Title: Knight Life

Author: Luna

Feedback: Loved and appreciated…send it to ambersgrrl@yahoo.com

Archive: Luna’s Night Moves, Tainted Fiction, and Full Moon Romper Room…anyone else, please, just ask.

Fandom: Ring of Honor/TNA/Wrestling

Rating: NC-17 (What else would you expect from me?)

Type: Fantasy

Pairings: Too many to list…just read to find out who’s with whom.

Disclaimer: I have not now nor have I ever been associated with Ring of Honor or TNA.  All the characters that you recognize belong to Ring of Honor, TNA, or themselves with the exception of the ones I’ve created.  Nothing is being gained from this except a need to pass the time.

Summary: They’re tired of being lonely wandering from town to town and living for centuries in the company of their chosen brethren.  Now they’re going to do something about it.  Will fate play kindly with them or will they be left in misery?

Author’s Note: This is going to be slightly AU and I will be arranging things/facts as I see fit.  Please people, if that bothers you do us both a favor and STOP READING NOW!!!

Anything else: Many thanks need to go to my loving sister who held my hand as I worked out the kinks in this idea.  My other sister, the one god forgot to give me at birth, much love goes out to her for her most excellent beta work and all the time she spends holding my hand.  You girls ROCK!!!!

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Chapter Five

 

Lance couldn’t tear his eyes away from the brunette.  He knew he was staring but couldn’t seem to stop no matter how hard he tried.  She was so animated so alive that he hated to look away even for a moment.  Wouldn’t his friends get a kick out of seeing him act like some sort of love sick youth in the midst of his first crush.

 

Tearing his sapphire gaze away was harder than it should have been.  He had come across his share of attractive women but none affected him as deeply as she did.  He wanted to blame it on a severe lack of feminine company but knew that to be as false as the thought that vampires were truly immortal.

 

With a sigh he leaned back in his chair consciously keeping his gaze off the young woman.  A small smile pulled at the corners of his mouth as he watched Mya and Ki interact.  The young man was so aloof at times that he feared that he might do something drastic.  He was never sure what exactly Ki might do.  It was just a gut feeling but the towering man had learned to listen to that little voice. 

 

It was never openly discussed though they all believed the smaller man was very unhappy with this life.  The same could actually be said for any of them.  None of them would have chosen this path had they been given the option.  Daniels, the oldest of them, seemed at times to despise this existence as well.  His wisdom and seemingly calm acceptance of his fate had been tempered by time and he influenced the rest of them.  He was the one all of them looked to if there was a problem or they needed guidance.

 

Hoyt once again found his eyes wandering over to the brunette.  He had to fight to keep his face neutral.  It wasn’t Martina’s fault that he had difficulty controlling the direction of his gaze.  She offered him a sympathetic smile as if she could read his thoughts.  He briefly considered the notion that she might actually be able to; after all there was more to this life than met the eye.  He was living proof of that.

 

Lifting the glass to his lips he took a long swallow of the bitter brew.  What he wouldn’t give for some good old-fashioned ale.  The crap they churned out now could hardly hold a candle to the carefully crafted blend he had been raised on.  Sighing he set the glass back down on the table his eyes staring intently at the swirling amber liquid.  He remembered another night so long ago that he had almost forgotten about it…or was it only that he hoped he had.

 

A thin haze had filled the room a combination of wood smoke from the fireplace and various patrons smoking pipes.  The tavern was unbearably hot that late summer night.  Even though the sun had long ago surrendered to the inconstant moon the golden orb’s stifling rays could still be felt.

 

He had taken his usual seat in the darkest corner away from the infrequent travelers and random drunkards that seemed to inhabit these establishments.   Eloise a busty redheaded serving wench had brought a tankard of his favorite ale.  She wasn’t conventionally beautiful but there was just something about her that drew men to her like moths to a flame.  Her smile was a warm and welcoming one that even a long day’s work couldn’t diminish.  Thanking her with his own devilish grin he raised the mug toward her before taking a swallow.

 

The encounter stood out only because once the young woman was once again about her business he had gone back to his usual habit of brooding.  His sapphire gaze stared down at the swirling amber liquid, as he thought again about how he’d come to be here.

 

As the bastard offspring of a nobleman life had never been easy for him and it had only gotten worse when he’d been sold off to the same man that sired him as a whipping boy for the “true” heir.  He had all the manners and sophistication without any of the opportunities to use them.

 

He sighed deeply raising the tankard once again to his lips.  He hadn’t been expected to make it out of puberty and there were times when he wished he hadn’t.  However he had decided early on that he would one day be his own man.  He would owe no allegiance to anyone but himself and he couldn’t do that if he had given up.

 

When he had outlived his usefulness the family had given him a hefty sum and tossed him out of the grand house with only the clothes on his back.  That was fine though; he now had more money than he knew what to do with.

 

The only problem had been that no one was willing to accept him.  He was neither a commoner nor a noble and neither wanted anything to do with him.  It had frustrated him to the end of his limits.  In desperation he had traversed the small but treacherous channel to build a new life.

 

It hadn’t been easy but experience had taught him anything worth having was worth working for.  Slowly he had begun to feel like his life had taken on some sort of meaning.  He employed half the town’s men to tend the fields and a handful of women to keep his house in order.

 

His home wasn’t grand like he had been used to during his formative years but it was a sight better than the most.  Having only three stories the building wasn’t all that impressive but the interior betrayed his longing for things he could never have.  It was furnished in a fashion that spoke both of wealth and a down to earth practicality.

 

Lance had put in long hours often going without eating to make sure that he was never in debt.  There were times when he was sure that he had endeavored on a fool’s errand.  In the end it had been worth every convenience that he had gone without because he was building a name for himself.  A name that would command the respect he often felt he deserved.

 

He was brought out of his musings by the sound of a cultured feminine voice at his elbow.  She held herself stiffly as if she were afraid she was going to catch something fatal.  The woman had her back to him but the cut of her dress and the elaborate arrangement of her blonde locks told him she was one of the elite.  He snorted his derision into his tankard wondering where her escort had wandered off to.

 

She whirled to face him her mouth open to deliver a scathing set down that stuck in her throat when she saw him.  Her lips compressed into a tight line of disapproval.  “How can someone of your breeding condone this,” she asked her small hand sweeping the room and a fight that until then had gone unnoticed by him.

 

“Madame, it is because of my breeding that I will not be the one to cast the first stone,” he informed her tightly.

 

Her lips formed an O of surprise as her cheeks visibly reddened.  “I didn’t realize…” she began her embarrassment at having committed a faux pas readily apparent.

 

“Most don’t,” he informed her coolly taking another drink.

 

 She took an empty seat across from him looking away at his raised eyebrows.

 

It was a forward move one he wouldn’t have expected from someone of her obvious breeding.  As much as he would like to have denied it, it intrigued him.  He wanted to ask where he chaperone was as no lady would be caught out in public without one.  He didn’t though; there was something about her that made him throw caution to the wind.

 

Despite their inauspicious beginning by the end of the evening the two were getting along like old friends.  Hoyt knew that he was well into his cups and figured she wasn’t in much better condition.  Blindly the two had stumbled along the road back to his modest abode.

 

He had no idea how they had made it home that night.  Someone somewhere had to have been watching over, blessing or cursing him he couldn’t tell.    It was also a mystery to him how the proper lady he had conversed with all evening had turned into such a wanton woman once behind closed doors.  He was not going to question his good fortune.

 

Clothes had been hurriedly stripped and promptly left wherever they fell.  They had fallen into bed in a tangle of limbs.  Then it began to get fuzzy for Lance.  The only clear memory he had after that was blinding pain and the first coppery metallic taste of blood.

 

When he awoke the next evening he had found the woman gone and all traces of her presence with her.  The only concrete thing he had was a strange note explaining the new life waiting for him.  He’d had a good laugh at that one.  It hadn’t taken him long to realize the truth of the matter.  She had somehow someway changed him.

 

As that knowledge sank in he became angry.  He might not have been happy with this life but it did not give her the right to change it!  He searched the countryside for her knowing she couldn’t have gone far on foot.  He had searched for years before admitting defeat and returned home.

 

It had taken him a while to adjust to his newfound condition without drawing suspicion.  He had concocted a fairly elaborate tale about some rare malady that made him intolerant of sunlight.  After some experimentation he had found that he could tolerate small amounts of food though if he over indulged his system would automatically reject all of it.

 

The one thing he could not fight though was the march of time and his seeming immunity from it.  He had resorted to moving out of the country and occasionally returning as a son with all the legitimate paperwork in hand.  To this day he still owned that house and the surrounding countryside.  It turned a tidy little sum, not enough draw unwanted attention but enough to let him live comfortably and that was all he could really ask out of life at this point.

 

A gentle hand on his arm jerked him back to the present.  Smiling cerulean eyes held him captive.  When she smiled at him it was like being able to feel the sun again.  It made his long dead heart clench in a longing so great he would have cried had he had that ability.  He was not a man given to emotion but for her…but for her he would move any mountain cross any river do anything she asked of him as long as she was there waiting for him on the other side.