Free Deviant Knights by Alexandra O'Hurley Page A

to
drift.
    Michel rubbed his face, trying to wake himself
up.   It had been much too long since he’d
had to survive on short dozes to tide him over.   Once a battled hardened soldier, able to ride without sleep for days,
he’d become soft.  
    Soft men died.  
    Painfully.  
    He could no longer take his existence for
granted.   Kadence was proof that the unknown still lingered on the fray, ready to pounce at any
moment, when they least expected it.
    And because of that unknown, she was still a
fire in his blood.   He was in a constant
state of arousal when she was near.   It
had been two hours since his release in the last train, and still he ached to
thrust inside her welcoming heat.   The
strain of holding back had overcome him and he’d spent like a schoolboy,
bursting from his own hand.   He felt
shame that she’d seen that.   But he
refused to touch her until they determined what she was and how she fit in
their equation.
     
     

Chapter Nine
     
    Kadence walked between the two men, hopping out of one train, bound for
another.   Days had blurred together, her
body so stiff and sore from the trip that she couldn’t wait to arrive in
Monaco
.   This would be their last leg.   Michel had promised this ride would be less
than thirty minutes, from Nice to
St.
Michel
,
Monaco
.
    Once they settled into the next train, she
relaxed as best she could and tried to rest.   Who knew what would come next.   She’d better sleep when she could.
    She’d seen glimpses of the
Mediterranean
on their trip thus far, and she couldn’t stop imagining lounging on the beach,
soaking up sun, and forgetting the hell of the past three days that had felt
more like three weeks.   She closed her
eyes and envisioned that scene.   Smiling
to herself, she could almost hear the surf lapping at the beach, gulls
screeching overhead, could almost feel the radiant heat sweltering from above.
    And knew it would not be.
    These men had opened her eyes to a world she’d
had no idea existed.   She would forever
be looking over her shoulder, seeking the evil around her, and waiting for it
to attack.   Beheadings and evil children
were already invading her dreams.   What
she wouldn’t give to go back in time.   Would she refuse the dinner invitation, knowing what she knew now?
    Yes, they’d both given her pleasure, but at what
cost?
    She would never have the life she’d once
had.   Struggle or no, it had been easy,
compared to what the future looked like from this vantage point.   Kadence drifted to
sleep wishing she’d never seen Gabriel’s face.
    ****
      The
train came to a halt in their final station and Michel let out a small
hiss.   They’d made it to
Monte Carlo
.   Air thick with tension, they rose in silence
and began to file out of the train.   Questions had been plaguing them all, the heavy possibilities gnawing on
them almost as much as the prospect of being followed by the Illuminati.   The dual fears had eaten away at him.
    Adding in the lust he felt and fought—unsuccessfully—his
nerves were fraught.   His mind told him
to use caution.   His body told him the
opposite.   And the more time they’d spent
with her on the train, the more he sensed she bore them no evil intent.   But his long years had taught him that trust was
not something handed over easily.
    He’d trusted once, a long time ago.
    A beautiful woman who’d captured his heart.   Who’d then only stabbed him in that same
organ with her guile and deceit.   It had
been so long ago, in another time, another place.   But the scars were deep and he remembered it
all like it was yesterday, not five hundred years before.   Since his Paloma had betrayed him, he’d never held another close to his heart, using women for
their bodies until he grew bored and moved on.
    Not that it was often, but he’d had passions to
slake over the long, lonely years.   After
all she’d done to him, watching her with her lover, as that lover had