Immortal Sacrifice: #4 The Curse of the Templars (21 page)

Mistaken.
Was he really that dense? She retracted her hand and stood. “I’m not mistaken. I know who I slept with and when. September will be three in June—do the math.” With a shrug, she wandered into the bathroom. “Maybe you’re the first.”

Maybe, if all the rest of the men in
his Order treated women as casually as he’d treated their brief affair, there were more children fathered by immortal knights running around. Though she wouldn’t voice that thought. She was tired of arguing. The truth stood before him in black and white. He could accept it or discard it. The choice was his.

Through the mirror’s reflection, Caradoc filled the doorframe.
“Isa, I am sorry for the things I said.”

She nodded, not yet ready to forgive.
He’d surpassed meanness, and until he could accept that she’d been with no one else, he could apologize all he wanted, but it wouldn’t change the fact that he believed she’d slept with another man.

“What time is it?” she asked.

“Almost noon. We slept late.”

“Damn.
I need to get to Shapiro’s.”

His eyes caught and held hers, their rich hue full of unspoken emotion.
“Stay here with me today.”

Breaking the mesmerizing pull of his gaze, she grabbed her hairbrush and yanked it through her hair.
As she flipped it into a tight bun at the base of her neck, she answered, “I can’t. I’ve got a piece to acquire at two.”

“Can someone else not bid upon it?
I could ask Tane…”

“No.”
Though he might disagree, Caradoc needed time to think. Time to let September’s existence settle in.

A haggard sigh escaped him.
“Isabelle, I do not know what to do with a child.”

Just as she’d expected,
he intended to run. She tried to keep the inward twist of her heart off her face and bent over to rummage through her makeup bag. “I guess you’ll have to figure that one out, won’t you? Unlike you, I didn’t have any choice.”

Fisting her fingers around her lip-gloss, she fished it out and ducked under the arm he braced against the doorframe.
No more hoping he’d come around. He’d as much as said he didn’t plan on becoming a part of September’s life. He’d just have to accept the fact that they were part and parcel. He couldn’t have her without their daughter.

She
pulled out a trim black suit from the closet and lingered in the bedroom only long enough to dress. At the door, she stopped to look back at him. “Are you staying here? Or…?”

He closed his eyes as if something pained him and sat down on the edge of her bed.
“I need a few moments.”

“Right.”

Unable to consider the fact that he might legitimately be hurting, she left him to his thoughts. No way in this world could his pain equal the way he’d just cut her heart into pieces. But damned if she’d let him know how deeply his rejection hurt. She’d told him too much. Cried on his shoulder one too many times. Confessing she’d held some girlish fantasy that he’d jump for joy about a child she knew he didn’t want would only cause them both embarrassment. Besides, he couldn’t just put a band-aid over that. No amount of kisses, of passionate lovemaking could change how he felt. He might want her, but he wasn’t ready to fill the overall role.

He hadn’t been for centuries, and he wouldn’t likely ever be.

Determined not to cry, she jogged down the stairs, through the villa’s front entry, and onto the drizzly streets outside. September came first, and now, it was up to Isabelle to somehow find a way to keep her safe. To figure out who this
shadow
was—or rather what—and how to keep it away from her daughter.

Ironically, she found a measure of comfort that Paul had chosen to kidnap
September now. Locked away in his fortresses, nothing could get to her. Though Isabelle held no doubt Paul’s threat was legitimate, a simple man could be defeated. And she would do so by procuring his damned necklace. On the other hand, she didn’t have the faintest clue how to thwart a thing with claws and fangs that looked part human and part Stephen King creation.

Chapter
20

Caradoc leaned his head into his hand and stared at the carpeting alongside Isabelle’s bed. Here, in her room, she surrounded him. From her clothes strewn across the floor, to the clutter on her bathroom countertop, to her rumpled covers, she existed in every minute particle. ’Twas why he chose to stay in her absence—to understand, for a little while, all he could and drown himself in her until he could not hear the racket in his head that refused to accept he had fathered September.

He reached between his feet and picked up the discarded sweater she had worn the previous eve.
Rubbing the soft wool between his thumb and forefinger, he closed his eyes and concentrated on the truths he knew about her.

They had shared much.
More than many lovers, for in the few weeks they had spent together, they did not just share the enjoyment of their bodies. They shared dreams, hopes, and secrets. He suspected he knew more about her family than any other. Things she did not find it easy to confess. And though he had omitted specific details that related to his knighthood, he had told her the things closest to his heart. Most specifically his deep love for the land of Asterleigh and how it tore him into pieces to watch the last of it be divided and sold with the auction of Kiddington Hall.

In all that he had learned, she had not once spoken a falsehood.
Had never hesitated to let him into the secret places of her soul. He believed in her love. ’Twas the one thing that had both kept him struggling to stay alive and simultaneously wishing for death. She would not have taken a lover so soon after they parted.

In the darkest fathoms of his heart, he knew she had grieved as deeply as he.

Which meant only that she must have come to him expecting and not been aware of her status. As she had said, the math put September’s conception very close to the first night they had spent together on the English cliffs.

September could not belong to him, but Isabelle
believed
she did. The child believed she did; he could not rationalize her ability to see him as he once was, and he did not care to try. ’Twould be logical for a seraph’s daughter to share her mother’s gifts. Mayhap the girl saw something of the future. A battle he might yet fight. He refused to acknowledge the nagging sensation that his explanation was mere delusion to content his upside-down mind.

Isabelle believed they had conceived a child, and for almost three years, she had raised this babe alone.
’Twas no wonder her venom held such poison. Had he walked in her shoes, he could not say he would have been so quick to stand in the same room with him, let alone stay the night in his bed.

But what was he to do with a child?
The temple would not accept her within their walls. Aye, he could choose to live outside the gates and maintain his own household, but his time would be divided between both, and Isabelle would suffer. Not to mention upon their immediate return, her presence in the temple would be required for several weeks, if not months. She had much to learn, no matter how strong her gift was presently.

What would happen if he grew to love the girl, and when time passed, she died?
He could not imagine how much more difficult ’twould be to face parting with one he had helped to raise.

What if she became ill before then?

Shaking his head, he stood and walked to the table where Isabelle had left her wallet. He flipped to a picture of September blowing the camera a kiss. Standing on a beach, she wore a yellow and pink bikini. Behind her, turquoise waves rolled across the sand. Indeed, she was a beautiful child.

Isabelle’s beautiful child.

And if he loved Isabelle, he must choose to learn to love this girl.

’Twould indeed be easier if the thought of her did not remind him Isabelle had given herself to another.
She had been no innocent when they had met, but he despised the idea that anyone else might have known her the intimate way he did.

Mayhap Gareth knew something of the curse that he did not.
He had taken the oaths almost two hundred years later; they would be fresher to his memory.

He set Isabelle’s wallet down and let himself out of her room, nearly colliding with Declan.

* * *

Declan clamped his teeth, squelching a baleful curse.
Until this moment, he had not believed Leofric’s assurances that Caradoc had already strayed from the Templar code of conduct. He had witnessed Isabelle only a few times at the villa. Reported on her acquisitions as Leofric bade him to do. But the little interaction she had with Caradoc spoke nothing of their pre-ordained fate.

Until Caradoc let himself out of her room.

“Brother, I did not expect to see you here,” Caradoc said as he regained his footing. His distraction was obvious in the creases on his brow, the way his eyes did not focus on Declan’s face.

Sensing advantage, Declan latched on to hope.
Mayhap he could still influence Caradoc. He did not wish to report him to Leofric, for this time, Leofric had insinuated they would not be so slow to act upon a knight’s misdeeds. He could not stomach the idea of punishing Caradoc.

And yet, for the good of the Templar, he could not ignore his duty.
He trained a smile onto his face and struck a casual tone. “Aye. I didna expect to see you either.” He nodded at Isabelle’s closed door. “You were with Isabelle?”

Caradoc answered with a vague shake of his head.
His frown returned, his distance from the conversation as obvious as blood on a new snowfall.

“’Tis not her room?”

“Aye. She has gone to Shapiro’s.”

Declan forced himself to chuckle.
He clapped a hand on Caradoc’s shoulder and gave him a brotherly pat. “I expect you are celebrating that Isabelle is your seraph?”

A brief flicker of surprise smoothed Caradoc’s frown.
“You know?”

He had not—not until Caradoc confirmed it with the question.
Something deep down Declan’s gut rolled over, regret combating with his instinctual urge to congratulate his brother. He glanced away, unable to look Caradoc in the eye as he lied. “Word travels through the brotherhood quickly.”

“Aye, I suppose it does.”
Caradoc passed a hand through his hair, and his frown returned. “What brings you to Sicily?”

“Boredom.”
He shrugged, doing his best to curb the natural suspicions that made Caradoc a great general of men and Merrick’s second in command. He must be careful. They knew each other too well. One wrong word, and Caradoc would see through the veil of deceit. “I have no duties in the temple and wished to stretch my legs. You ken I canna fight. Mikhail hasna seen fit to let me since you sliced my arm near in half.”

“And well he should not.”

Declan changed the subject. “Are you expected at Shapiro’s as well?”

As if the question jarred his memory, Caradoc glanced down at his watch and swore.
“I should be there now.”

’Twas unlike his brother to let duty slip. More evidence that Leofric’s claims held truth.
Declan grimaced inwardly, knowing what he must do, detesting every moment of it. Though he would always hold love in his heart for the men he had served with the longest, their crimes could not be overlooked. They must pay the price, and if the Order witnessed that their leaders were not exempt, the others would modify their ways. Once more, the Templar path would hold honor.

“You look troubled,” he murmured with false concern.

If they had spoken different languages, Declan would not require an interpreter to hear his brother’s answer. A pain Caradoc did not voice etched into his face, stealing the light from his eyes. For the slightest passing of time, the mighty knight looked weak, before his countenance smoothed, and he cocked his head to study Declan.

“Tell me, Declan, do you recall the oaths we took beneath the
Temple Mount?”

’Twas Declan’s turn to be surprised.
He blinked, his senses on high alert. Had Caradoc learned of his purpose here? Had Leofric sensed Caradoc’s gradual descent into full darkness and approached him to become part of the Kerzu? Cautiously, Declan answered, “Aye, I recall them well. Why do you ask?”

“We were stripped of our seed, were we not?”

Dumbfounded, Declan could do no more than blink a second time. It took a moment for him to realize Caradoc legitimately expected an answer every Templar knew. He stumbled over his tongue and stammered, “Aye.”

“And the prophecy of seraphs—it says naught about children?”

Declan squinted. What nonsense was this? For months now, men had studied the prophecy in hopes they might be the next to discover their own. Caradoc knew it as well as the next man. “It names the six, those who shall come first: the teacher, she who is blind, she who digs in dust, and you have found the jewel. Next will come she who understands the sword, concluding with the greatest loyalty.” He rubbed the back of his neck, anxiety setting in. Something was not right. Caradoc should not be questioning the prophecy that had been written before time. “Why do you ask, brother?”

Caradoc’s voice came as if he spoke through a distant tunnel.
“She swears I have sired her child.”

“She speaks lies!”

A spark of anger lit in Declan’s gut. An impure seraph—’twas an insult to her very status. A foul presence worked its way through his veins, urging for this wrong to be righted. To spill blood. To employ the only method that would cleanse this foul taint from the Order and snuff out the life of the seraph who would dare to bring it upon them.

’Twould be so easy.
She travels to Shapiro’s alone.

Nay!
He recoiled, stunned by the nature of his thoughts. He would not kill a woman, not for the Order, not for Leofric, not for the very Almighty himself. Women were to be protected at all costs. Particularly seraphs. ’Twas the reason he must report Caradoc’s misdeeds.

Anxious to be free of Caradoc’s presence, he stepped around him.
“Excuse me, brother, I have forgotten something I didna attend to.”

“Aye,” again, Caradoc spoke as if his mind were leagues away from the hallway they occupied.

Shaken from the reaction of his subconscious, Declan hurried down the stairs to the front entry and out the villa’s front doors. In the cool fresh air, he leaned against the side of the building, pulling in deep breaths. Where did these vile thoughts come from? He could not be capable of producing them—
could he?
Had the darkness of his soul become so close to transformation that he had begun to think like a fallen Templar?

Right the wrong.

He shook his head, tipped his face up to the light rain. ’Twas not his voice. He did not recognize who it belonged to, but ’twas not his own. He had brought death to his wife, but he
could not
kill a woman. Isabelle could be a two-bit whore, and he would not raise a finger to her.

With a jittery hand, he reached into his pocket for his cell phone.
He dialed Leofric. There must be an explanation. If any would know, ’twould be him.