Two Knights of Indulgence (8 page)

“Who
are
you?”

“I … honestly?
 
I don’t know.”
 
It was the truth.
 
She’d just always had this gift, one she’d
been able to hide from the world.
 
Until they came into the picture.

Nicolas watched her, his brow furrowing as he seemed
to contemplate her answer.
 
As the
wrinkles on his handsome face softened and disappeared, she released a breath.

“In a way, you
did
heal him.
 
I think you took the evil from
within him and what remained wasn’t enough to keep him alive.”

“Evil?
 
I didn’t know evil was a
disease that could be treated medically.
 
I must have missed the Dissecting Evil 101 class in college.”

A smile toyed with the edges of his lips, but it
appeared he was able to beat it into submission.
 
“Not a disease, but an entity within.
 
In the case of men like
him, of course.”

“And what do you mean by that?
 
Men like what?”

Nicolas hesitated and then smiled.
 
“I think we have plenty of time to discuss
that another time.”

He turned from her and walked to the door, escaping
through the frame before she found her footing.
 
She wasn’t going to let him walk out on their conversation.
 
She had too many questions she demanded
answers for.
 
As she slipped through the
door, her gaze met Matthias’ and she froze.
 
His gaze leisurely roamed over her body, to her frozen toes and back up
to her face.
 
Britt felt heat flush
through her at his scrutiny and the hint of lust she saw in his gaze.

Anger rippled through her with her reaction.
 
She wasn’t sure why she felt so attracted to
two men who had ripped her from her normal life and stowed her away in some
obscure cabin in the middle of nowhere.
 

Nicolas moved to sit at the table with Matthias, and
she stormed up to the scarred wooden top.
 
“Men like what, Nicolas?”

“If I told you, I don’t know if you’d believe me.”

“Try me.”

“We are Immortals, both the man in the hall and
Matthias and I.”

“As in, you’ll live forever?”
 
She was skeptical, of course, but she’d seen
the regeneration power of their bodies before they’d ever made it to the
ER.
 
They were more than just men, but
immortality was a bit extreme.
 
She
wondered a moment if they were military.
 
Had the government found a way to rejuvenate their warriors in battle?
 
“Excuse me if I find that hard to believe.”

Matthias chuckled and pushed out a chair for her.
 
“Sit, Blondie.
 
The story won’t be short.”

The raw power emanating from Matthias gave her
pause.
 
She sensed death all around him,
but there was something about that strength that also called to her.
 
As she watched him casually rest his muscled
arm over the back of the chair he’d pushed out for her, she shivered with
need.
 
There was nothing casual about the
man.
 
Every move he made was measured and
necessitous.
 
He stared at her, a silent
challenge in his gaze.
 
Matthias’ eyes
glittered with knowledge and wisdom, as well as an emptiness she’d never seen
before in another.

No, she had seen that emptiness before.
 
Each time she looked in the mirror.

She slowly lowered into the chair, the heat from his
body heady.
 
He was too close, nearly
suffocating her, but she refused to move.
 
She refused to pay attention to the need flooding through her as well.

“I have a name, and it’s not Blondie.”

Matthias eyed her, but didn’t comment.
 
Instead, he leaned in close, as if he would
whisper something in her ear.
 
She
awaited the words, a breath catching in her lungs as she paused.
 
Nothing ever came.
 
Britt suddenly jumped as she heard him
inhale.

Had he actually had the gall to scent her?
 
She turned, shock filling her, but stopped as
she was hit with unabashed lust in his gaze.

“Do I need to leave the two of you alone?”

Britt turned to Nicolas, his raised eyebrow making
embarrassment run rich in her veins.
 
“Immortality is something from a fantasy novel, so why don’t you tell me
the truth.”

“So is the ability to heal wounded men,” she heard
come from the behemoth beside her.

Nicolas leaned his elbows on the table.
 
“There is much in this world you don’t know.”

“Enlighten me, then.”

Nicolas looked to Matthias before returning to
her.
 
“We’re Knights Templar.
 
I was born in 1279 near
Paris
.
 
Matthias is five years older than I.”

Britt did a quick bit of mental math in her head.
 
“You’re both over seven hundred?”
 
She laughed.
 
It was impossible.
 
“And what’s
kept you around so long?
 
Wine, women, and song?”

“Gaia saved us from the Templar Massacre for a greater
purpose.”

“Gaia?”

“You might call her Mother Nature or Mother
Earth.
 
She’s the spirit of the Earth
itself.”

Either these guys were pulling a fast one over on her
or they were completely insane.
 
She
hoped for the former and not the latter.
 
“And what greater purpose did Mother Nature save you for?”

“There is a great war waged every single day on this
planet between the forces of good and evil.”

Sure.
 
She
played along.
 
“You are the good guys or
the bad?”

“Neither, really.
 
Angels and demons are the good and evil
that fight
.
 
They’ve used earth as a battlefield since its
inception, and they truly don’t care about the collateral damage they
cause.
 
We protect those on this planet
and the planet itself from their wrath.”

“Angels are supposed to protect us.”

“In their minds, they
are
protecting you.
 
If evil
wins, then the universe is plunged into darkness.
 
Sometimes the few must die to protect the
many.
 
At least, that has always seemed
to be their philosophy.”

“If this battle is being waged on earth, then why
don’t we see it?”

“You do see it.
 
Famine.
 
Plague.
 
War.
 
It’s constantly going on around you all the
time.
 
They don’t fight the way in which
humans do.
 
They fight for the very souls
on this planet in the largest game of chess you’ve ever seen.”
 

“The man in the hallway?
 
Are you telling me he was a
demon?”

“No, he was Illuminati.
 
The Illuminati are our counterpart on
earth.
 
They thrive on creating chaos and
turmoil.
 
They wreak havoc on the planet
and its inhabitants, profiting from war, disaster, and disease.
 
The more collateral damage, the better, in
their minds, and they open the door to allow for more infighting between angels
and demons.
 
It’s a sort of job security
for them.
 
We do everything in our power
to stop them and keep the peace.”

Britt grew quiet a moment as flashes of the man in the
hallway shuffled in her mind.
 
“Did I
truly
kill
him?”

“I honestly don’t know what happened.
 
I’ve never encountered anyone like you.”
 
Nicolas openly appraised her, not bothering
to keep the lust from his gaze.

“I’m not a killer.”
Am I?

“Have you always had this ability?”

Britt was suddenly hit with how familiar she was
becoming with her abductors.
 
Sitting
around the table like friends, sharing a story wasn’t how she should regard
them.
 
They were drawing her in and
making her forget herself.
 
Stories of
angels and demons, the dead and undead, it was all too much for her to handle.
 
She had to be careful of what she
shared.
 
Her gut told her she could trust
them, but she didn’t know them.
 
“A long time.”

“Can you raise the dead?”
 
Nicolas’ stare tightened.

“No!
 
I can only
heal to a certain point.”
 
Or so I thought.

The light that Nicolas had had in his eyes diminished,
and he appeared to grow colder.
 
She
shivered at the sight and wondered what was coming over the man for his gaze to
become so steely.
 
“What happened in the
hospital, when you healed us?”

“Nothing like yesterday has ever happened to me
before.”

Nicolas watched her closely.
 
She shivered at his appraisal.
 
“What are you holding back?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“We told you our story.
 
Tell us yours.”

His bearing stopped her in her tracks.
 
She no longer wanted to discuss anything with
him.
 
“I don’t know you well enough to do
that.”

Nicolas banged his fist on the table, making her
jump.
 
Anger rolled off him in waves, and
she realized in that moment he wasn’t the calm, peaceful man she’d initially
sensed.
 
Matthias might be the big brute,
but it seemed you got what you saw.
 
Rage
simmered in Nicolas’ gaze belying a depth that made her tremble.

“Calm down, Nicolas.”

Britt turned to Matthias and saw the man’s brow
furrowed.
 
He appeared to have been
affected by Nicolas’ demeanor change as well.

Nicolas quickly recovered, the thick lines of his face
easing into a smile of sorts.
 
“We
brought you here to save you from Illuminati clutches.
 
You may not be able to appreciate that from
your perspective, but we’re not the bad guys here.”

“Leave her be, Nicolas.
 
You don’t earn trust with force.”

Britt turned to Matthias, his words allowing her to
breathe a little easier.
 
She caught his
gaze and saw the emptiness once more.
 
Need filled her.
 
She wanted to be
the woman to make that desolation disappear.

Nicolas stood from the table and walked to the front
door.
 
He left the cabin, a surge of cold
air rushing through the opened door before he closed it.
 
Britt shivered as Matthias moved closer to
warm her some and block the frigid breeze.
 
She looked up into his face and was drawn to him in a way she’d never felt
before.

“So his story is true?”
 
Her head screamed at her that it was
illogical, but her heart told her the truth, no matter how far-fetched it
seemed.
 
They were who they said they
were no matter how nonsensical it was.
 
How could she call them illogical when she was the epitome of
illogical?
 
Most people didn’t go around
shining blue lights into others to heal them.

“I was born in
Normandy
in 1271.
 
My father was a knight,
although I’m not sure how he acquired the title.
 
He was a ruthless bastard who had taken my
mother as his prize when he’d ransacked my grandfather’s keep.
 
I was fostered out at nine to an even more
ruthless bastard who took Nicolas’ sister as his prize when he took their keep
five years later.”

“I thought you were brothers?”

“Brothers-in-arms.
 
After living in close
confines for over seven hundred years, he’s more family to me than even my own
was.
 
My Templar brothers are just
that.
 
My brothers.”

“How many of you are there?”

“Not as many as there should be.
 
Our numbers are down to the dozens at this
point.
 
In our heyday, there were
hundreds of us.”