Xian reached out, stroked her cheek with a soft fingertip. “You look nervous. You do not remember receiving your Breeder’s mark—you were too young. They will give you herbs to drink to dull the pain.”
“It’s not the pain that worries me, Xian.”
“What is it, then?”
“I…I wish my mother was here to see...”
“I know. But be sure never to let anyone else hear you speak of her, but Leilin or myself or your brother, Nikkan.”
“I am always careful. But even though she’s been gone all these years, I miss her. And I will never understand why she had to be banished. Or why my brother had to pay for her sins by being made a eunuch.”
Xian’s voice was soft. “These are the ways of the Temple. We must accept.”
Nitara sighed. “Do you never question the rules, the rituals, the ways of the Great Goddess?”
Xian bit her lip, her gaze serious. “Nitara, this is not the time for you to doubt your devotion to the Goddess. You are to become a woman today. Tell me you are ready.”
“I am ready. It’s only that my mind wanders sometimes...”
“You must rid your mind of these distractions. You must show faith in the Goddess and in the rightness of what we do to see that mankind continues to flourish on the earth. This is your purpose.”
“I’m sorry, Xian. I will not disappoint you. I will put my mind at ease, and trust in the Goddess.”
Her mind was still turning.
“Good girl.” Xian laid both hands on Nitara’s shoulders. “Think only of the Goddess. Focus on your duty to Her, your love for Her. Your obligation to mankind. Let your mind empty of all but prayer, so that you are pure for the marking ritual.”
Nitara nodded, and did as Xian asked. She took a long breath, training her mind on the image of the Goddess, all that was female and fertile. Sacred.
“We’ll go now, to prepare you to be marked.”
Xian held out a hand, and Nitara took it. Her touch was warm, familiar, helping her to push those traitorous ideas to the back of her mind. They would linger there, waiting, those questions which would never be answered to her satisfaction.
Today she must not think of these things. Today she would become a woman. And soon after, she would begin her Taming Moon, the month-long period with the man who would take her virginity, a sacrifice to the Goddess. The moment for which she had been trained most of her life.
Xian led her out of her chambers and along the corridor, then down a long flight of stairs, into the bowels of the Temple. Nitara remained quiet, searching out that meditative place within herself, calming her thready pulse.
Xian led her into a dim room she had never seen before, deep beneath the earth. A fire burned in a pit in the center of the room, and it was warm, stuffy, smelling of sage and burning coal.
Next to the pit sat Meidra, the Crone, the eldest Priestess of the Temple at Kroy Wen, on a small stool. Her face and hands were lined, her black eyes small and weary-looking. It was by her hand the Breeders and priestesses of the Temple were marked, and had been for as long as any could remember. With her were two younger priestesses, newly initiated and training to learn the art of the tattoo as Meidra neared the end of her lifespan.
They each bowed their heads as Xian entered, a sign of respect to the High Priestess.
“I bring you Nitara,” Xian said.
Meidra gave a small nod of her head, and the two younger Priestesses silently took Nitara by the arms and brought her to stand before the Crone.
“Drink this,” Meidra told her, handing her a small ceramic cup. “The taste will be bitter, but your marking will be easier for it, and after you will sleep and dream.”
Nitara took the cup and drank, and it was as bitter as Meidra said it would be. She glanced at Xian, who stood on the other side of the fire pit, her face somber. Then the two younger Priestesses moved closer and quickly stripped her tunic from her. Nitara shivered, even through the heat of the room, waiting. She focused on the motions of the Crone as she mixed the dark red ink in a bowl made of polished bone, muttering a prayer as she worked.
Soon Nitara found herself floating, as she did in her dreams. And when the two young Priestesses began to smooth their hands over her naked body, the sensation of lightness increased, their sensual touch helping to soothe her, to release her mind.
Their fingers were sweet and teasing at her nipples, the cleft between her thighs. She grew wet, her body softening with sensation. She didn’t know how long it went on, the gentle stroking, the sensual shivers in her body.
After some time Meidra said, “We are ready to begin.”
The priestesses held Nitara’s arms firmly, and began to chant quietly as Meidra dipped her needle, a long, hair-thin length of sharpened metal wire, into her bowl of ink, and brought it to Nitara’s belly.
There was no pain at first. Just a scratching sensation as Meidra worked the ink into her skin, just below her navel. The scratching became harder, burning a little. She was aware of Meidra’s bent head, inches from her body, but it was almost as if she watched from some far-away place.
It was over quickly. The two young priestesses took her to a bed piled high with furs and laid her down on it. Her naked skin was hot, fevered, and the eight-pointed star, the fertility symbol of the Goddess, engraved on her belly in red, burned as if branded there.
Xian stood over her, her beautiful face looking down at her. “You will sleep now, Nitara. And you will dream. Dream of the children you will give to the Goddess. To the earth.”
A cool hand on her cheek for one moment, then Xian was gone, leaving Nitara to drift, her mind leaving her body, the heat and the burning pain behind.
He was dark—eyes and hair and demeanor. Beautiful. Angry.
A stranger. But somehow, she knew he was for
her
.
They were in a dark place, lit by torches set into the walls, by candles made from animal fat, making gray smoke. She could smell it, could feel it in her nostrils when she inhaled.
He was watching
her
. And as he watched, she ran her hands over her full breasts, down her sides, over her curving hips. His gaze on her was animal, sexual.
He was the one, her Sacrifice. He would desire her. He would take her virginity on the altar of the Goddess. And then, as had been ordained for more than a hundred years, she would take the sacred knife and plunge it into his heart.
There was chanting in the air, along with the smoke, the chanting of a hundred priestesses, like some dark music in her head. And she knew she was meant to sink into it, to feel the Goddess inhabit her body. This was the beginning of her purpose in life. Her duty to her Goddess. Why then, did it hurt her?
She held the knife over his chest. His breath was a ragged pant of need and fear and fury. But she could not do it.
She could not do it.
Tears ran down her face, tears she had not cried since she was a child.
The chanting grew louder.
Please stop.
It was a storm in her ears, a crashing thunder.
Stop...
But the words were only in her head, and the chanting continued, mocking her, demanding of her.
She raised the knife, which was wet with blood. His blood. But she hadn’t done it yet, had she?
She looked down, found him still breathing, his dark eyes pleading with her.
She could not do it.
Would
not do it.
The chanting was inside her head now, drowning out all other thought. She struggled against it, against the drugs making her dizzy, making her feel as if she couldn’t move, her body lying nearly paralyzed on the bed.
“Sacrifice.”
No.
“Sacrifice.”
No!
“Sacrifice.”
“No!” she screamed.
All went black. And all she could hear were her own tortured sobs ringing in her ears.
Chapter Two
Nitara came awake. She was shaking. Glad to open her eyes and find Leilin sitting next to her.
“Ah, you’re back, Little Sister.”
Nitara blinked, trying to clear the images from her mind. But they lingered, dark and frightening.
“Leilin, I dreamed.”
“You’re supposed to dream.”
“But it was not of the babies I would bring to birth.”
“No.” Leilin smoothed a cool, wet cloth over Nitara’s face. “I watched you as you slept. I knew your dreams were not the birthing dreams. Tell me what you saw.”
“I felt as much as I saw. It was the Sacrifice.
My
Sacrifice. But there was no joy in it. There was only a terrible sorrow and blood and…tears. What does it mean? Does the Goddess reject me?”
Her heart was a hammer in her chest, her fingers gripping the furs laid over her body.
“I was waiting for this,” Leilin said, sighing.
“What do you mean?”
Leilin’s voice was so low she could barely make out her words. “I hoped it wouldn’t happen to you. It seems the women of our line are doomed to suffer for our service to the Goddess.”
Nitara sat up too suddenly, and her head spun. “I don’t understand. Doomed? Leilin, you frighten me.”
“I had the dreams, too, at my marking. So did our mother.”
“Our mother? How do you know this?”
“Shh. You must keep your voice down.” Leilin glanced over her shoulder, at the doorway, then back again. “You must not speak of this, do you understand? Not to anyone.”
“Leilin, I don’t understand.”
“It is better not to. Put it out of your mind. Here, look at your mark. You are a woman, now. A Breeder.”
She pulled the furs back, and it was then Nitara realized she was in her own bed.
The star on her belly was drawn in red ink, a blaze against her pale skin. She reached down to touch it, but Leilin grabbed her hand.
“It will be healed by the next moon, the time of your Sacrifice. Your Taming Moon begins the day after tomorrow, the day of your twentieth birthday.”
The dream was fading from Nitara’s mind, along with her doubts, and she felt the long-awaited elation of what was to come: her entrance into womanhood, her service to the Goddess.
“You will spend these next two days preparing yourself with baths and herbs,” Leilin told her, “purifying your body. Then you will go down to the Sanctuary to meet your Sacrifice.”
A small shiver ran through Nitara, a flashing image of blood on her hands. Then it was gone. She couldn’t seem to get her mind to focus.
“I’m so tired, Leilin.”
“It is the drugs. Sleep now. Tomorrow you will begin.”
Nitara lay back on her furs. Her body was humming with a sensual buzz, the response she had been trained to since puberty.
Her Sacrifice. The first man to touch her.
She shivered, a lovely wave of desire, like heat just beneath her skin, in her breasts, her sex.
She closed her eyes, heard Leilin’s footsteps as she left the room. She was so sleepy. But her body was alive with need.
She spread her thighs, slipping a hand between them. Her cleft was damp, slick. She slid her fingers in between the folds, pleasure rising. The fog in her head threatened to overtake her, but she fought it off.
In her mind’s eye, she saw a pair of hands, masculine, rough. Male. Her body burned for that touch.
Would he be gentle with her, the way Xian was? What would it be like, to feel him inside her, to feel him thrusting, thrusting, coming into her?
She moved her fingertips over her clitoris, then lower, to tease at her entrance, being careful never to slip more than the barest tip inside. To preserve her virginity. She must remain untouched for another month.
She squeezed her eyes tight, her hands becoming the hands of a lover, the hands of a man, circling her swollen clitoris. She pressed harder, rubbing until it nearly hurt. And heard in her head a deep voice, saying her name...
Nitara.
Her body tensed, trembled on that lovely edge. She pressed down on her clit, her hips arching as she came. Her sex clenched, flooding with heat, and she gasped, trembling.
She was floating again, this time on the last waves of her climax. The waves shivered over her skin, gently, gently. Until finally, she slept once more.
Akaash opened his eyes, tried to sit up. But he couldn’t move.
All was dark around him, but he remembered now…
They had come upon him at night. He’d been alone in a small cave in the mountains, sleeping after a long, successful hunt, and three days in the Wasteland. He’d thought it was road pirates, come to steal the meat he’d killed. They were on him so quickly, and in such numbers, that they had him bound and thrown onto the back of a horse before he understood they were the guards of the temple.
But he was no longer bound to a horse. He was lying on the earth, iron cuffs on his wrists attached to long lengths of precious iron chains. All was silent around him. And although the chains had some give to them, he could not move a muscle.
He’d heard of the drugs they used to keep their prey calm and still. To seduce the men of the Wanderer clans into serving their purposes with aphrodisiacs, using them as breeding stock to keep their bloodlines strong. He’d heard the girls used as breeders were beautiful, but of course, none of the Wanderers had ever seen them and lived to report back. Only those men of the cities chosen in the lottery to breed with them each month saw them. Except for those few Wanderers who were kidnapped, used. And killed.
He knew what his fate would be if he didn’t escape. But he could not move a muscle.
He wondered what Dhatri, his bonded lover, would think if he knew. Dhatri was the Chief Warrior, the best fighter of the Mutairi clan, fierce and brave. He would be ashamed, as Akaash was himself. Even if he escaped now, he could never overcome the disgrace of being taken. He had been a Warrior. And now, he was fallen prey.
He peered through the dark, trying to see…anything. And after a few moments, his eyes adjusted enough for him to see that he was in a cage of sorts, with bars made of the old iron, so precious since the Burning Time. He was in the dungeons of the temple, then. Impossible to escape, or so it was said.
He lay still for a long time, hours, perhaps, alone with his humiliation in the dark. He was thirsty, dizzy from the drugs. And his cock was hard, standing ready. He grew angrier by the moment, thinking of what they’d done to him, of this vile helplessness.
Finally, a shaft of light dazzled his eyes as someone came near with a torch. He blinked until his vision cleared. In front of him was a man, a guard of the temple, in a short, dark robe he recognized as the garb of the eunuchs who watched over the breeder girls. The man was young. His face was shaved smooth, his eyes a pale green, his features almost girlish in their prettiness. His body was lean, but his shoulders were broad. Had the situation been different, and had the boy been able, he was beautiful enough that Akaash would gladly take him to bed, part the smooth cheeks of his tender ass, and push into him…
He shook his head, reminding himself fiercely that this pretty piece of flesh was the enemy.
“You there,” Akaash demanded, irritated at the unevenness in his voice. “Tell me where I am, and what is to happen to me.”
The guard moved aside, and from behind him stepped a girl. She was petite, her head reaching to the guard’s shoulder. Her long, waving brown hair was a soft veil around her curving form, touched with gold from the light of the torch. She wore the red garment of a Breeder, the cowl draped low in the front, revealing her full breasts, the fabric just covering her nipples. But it was her face Akaash found so arresting. Heart-shaped, innocent-looking, with high, rounded cheekbones, and the same pale green eyes as the guard. And her mouth…the pink lips full and generous, almost too lush in her otherwise-sweet face. Lips that could do wicked things to a man…
His cock filled even more, pulsing to life. He cursed its betrayal silently. This girl, too, was the enemy.
“You are in the Sanctuary of the Temple at Kroy Wen,” she said, her voice soft and as sweet as her face. “You have been chosen by the Great Goddess, for the good of mankind and of the earth.”
“Your goddess,” Akaash said bitterly. “A goddess I don’t believe in. This is why I am to lose my life? This is why I’ve been shamed?”
“Yes,” she said simply, smiling.
His cock rose once more between his legs, and with it he felt a tingling in his fingertips. He still could not move, but the return of the sensation gave him the first glimmering hope of escape. He could not die here in this strange place, for a goddess he did not know.
“And why are you here?” he asked the girl. “What part are you to play in this?”
“I am Nitara, Breeder of the Temple. It is my duty to repopulate the Earth.”
“And I’m to help you do it? I am to lie with you, to impregnate you? I will not do it.”
But his hardening cock belied his words. His body wanted her, even as his mind rebelled. She was beautiful, this girl, lush and sensual. And he had not had a woman for a long time. Dhatri was a superb lover—he had no complaints. But the touch of a woman was different, rare…
“Tell me your name, Wanderer,” the girl said, stepping closer.
“I am Akaash.”
“You’re more aware than I’m told the Sacrifice should be. More lucid. Do the herbs not affect you?”
“Apparently not.”
Better that she not know he could barely move, how much effort it took simply to speak.
“Strange. I should tell the priestesses…”
He waited for her to turn away, but she stood there, watching him.
“What are you looking at?” he asked finally, gruffly.
“At you. You are more beautiful than I expected. And I have never seen a man other than our eunuch guards this close. You look different than they do. More…a man.”
He didn’t know what to say, so he remained silent.
“I should go,” she murmured.
“Go then. Tell your priestess. Have me drugged senseless.”
She turned, then, whispering to the guard, and they both disappeared, returning shortly with a small cup and three other guards. The eunuchs opened the gate and came into his cell. Two held his shoulders, another his face, and the beautiful boy with the green eyes held his mouth open with strong fingers and poured a bitter liquid in. Akaash sputtered, choking as it went down his throat, as he tried to struggle. But he was too weak.
Shame rolled over him in a heavy wave. How could he have let this happen? Only a man of weakness would end up like this—bound, a victim. He could never face his clan again. Never face Dhatri.
But soon the drugs began their work, and he couldn’t think any more of his home in the Wasteland, the darkly beautiful face of his bonded lover, of all that he would never see again. The room seemed to shrink, his focus to narrow, until all he could see was the girl, Nitara. All he could feel was his cock swelling, aching, as she danced, her body swaying, sinuous as a snake. Her hands wove patterns in the air, over her breasts, down her body.
He wanted her.
She turned slowly, her long hair swinging, shimmering in the torchlight. She watched him over one shoulder, pulling her hair aside as she smoothed the fabric of her tunic down and down, until the pale flesh of her back was revealed. Lower still, and he could see a pair of dimples at the small of her back, then the high, rounded curve of her ass. There was no music, yet her body set a rhythm, one he felt in his blood, in his cock. And when she dropped the tunic to the ground and turned to face him, his cock pulsed with a need so powerful he felt dazed by it.
Her body was lush, ripe, her breasts full and round, the nipples two hard points. Between her thighs she was shaved clean, her pussy lips smooth and pink as her nipples. She ran her hands over her belly, her sides, her hips swaying. Then she cupped her breasts, kneaded the flesh, before her fingers brushed over the hard pink tips.
Akaash strained, trying to move, needing to touch her.
Had to.
But all he could do was watch. And want.
Her gaze was on his face, green eyes that glowed in the dim light like pale sun-glass. And her hand snaked down between her thighs, brushing her pink cleft.
He groaned. Desire was like a knife, cutting deep. He felt it everywhere—in his cock, his very blood.
Nitara…
He no longer cared that the drugs kept him as bound as any ropes might. All he knew was that he must have her. Touch her. Fuck her.
“Nitara.”
She looked up at the sound of her name. Blinked, pausing in her sensual dance. He looked more closely and saw the rise and fall of her chest, signaling her panting breath. He knew if he put his hand between her legs he would find her wet. Ready.
“I will have you,” he murmured.
She smiled, pulled her hand from between her thighs, stepped right up to the bars of the cage and knelt there. Her fingertips glistening with her juices, she reached through the bars and touched them to his lips.
He groaned.
“Yes, you will,” she said.
Then she was gone.
Gods, he could smell her. And when he licked his lips, he could taste her. She was sweet, salty, full of smoke and need. Need as sharp as his own.
He knew it was the drugs that made him crave her as if he would die. That, and her sweet face, her ripe body. He didn’t care. Didn’t care that to have her he would
have
to die. At this moment, he would do so willingly.
I will die to have this woman.
The words echoed in his head, empty of any meaning. But full of images—him pushing between her round thighs, into her slick cunt. Thrusting into her over and over, pleasure soaring. Coming into her…
He was out of his head. But there was nothing he could do. He was helpless against the iron bars of the cell that held him. Helpless against the drugs they’d fed him. Helpless against Nitara.
Nitara ran through the hallways and into her room. Tearing her tunic over her head, she dropped it on the floor. She knelt, naked, at the small altar next to her bed before the carved image of the Goddess, the small stone bowl holding bits of sun-glass, bread and other offerings she’d put there before her morning prayers. She lit the candles, bowed her head and thrust her hand between her parted thighs, her fingers slipping in the moisture between the swollen folds of her sex.