“Really?” A hand fluttered to her chest, pressing right over her heart as she glanced over her shoulder at the altar. “I’m surprised this place can close at all if God, himself, is coming to answer every prayer.”
If God—
Merde.
The playful bite of her retort hardened my dick more than every tempting morsel of her that stood on display in front of me.
“I’m not God, madame,” I growled. Far fucking from it.
But, mon Dieu, if I were, I’d never let her leave her knees.
“Oh, my mistake.” A coy smile toyed with her plump lips. “Well, in that case, I am allowed to be here, so I’m going to get back to work.”
“What do you mean work?”
I saw the way her eyes searched for me, still quite unsure where I was standing.
“I mean work, like in the normal sense of the word. I come here and use my skill to produce something that I get paid for,” she replied blithely. “I know you French are restricted to only a few hours of the concept per week and get umpteen weeks of vacation, but please, for the love of all that’s holy”—she paused and raised a hand as some slight apology for requesting such a thing, even though the twinkle in her eye said she wasn’t sorry for provoking me at all—“please, tell me the French still know what the word ‘work’ means?”
Fucking Americans.
“I know what the word work means, madame,” I bit out and countered. “However, seeing that you are from America, I wonder if you are familiar with the term ‘trespassing’ or if you all, as a nation, now suffer from the belief that everything in this world truly belongs to you.”
There was a moment of blessed silence. A moment when the sweetness of those lips wasn’t tainted with the tartness of her words.
And then she laughed.
She threw back her head, bared the most beautiful column of dusky skin I’d ever seen, and set free a sound that would bring a man to his knees. A sound that belonged in a church because it could’ve only come from an angel.
“I think I still have the faintest idea of what that word means,” she mused, bringing one finger to the side of her chin as though she were thinking quite hard about it. “However, I don’t believe it’s trespassing when I have permission from the school to be here.”
The laugh of an angel but the tongue of a devil.
She angled slightly so I could see her bags and cases stacked neatly behind her.
My mouth thinned in frustration.
Students came and worked in here all the time but not usually after hours. The school rarely gave them permission to work when the church was closed.
Still, the weight of the information in my pocket was getting too heavy to ignore.
“Who are you?” she demanded. “And why are you still hiding in the shadows? I promise, it’s only my words that bite.”
My teeth clamped into my cheek, drawing blood at the flickered image of her perfect white teeth biting into my flesh as I fucked her, her jewelry sliding and clinking with every thrust.
Fuck.
“I’m the man who takes care of this place, who’s in charge when the world goes home, and who never gave you—or anyone else—permission to be here now.”
She hummed but made no move to leave.
“Takes care… So, you’re a hunchback? Is that why you’re hiding in the dark?”
With a frustrated growl, I stepped forward, not enough to bring me into the slash of light in the center, but enough for her eyes to catch and lock onto where I was.
“Right? Isn’t that how the story goes?” She bit her lip, and my cock jerked. “Do you ring the bell, too? Because it’s almost on the hour, you should probably get back to your job just like I should to mine.”
This woman with her colors and her attitude and her body that was made for sin drove me mad. And drove me into the light with hard, angry steps.
“I’m not the fucking hunchback,” I bit out. And this wasn’t Hugo’s masterpiece. Though perhaps I should learn a lesson from his classic and not become one more half man beguiled by a gypsy’s charms.
I watched the slight smile on her mouth fade as light blended over more and more of my large frame.
It was easy to taunt the shadows… until they came for you.
It was only when the faint warmth of the sun seared over the edges of my face and burned into the ugly planes of my scars that the teasing glint in her eyes faded with a small gasp.
There were two reasons I worked in the shadows.
The first was that the less-than-savory tasks my job required were found there.
And the second was this—the shadows were more accepting of my visible flaws that had only served to frighten those who lived in the light.
But though her shocked gasp was the first thing that registered, I realized it wasn’t followed with a look of disgust. There was something that darkened her intrigue. Something that made it tempting and dangerous, and if I thought I could believe such a thing anymore, I would’ve guessed it was desire.
Her skin lifted with goose bumps and before I could stop them, my eyes trailed lower, desperate to see more of her before I succeeded at frightening this gypsy goddess away.
My jaw ticked, seeing the tips of her nipples poke against the fabric of her shirt with a strange shape that left me to suspect she had them pierced, too. My mouth watered instantly and my tongue strained like an animal locked in a cage, ravenous to taste the metal-studded satin.
It had been a long time since I touched a woman. Three years. Three years to eradicate the idea of lust from my body because it had no place in the life of a forgotten man.
“Not a hunchback,” I repeated roughly.
She swallowed. “No… definitely not.”
And still she didn’t run.
Hell, she didn’t even move.
Merde, I shouldn’t have moved. But I did.
I stepped closer because now that I was in the light, it was hard to see anything but her.
“But I am responsible for this place, and it’s after hours, so you’re not allowed to be here,” I said with a low, rough voice.
Her eyes snapped to mine.
“I’m sorry, monsieur…” she trailed off, waiting for me to give her a name that never came, finally shaking her head. “Hunchback or not, I guess you’ll have to take it up with your boss because I have permission to be here, and I have work to do.”
With a ‘too bad for you’ shrug, she turned away from me, her hips swaying in a way that was nothing short of a physical assault on my senses, and a chill swept through my body.
I let my gaze linger one last moment before I retreated. There was no point in staying to argue. A normal person would’ve been concerned about a voice from the shadows. A normal person would’ve at least questioned their presence when told it wasn’t allowed. And a normal woman… well, a normal woman wouldn’t be attracted to a man like me; I knew that well.
But she… whoever she was… wasn’t a normal female.
I paused, hearing her voice.
“If you really want to see my letter—” And I heard the moment she broke off when she realized I was no longer standing there.
I didn’t need to see her proof. I’d give her a week to do whatever school project she was here to do, and if she was here longer than that, I would go straight to the school—straight to the source—and handle her presence.
There was no point in staying to argue with the gypsy who was determined to goad me. Especially when I didn’t quite trust myself around her kind of distraction.
Did I ring the bell? I scoffed to myself.
They rang on their own, though I had half a mind to toss her over my shoulder, cart her up to the bell tower, and fuck her so hard against it her ass hitting the metal as I sunk my cock into her would ring the damn thing over and over and over again.
Notre Dame Tolls Through The Night.
I groaned, imagining the headlines as I ducked back into the small nook that the sound of h
er bracelets drew me from earlier.
One night wouldn’t be enough with a woman like that.
And one night was all I could ever take.
Life had taught me two things.
One. Women were not to be trusted. Except for Our Lady.
Notre Dame had stood for centuries, stood the test of time. She was the only one I knew for certain wouldn’t betray me or my secrets.
And two, with a life like this and a face like mine, there was nothing left for me but vengeance.
Quinton
Lifting at the same time as I pressed in the center petal of the carved fleur-de-lis, the panel sprung back and revealed the passage behind.
I slipped inside and let the concealed doorway shroud me in the hidden stairwell.
The stairs were made from the same timbers used for the Forest—the name given to the latticed wooden frame of the roof over the nave—each beam created from a single beechwood trunk. Thirteen thousand single trees expertly laid over a thousand years ago.
Just like the stairs that led to my home.
Home.
I laughed softly, knowing there was no one here to hear me.
Home for the sinner in the house of a saint.
Pushing through the door at the very top of the stairs, I rose to my full height that could only be supported in the very center line of the small attic-like room.
My bed was jammed against one wall, the roof slanted overhead—the mattress hardly big enough for my body. A desk and a single chair were collected at the far end of the space, smaller windows shedding light on it during the day. And a small dresser of only two drawers was housed against the other wall.
It was here, among the rafters, crosswalks, and slanted frame of the roof that I lived, the slain forest of trees equipped to handle the web of lies I was tasked to both create and undo.
Reaching into the inside pocket of my black jacket, I pulled out the small, thin envelope left for me by my informant under the designated votive and took a seat.
I tossed the letters in my pocket onto the small wooden desk.
I rarely met with my sources in person. It was too risky—both for them and for me. Méchant had put a price on my head not long after the day he killed my mother, not long after he realized I’d chosen to disappear from the face of the earth rather than agree to either of his terms.
It was never liars that he despised, only disobedience.
I’d never planned on joining the Valois. Never until that moment. Until that moment with the dust and the smoke, the fire that took my mother, and the fire that made me a monster. Never until he’d left me no choice.
I’d been in the hospital several days, heavily sedated while the doctors worked to fix my face. But there was no fixing it.
They treated the burns and wrapped the raw, bubbling flesh, and discussed amongst themselves how the damage had been so precisely contained to one half of my face and what they thought I’d come out looking like in the end. I couldn’t hear them, they stood on the other side of the window in my room, but I knew. Instead, they told me I would need to stay for more tests and grafting—for more time than I didn’t have.
So, I’d checked myself out with my head half wrapped in bloody bandages, and, ignoring the stares, went straight to the Valois. And my father.
I pushed the papers on my desk aside, clearing space for the message I’d been waiting for for weeks, knowing it was the last that held what I was looking for.
Before this, the Valois had tried everything to integrate someone into his organization. From buyers and sellers of illegal goods to murderers and hackers, none had succeeded. Either Méchant’s connections ran too high or there was a mole inside the Valois—which was an unconscionable thought to an organization too proud to admit fault.
It even took me time to figure out his weakness. Then again, being turned into half man, half monster made it easy to obsess over the sick fucker who did it.
My father learned quickly that I wasn’t part of the Valois to do his bidding. I was there for revenge. And it just so happened that my revenge coincided with one of their targets.
They say revenge is a dish best served cold. I thought I’d understood the phrase until my life became defined by it. Revenge was served cold not for maximum rudeness, but because it required preparation.
Good vengeance took time.
It didn’t act on the burn of anger. It bubbled under the surface, letting the heat of rash emotions dissipate into the stone-cold resolve of ruthless persistence.
First, I healed for months, letting the scars contort my face into something monstrous while I studied everything the Valois had on Méchant.
Then, I trained. Physically. Mentally. For a year, I shed emotions like a second skin, until there was nothing left of the man I’d once been. The man with hopes and dreams. The man who’d been pursuing his degree in architecture and about to propose to his girlfriend.
I shed it all like the lie it was.
And every mirror reminded me of that twisted reality and my fucked-up fate.
So, I became the best asset the Valois had. Effective but unleashed, creating my own resources, exacting information and punishment from those I determined guilty. The Valois—my father—couldn’t control me, but neither could they get rid of me. I’d gotten closer to finding Méchant in the last three years than they had in decades.
I preyed on Méchant, not like a lion, but like a leech. I wanted to slowly suck the life from him and his empire. I wanted him to watch everything he’d built bleed out like he’d made me watch the flames eat away at my mother’s body.
I wanted him to watch as the monster he’d made destroyed him. Not the hunchback. I tensed with the memory of her words. More like Franken-fucking-stein.
After the night I’d watched my mother die, the memory of the church stuck with me. The stains and shadows. The quiet unbroken sanctity of the holy place that could be so easily transformed into a headquarters for something heinous.
Méchant had a thing for churches, probably because the idea of using something meant for good instead for evil provided him with a sense of power even God couldn’t stop.
Canard. Fucker.
Regardless, that night led me along a faint string of supposition, grasping at morsels of fact I uncovered along the way that clung to the string like dew on a spider’s web. And it led me here—farther than the Valois had ever gotten before.
It led me to a web of sanctuaries that Méchant commandeered for his empire.
I’d discovered that churches were an integral part of how and where he did business, not just a twisted venue for my torture. He didn’t choose big cathedrals like this—like Notre Dame or Montmartre—too many tourists, too many eyes. But smaller, local parishes were his preference.
He installed priests or paid the existing ones off, the subtle dominion over God’s representatives stroking his ego. He bastardized the services, his men using the tithing process to collect payment for the things he provided.
No corner of society was left untouched from Méchant. From government to religion and everything in between, that was why they called the Parisian underworld ‘le Milieu’—the Middle. And he was its king.
It took over a year to link the main artery. Many sleepless nights plotting the locations of each of these parishes, but I’d never been able to infiltrate one. Another consequence of my unforgettable face. I couldn’t break what was already made, so I began to search for where he would extend his reach—because Méchant was never content with what he had. Finally, I located a possible sanctuary he had yet to defile near the northern border of Paris’ eighteenth arrondissement.
Using the connections of the Valois, I found my own priest for the parish. One to be trusted. One to be pulled into the fringes of Méchant’s world and keep me informed.
I’d never imagined the small church would turn into the hub for many of Méchant’s business dealings.
Even though many things were kept out of earshot of my pri
est, who continued to provide confession ignorant forgiveness every Sunday to the man who made Lucifer look like an angel, there was a steady stream of breadcrumbs that brought depth to the organization and the man I was trying to bring down. Still, given the dangers, I only received an update once every few weeks.
But lately, the information had grown lengthier. More people. More transactions. More observations. Something was stirring in the underbelly of Paris and the bubbles of turbulence rose to the surface with greater number and frequency.
Something in the ever-present unrest that hadn’t seemed to settle for over a year now. Protests. Strikes. There was discord growing between the public and the government, both blinded by the lies being fed to each side, and in the shadows, I knew it was Méchant who pulled the strings, using the cover of instability to gain legitimacy for his criminality.
My hands on the envelope paused for a split second, waiting.
The resonant deep gongs of the cathedral bells began to toll the late hour, echoing out over the streets of Paris like they had for centuries.
My body knew this church like clockwork. It knew when the bells were about to ring.
And yet, tonight, it paused in wait, as though, for the first time in history, the sound wouldn’t come.
As though the little gypsy was right, and I was to be the one tolling them.
Sunday evening was the priest’s only time off, and he was forced to leave the church so Méchant could handle the most unsavory parts of his business without the man of God wandering near.
It was the only time he could get a message to me.
And even though I could never be certain if he was followed, it never looked suspicious for a man of the cloth to attend the evening mass at Notre Dame, presided over by the archbishop of Paris. Nor for him to light a lowly votive on his way out.
My eyes scanned over the few lines scrawled onto the paper as though I could read through the code without the cipher.
Flipping open the Victor Hugo novel on my desk and seeing full lips and playful gold-rimmed green, I had to blink again for the words to appear.
La Cathédrale de Notre Dame.
The Gargoyle and the Gypsy: A Dark Contemporary Romance (The Sacred Duet Book 1) Page 3