Destiny's Lovers (5 page)

That soft voice, those caressing hands, were
too much for any man to bear. Reid felt himself becoming aroused.
He also felt great embarrassment about it. She must know. She must
be playing with him.

“Stay where you are and I’ll get more water
to rinse you,” she commanded. He remained on his knees until she
returned, afraid that if he stood she would see what he could not
control.

She upended the water jar over his head. The
contents of this second jar were icy cold. With a shout, Reid
stood, shaking off the deluge. She calmly handed him a small, dry
cloth, only adequate to mop his face and stop the worst of the
runoff from his hair.

She took up the blue salve container again
and moved away from him to sit on dryer ground a little farther
along the perimeter of the pool, beside a bush heavily abloom with
large, six-petaled red flowers. Reid dried himself as best he
could, then joined her, sitting on the moss beside her. The crimson
blossoms emitted a sweet scent that in his exhausted and unfed
state made him feel dizzy. Or perhaps it was just the presence of a
lovely young woman that affected him.

“I don’t know your name,” he said.

“I am Janina Tamat. Let me anoint your
wound.” She leaned forward and began to apply the creamy stuff to
his left side.

Reid’s arms closed around her so that her
head rested on his chest. He felt her sigh, and shudder a little,
and then melt against him. She belonged where she was, in his arms.
Reid knew it with an absolute certainty that shook him to the
depths of his being. This lovely, delicate, unknown creature was
the other half of himself. They had to join together, had to become
one. It was predestined.

“Janina,” he murmured, his mouth on her hair.
He lay back against the moss, still holding her. The red flowers
drooped above them, the languorous effect of their fragrance
relaxing and arousing him at the same time. She lifted her head to
look down at him, her pale hair spilling across her shoulders and
his bare chest.

“Reid, I must tell you something important,”
she began, the frown line reappearing between her brows.

“Later,” he whispered harshly, pulling her
face down to his. Later she could tell him she was a telepath who
knew everything he was thinking, who understood why suddenly he was
burning with a molten fire that could only be quenched by her pale
coolness. She had beguiled and enticed him, washing him, tending to
his wounds, tempting him as she did so, and all because she knew,
as he did, that they were fated to come together like this, in this
beautiful grove. When their lips met, a white-hot passion erupted
in him, beyond control, beyond anything he had ever felt
before.

Janina moaned as Reid’s mouth touched hers.
She knew she should not allow this to happen. She was forbidden to
men. But oh, his mouth was warm, and sweet, and tender. Just for a
moment she would let herself feel what it was like to be held and
kissed by a man. Only for a moment, perhaps two. After that, she
would tell him he must stop.

But the kiss went on and on, and his arms
tightened around her even more, and she knew she did not want him
to stop. She wanted to stay in his arms forever. For all
eternity.

Reid rolled over, pining her beneath him on
the moss. She felt his weight pressing down on her, from his broad,
heavily muscled chest crushing her young breasts, to his strong
arms across her back, to his long, taut legs which held her own
firmly between them. She could feel the wonderful hardness of him
pushing at her, burning through her robe. How marvelous, how
incredibly beautiful it was. How absolutely right.

His mouth moved against hers, encouraging her
to open her lips. When she did, his tongue slid into her mouth,
found her tongue, and began to play with it, teasing her into a
pulsating panic of new awareness.

His hands were on her small, firm breasts,
caressing the sensitive mounds until they ached. And still his
tongue, still his lips, drove her wild, until he left her mouth and
began kissing her throat, pushing the wide neck of her robe aside,
trying to reach her bare breasts beneath it. The neckline wasn’t
quite wide enough, so he lowered one hand to lift the hem of her
robe.

“Take this off,” he urged. “Please,
Janina.”

She sat up to do his bidding, turning her
head aside as she moved, so she could catch her breath. Thus she
breathed deeply of air not scented by the red khata flowers, and
her whirling senses cleared enough for her to remember who and what
she was. She looked at the man reclining beside her and thought her
heart would break.

He pulled her robe upward, trying to help her
remove it, his hand caressing along her leg to the inside of her
thigh. Janina put her hand on top of his, stopping him.

“Reid, I understand what you want, but I
cannot do it,” she said. “I am a priestess sworn to eternal
virginity.”

Something beautiful and precious went out of
his expression. His face hardened. The look in his grey eyes was
terrifying. She thought he might strike her, or throw her back onto
the ground and take what he wanted by force.

“I’m sorry,” she said. Innocently trying to
comfort him, she put out one hand to touch the rigid manhood
straining upward beneath his undergarment. “I tried to tell you
before you kissed me the first time.”

“No!” He pushed aside her hand. With sudden
explosive energy, he sprang to his feet and raced to the edge of
the pool where he stood with his back toward her, breathing hard.
Around them the sound of his angry cry echoed and re-echoed against
the rock walls or the grove.

“At first I did not understand what we were
doing, because no man has ever kissed me, or touched me in that
way. I have always been kept apart from men,” Janina explained,
thinking she knew how he must feel, because she had not wanted to
stop, either. She had felt an emotion while in his embrace, an
opening to a kindred spirit, which she had never experienced with
anyone else, not even when Tamat occasionally touched her thoughts.
What she felt for Reid was so strong, and so important, that it had
immediately broken down any barriers of strangeness between them.
But her emotions could not overcome the boundary set about her by
her sacred vows. She had to make him understand that. If the look
on his face when she ended his lovemaking was any indication of his
feelings, understanding would be difficult for him.

“It is forbidden to touch a priestess in that
way,” she said quietly. “I should have stopped you at once, I know,
but it was so lovely. Your mouth was so sweet. I wish I could do
what you want. I ache because I cannot. Now that you have held me
in your arms I think I will ache for you all of my life. But I
cannot break my vows. Please try to understand. Please don’t hate
me.”

“I cannot rape a priestess of any religion. I
will not touch you again.” The words were hard and cold, like
stones from an icy stream. He turned to face her suddenly, and she
saw that passion had not gone from him completely, though it was
controlled now. “What I do not understand is why you chose to
torment me in this way. As a telepath you must have known
everything I was feeling, how much I wanted you, and believed it
was meant to be. You encouraged me. You made a fool of me.”

She was on her feet now, too, to face him
bravely, though she was much smaller than he was and trembled at
the thought of his anger unleashed against her.

“I am not a telepath,” she said. “The others
are, but I am not.”

“What?” He looked hard at her, all passion
gone. He was cold and tough, as he must ordinarily be, and she
believed he was searching her face for evidence that she was
lying.

“I am not a telepath, which is why at my
advanced age I remain only a scholar priestess in a simple robe,”
she informed him.

“But even so, you are still sworn to
virginity.” He said it as though it rankled him, and no doubt it
did, after the last hour. Janina realized that she had hurt him
badly, and, as he had complained, she had made him feel like a
fool.

“All priestesses take the same vows,” she
said in a gentle voice, so she would not anger him further.

“I don’t see any point to that.” He sounded
sullen, his anger unappeased by her explanations.

“It is so the priestesses will be free to
dedicate themselves to their work without the distraction of
emotional entanglements with men,” she told him.

“Exactly what is your work, Janina?”

Still that sullen tone. She did not blame him
for it. She answered the rude question politely, though she
oversimplified the facts.

“We lead the people of Ruthlen in their
worship of the life-giving sun and the twin moons. We keep the
yearly records so the farmers will know when to plant and when to
harvest their crops before the heavy frosts come. We advise the
fisherfolk about the phases of the moons and warn them when
dangerous tides are due. We search the skies day and night,
continually standing guard in case the Cetans come again to plunder
and kill.”

“Cetans?” He frowned and took a step toward
her. “When were Cetans last here?”

“Six hundred years ago,” she replied promptly
and saw him relax at her answer. “We lived elsewhere then. The
Cetans destroyed our original city and killed or enslaved all but a
few of our ancestors, who later fled to safety here, far away from
the old settlement.”

“I see.” She was fully aware of how carefully
he watched her as he put his next question. “The others are all
telepaths?”

“I said so,” she told him sadly. “I am the
only one who lacks the Gift.”

“Then how did you know my name?”

“I foresaw your coming,” she said, apparently
stunning him with the simplicity of her answer. “I saw your
face.”

She thought at first that he did not believe
her, but then he nodded and asked, “Will you take me to the
others?”

“Let me draw the Water first, and you may
return to the temple with me,” she promised. “Reid, please don’t
tell anyone what we did here.”

“You needn’t worry about that,” he said. “I
won’t say a word. No man likes to be played with and then tossed
aside.”

“I suppose no woman does, either,” she
remarked coolly, stung by his words, and went to wash out the water
jar before filling it with Water from the pool.

“Won’t they all know anyway?” Reid asked,
watching her strap the brimming jar into a harness and settle it on
her back. He did not offer to help, not wanting to touch her and
chance awakening feelings ne ought not to have.

“There are laws governing use of the Gift,”
she said, starting down the stone path. “No one will invade your
mind without your permission. Only Tamat is permitted free access.
She does not use it often. She is old, so the strain of accepting
another person’s thoughts and emotions is exhausting to her. Step
carefully here until your eyes grow accustomed to the dark.”

They entered a tunnel similar to the one Reid
had used to find the grove, except this tunnel slanted downward and
had steps carved into it at several spots along the way. It seemed
to him that they walked a long distance before they came out onto a
stone terrace located halfway up the mountainside. He stood
blinking in the blindingly bright sunshine, letting his eyes adjust
to it. Janina waited patiently while he looked around.

“What in the name of all the stars -?” Reid
exclaimed. “There is nothing even remotely like this on our
computer model of the continent. Where are we?”

“This is Ruthlen,” Janina replied.

“It shouldn’t be here,” Reid insisted. “It
can’t be here.”

But it was, and it was perfectly real. A
curved range of six mountains isolated the crescent-shaped lowland
from the interior of the continent. As Janina had told him, five of
the mountains bore wisps of smoke or steam clouds at their peaks,
evidence of volcanic activity. From the mountains to the edge of
the sea, the narrow area of inhabited land sloped sharply downward.
Most of it was divided into terraced fields which were dotted here
and there with farmhouses. It was near the end of the growing
season, so the fields were gold with grain, or in some places, a
rusty orange shade. Thanks to Alla’s constant lectures, Reid
recognized the rusty color as one of the most ancient of grains,
Demarian oats. He could see men working among the crops, their
backs bent to a rich harvest.

The village, so small a place it was hardly
worthy of the name, was nestled into the northern point of the
crescent, in a location well protected from winter gales. Tiny,
thatch-roofed houses in soft shades of blue, yellow, or pale orange
clustered together along two streets that crossed at right angles.
Reid saw boats moored against a wharf which extended far out into
the sea. He wondered at the length of it before he recalled the
twin moons and realized that because of their gravitational pull,
the tides on Dulan’s Planet varied widely, and a boat tied up near
shore at high tide could be stranded on land during low tide.

“Where do you live?” he asked Janina.

“In the temple complex.” She pointed, and
Reid stared.

It was so different from the rest of the
village. It stood just to the north of the houses, on a flat space
that he was certain had been carved out of the solid rock. The
complex was round, with a low, white stone wall along the perimeter
and the temple itself in the center. The shape and style of the
temple duplicated both the little pavilion in the grove and the
building which was now Commander Tarik’s headquarters. It had
twelve pillars forming a colonnade around its outside, and a domed
roof set with translucent material to gather light for the
interior. Six smaller buildings of identical design were spaced at
intervals around the main building. All were white.