Love and Passion (Presumed Innocent Sequel)

The Beginning

It was about a couple days after Adrien and I had started traveling. We finally arrived in Marseille in the early morning. I was sleeping while Adrien was guiding the cart -- a band of Wolves had come after us and killed our escort, so we were forced to fight them off and escape under an assault of arrows.

Adrien awoke me with a kiss on the cheek. "Réveilles-toi, mon amour..." he whispered in my ear. I smiled and slowly opened my eyes. I looked upon the beautiful city of Marseille. I saw a small inn in which we could board for a while, until the Wolves find us at least. Or worse, the Royal Guards. My blood boiled at the thought. I wasn't prepared to be in chains, waiting for a death sentence once more.

Then, we went inside, paid the innkeeper, and he showed us to our room. When we'd settled in, we'd checked outside to make sure that no one had secretly followed us, and realizing that we were hungry, we went downstairs to eat.

I turned to Adrien and put a finger to my lips. We both put on blue velvet cloaks. Then, we silently went down the stairs and sat down at one of the tables. We asked the waitress what there was to eat. Soon after, she brought us back some bread and jam.

"Merci..." I mumbled as the woman walked away. Then, I noticed that Adrien was looking somewhere off in the distance. I looked towards where he was looking. There were some men snickering, and one of them kept glancing at me. I walked over to them with a small smirk on my face as slight fear entered the room. Then, I whipped off my hood. "Messieurs ... do we have a problem here?" I asked with a raised eyebrow. One of them smirked, the blond.

"Oui... isn't it obvious?" he asked as he slowly stood up, meeting my gaze. "Vipress..."

I rolled my eyes. "You got me..." I replied with a smirk as the young gentleman grabbed his sword. "Uh, uh, uh... that'll be a mistake..." I said with a light laugh as I pushed the sword back with a bit of wind. He raised a slight eyebrow. He smirked. "Bien... what do you want with me?" I asked, even though I knew the obvious answer since I'd been shamelessly eavesdropping on them for the past couple minutes.

"I believe that your skills aren't as advanced as they say. I want to challenge you to a little duel. Tonight," he answered, crossing his arms

"Huh... I accept... mousquetaire d'Artagnan..." I reply. He just nods in return.

"I'll see you tonight, then... mademoiselle..." He said with a mock bow as he and the rest of the Musketeers there left the inn without a word.

Then, Adrien grabbed my hand and we walked back up to our room.

That night, I grabbed my cloak, and walked to la place, on high alert for any surprise attacks. But, seeing as they were musketeers, I soon deemed that highly unlikely. Then, we finally arrived.

We heard a faint whistle coming from atop one of the walls of la place. We looked towards the sound. Sure enough, I saw a tall figure with a musketeer's tabard hanging from his shoulders. I smirked.

"Bien..." I called up to him as he jumped down from the wall. "You've finally decided to show yourself, huh?"

"Oui..." said a voice behind me. I slightly jumped. Then, d'Artagnan put a hand where my sword and baldric should be. He smirked. Adrien gave him a murderous look. I glared at him. He calmed down. "But, wherever did you leave your sword, petite Vipress?" d'Artagnan whispered in my ear.

"Je n'en ai pas besoin, monsieur..." I replied with a smirk, looking into his eyes.

d'Artagnan raised an eyebrow. "Bien..." whispered d'Artagnan as he got out his sword. "I don't want to make this difficult for you..." he mocked. Then, we walked ten paces away from each other. Then, we turned and waited until Adrien signaled us to start.