Gods, that seemed like years ago now—hard to believe it was barely more than a week! So much had happened, so much had changed.
Roke himself had changed.
As he had tried to explain his situation to Commander Sylvan, to tell about the adventures they’d had and explain how he felt that Ellilah was in trouble and needed help, he had felt something shift inside him. It was as though telling someone else—an outsider—about what he had seen and done and experienced with Ellilah, had allowed him to see what he felt for her clearly for the first time.
The fear of commitment that he’d felt all his life, ever since his mother had died and his father had descended into agonizing depression, had suddenly lifted. And Roke had realized that, Havoc or not, he wanted to bond with her—to bond her to him and love her all of his life. Finally, he was ready to take the risk he’d been avoiding for so long—finally, he was ready to love.
He just hoped that Ellilah would feel the same way.
I’ll tell her I love her, he thought as he paced back and forth in front of the statue. I know it’s not fair of me to ask her to break her vows permanently and come away with me but I have to at least ask. I’ll live with regret all my life if I don’t.
The memory of his mother’s death and his Sire’s suicide was still in the back of his mind—an aching wound that would never completely heal. But those awful old memories no longer had power over him. He was free now—free to love Ellilah the way she deserved to be loved and cherished.
If only she would consent to love him in return…
“Roke?” her soft birdlike voice—the voice that had tamed the fearsome Demon and had tamed his own reluctant heart as well—came to him through the trees.
“Ellilah?” Looking up eagerly, he saw her coming through the Sacred Grove. “Ellilah!” Running to her, he took both her hands in his. “Sweetheart! Are you all right? Did Commander Sylvan get to you in time? I wanted to come too but he wouldn’t allow it.”
“I’m fine,” she assured Roke, smiling up at him.
But Roke thought there was something sad in that smile—something that troubled him.
“Why did you come back?” she asked. “Weren’t you worried about getting caught?”
“I was caught,” Roke said. “And I’ve promised to make reparations. But I came back for you, Ellilah—I had a terrible feeling you were in trouble.”
“Well, you were right,” she said seriously. “It turned out that the old Priestess Superior wasn’t dying of a wasting disease after all—the Ascending Priestess was giving her Dreaming Drops to make it look like she was. We caught her trying to poison the old Priestess Superior once and for all with an overdose and then things got a bit tense.”
“A bit tense?” Roke demanded, raising his eyebrows. “What does that mean?”
“She pointed a blaster at me,” Elli admitted. “But don’t worry—she never even got off a shot,” she added quickly, obviously seeing his horrified look. “And the piece of the Healing Lattice worked on the old Priestess Superior even though she didn’t have a real wasting disease and now she’s much better. So, well…” She shrugged, looking suddenly shy. “That was all I wanted to tell you. I just thought you’d like to know. So I guess…” She looked up at him. “I guess now that you know everything is all right and you’ve vowed to make reparations for drugging the Christmas punch in the first place, you’re going to go.”
“No, I’m not,” Roke said firmly. “That is…” He took a deep breath. “I don’t want to go without you, Ellilah.”
“What?” Her eyes widened as she looked up at him in incomprehension.
“I love you!” Roke said, more harshly than he’d meant to. He ran his fingers through his hair and began pacing again. “I’ve tried for so long not to love anyone—to stay true to the Havoc side of my heritage and never bond. But I can’t help it, Ellilah—I love you and I want to bond with you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.” He raked his fingers through his hair again. “Hell, I know it’s not fair of me to ask you to give up your vocation as a priestess, but I think you feel the same way I do. And if you do, I want to ask you to Join with me and bond with me and spend the rest of your life with me. So will you, sweetheart?” he asked, turning to face her at last. “Will you bond with me?”
But to his dismay, Ellilah was shaking her head and tears were rolling down her cheeks.
“What is it, sweetheart?” Quickly, Roke dropped to his knees in the grass before her. “What’s wrong? Is it that you feel like you can’t leave the Mother Ship? That you have to keep your vow to be a priestess all your life?”
“No.” Ellilah shook her head and swiped at her tears. “Or, that’s only part of it.”
“What’s the other part, then?” he demanded urgently. “Tell me the reason we can’t be together!”
“Roke, I…” She rubbed at her eyes again and took a deep breath. “I already drank of the elixir of Mortem Amore,” she told him. “If you’d told me all this before I left your ship, I would have jumped at the chance to bond with you. But now…” She shook her head sorrowfully. “Now, well, I have no desire left to bond with you. I have no carnal lusts or desires at all, anymore. And I never will again.”
“That can’t be true,” Roke said blankly. “It can’t be! Little priestess, you’ve always been hot-blooded! Your passions match my own—it’s one reason I fell in love with you—though certainly not the only reason. Look here—”
He drew her down beside him on the grass and tilted her chin back. Cupping her cheek, he kissed her urgently, putting all the love and lust and need and desire he possessed into one kiss.
But he might as well have been kissing the statue of the Goddess on the dais above them. Ellilah was cold in his arms—pliable but somehow ungiving. Unable, he realized, to return his love and his passion.
“I’m so sorry, Roke,” she whispered and there were tears in her lovely green eyes again. “I wish I hadn’t drunk of the Mortem Amore but it’s too late now—the effects can never be reversed.”
“They cannot be reversed by mortal means. But I am more than mortal.”
The rich, familiar feminine voice sent a chill down Roke’s back. Looking up, he saw the most amazing thing—the statue of the Goddess had come to life and stepped off its dais.
It—or she—was now looking down at Roke and Ellilah with an unreadable look on her stone face.
Fifty-Nine
“Oh, Goddess!” Elli gasped, looking up at the stone features which had somehow come to life. She struggled out of Roke’s arms and threw herself on her face at the statue’s feet. “Goddess, I’ve been so bad,” she babbled. “I’ve broken all my vows—multiple times—and I disobeyed and did so many things I shouldn’t have done!”
“For which you are forgiven, daughter,” the Goddess said.
“I…I am?” Elli looked up at her uncertainly. It was uncanny to see the white marble statue animated by the living Goddess, but she was getting a little more used to it now.
“Yes, daughter—you are forgiven.” The Goddess looked at Roke. “You, also are forgiven, warrior. Providing that you leave your life as a smuggler and thief and take up a better, more noble profession.”
“Yes, Goddess.” Roke’s voice was dry and strained. “I swear it.”
“Very good. Then it seems the two of you have much to speak about—though there is something I must do first.”
Reaching down, the Goddess brushed Elli’s forehead lightly with her fingertips. The marble should have been hard and cold but instead, Elli felt warmth flowing through her like a gentle tropical wave. Everywhere the wave touched, she felt pieces of herself thawing. The cool, disconnected sensation she’d felt from her inner desires from the moment she sipped from the golden goblet of Mortem Amore, abruptly melted and she found that she could feel again.
“Ohhh,” she whispered, awed at the change. “Oh, thank you Goddess—but I don’t understand why you did it? Wouldn’t having no desires of the flesh ma
ke it easier for me to be a good priestess for you?”
“Daughter, you were never meant to be a priestess,” the Goddess said gently. “I have given you other gifts—other talents that you can use to bring me glory.”
“Do you mean her gift with zorels, Goddess?” Roke asked, looking up at the statue.
“You have seen her gifts for yourself, warrior,” the Goddess answered him. “I charge you to support Ellilah in helping to utilize her special talent. For the zorels are my creatures too, and when she trains them and takes pleasure in her special relationship with them, it gives me pleasure as well. I love to see my creatures well treated.”
“You have my word, Goddess,” Roke vowed hoarsely. “I’ll help and support and love and protect Ellilah all the days of my life.”
“See that you do. And now go—I absolve you from all vows,” the Goddess told Ellilah. “Go and do what I made you for—find pleasure in the talent I gave you and honor me with it.”
Then the white marble statue climbed back onto the dais and abruptly froze—though not in quite the same position it had been in before the Goddess inhabited it. There was a faint, knowing smile on its lips now and the arms were outspread, as though to welcome her children in with love and understanding.
Elli stared at it in awe and then looked at Roke.
“Roke,” she whispered, holding out her arms. “I…I’m ready and able to love you now if you still want to be with me.”
“Sweetheart,” he rumbled, sweeping her into his arms. “I’ve never wanted anything more in my entire life.”
“Then shall we have the Joining ceremony at once?”
The new voice surprised them both and Elli turned to see the old Priestess Superior walking over the grass to meet them. She looked wonderful—like a woman in her middle years rather than a grandmother—her eyes were bright and her white robe was clean and crisp. It contrasted beautifully with her raven hair streaked with emerald.
“Forgive me if I intruded on your moment, my dears,” she said. “But I thought I might be needed.”
“You are!” Elli exclaimed. “Priestess Superior, I hope you don’t mind but the Goddess has absolved me of my vows and I no longer wish to be a priestess.”
“I don’t mind at all, my dear—though I will miss you,” the Priestess Superior said gently. “I don’t believe you were ever meant to be a priestess but I do think the Goddess allowed you to become one for a short time so that you could subvert the plot that was happening here aboard the Mother Ship.”
“I’m very glad I was able to help with that,” Elli said seriously. “I know the Ascending…well, the one who wanted to replace you intended to rule over the Order of the Sacred Grove with an iron fist.”
“She intended to rule over the entire Mother Ship,” the Priestess Superior said grimly. “She admitted as much to Commander Sylvan—as soon as she’d gotten rid of me, she intended to set her sights on him. She planned to invite him for tea and then begin slipping him those same Dreaming Drops she used to incapacitate me. Then she was going to announce to the High Council that the Goddess had chosen her to rule over all the Mother Ship.”
“That’s terrible!” Elli shivered. They had all had a very narrow escape! She felt honored that the Goddess had allowed her to be part of stopping the other priestess’s wicked plot.
“The Goddess intends everything for a purpose, my dear,” the Priestess Superior told her. “Your short time as a priestess has saved many from heartache and sorrow. But now I think it’s time to let you go. So I repeat my offer—would you like to be Joined to your beloved this very hour?”
“I would!” Elli looked up at Roke with shining eyes. “You don’t mind, do you? I don’t need a big Joining ceremony—I just want us to be Joined when you…” She felt her cheeks heating up. “When you finally bond me to you.”
Roke grinned down at her and cupped her cheek in his hand.
“I agree, sweetheart—the sooner the better.”
“Now then, we’ll need some witnesses, of course…” The Priestess Superior looked around.
“Here we are!” Liv and Sonja came rustling through the trees of the Sacred Grove.
“Did somebody say they needed a bridesmaid?” Sonja asked eagerly. “Because Liv and I are ready and willing!”
Elli laughed.
“This is perfect,” she said, smiling at both of them. “I’d be honored to have the two of you stand with me at my Joining.”
“And I’ll stand with our new friend, Roke.” Commander Sylvan came through the trees as well. “To make sure he doesn’t get away without paying his reparations,” he added, giving Roke a friendly smile to take the sting out of his words.
“I’d be honored,” Roke told him. “It’s bad luck for a male not to have someone to stand with him at his Joining.”
“Well then, if we’re all ready, my dears, let’s assemble here before the statue of the Goddess,” the Priestess Superior said. “For she, too, is an honored guest at your Joining, since it was she who brought the two of you together.”
Elli couldn’t agree more. And so it was that she and Roke were Joined in the holy bonds of love and devotion right before the statue of the Goddess. And through the ceremony she felt her warmth and love beaming down upon them all, as the Goddess herself witnessed the Joining of…The Priestess and the Thief.
Epilogue
“Oh, you didn’t have to do all this!” Elli looked around the room in delight. Sonja’s living area was filled with Christmas decorations, from a red and green wreathe on the door, to adorable little wooden soldiers called “nutcrackers” on the mantelpiece, to a full-sized Christmas tree in the middle of the room.
“It’s no trouble at all!” Sonja made a shooing gesture. “I always keep my Christmas decorations up past New Year—I love them! So when your man, Roke, was telling me how much you loved the Christmas party and how he wanted to recreate it, I thought this might do.” She shrugged modestly.
“Might do? Why, it’s perfect!” Elli exclaimed.
“Look—I even have some Christmas cookies made by my good friend, Melanie. She wanted to thank you and Roke because if it wasn’t for that spiked punch, she might never have gotten together with her men, Clear and Strong—they’re Twin Kindred,” Sonja added, in explanation as she offered Elli the platter of red and green sugared cookies.
“Oh my, really?” Elli asked, taking one of the cookies and biting into it. “Mmm--delicious!”
“Yeah, Melanie and her men make some mean cookies,” Sonja said and giggled. “Though as I understand it, ‘making cookies’ means something different to the three of them now.”
“Sounds…interesting,” Elli murmured. “But I don’t understand—why does Roke want to recreate the human Christmas party we first met at?”
“Well, I think he wants to give you a gift—which is a big part of our Christmas traditions,” Sonja said. She raised an eyebrow at Elli. “Although maybe he already gave you a pretty good gift last night? I mean, it was your bonding night, right?”
“He…he did,” Elli admitted, feeling her cheeks get hot.
Their lovemaking the night before had been completely different from their Mirroring in the Tenebrian palace. It had been slow and tender and perfect.
Roke had kissed and tasted her everywhere, “healing” her aching nipples and pussy with his tongue for a long, long time until Elli came for him, moaning and gasping his name.
After that, they sat on the couch naked together, with Elli straddling the big warrior’s hips and his hard shaft bare between them.
“Slowly, sweetheart,” he’d murmured, looking into her eyes. “And gently, this time. I want to take my time bonding you to me.”
And, as Elli had taken his thick shaft deep in her pussy, he had held her gaze with his, right up until the moment when he had bitten her on the neck, injecting his Essence and bonding them together for all time.
It had been a beautiful and moving moment and also private, which was important
to Elli since they’d had to do so many things publicly at the Tenebrian palace. To add to her pleasure, her new mate’s Essence in her bloodstream had made her orgasm immediately and then again, over and over, as Roke continued to bond her to him all night long.
All in all, it had been the most beautiful night of Elli’s life and she’d woken up hungry for more of the same. However, Roke’s side of the bed had been empty. But he had left her a note, letting her know he had a little private business to attend to but not to worry—he would have a surprise for her that night.
Apparently, Elli thought, as she nibbled the delicious Christmas cookie, and looked at the red and green decorations and the blinking lights on the Christmas tree, this was the surprise. It made her happy to think that Roke would go to so much trouble for her, but she wondered where her new mate was. She hadn’t seen him all day and she missed him terribly.
“I’m here, sweetheart and I missed you too.”
It was Roke, speaking through their new mental link. Elli looked around for him and saw the big warrior walking through the door of Sonja’s suite.
“Welcome!” Sonja greeted him with a big smile. “And now I think I’ll leave you two alone.” With a wink, she left the suite as Roke and Elli thanked her.
“This is beautiful,” Elli said, motioning to the decorated living area. “I love it, Roke. But why did you go to all the trouble of recreating Christmas for me?”
“Well, the human Christmas party was the first place we met,” he reminded her with a grin. “And while that meeting wasn’t exactly ideal, I know how much you love this human holiday.”
“I really do—it feels so special.” Elli looked around the room again. She especially liked the twinkling star at the top of the tall Christmas tree.
“You know another Christmas tradition I bet you’ll like?” Roke asked. There was a mischievous twinkle in his dark eyes. “The giving of gifts.”
And he pulled a box wrapped in shiny gold and red paper out from behind his back and handed it to Elli.
The Priestess and the Thief Page 26