Goddess of the Rose (Goddess Summoning #4)(55)

Mikki sat straight up, causing water to slosh over the smooth, white rocks around the pool.

"I wondered when you would notice," Gii said softly.

"Have these beds always been filled with the Mikado Rose?"

"No. They change with each new Empousa. This area of the gardens is sacred to Hecate's High Priestesses. If you look carefully, you will see that in the middle of the central bed there is a small temple. It is your private shrine, a place in which you will never be disturbed."

A sudden thought drifted through Mikki's mind like smoke, and almost without meaning to, she asked the question. "Where is the Guardian's lair?"

"The entrance is beneath these springs. Hecate fashioned it there so his protection would never be far from her Empousa."

Mikki could hear the frown in Gii's voice, and she turned to look at the handmaiden. "You don't like him."

"It is illogical to like or dislike him. He is a beast. It is simply his duty to protect the realm - his sole purpose for being." Gii sounded unusually terse.

"She's worried that he will err again and cause the realm to become bespelled once more," Floga said.

Mikki noticed that the Fire Elemental's expression was as cold and disapproving as her voice.

"You sound like you're worried about that, too," Mikki said.

"I am."

"And are the rest of you?" She looked from Nera to Aeras. Both Elementals nodded quick agreement.

"Okay, what exactly did the Guardian do that made Hecate so angry?" Mikki asked, wondering why she felt so damn annoyed at the handmaidens and so damn defensive of the Guardian.

When no one answered, she turned back to Gii. The handmaiden squirmed and wouldn't meet her eyes. Mikki sighed. "Will you please tell me what in the hell is going on? I mean, how terrible can it be? Hecate did finally let him return."

Gii's gaze rose to meet Mikki's. Her eyes were bright and round with unshed tears. "I cannot tell you, Mikado."

"You've got to be kidding! Why in the world can't you tell me?"

"Forgive me - forgive us, but we are not permitted to speak of it. We shouldn't have said as much as we did." Tears spilled down the little Elemental's cheeks.

"Please don't be angry, Empousa," Nera said.

"She tells you only the truth, Empousa," Aeras cried. "We have been forbidden to speak of it."

"Gii is right; I should never have mentioned it. Hecate commanded that it remain in the past. We may not speak of it ever again," Floga said.

"Well, how about the Guardian? Will he talk about it?"

"Oh, Empousa, no!" Gii's face, which had been flushed from the bath, suddenly drained of its color. "You must not speak of the past with him!" The other Elementals echoed her with horrified No's of their own.

"Okay, okay! I won't ask him. It's all right, Gii, please don't cry. Let's just forget I said anything about it." Mikki hastily assured her, hating that she had caused the young women to become so upset. "Here, help me figure out which of these bottles holds what. I don't want to accidentally pour oil instead of shampoo on my hair."

Sniffing and wiping her eyes, Gii pointed out the soaps and oils in Mikki's basket. Mikki only half listened to her. Her thoughts kept circling around unanswered questions. Even after the warnings she still wanted to ask the Guardian what had happened. Not tonight, of course. Not so soon. But what if she got to know him better? Today he had actually smiled and joked with her. And touched her . . . she shivered, remembering how his horn had prickled the skin of her arm and how his eyes had seemed to see into her soul.

Admit it. He totally intrigues you.

It was true, but she squelched the thought, pulling her mind from the beast to the mystery that surrounded the realm he guarded. Hecate couldn't honestly expect her to live here and not want to find out what had happened that caused the sequence of events that led to her becoming the goddess's Empousa. Maybe the truth was that Hecate didn't want her to hear about it secondhand, like common gossip, and that was why she had forbidden the handmaidens to talk about it. Gii hadn't specifically said that the Guardian had been forbidden, too; she'd just freaked out and said not to ask him about the past. Well, it was obvious that the handmaidens, as well as the other women in the realm, tip-toed around the Guardian, vacillating between treating him like a rabid dog and a god.

She didn't think of him as either.

Mikki uncapped the cork from the bottle Gii had said was shampoo and poured a generous amount of it into her hair. As the night cooled, steam from the pools lifted in thickening waves, veiling each bather in warm mist. In a world of her own, Mikki inhaled deeply, noting that the soap was the same fragrance as the exotic perfume the old woman had given her. She finished washing and rinsing her hair and uncapped the other bottles, too. All of it - the soap, shampoo and oil - were the same rich fragrance.

"It is the anointing scent of the Empousa. None other may ever wear it."

As each woman sipped wine and bathed herself, the pools had grown still, and Floga's voice startled her. Mikki peered at her through the steam and noted that the Fire Elemental's expression was odd - it was almost as if she looked angry.

"Do you wish you could wear it, Floga?" Mikki asked pointedly, lowering her voice so her words were for Floga alone.