Her Dark Knight (26 page)

Lucien grabbed for the knife that had fallen out of Christien’s hand. Christien scrambled for it too but Lucien had the advantage.

He snatched the knife and raised it. For a moment, a single moment in time, Christien wished for death. For the oblivion it would bring him. For the release of his grief and his guilt for not being able to protect Madelaine like he should have. To end it all, to finally be at peace.

But his wish was futile and reality intruded. He had to save the treasure and humanity. ’Twas what he was made for.

Pulling on a strength from deep inside, he rolled, knocking Lucien off and grabbing the knife. Their positions reversed and now Christien straddled Lucien.

The man looked up at him, defiance on his face. “Did she tell you how I fucked her? That she liked it? Did she mention that, knight?”

Rage beat at Christien’s sanity. At the thought of Lucien’s hands on his Madelaine. He hesitated. Had Madelaine not told him Lucien raped her? Had she kept it from him? No. The man was trying to get to Christien and for a moment it worked.

“She was willing,” Lucien said with a twisted smile.

Christien raised the dagger and buried it in Lucien’s cold, lying heart. Lucien gasped. His arms fell to his sides and he stopped breathing.

Christien sat back, breathing hard. He stared down at Lucien’s open, unseeing eyes, feeling his revenge seep out of him, leaving him empty.

He pushed off Lucien’s body and stood. He had nothing left inside him. No more anger, no more grief. He turned to leave.

Michael stood at the end of the hall. “You did well.”

He tried to push past Michael but the angel stopped him with a hand to the arm. “You’re being summoned to Paris.”

“You told me you would get me back to the twenty-first century.”

Michael’s long look was full of regret. “
He
discovered our plan. Your punishment is to live the next seven hundred years over. I’m sorry, brother.”

Christien tilted his head back to stare at the rough-hewn beams of the ceiling.
So it begins again.
Anger didn’t come close to what he was feeling. Despair didn’t touch him. He was numb with disbelief. His jaw muscles clenched. He fought the swirl of emotions inside him. He’d been foolish to want his life to be something more than protecting the treasure and yet he still hoped. He still believed, even though he cursed himself for believing.

Michael sighed. “There is much at stake here, Chevalier.”

“I know what’s at stake. Better than you.” Christien yanked his arm from Michael. “Promise me something, Michael.”

Michael’s lips thinned. “I am not here to bargain with you—”

“I will go to Paris, retrieve your treasure and guard it for eternity. I am giving you everything and asking for one small favor in return.”

They stared at each other for several heartbeats, neither willing to look away. Two warriors in a struggle for dominance. Finally Michael nodded, although reluctantly.

“If she returns to me, give her the choice of immortality.”

Present Day

The club was packed. People crowded onto the dance floor, moving their bodies in ways that would have been illegal seven hundred years ago.

The wait staff expertly maneuvered between the dancers. The DJ played the tunes the crowd hungered for and bouncers roamed the club, keeping a keen eye out for trouble.

Everything was operating smoothly, yet Christien’s gut wouldn’t stop churning. He clasped his hands behind him and rocked back on his heels. A few seconds later he shoved his hands in his pants pockets and jingled his change. He had an irrational need to pace, but there were so many people he had no room.

Sabine passed him, patting his shoulder with a quick smile. He smiled back and glanced at his watch. He had a conference call with his people on the West Coast in fifteen minutes. It would take almost that to make his way to his office, but he didn’t move. He was edgy.

He’d been on edge for a week and it was, quite literally, driving him crazy.

A few people waved at him, and more than a few women approached. Some were even brave enough to slide their bodies across his, exclaiming it was just too crowded in here—said with a wink and an inviting smile. Christien smiled back but never encouraged the invitation. The lack of sex wasn’t what made him uptight. He wasn’t interested in sex.

Not to say he hadn’t partaken. Seven hundred years was a long time to wait for the woman of your heart. There had been times he’d had to relieve the pressure and while his body had reveled in it, his mind had not. He’d felt like he was cheating on Madelaine and the guilt had almost been too much to bear.

He’d spent the last seven hundred years alone, a recluse inside himself, going about his business but never allowing others close.

In the beginning it had been because he wasn’t fit for company. He’d been a furious, self-destructive, single-minded, selfish fool. Except self-destruction had not been an option and he’d done nothing but make himself ill over ale and fisticuffs. For the first hundred years he’d been a tyrant of the first order, a despot others avoided at all costs. Even Michael stayed away as much as possible, which was fine with Christien. Michael was the last person Christien wanted to see.

He spent decades alone, secluded in one estate or another, avoiding the outside world in order not to tamper with the future. Because living seven hundred years over gave a man the ability to see into the future. And while Christien had been recruited by a saint, he was no saint himself. He took advantage when he could, investing with the insight of a man who knew what was to come.

He was rich. Far richer than he’d ever been before. But even that he had to be careful of because he didn’t want to draw attention to himself. So he gave to charities. He, the man everyone avoided because of his acerbic tongue and monumental impatience, became a philanthropist. Even Michael laughed at the irony of that.

Something changed around two-hundred years ago and even to this day Christien couldn’t put his finger on what exactly it was that changed. His humanity began to poke through, much to his disgust. Maybe it was the annual reports sent to him against his will of the orphanages he funded, the poorhouses he fed.

Christien looked back on those first five-hundred years with regret and embarrassment. Thank God no one was alive to remember it.

Slowly he emerged from his cocoon and began the process of reconstructing the life he’d once lived. The life that led him to Madelaine.

Thirty years ago Christien learned of her and her sister’s birth. Those thirty years seemed longer than all seven hundred put together. He’d waited. Not patiently, but he’d waited and moved the pieces of the puzzles of his life so he would end up here, in Milwaukee, with the hopes that Madelaine would do the same. Without Lucheux to guide her, Christien had no way of knowing if she would come to this city and it worried him that he would miss her. Or have to go after her.

When the twins were separated, he made Michael put a guardian on Madelaine’s sister. She was safe, but not as well-adjusted as Madelaine. Her life had been far more difficult than Madelaine’s but there was nothing Christien could do about it. Sometimes life must roll on the way it was meant to.

Not interfering in Madelaine’s life had been much harder. He’d wanted to save her father’s farm from the government’s takeover. He’d even fantasized about creating a lottery with her the sole winner. Only extreme willpower kept him from doing either of those things.

Three weeks ago she moved to Milwaukee. She was living in the same apartment she’d lived in before, but worked for a different company. Happy and well-adjusted, she earned enough to keep her father in his expensive nursing home.

He’d wanted to rush to her apartment the moment he learned she was here, but restrained himself. He needed to let her come to him even though the wait was killing him—figuratively of course.

Michael agreed to Christien’s terms seven centuries ago. If Madelaine wanted to, she could become immortal. His prayer was that she would want to. If she didn’t, well, he would live with her decision and appreciate the time they had together.

God help him, he hoped she would want immortality.

He glanced at his watch again. Three minutes.

Still he didn’t move. He had no interest in the conference call. His business wasn’t his main concern anymore.

Madelaine.

Her name whispered across his soul, a balm to his jagged nerves.

He’d anticipated her arrival last week. The same night she’d arrived at his club the first time around. But the night had come and gone with no sign of Madelaine. In hindsight he should have realized his mistake. She wasn’t working for Lucheux because there was no Lucheux and therefore no one to send her to the club.

He turned on his heel and headed for the back exit, his feet taking him where his heart yearned to go. Since last week he’d strolled past her apartment nightly. Like a lovelorn fool, he stood on the street and stared up at her darkened windows, imagining her asleep in her bed, her body curled around her pillow. He’d walk away, restless and fighting the nearly uncontrollable impulse to knock on her door and tell her everything.

That would be disastrous, of course. He would push her away, scare her before they even had a chance. But still he wondered…

Did she dream of him like he dreamt of her? Was she as restless as he? Was she waiting for something to happen but wasn’t sure what?

Just as he put his hand on the back door commotion broke out on the dance floor. Christien hung his head, torn. Sabine could handle whatever was happening. She had the full force of his security personnel, all ex-military and ex-police.

With a curse he pushed away from the door and spun around, heading back to the dance floor with a frown of irritation. Fighting was not allowed in his club. He had a reputation for zero tolerance. He would handle this latest disturbance then go to Madelaine’s apartment.

The crowd parted at his, “Excuse me.” Whispered comments followed as they always did when he appeared at the club.

People made a wide circle on the dance floor, their eyes soaking in the disruption. In the middle of the circle was an obviously intoxicated gentleman with a beer bottle in one hand and a woman in the other. By the way the woman struggled Christien determined she wasn’t open to the drunkard’s advances.

“Get
off
me,” she said, trying to yank her arm from the man’s grip.

Christien’s heart jackhammered and it had nothing to do with the altercation.

“I just wanna dance.” The man slurred his words and swayed, but it was the woman Christien focused on.

Her hair fell down her back in cascading waves of silky mink. She wore silly shoes with open toes that looked like they were pinching her feet and even though he was too far away, he could have sworn he smelled lavender.

He grabbed the collar of the drunk, wrenching him away from Madelaine. The man’s beer went flying. Madelaine ducked to avoid it. The crowd hushed and even the music stopped playing.

“What the—” The man’s outraged sputtering died when he saw who held him. “I just wanted to dance,” he said quickly, his eyes widening in fear.

“Apparently the lady doesn’t want to dance with you.” He shoved the man toward his security. “Take him out and don’t let him come back. Ever.”

“What? Hey! I was just—”

But Christien wasn’t listening. He was staring at Madelaine, soaking up the vision of her standing in his nightclub. Seven hundred years without her. It felt like an eternity and yet merely yesterday that he held her in his arms.

His breathing hitched and suddenly he was afraid. He, a man who’d lived seven centuries twice, who’d been waiting for this moment forever, couldn’t move. Could barely breathe. He reached out a hand to her, then let it drop to his side, forcing himself to stay where he was. To keep from snatching her up and carrying her away.

He had to go slow, when all he wanted to do was race to her.

His throat closed up, emotions battering him.

Madelaine brushed at her wet shirt, pushed the hair out of her face and looked up at him. Those cinnamon-colored eyes he’d dreamt about for centuries widened.

“Do I know you?”

Christien swallowed. “I…” He forced himself to smile and hold out his hand for her to take. His fingers shook. Was she the same Madelaine? She’d lived a different life, not exactly the same as the last. Had that changed her in some fundamental way?

“My name is Christien Chevalier.”

She stared at his hand for a long time. The crowd around them didn’t move, the music didn’t start up, but Christien refused to think about them. This was about him and Madelaine.

Confusion, excitement and fear crossed her face. Slowly she raised her hand and wrapped her fingers in his. Christien let out his breath and his knees went weak. He battled the tears building in his throat. Her touch made his soul sing.

Recognition flared in her eyes and she tilted her head. “We’ve met before.”

His lips twitched but he held back his smile. He suddenly felt light. Weightless.

He drew her to him. She came easily enough, her brows creased. “I can’t recall when.”

The rotating lights of the disco ball above them reflected off her necklace. A silver-and-diamond key.

“Have you ever been to France?” he asked, pulling his gaze from the key.

“Hardly.” She laughed and his uncertainty gave way to hope and love. He resisted the urge to take her in his arms, even though he ached to. Slow. He had to take things slowly.
Mon Dieu,
he had no idea how he was going to do that.

Gently he tugged on her hand until she was at his side, her lavender scent surrounding him. “Come, Madelaine. Let me tell you a story.”