Goddess of the Rose (Goddess Summoning #4)(83)

He'd never imagined this. Even when he'd wildly hoped that the other Empousa might care for him . . . love him . . . he'd only thought about the sweet softness of her hands touching him. It was only in his dreams that he'd allowed himself to imagine making love to a mortal woman. But his dreams never came true. Until now. Until Mikado. When he had touched her and realized that the pain of the goddess's spell had been lifted, and what that meant, she had spun reality into his dreams, and in doing so had healed the wound of loneliness that had been festering within him for an eternity.

What was he going to do? She had saved him. Could he do any less for her?

If he did not sacrifice her, the realm would die. It might not happen immediately. Hecate might find another Empousa, but irrevocable damage would already have been done. The betrayal of one Empousa had caused sickness in a realm that had never before known blight or pestilence or illness of any kind. Those things did not belong in Hecate's realm of dreams and magick. But betrayal and abandonment had caused the barrier to weaken. Asterius was certain that only Mikado's swift action had prevented further disaster.

So he must choose between destroying his dream or destroying the dreams of mankind.

It was really no choice at all. Only a beast could choose himself over mankind. He felt the agony of what he must do press against him like a flaming spear thrust into his entrails.

"I can feel you watching me," Mikki said. Sleepily, she opened her eyes and smiled up at him. "Don't you ever sleep?"

"I would rather gaze at you." He brushed back a thick strand of hair from her face.

"I should have guessed that you'd be a romantic when you put the rose in my wine."

"That is not romantic; it is civilized." He tempered the gruffness of his voice with a slight smile and caressed the graceful slope of her neck and shoulder, smiling again when she sighed happily and stretched like a contented feline.

"Don't burst my bubble. I prefer to think of it as romance."

"Then, for you, I will call it romance, too." Slowly, with a sweet hesitance and innocence that were at direct odds with the fierceness of his body, he bent and gently kissed her lips. "When you came to me today, you offered me more than your body and your love. You offered acceptance. And that is something I never imagined knowing the joy of."

She took his hand and threaded her fingers with his. "That's something you and I have in common. In my old world, I didn't feel like I belonged." She took a deep breath and made the decision. She wanted him to know. She needed him to know. "Hecate explained to me part of the reason I felt so out of place - because I was meant to be her Empousa in this world, that I carry the blood of a High Priestess in my veins. But there's another reason. It's why I never let anyone, especially any man, get too close to me. It has to do with my blood, too." She studied his dark eyes, silently pleading with him to understand. "The women of my family are tied to roses through their blood. If we feed roses water mixed with our blood, they grow. Always - incredibly. In the mundane world, what I could do was unheard of - outside of the women in my family, no one would understand. It made me feel like I was a freak. I had to hide my secret." Worried by how still and pale he had suddenly become, she felt herself shrinking inside. "I wish you'd say something. I've never told anyone else." When he still didn't speak, she started to move away from him, but with a low growl, he pulled her fiercely into the protection of his arms.

"You did not feel accepted there because it was your destiny to be Hecate's Empousa - to come here and to save the roses and their lonely Guardian. The blood that runs through your veins is this realm's life force, and it is your love that sustains us." He closed his eyes and buried his head in her hair, willing himself not to tremble . . . willing himself not to think . . .

Mikki relaxed and fitted herself more comfortably against him. "It still amazes me. If the exact sequence of events hadn't happened, I wouldn't be here." She leaned back in his arms so she could look into his face and wondered, briefly, about why he still looked so pale. "You know, it was my blood that woke you up."

"I did not know." His voice was gravely. "I just know you roused me and that I could smell your scent and knew you were Hecate's Empousa."

"Actually, that's one of the weirder aspects of what happened. Just that day an exotic old woman had given me some perfume. On impulse I wore it. As strange as this sounds, it is the same scent I'm wearing now. Gii calls it the Empousa's anointing oil."

He frowned. "How can that be?"

Mikki shrugged and nestled back against him. "I have no idea, but she was really eccentric. And beautiful, even though she was old. She had the most incredible blue eyes. She was foreign, but I couldn't place her accent. She said she got the perfume . . ." Mikki had to stop and think about what the woman had said. "Somewhere in Greece, if I remember correctly. What I do remember for sure is her name, because, like me, she's named after a rose - Sevillana."

She felt the jolt of shock jerk through his body. She pulled back to find him staring at her with an unreadable expression on his unnaturally pale face.

"What is it? What's wrong?"

"It - it is . . . nothing. Nothing is wrong. I am only surprised that a woman in the mundane world would carry the anointing oil of Hecate's High Priestess. It is a mystery." He wrapped his arms around her. "Lie against me. Let me feel your body touching mine."