Authors: Rebecca York

Dark Warrior (19 page)

BOOK: Dark Warrior

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For long moments, she stood under the desert sky, breathing hard, trying to figure out what had happened and what to do next.

A blast of insight made her stagger, and she reached to steady herself against the side of the building.

When she’d come back to the spa from her encounter with the two Minot on the road, she’d reached out to Cynthia with her mind. She’d found the high priestess in her bedroom with Layden, and she’d wondered if there would be any repercussions.

Was that what was going on? Cynthia was punishing her? And punishing Tessa?

Could the high priestess be that petty? It was hard to believe. Maybe she didn’t even know what she was doing, although it seemed that she wasn’t going to lift a finger to help Sophia’s sister.

But Sophia wasn’t going to simply cave in.

She’d made a mistake. She’d turned to Cynthia because that was what she had been trained to do all her life, rely on her sisters for strength and comfort. Instead she had a much better alternative. Someone who
wanted
to help her. How could she have been so stupid?

At a run, she headed for the fence at the back of the compound, stumbling through the gardens, not caring if she stepped on low-growing plants, then climbed over a waisthigh wall.

The boundary fence was several hundred yards away. Through the chain links, she saw the figure of a man, pacing back and forth, looking like a wild animal confined to a cage and going crazy.

He raised his head and stared at her, and their gazes met across all that distance.

It was Jason, waiting for her.

As she watched, he backed up and came running forward, leaping high in the air to clear the barrier.

He sailed over like a pole-vaulter, landing in the red dirt on his hands and knees. After brushing himself off, he started running forward. They met in a scrubby patch of vegetation.

“Jason. Why are you here?” she asked, already sure she knew the answer.

“Something happened to Tessa. I knew you needed me.”

“Yes. Tessa.”

He hadn’t guessed. He
knew
because he’d shared flashes of the same vision she’d experienced. Maybe what had happened in the cave had changed her. Maybe Jason was even the reason she’d be able to contact her sister. At least for a few moments.

They clung together, holding each other tightly, and she understood as she cleaved to him that she’d been so wrong to walk away from him.

“We’ve got to find her.”

“We will.”

“Step apart.” The commanding voice came from Cynthia, who had apparently followed Sophia out of the building and into the gardens. But she wasn’t alone: a whole host of Ionians had come with her, making a circle around Sophia and Jason as they held each other.

She looked pleadingly at them. Ophelia, Denada, Adona, Vanessa, Rhoda, Lysandra. They were all staring at her with a kind of horrible fascination.

She had broken their rules, and they were prepared to punish her.

Without considering the consequences, she blurted, “Jason can help me find Tessa.”

“I think not. Step away from him,” Cynthia ordered, “before you and your clandestine lover get hurt.”

CHAPTER
TWENTY

THEY WERE ON a plane, Tessa thought. She remembered the man taking her to a car that was waiting on a narrow street in the French Quarter. He’d climbed into the backseat, cradling her gently in his arms as someone drove them out of the city. Then he’d carried her up some steps, settled her in a seat, and buckled her in before the plane had taken off.

Now they were in the air. Or maybe she was simply drifting through time and space on her own power.

When her eyes blinked open, the world still looked fuzzy, but she saw the man leaning over her.

He stroked damp strands of hair back from her face, then held a cup to her lips.

“What is it?”

“Water. You must be thirsty.”

“Is it drugged?”

“No.”

She took a small sip, then another, trying to quench her sudden thirst.

“Better?”

Instead of answering, she asked, “Who are you? What do you want with me?”

“My name is Rafe Garrison. I’m not going to hurt you. I want to show you new possibilities for your life.”

“I want . . . my sisters.”

“Because they’re familiar. You’ve lived with them your whole life, but you might find you like being on your own better. That’s why you left the spa, isn’t it?”

His voice was reassuring and tender, but his demeanor could just be an act.

“You’re a Minot,” she accused.

“Yes. But I’m not like the others.”

“How do I know that?”

“I’ll prove it to you.”

“You’re the man who stopped Sophia on the road.”

“Yes.”

“You . . . frightened her. You frightened me.”

“I’m sorry. I knew none of you would come with me willingly. I had to get you alone so I could make you understand what the two of us can mean to each other.”

He bent down, stroked his lips against her cheek. She wanted to yank herself away from him, but she didn’t have the strength. He caressed the line of her jaw, her neck, her shoulder, her arm, then trailed his hand inward, barely touching the side of her breast, yet she felt arousal leaping inside her.

From the drug, she told herself.

He had done the same thing to Sophia, drugged her so that she would respond to him.

“The two of us are going to be very good together,” he murmured.

“No.”

“I’ll never force myself on you. I’ll wait until you’re ready to admit that you want me.”

He raised his hand to her face again, stroking between her eyes. “Sleep. We’ll be home soon, and we’ll talk more.”

“My home is the spa.”

“You’ll like my house. It’s very comfortable. Very luxurious. My staff will take care of you. You’ll never have to do work you hate, like being a clerk in the gift shop.”

She sucked in a breath. “How do you know about that?”

“I know you have a free spirit that longs to be what you could never become at the spa.”

Was that true? Or was he making up a scenario from his own imagination?

She fought to stay awake. When the plane landed, maybe she could get away, but her eyelids blinked closed and she drifted off to sleep again.

RAFE
watched Tessa sleeping, all his tender emotions—and his needs—welling to the surface.

She was his now. He had cut her out of the herd, and he wanted her so much that he could hardly bear to let go of her. He glanced toward the curtain at the front of the plane that blocked off the section where the pilots were sitting.

He’d settled Tessa way in the back, where they’d have the most privacy. He could wake her up and make love to her right here, and nobody would interrupt them.

As that thought surfaced, he couldn’t stop himself from touching her. Gently he cupped her breast, circling his hand until her nipple stabbed into his palm, making his cock so hard that he thought it might explode through the front of his pants.

Taking a deep breath, he pulled away.

He could do it here, but that wasn’t what he wanted for the first time he made love with her.

It must be right. She must think that she had a choice in what happened next.

He’d studied the Ionians. Not just the modern Sisterhood—he knew about their ancient past, too. And he knew that they had used drugs in their ceremonies. They were vulnerable to certain compounds, and he had used that knowledge to help him subdue Sophia, then Tessa.

For now he would let her sleep. In fact, he would give her another dose before they got off the plane so that it would be easy to transport her to his estate. Once he’d gotten her there, he could go into full seduction mode. After he’d made her his, he’d go on to the next phase. The phase where he consolidated his power.

SOPHIA
stepped away from Jason, her gaze going to the circle of women around them.

“You don’t understand,” she said.

“It is you who doesn’t understand. Jason Tyron is obviously a Minot who came here under false pretenses, then seduced you. You’re not thinking rationally.”

“But he’s different.” She glanced at him, then back to Cynthia. “How did he get in here if he’s just a Minot?”

“Somehow he circumvented our defenses.”

Beside her, she sensed tension bursting through Jason. He wanted to speak, but she knew it would be better if she did it. With a small shake of her head and a mental warning, she asked him to remain silent.

When he gave a little nod, she knew he understood.

“He didn’t use trickery to get in here,” she said. “Our defenses didn’t stop him because he’s the son of Julia, one of the Ionians I told you about. A sister who left the order in the sixties.”

She heard gasps from the women around her.

“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.

BOOK: Dark Warrior

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