Protected Read online

  “What was that all about?” I asked him as we navigated through the woods, being careful to stay on the path and avoid the colorful flowers and vines that grew all around us. “All that, ‘oh, my goddess stuff. And, uh…the kiss?’”

  He shrugged. “I told you the Majorans worship their females, didn’t I? I was just playing along—weren’t you?”

  “Oh. Of course.” I nodded, trying to look unconcerned. “But don’t you think you were, uh, laying it on a little thick? You know—overdoing it?”

  “If I was, you were overdoing it with me, darlin’,” he rumbled, giving me a look that made me blush and drop my eyes. “Besides, if you’d ever seen a real Majoran male with his fated mate, you’d know they’re really like that—and more so. Can’t keep their fuckin’ hands off each other.”

  I know how they feel, I thought, wishing I could be in his arms again. But that was ridiculous—we were just playing roles. Play it cool, I told myself. This is no big deal—just another situation to deal with in order to get Grav’s ward back home safe.

  Play it cool—right. But I still couldn’t help fishing for a little information.

  “So Braxians are different with their females? Than Majorans, I mean?” I said, as casually as I could.

  “Well, we don’t worship them as divinities,” he said, sounding thoughtful. “But we are very respectful and protective of our females—we’ll kill or die to keep them safe.”

  “I can see that,” I said quietly, looking up at him. I had seen first hand how protective he was—it was almost scary at times. And yet, I couldn’t help finding it incredibly attractive too.

  I had used to think that Gerald was protective of me but I saw now I had been wrong. My ex (as I was already thinking of him in my head) had been jealous of me—incredibly jealous—but that wasn’t the same thing as protective. There’s a difference between constantly accusing your girlfriend or wife of lusting after other men and being willing to jump in front of a truck or stand down an angry mob to save her. Grav illustrated that difference in the strongest possible way and I felt drawn to him because of it.

  Get over it, I advised myself for what seemed like the hundredth time. It’s not going to happen between you. He turned you down, remember? So stop acting so needy and just get the job done.

  “The thing with the guard—it won’t happen again. I just thought putting on a little display would be the best way to get her to let us go on through.” Grav laughed, though I thought it sounded a little forced. “You saw her face, right? We were really getting under her skin.”

  “Uh, yeah. I guess you’re right,” I said, trying to suppress a sigh. An act—it had all just been an act.

  Speaking of getting under the skin, I couldn’t help thinking of the image generator implanted right beside Grav’s hip bone, under his skin. Was it still doing its job? Had I seen his image flicker for just a split second? For a moment, I had almost thought I saw horns on his head again.

  But surely not. I frowned and shook my head. It must be just the shadows of the tropical plants bobbing over our heads.

  Before I could worry some more, we finally came to the end of the jungle. The long path led out to a broad, rocky beach which edged a serene-looking lake, a little darker pink than the priestess-guard’s skin. Far out in the center of the lake was a tall gray structure with graceful marble pillars. That was all I could see, though—it was hard to make out any more details about it from this distance.

  All in all, I thought the scene looked nearly idyllic—not dangerous at all.

  “Well, it doesn’t look like a lake of torment,” I said doubtfully, my sandals crunching on the silvery-blue rocks. Before us was a small, flat-bottomed boat that looked like it was made of glass or very shiny plastic. It was tied to a dark blue dock that stuck out into the pinkish water. The dock was also some slick, shiny material that didn’t look like wood or metal. Strange.

  Grav’s nostril’s wrinkled and he lifted his head, taking a deep whiff of the air around us.

  “I know it looks harmless but I wouldn’t touch it, if I were you, darlin’,” he said, nodding at the lake. “That stuff’s pure acid. No wonder the boat and dock look like they’re made of etho-glass. Only thing that won’t react to it.”

  “Ugh, are you serious?” I had been about to dip my toe in the water but now I pulled back quickly.

  “Hell yes—don’t touch a thing,” he warned me. “Here—let me help you into the boat.”

  I thought he meant to give me a hand but instead, he picked me up as though I weighed no more than a doll, and carried me over to the dock.

  “Grav,” I protested a little breathlessly. “I can walk.”

  He only grunted and didn’t put me down until we were right along side the bobbing boat. He lowered me carefully into it and I saw that the flat bottom was see-through. Great, a glass-bottomed boat ride on a lake filled with acid. Just what I wanted to liven up my afternoon. Still, we were here for a reason. I held onto the dock to steady the boat as Grav climbed in beside me, surprisingly graceful for such a big guy. Sitting opposite me, he grabbed the oars.

  “Okay—let’s go,” he growled.

  Just as he was about to being rowing, I saw something in the water, beneath my feet. It looked like a pinkish-white lump swimming around down there—almost the exact color of a blob of raw meat.

  I leaned down, getting closer to the glass bottom of the boat. What could live down there in the acid water? The thing came closer and then hit the bottom of the boat with a dull clunk.

  It was a skull, still half covered in long shreds of decaying flesh.

  It dipped and bobbed, tapping the bottom of the boat. The teeth grinned at me and the empty eye-sockets stared mockingly, as though daring me to take a dip in the deadly lake.

  I screamed and scrambled back, rocking the boat in my haste to get away from the grizzly sight.

  “What? What is it?” Grav’s voice was sharp and he was already scanning all around us, looking for the danger.

  “There—there.” I directed his gaze downward, pointing at the skull, still bobbing just under the flat bottom of the boat.

  “Hmm.” Grav just stared at it, a grim frown on his face but he didn’t look surprised at all.

  “What is that? I mean, how do you think it got in here? Did someone slip and fall into the lake?” I asked, putting a hand to my heart which was still beating like a drum.

  He shook his head.

  “More likely a blasphemer. Somebody else who tried to infiltrate the Temple.”

  “What? But why would anyone do that?” I demanded.

  “Gemina has the greatest collection of Holy Artifacts from the Ancient Ones in the known galaxy.” He started to row, leaving the grizzly skull behind. “It’s not unheard of for people to try and steal them. And the priestesses of the Goddess deal with thieves and blasphemers accordingly.”

  “You mean they toss them in the lake?” I looked around, wondering if I would see other body parts bobbing by. “But that’s awful.”

  Grav shrugged. “Told you they take blasphemy seriously around here. It’s why we need to keep a low profile and get in and out as soon as possible.”

  “I see,” I said faintly and for the first time I really did. This wasn’t just an exciting adventure I was on—a fun trip to pass the time before I went back to Earth and dealt with divorcing Gerald. This was serious business and I could be hurt or killed doing it.

  Grav must have read my thoughts on my face because he stopped rowing for a moment and looked up at me.

  “Havin’ second thoughts darlin’? It’s not too late for me to take you back to the ship.”

  “No.” I squared my shoulders and took a deep breath. “No, you need me for this. And Teeny needs both of us. I’m going with you.”

  A look of admiration crossed his features as he started rowing again.

  “Okay, we’ll keep going. But remember, once we get to the temple, there’
s no backing out.”

  “Fine with me,” I said. We would just have to do as Grav said—get in and out as fast as possible.

  I just hoped his disguise would hold and no one would suspect us of being blasphemers.

  Grav

  “Be ye true penitents come to the Temple of the Goddess of Mercy to worship, or be ye blasphemers?” was the first thing the guard asked us when we grounded the glass bottomed boat and walked up the long, broad flight of steps leading to the temple. She and another priestess stood in front of the tall, curved double doors, each of them twice as tall as I was, that led into the temple.

  For a minute, I was worried that Leah might lose it. The blasphemer skull floating in the acid lake had really fuckin’ rattled her. Her creamy skin went as pale as paper and her lips trembled. Then she lifted her chin and looked at the guard, who was dressed and armed like the one who had greeted us in the parking area, straight in the eye.

  “Neither,” she said clearly. “We are Acolytes of Naamah, here to seek the truth of the one who guarded Teeny Kiv’orop of Thonolax. We are expected.”

  I shot her an admiring look. I had to hand it to her—my little Earth female really rose to the occasion when she had to. Not that she was my female—but I couldn’t help feeling possessive of her, especially after the kiss we’d just shared.

  Shouldn’t have done that, I told myself as I remembered the soft press of her full breasts against my chest and the feel of her gorgeous curves pressed against my body. That was taking the act too far and you know it.

  But I hadn’t been able to help myself. I’d finally had a legitimate excuse to kiss her again—which was pretty much all I’d been wanting to do from the moment I let her go the last time. I hadn’t been able to turn down the chance and from the way Leah had reacted to me, she’d been just as eager as I was.

  Not that it mattered. She wasn’t for me.

  But Gods, how I wished she was!

  “Ah yes, acolytes from another world.” The guard said, breaking my train of thought. “Come in—you are most welcome. The Reverend Mother awaits you in her study.”

  “Thank you.” Leah nodded back, looking as regal as any Majoran female who knows herself to be a goddess, and we followed the guard inside.

  The Temple of the Goddess of Mercy was a tall building, built from some kind of pinkish-gray stone with round, slender columns on either side of its broad central hall. The soaring ceiling overhead was painted with religious scenes.

  In the first panel, I saw the Goddess creating the universe. In the second, she was creating the Ancient Ones, who were her first sentient creatures. They looked more like Leah’s people than mine, with smooth skin that ranged in tone from pale tan to deep brown, no horns, and light-on-white eyes. That was because Leah came from a closed planet—one that had been seeded by the Ancient Ones and then locked to keep it from being despoiled by the other peoples of the galaxy.

  In the third panel, the artist showed the Goddess of Mercy handing the seeds of life to the Ancient Ones and bidding them go forth and seed the galaxy with life of all kinds. Plants and animals, as well as sentient creatures that walked and talked and learned and grew.

  The fourth panel showed representatives of the Twelve Peoples, the sentient beings who had grown from the Ancient Ones’ seeds. I saw Majorans with their dark blue hair and changeable skin, Eloims with their slitted golden eyes, Vorns with their red skin and horns, Denarins, represented by two muscular males with one female between them, Cantors, with their broad, strong, feathery wings, and many more, as well as a Braxian male like me, with dusky blue skin and white-on-black eyes.

  Of course, some of the races have branched out and mixed with others to form new races of their own and seed other planets with life. And there are worlds where the Ancient Ones didn’t travel, where life evolved into much stranger forms than the ones we knew and recognized. But clearly the Geminians didn’t recognize any of those as legitimate life forms because they weren’t represented on the ceiling panels.

  I couldn’t say I blamed them. Like I told Leah earlier, hybrids like me who were mixtures of two of the Twelve Peoples, couldn’t form lasting bonds with their females. And a lasting bond was what ensured that a race could continue to grow and flourish.

  The only thing that confused me was something Leah had told me—that her people, like hybrids and half-breeds, didn’t form bonds when they joined with their true or fated mate. I wondered if the Ancient Ones had done that to them on purpose. But if so, why?

  As we reached the end of the long corridor flanked with slender columns, I saw something on the last ceiling panel which surprised me. It was a painting of a small blue and green planet surrounded by a shining golden barrier. Could that be a depiction of Earth, Leah’s home world? But how did the Geminians know about it when the Commercians had just discovered it and started exploiting it not long ago?

  “And here is the study of the Reverend Mother,” the guard said, breaking my train of thought. “Please go in—she is expecting you and will be with you shortly.”

  All right—show time.

  I took a deep breath as we stepped through the doorway. And as I did, I felt the image generator move.

  Not a lot—but enough. It shifted beneath my skin and for just a moment I thought the illusion it was casting around me flickered.

  Shit.

  I looked around quickly to see if anyone had noticed. Luckily the guard’s back was to us but Leah had seen. Her eyes widened as she looked at me, a fearful question in her eyes.

  I shook my head quickly, trying to tell her it would be all right, that everything was under control.

  But was it?

  I just didn’t know.

  Leah

  This time I was sure I had seen Grav’s disguise flicker. It freaked me out, I don’t mind telling you. For a minute I had images of my own head floating in the lake of acid outside the temple. But then the image stabilized again and looked perfectly solid. Well, maybe it was just a momentary lapse.

  But even a momentary lapse could get us in trouble if the stern-looking guard had seen it. Luckily, she apparently hadn’t. She ushered us into a small but comfortable looking sitting room where two low pink and gold couches, very close to the floor, were facing each other.

  “Please have a seat, the Reverend Mother will be in shortly,” she said and left us there. I looked around but it wasn’t the couches that caught my eye, it was what was above us.

  From the ceiling hung long, trailing pink and purple and blue vines. They made a kind of curtain swaying gracefully above us. The study was filled with a soft chattering noise and after a moment I realized there were small, brightly colored creatures jumping or flying from vine to vine. They were the ones making the noise.

  At first I thought they were monkeys—then I thought they were birds. Then one flew down to land on the low table between the couches and I saw it was a weird, alien combination. It had a brightly colored, feathered body about as big as a parakeet but its head was little and furry and cute with big golden eyes and a tiny, chattering mouth.

  “Hey now, aren’t you a cutie?” I said, but I didn’t reach out to touch it. The incident with Purrah’s kit in the Goddess-eye was still too fresh in my memory.

  “Ah, I see you’re admiring my loolies.”

  The voice came from behind us and Grav and I both turned to see an ancient, dried up stick of a woman coming towards us.

  The pink of her skin had faded until it was almost white and her hair was silver with just a few traces of pale purple. She hobbled in, leaning on a gnarled staff and the folds of her long white gown trailed on the stone floor, as though it was too long for her.

  “Well now,” she continued, as she came up to us. “You’re the first male I’ve seen in nigh on fifty cycles, my son.” She nodded at Grav. “And my—aren’t you large.”

  “My size and strength is used only to serve my goddess,” Grav murmured, nodding at me. />
  “So it is, so it is.” The Reverend Mother nodded approvingly. “Which is why Majoran males are the only kind we allow here on Gemina. You’re all so respectful and protective of your females. Not wild and savage like Vorn… or Goddess forbid, Braxians.”

  She gave an exaggerated shiver and Grav and I exchanged a glance. I don’t know what he was thinking, but I was hoping that his image generator kept doing its job—at least until we could get out of there.

  “Well go on—sit down. Sit down.” The Reverend Mother indicated one of the low pink and gold couches. “We don’t stand on ceremony here—not when we all serve the Goddess’ will.”

  “Uh, thank you, your Reverence,” I said, hoping it was the right way to address her. I was raised Southern Baptist, remember? So I had no idea. “We’re very honored to be here.”

  “No matter, no matter.” She made a shooing motion at Grav and me. “Come, acolytes, sit—won’t you? My old bones are demanding a rest.”

  With that she sank down onto the couch opposite us. One of the multicolored loolies gave a chattering whistle and came to land on her shoulder.

  “Thank you,” I said again and Grav and I sat carefully on the couch.

  “Now, you must be the Truth-Sayer,” the Reverend Mother said, pointing at me. “And you’re the Truth-Knower.” She pointed at Grav.

  “Yes, exactly. How did you know?”

  “Oh, I have a knack for knowing things.” The Reverend Mother smiled proudly and stroked the loolie on her shoulder as it nuzzled its furry little head against her cheek.

  “You must have the gift of discernment, then,” Grav remarked.

  “Yes, you…” The words died in my throat and I watched in horror as one of the loolies promptly flew down and landed on his invisible right horn. It sat there, perched as though in mid-air, and chattered mockingly at me.

  “Shoo!” I hissed at it, waving with one hand. “Shoo!”

  “And don’t mind the loolies—they’re just curious, they are.” Luckily the Reverend Mother had her head bent over the table between us and didn’t see what was going on.