Deviant Knights (17 page)
Authors: Alexandra O'Hurley
“A woman?”
“Yes.
One
Nicolas claims healed his wounds.”
“The healer?”
Michel sat up, his interest
sparked.
Gabriel’s anger grew
greater.
Was this the proof Michel
needed to finally accept
Kadence
?
Too little, too late.
“Perhaps.
Without more details, I cannot
say for certain.
All of this is
conjecture at this point, anyway.
But if
these women are carrying a bit of Gaia in them, they could be instrumental
against the Illuminati.
And they could
also be foreshadowing of much darker times to come.”
Thierry stood, crossing to the opened French
doors, an expanse of the bright, blue water of the
Paloma
worries me greatly.”
Gabriel tightened, knowing this subject could
cause issues for Michel and the conversation could potentially not end
well.
But it was one they had to
have.
It was five hundred years in the
making.
They’d never discussed
Paloma
.
Even after pulling his nearly dead body from
the torture chambers under the cathedral, they’d ignored the subject.
They had obviously tended his physical
wounds, but not the injuries upon his soul.
Perhaps they should have.
Perhaps
then, he wouldn’t have impenetrable walls around himself five-feet thick.
“
Paloma
isn’t any of
your concern.
I will deal with
her.”
Michel’s impassive face was belied
by the tone of his voice.
Anger rippled
through the air in waves.
Tangible, the
emotion was so thick, Gabriel wondered if he could reach out and
touch
it.
“Like you dealt with her before?”
Gabriel voiced, refusing to allow Michel to
not face this here and now.
It was high
time it was spread out and dispensed with.
“Now, we come to this, eh?
It only took you five hundred years to say I
told you so.
Is that it?”
“No, it isn’t that at all.
You forget
I’m
the one who found your bloody withered body in that cell.
I saw what they did to you, and I know your
anger is great.
I can’t judge you for
that, as I am nearly as angry with
Paloma
as you
are.”
“But?”
“This woman threatens us all.
Paloma
is no longer
just your issue.”
“What she did to me makes her my issue.
I will bring her down.”
“You didn’t listen to me then and apparently,
you won’t now.
One of these days, you
will stop being blinded by emotion for that whore!”
Gabriel was taken by surprise by the punch that
landed on his nose.
Sliding to the
floor, he grasped his face, feeling the blood dripping down his lips.
His eyes rising to Michel, realization hit
him.
“You still love her!
Don’t you?”
Michel jumped on him, his fists hitting like
lightning, his rage immense.
All Gabriel
could do was fend off the strikes the best he could, allowing his friend to
release some of his fury.
He would not
rise to this fight.
Alain and Thierry
pulled Michel from him, holding him back as he reared like a bull, trying to
get back to Gabriel.
“I—don’t—love—her!”
Gabriel stood, stretching to release the
tenderness of his body from the assault.
“There is such a fine line between love and hate, mi amigo.”
“And you’re crossing it even now,
mon
frère.”
Gabriel gazed at his friend.
Michel’s rage was twisting him.
And if he didn’t get
ahold
of it, it would bring them all down.
****
Michel wrenched out of Alain and Thierry’s
hold.
Gabriel stood glaring at him.
He couldn’t stand their perusal.
Striding from the room, he felt the anger
still charging through him.
He needed to
break something.
Damage something.
Maim something.
Kill something.
He rushed out a back door, needing fresh air to
breathe.
The last thing he needed was to
come face-to-face with
Kadence
.
Her eyes were large as he stormed out the
door.
Seeing her only made him more
ferocious.
She was another shade of
Paloma
, a woman who could betray him.
He saw red when he looked at her.
Grasping her into his arms, he pulled her close,
his mouth marauding hers in a kiss of subjugation.
His hands closed in on the sides of her face,
forcing her to remain in his hold, his tongue spearing between the seams of her
lips and tasting her thoroughly. He felt her fists against his chest, pushing
him away, but he didn’t care.
He would
make her submit to his will.
Pain,
suffering, and sex, they were all different shades of one thing, were they not?
He would have her body, her soul, and her
mind.
He would make her—pay—for
Paloma’s
treachery.
Bile rose in his throat as he pulled away from
her.
Gasping for breath, he felt like he
would vomit, dropping to his knees to gather
himself
.
A hand cracked against his cheek and he
reveled in the pain, the sting.
It made
him feel alive.
He wanted another.
Grasping
Kadence
by
the waist, he pulled her close to him.
“Again!”
Wide-eyed, she looked aghast, as if she didn’t
understand him.
“Hit me…again!”
Michel roared.
She ignored his plea and he shook her hard.
“Again!”
She slapped him, harder than the first time, the
bite of pain making him focus on that.
Only that.
For that
brief second, he forgot the other pain.
“Again!”
“Let—me—go!”
She tried to pull from him, but his grasp on her hips was too
tight.
Grasping his fingers, she
attempted to peel them from her.
“You’re
hurting me!”
“Hurt me back.
Again!”
The punch took him by surprise, her small tight-handed
fist careening off his cheek.
She packed
a good wallop.
“Release me!
Stop this, stop it now!”
Tears
threatened to slip over the edges of her lids.
He didn’t want her sorrow: he needed her rage.
She should hate him for what he’d done to
her, said to her, for what he was about to do to her.
He needed to forget, needed to supplant the pain
with something else.
His cock filled
with need, the confusion of his driving emotions making his mind whirl.
He needed.
Pain.
Sex.
Either would
do.
If it would mask the memory of
Paloma
, it would do.
Michel pulled her into his lap and stole another kiss as she fought
against him.
Michel didn’t want her rage, her anger.
He wanted—no, he needed—her love.
His heart ached for softness, for light.
Everything she was, he needed with the
desperation of a dying man.
She could be
his lifeline: he only had to grasp her.
But she would run from him if he continued to spiral down into the
madness that gripped him now.
He should release her.
He could do no such thing.
She would be his, if only he would temper
himself against her.
Prevent her from
running screaming from his embrace.
He needed her love.
He needed her acceptance.
But he could not lower the wall.
He softened his touch, grasping her head in a
loving caress and brought her close.
As
if sensing the change, she stopped fighting, but did not submit.
She froze for a moment, allowing the kisses
but not engaging in them.
His other hand
roamed to a breast, cupping the full weight of it in his palm.
Her low moan was music to his ears and moments
later she began to return his kisses, her tongue warring with his own.
Dropping her to the ground, he wedged himself
between her legs as she lay on the soft grasses and began thrusting against her
still-clothed body. The friction was decadent, the need only growing in him.
“So much anger.”
Kadence
pulled her lips from his.
“Where is this
coming from?”
Michel wasn’t ready to delve into his
emotions.
He needed to forget.
Either she offered him abandon or she was
worthless to him at this moment.
He
swallowed her question, thrusting harder against her.
“Are you going to treat her like a whore and
fuck her on the ground, or at least take her inside?”
Michel looked over his shoulder at Gabriel,
anger filling him once more.
His friend
was right.
They were not safe to do this
outdoors.
He quickly stood and held out
a hand to
Kadence
.
She looked at him for long moments as if calculating if she should take
the chance to run or not.
If she did, he
would give chase.
There was no backing
off now.
He would have her.
She looked to Gabriel.
“I don’t trust you not to hurt her in the state
you’re in, Michel.
I don’t think she does
either.”
“Then come with us and protect her from
me.”
Michel looked over his shoulder
once more.
“Sex won’t ease the pain you have.”
“Yes.
Yes
it will.”
Michel reached out his hand to
her again, his eyes demanding she come.
She looked to Gabriel again.
Something she saw there seemed to calm her
and she took Michel’s hand.
Michel
pulled her to her feet and stepped in close to her body, inhaling her sweet
scent.
Leaning down, he trailed his
tongue along her jaw to her ear.
“I won’t be gentle.”
He felt her tremble in his arms and his balls
tightened to his body.
Not even inside
her, he was almost ready to explode from need alone.
“After what I saw, I wouldn’t expect you to
be.”
Earnest lavender eyes looked up at
him with something akin to pity.
His
teeth clenched and he knew he’d fuck her so hard that it would wipe that look
from her eyes forevermore.
Chapter Fourteen
Kadence
followed Michel into the room she’d shared with Gabriel the night
before.
Gabriel was close behind her,
his heat emanating from his body.
She
leeched some of that into herself, to thaw the chill that came from the man
before her.
What was she doing?
He obviously had issues that sex was not going
to cure.
Yet she sensed a great need in
him.
The same one she had felt last
night times a thousand.
The need to forget, to focus on something other than pain and
loneliness.
Gabriel had been
there for her, to push her over the edge and allow her a safe free-fall into
oblivion.
Michel needed more than a night of rough sex to
ease whatever this ache was inside him.
That she was sure about.
But if
it could help him release some of the demons, enough to let him see more
clearly, then how could she reject him?
