Free Gift of the Goddess by Denise Rossetti Page A

her lips, resisted the silken pull of his will, his certainty. “It was… I’ve never… You’re very good.”
    She shook her head to clear it, grabbed her shirt and pulled it over her head. Mother, what was it about this man? Rolling up the too-long sleeves, she strove to sound brisk, rather than bemused. “And three. Three…” She cleared her throat. “I don’t believe you. All this nonsense about dreams, the goddess… Read my lips. I. Don’t. Believe. It.”
    “Sweetheart?” Trey stood at her elbow. “Look here.”
    In his hands he held a small round mirror. He angled it so Anje caught her own reflection. She sighed. She should have braided her hair before they…
    Her eyes looked strange. Frowning, she peered, and snatched the mirror out of Trey’s hands. Deep in each pupil, a tiny flame danced, a white-hot flicker.
    The mirror dropped from her nerveless fingers.
    Speechless, she stared from one man to the other. Brin stood poised, every muscle tense, but Trey was grinning. “You should see it when you offer, Anje. It’s a wonder you don’t burn us all to a crisp.” He blew on his fingers. “But what a way to go!”
    Fury and terror boiled within her. She was a Child of the Mother, not a plaything for some divine slut! Baring her teeth, daring them to stop her, she slung her pack over her shoulder and stamped into her boots.
    Hands on hips, she seared them with her glare. “I’m going to set snares,” she snarled. “If you’re lucky, I’ll get to kill something that’s not human!”
    Trey stood frozen, but Brin followed her out of the tent. He clamped long fingers around her biceps and swung her around. “Don’t push me, Anje. You won’t like the results.” The fire in his midnight eyes blazed.

45 Denise Rossetti
    Anje growled deep in her throat, ripped her arm free and took off at a dead run.
    Brin watched her go, her long legs eating up the distance. As she disappeared over the ridge, he rubbed at the crease between his brows.
    At his shoulder, Trey said, “That went well.”
    Brin grunted dismissively. But Trey had never been able to let well enough alone. “You didn’t tell her about the Great Rite,” he pointed out.
    Brin rolled a dark eye at him. “And you would have?”
    The lad had the grace to flush. “I need all my working parts.”
    “Ay, she’d serve us our guts for breakfast if she knew.”
    He had no doubt of it. But the Great Rite was the last chance, the final cast of the dice for the Feolin. If they lost, if they failed to placate the Goddess, his people would die. Not gloriously in battle, but slowly, their empty hearts aching for the babes that never came.
    The priestesses were so eager, they’d determined the most auspicious time already, the Day of the Dark, when the Shadow swallowed the Sun, a few weeks hence.
    Feolin legend was rife with hero shamans and brave, wanton priestesses who abandoned themselves to the sexual excesses of the Rite, their passion an acceptable libation to the Goddess. By their sacrifice, their submission, so the stories went, they invoked Lufra’s protection against some dire evil, thereby saving the world. Time and again.
    Heroes indeed.
    Brin stared blankly at the ridge above the valley. She was up there somewhere, fuming—his insoluble problem, the woman he wanted more than life. The darkness of his thoughts gathered like storm clouds behind his temples. His head ached.
    Reality was grimmer by far than myth. Three centuries ago, the Rite had ended in disaster. Contemporary accounts were garbled. No one knew whether it was human error or divine wrath that caused the conflagration, but the temple was consumed by a fireball so massive it was leveled to the ground and all within it perished. Not surprisingly, the ritual had not been performed since.
    “A couple of weeks,” said Trey, echoing his thoughts in that uncanny way he had. “Can you turn her around in time? She’s your match, I think.”
    “Nonsense, she can’t be. No