Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 79941 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79941 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
“Mm-hmm, I see.” The priestess nodded but didn’t move and her eyes still looked hard.
“Can I get her blessing?” Courick asked, feeling impatient and also uncomfortable under her scrutiny.
“Not until you’re honest with both me and yourself—what are you running from, Warrior?” The priestess raised her eyebrows.
“Running from? What are you talking about?” he demanded. “I didn’t come to the Sacred Grove to be interrogated!”
“No, but you didn’t really come for the will of the Goddess, either, did you?” The priestess appeared unruffled by his angry words. “You came for justification of your actions—but I can’t condone your flight until I know more about it. Kneel—I will Look Into you.”
“What? No—that’s not necessary.” Courick took a step back, the green and purple grass whispering against his bare feet. He had removed his boots to enter the Sacred Grove, filled with rustling trees, but now he wished he hadn’t. He just wanted to get out of here!
But the priestess only shrugged her shoulders, which made her long white robe ripple.
“Very well. But if you will not submit, I cannot give you the blessing of the Goddess.”
Courick had been about to turn and leave but now he paused. He couldn’t go without the Goddess’s blessing—he couldn’t lie about such a sacred thing and he knew that Sylvan would ask him before allowing him to take the new position.
“Well…all right,” he said at last, coming back to the priestess. “But please, make it quick. Allowing another into one’s mind is not a comfortable experience.”
“Believe me, Warrior, it isn’t comfortable for me either,” the priestess assured him. “Whatever pain I find in you, I will have to experience myself. But sometimes it is necessary to know the will of the Goddess. Now kneel that I may reach you.”
Unwillingly, Courick got to his knees. He closed his eyes as he felt the priestess’s cool fingertips press against his temples. And then there was the sensation he had dreaded—the feeling of an outside presence rummaging through his mind, looking at his memories.
To give the priestess credit, her mental touch was light. But he could still feel her looking at events in his past that he had locked away and tried his best to forget.
“I see…I see…” she murmured as she searched. “A young and lovely mate…the hopes you had for a bright future…a pleasure trip to a distant planet that you thought was safe…”
“I left her there—locked in the ship. I thought it was secure. I don’t know…don’t know how they got in.” Courick heard the pain in his own voice but he couldn’t seem to help it.
“You came back to find the ship’s door hanging open…you heard her dying screams…you ran to her but—”
“But it was too late,” Courick finished in a low voice. “They had defiled her and stabbed her over and over—she’d lost too much blood. By the time I killed them, she was gone. Oh, Yasha…”
“Too late…you reached her too late…ahhh, the pain! The anguish and the guilt—the burden you have carried all these years…”
The priestess withdrew her fingers abruptly. When Courick looked up, he saw tears in her green-within-green eyes.
“Forgive me,” he said roughly. “I didn’t mean to make my pain yours.”
“No…it is part of what we deal with as liaisons for the Goddess.” The priestess took a deep breath and dabbed her eyes with the long sleeve of her white robe. “I grieve for you, Warrior—truly, it was a terrible way to lose your mate.”
“It was long ago,” Courick said, looking away. “But every day I live with the fact that I failed her.”
“You should not be so hard on yourself,” the priestess said gently. “You left her in an area you thought was safe and you secured your ship before you left—the death of your mate wasn’t your fault.”
“And yet I still bear the guilt,” he growled. “But now that you have unearthed my pain, may I have the blessing of the Goddess?”
“No—for I cannot give you a blessing to run from your problems.” The priestess shook her head. “But I can give you what you really need—absolution from your vow.”
“What?” Courick frowned. “What are you talking about? What do you know about the vow I took?”
“I saw more than just your pain—I saw the aftermath as well,” the priestess told him. “You took a vow never to take another mate, but now the Goddess has offered you a second chance. She expects you to take it and so I absolve you of the vow. It no longer binds you.”
“But…but the female I was with lied to me and deceived me!” Courick exclaimed. “She manipulated me—made me act in ways I never would have if she hadn’t lied!”
The priestess gave him a level look.
“Warrior—be honest with yourself. You enjoyed the things you did with this female—she let you care for her in ways no one else ever had. You are—at your core—a giver. She let you be open to that part of yourself and you loved it—every minute of it.”