The Priestess and the Thief

Ten

Now where in the Seven Hells was the little priestess, anyway?

Roke had searched the whole damn city twice and he had yet to find her. He had gotten several suspicious looks from the humanoids from Torl Prime. The few Kindred they’d had interbreed with them were the blond-haired, blue-eyed Blood Kindred. Though Roke himself was half Blood Kindred, he looked more like his Sire, who had been a Havoc. The result being that he was as dark as a Beast Kindred, though without the golden eyes. That difference was apparently enough to engender distrust.

The tall, skinny Tenebrians, on the other hand, mostly ignored him, which suited Roke fine. They were a strange people with even stranger customs and he wanted nothing to do with them.

He was just rounding a bend to enter the fruit and vegetable part of the market district for the third time, when he heard some kind of commotion going on. Looking across the street, he stared in surprise at the scene playing out.

A tall, pale blue Tenebrian rider was gripping the reins of one of those beasts they liked to ride here—a zorel, Roke thought they were called. They were strange looking animals—a mixture of a horse and a dragon—both Earth animals, though one of them was mythical. (Roke couldn’t remember which was the imaginary one, but he thought it was the horse.)

At any rate, the zorel was bucking and hot steam was coming from its flaring nostrils. The rider was attempting to get control of it by beating it with a crop and sawing on the reins.

“Be still, Sir!” he was shouting at the top of his voice, sounding like an offended gentleman who couldn’t believe he was being affronted by an underling who had failed to do what he was told. “I say, be still!”

Suddenly, there was a blur of motion and Roke saw a girl in a white robe jump from a moving cart and dash across the street. She grasped the tall Tenebrian’s arm on the downswing and ripped the riding crop out of his elegantly gloved hand.

The rider had been leaning to one side in the saddle. As the zorel chose that moment to buck again, he overbalanced and went flying out of his saddle and into the mud at the side of the road.

“You beast!” the girl shouted in a high, sweet voice like a little bird and Roke realized that she was talking to the rider, who was looking up at her with a dazed expression. “How dare you beat him?” she raged and threw the riding crop at the rider’s head. Then she turned back to the bucking, rearing, snorting zorel and somehow managed to catch it by the bridle.

The zorel was huge compared to the girl—the top of her head barely reached its shoulder. Roke started forward, afraid she would be clawed by the silver-shod front talons or trampled by the back hooves. But somehow she managed to dodge the flailing limbs of the great creature and pull down its bridle to catch its eye.

The moment she looked into the great, slitted silver eye, the beast stopped rearing and snorting and actually seemed to listen to her. Roke couldn’t hear what she was saying but it was low and soft and mesmerizing and it seemed to work miracles on the huge zorel.

After it had quieted, the girl calmly reached under its great belly and unfastened the girth which held the bejeweled, intricately worked leather saddle in place. The expensive piece of equipment fell off onto the dirty cobbled road and the girl inspected the broad expanse of the zorel’s back.

The rider, who seemed to have gotten over the shock of his fall, was getting to his feet.

“Here, now!” he exclaimed, standing up and reaching for the girl. “You can’t just—”

“Let her finish what she’s doing,” Roke growled, grabbing the Tenebrian by one skinny shoulder. He might be as tall as Roke was, but he had no muscle on his long, gangly limbs, so Roke was able to hold him back easily.

“But what is she doing? She got me thrown from my mount!” the Tenebrian exclaimed with a wounded air, glaring at the girl—who Roke had finally realized was the little priestess.

“Whatever it is, she’s not done yet,” he told the other male. “So be still and let her finish.”

Privately, he was still marveling at the change in the little priestess. Ellilah, he reminded himself. The Goddess said her name was Ellilah.

The female he had met at the human Christmas party aboard the Mother Ship had been shy and frightened—until she got a sip of the punch, that was. Then she’d been extremely insistent that he touch and kiss her. And so tempting he’d been forced to leave before he truly took advantage of her. But she had never displayed the kind of fiery wrath or reckless bravery he had just witnessed.