Forgotten (14 page)

“
No, wait—better that I
simply Look Into you. I will understand more completely that
way.”

Rone didn’t like this but he had been
expecting it. He sank to his knees before the priestess without
complaint and looked up into her green-on-green eyes.

“
Now, Warrior, open your
mind and let me in.”

Lightly, she placed her fingertips against
his temples and then he was flooded with the strange sensation of
someone else rifling through the contents of his brain.

The priestess had a light touch—he would
give her that. But it was still very uncomfortable to have someone
else sifting through his memories like sand, as though they were
looking for shells at the seaside. The process seemed to go on
forever but at last the priestess pulled away.

“
Ah, the pain,” she moaned
softly, putting a hand to her heart. “First the agony of losing the
one you loved more than your own life and not knowing if she was
alive or dead. Then the anguish of finding her only to discover
that she has lost her memory and her love for you. It
overwhelming.”

“
I’m sorry!” Rone looked
up at her anxiously. “I fear my sorrow has been too much for you to
bear.”

“
No—no. Give me a moment.
I will be all right.” The priestess steadied herself and took a
deep breath. “The experience was just…intense.”

“
It’s almost more than I
can bear myself,” Rone admitted in a low voice. “I love her
so much,
your holiness.
And she…she doesn’t even know me. Nor does she wish to. She
fears
me.”

“
She fears the Beast
within you,” the priestess said. “She senses the threat it poses
for it was never tamed to her hand.”

“
That’s true,” Rone
acknowledged heavily. “I thought she was too small and fragile
and…and I was afraid I would hurt her in my fur-form.” He looked at
the priestess earnestly. “You have to understand, I would rather
cut off my right hand than hurt or frighten her. I…could not bear
the thought of my Beast savaging her.”

“
She is stronger than you
think,” the priestess said. “If you are granted the chance to renew
your bond, you must not hold back again. She
must
tame your Beast.”

“
No!” Rone shook his head.
“Never—I can’t risk that.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Not
that it looks likely I’ll get a chance. I told you, she wants
nothing to do with me.”

“
You must have patience,”
the priestess told him. “The Goddess is working in this situation,
Warrior. I swear to you that her hand is on both you and your
mate.”

“
I will try to be patient,
even though I don’t understand why this is happening,” Rone said.
“But council isn’t the only reason I came to you. There’s also the
problem of my…my…”

“
Go on.” The priestess
looked at him serenely. “You may speak anything you wish to me,
Warrior. I will not be offended.”

“
My
hunger,
all right?” Rone burst out.
“I haven’t touched my mate in six solar months and even now that
I’ve found her, I
still
can’t
touch her. I ache
every time I see her—her soft, pink lips…her long, beautiful
hair…her curvy body… I need to hold her and touch her and taste her
so badly but I
can’t.”
He put his head down, embarrassed at his outburst. But he
hadn’t been able to help it—everything had just come rushing out.
“Please,” he begged in a low, ragged voice. “Can you… will you cool
my blood, your holiness?”

“
I feel your pain deeply,
Warrior,” she said quietly. “And yet the
hunger
of a Wulven runs deeper and
stronger than the ordinary lust of any other Kindred male. Still, I
will do what I can to damp the fire that burns you, body and soul.
I pray it will be enough.”

“
It will have to be,” Rone
muttered, thinking again of the way Kate flinched away from him
every time he came near her. “I don’t know what else to do…what
else to try.”

“
Simply talk to her. Woo
her as you did when you first met her,” the priestess
suggested.

Rone sighed raggedly.
“Yes, but when I first met her, she didn’t fear me. She sensed my
Beast and she knew it was dangerous, but she wasn’t afraid of me—in
fact, she was one of the only people I’d met on Earth who
wasn’t
. She was fearless
and she wouldn’t leave me alone until she found out what I was. In
the process…we fell in love.”

“
You will have that love
again,” the priestess promised. “Although you may have to sacrifice
much to find it.”

“
Anything,” Rone promised
hoarsely. “I would give anything to hold Kate in my arms again. To
kiss her…to touch and taste and love her. To worship her as she
deserves to be worshiped.”

“
A very strong vow and one
you will certainly be called upon to keep,” the priestess murmured.
“Now calm yourself and let me do what I can to ease your ache.” She
pressed cool fingertips to his temples once more and prayed
softly.

“
Oh, Goddess, we do not
know why this warrior must endure the pain and sorrow that have
been given to him to bear. But we know that you love all of your
children and that you are close to the broken in spirit. Please,
guide this warrior towards the path of understanding and heal him.
Cool his blood and allow him to endure whatever may
come.”

Rone felt a soothing calm wash over his
soul—as though someone had poured cool water over his aching brain
and quenched some of the fire around his burning heart.

“
Thank you,” he whispered
hoarsely as the priestess withdrew her fingertips. “Thank you for
your help.”

She looked at him, obviously troubled.

“
I fear it will not last
for long. But I hope that it will be long enough for you to break
at least some of the barriers that stand between you and your mate.
Go in peace, Warrior.”

She backed away, disappearing with a rustle
into the purple and green branches of the sacred trees that filled
the grove. Rone watched her go, grateful for her intervention.

Just then, he thought he heard another
rustling behind him but when he turned his head, there was no one
there. Well, it was probably just another priestess, helping
someone else. It was time he got back to the suite he shared with
Kate and tried to get some sleep. As if he could sleep knowing she
was in the same suite with him while he was unable to hold or touch
her.

Oh Kate,
he thought sadly, getting to his feet.
Oh, Lalli—miss you so much. Need to hold you in
my arms and feel your soft little body curled against mine. Need to
love you and protect you and taste your sweet honey until you moan
and cry for more, until you beg for my tongue inside you as you
used to do…

But there was no use thinking such things.
For now, at least, he and Kate were estranged. Maybe tomorrow when
the lab analysis of the Dream Blooms was complete they would have
some answers. In the meantime, he needed to be patient, as the
priestess had said and just bide his time.

He just hoped the burning
in his blood didn’t return before they solved this problem. If
the
hunger
returned before he and Kate were reconciled, he didn’t know
what he would do.

* * * * *

Kate turned over on her side and stared out
into the darkened room. She was alone in the big bed—Rone had
insisted on taking the couch in the living area, even though Kate
had pointed out she would fit on it much better than he would. But
he had absolutely refused, saying she should have the bedroom to
herself.

Maybe he thought it would
be too painful to sleep alone in a bed he remembers sharing with
me.
Of course, she had no such memories.
So here she was, feeling tiny and alone in the huge bed while he
was sleeping in the other room.

As if I’d want him in bed
with me!
Kate told herself. The panic
reaction would probably be so bad she wouldn’t get a minute of
sleep. And yet…somehow she wished it wasn’t so. Wished she didn’t
feel too frightened of him to at least be near him.

She turned over restlessly, pressing her
face into the pillow. There was a warm scent on the case—a dark,
masculine spice that reminded her of fur and leather and some kind
of fresh cut wood—cedar maybe. What was that? Was it Rone’s scent?
He’d said something about how they had forgotten to change the
sheets the last time they were in the Mother Ship together. But
that had apparently been more than six months ago. Could his scent
linger that long? Or was she specially attuned to it somehow?

Kate didn’t have any answers. She turned
over again, her mind going back to the scene she’d watched in the
Sacred Grove that evening. After Rone had left, she had felt
compelled to follow him—at a safe distance, of course. She’d been a
little afraid of losing her way but though her memory of the ship
was still nonexistent, her sense of direction had finally kicked
in. She’d gotten to the center of the ship where the holy green and
purple trees grew and had hidden herself among them and watched as
Rone consulted with one of the priestesses.

Kate had been shocked and concerned by what
she had seen. Clearly when the priestess “Looked Into” him, it had
been a very invasive and uncomfortable experience. Yet Rone had
been willing to endure it, for her. And it wasn’t just what he had
gone through…some of his words still rang in her head and wouldn’t
leave her alone.

“
I would give anything to
hold Kate in my arms again. To kiss her…to touch and taste and love
her. To worship her as she deserves to be worshiped,”
he had told the priestess and Kate had heard the
sincerity in his deep voice.

He loves me,
she thought, tossing restlessly again.
Really loves me. And I can’t even stand to be
near him.

It made her feel so guilty
she could hardly lie still and the guilt, in turn, made her feel
defensive and angry. She hadn’t
asked
to lose her memory or be
stolen away from the man she supposedly loved. Just as she hadn’t
asked to have a huge, handsome Kindred husband she couldn’t
remember show up out of the blue, wanting to resume their
relationship where they’d left off even though she couldn’t recall
ever seeing him before. A husband she couldn’t even bear to touch
because of the panic she felt when she was near him. It was all
like some cruel, elaborate prank someone was pulling on her and
there was nothing she could do about it.

But that wasn’t the only
thing that was bothering her. She wondered about something else
Rone had said too. About his Beast…and about the
hunger.
What was he
talking about when he asked the priestess to cool his blood? And
what was the
hunger
anyway? What was he hungry for?

You,
whispered a little voice in her head that sounded like the
Knowing.
He’s hungry for you, Kate. The
Beast is always hungry.

Kate shivered and curled up in a ball in the
center of the bed. What did it all mean? And would she ever feel
safe enough around the big Kindred to find out?

She didn’t know but she pressed her face to
the pillow again and breathed in his scent. For some reason, that
helped.

Lulled by the warm smells of fur and leather
and fresh cut cedar, Kate finally drifted to sleep.

Chapter
Ten

“
I’m afraid I don’t have
very good news for you regarding the lab analysis,” Sylvan
said.

Rone felt his heart sink.

“
What did you find?
Anything at all?” He strove to keep his voice steady but inside he
felt like dying. Would he never get his mate back?

Sylvan sighed. “The better
question might be what
didn’t
we find. Honestly, I have never seen anything
like it. The Dream Blooms were coated in a witch’s brew of memory
blockers and fear toxins so intricate and entwined it made analysis
very difficult.”

“
Entwined how? What do you
mean?” Kate asked. She was sitting beside Rone—but not too close—on
the other side of the couch in Sylvan’s office.

“
I mean that the chemicals
seemed to trigger each other and feed off one another. The memory
blockers were set to erase all traces of the one you love the most
and at the same time, the fear toxins triggered an irrational
terror of that same individual.”

“
All right,” Rone said.
“So what’s the antidote? How do we cure it?”

“
I’m afraid we can’t,”
Sylvan shook his head unhappily. “Not through medical means,
anyway.”

“
So there’s no
hope?
None?”
Rone
demanded raggedly. Gods, he felt like he was being pulled inside
out! He couldn’t even look at Kate. Instead he put his head in his
hands and just tried to breathe.

“
I didn’t say there was no
hope,” Sylvan said quietly. “I just said we couldn’t cure Kate’s
amnesia and fear through the medical means at our disposal on the
Mother Ship. The chemical compound is too complex—and it’s invaded
her system too thoroughly to be eradicated by conventional
means.”