The Knight: The Original's Trilogy - Book 3

by Cara Crescent

  “Jules?”

  He groaned. “Give me a minute, butterfly.”

  “Don’t hold back from me.”

  He almost laughed, so insane was the notion.

  She arched against him, again, urging him on and he bent to take her nipple into his mouth. Even while he suckled, he rode her, dragging his length along her clit with each thrust. She tensed around him seconds before she screamed. Her muscles, flexing and rippling around him, forced his own release. He tried to fight it, wanting this to last forever, and failed.

  “Goddamn it.” Unable to stave off his orgasm, he rode the waves of euphoria, clutching her tight in his arms until they drifted back to reality.

  “I’ve heard of men invoking the name of their god during an orgasm.” She giggled. “But never cursing it.”

  He grinned. “I was cursing myself. I wanted it to last longer.” He lifted his head. “Are you all right?”

  The small smile playing around her lips faded. “You scare the hell out of me, Jules.”

  Great. He clenched his jaw. Shut his eyes in effort to avoid the sudden burn, to lessen the knot in his throat. She shouldn’t have been scared. That sure as hell hadn’t been his intention. Now he was left with nothing but regret. Once he released her, she wouldn’t want anything to do with him. Who could blame her? He’d bound her for Christ’s sake, what had he been thinking?

  He slid one hand under her arm to cup the back of her head. His body still covered hers and her nipples tightened against his chest. She tilted her face for his kiss, but instead he placed his cheek against hers. Slowly, he pulled away, cheek to cheek, before repeating the caress on the other side. He didn’t have the words to say what was in his heart. Even if he did, he’d never say them, so he tried to show her. His caress one of tender regard. In the end, his forehead rested against hers.

  She trembled beneath him. A tear leaked out from behind the bandage, but before she could turn her face to hide it, he kissed it away.

  “Am I so terrifying?”

  “Ah, Jules,” she whispered. “You have no idea how much so.”

  He closed his eyes. What had he expected? She surrendered to her body’s need, that didn’t mean she’d forgive him for his high-handed tactics.

  “I’m . . . .” He blew out a breath, unsure how to say what he needed to say. “I didn’t mean to scare you.” That didn’t even come close to what he should’ve said.

  She started to cry in earnest. He leapt to his feet on the bed and swept her into his arms, easing the dress up and off the bed post. Once he freed her, he expected her to rail at him. To run, screaming. Instead she snuggled herself closer and wrapped her arms about his neck.

  He lowered them both to the bed. “You don’t . . . I mean, I’m not going to . . .” He sighed. “You can leave.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Then I will. Lift the damned shield and I’ll go, I swear.”

  “It’s not that easy, Jules.”

  “Why?” His voice rose. Why fight him if she didn’t want him here? “Why can’t it be that easy? I’m a head job, for Christ’s sake, let me go.”

  “I can’t.” She cried harder.

  “You’re not making any sense.” Jesus, she frustrated him beyond words. “You don’t trust me. You shouldn’t, either. I’m no good, I shouldn’t be here.”

  “I do trust you. I love you.”

  He eased away, his chest too tight to breathe properly. He tilted Kat’s face up to see her expression, damning the bandage that hid her eyes from him. He wished he could remove it, wanted nothing more than to look into her startling green eyes, but he didn’t dare.

  Her hands rose to lift away the bandage and he shut his eyes. Snatched the cloth away from her and replaced it on his own head.

  “Look at me, Jules, at least tell me what you’re thinking.”

  “I think I don’t deserve any such regard from you, butterfly. I treated you badly.”

  She snorted. “I know women who would pay good money to be treated like that.”

  He chuckled and pulled her close. God help them both. This was never going to work out, the two of them.

  But damn, he wished it could.

  The goddess also struck down Abaddon, the Destroyer. He too would’ve saved the Original. She couldn’t divide Abaddon’s powers. Had she tried to split him in two, all the evil would’ve spilt out and infected the Earth. She left Abaddon . . . the Tanin’iver—she hated that name—whole, but made him mortal.

  The goddess shuddered. Abaddon was evil by whatever name they called him.

  Chapter 17

  What the hell had he done?

  Julius flung his legs over the side of the bed, wrapped the sheet around his hips, and hung his head. If they gave awards for being a selfish bastard, he’d win.

  The shower turned on in the bathroom and he shot the door a side-long glance. She’d invited him to bathe with her, but he needed to think. The long and the short of his problem, was that he kept thinking of Kat as having the same narrow range of emotions that Katherine the Great had had.

  Katherine—the past-life version of Kat—didn’t fall in love. She’d been an interesting woman. He’d learned a lot from her. The sex had been good but . . . Katherine never loved him and he’d been normal back then.

  This wasn’t good for Kat. This wasn’t going to end well and he didn’t want the added guilt of hurting her.

  The light pouring out of the dresser drawer drew his attention. That damn book. Today the light seemed brighter than before, pulsing out an urgent message he couldn’t quite make out.

  Hell. He got up and crossed the room, pulling open the drawer and picking up the book. As soon as he set it on the dresser, the clasps popped open and the sense the book liked him returned. He flipped though some pages, looking for whatever it wanted him to know. The spells were all of the black Magic variety—curses, bindings, and hexes.

  He came to a blank page, started to flip past it and then hesitated. “Tell me.” He ran his hand down the page and as he did, ink rose to the surface of the page, long scratchy letters—the hand that wrote the words must have shook—and thick splotches of red ink, or maybe blood, dotted the page.

  The name Tanin’iver appeared at the top.

  * * *

  The Original created the Tanin’iver by giving a lost soul a body meant for another. He’ll be forever cursed until he makes a great sacrifice.

  * * *

  Hadn’t Kat called him the Tanin’iver that first morning? He snorted and flipped the book closed. “And here everyone thought I never had a soul.” Apparently, it was just lost. He stuffed the book back into the drawer and was about to close it, when another object caught his eye.

  A Guardian knife.

  The distinctive blade had a design etched down the center revealing the wood trapped within. All Guardians carried these knives. They were perfect. The wood dusted vampires, the silver was deadly to Lycan as well as a handful of other daemons, and sharp pointy objects stabbed into vital organs tended to take care of pretty much any other creature.

  How long had it been since he’d held one of these? He sat on the edge of the bed with the blade in hand, and rubbed his thigh. Where had Kat gotten this? Did she know the Guardian? Had she destroyed one? Or was this his?

  His hand went to his throat, but no, he no longer wore a Guardian pendant. He had been a Guardian at one time. James Pasquino had mentored him.

  He shook his head. That was all he remembered.

  The strip of wood in the center of the six-inch blade was stained dark with dried blood or ash or both. A strange sort of déjà vu settled over him, though he couldn’t say if it came from holding the knife, or sitting here like he was with the blade. He drew the blade across his thigh, a shallow cut, just enough that the bite and burn chased the spiders away.

  He froze. Stared at the cut. He had to stop, Kat was going to have a fucking conniption.

  The shower was still running and, same as before, a memor
y tugged at his mind. There was something familiar in this. . . .

  Sitting on the bed.

  A sheet around his hips.

  The shower had been running.

  The TV had been on.

  He sat in a musty hotel room, with his blade in hand. The place was nothing special, like a thousand other run-down roadside pit-stops. Some old movie played in the background more for company than entertainment.

  He’d tried to stop himself from cutting his skin, but his hand had a mind of its own. He used the knife to prick himself.

  “Stop it,” he spoke out loud to the empty room.

  A laugh shook out of him and he cut himself again.

  “I want out of here. Out of this prison. Out of you.”

  He dug the blade under his flesh, deeper this time. His skin split wider and wider to either side of the sharpened steel.

  His stomach roiled.

  “You’re going to ash us both.”

  As much as he hated this, part of him liked it. Instead of having a thousand spiders wandering under his skin, their little legs pricking his nerves and making his skin crawl, there was localized pain. One spot of hurt, everything else went quiet. Focused.

  He stared, transfixed. The skin split wider.

  It was awful.

  It was a relief.

  “Julius!”

  His name and the urgency behind it snapped him out of his reverie.

  “Don’t move.” Kat knelt in front of him, her gaze focused on the blade.

  PUSH IT DEEPER.

  The shakes returned full force. The spiders. That fucking voice. The damn blade was stuck into his leg almost to the point where the etching opened to the wood within. Had she not walked in—

  Shit. What had he done? Chased a memory that gave him no more answers and a lot more questions. Why had he been talking to himself? Laughing at himself? It was the prison memory all over again—like he had more than one mind in his head. Wasn’t that a thing? Some psychological disorder?

  Kat’s fingers folded around his wrist. She grimaced as she eased the blade out of his skin. Seeing her discomfort was damn near worse than the burn of the blade. He stared down to a deep gash in his thigh next to the shallow cut he’d made earlier. He rubbed his chest. His arm. Fucking spiders.

  “What were you doing?” Her voice was sharp and he took an instant dislike to being scolded.

  He refused to look at her and he couldn’t look at what he’d done. He grabbed the bandage off the bed and yanked it over his eyes.

  “Answer me, please.”

  She dropped the blade into the dresser with a clatter. Slammed the drawer shut. “I didn’t go to all the effort of healing you so you could hurt yourself more.” Despite her harsh tone, her hands, as always, were soft and gentle when she cupped his face. She sighed. When she spoke again, her voice was calmer. “Please talk to me, Jules. Why are you hurting yourself?”

  He opened his mouth to answer, but didn’t know what to say. No matter what, she must realize by now he was a head-case. Oh, God, he wished he wasn’t. He wanted to be her mate. Wanted to be worthy. Normal.

  Her palm stroked down his thigh and his skin warmed until it burned. He tipped his head to peek beneath the bandage. His skin stitched itself together, leaving nothing, not even a scar.

  “Thank you.”

  “Tell me what’s going on, Jules.”

  Should he tell her about the book? The lost soul and sacrifices? The memory? The voice?

  The alternative was . . . what? He was out of alternatives. He rubbed at a spot on his ribs where the spiders gathered. Either way, no matter what he said would make him look bad. He’d backed himself into a corner.

  Maybe that was the point. Maybe on some level he knew he had to make a sacrifice. Maybe forcing Kat to do what was best for her, despite what he wanted was the sacrifice. Maybe things would go better for both of them then.

  GET THE KNIFE.

  “I, uh . . . .” He shook his head. He wasn’t listening to that voice. Not today. “I was day-dreaming and not paying attention.”

  “You do that a lot, do you?” Her hand caressed over his bicep. His ribs. His cheek. She touched every single place he’d rubbed.

  His face heated. Damn it, why couldn’t he be normal?

  She sighed again, resting her forehead against his, holding his face in her hands. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.”

  “It’s okay. I know I seem crazy—”

  THE KNIFE. CUT-CUT-CUT-CUT.

  “But you’re not.”

  CUT OUT YOUR EYES.

  A shiver stole over his skin and he stood to pace. “I sure as hell don’t want to be.” He didn’t have to be. If he ignored the voice. The spiders. If he could remember.

  His pacing brought him to the dresser. To the knife.

  Shit.

  He turned back to Kat, forced himself to walk toward her, each step harder than the last. The spiders itched and niggled in a frenzy under his skin. She deserved better than this. “Have you considered the possibility that you have this whole thing wrong?”

  “What thing?”

  “Us.” As soon as the word left his lips, his chest ached. “I mean, how do you know we’re mates?” Same way he knew. Same way he’d never be able to un-know it. He rubbed at his chest. The back of his neck. The spiders grew angry.

  Her colors dimmed. “You still don’t think we are?”

  “After we made love?” hung in the air unspoken but not unheard. Jesus, he was an ass. He’d be damned if he let her get hurt.

  CUT YOUR EYES. CUT THEM OUT.

  His whole body jerked. “I think you’re lonely and too kind, and beautiful and cut your—” He snapped his mouth shut. Closed his eyes.

  —EYES. CUT YOUR EYES.

  “Cut my what?”

  When he opened his eyes, she’d planted her hand on her hip. Her colors darkened and pulsed.

  She had to get away from him. “I think you could do better,” he rushed the words out before the voice took over. “I think you should do better. Go find some handsome guy and kiss him. Twenty bucks says you’ll take to him easier than you would to me, anyway. I mean, how do you know if you even have the right guy? Maybe you just want someone.”

  CUT YOUR EYES. GET THE KNIFE. CUT-CUT-CUT

  She continued to stand there, staring at him without saying anything so he kept going, “You need someone. It doesn’t matter who.”

  Her colors flared and she gasped. “That’s the meanest—”

  Without conscious thought, he turned back to the drawers. He couldn’t resist anymore.

  “Look at me while I’m talking.”

  Christ, he couldn’t resist anymore. “Knock me out.”

  CUT-CUT-CUT. His mouth formed the words, though no sound came out.

  “What?”

  “Cut your eyes. Cut your eyes!” It wasn’t what he’d intended to say, goddamn it! He meant to ask her to say whatever it was she said that made him seize up. He couldn’t cut out his eyes if he was shaking in a stupor on the floor.

  “Watch her.”

  Watch who? He opened his mouth to ask. “Cut-cut-cut out your eyes.”

  “Oh, for Gaia’s sake, watch her!” She shouted this time.

  Still, his hand reached out and pulled the drawer open. Shit. He was doing this. Cutting out his eyes. Right in front of her. He couldn’t stop.

  She shouted at him again. This time he didn’t catch what she said.

  The room swirled around him. Colors flashed behind his eyes.

  He tried to break his fall.

  “Damn you, Julius Crowley!” She snatched a pillow off the bed, stuffed it under his head and turned him to his side. “Starting an argument you can’t finish isn’t fair.”

  Or was it not fair that forcing him to seize had become so commonplace that she’d continued right on with the conversation without him as if he weren’t shaking, his muscles so taut they appeared ready to burst through his skin. “I think I’m losing my mind now. Ki
ss someone else. You can kiss my ass.” She slapped one hand over her mouth. She was swearing like a drunken sailor. “See what you did. You have me cussing I’m so mad at you.”

  She brushed her hand through his hair, while she grounded her own energy. She’d always had difficulty keeping calm during an argument, but found it twice as hard when her mate was being an asshat. Kiss someone else. Ha! She didn’t want anyone else.

  The seizure was lasting longer than normal. She frowned down at him. She’d had to repeat “Watcher” three times before he’d seized. That hadn’t ever happened before. She chewed her lip. Was the memory curse fizzling out? Five days had passed already and they didn’t last longer than a week from what she’d read. What would happen if next time he didn’t seize when she said the trigger word? Would she be able to stop him from trying to follow the felo-de-se curse?

  What if tomorrow morning she had nothing but Magic to keep him safe? What if tomorrow she didn’t even have that? He was a big guy, she couldn’t take him on physically while he was under control of the curse.

  She needed help.

  The idea of traveling to Machon to talk to the coven sent apprehension darting up her spine. What if they refused? Or if they decided he wasn’t worth it?

  Would they think her weak for needing help? Shouldn’t she be able to care for her mate on her own?

  She tamped down her hurt pride. His safety was more important.

  His shaking started to subside and she eased him onto his back. She glanced at the bed. He’d be more comfortable there, but she feared she wouldn’t have enough Magic to put him into a deep sleep and travel to Machon if she transported him to the bed, too.

  Instead, she dragged the blankets to where he lay and tucked him in, using Magic to induce a deep sleep.

  Kiss someone else. She smacked his shoulder. Then checked the cuts on his thigh. Nothing there now aside from a couple of pink lines of freshly healed skin. Two more scars amid all the others. Except these had happened here. In her house. While she hadn’t been paying attention.

  What if she’d been out of the house? What if she hadn’t walked in for five more minutes? Or ten? Fifteen?