SABINA

Sabina took a deep breath, trying to ready herself to announce her presence to the Prani delegate.

She’d known where the Prani were staying—in the diplomatic wing next to the Imperial Quarter, as all delegates from other nations were housed there for any summit like this one—but she hadn’t known where his room would be.

For that, she’d had to ask one of the guards, telling him she was sent from the Temple with a message for the delegate.

She might have glossed over the truth just a tad; not enough to be a lie. She had been sent with a message for this particular delegate; it just wasn’t from the Temple. Her source was more direct.

And now here she was, standing in front of the door that would lead her to Draivarya S’madhara. Her heart beat a little faster in her chest, and before she could lose her nerve and disappoint her goddess, she reached forward and pressed the button for the door chime.

Surely only a few moments later, though it felt like centuries, the door slid open and she breathed a sigh of relief that she’d been directed to the correct room.

It was he, of course; he looked just like he had in her visions. Well, except in her visions he’d been fully clothed, and now he was shirtless, showing off the physique of a Krado player.

In her visions he’d been smiling, and now he was glaring down at her, black eyebrows knitted together under where she knew his third eye should be, though she didn’t see it right now.

His silver skin was somehow even more radiant in person, and the eyes that she’d known would blaze like miniature stars, golden suns in his face, looked at her with what seemed like disdain.

Sabina’s will faltered for only a second.

She affected a bright smile, and inclined her head in a short bow.

“Mantr Draivarya S’madhara, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Priestess Sabina Khar’sheli, and—”

“I’m not interested.”

Her smile wavered at his curt tone and bewildering words. She hadn’t even told him why she was here yet.

“Look, I’m sure what they told you was very convincing, but I have no interest in whatever my fellow mantrs are getting up to. You made a trip from your Temple for nothing. I hope the boys paid you up front.”

Sabina frowned. There had been a collection of mantrs heading in the direction of the Temple as she’d been heading here…and suddenly she realized what was going on.

“You think I’m a hetaira,” she said, though there was no question. “I think there’s been a misunderstanding, Mantr—”

“No, I’ve been extremely clear.” Again he cut her off. “I am not interested in whatever you tell yourself is a holy calling but we both know is just lies and falsehoods. A caricature of intimacy, doled out to the lonely and pathetic. I’m neither, and I am done with this conversation.”

Hot temper lashed through Sabina. Her hand shot out to stop the door, already sliding back into place, and she leaned into his room just a hair.

“That was a conversation?” she hissed, and was pleased when he took a step back in surprise. “As if you have any moral high ground, with your horrific arranged marriage system and planetful of lonely men. Chaya II would jump at a chance to host a Temple of Desire, but if the rest of your planet is as pathetically arrogant as you are, you’ll never deserve it.

“I’d tell you to get fucked, but with that attitude the best prospects you have are with your hand. Hetairai have standards.”

She stepped back and released his door, before turning and marching down the hall, propelled on the hot wings of rage.

It was only when she’d exited the diplomatic wing and was halfway to her favourite bar that she was calm enough to realize just how monumentally she’d fucked up.

Talk about being a disappointment to my goddess.

“Sorry, Norcia.”

The deity had nothing to say in response.

***

DRAIVARYA

He’d be lying if he’d said the interaction with the pleasure priestess hadn’t bothered him. Not for the reasons he would have expected, however.

He’d just gotten comfortable again after the other mantrs had left, settled into the couch in his room with his tablet, going over the briefs he was behind on…. Shirt off, drink of water in hand, painkillers working their way through his system.

The door chime had predisposed him to a bad mood, and getting all the way to the door, his knee twinging the entire way, only to realize he’d left his shirt on the couch, had intensified said bad mood.

When the door had slid open to reveal the priestess, his first reaction was disappointment. Disappointment that the men hadn’t listened, and even more disappointment that the woman before him was a pleasure priestess—and not someone he could meet under different circumstances.

Because, in different circumstances, he’d summon up whatever small bits of charm he had to try and seduce her.

Plush, full lips; eyes the deep brown of the bark of Kalpavriksha, holy site of the Visesajiva people. A smile that, even in its brevity, could light up the longest night.

She’d veiled her hair in an opaque cloth covering, so he couldn’t verify if it was the same reddish-brown colour as her eyebrows. All he could see of her body was that she was short, even for an Aradian, and slim; her robes were infuriatingly, unexpectedly modest.

And she was ahetaira. A woman that beautiful, ensconced in a profession of lies he wanted nothing to do with.

So he’d been rude enough to chase her away, and it had worked. The look on her face clearly said she’d never grace his doorstep again.

It had worked too well.

Because when her temper had flared, cheeks pinking with anger, causing a light dusting of freckles to stand out against her skin, and she’d told him off, Draivarya had only felt his attraction to her intensify.

And now he’d read the same sentence thirty times as his mind replayed their interaction over and over.

Suddenly the thought that he’d driven her away for good was intolerable. He hadn’t even gotten her name; she’d said it, but he’d been too distracted to hear.

He needed to see her, even if it was only so she could tell him to get fucked again.

Draivarya quickly groomed himself, threw on a shirt, and headed out to wander the station in search of his mystery priestess.