Free ServingNicole by Marilyn Campbell

Prologue
     
    The Goddess of Alchemy took her place at the top of the
pentagram. The four other Elemental Goddesses had already taken their
positions, waiting, feeling, anticipating the ritual ahead. A warm breeze
filtered through the temple and ruffled the silken robes the women wore. Green,
yellow, red, blue and white, a color for each of the elements. Earth, air,
fire, water, and the binding element, alchemy.
    She began the ritual by stating the purpose of the
gathering. “A lost daughter needs our guidance to find her destiny. We must
open the portals of Shadowling and draw her there.”
    Five members of the Brotherhood approached and stood behind
the Goddesses. Brown muslin wrapped the men in secrecy. With practiced
precision, each removed the robe of the woman before him.
    At the first sensuous touch, the Goddess of Alchemy’s
eyelids closed. Light as feathers, her consort’s fingertips trailed down her
body, over her hips, her buttocks, her thighs, her mons. As her partner pushed
his body closer to hers, a familiar, pulsing need bubbled to life in her lower
abdomen. His hand slid between her thighs and skilled fingers pressed deep into
her pussy. Like the others, she couldn’t hold back the moan that escaped her
lips. With every stroke, her companion forced her closer and closer to the
brink of release, just as his brethren did with the other Goddesses. Their
passions rose in perfect unison, blending and coiling like sentient smoke,
burning hotter and hotter, reaching out until their passions coalesced.
    Only then did the she speak again, “Goddess of Earth, bring
life to flower and field and tree. Goddess of Air, breathe life into all you
see. Goddess of Fire, cleanse the soul and set our daughters free. Goddess of
Water, calm the raging emerald seas. Our connection is sealed. So mote it be.”
    “So mote it be,” the other Goddesses repeated as they
continued feeding off each other’s sexual energy. Finally, the raw, volatile
power consumed them and they erupted in simultaneous orgasm.
    The surge encircled them, crackling through the temple,
suspending them in pleasure. The energy from their climaxes harmonized and the
portal connecting them to Shadowing Manor sizzled open, like lightning across a
dark sky. The sacred manor now resonated with the powers of the Goddesses,
calling to the lost one, drawing her to the place where she’d find her heart’s
path, where she’d be healed, be cured, be shown life’s perfect, irrefutable
truth…
    Sex creates power. Sex gives life. Sex is life.
    This is the legacy of Shadowling Manor.

Chapter One
     
    Nicole Claret stared at the symbol on the heavy wooden door.
Her hand rose, as if on its own, and her index finger traced the lines carved
into the oak—a circle inside a square inside a triangle inside another circle.
    Several times in the past week she had dreamed of this
symbol and a woman’s voice saying, You are a daughter of the Elemental
Goddesses. It is time . She heard the same words in every dream but they
meant nothing to her. Other doors in the grand hallway where she stood bore
symbols she recognized as earth, air, fire and water, but this carving was not
one she recognized. And yet it was the one that whispered to her…much in the
same way as Shadowling Manor had called to her last night.
    She’d just been falling asleep in her apartment outside
Boston when something grabbed her attention as clearly as though she’d been
shaken. Though she couldn’t identify the source, she’d learned long ago to
trust her intuition and it was demanding she drive north. Six hours later she
had arrived at Shadowling Manor, a spooky old mansion on the rocky coast of
northern Maine.
    It represents Alchemy, the fifth element to those who
know it.
    The words resonated in her mind, the same way she had heard
the words in her dreams. But this voice was incredibly deep, distinctly male
and ribboned its way down into her lower belly. More curious than afraid, she
turned the