He laughed.
She straightened her shoulders.“What has become of you, Lucheux?It never bothered you to hurt her in the past.”
His fury leapt from him.In a red haze he rounded the desk and grabbed Giselle’s shoulders.Her eyes widened in shock and fear.“You watch your mouth.”He punctuated each word with a shake to her shoulders until her head wobbled.For a wild moment he thought about snapping her neck.It would be so easy.Just a slight pressure.But it would do no good.None of them could die.Or at least not die so easily.
He was stuck with her for the rest of eternity.
He dropped his hands from her shoulders and stepped back.The red haze clouding his vision slowly dissipated.Giselle stared up at him, a mixture of anger and fear in her expression.
He ran a hand down his face and turned away, disgusted with himself and her.
“My God, Giselle, do you realize what you have done?”
“What needed to be done, because you are doing nothing.You’re so besotted by her you can’t think straight.”
He shook his head, but he didn’t know what he was denying.Giselle’s words?Could he in good faith say she was wrong?He thought he would do anything to see Chevalier destroyed.He hated Chevalier with a passion transcending everything else.When he found the woman who looked like Chevalier’s love, he knew he’d discovered the perfect weapon to bring Chevalier to his knees and to possibly free the treasure and receive the gift he’d been promised centuries ago.But when he heard Madelaine had been hurt, he’d felt sick.
He, a man destined for chaos and destruction, quivered over the thought of a woman harmed.’Twas beyond intolerable.
Giselle stepped in front of him, her eyes snapping with anger.“You follow her.You obsess over her.It’s as if she has the same power over you she had before.”
His control snapped.He swung his fist.At the last minute he opened his hand and slapped her.
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’syouwho 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 toher.” Giselle leaned into him, brushing her breasts against his chest.His skin burned where the hard points of her nipples touched.
