“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 make it easier for me to be a good priestess for you?”