Free Three Worlds 01 - Seduce Me In Dreams by Jacquelyn Frank Page A

village had eventually betrayed them, sold them out to this higher-powered tribe, making gifts of them to the high king, the Shiasha, to help placate him and honor him. They were willing to risk the ephemeral fury of the gods they could not see in order to appease the brutal warlord breathing down their necks.

    Rave and Kith had spent time in captivity in their home village, and now in this more barbaric Nomaadic one that Kith could hardly believe was called civilization. Their village may have been small, but it had been far more educated and peaceful. At least he had thought so, until they had been sold as slaves to these barbarians. Valuable Chosen Ones to be offered like delicacies to the Shiasha—one to be a bride, one to be a personal slave to the Shiasha.

    Neither position was a welcome one. Kith would spend his days chained by his ankle to the throne of the Shiasha, using his Chosen powers to tell the warlord what people were feeling, if they were lying or not, and—his special talent—touching objects to learn their historical value, their stories, and their lives.

    As a bride, Ravenna would do little better. She would join an already expansive harem, no doubt. The Shiasha was a man in his fortieth year at least. He had acquired a great many
    “gifts” like Ravenna over the years of his sexual maturity, although it was not likely that he had been gifted with a Chosen One before. Chosen Ones tended to live in sacred temples, as priests and priestesses, just as Rave and Kith had lived before their village had bartered them away. The Shiasha would think he could gain power by bedding Rave. There were many who thought that.
    As if psychic ability were catching like a sexually transmitted disease. When he tired of trying, he would get her with child, forget her, or use her just as he would use Kith. In fact, Rave‟s powers were ten times what Kith‟s were. She would be the more valuable of them, if she ever let it be known.

    However, Rave believed that she and Kith would never meet that terrible fate. And when Rave believed in a specific future, Kith had no choice but to follow her on faith. She had been right too many times. This time she seemed almost fanatical about it. He had never before seen her believe in her gift with such zeal. She was putting all of her bets on this warrior she saw coming. Kith could only pray that she was right. She would be crushed if this soldier failed to show, or failed to be everything she had envisioned him to be.

    For now, Kith watched her hold the attention of the Nomaads with the power and aplomb she had used to keep the temple in order. As High Priestess, she had called powerful beings into harmony. These non-Chosen men were a puzzle hardly worthy of her mastery. They had leapt into her palm in a single heartbeat. Now she would spend her time slowly closing her hand and squeezing her fingers about them.

    Bronse turned fitfully on his bunk, flipping onto his back with a frustrated sigh as he tucked a hand beneath his head and stared up at the metal plates of the ceiling above him. They were en route to Ebbany, taking the trip there far slower than they had when they had last left it.
    They had been forced to stop at a supply depot on one of the more distant planetside stations on Ulrike, and it had taken two days before they were mission-ready. He and the crew had taken the time to work out varying strategies, but the delay had chafed at Bronse interminably. Time, he felt, was slipping away.

    And it was his dreams that were telling him so.

    For the most part, they had become something less defined, but comforting in their vague way. He knew she came to him at least once during every sleep cycle. The visitation in his mind was of varying lengths of time, sometimes all too short, sometimes long spans of a cocooned existence where her steady, calming essence seemed to surround him, and his surrounded her and was received as if it gave her equal depth of peace. Sleep had come