"Yes. It is why I am here."

Ophelia slid away from Lasher and eagerly picked up her sister's hands. Bronse saw tears form in the younger woman's eyes, and he was forced to remember that they had been torn away from each other and kept apart for an amount of time he was not privy to. Ravenna wept just as freely, twisting his heart into knots as she hugged the little sister who couldn't hug her back just yet. He watched, though, as Ophelia laid the most ginger of touches across Ravenna's horribly disfigured and infected back.

Blue light exploded over them both, setting Bronse and Lasher back on their a.s.ses about a foot in opposite directions. This was nothing like the slow, easing healing Masin had seen Ophelia perform on Bronse. The light was all-consuming and blinding. For a moment it looked like the women were locked in a hug of death, like what might happen if someone tried to hug someone who was in the process of being electrocuted.

Then, suddenly, someone turned off the juice.

Lasher and Bronse shot forward, each catching a female as she staggered back. Ophelia fainted dead away in Lasher's arms. Ravenna shook her head and recovered in Bronse's arms after a dazed moment. Unable to help himself, Bronse swept up the shirt she wore in the back and reached to pull away a strip of bandage. The skin beneath it was pink and tender.

"That is the d.a.m.ndest thing I've ever seen!" he exclaimed, pulling more strips of bandage free to reveal perfectly healed skin. It was as new as a baby's, but it was perfect. He finished removing her bindings and then ran an eager, flat palm over the entirety of her soft back. "Great Being, Ravenna, I had no idea things like this existed!"

"Bronse, please," she said, laughing and trying to pull away as his touch turned her cheeks as pink as her back. "Let me tend to Ophelia."

"Of course," he said hastily, letting her go after a long moment.

Rave went to kneel beside Lasher, touching her baby sister's sweating brow.

"What the h.e.l.l was that? That didn't happen when she healed Bronse."

"She was at full strength when she healed him. She was tired when she healed me, and it makes control of the power nearly impossible. She is young yet and it's hard for her to stress herself. Yet she does it all the time because she does not have the heart to turn away anyone who needs her. It makes her so frail."

"Then I'd say it's d.a.m.n well time that someone make her turn them away," Lasher growled irritably. "This isn't right! She's still a kid!"

"A young woman with a very big heart and a deep conscience. I am her high priestess, and I do restrict her whenever possible, but I wish you luck if you think you can do better at getting her to listen to reason, because G.o.ds know I have tried again and again."

Lasher frowned ominously, his dark scowl like a storm on his normally laid-back features.

"Not to fear," Rave soothed him with a gentle hand on the arm that cradled her sister's head so tenderly. "She will sleep now and will awaken refreshed in the morning."

"Speaking of which, it's getting on to dusk. We had best make tracks. We've been sitting still too long as it is," Bronse said.

"I'll carry Ophelia," Lasher said, his tone dismissing any arguments. He handed his rifle to Bronse as Ender rounded up the others. After brief introductions to Bronse, followed by the commander's crash course in who exactly was in charge, Bronse took point, pulling Rave behind him as she guided him toward the temple.

Bronse was pacing the chamber he'd been shown to, his impatience radiating into the room in wide, kinetic eddies that seemed to bounce off the walls and vibrate back against his skin, further agitating him. It was a perception, he knew, but he couldn't escape it.

The temple was a magnificent place. To say it was old would be an understatement. It had clearly been there since close to the dawn of the planet's earliest civilizations. Situated half in and half out of the side of an earthen steppe, it towered above the tree line.

They had been readily greeted by the other Chosen Ones. There had been a small-boned sa.s.sy little thing named Vivienne, whose brilliant flame red hair was so very different from that of the others, and whose cool blue eyes danced with easy merriment. Certainly she and the others had been br.i.m.m.i.n.g with delight to see Ravenna safely returned to them. There was also a girl of only fourteen years or so named Devan, who, with long black hair that hung in silky coils, and emerald eyes with jade suns radiating from their centers, had the promise of being an amazing beauty as a woman. Her peculiar eye color was almost unnerving and Bronse supposed it was a genetic anomaly, perhaps one that was attached to whatever gene it was that made her psionic like the rest of the Chosen Ones. It struck him that there seemed to be a hand-in-hand sort of connection between their abilities and their looks. Or perhaps being Chosen had not been a matter of mere ability.

There were also servants in the temple. This had upset Bronse greatly because he knew that if there was one untrustworthy aspect to any dwelling, it was to be found in the servants. He had infiltrated enough places to know that using servants as spies was a cla.s.sic, effective method that would never go out of style. The crew's presence there would, no doubt, be as good as reported by now, even though Justice had done her best to contain the household. But in a structure as old and as large as this, there were usually as many hidden chambers and pa.s.sages as there were visible ones. Plenty of ways to escape in and out without being noticed. He had known it the minute he had seen the twisting, turning labyrinth of stone embedded half in the forest, half in the bedrock of the earth. The natural world had been incorporated into the complex design. Only those who lived in the temple for their entire lives would ever know all of its secrets. Considering how young all the Chosen Ones appeared to be, with none over the age of twenty-six, it seemed unlikely that they would know even a third of what a longtime servant might know.

It had not escaped Bronse's notice that there were no elderly Chosen Ones. Not even middle-aged Chosen Ones. He had thought, mistakenly, that age and virginity might have had something to do with that, some temples finding only the young and pure to be holy, but Bronse had discovered during dinner that the priests and priestesses were not required to be chaste. That explained why Ravenna hadn't had any qualms when she'd asked him so enthusiastically for his kiss. At supper, Vivienne had made cracks about how hard it had been to get laid since she'd become a Chosen One. He'd even seen Kith eyeing a serving girl, no doubt with more than wine on his mind after being imprisoned for so long.

The clincher had been Domino. The outspoken man had run Bronse down in the corridor earlier and pulled him to a stop. After a moment of debate that went on behind his cool, silvery eyes, the eldest Chosen One had decided to impart his brand of wisdom. "I guess you've figured out we all have special talents," he supplied. "I think you have also figured out that Kith's special talent is being a bit of an a.s.s. He means well, though. Looking out for his big and little sis being at the heart of it."

"I sense a point," Bronse had encouraged.

"The point is that I know Kith. He's feeling threatened by you. Especially after you laid that scorcher of a kiss on his big sis earlier. He near popped a vessel. Some jealousy I imagine, more likely some fear-the usual motivators in these things."

"I know them well," Bronse had agreed.

"I think I may have inadvertently handed Kith a way of trying to mess up you and Ravenna, and I don't like the idea of my abilities being twisted around like that-at least not unless I'm doing the twisting." Domino gave Bronse a capricious little grin, then shifted his weight and met Bronse's eyes without hesitation. "I'm what's known as a psychos.e.xual empath. It's a long name that means I'm highly attuned to all things s.e.xual-past, present, and future. Believe me, it's not as much fun as it sounds," Domino joked when Bronse arched a curious brow. "Sure, it's nice being able to rewind and replay the hot bit of loving that went on up against that wall over there earlier today," he indicated the spot with a casual flip of a hand, "between a chambermaid and a cook's apprentice, but try blocking out or filtering through all the bits of loving that ever happened in all the existing years of this hall being in place. Considering that humanoids are a right randy bunch, it gets a bit noisy, a lot uncomfortable, and d.a.m.n overwhelming.

"But about my point," he had hurried on when Bronse seemed to patiently grasp his explanation of his ability. "Don't put it past Kith to lie to you about Rave's motivation toward you. And don't put it past him to lie to Rave about yours. She's sensitive, but not always when she's too close to a matter to see straight. I don't think I need to tell you she's innocent in her way, for all her power and her ability to lead us little Chosen lambs. The lessons she's learned about men and s.e.x have come only recently, and only from two quarters. You and that b.a.s.t.a.r.d at the prison. For her, that's a lot of unexpected information to sort through all at once. I can tell right off that you're honorable enough, but Kith could twist pure snow until it looked like p.i.s.s."

"Kith's games won't bother me or Ravenna," Bronse had told him surely, surprised at just how confident he was speaking for a woman who, for all intents and purposes, he'd just met. "He's a little man who's grown up in a sheltered world. I, however, am not. But thank you for the heads-up. I appreciate it."

The sentiment was genuine.

"Just so long as your appreciation includes a cubbyhole on that ship of yours. As long as you can take us out of here, my favors get stacked outside your door, my new friend."

At least Domino had been b.a.l.l.s-out up front about his mercenary motivations. Bronse had a powerful appreciation for the honesty, and it made him more inclined to trust what Domino was telling him.

But now, in the present, Bronse had a headache. He rubbed at the knotted muscles in the back of his neck as he paced some more.

d.a.m.n. He hated sitting still in hostile territory, but there was little he could do in the dark with these untrained children suddenly attached to his hip holsters. Departure had to wait until tomorrow at dawn, when Justice could be led to a clearing that would allow her to remote-land the flyer.

Luckily Bronse had picked something bigger and faster for her to fly for this mission. It looked like he would be taking on about seven refugees, and he would need the s.p.a.ce. Not to mention the speed if he was going to pull off a pa.s.senger dump and manage to keep IM ignorant of it in official logs on both the ship and whatever station or port they hesitated at in order to drop them off.

Great Being, he was tired. Worried. Aggravated. Stressed. In danger.

h.o.r.n.y as h.e.l.l.

d.a.m.n, d.a.m.n, d.a.m.n.

Now that he'd confessed the true crux of the problem to himself, he couldn't p.a.w.n it off on anything else. Every cell in his body, right down to the tired, stressed and endangered ones, beat with a very singular need that only a very singular woman could ease.

Bronse plucked absently at the superfine silk material of the tunic he had been given to replace his torn shirt. It was a bit snug, these people clearly not used to seeing men of his stature and physical development, which made him chuckle and wonder what they made of Ender, who was much bigger than he was. The close-fitting material seemed to chafe at Bronse, for all its infinitely pristine softness. He felt he couldn't breathe.

In truth, he could not understand.

What would bar the woman from coming to his quarters?

Tricky question. With thousands of answers. She had been warm, friendly, and as open as ever at the banquet-style meal they had been served, even seating him beside her and flirtatiously feeding him an occasional taste of her culture's cuisine from her own plate. He hadn't even allowed the presence of his crew and the fact that they were still very much on-mission to interfere with the desire to give and receive affection. He'd already crossed that line earlier when he'd kissed her right out of her drug-induced stupor in front of all the spirits in heaven.

When they'd finished eating, she had slowly walked him through the temple gardens, and he had immediately smelled the overwhelming sweep of Ayalya spice. He realized then that the mixture of a garden in bloom and Ayalya spice would probably get him rock solid hard for the rest of his natural life.

Then she'd been called away on a temple matter and, despite his resistance, she had asked him to go to his chambers. She had said she would speak to him later.

Well, it was later. Much later.

Had Kith b.u.t.ted in and scared her off? Was she frightened of him enough on her own without anyone else's help? h.e.l.l, he knew what he looked like; so big and imposing and reeking of military command. He had already botched things up with her dozens of times, that thoughtless kiss this afternoon being a good example.

For that matter, she had been away from here for at least a month, having been held captive in the village, then having slipped into the Banda's clutches. There must be hundreds of things a high priestess would be in demand for this first night back. But it wasn't as though all of that mattered anymore. She would be leaving here for good anyway.

He knew he was being selfish and self-centered along with everything else. Not a good thing in general, but definitely a huge mistake in a building where the residents can just about sense your every thought, mood, and intention. Actually, Kith was the only true empath. Domino was only s.e.xually empathic, but that definitely applied to Bronse's situation of the moment. Fallon, it turned out, was the one and only actual telepath, although he was quite voluble about the fact that he hated reading minds. He viewed it like a dental rerouting procedure.

Vivienne. Now, to Bronse, Vivienne was a fascinating mystery. She had a fierce power-one that Bronse suspected was strongly aggressive by the way she was deferred to, but he had yet to obtain a single telling clue as to what it was. The commander had learned that potential determined rank among the Chosen Ones, and Vivienne was second to his Ravenna. That left Devan and Ophelia. Ophelia healed, he knew, but little Devan-she was so quiet. He had no idea she was even there half the time, so it hardly seemed to matter what her abilities were.

That was neither here nor there, he thought impatiently. He was not a sit-and-wait kind of guy. He was a go-and-get-her kind of guy. Well, okay, maybe he was both. The ETF had taught him patience and aggression. It had taught him how to apply both and how to determine when each was called for. So why was waiting for her now so d.a.m.n difficult? Bronse growled out a sound of frustration between his gritted teeth.

It wasn't as though he would make Ravenna do things she wasn't ready for. She could come here and feel as safe as she needed to feel.

Patience. He was an expert sometimes. When he had kissed that delectable mouth of hers and she had started to drive him crazy, he'd still managed to withdraw and keep his wits about him. He would just have to convince her how much she wanted him.

That was aggression, and he was definitely an expert there. Of course, he would understand if she didn't show up at all tonight. Perhaps for her last night here in her home territory, a place where she felt safe and secure, she didn't want to disturb the image of her childhood home with such a clear transition into womanhood.

Patience would absolutely be called for in that case. So he needed to quash his urge to storm out of this room and drag her beneath him so he could teach her about the feel of his deeply thrusting body transitioning in and out of hers.

Or perhaps such aggression would be a needed spark in this case?

That does it! There was only one thing he could possibly do. Bronse burst out of his room and went to find Lasher so he could either get some advice or have his longtime friend help him find a way to get moderately drunk. Masin had provided both services since officers' college, and he would hardly fail Bronse now.

Bronse made it as far as the antechamber that served as a sort of crossroads to the four distinct wings of the temple, where they intersected and could be most easily traveled between.

There stood Ravenna, pacing just as energetically as he had been doing, the train and skirt of the bright redorange gown she wore skimming back away from her legs at the thighs. Long sleeves dropped to the floor from her wrists and were cuffed in a beautiful white fur, and they too swept the stone mosaic laid so intricately and patiently a great many centuries ago. Her shoulders were almost bare, the neckline c.o.c.ked at the very edges of her shoulder joints. Around her neck she wore a single bloodstone teardrop on a Delran platinum chain, the metal spun into a twisted rope that caught the light with every shift her body made.

She was a vision. A confection floating just out of his reach. He could see her every curve, her thrusting nipples against thin Yojni silk attesting to the chill in the night air, the silhouette of her navel evident, and the tempting shadow of dark curls just beneath that. She cleaned up magnificently, he realized, feeling the understanding clawing through him with physical pain. Her face and body were glowing from a fresh bath, and her hair, no doubt still damp from that bath, was twisted into a single roping braid to keep it managed. She wore three thin bands of platinum on her right hand, one ring to a finger among the center fingers, the elegance of the metal sparkling as she slid that restless hand up over her breastbone and throat with agitation, finally ending up at her neck, where she rubbed at it with a grimace.

Watching her, knowing that she struggled just as much as he had struggled, gave him a measured sense of calm and security. As that sensation of restfulness fell over him, he abruptly understood the single most important factor about his need for Ravenna. As physical as it was, it was nothing compared to the swirl of emotional upheaval he was being swept into. He recognized it simply by its strangeness and its absence from his life to date. It was probably why he had such a hard time controlling it, he realized. What experience did he truly have with feeling emotions of any real depth toward a woman? This idea disturbed him in just the same way that the approach of an unknown opponent would disturb him. The questions were the same, actually, in both instances. Would he measure up to the challenge? Did he have the skills he needed? Was it a friend or a foe? When he persevered, what were the advantages to be had?

Bronse's adrenaline oozed through him as he considered all these questions. Ravenna was not an opponent to be battled. She was a precious, remarkable woman, and he would never find anyone like her anywhere else in the entire galaxy.

He knew. He had been just about everywhere in the galaxy.

There simply was no one he would ever consider her equal. To him, she was that extraordinary. And for all his confidence, he still feared that he wouldn't deserve her. She was everything he wanted and so much more than he would have ever considered for himself. Surprisingly, though, he found that he wasn't inclined to balk at the idea of an intensive attachment. This in spite of his scars at Liely's hands. It was a potentially intimidating realization for a man whose only real attachments in life were his outwardly untouchable crew.

Bronse was admittedly daunted by his and Ravenna's individual responsibilities. They were both highly positioned and crucial to their own specific societies. Where and how would these things ever mesh? It would be easier to bring their bodies together, he thought, than to enjoin their worlds.

He knew what she was thinking as she paced into yet another circuit.

If I begin this, I will risk everything. I will risk family, friends, love, pain-everything. Why? Why should I walk into his arms when my eyes are so wide open to the enormous hurt that could be awaiting me?

He knew what she was thinking because he wanted to know the answer as well. There were a great many answers he wanted. But none of them, he realized, would ever change the one answer he simply could not escape.

The answer to the question Why?

Because he wanted her with all of his heart and soul, and never before in his life had he known such a perfect need. Never had his very spirit sparked as if it had been touched by lightning, as it did when it recognized that her spirit was close by.

He could only wonder if the answer was the same for her, and if she thought it was important enough to lay the rest aside to be worked out in its own time.

Bronse pushed away from the wall that he had used for shadow and concealment.

"Ravenna."

Ravenna's pacing braked to a halt as the object of her obsessive worrying seemed suddenly to be conjured to life by the intensity of her own mind. Oh, but he looked real enough, she thought, her tongue darting out nervously to moisten suddenly dry lips. He was so tall, so robustly healthy, she marveled as he began to cross the mosaic toward her. He was so real, and it was overwhelming how his presence filled even this enormous stone intersection. She trembled visibly, quickly clasping her hands together to try to hide it. To try to hide from him how her very blood sang with joy when he came close, as he was doing now. It reveled and danced in her veins as if in the midst of a wild carnival. More! More! Always wanting more. Wanting him closer. She was looking for satiation, and she knew it with instincts as inherently feminine as giving birth.

Bronse closed the distance between them until he stood an arm's length away. She twisted one hand in the other as she realized that all of her courage had fled her, and she couldn't make herself so much as lift a single eyelash toward raising her gaze to his. Then that infernal burning on the rises of her cheeks began, and she knew she was fully flushed with color, the tide of it creeping toward her hairline.

"Are you afraid to look at me?" he asked, his whisper reverent in this place that was built to worship her G.o.ds, created to make her the child of a deity, as she no doubt deserved to be. Bronse could easily believe her to be divine in that moment, for all her submissive shyness.

"I don't think I could ever be afraid of you," she told him breathlessly.

"Then look at me, Ravenna," he beckoned softly.

She did so, but by the time her eyes finally touched on his, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were heaving with wild breaths and her fingers had squeezed each other to whiteness. Now he could see her body trembling in entirety, and he couldn't fathom why it made him smile. Perhaps it was because she had no concept of her power over him. She had no idea of how she took his breath away, made him shudder just as much as she did in antic.i.p.ation, turned his knuckles white on the crests of his fists as they clenched in order to strive for a control that he feared had abandoned him. The difference was, he'd been trained to appear calm in the face of a storm, and she had not.

She didn't know the tempest that she was.

But he would show her.

"You're so incredibly beautiful," he said gruffly, his hand reaching for her face and closing the distance between them at least that much. He swept her chin in hand, making sure she kept her eyes on his as he stepped closer to her. It brought them nose to nose, breast to breast, and thigh to thigh. At last. A collective sigh seemed to shudder through their bodies, and he tilted up her chin so her mouth grazed his very lightly.

"I ... I had my first real kiss today," she told him softly.

Bronse closed his eyes briefly, remembering far too keenly for sanity how he'd been driven to devour her with that kiss. Her first real kiss. A budding young woman in this way alone, for she was already "mother" to a brood beneath her. Cloistered. Sheltered. Far too pristine for the likes of him. He would have to do something miraculous in his future to make up for such a gift.

"I was so very glad to give it to you," he said, rubbing his mouth over hers and thrilling in the way her lips parted and pouted so eagerly for him. "Should I give you another? You seem to like them."

"Yes. Yes, you should, and yes, I do!"

He chuckled at her enthusiasm, and her blush heightened, but she smiled beneath his lips just before she added to her invitation the stroke of her tongue across his lower lip, sealing the deal as far as he was concerned. He caught her up and unleashed his hunger. He hadn't intended to. He'd meant to treasure this time with her and savor it, but he couldn't help himself. The taste of her flowed like premium wine over his tongue, the warmth of her mouth mulling her flavor perfectly. She was so receptive, so welcoming as she coaxed him into her mouth with her sweet little tongue that he groaned with deeply surging need.

Ravenna felt him shudder and knew a rush of fabulous understanding. She was only half certain of the details, but the feelings were clear as crystal. Her hands slid up to rest against his chest, and she could unexpectedly feel everything. The pounding of his heart as it crashed madly against his rib cage, the fine shimmers that coursed through him with ever-increasing intensity to match the increasing l.u.s.t of their kiss, and-she thought with sly satisfaction as she leaned just a little more forward, settling her hips against his-the incredibly evident thrust of an erection that made no mistake of his desire for her.

Her little wriggle in search of telltale signs caused a sudden rigidity throughout his entire body. There was a heartbeat of utter stillness, even his mouth freezing in its lock against hers. Then his hands were snaking around her, grasping her tightly by her bottom and dragging her in an enthusiastic grinding of his hips against her. She gasped, and a shiver of pure excitement swiveled madly around inside of her, a dollop of melted fire splashing into the core of her body and sending a slick invitation into the very heart of the expectant place between her thighs.

"Interesting," he murmured against her stunned lips.

"How so?" she managed to squeak out.

"Oh, just taking a few personalized notes, sweet. I'm learning all kinds of things about you with every pa.s.sing second."

"Can I learn things about you?"

She didn't wait for an answer and went right for what she wanted to know most. Her hands slid over his hips, her fingers curving over the taut musculature of his backside and thighs, her sweeping touch fondling him thoroughly until she could feel the burn of his skin right through his clothing. All the while he was alternately kissing her and breaking away to catch his breath. Her hands swept forward over the frame of his hips and both slid directly to the huge swell of his arousal, as if she'd done it a hundred times before.

The widening of her eyes as she touched him tattled on her. She hadn't done so even once before. He wanted to speak, say something to ease her into the familiarity she was achieving wickedly quick, but he could barely keep his legs under him, never mind form coherent sentences. She was so curious and thorough, and she was going to kill him, he thought madly. Either that or he was going to come like a rocket right then and there.

Since this wasn't at all how he wanted it to go, he fell back on training and knew that it was time to regroup.

He reached out to grasp her by her upper arms as tightly as he dared and dragged her the full distance of his reach away from his maddened body. Surprise lit her eyes, and she had the temerity to pout, d.a.m.n her, as she was forced to relinquish her task of intimate exploration. It took a very long minute, but he finally was able to find his speech.

"This is not ..." He had to stop and clear the growling pitch from his voice so she wouldn't mistake arousal for displeasure. "I need to take you somewhere more private than this," he explained roughly. "I'm not about to make love to you in the middle of the most public hall in the temple, Ravenna."

There it was, he thought with ridiculously instant delight. That hot little blush that was everything innocent about her and everything pa.s.sionate as well. He was dying to explore these contradictions, and she would never know what this walk toward privacy was going to cost him in sheer levels of torture.

Ravenna couldn't understand what had come over her. It was, she sighed to herself, what always came over her when Bronse came into her sight. Responsibility and propriety simply melted away, and the world would narrow only to the two of them. Privacy would become complete, even if it was only in their two minds. At least it felt that way to her. She decided it must be true for him as well.