Most of the women thought that she and Eugenia were heading for a confrontation. Cynthia might retain her position as high priestess, or she might not. Only time would tell.
Cynthia walked toward Sophia and gave her a close inspection. “Could it have been your imagination?”
Sophia blinked at her. She had never considered that—not for a moment. “Why do you ask?”
“You’ve always been emotional and imaginative, and I know you’ve had a bad week. Could you be reacting to that?”
She clenched her teeth, abashed that Cynthia had even asked the question in front of her sisters, yet she understood. Better to have one hysterical woman than a real crisis.
“I’m sure it was real,” she answered.
“Then it is well to have respect for the power of your enemies. Too bad we’ve lost some of the knowledge that would help us deal with them.”
“What should we do?” Ophelia asked.
“I believe we must join together to consult the ancient powers,” Cynthia said in a steady voice.
There were murmurs of agreement.
“Lysandra should stay in the spa, for she has the experience to act quickly in case of trouble,” Cynthia said. She looked at Tessa. “Tell Vanessa and Rhoda to join us in the temple.”
She turned and led the way to a dressing room with lockers lining the walls. Each of the women took off the clothes she was wearing and placed it in a locker.
There was no modesty among them. Sophia glanced around at her sisters and cousins, seeing the perfection of their naked bodies. They were all excellent specimens of womanhood. All the envy of the guests who came to the spa for meditation, wellness, and healing treatments.
Once undressed, each of them donned the white gowns that transformed them from women of the modern world into their real personas—the descendants of ancient priestesses.
Since they came this way only on solemn occasions and in times of trouble, Sophia could feel tension rippling through the group. When they were all clad in their ceremonial garments, Cynthia approached the far wall, which was made of marble blocks. The rest of the group spread out on either side of her, joining their hands to make a chain of power. Cynthia was the focus. Sophia felt a surge of energy course through them and concentrate in the high priestess.
As she stared at the solid wall in front of her, it began to thin and fade until there was an archway in the middle leading to a flight of stairs.
The women dropped hands to file inside, descending the steps into a secret temple that workmen had built when the spa was first constructed a hundred and seventy years ago. After the structure was finished, the women had wiped the knowledge of the place from the workmen’s minds. Since then, none but an Ionian had come this way.
Sophia knew the temple had been carved out of the bedrock under the desert, then roofed over with a massive stone ceiling.
As she descended, she felt cool air drifting toward her, the first touch of this sacred place on her soul.
Below her was deep darkness, until one of the Sisterhood lit a torch, and flickering light sprang to life, revealing threefoot-high marble bas-reliefs, many of them very ancient and carefully preserved.
They depicted the history of the Ionians, with the earliest ones taken directly from their temple in Greece that the barbarians had destroyed.
Those early pictures showed the high priestess kneeling at the altar, asking the ancient goddesses for wisdom and power.
Next came scenes of the barbarian invasion. The Minot fighting them off. The battle with the Minot, and scenes from some of the places where the women had lived. Macedonia. Albania. Xian in China.
And finally, there were pictures of this place, showing the women with their guests at the spa or gathering for private meditation in the gardens and worship in the temple.
Cynthia knelt at the altar now, asking for help and guidance.
For the first time since the frightening encounter, Sophia felt a sense of peace, knowing she was surrounded by her Sisterhood, protected by their joint power.
As Sophia felt the energy of the group sweep through the room, Cynthia turned toward her.
“Come forward.”
She stepped toward the altar and turned to face her sisters, with Cynthia beside her.
“We must discover who attacked you. And who . . . rescued you.”
Could they? Long ago, powerful men had come from the corners of the earth to consult them, and they had given wise counsel. They had seen things in visions that no ordinary person could know, but that power had faded over the years.
Could they discover their enemies now? Or was that task beyond them?
CHAPTER
FIVE
AS CYNTHIA CLASPED a hand on either side of Sophia’s head, she closed her eyes.
“Show us the man who forced your car off the road,” the high priestess murmured.
She hated to relive that moment in the desert. Still, she struggled to focus on her captor’s face, but the gas had blurred her vision.
“Go back to before the gas hit you,” Cynthia ordered.
She did as the high priestess directed, and the man’s image came clear, making her heart start to pound. Not because he was ugly or horrible but because he was a young, handsome man with almost jet-black hair, hooded dark eyes that burned with ambition, lips that proclaimed a simmering sensuality.
She heard some of her sisters gasp and knew they were seeing the image that had formed in her mind. But it was more than a picture because all her emotions were in play. Once again, she experienced her own fear, her defiance, and finally her unwanted response.
She felt naked and vulnerable as she stood before the Sisterhood.
“Do you know his name?” Cynthia asked.
Sophia struggled to answer that question, but there was nothing he had done or said that gave her a clue.
When she shuddered in defeat, the high priestess caressed her temples with gentle fingers, soothing her, but only to a degree.
“There was another one?”
She spoke through trembling lips. “Yes.”
“He freed you from the first.”
Once again she subdued her own needs for the needs of her sisters. For the good of the group, showing them the second encounter.
Although she couldn’t see the man’s face, she experienced anew all that she had felt when he’d touched her, pulled her body against his.
Arousal surged through her. It should have been a private moment, but being an Ionian meant surrendering privacy.
She stood before her sisters, knowing they were all staring at her and feeling the blood pumping hotly in her veins. She was helpless to hide her reaction from them and helpless to keep from bringing back more subtle aspects of the encounter.
For an instant, she had almost sensed his thoughts. Sensed his need for her.
“Impossible.” It was Cynthia who had spoken. “That must be an illusion. Or an effect of the drug.”
Sophia didn’t answer. Out in the darkness, it had seemed real, but Cynthia had to be right. How could an Ionian sense the thoughts of a man? And not just any man, a Minot.
“Don’t focus on the illusion. Do you know
his
name?” Cynthia asked.
Once again, she struggled to obey but only succeeded in summoning a sense of failure.
“Could he have been at the meeting tonight?”
She went back to all the men who had been there. She knew them from her dealings with the business community. He wasn’t among them.
“No,” she answered, wanting to scream at Cynthia to release her.
Mercifully, the high priestess dropped her hands. As the physical contact snapped, Sophia had to stiffen her legs to keep from falling.
“I think we are finished here,” Cynthia said.
Sophia and Cynthia were the last to leave the temple.
“I’m sorry that was hard for you.”
“Did I have a choice?”
“There are always choices.”
“Even for Ionians?”
“Yes. Even for us,” the high priestess answered, and Sophia knew that the woman was thinking about her own personal life and the man who was presently sleeping in her bed.
Neither of them discussed that as Sophia helped the Ionian leader put out the torches before they climbed the stairs.
Cynthia turned, raising her hand, swinging it from left to right, as though she were signaling to someone far away.
The wall solidified once again.
When they were dressed in their street clothes, they joined the others again in the lounge.
As Sophia looked around the room, she wondered if they were an anomaly in the modern world.
Perhaps, but they still had the power and the will to remain true to their traditions.
And what if they didn’t? Would that mean disaster for the world? They had been taught that the stability of their order was tied to the fate of the universe. Was that true or only a myth designed to reinforce their will to continue traditions established in ancient times?
Her thoughts were interrupted as Tessa came up to her.
“That was brave of you,” her sister whispered.
“We all do what we have to.”
“Sometimes I think I’m not strong enough.”
“You are,” Sophia answered fiercely, even when she wondered if it was true.
Cynthia began to speak, cutting off the private exchange.
“For a long time, our order has enjoyed a period of peace. But it seems clear that danger is gathering around us. We must all be on the alert to make sure that it does not . . . overwhelm us.”
Some of the women gasped.
“Can it?” Ophelia asked.
“Not if we are strong and united.”
“Our heritage is our strength,” Eugenia added.
There were murmurs of agreement.
“But this may not be as serious as it appears,” Cynthia continued. “You all remember that the Minot crave us like a drug. It’s been in their blood, ever since they rescued us in ancient Greece and lived with us for a time. They wanted more than we were willing to give them. This may simply be an attempt by one of them to separate an Ionian from the group and make her his slave.”
Adona spoke up. “Unfortunately, they’ve passed that down through the generations. Why is that?”
“It may be their pride,” Cynthia answered.
It seemed like more than pride to Sophia, but she couldn’t come up with a better explanation.
“There were two of them,” Adona said.
“Working against each other,” Cynthia responded.
“Unless it’s a trick to make us think that one of them is . . . different,” Tessa answered.
Sophia listened to the conversation swirling around her, longing to get up and go to her own room.
Then a question from Denada riveted her attention. “Did an Ionian and a Minot ever have a good relationship?”
“No,” Cynthia said emphatically, but there was something in her voice that made Sophia wonder if it was true.
CHAPTER
SIX
RAFE GARRISON’S BICEPS bulged as he pulled himself up on the parallel bar in the Sedona house he’d rented. His heritage had given him a fantastic body, but he never took it for granted. He had thirty-pound weights around his ankles, and after lowering himself to just above the floor, he pulled up again, moving with slow control, making the exercise as difficult as he could.
He was a silent partner in energy companies and firms that made everything from computer hardware and software to sports equipment. In addition, he was heavily into the financial markets.
He would never have to worry about money, and if the world blew up in a nuclear holocaust or went down in a sea of biological contamination, he had huge shelters waiting where he and his descendants could weather any disaster.
But he wasn’t going to conceive his children with just any woman. It must be an Ionian. He wanted children with their ancient talents and their ancient wisdom. He would raise them to be loyal to him, and that would give him advanages no Minot had ever possessed.
His plan had been going perfectly until some bastard had come charging out of the desert and screwed everything up.
He could have taken the guy. He’d opted to disappear into the night and regroup. Maybe that was for the best. In fact, maybe fate had chosen a strange way to keep him from going down the wrong path.
He had wanted to cut Tessa out of the Ionian herd, but it had turned out that the woman whose car he’d driven off the road hadn’t been her.
“Blood of the gods!”
It should have been Tessa. The woman he wanted above all the others. She’d been scheduled to go to that meeting. Somehow there had been a switch at the last minute, and he hadn’t realized it at first.