The train came to a halt in their final station and Michel let out a small hiss. They’d made it to Monte Carlo. Air thick with tension, they rose in silence and began to file out of the train. Questions had been plaguing them all, the heavy possibilities gnawing on them almost as much as the prospect of being followed by the Illuminati. The dual fears had eaten away at him.
Adding in the lust he felt and fought—unsuccessfully—his nerves were fraught. His mind told him to use caution. His body told him the opposite. And the more time they’d spent with her on the train, the more he sensed she bore them no evil intent. But his long years had taught him that trust was not something handed over easily.
He’d trusted once, a long time ago.
A beautiful woman who’d captured his heart. Who’d then only stabbed him in that same organ with her guile and deceit. It had been so long ago, in another time, another place. But the scars were deep and he remembered it all like it was yesterday, not five hundred years before. Since his Paloma had betrayed him, he’d never held another close to his heart, using women for their bodies until he grew bored and moved on.
Not that it was often, but he’d had passions to slake over the long, lonely years. After all she’d done to him, watching her with her lover, as that lover had ensured he’d lived through hell, she’d reveled in his torture. Since Paloma, no woman had ever gotten close.
Kadence was the acceptation, although she still wasn’t past his walls. He sensed she was already much further under his skin than he allowed. Her simple presence brought him a peace he’d rarely felt, even in the midst of their passage to safety. His nerves were shot, but he still sensed a completion to his soul and that unnerved him. But the questions in his mind made him want to push her away. He didn’t know what and who she really was.
Thus far, she’d shown no outward appearance of working with his enemies. But neither had Paloma. He’d sensed a problem when it was already too late. He always trusted his gut, except for when it came to women. Especially a woman like her. She had the potential to hurt him more than Paloma ever did. She made him feel things that even Paloma had not, and so she posed the biggest threat to him. That is, if he allowed himself to let her in.
Gabriel flanked one side of Kadence, escorting her to the waiting limo. Michel was at her other side, his black duffel over one shoulder. They ran toward the car, in a hurry to finally be done with the trip and in a safe home.
Michel paused, a sensation running through him. Something was not right. Sensing they were not alone, he turned to the left and stopped in his tracks.
Paloma.
She stood not fifty feet from them, looking not a day older than the last time he’d seen her smiling down at him in his cell. Two Illuminati henchmen flanked her. The three gazed through the crowd, looking for him and Gabriel, but had not witnessed them yet.
“What is it, Michel?” Gabriel’s voice sounded distant, although he stood right next to him. Michel wasn’t there; he was in 1560, lost to the torments he’d borne.
Paloma turned and their eyes met. Visions of it all passed through his mind, frozen to the spot, unable to move.
Michel felt his friend step close and then he was being dragged into the limo. He was physically pushed into the vehicle and it took several moments for comprehension to filter through him. Monte Carlo, the Mediterranean, and expensive cars sped past him in through the window. Between the exhaustion of the trip, his longing for Kadence, and now, his five-hundred-year-old ex-lover appearing before him very much alive, his mind was a muddle.
Surprise was an understatement.
****
Gabriel watched Michel closely. The man was obviously in shock. Paloma had been instrumental in Michel’s torture. If Gabriel and Thierry had not intervened and gotten him out of the hands of the Inquisitors, who knew what could have happened. The guillotine would have ended Michel. He could still remember pulling the Frenchman’s near-lifeless body from the cell, coated in blood. Open, festering wounds had covered him and bruises filled the skin still intact. Had it not been for Michel’s few seconds of lucidity to call out to Gabriel’s voice, there would have been no way to discern it was him.
She should have been dead long ago. Nearly five hundred years had passed. But seeing the men flanking her had left little question in his mind.
Paloma was Illuminati. She must have been given Immortality by the powers that be.
The only questions that truly remained were how Paloma had found them, and why now, after all these years, had she surfaced?
And was Kadence drawing them close?
Chapter Ten
Michel tried to wrench himself from the grips of madness, knowing that the moments of weakness had left himself and the people with him in harm’s way. Weaknesses got you killed.
Paloma would forever be a weakness.
Visions of his weeks in agony ran through his mind. The beatings, long and arduous, hadn’t broken him. The bruises would eventually heal, the bones mend. When they’d begun to cut away his flesh, yes, it had hurt, but it would grow back, as it always did. Luckily for him, they’d tortured him non-stop, so they did not notice his quick healing. If they determined that he was not exactly human, he knew that the end would follow shortly thereafter. He’d be burned at the stake for being an abomination. When that didn’t work, they would probably use the guillotine.
The loss of his head meant sure death.
When their fists and knives had not gotten the proper response, they’d gone to extremes to get him to confess his sins. Paloma and her lover had fucked in the room as he was forced to watch. If he closed his eyes, they would flay bits of his skin off, forcing him to keep them open. Over and over again, he’d watched the filthy pig of a man touch the whore’s body. She had smiled at Michel as the bastard had rutted behind her like the fat animal he was.
In his mind, he’d repeated over and over again that she was a traitorous bitch and he should feel nothing when she allowed the letch into her body. But his chest had ached with every thrust. His teeth had felt like th
ey’d shatter from the clenching of his jaw. His fingers had curled, wanting to be around the captain’s neck.
After busting the chair he’d been bound to, a soldier’s sword had gone into his chest when he’d advanced on the pair.
His body broken and swollen, his skin covered in blood, she’d shown no remorse for the things her lover’s men had done to him. In his nightmares, he could still hear her lusty moans of satisfaction as his body slid to the floor, gutted by steel. She’d laughed like a wild woman as the room had faded to black.
He’d awoken the following morning on a cartful of dead bodies. The stench had made him roll over and retch, the lack of food and water causing nothing to come out. A guard had seen him arise and had screamed for others to come, to see the dead man come back to life. Minutes later, he was forced to his knees before a cardinal.
The cardinal sat in a throne of a chair, his fingers steepled before him as he gazed at Michel for long moments. Michel forced the man to see him, to catch his eyes, and it was then that he noted the tick in the Cardinal’s cheek. His reserved, calm demeanor was just a ruse. The man was either angry or scared. Potentially both. And either emotion could lead to rash choices.
“Catholicism is in perilous times, Frenchman,” the Cardinal spoke to him in his native tongue. The rolling French seemed natural. He wondered if the man were French himself. Perhaps that would aid him.
“Yes, indeed. I agree.”
“Demons walking on the Earth, tempting others to forego their religion, their god. I’ve heard the stories. You are an abomination.” The last word slid out slowly, as if the man spoke in slow motion.
“I only tried to help those this Inquisition has tortured and maimed. Families starve as their fathers are imprisoned, unable to work their fields. Men and women grow mad from their incarceration. I am not a demon. I am here to save those you call unworthy.”
“The Inquisition clears away the abominations and leaves only the pure. If they were tortured, it was to save their souls from eternal damnation, thus offering them and their whole family salvation. We do not care that these retches find peace on earth but find penance in order to be allowed into Heaven’s Gates. Suffering here will make the sweetness of the afterlife all the more honeyed. To not understand that, to go against God’s work, you are a demon or a witch. Either way, you will burn for it.”
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