Sammi tried to smile, but somehow the corners of her mouth just wouldn’t turn up. She knew that her best friend was trying to cheer her up, but she had a feeling that after the formal Severing from Roark, she would just want to lie in bed and cry for the rest of the night—possibly the rest of the month.
“It’s all right, hon.” Meg rose and gave her a hug. “I know it doesn’t seem like it now, but you’re going to get through this and everything will be okay.”
Sammi nodded and sniffed, trying to hold back her tears. But she just didn’t see how her best friend could be right—she was about to get the Kindred version of a divorce.
Nothing was ever going to be all right again.
Sixty-Two
Roark looked at himself in the 3-D viewer. He was wearing his best dress uniform—an emerald green, long-sleeved shirt with shiny gold buttons and the tight black trousers that went with it. His black boots had been shined to a high gloss—not that anyone would see them, as it was considered improper to walk on the holy ground of the Sacred Grove in anything but bare feet.
All in all, he looked like he was going to a Joining Ceremony.
When in fact, I’m going to the exact opposite, he thought ruefully.
His heart was aching and he couldn’t count the number of times he’d had to stop himself from going to Samantha and begging her to let him call it off. Once he had been actually in the Med Center with his hand on the door of her room…and then he had gotten hold of himself and forced himself to go back to his own suite.
I have hurt and demeaned her, he reminded himself grimly. She deserves to be free of me. No matter how much it pains me, how bleak my life will be without her, I must let her go.
It was only sheer determination and the knowledge of his own guilt that kept him going, that allowed him to dress himself like a bridegroom while knowing that after today he was never going to see the female he loved so desperately again.
They were not celebrating the beginning of a life together but the ending—a relationship cut short by his own selfishness and foolishness.
This is my own fault, he reminded himself. Everything that happened to her is my fault and this is the only way to make things right. My honor demands that I set her free.
Your honor demands that you cut out your heart, whispered a little voice in his head.
Yes—that was how it felt, Roark thought, looking at himself once more. There was one more thing he lacked.
Going to his dresser, he picked up a black sheath and drew a gleaming ceremonial dagger from it. The blade was curved and there was a stone so red it was almost black set into its hilt—a blood stone.
This was the blade he would use for the Blood Letting part of the Severing—the part of the ceremony where he confessed his sins against the woman he was freeing and asked for forgiveness from her and from the Goddess.
Not that he could be forgiven for the things he’d done, Roark thought grimly. He sheathed the dagger again and fastened the sheath to his belt. It was time to be getting to the Sacred Grove so he could set Samantha free.
It was the only thing he could do, even if doing it made him want to die.
Sixty-Three
“My children, it saddens me greatly to have to perform this ceremony.” The Elder Priestess who was performing the Severing looked at both of them with sorrow in her green-within-green eyes.
Sammi had never seen a Kindred priestess up close and it occurred to her how strange it was that both the whites and the irises of their eyes were green. Even the woman’s silvery-white hair was streaked with emerald, as though it had been colored by the rays of the artificial green sun which shone down through the green and purple leaves of the trees that filled the Sacred Grove.
But it wasn’t the priestess she wanted to be looking at. Her eyes strayed to Roark, who was standing across from her like a bridegroom about to say “I do.” He looked stern and sad and he was devastatingly handsome in his dress uniform.
Sammi herself was wearing a pretty pale green dress that brought out her eyes. It was no bridal gown, but it was one of the nicer things she owned. She hadn’t wanted to wear it, but Meg had insisted that she dress up and look fabulous—both to honor the Sacred Grove and to show Roark that she was just fine without him. So her hair and makeup were also perfect—Meg had seen to that, as well.
Speaking of her best friend, Meg was currently standing to Sammi’s right and a little behind her.