Savage Need (Temple of Luna, #2) (5 page)

In dreams, everything belongs to warm embraces and happy endings. His hands on her skin and cries from her lips, only better in dreams because their passion has no expiration date. Just a man and a woman and bliss unfolding into months that become years that become forever.

He knows the dreams aren't real, but the nightmares are. The warm skin of the woman is gone. In nightmares, skin is covered in blood, rent and torn and magic isn't enough and science isn't enough and the bleeding never stops.

But the body before him isn't a warrior, isn't even a man. The boy cries for his mother, weaker and weaker as the blood pools under the makeshift table, and on the other side of the grimy tent his mother stares up at nothing. Twenty-two years old, at most. A girl, a human girl torn apart by human explosives, and her silence is a judgment.

He isn't enough.

Outside the tent isn't silence, it's screams. Screams as three warriors are executed for turning the human's weapons on their women and children, but the screams can't save the boy. Magic isn't enough. Science isn't enough. Vengeance isn't enough.

He
isn't enough.

Blood runs from the table. Drips from the table. Tiny little splashes, farther and farther apart, and louder because the boy's not crying anymore. Not breathing anymore. Not living anymore.

Eight children died under his hands. The ninth might take him along for the ride.

Death could be enough.

Jarek woke her with his screaming.

Zahra slid off the bed, instinctively moving away to protect them both. He sprang off the bed in the opposite direction, taking the slippery sheets with him. His back hit the wall, and magic rippled through the room as he howled and began to shift.

The change came easily to wolves under the power of the moon or warriors in the heat of bloodlust, but nothing seemed easy about Jarek's transformation. His scream turned to agony, and he hit the floor on his hands and knees with bones twisting and fur rippling over skin.

Outside in the hallway, someone pounded on the door and called her name. Zahra hesitated, torn. If she answered the guard, they'd take Jarek away, and he wouldn't be allowed in her bedchamber again. Instead, she stayed low on the floor and crawled to the end of the bed. "Jarek."

He snarled and came to his feet, a dark wolf with pale eyes and the power to tear out her throat.

Zahra started to reach out and froze. If he'd slipped back into darkness, there was no guarantee he'd still remember her. And approaching a snarling wolf was madness.

But she still bore his scent, if nothing else. His marks. So she pulled back her hand and waited.

The noises in the hallway had grown more frantic. Soon someone would find an override and unlock her door, but for now she was alone. The wolf studied her in silence before stepping forward to nuzzle her shoulder, and she slid her fingers through his fur.

He was warm under her cheek, and Zahra made a soft, soothing noise even as her heart twisted with pain and sympathy. "It's all right," she whispered as she stroked him. "Whatever happened, you're all right now. I'll help you, no matter what it takes."

He whined, the sound vulnerable and full of pain. But the gentleness in his body disappeared when the door behind them whispered open.

"Zahra!" Balthasar's voice came from behind her. "Move away."

The wolf bared his teeth and snarled.

"If you come closer, Balthasar, he'll attack." She didn't budge from the spot, didn't look up or stop petting Jarek. "Leave us."

"Sorry, Zahra. The high priestess outranks everyone within the walls of the Temple, even you. And my orders were clear." Boots scraped against the floor, and Jarek lunged, diving between her and the intruder with an angry growl.

"No!" She came to her knees and pounded the floor with her fist. "Damn it, wait outside. Leave the door open if you must, but
go away
."

Balthasar had a dart gun aimed at the wolf. For several endless moments there was no sound but the low, angry rumbling from the wolf and the harsh breathing of the guard. Then he sighed and lowered his hand. "By the Goddess, girl, you're going to get me killed." But he backed away until his footsteps took him out through the doorway.

She breathed a sigh of relief and held out a hand to Jarek. "Please."

He trembled but he came to her, inching across the intervening space with most of his attention still fixed on the door. Only when Balthasar stayed safely outside did he bump his nose against her hand.

Sadness welled in her again, and her hands trembled on his fur. "My Goddess, Jarek. What did you see?"

Terror. Desperation.
I'll never be enough.

The thoughts echoed in her head, and she started as she realized they'd formed a bond, a telepathic link. Images flashed in her mind, memories that must have belonged to him, and she covered her face with her hands. "No."

Blood, so much blood. Disjointed cries, pleas. Screams. A sob tore free of Zahra when she realized the memories were of children, wounded and dying.

Dying.

I'll never be enough.

Magic swelled, along with the pained sound of another transformation. Too soon to be smart, too soon to be
safe
, but when she opened her eyes she saw Jarek through her tears, kneeling on the floor and panting for breath.

He looked up at her with eyes shot through with pain, and struggled to speak. "Don't look--you shouldn't see--"

"I'm sorry." She threw her arms around his neck. "No one should. I'm so sorry."

His shoulders shook. He curled in on himself as if he hurt--and he had to hurt with two transformations so close together--and bent until his forehead rested against her thighs.

Zahra bent over him, barely noticing when the door closed quietly and Balthasar's footsteps receded. She cried with Jarek--for the things he'd endured, for the women and children who had died. For the atrocities he hadn't been able to stop or change. "It wasn't your fault."

The connection between them hadn't closed, and she felt the wave of revulsion that threatened to drown him. "My fault twice over. My fault every way that matters."

Because the men who had lost their grip on sanity had been under his care. "Even the priestesses can't always stop the animal from taking control, darling. No one can, not with so much bloodshed. It isn't possible."

"If I'd forced them out of combat earlier..." His voice broke on a ragged growl. "I was
tired
. I was tired, and two dozen people died for it."

No one was perfect. Unfortunately, as healers, their imperfections all too often led to death. "You're not infallible, Jarek. Not one of us is."

The sharp ache inside him wouldn't be easily soothed by words, not when the black depths of it threatened to swallow her whole. Jarek shuddered under her hands, and one thing became clear.

He wasn't headed back to the front lines anytime soon. He needed help, the kind she couldn't offer as a priestess of the Temple of Luna. The kind she couldn't even offer as a healer.

"We'll find someone to help you," she whispered against his hair. "It will be all right. Someday, it'll be all right."

She only hoped her words were true.

Sanctuary.

To the east, Jarek could see the Temple of Luna, set up on its hill as if the priestesses who lived there needed to be just a bit closer to the Goddess they served.

As a healer, he'd always found the duality fitting. The House of Sanctuary and the Savage Temple, built on the same earth and serving the same purpose. But only the strong made the trip up the mountain to heal their souls.

The broken stayed with their feet firmly on the ground.

Having the Temple looming over him was its own brand of torture. Jarek tried. He went through his daily routine, met with the therapist who picked at his emotional scabs until they bled.

He even allowed himself to be manipulated. The healers attempted to draw him into complicated cases, prodding him to consult on patients who required little personal interaction. As deft as the attempts were, Jarek was no fool. They were rebuilding his confidence, one brick at a time.

Or so they thought. They had little way of knowing they were building on a foundation of sand. Something inside him had snapped, had shattered so completely he doubted anyone could find enough of the pieces to put him back together.

But he tried. He tried because every few days he'd glance up at the Temple, and the reminder was enough. Zahra's duties as a priestess and the traditions of Sanctuary kept her away, but she'd made it clear during their last brief conversation that if he needed her, she'd come to him.

He needed her. He needed her with a intensity that terrified him, especially when he knew he had nothing to give in return. No brilliant career, no warrior strength...

And no money. No position. His status in their world had come from the sharpness of his mind and the skill of his hands, from the healing magic inside him that he could no longer bring himself to use. Without it he was nothing more than a lone wolf, the poor son of a farmer who had never been strong enough to fight with tooth and claw.

Jarek had promised himself he wouldn't call for her. But they were sending him home in the morning, back to the quiet of his family's territory, where no one needed his skills for anything more serious than accident or illness. A place to heal his soul.

A place where he'd never be good enough for her.

He was leaving, and he was too weak to go without seeing her one last time.

Her shoes made no sound on the stone path, but he heard the whisper of her robes even before he caught her scent on the breeze. "Good afternoon, Jarek."

"Zahra." He loved the way her name sounded. Hated that he might not get to speak it again after today. He turned and found himself smiling as he caught sight of her. "Thank you for coming."

"You're welcome." She stopped in front of him, her hands on his arms in lieu of an embrace. Her smile was friendly, but something warmer burned in her eyes. "How have you been?"

"Better. Better every day." He lifted a hand to cup her cheek because he couldn't stop himself, and he didn't care what rules he broke. It wouldn't matter tomorrow. "But they don't think my mind can heal here. They want me to go home for a while, and I didn't want to leave without seeing you."

Her smile didn't waver, but her eyes darkened. "That should be very relaxing. I'm sure you'll enjoy yourself."

"It's a farm, Zahra." And the fact that she thought it would be relaxing emphasized the stark differences in their upbringing. "I imagine I'll work very hard and be tired at the end of the day, but no one will need me to save them."

"I suppose I don't know much about farm life." A bit of rueful self-consciousness crept into her smile, but she tensed as she spoke again. "Can I keep in touch? Write or call?"

He needed to tell her no. He needed to cut all ties, because the leading healer in their world might have had the slimmest of chances, but a poor farmer too scared to use his gifts had none. In a few short days she'd be as out of reach as Luna herself.

And his beast didn't care. His beast had claimed, so he groaned and did the same. The fingers brushing her cheek dropped, slid around the back of her neck until he could fist his hand in her silky hair. He dropped his mouth to hers and kissed her, plying her lips with his tongue until she slid her arms around his neck and opened her mouth with a moan.

Zahra clung to him, kissing him desperately, her body pressed close to his. Finally, she dragged her lips to his ear with a soft cry. "One word," she whispered. "Say it, and there will never be anyone else for me, no matter what happens."

A bride of silence.
Fully half the men in their world went to war until they were forty. Those fortunate--or unfortunate--enough to fall in love before their twentieth year had two choices: take a mate he'd spend the next twenty years separated from, or break all ties and let her find happiness with someone who could be there.

Ten years ago, he'd left Zahra behind. He'd let her go without saying a word, without planting false hopes that might prompt her to wait for a man who might never come home. She'd had men. He'd had women. They'd moved forward.

He knew in his heart neither of them had moved on.

Jarek drew in a deep breath and curled his arms more tightly around her. "Six months," he whispered, already hating himself for his selfishness. "I can't handle forevers, but...I need six months. Six months where I know you're still mine."
Six months to become a man who dares ask a King for his cousin.

"Yes." She didn't argue or offer him more, though she trembled in his arms and he knew she wanted to. "Six months."

"Trust me." It was foolish to ask when he barely trusted himself.

Her lips feathered over his cheek. "I do."

"And call me?"

"Every day."

"Zahra." He turned his head and caught her mouth again, kissing her hard enough to fall into her, to brand her taste in his memory.

She molded to him, her feminine softness the perfect counterpoint to the hard planes of his own body. He smelled the salt of the tears tracking down her face before he tasted them, and he groaned and pulled back. "Don't cry."