Templar Vampires 02 - The Daystar

by Lyons, Rene

  They way his silver gaze bore into her gave Lex a good idea of what molten lava would feel like poured over her. “I’m sure as shit not avoiding you now.”

  No, he wasn’t. He was paying very close attention to her. “Well, you have been and I didn’t like it.”

  He brought his face down close enough for their lips to almost touch. Her head spun at the wonderful aroma of spice she’d only ever smelled on Constantine. His hair fell forward, making a curtain that closed out the world.

  “Do you want me to kiss you again, Lex?”

  She could say no and try to salvage some small shred of her pride, but Constantine would know it for the lie is was. Besides, refusing was the last thing she wanted. “You know I do.”

  He brushed his cool lips across hers, not quite kissing her, more of a teasing of his mouth. His hard groin pressed into her, showing her the proof of his desire for her. Her body undulated with need as dormant things inside of her flared to life.

  “Do you want to know what I want?” he whispered against her lips. Lex nodded, beyond words. “I want to feel your warmth all around me as I take your body and claim it as my own.”

  Right then, every part of Lex opened for him. Parts of her body she’d hardly been aware of ached to welcome him. For the first time, her sexual desire pushed aside reason and silenced the voices that usually protested intimacy. If she didn’t know better, Lex would swear they were silent because she was with Constantine.

  “Then do it, Constantine,” she goaded softly. “Make love to me.”

  He let out a hiss. The sight of his fangs excited her even more. “I don’t make love, I fuck.” He leaned away from her and brought his hand to the junction of her thighs. Lex moaned when he cupped her and pressed his palm against the part of her throbbing for him. “The things I want to do to your body would break you.”

  “I’m tougher than I look.” If Lex gave any thought to those words before they fell from her lips, she would have never had the nerve to say them.

  His erection ground into her and showed her exactly how he wanted to take her. “You’re not tough enough for me.”

  What Constantine should have said was, he wasn’t tough enough for her.

  When it came to Lex he lost his damn mind. He couldn’t control his raging needs around her and that was a dangerous thing. God forbid he lost his shit around her...

  The thought didn’t even bear thinking.

  When the familiar prickling nagged at the nape of his neck, Constantine knew the sun was setting. The others would emerge from their rooms and descend upon Lex like a shitstorm after her stunt today. Upon his bed with both of them shirtless was the last place they needed to find her.

  “Get up,” Constantine demanded, climbing off her. The loss of her touch left him cold once again. It cemented the knowledge of the danger she faced once the power grew strong enough to reach every renegade within a hundred mile radius of her. “The sun is setting.”

  Lex sat up and ran her hands through her thick hair. He watched, transfixed, as the black cloud fell around her incredible face. “I know. I can feel it.” She tilted her head at him curiously. “Do you feel the loss of the sun or the arrival of the moon?”

  “The moon.” He looked at her intently. “I feel the moon.”

  Lex stood and Constantine had to look away. She was too tempting in nothing but jeans and bra. He wondered if her panties matched the flimsy piece of material covering her breasts. He could easily tear it off with his teeth and take her quick, before the others intruded in on them.

  Constantine shook his head. He’d not treat Lex like some whore who was worth nothing more than a quick fuck and a meal.

  “I feel the sun going away.” She sighed and walked toward him. He tensed when she touched him. As he knew it would, Lex’s innocence and energy crashed into him.

  “You have to go, Lex. Now.”

  She took her hand from him. “I’ll go, Constantine,” she whispered, her husky voice causing him to grind his teeth as a wave of longing washed over him. “But this is the last time I’ll run from you. The night will come when I’ll fight for you.”

  His Lex—yes, his—marched from the chamber with the grace of a queen. Her vow echoed in his head long after he heard her go to her room. He focused his hearing on her and listened as she grabbed a shirt out of her drawer, slipped it on and fell onto her bed.

  The sound of her muffled cries made him feel more like a monster than anything else had in over seven hundred years.

  Chapter Nine

  Draegon Castle:

  November 19, 1296

  Standing before Aislin, who reclined on her chair like a queen on a throne, Constantine drew himself up to his full and impressive height. At eleven, he was nearly as tall as his sire. He also surpassed most of his father’s squires when it came to his skill with a sword. In time, if he continued to drive himself with the same ruthlessness he already did, he knew he’d be able to best even the finest of his father’s men.

  And then he’d become better still.

  He’d become as strong and powerful as a dragon and cut down entire armies with a single swipe of his sword. It was all he trained for. All he had come to live for. To become the man his parents believed he’d never grow to be.

  With hands clasped in front of him, Constantine stared his mother in the eye. He ignored the sting of the cuts on the top of his hands since they were a small price to pay for his effort to become a master swordsman. He tried not to be blinded by her beauty, like every other man who chanced to look upon her. The beauty of her face concealed the ugliness of her soul and he’d best remember that or she’d continue to break his heart with her cruelty.

  Constantine knew men envied the lord of Draegon for his luck at securing himself a comely young wife. She bore him a son, which added to her appeal. If those same men heard the same whispers Constantine had of his mother’s infidelity, he wondered if they’d still begrudge Henry his wife. Or the lord’s good fortune at having a son to carry on his name. Unfortunately, Constantine knew his mother’s heart was as cold as a slab of stone. Her soul was black as the devil’s. And he knew he was a miserable disappointment to her as a son.

  He saw no love reflected in her eyes as she raked her gaze over him. “On the morrow we’ll be well rid of you.”

  Constantine puffed out his chest with a pride he didn’t feel and fought back his fear. “Lord Ulric comes for me?”

  He hated that his voice was still that of a youth, having not yet broken into the deeper pitch of a man. His body was growing , and yet he was still but a boy. Trapped between the two, Constantine had no place where he belonged.

  Her lips twisted in her usual cruel smile. “Oh no, Constantine.” Her tone was arctic and she spat out his name as if it were poison on her tongue. “A knight as powerful as Lord Ulric would never lower himself to come to collect one such as you. You go to him.”

  A knight as cruel, and as brutal, was what she should have said. Those were more apt descriptions of Ulric Chambers—or so Constantine had learned.

  Tales of Ulric Chamber’s viciousness had reached him. The men all spoke of the Lord of Greaves Castle’s callousness. Constantine knew the lord’s ways was one of the reasons why his parents agreed to give the man their only son as squire. From what Constantine had overheard, his parents believed Ulric would shape Constantine into the warrior they wanted him to be but often voiced their doubts of him becoming.

  The bag of gold Ulric paid them was merely a bonus.

  One afternoon, while taking a short break from the lists, Constantine heard the older men talking. The two knights had gone on about how Ulric had bought him for a bag of gold and how, given Chambers’ reputation, he had a perverse reason for doing so. Hearing that had chilled him clear down to the marrow of his bones. Yet not until they went into gruesome detail of what might await him at Greaves did he lose what little food he’d eaten. So awful were such things they spoke of that Constantine had shamed himself right there at
the knights’ feet.

  “I would ask you a question.”

  He almost called her “mother”, but thought better of it. Best he’d start now at putting them out of his mind—and his heart.

  Though he knew better, he could not leave Draegon Castle without knowing the answer to the one question that burned within him for years.

  “Ask,” Aislin bit out, accepting a goblet of spiced wine from a young male servant.

  The servants at the castle were divided to a certain degree, Constantine had noticed years ago. The young male servants fluttered around his mother while, more often than not, the women could be found occupying his father’s lap.

  It took Constantine a moment to find his voice once he was given leave to ask his question. “Why do you hate me?”

  He watched as his mother took a long, leisurely drought of her wine. When she moved the beaten gold goblet away from her mouth, she licked a stray drop from her bottom lip. She regarded him with open disdain. “Because you breathe.”

  He nearly buckled under the weight of his mother’s hatred.

  “I see.”

  Though he’d said that, the truth was, Constantine didn’t see. A mother was supposed to love her child. He knew this because he’d secretly watched the servants with their children. They laughed, they embraced and they loved. He’d known none of those things, nor did he ever hope to.

  “I’ve hated you since before you took your first breath.” Her voice was sharp. It cut him deeper than any blade could.

  So now he knew. Her answer left nothing more to say. All he was left to do was wipe away his tears. Constantine leveled a cold glare at his mother. The abhorrence in his eyes rivaled the coldness in hers. He realized that he had one last thing to say to Aislin Draegon.

  “Goodbye, mother.”

  With a dignity he never knew he possessed, Constantine turned and stalked from his mother’s receiving chamber. She said nothing to him as he walked out, though he did hear her call for more wine. When he turned to shut the door, he saw her caress the face of her servant. Her mouth curled into a beautiful smile as she pulled his face down to hers. Just before he could witness her infidelity, Constantine squeezed his eyes closed, unable to look upon her even one more moment.

  On the morrow he’d leave Draegon Castle. Though he knew he would be exchanging one hell for another, he also knew he’d never willingly return here. And if he did, he would do it with an army at his back.

  When Constantine reached his room, he sank down in the corner to wait out the last night he would ever spend here. His fear robbed him of the ability to sleep, so he was left to dwell on all the horrible imaginings his active mind could think up. He drew his legs up, and hugged them with arms only now beginning to show the first signs of his well-earned muscle. He rested his chin on his knees and let the tears of his broken heart flow freely. After all, there was no one here to witness his shame.

  It was his eleventh birthday.

  Chapter Ten

  Over the years, fate had shown Constantine most of the horrors and wonders that would come to be. From the birth of nations to the two World Wars, he’d seen nearly all of the major events play out in vivid—and agonizing—detail. More often than not his visions were ones he wished he could un-see.

  Fate had also shown him glimpses of the destinies of his fellow Templars—all but his own, of course. But then, he didn’t need to see his to know where he was going once his existence came to an end. Yet of all the things Fate had shown him, why had the bitch kept the fact that Lex was the Daystar from him?

  He’d seen the mark Lex carried on her stomach once before. It had been on a piece of parchment Kenny Buckman had found in his senile grandmother’s attic. The junkie had been up there looking for shit to steal to feed his heroin habit. Years before, renegades had killed Paul Buckman when they’d stolen the scroll the piece of parchment had been torn from. Unfortunately, the Templars were never able to track down the scroll. Like all things associated with the Daystar, it frustratingly faded away into the unknown.

  The implication of the mark, coupled with the power that radiated from Lex, added up to one hell of an ugly situation. Or as Constantine liked to put it, it was a giant cosmic “fuck you”. Fate had given him a lot of those over the centuries. So much so, he was raw from them all.

  Given the degree of energy raging in her, it was safe to assume it would only be a matter of time before the power radiated out to anyone with a set of fangs and a penchant for the dark. That’s when shit was going to get really ugly, really fast.

  Normally, Constantine liked nothing more than a good fight. Hell, he thrived on violence. Back in his day men fought hand-to-hand and sword-to-sword. One had to look his opponent in the eye before he killed him, which was something his violent nature had always relished. As far as Constantine was concerned, if he took a life, the life deserved taking. That way of thinking, coupled with his lack of conscience, was what allowed him to kill without remorse.

  The medieval age had been a good time for a man like him to live. Bloody, dirty and dangerous, Constantine had been the perfect product of his day. He’d always thrived on the thrill of battle, of the not knowing if he’d live long enough to see the end of the fight or if someone was finally going to best him and send him to Hell. More often than not he’d tempted fate and had come damn close to meeting Lucifer long before the French killed him by fire.

  Once he’d died and made his oath to God, all that had kept him from breaking it was the chance that his fellow Templars would be sent to Hell with him. Until Lex. Because of her, for the first time in his seven hundred years, Constantine wasn’t so eager to tempt fate and tease death.

  Constantine couldn’t comprehend why Lex cared for him. Hell, no one liked him, even the Templars couldn’t stomach him most of the time. On a good day he was an ornery asshole. When the hunger rode him—well, that’s when things turned downright vicious. Yet Lex seemed to enjoy being around him, and God help him, he liked her being around as well.

  With Lex housing the power of the Daystar, it put her in the center of a dangerous situation. Once renegades found out what she was—and he harbored no false hope that they wouldn’t—they’d stop at nothing to gain possession of her. It would come down to a fight to preserve Lex’s life and if they failed her, not only would vampires gain a power that would make them virtually indestructible, they’d acquire it by draining Lex dry. For her, there would be no coming back, and that was something Constantine wasn’t about to let happen.

  Constantine ran his hands down his bare chest. He still felt Lex’s touch on him. Everything about her drove him mad with need. Grunting with frustration, his body raged for what he knew he could never have. This was a dangerous game he played when it came to her.

  The proof of that came a moment later when the stab of hunger twisted his gut and ran his mouth dry. He’d have to feed again before he became a danger to himself and everyone around him. The more he allowed himself to indulge in Lex the more the hunger gnawed at him and the more frequently he was forced to feed. If he kept going down this road, it would lead to only one place. Though he was already fairly certain he was going to Hell, it wasn’t someplace he was in any hurry to get to.

  Which was why he took his time in donning a shirt and putting a series of heavy silver chains around his neck. He pushed various metal rings on his fingers, one of which bore a claw that he’d honed to a razor-sharp point.

  Before he quit his room, Constantine grabbed his sword, something that was rarely out of his reach since the day the Grand Master bestowed it upon him—save for his years in Chinon.

  On the day of his arrest, Constantine had almost lost four fingers—including his thumb—before the French soldiers were able to wrest the sword from him. He’d put up one hell of a fight before one bastard snuck up behind him and nailed him across the back of the head with the hilt of a sword. He’d been knocked cold. The next thing he knew, he was bound and being carted off to Chinon Castle.

/>   When he woke after his rebirth as a vampire it was to find his sword laying a few feet from him. He’d lain there for a long time, adjusting to the agony of his body and the realization of what he had been damned as. He’d looked long and hard at the raw brand on his right hand. It was a stark reminder of what he once was and what he had become. He’d gripped his sword in his branded hand as he dragged his burnt body across the cold night sand.

  Once Constantine had taken his sword in hand, he’d made damn sure he was never parted from it again.

  * * *

  Over the last hour Lex had endured a mix of being yelled at and lectured for leaving the castle alone and for keeping what was happening to her a secret. When they’d seen the mark on her stomach, the collective silence was worse than the screaming had been.

  Now, her head was pounding. Allie, Sebastian and Tristan were still handing her ass to her and it looked as if they weren’t about to calm any time soon.