Savage Lessons (Temple of Luna #3) Read online

  It hurt more than if he'd placed all the responsibility on her. "So I had nothing to do with it? Because I recall begging, Dejan -- begging you to take me, to make me yours."

  "Because I already had." He opened his eyes and stared at her, longing and hunger plain in his face. "You don't understand what magic can do. Trainers are meant to hold back. Unleashing that sort of power, with that level of intimacy -- we can make you need us. If I'd given you time to clear your head..."

  "Stop." A pain colder than anger but hotter than betrayal lanced through her. "I love you. Would you reduce that to an illusion? A silly fantasy?"

  "You're everything to me," he whispered. "I care too much to risk you. Do you care enough to trust me? The trainers are talking. Being discovered now would put us both at risk."

  A shiver took her, though Lexa barely felt it through the numb haze that enveloped her. "What trust shall I give you? What do you plan to do?"

  "Stay away from you long enough for the rumors to subside." That was true enough, but she could read the lie in the words that followed. "And then I'll come back to you."

  Only the wall behind her kept her from backing away in disbelief. "You claim that I'm everything, but still you lie to me?" Anger overrode her numbness, and she stepped close to Dejan, so close their faces were only inches apart. "End it if that's what you need to do, but don't lie. Don't you dare."

  He moved fast, so fast her back had hit the wall before she saw him take a step. His hands closed on her wrists and slammed them against the wall too, trapping her between stone and the unyielding heat of his body. Something wild lived in his gaze, the beast that had broken free and wanted to claim her even now. "I can't be trusted with you."

  Part of her wanted to struggle against his grasp, but she knew it would be useless. She refused to flinch away, to close her eyes against the tears that threatened, so she stared up at him.

  He was breaking her heart, but it left him in agony, and she knew what she had to do. "I reject your claim," she whispered.

  More than just words. She meant them, and the beasts inside them knew. The magic knew, too, pressure building until it snapped with a painful jerk, one she felt in her bones.

  Misery painted Dejan's features as he stepped back, releasing her so abruptly she almost fell. The imprint of his fingers stood plainly on her wrists, and his gaze caught on the livid red marks. "I'm sorry for the pain I've caused you, priestess."

  She rubbed her wrists and tried to pretend that was all he meant. "I've known worse pain that what you've visited on me." Her turn to lie.

  His turn to be devastated by it.

  The formal bow he managed was a hair short of obeisance, far too deep for a trainer to a priestess, even one who wore the silver robes. "By your leave, priestess."

  He didn't wait for her to return or acknowledge the bow. He turned and practically ran from the gardens, leaving Lexa alone.

  Her legs wouldn't hold her, and she slumped to the stone path. The pressure in her chest was unbearable, and intensifying with every choked breath she tried to draw. Finally, her gasps broke in a ragged sob, and she buried her face in her hands.

  Dejan had spoken of knowing better, but the truth was that so had she. She'd worked for years, never resting and never veering from the path she'd set for herself. She would be a priestess, she would wear silver robes, and she would one day run the Temple herself.

  All of that was in her grasp now, and all she had to do was not screw it up. Stay the course, and she'd have everything she'd ever dreamed of as a young girl of no wealth or family.

  Victory had never seemed so hollow, so meaningless. The importance of her accomplishments couldn't ease the ache of a broken heart. It couldn't bring her off her knees or stop the flow of her tears.

  Only time and sheer stubbornness could do either. Lexa wiped her face, rose, and set off on the quickest path to her room.

  She would survive this loss just as she had survived everything else in her life -- because she had to.

  His ears were still ringing from the scathing lecture he'd endured from Celine two hours later.

  Dejan shoved the rest of his tunics into a bag, heedless of how being balled up and crumpled might damage the expensive fabric. His relationship with Celine had always been one of friendship and easy camaraderie, but today she had made the full weight of her displeasure felt in a stark reminder of why she was Luna's most dangerous servant.

  For now. The lash of angry power had been impressive indeed, but he'd felt pain almost as fierce when Lexa had rejected him. He'd let her sweet submission and eager hunger lull him into a false sense of control, all the while forgetting the very reason she'd been sent to him. Power rested in that supple frame, magic granted by the goddess herself. Her rejection of his claim had resonated in his bones, stripping him bare before her.

  If anything, it was that which had decided his course of action. The woman who'd brought him to his knees deserved the freedom to realize her dreams. In ten years in the Temple he'd never met a priestess whose strength rivaled that of Celine. Not until Lexa.

  A knock sounded at the door, but it opened before he could answer. Hektor stepped in. "Goddess spare us. You are leaving."

  It seemed the gossips were at it again. "And what are they saying now?"

  "That you've managed to successfully woo your rich conquest at last." Hektor crossed his arms over his chest. "Is she going with you?"

  Dejan shot Hektor a look. "I turned myself over to the high priestess. I've been banished."

  "What? Why would you do such a boneheaded thing?"

  A snarl escaped him. "Because I am not like you. I was a prisoner of war, Hektor. A broken man. A feral fucking wolf. I'm only safe when chained by tradition, and I've obviously broken those chains."

  His friend met his anger -- and matched it. "You think so? That you're the only man who ever felt this way, as if his beast wouldn't allow him to draw another breath until he'd reclaimed what was his? Are you that arrogant, Dejan?"

  "I'm that scared! I'm that terrified."

  "Of what? That you won't be able to control yourself, or that you won't want to when you have to watch the parade of warriors who actually get to touch her?"

  He'd already struggled against the jealousy, bad enough when he knew she was his, that his magic embraced her and the beast inside him recognized home. Now... He growled and pushed a pair of pants into the bag. "I almost hurt her tonight. And she rejected me. As she should have."

  "Before or after you offered to throw yourself on your sword? Don't try to tell me you didn't."

  There was nothing to say to that, so he stayed silent.

  It dissolved Hektor's anger. "Where will you go?"

  Dejan hadn't even thought about it. "I don't know. It's not like I don't have money. My stipend's been piling up untouched for a decade. Maybe the hotel in town for a few days, and then..." And then he had to put as much of their country between him and Lexa as possible to keep himself from coming back for her.

  "Do you --?" Hektor bit off the question, stepped forward, and offered his hand. "Until our paths cross again, Dejan."

  The only kindness he was likely to see in days to come, and Dejan was too weak to deny it. He clasped his friend's hand with a strained smile. "Until that day."

  The older man searched his face and finally sighed. "Tell Lexa yourself. Don't let her hear the whispers in one of the common rooms."

  If only he could. "The high priestess is probably already with her."

  "Does that change anything? She still deserves to hear this from you."

  She did, but facing her wouldn't just be flying in the face of direct orders from Celine herself -- it would be testing his own resolve in the face of the one thing he wanted more than anything. "Maybe," he said finally, and it was the best he could offer.

  But even as Hektor left him to his misery Dejan knew the truth. He'd try to see her one last time. He had to.

  Lexa ignored the chime at her door and refilled her g
lass of wine. Whoever it was could return later or, even better, fuck off completely. "Go away."

  A soft click as the lock disengaged, and the door slid open to reveal the high priestess. "No."

  Celine was very nearly the last person she wanted to see, but showing that would be unacceptable -- and telling. Lexa placed her goblet on the table and straightened. "Is my presence required?"

  Showing a complete disregard for the unspoken rules of privacy, Celine stepped into the room and closed the door behind her. "Dejan confessed everything. He's been banished."

  So he'd confessed, and her painful rejection of him had been for nothing. "I see. So you've come to mete out my punishment." She drained her wine. "Do your worst, Celine. Demotion? Banishment? Nothing would hurt worse than what I've already suffered."

  The high priestess moved to lean against Lexa's desk and crossed her arms over her chest. "First I suppose you'll have to tell me how much of his tortured self-recrimination is fact, and how much is a man under the delusion he's responsible for everything."

  She snorted. "We had an affair. I was just as culpable as Dejan, perhaps even more so. I knew exactly what I was doing, and I would do it again. Take that under consideration when you make your decisions."

  For the first time ever, Celine seemed completely taken aback. She stared at Lexa, her mouth slightly open, then blinked. "Do you want to be here at all?"

  Did she? She glanced at her dressing table, where a fresh silver robe awaited her. "Since I was a little girl, all I ever wanted was your position. I wanted to be the highest priestess. I wanted the prestige, the power. The money. Now Luna has shown me what a prideful shit I've been. I didn't want to serve her. I wanted her to serve me."

  "When you're angry, you get crude." An oddly sad little smile tugged at the corner of Celine's lips. "One of the hundreds of ways you remind me of myself. It's hard to be like the gently born when we're furious, isn't it? To remember to be flowery and obliquely insulting when what you want to do is tell them to shove their heads straight up their damn asses."

  It was. Pretending to be gently bred, to fit in, had been a constant struggle. "I don't belong here, Celine. I have to go."

  "I didn't belong here either, Lexa. I made my role fit me. The high priestess before me was a lady who smiled where I scowl and bowed where I rebel. I made this Temple independent, and I did it because I didn't belong here. I need you."

  It was everything she'd ever wanted, and more -- permission to be herself instead of forcing herself into a strange mold. All her dreams fulfilled.

  And, in the end, it would mean nothing next to what she'd lost. "I'm sorry, Celine. I'll be leaving with Dejan, if he'll have me."

  Celine's eyes widened. "He means that much?"

  You're everything to me. Dejan's words, and Lexa echoed them now. "He's everything. And if I let him go..." She shook her head. "I can't serve Luna if there's no love left in me."

  "Yes, you can." The high priestess's voice broke, and she cleared her throat. "You can," she repeated. "I've done it for the last decade. But I suppose I should hardly expect you to do the same."

  So there was regret in Celine's past, truth to the rumors that sometimes arose. "I can't take the chance."

  "And if you could have both?"

  The question startled Lexa. "I can't serve warriors with Dejan's claim on me. I was lucky yesterday. A feral wolf could have killed me."

  A wry smile twisted Celine's lips. "Odd, I seem to recall saying the exact same thing to you. I also remember telling you that you could talk to me. Perhaps if you had, you would have learned a great deal about the traditions of the Temple and how they change with each high priestess."

  She hadn't clawed her way from nothing by being slow. "The high priestess can change her duties to suit her?"

  "Administrating the Temple is a high priestess's job. Serving warriors..." A tiny shrug. "The priestess I replaced didn't find it a fitting use of her time. I had... personal reasons to make it part of my duty. Selfish reasons."

  Shock and hope made it difficult to breathe, and Lexa had to swallow to speak past the lump in her throat. "If that's all it takes, anyone could do it. Why do you need me?"

  "Because it's not about stupid little things like whether or not you go to bed with warriors. It's about being strong enough to face down the wildest man, or a king, or a high priestess..." Her eyes softened. "Or the man you love."

  Lexa's gaze fell on the dressing table again -- and the silver robe draped there. "Will you help me, Celine? Teach me the administrative tasks, how to oversee things?"

  "Six months. Three with you as my assistant, three with me as yours." Celine hesitated. "Dejan can not become a trainer again. It would be within your right to make him one when you took over, but it would be reckless and dangerous."

  "He may still wish to leave."

  "I think that depends on if you ask him to stay."

  If he remained, stripped of his position, the only thing holding him there would be her. "I need to speak to him before I decide."

  Celine nodded and pushed off the desk. "Don't think for a moment this absolves you of what you did. I'm going to work you so hard you may wish you'd taken your chance to flee. But if you're willing..." She paused with a hand hovering over the door. "I cut my heart out to serve Luna, and I did amazing things. I can only imagine what you might be able to do if your heart is whole."

  When Celine had gone, Lexa stood and walked to her dressing table and stroked her fingers over the robe across the chair. The fabric was finer than silk, but she'd never wear it again if doing so meant losing Dejan.

  She left the robe on the chair and went to dress.

  She checked his room last, and felt like an idiot when she found him sitting on the bed, staring blankly at the wall. He didn't even stir when she stepped through the open door, though his jaw tightened. "I've been fighting with myself for an hour. I should be gone already, but I can't make myself leave."

  Lexa closed the door and crossed the room to sink to her knees at his feet. "What if you didn't have to?"

  His gaze fell on her, fell on the plain clothing she'd donned, and his breath hissed out. "Tell me she didn't banish you, too." He sounded stricken, lost. "By the Goddess, Lexa, I swear to you she promised you wouldn't be held responsible for my actions."

  "Shh, no one's banished. Not me or you." She reached for his hand. "I'll leave with you, anyway. Tonight. I already told Celine I would, and she -- she gave me an option. A way for us to stay here and be together."

  "I don't understand."

  "She wants to train me as her replacement." Lexa climbed up to sit beside him on the bed. "It would be my job to run the Temple, I knew that. But I didn't know that each high priestess does that differently."

  His eyebrows came together. "I thought--well, no. I suppose Celine's been in charge longer than anyone else has been here, except maybe the servants. Priestesses never seem to stay for long before finding a warrior of their own."

  "I assumed that Celine served warriors because it was tradition, but apparently not. And I--I don't have to take on warriors personally to make certain they're healed, Dejan." Lexa held her breath and silently willed him to understand what she was asking.

  One large hand cupped her cheek and then slid into her hair. "You could be high priestess and have a mate?"

  "As long as it doesn't conflict with the Temple's needs." She dared to let her hope show in her tremulous smile. "You couldn't be a trainer, that much wouldn't change. But you could be my consort, even my first guard."

  His thumb swept her lips, the first hint of belief growing in him along with his own smile. "If it kept you safe and happy I'd scrub the floors and do the laundry."

  "I'd rather you spent your time keeping your mate sane." She took his hand and pressed a kiss to his palm. "I meant what I said. I'd go with you and never look back."

  "You'd look back, because you belong here. A man who loved you wouldn't take you away."

  "A man who love
d me wouldn't try to make me stay without him," she corrected.

  "I won't." Dejan's fingers brushed her nape as he tilted her head back. "You stood up to the high priestess for me."

  "I think that's exactly why Celine wanted me to stay, after all." Lexa leaned into his touch, giddy with relief. "Maybe it does mean I'm strong enough to do this."

  "And maybe she wishes now that she'd made a different choice in her own life." His eyes turned serious. "The rumors are true, you know. Celine has been in love with the new King's cousin for thirty years."

  The high priestess' regret and heartache had been plain. "She said something about how she had to cut out her heart to stay here at the Temple. It's... sad."

  "It is," he agreed. "But her choices aren't yours. And I don't have the pride of royalty. I don't have any pride at all. I'd cut out my heart to give you what you want, but now I don't have to. We can have everything."

  Sudden uncertainty intruded. "If I really can do it. I have six months to find out. If I'm not right for the position, we can still go."

  Dejan kissed her, not the hot, desperate kiss of their frantic couplings, but a slow, deep kiss that rocked her to her core and left her clinging to him. "You'll be perfect. You'll be wonderful. And you'll be mine."

  Only a few short days before, the knowledge had scared her. But that was before there had been a light at the end of the tunnel, a possible way for them to stay together without leaving their lives behind.

  Now, for the first time, hearing the words brought a rush of joy. "I'll be yours," she agreed, and kissed him again.

  Epilogue

  Lexa studied the tablet one last time before handing it off to her assistant. "Everything should be set for the banquet tonight. Tomorrow, I'll need to meet with Hana. She's ready for her white bands."

  "Yes, my lady. And I believe you have a visitor awaiting you in the garden." A small smile curled her assistant's lips. "I'll be leaving for lunch now, if you don't need me?"

  It had to be Dejan. "Take the afternoon off and rest up for the party. I'll see you there."