Wolf (30 page)

It was all very, very bizarre, she thought feeling strangely tired, foggy headed, almost as if she’d been drinking liquor instead of water.

She was just tired, she assured herself. She’d had a shock. It stood to reason after all that emotional upheaval that she’d be exhausted the moment she settled and it all caught up with her.

She didn’t actually feel tired and sleepy, though. She felt … drugged.

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He sensed her fear, smelled it even above the musty, stale air of the chamber. It disturbed him that she was afraid, but not enough to make him regret drawing her to him.

They were always afraid. He had come to accept that they always would be … of him because he was not as they were and they feared and hated anything that was different from them.

They wanted the things that only he could give them, though. They fawned upon him and flattered him until they had convinced him to give it to them, but underneath the smiles and adulteration, beneath the earnest entreaties and promises of appreciation, they still feared him and they hated him.

In any case, it was the fear that drew the best, or worst, from them and he had determined long ago that he would never allow himself to be moved by one of them to help again unless he found that they were truly worthy.

It did not matter if she feared him. It did not matter if she hated him because he made her afraid. It only mattered that she prove to him that she was worthy of the gift he was inclined to give her. It only mattered if he knew that she would cherish it as it should be cherished.

Now he would know if she was as beautiful as he believed she was, or if she had enthralled him, blinding him to ugliness she hid so deeply inside that even he could not see it until she brought it to the light.

As
she
had.

The thought rippled through his psyche in a disturbing, unpleasant current, bringing memories with it that he had thought he had buried long ago, memories he had thought had long ago lost their power to bring pain.

He
was at fault. He had finally had to accept that no one was more to blame than he was for the evil that was done. He had allowed her to blind him. Truth be told, he had wanted her to because he had not wanted to look beyond the beauty of her façade. He had become so enamored with the passion she stirred in him, he had allowed his desire for her to blind him, ignored the instincts that had tried to warn him that it was nothing but a thin façade, poorly disguised at best.

And he had entrusted her with the one thing most precious in all the world to him and she had not valued it, had not protected it, had drawn down upon herself the violence that had taken it from him.

It made him ill that he had even mourned her loss at all.

It annoyed him that the moment he had emerged from the nothingness he had cultivated so long that the memories crept back to haunt him. But they did not have the power they had once had to wound. Time had dulled the ache and Gabrielle had given him something else to focus upon, something that breathed the energy of life and purpose into him.

Dismissing the unpleasant memories after only a moment, he watched her and was pleased with her determination to hold her fear at bay, pleased that she mastered it
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and did not allow it to master her, waiting for the moment when she would at last look upon the form he had discarded long ago with the memories he had tried to discard.

How would she perceive him? he wondered, feeling a burgeoning sense of anticipation that he did not even recognize for what it was, at first.

Would that shell please her as it had seemed to please the others?

Or would she find it too … alien to her?

It seemed likely, he realized, annoyed at the disappointment that realization spawned within him.

She had not liked
the people
, he realized, and he was once much as they were now. She had distrusted … with good reason. He had not liked the thoughts that flickered through their minds as they watched her either.

He had almost been tempted to divert their minds in a wholly unpleasant way.

But he had refrained … at least from anything overt.

Mostly because he found the thought of entering their minds was far too distasteful, not because he was not tempted to punish them.

Gabrielle was a different matter altogether. She drew him like a lodestone.

She surprised him when she came at last to study the graven image of the man he once was. He sensed no revulsion in her, no distaste. Instead, he saw that she was curious, intrigued, found pleasure in gazing at the form.

She always surprised him.

And it was always in a way that pleased him.

She’d been afraid long enough. He gave her peace, separation from the fear, because he didn’t want her to be afraid when he came to her.

* * * *

A twisting thread of blue light appeared near the ceiling. Gaby stared at the thin string of light in confusion. It must be from the floodlight, she decided, wondering why she hadn’t noticed the effect before now. The impulse struck her to sit up and see if it was a dust mote or something of that sort that caused the effect, but somehow she just wasn’t that interested. When she blinked and opened her eyes again, another thread had joined the first.

Now, instead of merely dancing and wiggling, the two lights moved together, entwining sinuously. After watching the strange lights for several moments, she glanced around the ceiling to see if she could determine what was moving to cause the lights to seem to dance. She saw then that there were others, many others, and they were moving around her, rotating almost like a child’s mobile.

She followed the movement as far as she could doing nothing more than turn her head and roll her eyes in their direction and then turned to see if the lights she’d first noticed had moved as the other lights had. The lights were longer now, broader.

She stared at the bands of light as they drifted downward from the ceiling and began to move along the floor. As the lower tips touched the floor, the lights began to change color, change shape. Blurring, Gaby decided. She closed her eyes, lifting her hands with a great effort and rubbing them.

Maybe there were no lights at all, she thought? Her eyes felt gritty with weariness. It could just be her eyes.

Or maybe it was her brain? Some sort of spell, low sugar? Low blood pressure?

The rhythmic pounding of her blood in her eardrums seemed to alter, ever so
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slightly at first, to a sound more like drums—not blood pulsing through her veins, but hands patting lightly against stretched hide—and then she heard a tinkling sort of noise join the first, rather like a tambourine, in counter to the drums, and a rattle, like seeds shaken inside a gourd. Voices, chanting low at first, joined the beat that was rising steadily, making her pulse quicken.

Alarm should have filled her, consternation. Instead, warm currents stirred within her as her heart quickened with burgeoning excitement. A sense almost of breathless anticipation gripped her. Her skin began to prickle with alertness.

When she finally opened her eyes again, she saw without either surprise or alarm that the lights were no longer merely lights. People moved around her. They glowed, that same, strange blue light dancing over their naked skin as they writhed together in a beautiful, erotic imitation of acts of lovemaking.

The woman she found herself staring at turned to look at her. “Call him.

Summon him. He will give you your heart’s desire.”

Gaby stared. The woman’s lips hadn’t moved.

Summon who, she wondered?

Him.

Anka.

The god of fertility.

Anka. Anka. Anka.

Call him.

He will come to you.

Did she want him to come? she wondered as the dancers moved around her, encouraging her … demanding that she respond.

The vague sense of excitement and anticipation became more pronounced as she watched them, listened to the chant. It became a sense of urgency. Heat seemed to well within her in waves that grew stronger and stronger. Her skin ached, burned … to be touched, she realized. Her breath, sawing in and out of her lungs became more labored until she was panting for breath, felt heated, dizzying waves washing through her mind.

“Anka, Anka,” she whispered, realizing finally that
he
was what she needed, wanted desperately. Her mouth and lips were dry from her panting breaths. She moistened them with her tongue, tried to gather moisture into her dry mouth. “Anka come to me.”

He was standing over her, staring down at her when she managed to pry her eyelids open a fraction. As she stared up at him, her eyes widening, every drop of moisture in her body seemed to gather within her woman’s channel. It wept with need.

That nether throat closed with want, thirsted for his caress.

He was … magnificent.

Dark, golden brown skin stretched over a body of beautifully molded muscle. A leather loin cloth covered his groin and narrow hips. His body V’d outward above his narrow waist and hips to form a broad, well defined chest. Thin strips of leather formed gauntlets from wrist to elbow, accentuating the broad palms and long tapered fingers of his hands and the bulging muscles of his upper arms. Long, impossibly silky looking blue, black hair shifted and moved along his shoulders and chest with each ragged breath he pulled into his lungs almost like the hair was a live thing. The upper portion of his face was hidden beneath a mask, but the sensual curve of his lips made her belly tremble.

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Those lips curled as her gaze finally made its way to them, parting to reveal even, white teeth. Slowly, he sank to his knees until she could feel the weight of his buttocks settle on her upper thighs, could feel the nudge of his engorged cock beneath the loincloth against her mound. Pain and pleasure shot through her in a jolt when he rocked against her.

This form pleases you, Moonflower?

Confusion flickered through her. Form? And how could she understand him?

And why would he call her Moonflower?

He leaned toward her, grasping her upper arms lightly and then allowing his hands to skim downward along her arms as he straightened again. A shiver of pleasure skated through her as she felt the faintly rough texture of his skin against her.

Surprised to feel anything at all, Gaby looked down at herself and received yet another surprise. She was bare. She’d been wearing her shirt, hadn’t she? She didn’t remember taking it off.

He chuckled.
I am Anka. With me anything is possible, little Moonflower.

Gaby found herself smiling back, felt happiness joining the steaming desire within her. This is just a dream, she realized, a fantastic, erotic dream, but still a dream.

He leaned toward her again. This time, though, he braced his palms against the stone on either side of her. She looked up into his eyes, mesmerized by the emerald glints in the thin band that surrounded the wide black pupils of his eyes.

A harder wave of heat suffused her. Her nipples, already erect and engorged with blood, began to tingle and throb, sending hard currents of need arrowing through her body to her womb. She caught her breath, groaned as the sensations intensified, spread all over her body with the weight of a touch that wasn’t a touch, as if invisible hands were stroking her all over. Tension coiled in her body.

She welcomed it, wanted it, and at the same time, disappointment flickered through her dazed, clouded mind. She wanted
his
touch. She wanted to feel his hands and mouth on her. She wanted to feel his engorged flesh filling her, stroking the weeping walls of her sex, delving deeply inside of her.

He pushed the thoughts from her mind.

She wasn’t certain how she knew that he had done it, but she did.

She forgot it in the next moment, gasping as she felt his flesh pressing against the mouth of her sex, felt the aching emptiness filled almost to the point of pain, the stroke of his hard flesh along the yielding flesh of her channel. Dizziness swept through her with the intensity of the sensations pounding through her.

“You please me, little Moonflower,” he breathed against her ear as he surged into her again, filling her with a trembling urgency that threatened to explode into rapture,

“the delicate scent of your flesh, your taste, the softness of your body. The desire you feel for me … stirs a … yearning within me I have not felt in … many years.”

“Anka,” Gaby breathed rapturously, struggling against the climax she could feel building toward release. It felt too good to stop. She wanted it to last forever.

“What is your heart’s desire, Moonflower? Ask me and I will give it to you.”

She couldn’t think. Her mind was a confusing whirl of disjointed thoughts, churning with heat, sparking with fiery, intense sensation. She sensed a demand for an answer, though. “You,” she gasped, realizing the moment she voice it aloud that that
was
what she wanted more than anything.

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The response startled him. She felt it in the sudden tension surrounding her. It was as if the very air crackled with electricity. She felt a gentle probing within her mind, sensed amusement gathering within him. “That would please
me
,” he murmured, almost meditively. “I will give you what you are afraid to ask for, believe you can not have.”

The words had no sooner filtered into her mind than she felt fiery, almost painful heat flood her belly. Her body seized so hard it crushed the breath from her lungs and then jolt after jolt of rapture sizzled along every nerve ending until blackness welled up around her and swallowed her whole.

Gaby’s first awareness was a sense of such supreme well being and happiness that bewilderment filtered through her sluggish mind as it slowly climbed to full awareness and she finally opened her eyes. Darkness surrounded her. Not a complete, profound darkness, but enough that her first thought was that she’d woken wide awake in the middle of the night. A pounding sound drifted to her, resurrecting flickers of memory that she couldn’t quite grasp.

“Dr. LaPlante!”

There was concern in the voice that struck Gaby as odd at first. Reluctantly yielding up the urge to curl up and enjoy the strange sense of completeness a little longer, Gaby pushed herself upright with an effort. Her eyes had adjusted to the dimness and she saw that she was wearing nothing but her panties and a shirt, lying on a stone platform instead of her cot.

“Dr. LaPlante! Gaby! Are you all right?”

Memory descended upon her in an avalanche of images. “Yes,” she called out, discovered her voice was hoarse, scratchy, barely audible and cleared her throat to try again. “I’m all right.”

Except she had to pee. The thought reminded her of why she wasn’t wearing her pants. Relieved for some reason she couldn’t quite identify to discover she’d removed her pants herself, Gaby glanced around until she located them and moved to the edge of the altar near the steps that led up to it. The crotch of her panties, she discovered, embarrassed, was damp … more than damp, actually. The musky scent of sex tickled at her nostrils as she touched the space between her thighs. The outer lips of her sex tingled, sending a faint throb through her lower belly.

My god, she thought in dismay! A wet dream?

Frowning, probing her memory gently, she scooted to the edge of the platform until she could feel the cold stone of the first step beneath her toes. Her muscles protested the movements as she climbed stiffly down. Her inner thighs quivered.

She’d dreamed … something … something bizarre, she remembered.

Her skin prickled all over, the fine hairs on the back of her neck lifting.

She glanced toward the darkened alcove where the god sat on his throne, but she found she couldn’t probe the deeper shadows that concealed him.

Distracted by that discovery, she glanced toward the floodlight she’d left burning the night before. It was off. Guilt and dismay filled her. She’d left it on and the battery had gone dead.

She didn’t know why she even bothered to check it. She supposed it was one of those mindless things one did when one didn’t want to believe, but when she’d pulled her pants on, she strode toward the light as she fastened up her pants. Squatting down, she peered at the thing in the gloom and finally reached for the switch, flicking it in the
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opposite direction.

The light blinded her, startled her, and she sat backwards in the dust, twisting her face to one side to avoid the light.

When had she turned it off, she wondered, jogging her mind for a memory that remained elusive?

Shaking her head with the thought that she must have been far more upset than she’d realized to forget getting up to turn the thing off, she blindly sought the switch and turned it off again.

It took many moments for her eyes to adjust to the dimness once more. She sat where she’d fallen, blinking, rubbing her eyes, testing her memory for flickering bits of information that teased at her but determinedly eluded her efforts to grasp them.

“The men came back this morning. They’re working on a support we can use to wench you up.”

Wench her up? Dismayed, feeling like a cow, Gaby pushed herself up right and got to her feet stiffly, brushing at the dust she’d collected on her pants when she sprawled out. “What about the rope?” she called up to Dr. Oldman when she reached the opening of the shaft.

“Enrique found a piece of rope we missed last night,” he responded.

There was just enough sarcasm in the statement to suggest the ‘found’ rope hadn’t been found where it was supposed to be. Not that she was going to quibble over it. At least someone had produced it and she could get out.

The experience hadn’t been near as terrifying as she’d thought it would be, but she had no desire to spend another night in the temple.

“I’m going to test the thing as soon as they have it rigged up … to make sure it will hold you when we pull you up,” Dr. Sheffield offered.