Priestess of Pleasure

By Sylvia Kincaid

When Raina's sister entered the Temple of Chloe, she vanished. Raina is prepared to risk everything to find out why--even when the stone-faced guard at the entrance tries to turn her away. She is certainly intimidated, but she is also intrigued--possibly enough to get her killed. Because the guards are forbidden to touch--even to look at the Priestesses.

• Language: English
• Publisher: New Concepts Publishing
• Release date: Apr 15, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005339555

Book preview

Priestess of Pleasure

By

Sylvia Kincaid

© copyright by Madris DePasture writing as Sylvia Kincaid, December 2021

Cover Art by Jenny Dixon

ISBN 1-58608-

Smashwords Edition

New Concepts Publishing

Lake Park, GA 31636

www.newconceptspublishing.com

This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.

Chapter One

It was cooler in the deep shade the towering Temple of Joy cast over the loamy soil at its feet, but it was not that that sent a shiver along Raina’s spine as she looked up at the brooding edifice. Erected from cold, black stones, windowless, it appeared just as it was, not as it was touted to be, a place of dark, dangerous secrets, not of light and joy, and uneasiness traced a cold finger along Raina’s spine. She knew that once she stepped within those walls she could well vanish as so many others had, never to be seen or heard from again.

It had been erected in the name of Chloe, goddess of fertility and pleasure. The name alone seemed to indicate that it would be a place of light and goodness, of giving. And yet she had known even before she came, before she first beheld the cold, secretive face of the temple, that it was certainly not that.

Lana, her elder sister, had gone into the Temple five years before to offer up herself in worship of the goddess Chloe and had not been seen or heard from since.

Raina had long since given up hope that her sister would be returned to her, hope that her sister still lived, but she could not rest until she knew what had become of her, until she had done all that she could to find peace for herself and vengeance for Lana if at all possible.

Dragging in a sustaining breath to bolster her courage, she set one foot on the stone stairs that led upward some three stories from the ground to the entrance at the top of the temple where one of the hulking temple guards waited, his stance rigid, his legs braced slightly apart.

The climb was a steep one, but it was not the exertion that set Raina’s heart to racing a little faster and a little faster with each step she took that carried her closer to the entrance that opened like a dark mouth ready to swallow her. She didn’t realize until she was halfway up, however, that it was not altogether her fear of the unknown evil that awaited her inside the temple.

She could feel the watchful gaze of the guard at the top climbing over her like a touch the nearer she drew to him until she began to wonder if he was gifted with magic as the high priestess was rumored to be.

It was his eyes, she decided when she had risked a quick glimpse at him before she returned her attention to placing her feet carefully on each step. They were an uncanny shade of blue. Cold, they seemed to slice right through her, as if he could peer into her mind and see that she was no honest petitioner.

She was more than a little breathless when she reached the top at last, hesitating on the edge of the wide, flat ledge before the entry and then straightening her shoulders and marching over to the giant of a man that barred the entrance.

Wearing nothing more than the narrow bejinte worn by the temple guards to protect their genitals, there was little enough of him that was left to the imagination, leaving no doubt at all that his bulk was pure muscle and sinew. He was as hard, and massive and unyielding as the temple he served, and there was no part of him that she could see that that could not be said of. His face as emotionless as if had been carved from the same stone. He towered over her even in his wide legged stance. His legs were long and well shaped but his thighs were easily the thickness of young saplings. The upper half of his arms was probably as large in circumference, or larger, than her waist, the lower portion roughly equal to her calves, and the hands gripping his pike could have covered her entire face. Nor was his powerful musculature confined only to his arms and legs. His chest, torso and impossibly broad shoulders were just as massively intimidating.

It was small wonder that the high priestess saw no need to post more than one guard, for he looked massive enough, powerful enough, and fierce enough to take out a half dozen seasoned soldiers without breaking a sweat.

Raina looked up at him uneasily when he did not move so much as a hair. She discovered when she did, that he was examining her—thoroughly—though it was impossible to tell what was going through his mind. I would like to become a priestess, she said, pleased when she realized there was barely a tremor in her voice.

His eyes narrowed and, impossible as it seemed, his face grew even stonier. Petitioners for novitiate are only selected when the full face of Chloe rises above the temple.

Dismay flickered through Raina. She had known that, but