Arucard (Brethren Origins Book 1) Read Online Free

only her father and brother as kin, she had tried and failed to form spiritual bonds with those who should champion and protect her.  Instead, her sibling had become her worst tormentor, second only to her sire.  But perchance they had finally forged a connection, however late, and she should rejoice.
    “I see her in thee.”  For a scarce second, he studied her with a softness she had never glimpsed in him.  Then his posture stiffened, his expression sobered, and she quivered, as she knew well what would happen next.  “Thou art the reason she is gone.”  When he stood and unhooked his belt, Isolde’s spirits plummeted.  “Now take off thy tunic, kneel on the floor, and let me give thee a wedding gift, that thou might remember me after thou hast departed this house and art no longer subject to my control.”
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    So much had changed in so little time, and in some ways his tiny stone cell had offered a measure of security he now lacked.  In one minute, Arucard was locked in White Tower and a prisoner of the King, and thither was no uncertainty in the four stone walls that defined his world, as well as his limitations.  In the next instant, he wore the insignia of a knight of the realm, he enjoyed the Crown’s favor, and he was betrothed, and thither was naught certain about any of the accompanying responsibilities, as freedom could be a double-edged sword.  It was the last aspect of his newfound status that gave him the most concern and left him wondering if it might have been easier to burn at the stake, because he bore a specific stigma as a cross, and he knew not how to resolve the flaw in his character prior to his wedding.
    Telling himself thither was naught wrong with a thirty-two-year-old-virgin, Arucard decided he had no worries—unless, of course, he was the virgin in question.  As a Templar Knight, he had no interest in or use for women.  In fact, he had taken a vow of celibacy on the same day he joined the order, because only the most chaste knights could ascend to the glorious hereafter.  But the Templars were no more, and his tenuous position in England necessitated a marriage to protect those for whom he was accountable and to prove his loyalty to King Edward.
    And as he suspected, it had been five years since he fled the Continent with his fellow warriors of the Crusades.  Five years since the Templars had been hunted, tortured, and killed during Philip the Fair’s Inquisition.  Of an estimated two thousand knights, only five persisted, as far as he knew.  Five Templar mariners—all remained wanted men by the king of France.
    The mantle in his grasp bore the familiar red cross centered on a field of white and matched the modest, unadorned cloak that was the standard attire of his once great knighthood.  How he had worn the uniform with pride, how he had cared for the pristine fabric as though it were a second skin.  In a sense, it had been a part of him, a part of his identity, every bit as much as his own flesh.  Yet it could define him no longer.  With a flick of his wrist, he sent the garb to join the other clothing that burned brightly in the fire.
    After a healthy gulp of ale, which he needed, he studied the badge of the Brethren of the Coast, the fledgling order formed by his new master, a price paid to accommodate the fighting men without a home.  The seal, fashioned of gold, featured a wind-star design, a large blue diamond at the center, and the Latin phrase Nulli Secundus , Second to None, as was their motto.
    The bejeweled piece was similar to his current uniform in its splendor.  His fur-lined cloak and rich blue mantle festooned, haphazardly, with gold braids violated the tenets by which he had long existed.  As a Templar, he had been taught that unnecessary excess led to immorality.  While he understood that his survival in a foreign land, his allegiance to a foreign king, and his union to a creature, who for all intents and purposes was foreign to him outside the