Her Dark Knight (24 page)

“Don’t…do this.” Christien dropped to his knees and winced.

Lainie cried out, automatically moving toward Christien but Lucheux’s arm around her throat yanked her back.

“She’s mine now,” Lucheux said softly. He buried his nose in the crook of her neck and inhaled. She shuddered. Her stomach lurched. “And she will be mine until I find the damn treasure. Then I will use her to open it.”

Christien licked his lips and blinked slowly. “Should have killed you…that day in the bedchamber. Before you became…immortal. Bastard.”

Lucheux laughed.

Madelaine made a low sound of fear but the fear went beyond physical fear. This was never going to end. As long as she was alive Lucheux and Giselle would stalk her. She would never be safe and if she was never safe, the treasure would never be safe and humankind would always be in peril.

Suddenly the fear left her. A calmness settled over her. She focused on Christien, memorizing the lines of his face, those gray eyes that flashed like quicksilver when they made love. She wished for so much. That she could hold him one more time. Tell him how much she loved him.

More than anything she wanted to run away with him to a place where it was just the two of them. Where treasures didn’t exist. Where madmen with lofty ambitions of ending the world weren’t after her.

But those were dreams for people who could afford to dream. For people with normal lives.

For she and Christien this was reality and while she could whine that reality sucked, it wouldn’t do any good.

She got them into this predicament by being foolish and thoughtless. She would get them out of it.

Christien’s mind wouldn’t obey his command to keep focused. The forest around him narrowed. Sweat dripped down his back, igniting his wound on fire.

His numb fingers flexed then closed.

Lucheux backed up, dragging Madelaine with him. She didn’t struggle, just looked at him with sad eyes. The knife slipped, biting into her collarbone and drawing blood, but she didn’t wince. ’Twas as if she’d given up. Panic obliterated the pain for a moment. He moved forward on his knees, reaching a hand out to her. His stomach rolled, nausea combining with the pain.

He tried to focus on Madelaine, to tell her with his eyes that he wouldn’t let Lucheux take her. Except she kept fading in and out of sight. He shook his head again.

“I love you,” she mouthed.

Confused, Christien frowned.

Suddenly, her eyes rolled into the back of her head and her legs gave out. She sagged, her weight pulling Lucheux with her. His hold loosened.

Madelaine’s eyes flew open. She twisted, grabbed Lucheux’s knife and plunged it into her stomach.

Lucheux dropped her and stumbled back, a look of horror on his face.

She landed on the soft pine needles, the knife protruding from her, an ugly, lethal weapon sticking out of her beautiful body. Dark red blood pooled, then dripped down her side.

A primal cry of disbelief rushed out of Christien. Rage beat at him, thundered through his veins and chipped away at his soul. Bloodlust surged through him and with a strength he was surprised to find he still had, he raised the gun and shot Lucheux.

Lucheux’s mouth dropped open and a breath of air escaped before he collapsed.

Christien crawled to Madelaine, each movement tearing open his wound more, causing fresh blood to spill. He was losing so much his heart struggled to beat. Gently he touched her face and her eyes opened.

Her chest rose on a labored breath and when she exhaled, blood bubbled from the wound. Pain, far more pain than was caused by his injury, sliced through him. He bit back the urge to scream a denial. He’d been in enough battles to know what those bubbles meant.

The knife punctured her lung.

“What have you done?” His throat closed, fighting the sobs struggling to escape.
Why?
He wanted to scream at God. Why her? Why was he doomed to meet her and lose her again? Was it not enough that he’d given everything to protect the treasure? Could he not have one good thing in his life?

Her eyes fluttered open, focused on him, but the life was slowly draining from her. “I’m…sorry.”

He shook his head, fighting to stay conscious. “No,
mon couer,
I’m sorry. I should have protected you better.” He choked on the last words.

Her hand touched his cheek, her fingers brushing his jaw.

She blinked as if she couldn’t focus. “This is…the way it…should be. Protect the…treasure.”

He leaned over her as if to shield her from what was to come. “
You
are my treasure, Madelaine.”

She fumbled for his hand and grasped his fingers. “Find her,” she breathed. “Protect her.”

He didn’t have to ask who she was talking about. He didn’t want to protect her sister. He wanted to protect
her.

“Promise,” she whispered.

“I promise,” he said brokenly, his body shaking with the tears he was holding back.

He lay down beside her, unable to hold himself up any longer, and draped his arm around her, willing her lungs to heal, her blood to stop draining from her.
Damn it!
This wasn’t supposed to happen. She was supposed to grow old and only after decades of being together was he to lose her.

“Don’t leave me,” he whispered, his voice ragged, choked with the tears falling down his face. “Don’t leave me,” he repeated.

“It’s best…this way. One less…key.” Her eyes closed. “
Je t’aime,
Christien.” 

An anguished moan tore through him. “
Je t’aime,
Madelaine.
Je t’aime.
” He kissed her temple, cupped her face in his hands.
“Je t’aime,”
he kept repeating, almost frantically now, as if the words could stop the inevitable.

Her lips curled in a smile. And she stopped breathing.

Christien wept, his sobs shaking his body. He cried out, the pain so intense he didn’t think he could possibly live through it. He prayed to a God he was furious with to let him die with her. But God didn’t listen and Christien had to wonder if he ever had. He struggled to sit up, falling back a few times before he managed to get upright. He gathered Madelaine’s body to his chest, rocking her.

Someone crouched beside him and through his tears, Christien recognized Michael. The archangel’s eyes were full of sorrow and regret. He laid a hand on Christien’s shoulder. Christien wanted to shake the hand away, to curse and spit on the angel who brought him to this point, but his energy was nearly spent.

“You can’t die. You know that,” Michael said softly.

A weariness weighed upon Christien. No, he couldn’t die. Neither could Giselle nor Lucheux. They all would awaken and heal and go about their lives as they had before. For the other two the key was gone, but they’d continue looking into Madelaine’s past and soon discover she had a sister and all of this would begin again.

For seven hundred years he’d guarded that damn treasure. He’d lost everything in those seven centuries. The brothers he fought alongside, his family, everything he’d known and loved including Madelaine.

Most of all Madelaine.

There was only so much one could ask of a man and Christien had reached his limit. “I’m finished.”

Michael’s eyebrows went up. “Finished with what?”

Christien listed to the side. The only thing keeping him upright was Michael’s hand on his shoulder. “Everything. Your bloody treasure. Them. You.”

“You can’t be finished.”

“Find some other…fool to protect it. I don’t…care anymore.” What did it matter if the end of the world came? He could finally rest if it did. Rest. A concept he’d never before contemplated but one that felt so bloody right. His eyes drifted closed. He forced them open. He didn’t want to pass out while holding Madelaine. This would be the last time he’d be able to touch her.

“You would turn your back on what your brothers died for?” Michael asked.

“Yes.”

“You would turn your back on Madelaine’s sister?”

Christien wanted to say yes. He wanted to deny it all, but he’d promised Madelaine, so instead he said nothing.

Michael squeezed his shoulder. “Your anger is understandable.”

“Don’t,” Christien said harshly. “You have…no idea.”

“I have a very good idea.”

Nothing Michael said would make a difference. Madelaine was gone and Christien’s life was destroyed. He had no wish to live centuries more, protecting something he no longer cared about.

“They will be punished,” Michael said.

Christien’s head snapped up, but the effort cost him. Pain exploded throughout his body and he groaned. “Will they burn in the…pit of hell? Will they suffer for…eternity?”

Michael didn’t answer.

“I don’t want to hear about punishment. Let them loose on this earth. I don’t care…anymore.”

“You made a vow.”

Christien gently picked up Madelaine’s limp hand and kissed her fingers. Already her skin was turning cold.

“This is not God’s will,” Michael said.

Christian was furious that Michael would harass him now, when all he wanted to do was hold Madelaine for the remaining minutes he had with her. “God?
God?
You speak of God to me
now?
I care not—” But it was all too much and the darkness he’d been fighting finally overtook him.

Christien blinked up at the blue sky peeking through the dense leaves of the trees looming over him. For several long moments he did nothing but breathe. Deep breath in. Deep breath out. By the slant of the sun, it appeared to be early morning. That wasn’t right because the fight in the clearing had taken place in late afternoon. Unless he’d been unconscious that long.

He pushed himself up and frantically looked around. Madelaine was gone along with Giselle and Lucheux. In fact, this wasn’t the same clearing at all. Confused, disoriented and sore, but not from the knife wound—this was more a dull throb from lying too long on the hard ground—he rubbed his aching head. His chain mail clanked with the movement and he froze, his hand buried in his hair.

What the hell is this?

In disbelief he plucked at the tunic covering him and stared at the breeches encasing his legs. Tunic? Breeches?
Chain mail?

He jumped to his feet, his hand automatically going to the sword at his side. A sword that shouldn’t be there. Like the clothes he was wearing.

Where was Madelaine’s body? The last he remembered was lying beside her in the woods of his home in France. Twenty-first-century France where he’d been wearing jeans and a buttoned-down shirt.

Not…this.

A snort and a shuffle had him spinning around and crouching into a fighting stance, sword raised. A few yards from him a horse grazed peacefully. A
horse.

Dumbfounded, he turned in a circle and discovered Michael sitting beside a crackling fire, knees drawn up, elbows resting on them. The angel was dressed as a… Christien swallowed. As a Knight Templar.

Just like he was dressed.

“What the hell is going on?” he managed to ask.

“Something you said right before Madelaine died got me thinking,” Michael said in modern English which made the clothes they were wearing that much more…strange.

Pain pierced Christien’s chest at the mention of Madelaine, dead again. He wanted to rage to the heavens, to scream, to kill Lucheux all over again. She was gone. Here too short of a time.
Any
length of time would have been too short.

The dull throb in his body moved to his heart where it lodged and probably would reside there for the rest of eternity. How was he supposed to move on when for him, everything was over? When all he wanted was to close his eyes and shut out the world forever?

“What did I say?” he asked.

“You said you wished you had killed Lucien before he turned immortal.”

Christien’s gaze darted around the clearing. A light fog floated a foot above the ground, giving the area an eerie feeling that had the hairs on the back of his neck standing up. He quickly assessed the possible dangers, but he and Michael—and the horse—seemed to be the only ones around. Where had Madelaine, Lucheux and Giselle gone?

Did Lucheux have Madelaine’s body? Had he discovered Madelaine’s sister?

Promise.

He closed his eyes, Madelaine’s plea whispering inside him. He promised he’d protect her sister.

Christien focused on Michael, anything to alleviate the crushing heartbreak inside him. “Where are we?” he asked.

“France.”

“
When
are we?”

“Fourteenth century.”

“You sent me back seven hundred years?”

“You can’t kill Lucien
after
he’s turned immortal. So why not try before?”

Christien’s heart thundered. Could he do it? Would it work? And if it did, would he be able to save Madelaine before Giselle killed her the first time?

“We’re at the edge of Count Flandres’s property,” Michael said. “A day or so ride will get you to the castle.”

“Then what?” he asked.

“This is new territory for me, Christien. God has made it very clear that we are forbidden to alter past or future events. What I did, what
we’re
doing, is very much taboo. If discovered, God’s wrath will be immense.”

Christien had never seen Michael scared and he wouldn’t exactly say the angel was scared now, but he was nervous which made Christien nervous.

“How immense?”

Michael shrugged. “I know not. No one has ever defied God in this way.”

“Then why are you doing it now?”

Michael threw a stick into the fire and watched it burn. “Because something needs to be done about this. Because I’ve watched you and Madelaine struggle for centuries. Because some good must come of this.”

The enormity of what Michael had done weighed heavily on Christien’s shoulders. But he was also extremely grateful to be given yet one more chance.

“Thank you, brother.”

Michael looked up at him and grinned. “I thought you had no brothers.”

“I will gladly call you my brother for all that you have risked for me this day. My hope is that God’s wrath isn’t too massive.”

“Mine too, brother. Mine too. Let us hope you can kill Giselle and Lucheux and I can get you back to the twenty-first century before God realizes what we have done.”

Christien drew a deep breath, surprisingly comfortable in his old clothes with his old sword clutched in his hand. He settled beside the warm fire. For the first time since learning Giselle had left the States and come to France, he felt hope.

“Am I still immortal?” ’Twas a good thing to know before going into battle.

Michael looked at him sharply, as if reading his emotions. “Aye.”

Christien nodded, fighting the surprising disappointment. Had he wanted to be mortal again? Vulnerable?

If you are vulnerable, you can die a noble death and join Madelaine in heaven.
He picked up a stick and snapped it in half, feeling a coward for wanting to give up. Was it cowardly to wish for this pain to end? Or was it smart? There was only so much a mind could take, mortal or immortal. He threw the two halves of the stick into the fire. He couldn’t think like that. He had to pray that Michael brought him back here in time to save Madelaine.
And then what? You bring her to the twenty-first century?

He pushed the questions away. He’d come to that when the time was right. For now he had to concentrate on getting there and killing Giselle and Lucien.

“By killing Lucheux and Giselle we are altering history, but hopefully God won’t be too angry for obliterating an evil that should have been obliterated hundreds of years ago.” Michael’s look was grim but determined.

Christien grinned. “Two wrongs equal a right?”

“Something like that.”

They fell into an easy silence, the fire crackling before them. Comrades-at-arms though this battle had far more consequences than any other battle Christien had been involved in.

“Tell me something, Michael.”

The angel grunted, his gaze glued to the fire.

“Why did you reincarnate Madelaine?”

Michael’s gaze flew to Christien. “I didn’t.”

“Then who?”

“It is her destiny.”

“I dislike it when you speak in riddles,” Christien muttered.

Michael grinned. “Her destiny is tied to the treasure. If she fails in one life, she must come back in another.”

“So I am fated to meet her and fall in love with her over and over?” Hope and despair combined inside him.
Mon Dieu,
he couldn’t keep reliving this intense love and the inevitable grief that followed it.

“Until those seals are broken, yes, I’m afraid so.”

And Christien’s job was to make sure those seals were never broken.

Michael was right. The castle was a day’s ride from the campsite—and what a long, monotonous day it had been. Christien ran a weary hand through his hair. It’d been a while since he’d ridden a horse and his muscles were cramping. He had a whole new appreciation for the power and speed of his Italian sports car and a little less nostalgia for the good old days.

The horse plodded on, giving his mind free rein that he didn’t appreciate. He thought of Madelaine, grief giving way to hope and circling back around to grief. The hope was almost as bad as the grief. The knowledge that he would see her again gave him the strength he needed to go on. The thought of losing her yet again pitched him into the deepest despair.

He wanted a life with her. A life without danger stalking them. A life of peace. But that was impossible. He knew that, but it didn’t stop him from yearning for it.

People’s voices pulled him from his dreary thoughts. He drew back on the reins and cocked his head to listen. It’d been such a long time since he’d been a soldier. Could he do this? Would he be able to slip back into the soldier he’d been so long ago? So much had happened since then.

A few minutes more of riding and he glimpsed the castle walls, the lowered portcullis and the soldiers walking the battlements.

For a few crazy seconds he stared, disoriented, at the swords swinging from soldiers’ hips and the occasional archer with his bow.

Slowly he slid off his horse and observed carts loaded with grain and produce rumble across the wooden bridge. Men called to each other, waved and stopped to pass a few words. Men he’d walked beside seven hundred years ago. Men he’d broken bread with and trained with. Men who had been dead seven centuries. Except, now they were very much alive and very real.

The stench surprised him. He’d forgotten the smell of the fourteenth century. No bathrooms, no running water. Filthy people living in filthy circumstances and not knowing any differently. The castle was rich, yet had an air of squalor about it. He didn’t need to come close to know most people didn’t have a full set of teeth, their skin was pockmarked, but their bodies strong from years of hard labor or fighting. The majority couldn’t read, yet they were smart in ways the twenty-first-century man wouldn’t be, nor would he want to be.

Survival was the name of the game in this time. It was an elemental way of living and yet their worries and heartaches were eerily similar to the men of the twenty-first century.

He led his horse forward. The time for questioning was long gone. And Madelaine could very well be within those walls.

He waved to the sentry on duty, as he always did when entering. The man, Petrus was his name—Christien was shocked he remembered—waved back with a half-hearted effort, his expression grim.

Christien led his horse to the stables where a boy, no more than ten years of age, took it from him. Ten years old. In modern days that would equate to child labor and the parents would be hauled in front of a judge to answer to their neglect. In this day, the child was paying his own way through servitude. Probably had been for a few years and would for the rest of his life.

As he passed through the bailey, Christien recognized and waved to different people, feeling as if he were having an out-of-body experience. There were few smiles and almost no laughter. It’d been that way at the castle because the count made it that way, but today seemed a little more somber than most. A feeling of foreboding overcame him but he shoved it away, not willing to acknowledge what his mind was trying to tell him.

Christien wanted to stop someone and ask them what day it was but that would lead to questions he couldn’t answer so he kept moving toward the castle doors. Was Madelaine on the other side of those doors?

If she was, he had to remember she wasn’t the same Madelaine of modern day, but the scared girl she’d become from living with her husband and fighting off Lucien.

Women gathered at the well, dipping buckets in while children chased each other around their legs. A piglet squealed and took off running, its eyes rounded in terror. The women didn’t laugh, didn’t linger to pass on the latest gossip. Their looks were dispirited, their eyes darting around as if they were afraid.

Christien pulled open the front door and strode into the dark hall where silence hung heavy.

The count stood at the cold hearth, head bent, shoulders bowed. Lucien stood beside him, leaning close, speaking to him in earnest whispers.

Christien stepped up and cleared his throat, searching for the appropriate words. It’d been a long time since he’d had to show obeisance to anyone and he found the act grating.

Lucien’s head jerked up, his eyes flaring in panic before narrowing in hatred. ’Twas the panic that interested Christien the most.

“My lord,” Christien said in Norman French, the words flowing from his lips as if he hadn’t spent the past few hundred years speaking modern English. He bowed to the count, despising every minute of it.

The count’s eyes were red-rimmed and watery. “Sir Knight,” he said softly. The stench of alcohol rose off him and Christien stepped back.

He was uncertain of what to say, how to ask what was wrong. Except he knew. In his heart he knew what had put the grief on the man’s face. He was too late to save Madelaine.

Lucien moved toward Christien. It took everything in Christien not to step away from the foul smell of the priest.

“Her ladyship is dead.” His eyes shone with an unholy light as he watched Christien closely, waiting for a reaction.

But Christien had been prepared and he carefully schooled his expression while inside he was screaming in agony.

“My condolences to my lordship. May I ask how she died?”

“Riding accident,” Lucien said. The count didn’t look up. Was he so upset at her death? ’Twas common knowledge he had many mistresses, including Giselle. And Christien knew the man beat Madelaine and abused her both physically and mentally, but in this day, that wasn’t unusual. Besides, Madelaine was more of a political conquest than a wife and the count would be worried if he lost his one connection to the throne.

“When?” Christien forced the word through a thick throat.

“A sennight ago,” Lucien said.

Christien stepped back from what felt like a body blow. A week ago. She’d been dead an entire week. He took a deep breath, controlling his rage and the urge to strike down Lucien.
Mon Dieu.
Could he not save her just once? His sense of déjà vu was disquieting, but he forced himself to remember his mission.

Kill Lucien and Giselle. Not because they were going to become immortal, but because they’d murdered Madelaine.

If his mission had changed, what did it matter now? Either way, they were dead.