Knight of the Spear (Immortal Knights #1)

Chapter One—The Manuscript

One strong hand cradled her head as the Templar’s mouth softly brushed hers, teasing, tantalizing her into wanting to taste more of him.

His face was lost in shadows, but his hot breath grazed her cheek as he pulled her lower lip between his, nibbling lightly until she parted her lips and invited him in.

His tongue, warm and velvety, explored her mouth in a leisurely manner while his other hand deftly undid the buttons to her silk blouse.

Calloused fingertips were surprisingly gentle as he kneaded her breast and flicked a thumb across her nipple. It budded immediately.

With a sigh of pleasure, she let him lay her back against the bed, her dark hair fanning across the pillow. He tore off his white mantle with its square red cross and she savored the feel of his naked skin and the smooth, hard muscles of his arms and chest as he stretched out beside her.

He parted her shirt and trailed kisses down her throat to where her exposed, rounded mounds waited for him, nipples taut in anticipation. He lolled his tongue over one, causing her to gasp and then took it in his mouth and began to suckle, long and—

DANGER!

With a start, Sara Kincaid sat up in bed, glancing around wildly.

She was alone. And she’d dreamt of the Templar again.

Had been dreaming of him ever since the devastatingly handsome Lucas Ramsey came to work for her boss a short time ago.

Like she needed that kind of man in her life.

Loser Number Three’s betrayal still hurt.

She shook her head. There was no reason to dream of Templars anyway.

The medieval artifacts at the auction she’d attended must still be on her mind.

The private research she did for Mr. Smith concerned Celtic history, not warrior monks on Crusade.

So okay. She was attracted to the elusive Lucas and maybe seeing the Celtic cross pendant with its fleur-de-lei ends that he wore on a gold chain had influenced her imagination.

The mind was a powerful thing, as she well knew from the meditation and centering that was required before the Circle of the Sisterhood—she refused to call them a coven—performed a ritual.

Maybe the dream was a past life regression or something.

DANGER!

Her head snapped up, remnants of sleep gone.

Nim, the faerie who resided in her home, hovered anxiously in the air beside her.

To most humans, she would have been no more than a slight shimmer in the moonlight that splashed through the window, but Sara could see her delicate features, long pale hair and ivory gown.

The faerie’s gossamer wings beat rapidly, which meant she was highly agitated. Or scared.

Then Sara heard it. Just a slight swish, as if a curtain fluttered somewhere in the breeze. But her windows were all closed and securely locked.

Silently, she reached for the Smith and Wesson .38 that she kept on the floor below her bed. With all the wackos strung out on drugs these days, a single woman living in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro-mess couldn’t be too careful.

Another sound. A footfall? Was someone coming down the hall? She knew she’d thrown the deadbolt, and if someone had broken in, surely she would have awakened to the noise. It wasn’t like she had been in the throes of a climax…yet.

But there it was again. Closer this time.

She slipped out of bed and took the extra two pillows on her king-size bed and lumped them under the sheet.

Her quick gaze around the room spotted a hairpiece she occasionally wore on those occasions when she had to dress up and look somewhat elegant.

Quickly, she unpinned it from the mannequin’s head and laid it on the pillow.

Then she padded silently to the closet and stepped in, leaving the door slightly ajar so she could see.

She covered the hammer of the revolver with one hand and quietly cocked it.

She might not have time for the safety of a double-action gun.

The door to her bedroom swung open slowly. The man wore a ski mask, but he was tall and powerfully built, like a bouncer in some club. A gang thug? But what would they want with her? And he was moving too stealthily to be on drugs.

She held her breath as he neared the closet and wondered if the thumping of her heart could actually be heard.

The man stopped at the dresser and started rifling the drawers, tossing delicate, lacy panties and bras on the floor.

Not finding anything, he glanced at the closet.

Sara stopped breathing and readied the gun.

But he moved past her to the armoire and opened its drawers. More clothing went flying to the floor and then he gave a grunt. He’d found her leather portfolio at the bottom of the case. Opening it, he shuffled the papers, apparently satisfied that they were all there.

He tucked the bag under his arm and started out. At the door, he paused and turned around and Sara saw that he, too, was armed. The gun was an automatic—probably a 9mm; those seemed so popular with criminals—and it had a wicked-looking silencer on the barrel.

The man lifted the gun and fired at the bed. Bing. Bing. Bing. So soft. So deadly. And then he was gone.

She heard the door click closed and sank to the floor of the closet before her trembling legs gave out entirely. Someone had just tried to kill her to get the manuscript.

So it was that important after all. She almost smiled and then felt a bubble of hysteria rising in her throat. Smiling when there were blackened holes in her bed? Where her body might have been?

The manuscript itself was safe, of course, locked in concrete vaults beneath her boss’s mansion.

What she had was a copy, and she had been careful to put that in her wall safe when she came home earlier.

The only thing the thief got were some notes she’d been making on the possibility of the Celtic queen, Gwenhwyfar, having been a Pict.

A totally different project for her boss.

But her life was still in danger. Would the thief be back once he found out he had basically worthless stuff? Or when whoever had tried to murder her saw her alive?

She walked to the dresser and looked in the mirror. Her blue eyes were so dilated they looked almost black. Her hand shook a little as she picked up the phone. Then, slowly, she put it down.

She couldn’t call the police. Her eccentric boss was funny about stuff like that.

Probably because not all of the medieval artifacts he collected were reputably gotten.

That’s what the vaults were for, although she had never been inside some of them.

Mr. Smith fastidiously avoided the police as Howard Hughes had done regarding germs and the media.

Sometimes she thought she should return to running the temp agency she owned, or maybe go back to being an adjunct for the class in medieval folklore at the local community college.

Life had been safe before Mr. Smith had discovered her at a weekend workshop on sacred relics that had never been found.

But then she wouldn’t have seen the manuscript.

****

Several weeks earlier…

Sara handed the ivory embossed invitation to the security guard at the entrance to Sotheby’s and pulled the collar of her lightweight jacket closer.

As pleasant as it was to get away from an unseasonably warm Texas spring, the damp morning air of London gave her a slight chill.

But hey! She was in England! Her first trip and expenses paid. She couldn’t beat that.

She craned her neck to look around. Walking down New Bond Street and seeing all of the world’s great jewelry stores—DeBeers, Cartier, the interesting Folli Follie, Tavenier’s—had left her awestruck and she almost missed her turn onto Conduit Street and the fabled auction house.

But her boss hadn’t paid her to buy jewelry. She was here to bid on an ancient Gaelic manuscript that had come up on Mr. Smith’s database. The teasing lead-in had hinted that the paper might hold a clue to the whereabouts of the Holy Grail, and her employer had been hooked.

John Smith—she grinned at the name since he was one of the richest men in the Dallas-Fort Worth area but insisted on hiding his identity in the art collector’s world—had a penchant for anything that linked itself to the Arthurian legends.

His home was a literal museum of swords and shields and chalices and the Goddess only knew what he had hidden in the concrete vaults below his mansion.

She had been working on her own computer in his home when he’d emitted a strange squawk and staggered from his office, a well-manicured hand clenched dramatically to his throat.

“You’ll never believe what I’ve found,” he said breathlessly, his voice pitched even higher than usual. “You’ll just never guess!”

Sara refrained from rolling her eyes. Her boss was given to theatrics, having had a bit part in an off-Broadway play in his younger years.

Short, plump and too average-looking to tempt any film producers, he contented himself with capturing audiences in his home.

And, since the first love of Sara’s life had run off to Hollywood after taking $5000 from her, she wasn’t inclined to like actors.

“What?”

“The Grail!” He nearly danced as he minced steps toward her and clapped his hands. “The Holy Grail. There’s a possible map in a manuscript that’s been found. Oh, I must have it!”

And so, here she was.