Rhett would probably never forgive him.
Caught between a proverbial rock and a hard place, there was nothing to do but continue to deny them the information they sought.
The heavy door rattled before it opened and his brother, Dracht, stepped in.
Christian looked up from under the ridge of his brow.
Dracht, a couple inches over six feet, black hair and trimmed goatee, didn't look like he wanted to be messed with today. He closed the door with a decided bang that spelled his impatience with the procedures better than if he'd come in ranting and shouting.
Christian braced for a new onslaught of queries and demands.
“I don't know how much longer you think you can keep your silence, Christian,” Dracht said, crossing to one of the chairs. With a jarring scrape of wood on stone, he flipped it around and straddled it backwards, positioning himself blatantly between Christian and the door.
Almost daring him to try and escape.
“As long as I need to. I told you.”
“You're not just putting Evelyn and her other sisters in danger, you're putting the rest of us in danger, too. Now, you can sit there and be stubborn all you want, but I know for a fact that you wouldn't intentionally put Rhett, Dragar and I in harm's way.” Dracht layered his arms one over the other across the back of the chair, boots flat to the floor.
Rhett, their brother, and Dragar, their father, were in harm's way almost every day. The job demanded it. Knights Templar in the modern world faced real threat on a continuous basis, a fact they accepted before becoming a part of the Order.
Christian thought about arguing that point but in the end it was moot. It meant nothing in regards to the situation Dracht wanted information about.
So he chose silence. Again. Christian could feel the weight of his brother's stare even when he lowered his own gaze to the floor. To the toes of his boots. He studied them like he was interested in the make and design.
“Christian.”
Nothing. More silence.
“What is it that you think we can't help you with? Hm? This can't be about money. You've never really cared about that. It's not to climb some proverbial ladder. The highest seat you can have within the Templar order is held by our father and he is far from ready to give the position up. So...what? What kind of hold do those government agents have on you?” Dracht's baritone voice bounced off the walls of the cell.
Christian continued to study his shoes. Dracht and their father wouldn't torture him, and he knew they wouldn't let any of the other Templars torture him, either. That was an ace in the hole, an advantage he exploited at every turn. Even if they did torture him, he wouldn't—couldn't—give any ground.
Too many people had made it perfectly clear what would happen if he breathed so much as a word of his and the other agents missions.
“They're going to put you in jail. Lock you up and throw away the key. You're a danger to the girls simply because you won't confess the why of it to anyone.”
“I told you. We wanted the location of the Garden of Eden for oursel--”
“Bullshit. That's a cover story and we both know it. For god's sake, Christian.” Dracht, huffing a fed up breath, shoved off the chair and paced in front of the door.
Christian, who had spent the last two days telling the same story when he did bother to speak, fell silent.
They kept going around and around in the same circles. The same cycles. Dracht would come in and pressure him, then Dragar. Back and forth.
Rhett must have left the premises. Christian hadn't seen him since the night of the storm. The night when he'd pulled a sword on Evelyn and tried to take her from the stronghold. It wasn't that he wished Evelyn or the other girls harm. He only wanted everyone safe.
Sometimes that meant doing things others construed as malicious.
The surviving sisters—Alexandra and Minna—had escaped from the agents involved in the sordid mess with him and were probably halfway around the world by now.
As long as he kept his mouth shut, things would be fine. Or as fine as they could be with a future behind bars. He had no desire to lose his freedom. The choice, however, had been taken from him long ago.
With a snarl of disgust, Dracht stormed out of the cell.
Exhaling, Christian ran a hand through his hair—he needed a shower—and waited for Dragar.
Then the coercion would begin again.
***
Dracht stalked down the gloomy corridor with his hands balled into fists at his side. His brother didn't seem to understand the seriousness of the situation. Or he did, and there was something even more serious keeping his tongue silent.
That was the most logical conclusion he could come to after two days of pressure and interrogation. Frustrated beyond anything he'd ever known, he swept into a room at the very end, not a cell but a stone walled office, and closed the door with less force than he had a moment ago.
“Anything?” Dragar, sitting behind a plain pine desk, sat in a leather chair with a laptop open in front of him and several files beside it.
“Nothing. Just...nothing. He's not going to talk. Not today, not tomorrow.” Dracht swallowed down a knot of malcontent and slouched down to sit in a chair opposite his father. Dragar, also dark haired with silver just touching his temples at the hairline, had started to show his age in recent days.
Any man who'd just learned his son was behind a plot to kill or capture five innocent women would, he thought. And two of the women, two sisters, were dead. Just how much blood was on Christian's hands, anyway? Dracht knew his brother hadn't killed the other girls, but he'd known they were in jeopardy and had omitted telling anyone.
Had, in fact, planned to capture the surviving ones for some plot he'd yet to solidly determine. Dracht still had a hard time believing the three men—Christian and the two government agents he worked with—were the only ones involved.
Dragar exhaled and crossed his arms over his chest. He wore a vest over a short sleeved shirt of black and faded jeans that had been dark blue a hundred wash cycles ago.
“I'm going to bring Roman in and have him start with the agents tomorrow,” Dragar said with a solemn tone.
Dracht snapped a look at his father. Roman's reputation preceded him. Like Dracht, Roman had extensive knowledge in the area of information extraction. Dracht had kept the government agents they were holding from the worst of it, so far, but that would change if the men continued to stonewall them. Dracht and Dragar had been hoping to glean more information than they had so far. The agents were being as stubborn as Christian.
Roman, he knew, was also disassociated from this situation. A Templar of some renown, Roman wouldn't be affected by the limitations Dracht and Dragar found themselves under. Namely, that Christian was one of the people in custody. Which brought an obvious question to light.
“You're not going to have him question Christian, are you?” Torture of his brother, no matter his crime, Dracht could not handle.
“I'm disappointed you even have to ask me that, Dracht. Of course not. But he will lean heavily on the agents. Either they'll break and spill everything, or we'll find out that they've been telling the truth all along. I can't wait any longer for them to get tired of sitting in a cell.” Dragar rarely showed the strain his position as head of the Templar Order put him in.
Just then, Dracht heard it in his voice, saw it in the creases at the sides of his father's mouth.
“I didn't think so,” Dracht admitted. “We're all tense and tired. Bringing Roman in is a good idea. I'm too close to this case.”
“We both are. I don't want to hand the reigns over to anyone else though because then we lose control of the situation. For now, we'll see what Roman gets from the agents. This also means you can take Alexandra away and I'll be escorting Minna day after tomorrow. Rhett's already got Evelyn in a secure location.”
Alexandra and Minna, Evelyn's sisters, had been lucky enough to escape the harrowing capture by the secret sect of Tem
plars working within their own organization. Genevieve and Galiana, two more sisters, had not been so blessed. Dracht still felt an uncomfortable shift inside when he recalled finding Genevieve hanging by her wrists in the subterranean room of a church. Her heart cut out, blood on the floor.
He was angry, too, that someone had taken her life that way. Men he'd called brother. Grown up with. Worked alongside. Men who'd deceived them all for years. Who'd kept secrets, sought the women behind their backs.
“All right. Sounds like we have things going in forward motion again. I'll go let Alexandra know we'll be leaving within the hour.” Dracht stood up and offered his hand across the desk to his father, meeting and holding his eyes.
Dragar stood up and clasped for a firm shake, nodding his head in agreement to something Dracht did not have to say aloud.
They both mourned Christian's decisions and understood that their lives would be forever changed by his actions.
Dracht exited the room and climbed the stairs with determination.
Roman would get more information from the agents than anyone else could. In the meantime, he meant to get Alexandra as far away from the stronghold as he could.
Chapter Two
Evelyn decided that Kineta, Greece, was a beautiful town. Back in their hotel room, she stood on the balcony overlooking the shoreline. Dots of white along the coastal area represented other hotels, small homes and businesses. With the onset of nightfall, lights started cropping up all over the city, giving the dark landscape a comfortable, lived in feel. This was not a thriving, pulse-pounding metropolis but a quaint, inviting shire.
A temperate breeze whipped the ends of her hair around her shoulders. One auburn strand caught across her mouth and she plucked it impatiently away. Summer was upon them, the heat waning in the evening this close to the water.
She curled her toes into the cool tile on the balcony floor, listening to Rhett moving around the room behind her. So much had happened in the short time she'd known him. He'd plucked her out of the hands of torturers, taken her on the run, brushed up her skill on how to shoot a gun. And then she'd shot him after she discovered his status as a Templar.
What irony.
At least it had only been a grazing wound on his shoulder. That's what she got for squeezing her eyes closed at the last second. A blessing in this situation. It had been one of the most terrifying moments of her life, shooting the one man she'd come to trust above all others.
“All right, I'll let Evelyn know,” Rhett said somewhere behind her in the room.
Evelyn twisted at the waist to observe him. Golden, from his mane of shoulder length hair to the color of his skin, he was a fine specimen of a man. Several inches over six feet, built broad across the shoulders and lean through the hips, he had a predatory edge about him that had attracted her from the start.
She wasn't used to men like Rhett. Most of her lovers in the past had been on the plain, almost dull side. Men who had little in common with her so she wouldn't be tempted to stay. It was easier in the end to choose ones she knew she wouldn't get too attached to.
Keeping them, falling in love, was something she'd always avoided. Immortality had its advantages. It also had its disadvantages. All of the men she dated would continue to age while she stayed the same. At some point in a long term relationship, they were bound to notice. Ask questions.
And questions of that nature were not encouraged or looked favorably upon. Evelyn couldn't confess what she was or where she was from. In the end, it had been easier to just avoid relationships longer than six months altogether.
Now she found herself in that situation with Rhett. Except she didn't want to hold back, didn't want to push him away and end it before their relationship really began.
“Let Evelyn know what?” she asked, coming into the room. Two queen beds sat against the right wall, a long dresser on the left. The furniture design was modern with an old world twist.
“That Dracht and Alexandra are on the move, finally. They were detained a couple days,” Rhett said, ending the call. He slid the phone onto the dresser and leaned against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest.
A favorite pose of his, she'd discovered.
After closing the french balcony doors, she crossed to one of two chairs at a small, round table and sat down. “But everything's okay? What about your father and Minna?”
“In another couple days, after they bring in someone distanced from the situation to interrogate the government agents, Dragar and Minna will leave. Everyone is doing well.”
“Are we going to stay here until then or move hotels?” she asked. Rhett had mentioned that he wanted to stay mobile when they'd first left the stronghold in Athens.
“I think we're safe to stay here another two days. If they find anything out, they'll call us.” Rhett pointedly looked at the other bed, then at her.
Evelyn refused to blush.
In Port Said, Egypt, the chemistry between them had finally hit a peak. He'd taken her with urgency and a primal kind of possession she wasn't used to. Rhett was an intense man, from his work ethic to his private affairs, and she hadn't been disappointed when it came through in his actions as a lover.
Since their arrival at the Kineta Bay Hotel, however, they had slept in separate beds. Even though they'd talked about the future, about what lie between them, there was still that newness to it all that kept them from falling into routine too quickly.
It wasn't that she hadn't wanted to sleep in his bed. She had. But she also didn't want to rush things, didn't want to get ahead of the budding thing building between them. They needed time to figure out all the dangers they faced, had to come to terms with the sudden changes life had thrown at them.
Evelyn liked the thought of nourishing a friendship. They needed a solid foundation and what better way than to build it from the ground up.
But what did she know? She'd never engaged in a long lasting anything with a man before.
Rhett crossed the room, still fully dressed, and angled across the far bed. Laying on his side, he propped his head in his hand, boots dangling off the edge of the mattress.
He was always leonine when he lounged. Like a great cat at ease. Evelyn regarded him with what she hoped was a neutral expression instead of the spark of desire he ignited inside her.
“So tell me what it's like,” he asked.
“What what's like?” Distracted, Evelyn didn't follow his train of thought.
“Eden. What's it really like?”
“Oh. It's bigger than you might think, with miles and miles of raw terrain, beautiful patches of forest, and lakes as blue as sapphires. All the colors there seem more vibrant somehow. The flowers, the green of the grass, the sunrises and sunsets. There are also plants and trees that you can't find anywhere else on earth. Stunning flora and fauna that were never replicated outside the Garden.” Evelyn spoke matter-of-factly about the place of her birth. She reminisced while she described it to him, trying to gauge his reactions and emotions. This was the first time she'd ever talked about Eden to anyone besides one of her sisters.
“It's like the paradise people refer to it, then?”
“Something like that, yes. Imagine the prettiest parks and meadows and lakes you've ever seen. There are huge valleys and deep cliffs. Times that by twenty or so and that's a good estimation of what it's like. There wasn't anything to spoil it back then, or even now. It's pristine and will remain that way even after the end.”
“The end of what?” he asked with an arched brow.
“What popular culture refers to as Armageddon. At least it's supposed to remain that way.” She watched his expressions, wondering what he thought about it all. Rhett could be difficult to read sometimes. It was probably part of his training. He didn't dismiss it out of hand, at least.
Rhett contemplated it for a long minute. And then he said, “I always figured the four horsemen were a metaphor or something.”
“Oh no. They are very much real.”
&nb
sp; “Have you met them?”
His question startled her. “...what? Of course not. If I'd met them, we'd have a lot more to worry about than a couple government agents on our tail.”
Rhett rumbled a laugh. He smoothed his fingers over the few days growth of whiskers on his jaw. “Then how do you know they exist?”
“Because we were told the stories when we were young. Well, some of us were young at the time. I think I was fourteen or so.” How strange it felt for her to be discussing this with him. She'd spent centuries cautiously avoiding the entire subject. There were certain things she could never tell him, no matter how close they became, but this particular part was acceptable to divulge.
“So they knew all the way back then that the world would eventually end?” he asked.
“I think it was decided the second Eve gave in to the temptation of the serpent. No one can be positive, but it's my best guess.”
“Why that particular moment?”
She studied the ceiling while she contemplated her reply. Over the back of the chair, her hair spilled halfway to the floor.
“If we pick apart the semantics, it was the first act of corruption. Perhaps that was always destined to be the downfall of man. Once it happened, then it would continue to happen and grow worse and more frequent. Like today. It's all around us.”
“I don't understand why thousands of years have been allowed to pass though without retribution. Or Armageddon,” he said.
Evelyn dropped her gaze to his face. “You mean, why didn't He just wipe us off the face of the earth right away? Probably because of a thing called hope. There was always a chance we would turn things around. Also, too, because it gives our souls a chance to learn. Maybe the next time, we won't make the same mistakes.”
“The next time? So you believe in reincarnation, then?” Rhett looked dubious.
“That's what it's been known as, but yes. It's not like you have just one shot at this state of consciousness. Your soul has been other places besides here.”
He rolled up to a sitting position, and then stood. The topic must have given him too much to think about, because he started pacing back and forth over the same five foot path in front of the dresser.
Daughters of Eve Collection (Books 1, 2 & 3) Page 26