by Rebecca York
“You mean a Minot raped her,” Ophelia said in a flat voice.
“No. I mean the two of them had a good marriage. Julia raised Jason to have our values. That’s why he came here.”
Denada ignored the last part. “Why didn’t she come back to us?”
Sophia’s gaze swung to Cynthia. “Because the high priestess wouldn’t take her back.”
“An Ionian’s loyalty is to her sisters. Not to any man,” Cynthia answered. “She made the wrong choice. Her sisters would have welcomed her back. Gladly.”
There were murmurs of agreement around the circle.
“If she’d given up her lover,” Sophia said, her gaze on Cynthia. For a long moment, the two women stared at each other, and Sophia realized she was treading on dangerous ground.
Swallowing, she brought the conversation back to Jason.
“He’s different. He didn’t take me away.”
“They’re all the same.”
“Let him prove what he is,” she begged, then turned to him. “Will you open your mind to my sisters, so they can see what I’ve seen?”
She felt emotions warring inside him. He had submitted to her in the most intimate way. They’d know that if they probed his mind. But he was in a terrible position no matter what decision he made.
After a long moment, he nodded.
“You must be the link,” Cynthia said.
“Can we do it?” she murmured to Jason.
When he answered, “Maybe,” she felt her chest tighten painfully, but she walked to him and put her hands on either side of his head, the way Cynthia had done with her in the temple.
“Don’t block me. Let me into your mind.”
He looked defiantly at the women who stood in a circle around him.
Sophia felt their skepticism and their hostility toward the Minot they had captured. She knew Jason must feel it, too.
“Close your eyes,” she whispered, hoping that would help.
Against all expectations, she had made a connection with him that was stronger than she had made with any of her sisters. She could do it again.
But when she tried, nothing happened. She might have been grasping a tree or a stone pillar.
Don’t panic. Let it happen, she ordered herself. And him, because this wasn’t going to work unless he could open himself up in a way no Minot ever had. This wasn’t just a private encounter with her. This was with the whole Sisterhood.
And they both knew that his resistance was part of the problem.
Her heart pounded as she stood with her hands on Jason’s face, sensing the intense scrutiny of all her sisters. She felt vulnerable. More vulnerable than she ever had in her life. Even in the temple. There she’d known the group wished her well. Here she knew that life and death hung in the balance.
As she started to tremble, she felt Jason’s hand on her waist. When she focused on his touch, a door seemed to open, and she slipped into his mind, reading the surface thoughts.
She sighed in relief. They had made the contact. The relief lasted until she caught what was in his mind.
He was struggling for calm, but it wasn’t coming through. And she knew he felt defiant. Angry. Trapped.
Don’t.
Her warning had no effect. Scenes leaped out at her. Jason making long-range plans to invade the spa. Jason stalking them. Jason running out of the desert and fighting with the other Minot who had tried to take her captive.
Show them what I’ve seen in your mind.
She wanted to say more, but she couldn’t because her sisters would hear, and he wasn’t listening.
Was all the bad stuff coming from Jason, or was Cynthia somehow helping along his anger and his frustration?
Sophia couldn’t answer that question. She only knew that the images were being transmitted to her sisters with awful clarity. And they didn’t accurately represent the man who had held her in his arms.
Was she wrong about him? Had everything that had happened between them been a lie?
She didn’t want to believe that, yet her faith in him was being drained away.
She felt a shudder go through him, and he fell to the ground in front of her.
When she tried to go down on her knees beside him, two of her sisters grabbed her arms, holding her erect.
TESSA’S eyes blinked open. She was in the backseat of a stretch limo, leaning back against the soft leather seat.
A very good-looking man was beside her, and it took a moment for her to remember who he was. His expression was concerned.
“You’re awake.”
“You’re Rafe Garrison,” she whispered.
“Yes, that’s my name.”
“Let me go.”
He patted her hand. “I can’t do that. Not now. I want to give you a chance to get to know me. That’s only fair.”
“I just want to go back to my sisters.”
“You can later. If that’s what you decide. But you have to be fair to me, too. Now that we’re together, you have to let me show you how much I can give you. Everything you’ve always longed for and more.”
The determination in his voice made her close her eyes. She wasn’t going to persuade him simply with talk. Perhaps she couldn’t persuade him at all. Which meant that she’d have to figure out how to get away from him.
She swallowed, urging herself to a semblance of calm before she opened her eyes again and looked out the window at dry brown hills dotted with low vegetation. Some of it reminded her of the plants she would have seen in the desert around the spa, but this wasn’t desert country. Even if the grass was brown, there was too much of it to be the Arizona landscape.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“On the way to my estate. It’s in Southern California, just above Santa Barbara.”
She took that in, then said, “We were on a plane. It wasn’t a commercial flight.”
“That’s right.”
“I was in New Orleans. How did you find me there?”
“I checked the airline schedules.”
That sounded reasonable. At least he hadn’t used some kind of magic. Or had he? She couldn’t be sure what skills he’d acquired.
“Why did you take me . . . away? Without asking me first.”
He stroked her arm. She should be afraid of his touch, she knew, yet it was strangely reassuring.
“There’s a lot of crime in New Orleans. It was a dangerous place for you to be on your own. I couldn’t leave you there—unprotected.”
“I wasn’t in danger!”
“Of course you were. You don’t have much experience away from the Seven Sisters Spa. A lot of things could have happened to you.”
And one of them had, she thought, but she didn’t say it aloud.
“You’ve lived with your sisters all your life. They had a lot of rules, didn’t they?”
She answered with a small nod.
He covered her hand with his, stroking his fingers against her, sending a little shiver over her skin.
“You were allowed to make love with men, but you weren’t allowed to have a real relationship.”
When she didn’t answer, he continued. “Your high priestess, Cynthia, has a man who’s more than just a lover.”
“How do you know about that?”
“I make it my business to evaluate a situation from every angle. I know that Cynthia has forbidden you something that she enjoys herself.”
That was true, but she wouldn’t acknowledge it. Not to Rafe Garrison.
“I’m giving you a chance at the same privileges she has.”
“She’s the high priestess,” Tessa whispered.
“And you are no less worthy.”
The limo stopped at a gate, and she could see an electronic keypad. The driver reached out and pressed a sequence of buttons. When the gate opened, he drove through. She looked behind her, seeing the barrier close and wondering how she was going to escape from this place. Or did she want to escape?
She’d never been sur
e of herself at the spa. She’d never thought that she was living up to the traditions of the Ionians. Then she’d found out about the three missing Ionians, and she’d wondered if everything they’d told her at the compound was a lie.
Well, not everything. Some of it had to be true, but maybe they had a prejudice about the Minot that everyone had taken for granted for hundreds of years. And maybe she had a chance to prove that it was a bunch of baloney.
What if she stayed with this man for a while and found out what he was really like? Then she could go back to her sisters and report on what she’d learned.
The thought calmed her, but was she making the right decision?
Well, she had time to figure that out. Rafe Garrison was giving her time, in a safe environment. And even if she was wrong, playing along with him now was her best strategy.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
WHEN JASON FELL to the ground, Sophia’s contact with him snapped off as though someone had severed an artery with a knife. Only blood didn’t spurt.
Her gaze shot to Cynthia. “What have you done?” she gasped.
“I’ve only put him to sleep,” the high priestess answered.
“I’ve seen enough. It’s obvious that he doesn’t have your best interests at heart.”
“You don’t know that. You didn’t give him a chance to show us anything but the . . . bad parts.”
“Interesting that’s what came out. I know what I saw in his mind—unfiltered by you.”
“Because he was intimidated. You really expected him to just open himself to you—all at once?”
Eugenia stepped forward and took her arm. “We will leave him here while we discuss what we’re going to do.”
Sophia wanted to protest, but she knew she wasn’t in control of the situation. Better to go along with her sisters for the moment.
Cynthia knelt and made a chalk circle on the ground. “This will bind him until we decide his fate.”
Sophia wanted to wrench out of her sisters’ grasp, but that wouldn’t do Jason any good. She must stay with the others, because if she simply let them debate his fate, he would have no advocate.
She wanted to scream. Or rush at Cynthia and pound her with her fists. The violence shocked her. Struggling to get a grip on her emotions, she let herself be led away.
In the private lounge, Sophia felt the tension around the room, much of it directed at her. Ophelia and some of the others kept giving her disapproving glances, and she felt like she was the one being tried.
Did they think she’d betrayed them by going off with Jason to the cave of power? That hadn’t been her intent. At least she didn’t think it was, yet she knew she had been feeling restless in the past few weeks. And perhaps deep down she’d been looking for another way of life.
Cynthia spoke again. “You have let yourself come under his spell.”
“No.”
“What do you think happened?”
“I connected with him on a very deep level. Otherwise, I couldn’t have showed you—” She started to say “what was in his mind” but stopped short.
“Right. It wasn’t very pleasant,” Cynthia said in a dry voice.
“He was defiant. And nervous,” she answered. “How would you react to such an ordeal?”
“I’d try to show what was good about me.”
“He couldn’t. Not like that, but he’s a good man.”
“It was to his advantage to let us see that, but he didn’t do it,” Eugenia said.
Sophia gave her a pleading look. She had hoped Eugenia would be on her side, but she seemed to be with the others.
“He came here to help me. When he knew something had happened.”
“So he said. Perhaps he’s working with the other one, after all.”
“Of course not!” Sophia protested. It was the only answer she could give.
“We must make sure he is no longer a threat to us,” Cynthia said.
Sophia’s head jerked toward her. “How? What are you going to do, kill him?”
“We could kill him, of course,” Cynthia said in a mild voice. “But there is another way. I propose that we operate psychically on his brain. Like the other Minot, he has heroic powers. I believe we can take them away from him. That will make him much less effective. He will be weakened in body and spirit.”
Others were voicing their approval. Sophia repressed a gasp. “Let me prove his good intentions,” she said.
“How?”
“There’s something in my room I need to show you.”
“What?”
“I can’t tell you. I must bring it to you.”
She stood. Before anyone could stop her, she left the lounge and hurried down the hall toward her room.
Once she was inside, she shut the door and locked it. There was nothing she could show them. She didn’t have anything Jason had given her, or any kind of proof. She’d said it because it was the only way she could think of to get out of the room and back to Jason.
Grabbing a chair, she rushed toward the window, stood on it, and unlocked the sliding panel. When it was wide enough for her to climb out, she threw a leg over the sill and shifted her weight so that her body was on the outside. Then she lowered herself to the ground.
As she landed, she heard someone knock on her door. “Sophia? What are you doing in there, Sophia? Let me in.”
It was Ophelia, and she knew that Cynthia had sent her.
“This has given me a horrible stomachache. I have to go to the bathroom first,” she called out. Then she took off through the garden, running as fast as she could, heading back to Jason. She had to get to him before the others, because she couldn’t allow Cynthia to do what she’d said. It would be fatal to him. He’d never be able to live if she took away his powers. They were too much a part of who he was.
She made it to the spot where they’d left him and saw that he was still lying on the ground.
When she tried to step across the circle, the chalk line stopped her, and she bounced back against an invisible barrier. Not only was it keeping him in. It was keeping her out.
“Jason,” she called out. “Jason, wake up. You’ve got to help me.”
She looked over her shoulder, and she didn’t see her sisters following, but she knew that when she failed to come back, they would guess where she had gone.
When he remained inert, her desperation rose. “Jason,” she called again. This time she sent him a strong mental jolt, as well. When his body jerked, she was heartened. She did it again, and again, using every ounce of power she possessed.
After an eternity, his eyes blinked open, and he looked around as though he had no idea where he was.
“Jason,” she cried. “They’re going to do something awful. We’ve got to get out of here.”
He pushed himself to a sitting position and ran a shaky hand through his hair. “What happened to me?”
“Cynthia did something . . .”
“Oh yeah.” Anger flared in his eyes.
“Stop it! Getting mad about it doesn’t do you any good. That’s how you got into this mess.”
“I got into it because I was trying to help you,” he said, punching out the words.
“Please, don’t start an argument,” she begged. “We have to get you out of here, and I can’t get through the barrier.”
“What barrier?” He stood up and tried to walk toward her, but when he reached the chalk line on the ground, he couldn’t get any farther. Backing up, he took several deep breaths, then ran toward her, but still he couldn’t get past the wards.
“It looks like I’m trapped,” he said in a hollow voice.
“I think we can get you out. If we work together.”
“How?”
She raised her hand, palm outward, pressing it against the transparent barrier. “Put your hand against mine. We can’t touch, but I think we can make a hole in the field.”
He did as she asked. It looked like he was pressing his hand to hers, but she couldn’t feel his
skin, only a tingling where their flesh should have met.
“Open your mind to me,” she murmured.
He stared at her, and she felt something stirring between them. She knew he was trying to drop his mental barriers again, but this time the process was more difficult. Whatever Cynthia had done to him had affected his brain. He wasn’t thinking as clearly or as swiftly, and probably the barrier was affecting their ability to communicate.
She knew he sensed her reaction, and his face contorted.
“It’s okay,” she whispered. “You’ll be okay when we get out of here.”
She hoped that was true, and she knew he caught the doubt in her mind. Opening yourself mentally to another person wasn’t always as convenient as she’d like.
“We have to focus on freeing you.”
“I know.”
She felt him struggle to concentrate and work with her. Together they focused on the barrier, using the silent communication that they’d forged before. For a long moment, nothing happened, and she was afraid that they’d lost the mental power that they’d developed together. Then, where their hands were pressed against the invisible force field, she felt something change. Molecule by molecule, it began to thin so that gradually she felt the skin of Jason’s hand.
“Thank the great spirit of the universe,” she whispered as his palm finally pressed against hers. Yet it was only a small hole, not nearly large enough for him to get out of.
“What should we do?” he asked.
“Move your hand with mine.”
She began to sweep her hand in a circle, in a motion she might have used to rub soot from a windowpane, and he kept pace with her.
Gradually she enlarged the opening, until it was finally large enough for him to step through.
She pulled him into her arms, and they clung together. She wanted to keep holding him, but there would be time for that later.
“We have to get out of here.”
“I think it’s too late,” he answered in a gritty voice.
When she raised her head, she gasped. While she’d been focused on Jason, the Ionians had been moving into position. Now they formed a circle around the two of them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
WHEN RAFE HELPED Tessa out of the limousine, she focused on her surroundings. They were under a large portico that led to a wide doorway.
