Rapture

by Jacquelyn Frank

  “Can’t blame me for being cautious. Magnus has this way of rubbing off goodness onto everyone. It’s very difficult to sway people closest to him away from him. Honestly, when my friends in the Senate thought it would be amusing to lure Trace away from Magnus’s teachings and the Chancellors, I knew they were wasting their time. He’s cut right from his father’s ass, for all they aren’t true blood.”

  “I do believe he hates my guts,” Dae mused, having been well aware of Trace’s animosity from the moment they’d met after her encounter with Killian.

  “Of course he does, dearest. Have you met his bitch? Simpering little submissive thing. Drenna, she turns my stomach. If that’s the way he likes them, then women like you and I must make his prick shrivel up tight in fear. And you do know how attached they are to their pricks.”

  “All right then, say I buy into this whole scheme of yours. Isn’t it over now? I mean, Sagan knows. Magnus knows. It’s all unraveling.”

  “Ah. Well, what are two bodies in the grand scheme? Here’s the beauty of it. I can take on Sagan and win, but only if you take out Magnus if Shiloh fails to do so. And I must admit that I doubt he’ll succeed. But he could get lucky, in which case, you won’t have to bother. However, when he fails, there is only one resource I have left that can keep him off my back and get close enough under his guard to get to him, and that’s you.”

  “Seems a waste,” Dae lamented softly. “He’s rather…” She smiled slyly. Genuinely. “Gifted.”

  “Now, dearest,” she scolded lightheartedly. “There’s good cock to be found all around you. You only need to look.”

  Dae arched a brow.

  “Brendan,” Nicoya offered with a grin. “That man is hung like a prize thoroughbred. Sagan…but he’s going to die,” she recalled with a momentary frown. “You’re right, it is a shame. But there’s a nut you can’t crack anyway. Sagan is rigidly into the whole temple monogamy. Although a few more months without a handmaiden, and a stud like him will find it very hard to resist the right woman. He was made for sex. He just channels it all into his fighting and practice at the moment. Knowing how good he is in the lists, you can imagine how well it would be to redirect his energies to where they belong.”

  “And the boys, of course?” Dae asked.

  “Mmm. Buckets of them. Ripe for the plucking. They are bursting to experience a woman. Quite literally.” She giggled. “But as I said, the fun is in the training. We could potentially train a Sanctuary full of future priests completely submissive to the handmaidens.”

  “Okay,” she said carefully, drawing in a breath.

  “Okay?” Nicoya prompted cautiously.

  “Boys do not interest me, but Brendan does. A few others. I find I am not a one-man woman. And Brendan, I’ve already noticed, could be so easily controlled by the right female.”

  “You think so?” Nicoya asked with amusement. “And that would be you?”

  “That would be a goal worth risking my ass for, among others. Freedom. True freedom.” She took a deep breath. “That is what I really crave. I’ve been a slave to men for long enough.”

  “Excellent!” Nicoya stopped pacing through the snow and turned a darkly sinister smile on Dae. “But I’m going to need a reason to trust you before I take your word for it.”

  Now here, she knew, was the danger. Nicoya would not be easily swayed, and the price she would demand would be very high.

  “I’m waiting,” she offered.

  “I want you to kill Brendan,” she said with a shrug.

  Dae raised a brow. “Brendan?” she echoed.

  “Yes. You just admitted you want him. He has value to you. Lure him to Shadowscape and kill him while I watch and I will know you mean to do as you are told. There would be no going back for you after murdering a priest. Magnus would then only be a further chain in the link. Consider it a rite of passage.”

  “Just like that? Has he offended you in some way, or was this an arbitrary choice because I mentioned his name?”

  “He is Magnus’s best friend in all of Sanctuary. And as I said, you want him. There is nothing arbitrary about it.” Dae watched as she closed her eyes briefly, turning attention into herself. After a moment she said, “Good. He is in Realscape in his rooms, which will guarantee he is alone.” She smiled and explained. “My third power. I can locate any specific person I think of across ’scapes. It’s how Shiloh and I can find those we hunt. It’s how we found you and Magnus just now.”

  “Very handy,” Dae said, suitably impressed. “Then let’s go find him. Realscape, Shadowscape…If he’s alone, what does it matter where I do this?” She began to walk through the snow, glad for the movement because her legs were nearly frozen from the knees down. Their breed could tolerate cold very well, but she needed to see about getting some boots! The banal thought made her laugh on a soft breath. What she really needed to do was to figure out how to kill Brendan without hurting him. She had to admit, she had not expected Nicoya to take time out to recruit her. But she had to try and stretch this as far as she could if there was any hope of glimpsing who else might be behind this. That Nicoya had mentioned the Senate had unnerved Dae. Just how far did this go? Where was all this plotting really going to stop? She had heard Tristan’s implications of traitors and such, but at the time she had thought it was mostly dramatic upset. Now she was forced to take him quite literally.

  But she couldn’t worry about the Senate. She would leave that to the Chancellors. Her focus needed to remain on Magnus and Sanctuary. Despite Nicoya’s derision, she knew that Shiloh would not be an easy mark for Magnus. If Magnus was wounded or wearied by the time he faced Nicoya…

  Daenaira tried not to think she was a coward for not challenging Nicoya here and now and getting it done with. She had to be smart about this. She couldn’t afford to get herself in trouble this time. Lives like Henry’s were at stake in so many more ways than just the mortal.

  They were in the city shelter again rather quickly, and Nicoya showed the way to Brendan’s rooms. She kept a keen eye on Dae and never gave her the advantage to attack under her guard. Daenaira kept hoping something would show itself to her advantage, but it never did. Her mind worked overtime to figure out how to pull this off. She was beginning to fear it might come down to deciding between Brendan’s life and the lives of so many others. Did she have the strength, the right, to make a choice like that?

  But she kept seeing and feeling Henry’s ravaged features and destroyed confidence and she knew she had to do whatever it took to protect the children of the future from Nicoya and her mystery companions. Magnus might never forgive her for it, but she had to place his life above that of his young friend. Magnus was the backbone of Sanctuary, despite all its troubles, and if he died it would sever the cord of nerves that kept it upright and functioning to the best of its ability.

  He needed to live so his ideals could survive long enough to be realized. She believed that. It was a faith all on its own.

  “There are tunnels behind these rooms,” Nicoya informed her, stopping at an alcove in the hall meant to provide a place to sit and study or converse in semiseclusion. Daenaira closed her eyes briefly when she realized the bench seat and the entire back wall could be triggered to swing away, allowing entrance into the tunnels that no doubt ran alongside many of the private rooms. “I will watch you from here. It will also keep me hidden from sight in case anyone is alerted to search for me as yet. If you falter or try to warn him in any way, I will march myself to the closest student I can find, whatever their age, and sacrifice them in his place. Do you understand? I will not tolerate deception. If you try and make a fool of me, others will die.”

  “Relax,” Dae said dryly. “No need for drama. One question, though.” She continued at Nicoya’s nod, smiling wolfishly. “Are you in any particular hurry? Seems such a waste not to get a ride off him after the way you described him.”

  Nicoya chuckled, looking her over thoroughly. “By all means. Be my guest. I’d love to see hi
m betray his old friend by taking Magnus’s precious handmaiden before he dies. How sweet, when he realizes he will burn in Light for eternity as he dies with such a sin on him.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” Daenaira murmured.

  “You see, I knew I liked you.” Nicoya laughed.

  Nicoya disappeared, closing the secret portal tight behind her. Daenaira sighed in soft, silent relief. If Nicoya stayed where she was, at least she wouldn’t be out in Dreamscape helping Shiloh fight Magnus or attempting to kill Sagan. The gambit of seducing Brendan would buy her time and, hopefully, the opportunity to make him aware something was very wrong. It made her nervous, knowing Magnus distrusted him even a little, even if it might well have been irrational jealousy. Did he have cause to suspect Brendan of breaking temple law in the past? Honestly, though, this had to be the least of her worries.

  Licking her lips, she entered Brendan’s rooms, and only after she closed the door and locked it tightly behind herself did she sheathe her sai. She walked through the empty bedroom that had once belonged to Nan, the handmaiden who had died of Crush, Hera had told her, nearly a year ago. The room was connected to the bathroom and then to the priest’s bedroom, just like the setup in her and Magnus’s suite, only not nearly on the same scale of size. Instead of the spring-fed tub, a simple modern Jacuzzi tub of impressive size had been sunk into the stone floor.

  She reached the priest’s bedroom and took a moment to look around. In Shadowscape, everything was exactly as it was in Realscape. Objects all remained the same, and anything she did would eventually reflect itself in Realscape as well. If she moved his brush in Shadowscape, it was likely he would pick it up and move it exactly the same way in Realscape eventually. Or a cleaning girl would, or any number of scenarios. The end result would be that both objects would end up in the same place.

  But that couldn’t help her now. Nicoya was no doubt watching her, and time discrepancy between ’scapes would make anything she did unpredictable or obsolete. All she could do was hope her ingenuity in Realscape would be enough to help her do this.

  Daenaira Unfaded and materialized in Brendan’s bedroom.

  He was singing.

  The understanding, as well as the surprising beauty of his rich baritone, made her smile. She realized she was hearing him in the acoustically tiled bath she’d just come through, and she contemplated whether to wait for him or confront him in his bath. She shook out her wet skirt, hiding her sai as best she could, and slowly walked into the doorway of the bath.

  Oh my.

  She hadn’t even noticed the shower. Piped in straight against the wall and drained directly into the floor, it had no doors or curtains or anything like them. Why would there be? Privacy between a priest and his handmaiden was really a moot issue. So she got a fine view of tall, beautifully proportioned male standing under the spray of hot water as soap wound down over the muscles and dark skin of his body.

  Also, she never would have thought Nicoya would understate matters, since she seemed a bit of a drama queen, but as Brendan turned and gave her a full frontal view, she couldn’t help but wonder what Sagan must be like in order to have Brendan coming in second in Nicoya’s estimation.

  Of course, nice as all of Brendan was, it only reminded her of the vital, breathtaking man she was trying to save. I want us both to live long enough to make love again, she thought fiercely. What they had shared that afternoon had been nowhere near enough.

  Daenaira kept that in mind as she began to cross the bathroom and prepared to seduce her lover’s friend.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Magnus curled his hand into a fist, trying to capture the warmth of Dae’s body even as she ripped away from him to exit her Fade and the dangers of Dreamscape. He understood why she had done it, and he hoped her gambit paid off. He knew, though, that if Nicoya wasn’t lured away by Dae’s trick, his handmaiden would return quickly to aid him in another way.

  Battle.

  He took a slow, deep breath, his body loosening up now that Dae was relatively out of danger. He was still concerned that Nicoya was much older and was, no doubt, far better trained and tempered than his wildfire Daenaira was, but Dae had her third power and her naturally dogged viciousness and stubbornness when it came to refusing to lose a fight. That would go very far for her, and it would be easy for Nicoya to underestimate that.

  Magnus had to shed his concerns for her and focus on the here and now. This was too volatile a situation in too unpredictable an environment.

  Focus.

  He needed focus.

  He took a deep breath and threw.

  The glave had hung from the back band of Daenaira’s skirt, and he had just closed his hand around it when she had distracted anyone watching with her irate performance of betrayal. It only took the flick of a wrist to extend the palmed weapon into rigidity and he sent it flying in a whipping, singing swirl of sharp curves that flew like a boomerang through the Dreamscape air. Even as he followed through for maximum power into the throw, he was drawing his katana and making ready for both retaliation and the return of the glave.

  There was a kind of art form to distinguishing truth of locus in Dreamscape, and Magnus had studied it as deeply as he could both during and outside of hunts. He still didn’t know exactly where Shiloh was, but he had determined which general direction and almost how distant he really was despite the naked landscape toward the horizons. This was how he forced Shiloh to dive to the ground, his invisibility instantly nullified by the cloud of dust the impact kicked up. The other priest swore vehemently as he found himself victim to a savage Magnus, who bore down on him with all of his strength and fury packed into his first blow.

  The clash of sword on sword resonated through the endless air, muscles and bone vibrating with the impact before Magnus grabbed his foe by his collar and yanked him hard from the ground, whirling him a foot and a half to his left. The air whistled sharply right before the glave returned to its master…stopping only when Shiloh’s upper back provided a sudden obstacle. Catching it hard in his lower shoulder, Shiloh grunted as the impact made him lurch awkwardly against Magnus.

  “Oh, you fucking bastard,” Shiloh groaned, grinding his feet into the ground and lurching all of his weight against Magnus’s center of gravity. Magnus didn’t want to be within biting distance of any of his blades, so he roughly rolled Shiloh’s weight off himself and backed off. Sweeping the katana artfully around the other man’s blade, he caught it in its decorative hilt, and with a hard fling of sharp steel, he ripped Shiloh’s sword out of his hand and sent it soaring.

  Shiloh knelt crookedly on the ground, ready to rise to his feet, and he chuckled. “Do you know what the best part of all of this is? Hmm?” He stood up, holding out visibly weaponless hands, but this was Dreamscape and they both knew it. Anything was possible if you had the right control, experience, and imagination. “It’s getting to watch and learn how really fucking stupid you are. I mean, all your idealistic bullshit. What a joke. Now”—he grinned—“I admit you had me there in the beginning. Light and Dark, Drenna and M’gnone, the cosmic balance of power and action versus apathy and sin. But then”—he shook a scolding finger at Magnus—“you sent me little Nicoya, and everything changed.”

  Magnus frowned at that, wondering what in Light Nicoya had to do with his sin and madness, other than his having coaxed her into sin along with him. He let the other man talk, however. Shiloh, he believed, didn’t realize just how deep the glave had gone into his back, and he was surely bleeding rapidly. The more time he wasted talking, the weaker he would get.

  “Now, keep in mind I know you can compel the truth from me,” he mentioned as they slowly started to circle each other, “if you get your hands on me.”

  “Regardless, it was not I who sent you Nicoya. She came to you through the blessings of Drenna. You were the one who decided to destroy that gift by corrupting her.”

  Shiloh chuckled at that. “Yeah. You see, that’s the part I like. If Drenna sent her to me, th
en that means anything that happened between us was Drenna’s will, right?”

  “M’gnone lives in the temple as well. We do not speak His name, but we know his influence challenges us every day. It is up to us whether we want to live in Darkness or Light. You are a priest and you know this. Do not stand there like a child and play bargaining games to excuse your wrongdoing. You are an adult with the free will to make your own choices. We allow Drenna or M’gnone into us and let them guide us as they will. M’gnone will give me the ferocity, cunning, and savagery I need to destroy you and your sins; Drenna will give me the strength to offer you repentance and pity and whatever else it takes to save both of our souls. I am the one who chooses which will give me impetus and when.”

  “Hmm. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, he can fight and give sermons, too.” Shiloh chuckled. “Is that why you chose to neglect poor Karri for so long? I admit, in the beginning I thought you were like me—”

  “I am nothing like you,” Magnus hissed sharply, his katana slicing out in sharp warning at the insult, nearly nicking Shiloh’s face, but the other priest was strong and quick. He was back out of reach in an instant. Magnus grinned without satisfaction as he stalked after him.

  “I thought,” his enemy persisted as he continued to back away, “that you were into boys or men. That was Coya’s theory for the longest time. Karri thought that could be it, although she liked to convince herself you were physically impotent. After all, even I was in denial for the longest time. I didn’t even want to do another man the first time it came up, so to speak.” His grin was lascivious. “But you know, it grows on you really, really fast. The dominance. The power of taking someone over so completely that they feel pleasure even though it’s the last thing in the universe they want. The look on their face, such a pure mixture of passionate horror and guilty ecstasy. It’s better than any drug.”

  “I hope you are saying all of this because you plan to repent these sins,” Magnus spat, his disgust for the other man raw and bone deep. How could there ever be repentance for someone who had purposely used his position to manipulate and emotionally ravage the innocent youth he had been entrusted to guide and protect? What penance could there possibly be for such brutal sin?