Immortal Surrender (Curse of the Templars)

by Claire Ashgrove

  He took one last look at the ground where William had lain and kicked fresh dirt over the blood-soaked soil. Though few seldom traveled this road, the evidence of death would only raise suspicion. As he crossed the road to join Caradoc, his conscience nagged. His suspicions were naught else but Azazel’s power. What he accused Farran of bordered on treason. Farran was a hard man, scarred and weathered as they all were, but his loyalty had never faltered. He would not risk the Order’s future.

  Good reason existed for why he failed to join his brothers on the field.

  Reason mayhap Lucan could learn if he stayed at Noelle’s side, instead of guarding her door. If she chose to leave, he could draw her into conversation. Discover what Farran may have told her, and in passing conversation guide her to be wary.

  Inside the temple’s gates, he shed his surcoat and mail. His gaze followed the procession of men and decapitated brothers through the front doors. Mikhail would bless them. After, the broken shells that once held gentle souls would join those who fell before them in the crypt beneath the temple’s cold stone floor.

  With his armor slung over one arm, Lucan fell into step behind the solemn march of brethren now turned pallbearers. Anne waited in the entry, her arms laden with towels meant to clean the mess. Her gaze rested briefly on Merrick, and she offered him a faint, supportive smile. They would grieve together later.

  Lucan departed from the group to ascend the stairwell leading to Noelle’s rooms. In the shadows, he set his mail on the ground and leaned against the wall. His stare fixed on the barred door ahead of him, his thoughts deviated from their usual course. He exchanged his suspicion for a fleeting stab of envy. Many centuries had passed, but well he could remember the comfort of a woman’s arms.

  Mayhap he would live to know that peace again.

  * * *

  Farran awakened to the low call of a dove, every bit aware of the woman sleeping next to him. The swollen nature of his cock, along with the accompanying ache in his loins, made her impossible to ignore. He lay embraced by her, the firm cheeks of her delicate bottom framing his hard length. Her feminine warmth called like a siren’s song, and against his will, his hips lifted into her, seeking that sweet haven. The slow undulation brought her body closer. Moisture dampened his straining flesh.

  God’s blood, he would spill himself if she moved again. That, or he would bury himself so deep inside her she would not have time to decide whether she desired the invasion or not. He drew away, teeth clenched tight.

  This newness of feeling confounded him. In years past, waking to find a woman in his bed brought no hesitation. She was present. Therefore, willing. Yet this was not his bed. ’Twas not his room. And the woman slumbering beside him had yet to welcome him between her legs.

  He eased from the bed. Last night he had found comfort. A strange peace his matrimonial bed denied. He had rutted with Brighid enough to produce a child, and yet all the passion they had shared lacked in comparison to one night spent sleeping beside Noelle. It unnerved him. How could he experience such intimacy, when he had done little else but talk?

  Farran stood naked at the foot of the bed, watching as Noelle slept. The goose bumps on her skin where he had blanketed her told him of the room’s chill. Yet he felt none of it. His body thrummed with heat, a fire he could not quench.

  Part of him insisted he return to the bed, rouse her with his mouth, and entice her until she could not think to deny him. That insolent part of his mind refused to acknowledge the suffering she could bring. It screamed at him to let go, abandon his fears, and trust in the divine promise that she was his salvation.

  The other part of his soul raged that he had already allowed her in too far. Demanded he retreat behind barriers of stone before she could land a felling blow. She had already coerced him into neglecting his duty. He had sent his brothers off to battle, too unwilling to leave her warmth.

  Mayhap his first idea, to remove himself from her, had been the best. If he did not have to look upon her each day, he could not become soft. For as certainly as the sun peeked from beyond the gray sky, he traversed a dangerous path.

  He shook his head. The thought of leaving her produced an equal agony. He knew not when she had become his weakness, when lust had overridden common sense, but he must stop this nonsense. He must make her understand that though he treasured what had happened between them, he wanted naught more from her than her seraph’s oath.

  ’Twould hurt them both. But he must protect himself before she made him bleed.

  He quickly donned his clothes and strode from the room. Tonight he would press her. By morn, he would be gone.

  Outside her rooms, he greeted Lucan with a glower. Silently he dared his brother to speak and give him reason to engage his fists. But Lucan merely averted his gaze, denying Farran a means of soothing his internal ache. Farran stomped down the stairs, hand on the pommel of his sword. He would seek the training yard. Find a partner who did not mind a beating.

  Caradoc stopped his angry march to the indoor arena with a crisp shout. “Farran!”

  Slowly he turned, his annoyance creeping out through narrowed eyes. “Aye?”

  “We missed your sword.”

  The subtle reprimand cracked through Farran with the power of a lash. He grimaced inwardly, turned on a heel, and strode for the arena. Caradoc followed, his heavy step a matched cadence to the footfalls of Farran’s boots.

  Farran punched through the doors with enough force to rattle them on their hinges. When they slammed shut behind him, he drew his sword and whirled on his brother. “Come at me. I crave the fight.”

  Caradoc frowned, but made no move to grab for his sword. Instead, he set his hand on the tip of Farran’s blade and pushed it toward the ground. “I shall give you your outlet. But first you will hear my words.”

  Farran shook his sword free with a snap of his wrist. “I have talked enough to last me a lifetime, brother.” Lifting his blade, he widened his stance and stood at the ready. “Come at me, before I leave you no choice.”

  On a slow shake of his head, Caradoc drew his blade. He mirrored Farran’s position, feet braced wide, shoulders loose, arm at the ready. Caradoc moved around him in a slow circle. Methodically, Farran stepped in the opposite direction, matching his pace, looking for weakness.

  Caradoc caught him by surprise. In an act uncharacteristic of the seasoned swordsman, he rushed at Farran. Farran met the wide arc of Caradoc’s blade. Steel clanged together, echoing through the wide arena. The impact rolled down Farran’s arm and jarred his bones. Yet he welcomed the harsh burn, the tingle in his fingers.

  Lifting his sword high, he returned Caradoc’s strike. The battle had begun, though Farran fought not the man opposing him. He combated himself. All the rage and frustration he could not channel into any useful means poured through the arc of his arm, the twist of his body.

  Step-by-step he pushed Caradoc toward the wall. Blow by blow Caradoc countered, driving Farran back to the spot where they began. Equal partners, matched in skill and experience, they sparred as if their lives depended on victory. Years of fighting at Caradoc’s side gave Farran advantage, but weakness came with the fact his opponent shared the same knowledge.

  Parry met thrust, slice met the flat defensive blade. The angry song of clashing steel ricocheted off the walls. The sound of his own heavy pants filled Farran’s ears. Sweat broke over his body, and the heavy weight of his weapon settled into his shoulder.

  With lightning speed, Caradoc thrust his blade at Farran’s chest in a potentially devastating blow. Farran grunted as his broadsword took the impact. He managed little more than defensive parries as Caradoc drove again and again, quickly outmaneuvering Farran.

  Caradoc struck down on Farran’s blade, lifted his sword, and struck again. Then in a surprisingly agile maneuver, he attacked from the opposite side. Farran blocked the strike, but a stumble left him wide open. Caradoc moved in. Victor raised his sword, brought it down hard, and knocked Farran’s weapon to the flo
or.

  Color filled Caradoc’s cheeks as he drew in a sharp breath and snapped, “She is not Brighid!”

  Stunned, Farran came to a standstill. His empty hand closed in a fist, and he lowered it to his side. As the truth passed between them, Farran clenched his jaw. He bent to retrieve his sword, but Caradoc kicked it aside.

  “Do you forget I was there? Do you think I do not know what poisons you against her?” Caradoc sheathed his sword, but challenged with a piercing gaze. “’Tis your fear Azazel takes advantage of. Your heartbreak he twists to his favor. You let him win each time you turn away from her.”

  All the raw, unchecked emotion Farran had closeted away burst forth, and he dropped his head into his hands with an anguished moan. He curled his fingers against his scalp, hating himself for the weakness he could not hide.

  The press of a pommel against his stomach brought his head up. He glanced down to find his sword extended in offering. Silently he accepted and sheathed the weapon. When he looked to Caradoc once more, his brother’s expression no longer held accusation. Instead, Farran found compassion.

  Caradoc gestured at the floor, then assumed a seat. “She is your seraph, Farran.”

  “I know,” he said, exhaling as he dropped to sit across from Caradoc. He looked above the sandy brown head at the stark white wall beyond. “It shames me, brother. I failed in duty because I did not wish to leave her side.”

  “You feel—there is no shame in that. ’Tis when you try to cease what the Almighty intends, it eats at you like a canker. Brighid was a whore whose father sought to get her out of his hair. Noelle is naught like that vile bitch. No devilry lurks behind the eyes that follow you. And indeed, they do follow you. They look for you when you are not present. Ask Anne, for she told me the same.”

  Did they? He had been so consumed with the terror of his past, Farran could not answer. Instead, he hung his head. “I do not know how to believe in goodness, Caradoc.”

  “Then do not. Trust in the Almighty’s plan. He brought you here. Carried you through the loss of your son. Allow yourself to feel. Anne tells me Noelle is pure. She is your gift. Your salvation. ’Tis time you embraced your fate before you drive us all mad with your morose moods.”

  Frowning, Farran shifted against the uncomfortable twist in his gut. He did not know how to respond. No words existed. His chest felt tight, his throat dry. What Caradoc suggested terrified him more than a proposal to stand toe to toe with a dark knight. In a battle with a fallen brother, he knew what to expect—his soul would fail. He would die. But when it came to Noelle, he could predict naught.

  A streak of rebellion snatched at opportunity, and Farran sought to cloak his discomfort by turning the discussion in his favor. “You are one to talk. You ran from Isabelle. Her mortality you could not face. The pain of losing her plagues you now.”

  Caradoc’s earnest expression flickered with sorrow before his eyes took on a harsh light. “Indeed, you are right. But you do not find me living in the past, do you, brother?”

  He stood with effort, grimacing at the ache in his bones. He clapped a hand on Farran’s shoulder, his gaze fixed on the distant doors. “I leave you to your thoughts. But, my friend, I urge you. Do not make the same mistakes as I.”

  With purposeful steps and a firm shut of the door, Caradoc left. Yet the weight of his words lingered long after the sound of his boots disappeared down the hall. Farran reeled from their impact. His head spun. His hands trembled.

  CHAPTER 28

  Noelle chewed on a fingernail as she paced in front of the chrome laboratory equipment. It hummed and ticked in ominous harmony with the whirring of her mind. She still couldn’t explain how it managed to work at such an incredible rate of speed, but after sampling a shard of a cracked wooden bowl that she’d dated earlier this year for Gabriel and discovering the same results, she couldn’t doubt the equipment’s accuracy. Now, in minutes, the readout for the strange wood would drift into the printer’s tray. She knew what it would say—the same things it had said the first three times she’d run the test. The same data it spit out yesterday.

  She cast an anxious glance at the curved wooden slat. Sadly, she didn’t care. The rote activity of repeated testing kept her busy. Helped to soothe the agitation Farran left behind.

  She told herself the reason she couldn’t keep him off her mind was because he’d introduced her to what it meant to be a woman. That this ridiculous giddy feeling had nothing to do with caring about the man and everything to do with the by-product of a release of oxytocin. Like mothers who experienced the rush on the birth of their child, orgasm saturated her with hormones and led her false.

  All scientific fact. Yet every bit of it a bald-faced lie.

  Waking to an empty bed had left her more cold and empty than the night he’d brought her out of the snow. Why had he left? Where had he gone?

  Why did she care?

  A soprano beep signaled the counter had finished, and Noelle wandered to the printer. She picked up the printout, but didn’t bother to scan the columns. Tossing the paper aside, she pressed her palms to her temples and grimaced. She could read it a hundred times and never make sense of all the conflicting data. The only concise fact—the cedar/poplar plank was an anomaly to all she understood.

  She went to the shelves for something less complicated, less threatening. Scanning the tall stacks of artifacts, she spied a handful of broken pottery bits that bore a striking resemblance to the Celt marks on the Beaker bowl in her room. As she gingerly picked up the shards, they left behind a powdery residue. So fragile had the particles become, they nearly disintegrated in her palm.

  Careful not to jostle them unnecessarily, Noelle returned all but one to their resting place on the shelf. Airtight canisters—that’s what Gabriel needed here. If he intended to preserve some of these things much longer, he’d have to make the investment.

  She took the solitary piece to her worktable. With the press of a stylus, she split the half-dollar piece in two. Both portions crumbled, making the work ahead easier. She prepped one sample for beta counting of the carbon-14 decay. The other she set aside to chemically analyze while the gas counter measured the first.

  Absorbed in the process, her mind strayed from Farran for the first time all day. She added the chemicals to clean the carbonates, then set the vial aside. While she waited, she divided the remaining sample into five small subsets, each to fit a different test.

  Enraptured by her love for her work and the insatiable curiosity of her mind, Noelle lost track of time. Before she had time to stop and consider why Farran had left her to wake alone, she stood before the gigantic maze of metal tubing awaiting the final result, while her stomach rumbled, reminding her she hadn’t eaten all day.

  Excitement set her pulse into a staccato beat, and she gnawed on her fingernail once more. Chemical data revealed the pottery shared a similar composition to the one in her room. Right down to the faint copper residue. The hand-carved patterns were so eerily alike she couldn’t help but hope. If the two were related … Her heart jumped into her throat at the prospect. Not one, but two Beaker artifacts would cross her path.

  The printer went off and she dove for the printout. As she scanned the graphical representation, she let out a bit of the breath she’d been holding: archaeological age: 1900–1800 B.C.

  She whipped around on a gasp as the door opened. But when Farran stepped inside, her breathlessness gave way to an excited squeal. She rushed across the room, flung her arms around his neck, and threw herself into his startled embrace. “Farran, you’ll never believe what I’ve found!”

  * * *

  Farran staggered backward under the force of Noelle’s elation. He caught himself before he stumbled, yet nothing would curb the enormity of feeling that swept through his veins on hearing her joy. Could it be she had missed him?

  The possibility swelled his heart to intolerable limits. Instinctively he sought to block the sensation and stiffened. If he allowed himself to believe …<
br />
  Allow yourself to feel.

  Caradoc’s suggestion bellowed like a horn, and Farran swallowed hard. He released the vise of logic. Cast it aside to embrace the heady pleasure of Noelle’s soft body molding against his. He wound his arms around her waist and held her close as he nuzzled the side of her neck. “What have you found that has kept you from joining me for supper?”

  She wriggled free, to his dismay. With a smile bright enough to rival the moon’s silver light, she waved a piece of paper in her hand. “It’s a Beaker!”

  He peered at her with a perplexed frown. But as he opened his mouth to speak, she caught him by the hand and dragged him to the tall shelves on the far side of the room. There she nearly bounced in place as she pointed at a handful of broken shards of clay.

  “Beaker pottery. A Neolithic society—the first to bury their dead in graves. They introduced Britain to metal. But there’s no archaeological evidence to prove they used the tools themselves. Their pottery is distinctive, loaded with sigils and intricate designs.”

  Though her words came out in a mad rush that only served to further scatter his disorganized thoughts, her smile warmed him from the inside out. Behind her glasses, her eyes blazed with excitement. And the constant motion of her hands stirred an equal thrill in him. As he studied her, slowly processing her explanation, he found himself fascinated by what drove her to such joy. Save for the men who craved the thrill of battle, he had never met someone so enchanted with her work.

  He glanced around, noting for the first time the intricate labyrinth of metal tubing and canisters that connected to a cylindrical chamber. Aye, though he had witnessed the equipment before, he now saw it through her eyes. Compelled by the deep-rooted need to understand what stirred her passion, he gestured at the device. “Tell me of this? How you discover the age of these artifacts?”