But it had seemed like an easy mark. Usually when someone approached him with a job, he was trying to take something valuable away with him. In this case, all he’d had to do was smuggle in the tiny bottle of passion drug and put a few drops in the punch. And because he was half Kindred, nobody batted an eye when he came aboard the Mother Ship.
He wished now he hadn’t done it. Every night since, he’d dreamed of her—the sweet little priestess that he had corrupted. Gods, her lips had been so soft and she had pressed her breasts into his hands so eagerly…
Because she was drugged, Roke reminded himself. She never would have acted that way otherwise. Anyway, it’s time you forget about her and get on with your life. It’s time—
“Thief, you will go to the girl and aid her.”
The powerful female voice boomed in his cabin, and the presence that came with it seemed to fill his entire ship. Roke felt as he had once when he had dived too deep in the Yolesh Ocean and had run out of air. His eardrums bulged and his lungs burned as he tried to breathe.
“Wh-what?” he finally managed to get out.
“Your actions have brought harm upon the priestess, Ellilah,” the voice boomed again. “But I will use the situation for good and you will help. Go to her now—protect and aide her.”
“Goddess?” Roke muttered, having at last figured out who was speaking to him. He looked around his darkened cabin, as though the Mother of All Life might suddenly appear. “I…I don’t even know where she is,” he protested.
“She will be found on Pok, the second moon of Torl Prime,” the Goddess told him. “You must seek her near the palace of the Tenebrian Crown Prince. Now go!”
“But how do I get her to trust me?” Roke protested. After all, he’d drugged her and taken advantage of her the first time they met—she would be right to be extremely suspicious of him.
There was no answer to his question. The Goddess only repeated,
“GO.”
And then the room was silent and the huge, overwhelming presence which had filled his cabin like a thousand tons of water pressure was suddenly gone.
Roke ran a shaking hand through his shaggy black hair. He had never been a religious male—he’d always thought that the Goddess had set the universe in motion and then left to do whatever it was deities did, with no thought for her individual children.
Well, she’s certainly thinking of that little priestess you wronged, whispered a shaky little voice in his head. I think you’d better do what she says, Roke.
Roke had to agree with the little voice. He might be a thief and a scoundrel, but he wasn’t stupid. Clearly the Goddess meant business and he wasn’t about to contradict her.
Rising from his cot, he went to the navcom of his small ship to set a new course for Pok.
He just hoped he could find the girl when he got there, and that he could convince her to trust him. Though how he was going to manage that after their first encounter, he had no idea…
Six
“This is it—the Priory of Extreme Atonement.” The Blood Kindred pilot who had brought Elli to Pok gave her a sympathetic look. “Do you want me to come in with you?”
“No thank you,” Elli said numbly, shaking her head. “I…I think I’m supposed to go alone.”
“Of course.” The pilot nodded as he studied the Priory. “But it looks…kind of grim. You can stay here as long as you want to,” he invited. “I’m not in a hurry to get back to the Mother Ship.”
Elli appreciated his kindness. But as she stared at the foreboding black building with walls that seemed to reach to the sky and no windows whatsoever, she knew that if she didn’t go and turn herself in to the Priory now, she would lose her nerve. Or worse, she would start to cry. And then the pilot would try to comfort her and if any of the priests who ran the Priory saw it, they could be accused of inappropriate touching and then she would get even more punishment than she was already scheduled for.
“Thank you but I think…” She swallowed hard. “Think I’d better get…get going.”
“Of course.” The pilot pushed a button and the passenger side door whooshed open. “May the Goddess bless your stay here,” he said formally.
Elli wanted to laugh but she was afraid it would turn into a sob. Her broken vows of chastity to the Goddess were what had landed her here in the first place. Well, that and the fact that the Ascending Priestess Superior wanted to make it look like she had sent someone to ask about getting a piece of the Tenebrians’ Healing Lattice without actually doing so.