FOREVER KNIGHTS: #6 Malevolent Attentions

Swallowing hard he fought the memory of so many centuries ago when she’d gripped his hand so tight, she shook. Whispering to him.

She looked so frightened. And all I’d wanted was to hold her until that look faded.

“Do whatever it takes. Make me love you. Then let me remember all the painful things. Don’t think to be kind and make me suffer without you. I’d hate you forever for that.” She promised. Big blue eyes holding a hint of hardness.

She meant it.

Then she’d handed me the book. Hours upon hours he’d watched her painstakingly engraving it.

He’d asked her. “Why did you want that old leather volume?”

She tossed a startled look over her slender shoulder. “To write in it.”

She’d asked him for it in the shop, and as always, he could deny her nothing. He hadn’t hesitated to purchase it for her when she turned those eyes on him.

After so many lifetimes, it’s become heavy with the ink she’s poured into it.

“This is what I remember so far.” She offered it to him as he sat next to the fire. Lowering to her knees at his feet and resting her head on his knee while he began the process of reading so many pages.

“Help me remember the rest?” She asked. From the intensity in her voice he knew she spoke of past lives they’d shared.

Brows drawn together he warned. “They’re painful.”

“I don’t care. I want to log them. All of them. To remember.”

After a long study, he’d finally relented. Pulling her up to her knees to hug her close. In the dancing firelight, he kissed her tenderly. Moving to join her on the floor. Scrupulously recreating those lives on parchment. Smudging dark ink all over the fireplace fur as they chronicled each happy and sorrowful moment they could recall.

She insisted he give the book to her in each new life and help her add the details of the last.

Then I had Acharius make the two duplicates so it can never be lost. He sighed. Drug back to the present as he watched the ground disappearing under him.

It never ceased to amaze him how much he could miss her. Every graceful movement in the firelight. Lush lips moving as she spoke softly to him before turning up in a soft smile as she grew sleepy when he told her tales of his immortal adventures.

It’s agonizing to remember her wrapped in my arms. The smell of her breath on his face. The texture of her collar, neck and the warmth of her slender arms wrapping his shoulders and back as she reached to embrace him.

Groaning, he forced his thoughts another direction. For decades I’ve done as she wished. What if it’s too much for her in this one?

She’s suffered so much already...Sighing he pushed cold memories aside.

He found Bast in the orange grove. The black panther rose in greeting but Deragan immediately sensed he was uneasy.

“What’s wrong?” Ducking a branch Deragan approached.

Molding into human skin. Bast answered. “Cimmerii were here.”

“Where’d they go?”

“I got them.”

“But not before they saw her here?” Deragan finished.

“They followed her.”

Deragan swore. “Were any of them hurt?”

“No. But I had to scare the life out of them to get them inside.” Bast’s voice was apologetic.

“Better scared than dead.”

Heading for the house, Deragan shifted in his wolf.

Rummaging through the food, William was oblivious to Nora’s deep shock at the revelation his questions had delivered.

Equally so, Marcus pulled through his suitcase to tug out a clean lawn shirt.

Watching dumbly, she only blinked as he switched shirts. Carefully pulling off the blood soaked one, he used it to mop the remaining fluid from his forehead and dribbling down his cheek.

“Marcus, you’re still bleeding.” She said worriedly.

William came down the stairs behind her and picked up the candle which had, fortunately, landed on the step right side up. He leant it back to her.

“It’s okay, Nore.” He finished wiping his face. “Cleanup is nothing new to us.”

“Don’t worry about them.” Airon patted her head. “Their tough cookies.”

William walked over to inspect his brother’s wounds. “We’ve endured enough injuries we’re well-equipped to administer our own care.” He half smiled.

Marcus nodded at her.

“Damn your hot tempers!” She huffed.

“Ssh.” Marcus put a finger to his lips reprimandingly. “The children.”

He pointed. Quoting what she often said about his profanity.