Two Knights of Indulgence

by Alexandra O'Hurley

  Matthias had piled a mountain of food on a delicate bone china plate for her, matching his own, and dropped it before her rather indelicately. There was no way she could even eat half of what he’d gotten her, but she did her best to pick through what was there.

  Thierry and Alain had already eaten, pouring over a local newspaper in German as Henri and Lucien wolfed down plates that looked quite a bit like Matthias’. As breakfast passed silently, Matthias and Nicolas grew ever more uncomfortable. She could sense their unease radiating off them, and she was pretty sure she knew why.

  “Thierry, perhaps we could just get the question and answer portion of the morning over with so Matthias and Nicolas can calm the hell down.”

  Thierry stared at her over his newspaper and began to fold the paper as he seemed to collect his thoughts, then looked to both Matthias and Nicolas, as if gaining their approval. A smidgen of anger radiated through her at his chauvinistic action, but she let it go. She wanted answers, not to start an argument.

  “I’m afraid this could be a very long story.”

  “It appears I have time on my hands.”

  “Very well. I’m assuming they have told you who they are, but if I repeat anything, I apologize.”

  She nodded at him, and he leaned on his elbows, getting comfortable.

  “Good and evil have waged a long war, not a war such as humans fight, but a constant pull and push, the fight for human souls. It has come to a head numerous times over the years, increasingly getting worse. A dark order began assisting evil in the thirteenth century, causing chaos in hopes of spreading darkness. In the beginning of the fourteenth century, the Templars were rounded up and murdered. Gaia saved us to be her warriors. We were put in place to hold back the Illuminati and maintain the balance.”

  “What exactly are the Illuminati? They look human.”

  “They were, at one time, but something happened in their lives that sent them on a path to darkness, typically killers, rapists, and thieves. If an Illuminati general comes across such a person, that person can be changed. A ceremony is performed, and the human soul is removed, replaced by darkness. They’re no longer alive. They’re not dead.”

  “So basically, they’re zombies?”

  Thierry chuckled. “In a manner of speaking. They just don’t come looking for human brains.”

  That put her further at ease. She was still on the murder versus free fence, and knowing that many of these men had been evil as humans made her feel infinitesimally better. “How do you think I fit in this?”

  “I have a theory, a strong one. I found an ancient manuscript that talks of five daughters of Gaia, all imbued with a particular gift. There will be a seer, a healer, a warrior, a sorceress, and a princess. Kadence has the gift of foresight, and you have the gift of healing.”

  Laughter bubbled up from Britt’s chest. She could barely speak between the laughter. “You … think … I’m the daughter of a goddess?”

  “Gaia came to visit us when she was hurt. Called her ‘my girl’.”

  Britt turned to look at Matthias as if he’d grown a second head. “I have a mother, and she most certainly isn’t a goddess. I was born in Iceland, not in a fairy circle. My mother was a good woman who loved me immensely.”

  “Gaia would have put you someplace safe, with people who would love you.”

  Her parents had struggled to conceive for years. They’d given up hope when they’d been overjoyed to find they were pregnant. A gift from heaven. The doctors hadn’t been sure how she’d even conceived. How many times had she heard her mother tell that story? No, it can’t be.

  “We think we may have also found the warrior as well. Found being a loose term since we have no idea who she is or where she is. But since you and Kadence have found a way into our lives, we can only guess Gaia is pushing you toward us or vice versa.”

  “Giving the benefit of the doubt here, if I were Gaia’s daughter, what is my purpose?”

  Thierry leaned forward, a frown twisting his handsome features. “I’m not sure, but for you to come, it must mean something big is on the horizon.”

  “Something being another loose term?”

  “I can’t answer that question, but I wish I could. It would make it much easier to plan our strategy if we knew what the something was. All I can say is Illuminati activity has been elevated. They’ve been busy, and it seems they’re recruiting as well. I’m not sure where they’re coming up with all these new foot soldiers, but we’re almost to the point of being overrun.”

  Wheels began to turn in Britt’s head. Something Thierry said made some of the puzzle pieces want to connect together in her brain. And a fleeting thought came through. “The bullets.”

  “Bullets?” Thierry frowned more deeply. “What do you mean?”

  “The bullets I took from the guys, they made Nicolas begin to turn evil. I didn’t get one of them out at first, and it spread within him. You said that the Illuminati can change people who have darkness in them. What a way to create new recruits, shoot them with evil. Once it spreads, take them into the fold.”

  All six men around the table were silent and still. She knew she’d hit the nail on the head. It fit. “The Illuminati were about to amass an army.”

  “If you’re right, Britt, then we have a big problem on our hands. Do you have any of the remnants of the bullets?”

  “They melted on sight, as soon as I removed them from their bodies.”

  “Melted? Dammit, then we need to try to get our hands on them before they’re shot. The bullets have to be whole to load into a gun, I would assume. If we can get a stash of them, we can determine what they are and see how to counterbalance them.”

  Britt sat back and looked across the table and then back to her sides. “Then we go back to the last place we found them. All that running for nothing.”

  Thierry sat back. “We have no idea where to look. Matthias and Nicolas got lucky when they stumbled over the Illuminati they found, but I’m fairly certain they aren’t going to meet in the same spot in the woods. So, we just race across the territory and hope we get lucky again?”

  “You said Kadence can see the enemy. We take her and let her sniff them out. Then we follow them, interrogate them, and if they don’t have the knowledge we need, we free them of their evil and leave them as bait to get a bigger fish.”

  “What’s this we shit? You’ll be in danger if we take you. Gaia wants us to protect you,” Nicolas spat out.

  “I believe I’ve shown I can hold my own.” She turned to stare at Nicolas, feeling the flow of power through her. “And you don’t have any rights to me to make that decision.”

  “No rights—” He stopped mid-sentence, the last of his comments hanging in the air. The angry set of his jaws was almost comical. She worked hard not to laugh as he sat there silently. Britt turned to Matthias to see if he agreed with his friend, but he was tight lipped and didn’t meet her stare until she pressured him to. “Thoughts?”

  “I’ve seen what you can do. I may not like the idea of you going out, but like you just said, I have no rights to you.”

  She almost regretted the comment she made now. She still felt anger that they hadn’t been completely honest with her from the get-go. Maybe she would have handled all this better if they told her that she might be a demi-goddess a few nights ago. If they hadn’t been chicken and had told her in private, she could have excluded them from a public altercation. It was their fault. At least, that sounded good in her head. Even angry she knew they had some pretty good claims on her, just as she had ones on them.

  But most people always seemed to lash out at the ones they cared about when they got angry. Easier targets.

  Thierry interrupted her thoughts. “What do you mean free them of their evil?”

  Matthias jumped in to answer before she could. “She seems able to extract evil from Illuminati. What’s left isn’t pretty. They look like mummified remains when she’s done with them. Just before we left, she took down six o
f them at once, without any help from us.”

  Thierry’s eyes grew large as saucers as he fixed his gaze back on her. She felt like squirming in her seat as the other four men stared at her as if she were a specimen under a microscope. The only thing that kept her sane at that moment was the hint of pride she’d heard in Matthias’ voice. After the initial reaction of fear he’d had at her dance with six dead men, a little hope sprung in her chest. Her gaze drifted to his, and she saw no fear in his eyes.

  Only love.

  One minute, she was taking down big, bad undead soldiers, and the next she was getting all sissy over a man looking at her with love in his eyes. Talk about bipolar. The next thought just made the downward swing that much worse.

  The emptiness was gone from his stare.

  Yeah, the two of them had kept something from her, something big, but what they shared was bigger than that. She would so kick their asses if they did it again, but they would recover. Eventually, she’d tell them that, after they were shamed into never doing it again.

  “So, what do you think?”

  Thierry looked at both the men flanking her, and this time she just let it go. She assumed he was seven hundred years old as well, or close to it. She’d just have to get rid of all their chauvinism in one fell swoop.

  “I think it’s the only plan we’ve got on the table right now. Henri, Lucian, you stay here and contact the other Templars. We need to get everyone up to speed. Have Marcus and Remy come here at once and assist. We’ll need Marcus to look at the bullets once we get our hands on them, as well. Then get any equipment he’ll need and set up shop downstairs in the shooting range. Kadence will need at least today to rest up, and we won’t be able to keep Gabriel and Michel away if we take their female. I’ll go talk to them now and make sure they’re on board.”

  Nicolas rose. “I’ll go make sure the jet is fueled and ready for us to depart.”

  He shot out of the room before Britt could say anything, obviously upset by her comments. Everyone stood except Matthias and her and left them alone.

  “I know you’re pissed at us for keeping the secret, but did you really have to push it so far?”

  She rounded on Matthias, ire sharpening her tongue. “He asked for it. You should be grateful you didn’t get a tongue lashing.”

  “I look forward to any tongue lashing you want to give me.”

  Britt glared at him, trying not to laugh.

  “You’ve told him he is only with us if I am there. In a way, you’ve chosen me over him and he knows it. He accepted that, of course, but it had to sting a little. Then you denounce any claim he may have over you in front of everyone in the room. You hurt his pride when he was only concerned for your safety. He was willing to do anything to save you from the evil you took. He was willing to die for you.”

  Britt suddenly felt very small. It had been more important to lash out at him than to consider her actions beforehand. “Should we go to him?”

  “You should go to him. I’ll just be your driver.”

  ****

  Matthias watched the road before him intently as he pushed the Bentley around twisting corner after corner. He wasn’t in as big a hurry to return to the hangar as the rush to get to the castle had been, but he still enjoyed pushing the auto to its limits.

  “Slow down. I can see us crashing over the edge the way you’re speeding.”

  “You’ll heal us. No worries.”

  She punched his arm instead of giving him the laugh he’d desired. He needed to get her to relax or she was going to botch the deal. Anger still lined her face, and he could tell she hadn’t completely let go of her disappointment with them. His gaze kept turning to the rear view mirror, pretending to check behind them, but his gaze tried to discern her mood from the corner of the reflective surface without her realizing he stared.

  Each time he stole a glance, her arms were over her chest, her haughty little chin raised in ire. She was magnificent, even in her anger. He wanted her more at that moment than he had the night before, even if it were partially to re-stake his claim on her body and remind her they were tied to one another. Anger be damned.

  Britt’s glare rounded to the mirror and caught his stare. He returned his gaze to the road once more. She wasn’t ready to completely let go yet.

  “I suppose I should let a little of this off my chest as I don’t want to go through all this with Nicolas already upset.”

  Strike that. She was ready to talk. Damn. He wasn’t prepared for a full out tongue lashing, unless she was talking the good kind that he looked forward to. Once she was over being angry, of course. But then again, she was awfully cute when she was mad and didn’t have blue circling in her eyes.

  “I can’t believe you two didn’t give me a hint at all this so I could start processing it. You knew some of this at the cabin, yet you kept it from me. I deserved to have the truth.”

  “You did deserve to know the truth, but we only knew bits and pieces. There were no definites, and honestly, it’s still all supposition. We think you’re the daughter of Gaia. We think there’s a reason you’re here with us. Why give you bits and pieces and risk you not believing us, especially when we didn’t have all the answers Thierry could provide you.”

  “Why didn’t you ask Gaia when she came? I was in the cabin, for fuck’s sake.”

  “We didn’t know all this information when Gaia appeared. Had we known, we sure as hell would’ve asked. She did tell us you weren’t completely human.”

  His gaze met hers in the mirror once more. Their stares locked, and she appeared to weigh his words for a second, a quick flash of blue swirling in the green depths of her eyes. He broke the connection to check the road ahead and twist into a curve. A second later, he heard a loud sigh come from beside him.

  “So this is why I can’t go home. I’m part of this world of yours, whether I like it or not.”

  Matthias caught her stare again. “I think you’ve known it all along.”

  “Oh really?”

  “Unconsciously, you talked of a future.”

  “No, I di—”

  “You most certainly did. Never overtly, but you wanted us both and for more than a couple of nights. The connection we share, it—” Matthias brought his gaze back to the road again, narrowly missing the edge of the road.

  “It what?”

  His stare slipped to hers and then back to the road. He didn’t want to answer her question. It wasn’t an answer he was prepared to face.

  “What about our connection, Matthias?”

  He looked up to the mirror and watched her briefly. “You know what I mean.”

  “No, I don’t think I do. Enlighten me.”

  Matthias felt as if his teeth would explode from grinding them. “When we touch, we touch more than skin. We touch within.”

  “And?”

  “Thierry told me he didn’t feel the same thing when he touched you. He sensed power and that was all.”

  He looked up and saw her eyes round. Her reaction was the same as his had been to Thierry’s comments. It had to mean something, right? She was theirs and no one else’s. The connection they shared was only theirs. He’d only asked Thierry out of pure jealousy anyway. Matthias had felt the rage enter him as soon as the question had left his lips. Had the answer been anything other than what it had been, Thierry might have not escaped with his life.

  Britt was staring out the window with a confused look on her face when he gazed at her again. She looked lost at that moment, and he wanted to stop the car and pull her into his arms and tell her everything was going to be okay. She belonged with them.

  “That doesn’t mean anything.”

  “It means everything. I’d been hesitant to bring you to the castle, afraid that every man there would feel your pull and be attracted to you.”

  “And since I’m a whore, you thought—”

  “You’re never going to let that go, are you?”

  “Nope. I’ll drag it out when you least expect
it and give you a good wallop with it.” A hint of a smile twisted her lips.

  “I didn’t think you’d do anything with them. I was afraid I’d have to fight them off you. Because you’re mine.”

  He flinched as soon as the words came, afraid he’d gotten into another chauvinistic pothole and she’d whack him over the head for it.

  “And you’re mine.”

  Matthias released the breath he’d held and laughed. “Yes, ma’am. I’m yours.”

  His gaze slid to hers, and he saw the smile plastering her lips and smiled too.

  ****

  Nicolas heard the car come up to the hangar. He jumped down, pulling his sword from its sheath as he rounded the door. The Bentley. He could see Matthias in the driver’s seat and was fairly positive Britt was in the passenger side. Nicolas needed some alone time to sort out everything. He’d been so gung-ho to be near her that they’d never really set up any ground rules. Like there had been time.

  Now he was sitting here pouting like an asshole over something that was nothing. He didn’t have any claim over her. She was Matthias’, and he was only along for the ride. He’d realized that all along, but he’d told himself somewhere down in the deep recesses of his brain that it was good enough, to be able to spend time in her presence; he was willing to accept it. Only now, once it was out in the daylight, it no longer sounded like the great plan it had in his mind.

  Now, it sounded like he got the short end of the stick. Would he be able to handle that for the rest of his existence, to be second best, always playing second fiddle to Matthias? Hell, he’d basically been doing that his whole life. Matthias had spent an eternity saving his ass and making him feel inadequate.