A sob rushed through her, shaking her body and breaking the numbing paralysis.
She clung to Christien, fisting her hands on his bare chest.Giselle’s face loomed in front of her, her eyes furious.Lainie cringed from the image and Christien pulled her tightly to him.But even Christien’s strong arms would never dispel the image of what happened in that forest.
She pulled away from Christien.“She was strangled.That’s how she died, isn’t it?”
“Strangled?By Lucien?”
“Not Lucien.In my dream it was Giselle, but that can’t be right.”
“Giselle?”he whispered.
“Of course it wasn’t Giselle.”Lainie ran a hand through her tangled hair and laughed, but the laugh was weak.“I’ve been thinking about my project at work and my mind probably stuck Giselle in my dream.”
“Are you sure it was her?”
“I’m sure Idreamtit was her, but she wasn’t the one who killed Madelaine.That would make her something like seven hundred years old or reincarnated.Like me.”She tried to infuse some levity into her voice, making a joke out of something not all that funny, but it failed miserably.Instead her voice wobbled and the statement came out more a question.But Christien didn’t seem to be listening.
“Tell me everything.Everything you saw in your dream,” he said.
Her mind shied from the visions that wouldn’t let her go.She didn’t want to relive Madelaine’s fear and grief.Nor her death or terrifying things Lucien said to her at the end.Already her heart was galloping, as if she really had run through the forest.She heard the baying dogs, her ragged breaths, the swish of her skirts through the underbrush.Like her other dreams, this one was so real she felt as if she’d been there.
“I’m sorry,ma chérie,but I need you to tell me.It’s important.”
She took a deep breath and clutched Christien’s hand like it was her last tie to this earth.“They were so sure Lucien would go after Madelaine, and he did, but not in the way they thought.”
Christien and Madelaine hadn’t died together.They never found their happiness.Stupid of her to think they would when so much had been stacked against them.But she’d hoped.She’d really hoped.
“She’d discovered she was pregnant with the count’s baby.”
Christien’s fingers flexed in hers and he drew in a sharp breath.
“She went to the garden, to the spot where she met Christien that one night.Lucien was there.He was talking to…” She frowned.“A woman.A woman who looked like Giselle.She heard them talking about King Philip and a letter he’d sent telling the king that Simon of Flandres was sympathetic to the Templar’s cause and he was trying to free the Grand Master.”
Christien didn’t move.He barely even breathed.“What happened?”
“I ran away.I was scared.”The words came faster.Her chest heaved with the effort to slow them down.She barely realized she was speaking in the first person.“So I ran.”
Christien rubbed his thumb along the top of her hand, back and forth, anchoring her.
“Lucien and…Giselle followed.They had an argument.Lucien claimed…” She couldn’t even speak the blasphemous things Lucien had said to her.The ravings of a madman.That was all it was.
“Tell me, Madelaine.I need to know.”
She took a deep breath and looked into Christien’s eyes.“He told me he had to steal the Templar treasure.He said if he broke the seals then he would have the power of one of the four horsemen.”
Madelaine’s terror came rushing back but Lainie wasn’t sure it was Madelaine’s anymore.It felt all too real when she thought of the books on Christien’s bookshelf that referred to the Book of Revelation.
“What happened next?”he asked urgently.
Lainie brushed the tears off her face.“Giselle was furious.She hit Lucien with a tree branch and knocked him out.Then she strangled… She killed Madelaine.”
She cried, deep sobs that robbed her of breath and shook her body.Christien held her, rocked her, rubbed her back and murmured soothing words until the tears subsided and she pulled away.
“I think I knew she wasn’t going to live long.It’s just…” She dragged in a deep breath.“It still shocked me.”She tried to pull herself together, to stop the endless tears, to stifle the clawing fear.“What is this all about, Christien?Why would Lucien think he could break the seals and become a horseman?”
Christien stood and pulled her up with him.“Come, Madelaine, let’s get dressed.There is something you must see.”
“Now?”She looked out the window where the dark sky was slowly turning a deep purple.A new day dawning, yet Lainie felt as if it were the end rather than another beginning.
