Chapter Ten #3
Giselle cried out. Her head snapped to the side. Her hand went to her cheek. His chest heaved as he breathed deep, controlling the runaway fury inside him and the lust curling through his loins. The violence called to him. Already he was hard with wanting her. Damn her.
“Bastard,” she spat. “This isn’t the Middle Ages where women cower at your feet. I am half of this partnership and it’s you who better watch what you say.” She punctuated the “you” with a poke to his chest.
He grabbed her finger and squeezed. The small bone beneath his hand was no bigger than a fragile twig.
One he could easily snap. Giselle winced.
The blood drained from her face and still he didn’t release his bruising hold.
He hated being reminded of their “partnership.” He was tied to her against his will, forced to work with her.
Forced to fuck her because he had no control over a body that wanted her even though the mind did not.
He hated her and let the emotion burn bright in his eyes. He let her see the tempest of his fury and disgust.
He let go of her hand and she took a step back, momentarily nonplussed. Of course the reaction didn’t last. Nothing with Giselle did.
“So this is the way it is, Etienne? You are still enthralled with the wh—”
“Watch your words, Giselle. I’m warning you.”
Her mouth shut with an audible click, but fire burned in her gaze. The welt on her cheek turned bright red against her pale skin.
“Damn you,” she whispered. Tears pooled in her eyes but Lucheux was untouched by them.
She’d tried using tears in the past and he quickly learned that like him, she had no feelings other than her lust for power and her drive to become one of the horsemen of the Apocalypse.
A promise dangled before them in the fourteenth century.
Even now, seven hundred years later, Lucheux shuddered at the memory and broke into a cold sweat of that night that would forever be etched in his memory.
As a priest, he’d taken his vows of chastity lightly as had many other priests of that time.
In truth, he’d entered the brotherhood not for religious reasons but because he was the seventh son of a poor family with no possibility of rising to prominence.
His parents had sold him to the church. With no other path to follow, he’d taken his vows.
He quickly learned how to take advantage of his position.
His goal had been to become a cardinal with all the wealth and privilege it would earn him.
He rose through the ranks, using whomever he could to get what he wanted.
Giselle had seen his ruthlessness and he recognized the same in her. ’Twas natural for them to come together.
On the night he finally tumbled her in his bed, the…specter…approached them. Lucheux had no doubt the person—’twas really not a person but Lucheux could not describe the demon in any other way—was sent by Satan and he was terrified.
Looking back, he could now see why they had been chosen. A sense of greed, corruption, lust and no sense of compassion, Lucien and Giselle had been the perfect minions for Satan’s work.
They were told that if they found the treasure and broke the seals, they could become two of the four horsemen that would bring down the world. And in return they were granted immortal life. Lucheux hadn’t thought twice about taking the offer and neither had Giselle.
In the ensuing seven hundred years they’d thought of nothing else. Every conversation, every plan, every step they took was with one goal in mind. Find the treasure Chevalier hid during the fall of the Templars and break those seals.
He’d been convinced finding Madelaine’s look-alike had been the break they’d been looking for.
It was why his reaction to her was so disturbing. He shouldn’t want her when he had Giselle to use as he pleased, yet he did. He shouldn’t feel a need to possess Madelaine when the treasure was so close to being his, yet he did.
“I’ve never been enough, have I, Etienne? I’ve always been second to her.” Giselle leaned into him, brushing her breasts against his chest. His skin burned where the hard points of her nipples touched.
She rested her hand on his engorged crotch and nearly purred in satisfaction, not realizing his erection was for Madelaine. Her fingers closed over him, causing pain that made him gasp in pleasure. “She was never the one for you.”
No matter how hard he fought his body’s reaction to Giselle’s touch, it wouldn’t heed his commands.
He waged an internal battle against the hold she had on him, knowing it was useless.
He would succumb like he always did. And he hated her for it.
He wished with all his might that she’d never been present when the demon offered them the chance to be immortal.
He wished he’d killed her when he had the chance.
For seven hundred years he’d despised her and lusted after her.
“It’s always been me you’ve turned to, Etienne.
Always me.” She lifted up on her toes and brushed her lips against his.
Lucheux’s heart beat hard. His cock throbbed at the scent of Giselle and the knowledge of the release he’d find in her body.
No, she wasn’t Madelaine, but she was Giselle and, my God, how she played his body.
“Who’s been with you all these years?” Her breath fanned lightly across his face. Her hands skated over his chest and back. His body ached to be inside her, to find the release she promised in her voice, but he held back, still furious.
“Who’s been here for you, Etienne?” She bit his earlobe and he groaned, closing his eyes, feeling the sensations Giselle wanted him to feel and listening to her soft hypnotic voice.
“Etienne? Look at me.”
He opened his eyes, his gaze filled with Giselle’s timeless beauty, her gorgeous body pressed against his, moving sensuously until every nerve tingled with the awareness of her and with a need that roared through him, demanding satisfaction.
She cupped his face in her hands, her lips lifting on his in a carnal kiss that made him whimper. When she pulled back, her lips glistened. The imprint of his hand on her cheek called to him, demanding he imprint her in other ways.
“It’s always been me, Etienne. Always me,” she whispered softly. “Say it, Etienne. Say, ‘It’s always been you, Giselle.’”
His throat worked and the words escaped against his will. “Always you.” His voice came out harsh, guttural. He took her in a bruising kiss, swallowing her shout of triumph.