by Lyons, Rene
When Tristan charged and came close to stabbing him through the stomach, Constantine leapt back and slapped the blade to side. He needed to get his head in the battle. Tristan was still pissed enough to do some serious damage to him if he didn’t.
Never one to play nice, Constantine knew he came off as an arrogant prick when he swung his sword at Tristan. He caught his fellow Templar across the arm. Blood spurted from the bone-deep wound.
“Yield, Guardian,”
“Don’t be such an arrogant arse.”
Their blades crossed again in a terrible crash of steel. Constantine pushed Tristan away with a force that would have felled a human. “You can’t beat me.”
Tristan rolled his eyes, bringing his sword down in a hacking motion that Constantine managed to repel. “Spare me your ego, Constantine. You aren’t that good.”
“Bullshit.”
Constantine was that good and they all knew it. He’d been savage in life, he was even more so in death. Where the others still held to some part of their humanity, Constantine had none.
When he’d joined with Guy Sinclair’s army he might have been younger then the other men, but he’d already known enough pain and seen enough blood to last lifetimes. It lent him an edge over the men he’d fought, who were older and more experienced.
He’d followed the others when they joined the Templar Order, to remain close to men he’d come to think of as brothers. Tristan, Sebastian, Lucian, and Raphael believed he’d joined the order of warrior monks as a way to thumb his nose at God.
And maybe they were right. Maybe that had been one of his reasons. If that were true, he was now paying for that arrogance and disrespect every night of his existence.
Swinging his sword in a high arc, Constantine caught Tristan’s other arm, opening a deep gash across his forearm.
“Yield.”
“To you? Never.”
Constantine cocked a brow and swung his sword with enough force that he would have sliced Tristan in two if the Templar hadn’t leapt back with the speed only a vampire possessed. “Are you sure about that?”
Tristan countered with a quick stab of his sword. He caught Constantine in the left shoulder. “Positive. Now stop mooning over Lex and fight.”
* * *
Lex admitted defeat. After all, what choice did she have? She’d chased another ghost away, for God’s sake. She felt as if she should be the one saying “boo” and going bump in the night instead of the other way around.
What a colossal waste of time tonight was. Lex knew she should have stayed home. It wasn’t just her time she was wasting or her night she was ruining, but Raphael’s as well.
Because of what Lex had promised herself, after tonight she’d never go on another hunt. She’d leave the poor souls in peace.
As this was her first walk-through of the barn, the only equipment she’d brought was herself. If Raphael had found it odd that she hadn’t loaded up the mountain of equipment Allie had stored at the castle, he made no mention of it.
Over the years, Lex realized her senses were better at detecting ghosts than any of Allie’s fancy equipment. Sometimes, she was even able to see their faint aura like fine mist that carried the shape of a person. When she was younger, she had dared to touch that mist. The sensation was one she never wanted to experience again. Ever.
One of the creepiest things she ever experienced, it was the first and last time she had done it.
Lex stood in the center of the derelict barn and tracked the faint sensation of a ghost. Though the spirit was still there, it was fading fast.
“I’m going,” Lex whispered. She began to back out of the barn. The closer she got to the door, the stronger the spirit became. “I promise I won’t come back. You’re safe here.”
God, she wished someone would promise her that very same thing.
She pushed open the rotted wooden door and shivered at the blast of cold wind that hit her. She looked at the car where Raphael waited patiently for her. Leaning against the car, arms crossed over his wide chest, Rogue looked miserable from the cold.
“What happened, Lex? No spooks tonight?”
“Not tonight.” She hated lying, but telling him the truth would raise too many questions she couldn’t answer. When she closed the barn door she took care not to splinter the aged wood, Lex shook her head. “Why aren’t you waiting in the car with the heat jacked up?”
“I wanted to make sure I was able to hear you if you needed me.”
Raphael gave her a dazzling smile. The moonlight loved him. It played off his pale skin and made the blonder streaks in his hair shimmer. The mischievous gleam in his eyes added to his wicked appeal, which he knew how to work to perfection. Not to mention he had a killer combination of an incredibly muscular body and just enough arrogance to make him devastating to a woman’s senses.
No wonder women went crazy for him. Raphael was not only gorgeous, but his rakish charm was something a woman only read about in romance novels.
Thank God Lex’s affection lay elsewhere. She’d be nothing more than a Rogue-groupie for sure if her heart didn’t already belong to Constantine.
“Come on, let’s get you home.” He unfurled his arms and held out his branded hand to her. “We can always try again another night.”
Lex didn’t take his offered hand. When she was close enough, Raphael pushed himself off the car and went to throw an arm around her. She skidded around him and hurried in the car. He looked stunned by her obvious avoidance of him.
Raphael slid in the driver’s seat and cast her a curious look. “You okay?”
Lex nodded. “Just disappointed.”
He flashed her another killer smile. “I’m sure Constantine will cheer you up like he did last night.”
Lex’s eyes went wide and her jaw dropped. Raphael, with all the tact of a freight train, pointed out that her mouth was hanging open. She snapped it closed.
She shook her head furiously. “I don’t... He doesn’t... There’s nothing between us.”
Raphael cocked a brow at her. “Oh. So that wasn’t the two of you I caught macking in the den last night?”
Oh Lord.
“It’s not what you think.”
He snorted. “Either it’s exactly what I think or Constantine was trying to find buried treasure down your throat with his tongue.”
Oh God.
Lex wanted to slap the cocky grin clean off his face. Didn’t he care that she was mortified beyond words? Of course he didn’t. This was Raphael after all, and if she’d learned anything about him in the last month, it was that he loved to tease.
“You’re ruthless, do you know that?”
“Decidedly so, sweetheart.”
Lex rethought her high opinion of him. No wonder the other Templars all took turns trying to beat him bloody on the lists. If she were able to wield a sword she’d be next in line.
“You’re evil.”
He gave her a careless shrug. “What’s the big deal? I caught you making out. If you ask me, it’s about time you two got down to business.”
Lex buried her face in her hands. “Oh God, can you please stop talking?”
Mercifully, Raphael noticed her embarrassment. “Lex, darling, it was only a kiss.”
As far as Lex was concerned, there was nothing “just” about the kiss. Maybe to Raphael, and even Constantine, it wasn’t a big deal. But to her, it was. It was a giant deal, actually. The biggest deal thus far in her boring life.
Despite the fact that she knew she was blushing clear to her hairline, Lex unburied her face. “You’re right. It was only a kiss. Can we go home now, please?”
Raphael made no motion to turn the car on. Instead, he sat and stared at her for a long time. Lex wanted to poke him right in the eyes.
Oh Lord, she was getting more and more like Allie every day!
When next he spoke, Lex thought she was going to burst into flames of mortification and die right there. “That was your first kiss, wasn’t it?”
Did he have to sound astonished?
Lex wanted to say no, especially to him, who’d had sex with practically every woman who crossed his path. Yet the way he was looking at her told her he already knew the truth. She hated those heightened vampire senses sometimes. With Constantine constantly trying to poke into her mind, it was an effort for Lex to guard her thoughts. God only knew how many times she’d been lax in the effort. She didn’t dare think on how many of her thoughts made it into Constantine’s mind.
“Yes it was. Now please, Raphael, can we not talk about this anymore?”
Begging didn’t seem to be working on him. “We all know you’re a virgin, but to have never kissed a man... ? Damn, woman. Constantine is one lucky son-of-a-bitch.”
In his own “Raphael” way, he’d handed her a huge complement. Okay, maybe he wasn’t a jerk after all. Still, he was embarrassing her horribly and staring at her as if she had sprouted a second head. Poking him in the eyes was looking more appealing every second he continued to gape at her.
A thought struck her, causing her stomach to twist with dread. “Does Constantine know you saw us?”
Even though she asked that, she knew the answer. Of course Constantine knew. None of them moved without the others knowing—or as Raphael liked to say, “when one farts, we all fart”. Leave it to Raphael to say it with such eloquence. Rogue certainly had a way with words.
Their connection with each other was strong, except when it came to Lucian. For some reason none of them were able to locate him with their senses. Even Constantine couldn’t detect the lost Templar, who had gone missing a month ago. He’d vanished as if into thin air. The only trace of him had been his car, left in The Gate’s parking lot. For the Templars, the loss of the Knight was the equivalent of the loss of their souls
“Of course he knows.” He winked at her. “And from what I felt coming off him, he was seriously enjoying you.”
Lex, never more embarrassed in her entire life, wanted to crawl into the glove box and stay there until they got back to Seacrest.
Doing her best to put aside her mortification and act like the grown woman she was, Lex glared at him. Though from the look of him, it didn’t faze him in the least. “Are you going to torture me the entire way home?”
Raphael started the car. First he turned on the heat. Then he flipped on the radio. “Voodoo” by Godsmack broke the silence. His smile was mischievous. “Of course I am.”
When he reached out to ruffle her hair, Lex tried to duck away. Unfortunately she was too slow. The second his hand made contact with her he let out a loud hiss and drew back sharply.
“What the fuck... ?”
Lex cringed. “Don’t go getting all freaked out, okay? It’s nothing.”
“Nothing?” He repeated in disbelief. “You call that nothing? Shit, Lex, it felt like I touched the sun.”
She began to wring her hands. “It’s not a big deal. I was going to tell Allie but I didn’t want to worry her.”
“Allie doesn’t know?”
She shook her head. “Please, Raphael, don’t tell my sister.”
“Lex... ”
“I’ll tell her. I swear, just not tonight. Please.”
He looked at her long and hard. She thought he was going to deny her plea. Which was why when he agreed to keep quiet—for tonight, anyway—she forgot herself and threw her arms around in a tight hug. Caught off guard when energy surged through him, he hissed again and pulled away from her.
She jumped back. “Sorry,” she murmured.
Raphael shook his head at her. “Goddamn, but you pack a mean punch with that.” He gave her a curious look before a slow, and incredibly wicked, smile spread across his face. “Bet Dragon got a kick out of that energy last night, huh?”
Leave it to Raphael to put aside the seriousness of a situation and turn it into something sexual.
God help her, it was the longest car ride of her life.
Chapter Six
The night of the Bloodmoon was near.
Julian of Harwick sensed the power growing all around him as he stood out on the battlements of the castle and surveyed the land. His land. As it had been for a millennia, long before the time of the Order of the Rose and the Templars. Those had been good times, when renegades were able to cut a bloody path without the worry of retribution from the two factions of righteous vampires.
Righteous vampires. The very concept was absurd. He longed to bring back those days, and he would, as soon as he took in the blood of the Daystar. And unlike the others who’d come before him and failed, he’d not find himself at the wrong end of a Templar’s sword.
Julian threw his arms wide, reveling in the sensation of energy that rolled over him. The power of the Daystar grew as time ticked ever closer to Samhain. The Bloodmoon came once every quarter century and he’d not allow another one to pass him by. Too many had already come and gone without him gaining the power of the Daystar. Now was his time. Now was his chance, and he’d not have anything stand in his way to obtain it.
The last time the Bloodmoon sat in the night sky marked the birth of a Hallowed. Come Samhain, when it would be upon them once more, it would mark her death.
Stephan of Penwick had failed to find the last Hallowed. She’d died the night a new Hallowed had been born, and this time, Julian would not miss his chance to seize the power she harbored within her body.
He longed for a time when there would be no more hiding in the shadows. By harvesting the Hallowed’s blood he’d take in the power of the Daystar, which would give him the ability to walk in the light. Released from the prison of the night, he’d be virtually unstoppable. He’d usher in a reign of vampires that would put an end to the dominance of humans. Creatures of both the day and the night would bow to his majesty. He’d sit upon a throne of blood as a living god.
All he had to do was get to the Hallowed and the power would be his for the taking.
Almost giddy with anticipation, Julian thought of those who’d failed. They’d paved the way for him. Stephan of Penwick had done most of the work when it came to finding the Daystar. In his relentless pursuit of revenge against his brother, he’d used the Daystar as a bargaining tool to amass a small number of followers to aid him in his vengeance. Julian had been among them.
He’d been recruited back in the time of Queen Elizabeth I, which had been a good time for a man such as himself. An ostentatious time, it was filled with pleasure-loving people, and had been all too easy to seduce such eager women. Oh, and how he’d played them. He’d worked his charm and incited their desires right up to that precious moment just before dawn when he took their blood and left their bodies for his valet to dispose of.
Daniel of Harwick, who’d been another of Stephan’s recruits, had foolishly rushed in after Stephan had revealed the name of the woman he believed possessed the power of the Daystar. Julian knew better than to follow his lead. He’d hung back and watched Daniel fail after he’d wrongly assumed Allison Parker was the Daystar.
That crazy bitch was merely the link.
What a bloody fool Daniel had been. He thought to abduct a Templar’s female and get away with the offense. True, Julian despised the Templars, but even he wasn’t fool enough to cross them unless absolutely necessary. After all, those self-righteous bastards were known to fell entire armies of renegades. For Daniel to believe he could best them where countless others failed had been suicide.
In taking Allison, Daniel had come too close to sparking a war between the Templars and the renegades. All that had prevented war was that Daniel hadn’t been the one who held Lucian of Penwick. The Templars had believed Daniel took both Allison and the Templar known as the Knight. Once Sebastian of Rydon had killed that fool Daniel, the Templars were too busy looking for their lost member to declare open war on the renegade population.
With the knowledge Julian acquired over the centuries, coupled with what he’d learned through Stephan, he’d managed to fit the remaining pieces of the puzzle toge
ther and locate the Daystar. Now, with the picture complete, he was ready to strike once the opportune moment arrived.
Lowering his arms, Julian turned away from his land and stalked back into the keep. As he made his way out of the chamber and down the long corridor, he reveled in the elation at being back here after the long centuries he’d spent playing minion to Stephan. This was where he belonged, and it was here he’d set up his kingdom of vampires once he possessed the Daystar’s power.
