Page 5 of Beast’s Temptation

He had already betrayed his vows. What he'd done tonight, alone in his chamber, was a violation of everything he'd sworn to uphold. The fact that he hadn't touched her, hadn't spoken to her, hadn't done anything but imagine didn't matter. His body had chosen. His spirit had followed.

The twin suns had never felt so cold.

He would see her tomorrow. He couldn't stay away, couldn't assign another Priest to guide her, couldn't pretend that distance would solve anything when every moment apart felt like drowning.

He would see her, and he would maintain whatever fragments of control he had left, and he would pray to suns that no longer seemed to be listening that she wouldn't look at him with disgust when she finally understood what he was becoming.

Sorek cleaned himself with shaking hands and lay back on his pallet, and he didn't sleep.

He was too busy memorizing the feeling of want, now that he finally knew what it meant.

3

TAMSIN

Three days. Sorek had been avoiding her for three days, and Tamsin couldn't stop thinking about him.

She'd been assigned a different guide, a younger Priest named Koreth who answered her questions with clipped efficiency and made no effort to engage beyond the bare minimum required by hospitality. He was perfectly adequate. He knew the temple's history, could explain the significance of each ritual she observed, and never once looked at her like she was anything more than an inconvenient obligation.

It was fine. It was professional. It was exactly what she'd come here for.

She hated every moment of it.

She found herself scanning every courtyard they passed through, searching for a familiar tall figure among the meditating Priests. She listened for his voice during the chanted prayers, that low resonant tone that had made her bones hum. She invented reasons to walk past the corridor where she'd last seen him, telling herself she was taking the scenic route, knowing she was lying.

The worst part was the confusion. She had touched him accidentally, yes, but she'd apologized immediately. His reaction had been extreme, but she'd assumed that was cultural, a religious taboo she didn't fully understand. Surely three days of complete avoidance was excessive. Surely whatever she'd done couldn't be so unforgivable that he couldn't even be in the same room with her.

Unless it wasn't about what she'd done. Unless it was about how he'd reacted.

The memory of his face in that moment kept surfacing no matter how hard she tried to push it down. His eyes going molten and slitted. His whole body rigid with something that looked less like offense and more like desperate hunger. The sound he'd made, low in his chest, before he'd torn himself away and disappeared.

She was a trained anthropologist. She should be able to analyze his behavior objectively, fit it into the cultural framework she'd spent three years studying. But every time she tried, her professional detachment crumbled, and she was left with nothing but the visceral memory of how it had felt to be looked at like that. Like she was something rare and terrifying. Like she was the answer to a question he'd never thought to ask.

On the morning of the fourth day, she spotted him across the main courtyard.

He was sitting in meditation with the other Priests, his eyes closed, his posture perfect, his face arranged in that serene mask she remembered from their first meeting. He looked peaceful. Composed. Like he hadn't spent the past three days deliberately avoiding her, like nothing at all had happened between them.

Tamsin's temper, which she usually kept firmly in check, flared hot and sudden. She handed her tablet to a startled Koreth, muttered something about needing a moment, and crossed the courtyard with more determination than wisdom.

Sorek's eyes opened when she was still ten feet away. They locked onto her immediately, tracking her approach with an intensity that made her step falter. His calm expression didn't change, but she saw his hands tighten on his knees, saw the subtle shift in his breathing, saw the faint golden flush creeping up his throat.

"Scholar Leclair." His voice was carefully neutral. "Is there something you require?"

"An explanation would be nice." She stopped just outside arm's reach, acutely aware of the other Priests watching them with varying degrees of curiosity and disapproval. "You disappeared on me mid-tour, and you've been avoiding me ever since. If I've done something to offend you, I'd like to know what it was so I can apologize properly."

"You have done nothing wrong." The words sounded rehearsed, like he'd been practicing them. "I simply determined that another guide would be more appropriate for your needs."

"More appropriate how? Koreth barely tolerates my presence. At least you seemed to actually care about helping me understand your culture."

Something flickered in his amber eyes, there and gone before she could identify it. "My care is precisely the problem."

Tamsin opened her mouth to demand clarification, but he was already rising, unfolding from his seated position with that fluid grace that made her breath catch. He inclined his head to the other Priests, murmured something in formal Khorani that she couldn't quite translate, and walked toward one of the smaller doorways that led into the temple's interior.

She should let him go. She should return to Koreth and continue her research and stop obsessing over a celibate alien priest who clearly wanted nothing to do with her.

She followed him instead.

The doorway led to a narrow passage that curved away from the main temple, opening eventually into a small garden she hadn't seen before. It was sheltered from the suns by high walls, and someone had coaxed actual plants to grow here, twisted desert succulents and a single stubborn tree with silvery leaves that rustled in the faint breeze.