Three Worlds 01 - Seduce Me In Dreams (25 page)

“No,” he said thoughtfully, reaching to toy with a strand of hair beneath her ear, “actually I do. Except, for some reason, it doesn‟t matter with you. I mean risking my rank. You‟re worth it. Even if I got caught and was reported, which I highly doubt anyone in my crew would do, I‟d probably welcome the demotion. Maybe that will get me out of the sights of—”

He broke off, realizing that he was about to make the blunder that was the main reason why sleeping with a girl while on-mission was such a big mistake. Pillow talk. Satiation loosening the tongue. He didn‟t want Ravenna worrying about him. He still needed to keep this assassination business close to the vest. He didn‟t even know if it was safe for her people to come with them, or if they would be safer on the planet rather than a ship with a cosmic bull‟s-eye on it. But he was afraid he had little choice. The cities on Ebbany were uncivilized and

loaded with unsavory types who would eat up naïve people like them. Plus, as he understood it, most of the Chosen Ones wouldn‟t survive the psychic input of a city-sized population.

“Anyway,” he sighed softly, “the point is, if I gave a damn about being caught, I wouldn‟t be here. Or you wouldn‟t be here.” He shrugged when she laughed. “You get my point.”

“I believe I do,” she mused, giving her hips a saucy little wriggle that caused him to stir to life inside of her. “Hmm.” She released a delicious sigh. “You felt good. You
feel
good,” she amended when he smiled and bent to kiss her.

“Good seems like such a mild descriptive,” he remarked. “You do nothing for my confidence.”

“Good. You don‟t need any more confidence.”

“Tell me, though, are you okay? I …” He hesitated, and she felt her heart tighten with warmth. “I didn‟t mean to go so fast.” He released an invective that told her how uncomfortable he was with his behavior, though, in truth, she had seen nothing wrong with it. She had liked how he had made her feel. Physical sensations aside, he‟d made her feel like an irresistibly desirable woman, as though she, with her minimum experience, had shown him something new as well. “Did I hurt you?” he asked, shifting his weight as though he would leave her body.

Her hands flew out to grasp him by his hips, keeping him firmly where he was, making him look at her with surprise and a slow smile.

“Don‟t leave me,” she murmured, sliding her hands up the length of his sweat-dampened body until she could draw him back down to her mouth.

“Hmm. One of my uncles‟ favorite rules,” he said before sweeping her up in a deep sensual kiss that instantly kicked up breaths and heartbeats.

“Oh?”

“Yes. Always give a woman what she wants.”

“Hmm,” she hummed appreciatively, “I like that one.”

“You know what? So do I.”

Masin was just coming off his turn at sentry duty, exhausted after a long day. Ender had just relieved him, and Lasher was looking forward to some rack time, even if he didn‟t agree with Bronse about taking the opportunity to rest. At least one of the enemies out to get them would be able to deduce exactly where their escaped prisoners might go, and that would lead them straight to the temple doors.

On the other hand, there was very little that the crew could do in the dark with what amounted to a group of kids. And, frankly, all of them were worn out. Oh, the soldiers among them had toughed out worse things than this for longer periods of time, but trying to figure out who was out to kill them next could really wear a body out.

On the way to his room, Lasher passed by Bronse‟s. He entertained doing a situation evaluation with his boss for all of ten seconds, but the soft feminine cry that eddied past the door quickly brought him up short with surprised and outright disbelief. He‟d known the commander for a long time. He‟d seen the unusual way he was taken with the high priestess of the temple, and had found that baffling enough on its own, but this … this was something totally different.

This proved just how much Bronse‟s head was not in the game.

Masin couldn‟t help the bemused smile that toyed at his lips. As a soldier, he supposed that Bronse‟s activities should really disturb him. For one, it was a huge violation of on-mission behavior expectation. Second, this kind of distraction could really affect the commander‟s motivations when making decisions.

But the fact of the matter was that this was a mission unlike any other. This was a woman unlike any other. Her abilities alone were simply astounding. All of the psionics they had seen displayed by the Chosen Ones were far out of the scope of anyone‟s experience. It did change the rules a bit. Especially when one of them could see things coming in a way that no soldier ever could.

Then there was Masin‟s viewpoint as Bronse‟s friend. He‟d never before seen the man show such partiality toward a woman. Even when he‟d stumbled onto Liely, Bronse had never been swept up in what he was feeling to the point where he‟d forgotten himself. As a soldier this should scare the shit out of Lasher, but as a friend it was refreshing to experience it. And now, by the sound of it, Bronse had taken things with Rave to a whole new level. It was baffling, amusing, and frightening all at once. In the span of a single day, this woman had managed to get under Chapel‟s skin. On the one hand, Lasher couldn‟t understand how that was even possible.

On the other hand, it was nice to see Bronse acting like a human being for a change.

Lasher was giving himself a headache as he stood there thinking himself into nice concentric circles, so he moved on to the room he‟d been assigned. It was a functional and even cozy twelve by twelve space with a roomy bed covered with soft furs to keep out the cold wilderness air. It was ten times as luxurious as what he was used to while on-mission, and it looked like a little slice of heaven. He undressed his vest and his weapons belt, the anticipation of his bed making him more tired.

He had just begun to crawl onto his bed when a rapid, panicked sounding, two-fisted knock banged against his door. He was wide awake and hurrying across the room in an instant, yanking open the door.

He was surprised to find Ophelia there and not Justice or Ender. Then again, neither of them would have bothered to knock. The delicate little blonde was wide-eyed and frantic, fear written starkly over her features. The minute he opened the door to her, she threw herself against him in a clinching hug that squeezed the breath right out of him. Stunned but still alert, he grabbed hold of her arms and demanded, “What is it? What‟s happened?”

“I can‟t find Ravenna!” The girl was bordering on hysteria, her eyes brimming with tears.

“Not anywhere!”

Masin winced when he recalled why that was and wondered if it was his place to tell a sixteen-year-old girl about her sister‟s sexual business.

“Why do you need Ravenna? Did something happen?”

“I had such a horrible dream! So terrible! People were sick and dying all around me and they kept clawing at me, grabbing me, demanding I help heal them. But I couldn‟t. I was so exhausted and there was no way for me to save them all.”

A nightmare? Masin exhaled with some relief. As far as he knew, Ophelia was just a healer. There was nothing prophetic about her. And it didn‟t take a shrink to understand that Ophelia was always afraid of not being able to do enough for those in need. In fact, she had no sense of self-regulation. She would probably burn herself out if given half the chance. And, in a certain light, he could understand the feeling. It was hard not to help when you knew how but your body just didn‟t have it to follow through. It was something that men in his profession had to face all the time.

“Honey, it was just a dream,” he tried to reassure her, feeling like he was failing when she began sobbing. Still, he didn‟t want to send her off crying to others, like maybe her hotheaded brother Kith, about how she could not find Rave. Worse would be if she did find her and then proved not to have any discretion. He didn‟t think she would be that way, but he wasn‟t willing to risk any altercations between Bronse and the other men in the temple. It was clear how protective they were of one another, and Kith at least would burst a vessel if he caught the two of them together. Luckily for Bronse, the kid had been preoccupied with one of the serving girls earlier and wouldn‟t likely be looking for Rave.

With protecting his commander on his mind, Masin drew Ophelia into his room and shut the door. He sat her on his bed, taking a moment to wipe away her tears with his fingertips and cradle that frightened elfin face in his hands.

“It‟s all right,” he reassured her. “I won‟t let anything bad happen to you tonight.”

She looked up at him with those incredibly huge eyes of hers, and he felt a knee-jerk response of anger over her vulnerability. Ravenna was the only one he had seen behave protectively of her. The boys in the temple had treated her much more matter-of-factly, as if she were required to do their bidding and fulfill the healing needs of those around her regardless of what it might cost her. On some level, she had to be aware of that. She had to know there was little to no protection for her in this place. What had it been like for her without Rave to shield her? To care for her? No wonder she had sought her sister for comfort on her first night back at the temple.

“Really?” she asked, looking so starkly in need of reassurance. “You have no idea what it‟s been like here without Rave.”

But he could easily imagine.

“What has it been like without Rave?”

“Well,” she sniffled, “so many people came to her seeking something, some kind of reassurances about their future or help counseling them about their lives. She can see the past, present, and future, you know.”

“No, I didn‟t know.”

“She helps people with their marriages, their family relationships. She helps them understand the difference between the right and wrong of what they are doing. She brings them so much clarity, and they depend on her greatly. I think that‟s one reason why it was so shocking that they would betray her. They were so shortsighted about it. They didn‟t realize just how much she did for them. All they wanted was to ensure that the Shiasha would not raid the village.

They thought they could placate the warlord by gifting him with Kith and Rave. It might have worked, but it really was terribly shortsighted, don‟t you think? It would be only a matter of time before the Shiasha would reconsider. Or after tasting the powers of the Chosen Ones, he might then want the rest of us. As it is, there is no way for us to ever live here safely again. If you had not come along, I don‟t know what we would have done. When I think of what could have become of us …” She trailed off and shuddered delicately.

“If Ravenna can see so much, how did she not know about them coming to take her and Kith?” he found himself asking.

“She sensed that something was going to happen, but without reading someone directly for the clearest vision, she really is limited in what she knows. It‟s a capricious ability sometimes. It‟s always hard to read one‟s own future.”

“I see.”

“And when she was gone, everyone was coming to me and Vivienne, trying to replace their need for her with us. People come to me with all manner of illness, and I know how to fix that. But I cannot heal a broken heart or shattered trust. When they come to me for that, I have to turn them away. I don‟t know what to do, so I have to turn them away!”

Ophelia was so upset by her perceived failure that she began to cry again. It tore at Lasher to see her beating herself up for things she couldn‟t control. Wanting to comfort her, he drew her into his arms and hugged her close to his chest. He had a sister close to her age, one who had the luxury of a concerned and caring big brother, whom she often took advantage of in their communiqués. Because he was rarely at home and traveled out of touch so much, he would often come back to base and find a long list of letters from her. She would write to him about everything; he was a distant confidant she could always count on even if he wasn‟t immediately able to respond.

Ophelia‟s older brother was far too self-centered a little bastard for her to turn to. Lasher wanted to excuse him just by virtue of his immaturity, but it went deeper than that. Kith was as spoiled as they came.

Masin waited until Ophelia grew quiet. He simply sat there and enjoyed the flowery smell of her hair and the way the young had of being able to hug someone to within an inch of their life. Then, after a while, he pulled back.

“You should get back to bed. We‟re going to have a long day tomorrow.”

“Oh! No! Please don‟t make me,” she begged him. She crawled all the way onto the bed, nearly sitting on the pillow beside him and clinging to the headboard. He tried not to smile when he realized that she intended to force her way into staying, as if her slender little arms could hold on against him if the two of them went in a head-to-head contest of strength. “I‟ll never be able to sleep anyway. And if I did, I‟d just have another terrible dream. I want to stay here with you.”

She punctuated the point by pulling up a corner of the cover and drawing it over herself.

“I‟ll go to sleep and I won‟t be any bother. You won‟t even know I‟m here.”