“And did they?” He raised his eyebrows. “Besides the punch, I mean?”
“Oh, yes! Didn’t you see? They had these thin cookies with different colored sugars and icings on them,” Elli said eagerly. “They were delicious.” She sighed. “The humans have so many fun holiday customs. They also give each other gifts wrapped in brightly colored paper and they decorate a tree with strings of lights and sing special songs.” She shook her head. “I just wanted to join in the fun for once, instead of staying locked away in the Sacred Grove, that’s all.”
“The human Christmas traditions do sound like fun,” Roke said quietly. “I’m sorry you got more than you bargained for, little priestess. But it still sounds to me like you’d be happier training zorels than chanting meditations in the Sacred Grove all day.”
Elli sighed.
“I always thought I would be a zorel trainer—though it’s not considered a proper occupation for a lady. But my mother died when I was born and so I had only my father and my four brothers to raise me. My grandmother came to visit occasionally but mostly it was just me and five males. And since we run a zorel training ranch, well…it just sort of came to me naturally.”
“It certainly does.” Roke gave her an admiring look that made her blush. “I’ve never seen anyone handle a beast the way you did back there on the street. Fucking amazing.”
Elli’s cheeks got even hotter but she tried to shrug off the praise.
“It’s just in my blood, that’s all,” she said. “I’ve just always had an affinity with zorels. My father tells a story about how when I was a baby, just learning to walk, I toddled out of the open door of the house and disappeared and they found me in the stalls, right between the foreclaws of Killer—one of the biggest bucks on record. They were scared to death that he’d steam me or claw me to death.”
“Well, you’re sitting here, so I’m guessing he didn’t,” Roke said dryly, but he was smiling, apparently enjoying her story.
“Of course not.” Elli smiled back. “He did give my father a nasty burn when he tried to take me away, though. He still has the scar—just here—on his arm.” She indicated her own forearm, where her father’s scar was. “They had to wait until Killer went to sleep before they ‘rescued’ me.” She shrugged. “And I’ve lived most of my life in the stables training zorels ever since. Well…until I was shipped off to the Mother Ship to be a priestess.” She sighed.
“It doesn’t sound like you went by choice,” Roke pointed out.
“I didn’t,” Elli admitted.
“Well, then—who ‘shipped you off’ as you put it?” He looked genuinely interested. Despite their past encounter, he was surprisingly easy to talk to, Elli thought.
“My stepmother,” she said. “She never liked me—especially didn’t like the fact that I was good with zorels. She wanted me to give up training them and act quiet and ladylike—take up knitting and needle-work and that kind of thing.”
“And I’m guessing you don’t like ‘that kind of thing’?” Roke raised an eyebrow.
Elli shook her head.
“Not a bit. And by the time she came along, I’d been working with the zorels for years—all my life. Asking me to give it up was like asking me to give up breathing.”
“So you refused,” Roke said.
“Of course I did!” Elli exclaimed. “I loved working with zorels. They’re so beautiful and powerful and graceful and majestic—”
“So are you, when you’re working with them,” Roke murmured.
“What?” Elli looked up, startled.
“Never mind.” He gave her his one-sided smile again. “Go on. How did your stepmother persuade you to leave your beloved zorels and go into the priestess-hood?”
“She didn’t—she blackmailed me,” Elli still got angry when she thought about it. Angry and ashamed. “She caught me—” She stopped herself abruptly, realizing that she had almost told Roke her shameful secret. Gods, how could she be so careless? He really was dangerously easy to talk to.
“Caught you what?” he asked, leaning forward with interest gleaming in his dark eyes.
“Caught me…doing something I ought not to have been doing,” Elli said quickly, trying to gloss over the subject. “And that’s all you need to know,” she added primly, when he looked like he was going to ask more questions. “At any rate, she threatened to tell my father about my…indiscretion if I didn’t agree to sign up to be a priestess.”
“That’s low,” Roke growled—he was frowning now. “I’m a thief and a smuggler, but even I won’t resort to that. Blackmail is completely without honor. When you steal a male’s gold, he can replace it. But take his reputation and you ruin his entire life.”
Elli spread her hands.
“I’d be the first to agree with you, but what could I do? I cried and begged her for mercy, but she had none. She’d been looking for a way to get rid of me for five years—ever since she married my father. The minute she found it, she wouldn’t let up until I was gone.”