Seraphim. Michele Hauf

She looked to him and he gestured to her mouth. “Chew their lips.”

      She released hold of her lip. Baldwin noticed that what had once been plump pink mounds to tempt every man’s dreams of passion were now cracked and dry. Winter and the stress of battle had taken a toll on this precious angel.

      Dominique had been right at guessing she was ill. But ’twas not a physical malady that darkened her eyes, but a ghost of weeks ago. A ghost that clung to her with horrid memories of the first night of the New Year.

      “We must be rid of him.”

      “Sera, you mean—” Baldwin sliced a hand across his throat in horrific display.

      “It is the only way.” She gripped her sword hilt and slithed the blade in and out of the steel scabbard. “I must take him out before he assassinates the black knight.”

      What could they possibly be discussing beneath the skeletal bower of birch branches? Dominique unwrapped the leather reins from around his gauntlet, then draped them between his thumb and forefinger. Perhaps he should skrit over there?—a series of movements so agile and quick, not even an ultra-alert deer could sense his presence.

      No. He wrapped the reins tight again. He didn’t have time for tricks. Much as he had enjoyed conversing with the squire for the past few hours, he highly doubted the other would suddenly be gifted with the urge to speak any more than a few mumbles.

      Though, the twosome were involved in a very animated conversation at the moment.

      Hmm… Were his suspicions true? Could they possibly know something about the black knight? Mention of the mythical knight had been what set d’Ange into a sudden flurry of motion.

      Dominique pricked his ears. He could not hear them talking from here. The only audible sound was Tor’s bursts of breath through gray velvet nostrils, and the press of the beast’s heavy hooves into the snow-packed ground. And Dominique’s own tense breathing.

      Just ride, his conscience implored. You do not require conversation. Ride on to Creil and locate the black knight. End your own search for answers that much quicker.

      Easier to think than to actually do.

      Creil was a good-sized village, set apart from the imposing walls of Abaddon’s fortified battlements. Would the black knight be so foolish to just ride in to Creil, all glorious black armor and sword held high? The de Mortes had to be fully aware of who, or what, had taken down the first two brothers.

      No, if the man had any sense to him at all—and Dominique highly questioned that for the brazen acts of riding into battle and felling two of France’s most notorious villains—surely he would lie low. A sneak attack this time. There were no rumors of a siege on Abaddon’s part. Dominique had not been alerted to such. And he would know as soon as the idea had birthed in the de Morte camp. For the Oracle was a relentless visitor.

      It was decided. He would be off. Those two could offer no information that would help Dominique. He suspected something sinister between the squire who claimed to be a postulant and his mysterious partner. But that was of a personal nature; it did not concern him.

      “San Juste! Dismount!”

      Dominique jumped at the sound of the rasping command, which set Tor to a nervous stamp.

      “Is there a problem?” Dominique wondered, as he slid from Tor’s back and his boots crunched upon the hard-packed trail. A glance to his heels reassured he’d not exposed himself with a cloud of telltale coruscation.

      “Yes, there is a problem,” d’Ange announced. He paced before Dominique, his scaled black gauntlet working around his sword hilt. “But it shall be solved soon enough. Bertram!”

      D’Ange’s sword was drawn in a sing of steel. Dominique was fleetingly aware that the squire led Tor away from him and d’Ange. The instinct to unsheathe his own sword worked the action before he realized he stood at the ready to defend himself.

      Defend himself?

      “What say you this problem?” Dominique barked. “Is it me?”

      “Indeed.” D’Ange stalked the ground before him, carefully measuring his strides as each step closed him in to Dominique. “You seek the black knight?”

      With a simple reply clinging to his tongue, Dominique bent to dodge the sweep of d’Ange’s broadsword. A quick riposte brought the blade of finely tempered steel back his way. Had Dominique not stepped back his head would be rolling toward Tor’s hooves.

      “I,” Antoine d’Ange rasped, “am the black knight.”

      “You?”

      Seeing his challenger’s overhead hammer-drop slash toward him, Dominique swung his blade to the left, caught the tip in his gloved hand, and thrust it above his head to block the blow. The jar of contact rippled through his bones and shuddered to his feet.

      Morgana’s blood, but the man had a powerful thrust!

      But what the man had just announced. It could not be. Him, the black knight? Not this man, this—gangly excuse for a man. Especially a man he suspected to be something entirely different, at least regarding his sexual nature. Certainly not the type to become a knight, let alone, the legendary black knight.

      Though he did have strength…

      Drawing his sword arm down, Dominique’s blade slashed over the chain mail tunic that clung loosely to d’Ange’s lithe torso. The hindrance of the tightly meshed rings stymied his intentions and his sword merely slipped, steel over steel.

      “Careful!” Baldwin yelled from where he stood by the trio of horses.

      Dominique figured ’twas not he for whom the squire was concerned. But should the man not have more faith in his master?

      There was something very odd about his opponent. Dominique could feel it through to his bones. And it was not that he suspected the knight and squire shared the same bed. Indeed, the man’s effeminate mannerisms in the tavern returned to thought now. So delicately he’d held his meat…with slender hands…

      By all that is sacred—could he be?

      “Why do you seek to stop the man who wishes to aid you in your efforts?” Dominique yelled. He ducked. Another slash of steel whooshed over his head.

      “Aid me? Is that what you call murder then?”

      “Murder? I no more wish to murder you than I wish my own heart to cease beating. Which it yet may if you are successful in this twisted attack. Cease, man! I surrender.”

      “There is no surrender but death!”

      The heavy blade of his opponent’s steel skimmed Dominique’s thigh. Pain-heat pinged and shivered in his serrated flesh. The blade had sliced through his leather braies.

      Still the attack did not cease. “Did you hear me? I don’t wish you harm. I’ve been sent by a higher power to ensure the black knight succeeds in exterminating the de Morte clan.”

      This time the angry d’Ange heard. He tried to stop a forceful swing, but the sword pulled him forward, and he had to jab the tip into the snow to break his attack. “A higher power? You speak insanity.”

      “You think I am Lucifer de Morte’s mercenary?”

      “Can you prove otherwise?”

      “Nay.” What did the man require? A letter de cachet? The sacrifice of his head? “I do not work for the devil. How dare you? I was called to serve the black knight by one who wishes him success. It is your puny hide I’ve been sent to protect. And I see now why I was needed.”

      “A higher power—” Antoine d’Ange spat out. He paused, huffing in exertion “—has sent you to see the de Mortes are murdered?”

      “I have been instructed not to interfere in your quest, only to navigate and to provide protection on your journey from one de Morte