Destiny's Lovers by Flora Speer Page B

are
dreadful creatures in the sea, Reid, huge monsters with tentacles
that capture and crush their victims, then eat them. My parents
died like that.”
    “They were set adrift?”
    “No.” She had never spoken to anyone about
that terrible day. She had kept the horror locked inside her, but
now she wanted to talk about it, to tell Reid what had happened.
“They left in my father’s littlest boat. It was just for a short
time, to watch the sunset. Days of thick fog had just ended, and
the breaking clouds were so beautiful, with the sky a deep blue. I
can still see the scene when I close my eyes and think about it.
The tide was full; the water came right up to the top of the sea
wall. I stood on the wall waving to them.
    “Usually, the sea monsters stay well away
from shore, on the opposite side of the swift current, but perhaps
because of the high tide, this monster had come in near to the
wharf. It rose out of the water and took my parents. There was no
time for them to cry out. They were simply gone. I saw it happen.”
She and her parents had never been close, but that had not made her
loss any less terrible.
    Reid said nothing. He just put his arms
around her and held her tenderly. Janina had no tears to shed, but
his concern for her was comforting all the same. Flouting the
restrictions about priestesses avoiding any intimacy with men, not
caring if Sidra might learn what she was doing and punish her,
Janina let her arms slip around Reid’s waist and rested her head on
his shoulder. She felt his hand stroking her hair with a gentleness
she would not have expected from a man so large and strong. After a
while his hand left her hair. He tilted her chin upward; and at the
same time lowered his head.
    The kiss began in tenderness, in reassurance
and comfort. It quickly changed into a wondrous heat that ignited
Janina’s very soul. She was stretched along the length of his body
as though fastened to some instrument of exquisite torture. She
wanted that contact; she craved it. She yearned desperately to be
one with Reid, yet they dared not come together. It would mean
certain death for both of them, a dreadful death on the sea. She
could not do that to him, and she could not break her vows. Why
then did she cling ever more closely to him and open her lips so
willingly to take his tongue into the hot depths of her mouth?
    Even as she asked herself the question she
knew its answer. She had recognized Reid from the first instant she
had seen his face during her Test. She had fought against her own
feelings, had lied to herself and made excuses about Tamat needing
her so she could spend as much time as possible in the same room
with him and still not feel guilty. But now, in this deep,
passionate embrace, she could no longer hide from self-knowledge.
Reid was her one true love, the mate predestined for her. She
wondered what cruel force had brought them together to suffer this
violent conflict between duty and desire. It would have been better
for both of them if they had never met, if neither had known the
other existed. Still, she did know him, and loved him, and would
never stop loving him. Wrong or not, she could not prevent herself
from returning his kiss and wanting it to go on forever. It was all
she would have of him, and even this much was forbidden.
    It was Reid who drew back first.
    “This can only hurt you if someone should
discover us,” he said, setting her aside and heading toward the
door.
    “And you.” She faced him across the room, her
eyes burning with unshed tears. “Three nights from now, you must
lend yourself to some village woman and give her a child.”
    “I wish it could be you,” he whispered
harshly.
    “Oh, Reid,” she moaned, then bit off the
reply that would have told him how much she wished the same thing.
For his safety, she had to make him understand that he could never
kiss her, or even be alone with her, again. “I am to take my final
vows nineteen days from now, when both moons