First of all: I am so incredibly sorry, that I started writing and then abandoned this story! And I don't even know why, there's plenty more pages I simply have to upload!
Thanks a billion to all the lovely reviews! Hope you're still reading even after all this time and the new assassin in town bein Ezio and all... Either way, enjoy!
Chapter 3: Thunder
The wildest thoughts were starting to run through my head. How could I have been so stupid to trust a complete stranger who had threatened to kill me right before?
But the thoughts were quickly forgotten as I landed on a well cushioned surface that took the force from my fall most of it at least since I landed fairly ungracefully on my butt. I knew the pain that shot up my spine as I landed, recognizing it from when I fell off my horse. It would hurt a while, but was nothing serious.
I slowly tried to get up, brushing my clothes "clean" and almost jumped out of my skin when he touched the blindfold and started to undo the knot. Thinking about it I really hadn't noticed him jumping after me.
Still blinking, trying to take control of my blurred vision I took a look around.
We were in some kind of pavilion, cushions were laying on the floor, flowers made a rich and soothing atmosphere and a small fountain purled in the corner.
"Where am I?"
"It's a safe place. Those who will come looking for you wont find you here."
His voice was so calm, so controlled, almost neutral and was there an undertone of tenderness and care? And most of all he must have noticed me staring at him and met my eyes with the most amazing pair of hazel globes I'd ever seen.
The thanks and the many questions I would have liked to ask him were forgotten. Everything else, my brothers, home, even that I just met him were forgotten.
I was lost. If growing up means leaping from a steep cliff into unknown waters, the process being the stepping forward, he pushed me and pulled me down with him.
He was so close, so near I could feel his body heat, I even imagined that I could feel his heart and how its beating quickened. And then his lips were on mine, gently, tenderly but I could feel the thunderstorm that was behind all this. A thunderstorm that, once unleashed, would consume and erase everything else, leave nothing alive.
I didn't even know his name, and there was still the fact that he had been dead seriously threatening me. And none of it mattered as his soft lips burned, seared mine and he kissed me with such intensity that I felt like dying right there and then.
But like all perfect moments, this one barely came to last for someone came rushing in and halted abruptly as he spotted us.
"Alta... what is this?"
The intruder was a man in his 40's, simple but well dressed, rather small compared to him but a nice man to look at altogether. His face read something between disbelief, surprise and a great deal of suspicion. He bowed lightly to greet the man at my side only to go back to eying me suspiciously as if I were a blade with his name on it.
"Hasef, always a pleasure to meet you. I have someone you need to look after for a while."
"I can see that."
And with that he turned around and left the room.
"Stay here, I'll settle this."
He flashed me something that vaguely reminded me of an apologetic scowl, but despite his obvious inability to express feelings otherwise the message was received.
His face lightened up as I smiled and nodded before he went after Hasef.
I sunk onto the cushions. The softest surface I'd lain on since I left home had been straw . Usually I wouldn't care about things like comfort or a relaxing atmosphere, but right now it was exactly what I needed. Through a window I could more see than hear the two men fighting. First only one of them was yelling, now both were. And although I couldn't hear what they were arguing about, it was pretty obvious that my presence that was the problem.
I tried to remember the last time anyone fought about me, or for me. I've had men fighting over me before but that was less about me, than about the amount of money I would bring into a marriage. There was only one only one that had been different. His parents already were rich beyond sanity. But he had been so amazing Despite everything his parents made him do, fencing, fighting with bow and arrow (which he was still really good at), his true passion was music. He would write songs for me and sing them, break my heart with every tone. A single tear crept down my cheek, as usual when I came to think of him. Strange that all this felt like a lifetime away now.
Fortunately the two men re-entered the room and tore me out of my dark thoughts. Hasef, who looked really small next to the tall muscular man next to him, spoke in a hesitant low voice:
"You may stay here. My brothers and me will be watching over you from now on."
He spoke slowly and very well considered, he seemed like the kind to pick up on that I sometimes had difficulties understanding what people were talking about around me. I had been rather quick at adopting the natives' language, I had to be, since no one understood what I was talking about when I tried it with English or French, especially in the countryside. I was far from understanding everything.
The hooded man turned around and was about to climb the wall to get back on the rooftop.
"Where are you going?"
I had to ask him, after all he, the complete stranger was about to leave me to yet another stranger that he had yelled at mere seconds ago. He turned back towards me and I think I felt that it wasn't exactly the easiest thing for him to leave me right now. Or at least I imagined so.
Hasef slowly retreated.
"Hasef will take care of you from now on."
"And what about you?"
He looked at me for a long moment, his eyes piercing my soul, almost as if he were reading my thoughts like an open book.
"I have to find out more about the parchment. And why the Templars were trying to make you steal it."
"You don't trust me, am I not right?"
"I don't know you."
Undefyable logic.
"I don't even know your name. How would I know that Hasef wont kill me while I sleep?"
He broke eye contact for a moment and looked down at the floor.
"You wouldn't. But since you do not have any reason not to trust me either I suggest you merely do so. I doubt you have much of a choice either."
A slight undertone of arrogance had found its way into his voice. Dealing with complaining women did not seem like his favorite pasttime. Still. I was about to protest as he swiftly kissed me on the lips again. A small kiss, brief but yet so intense, it still burned on my lips as he climbed up the wall to the roof.
Sitting on the ledge, looking down at me he said:
"Call me Altair",
Before he disappeared.
I smiled silently, he sure knew how to make an entrance or in this case an exit, wasn't he a master manipulator? And he played me like a puppet. Oh stupid, stupid me.
Thanks a lot for reading! Seriously.
