Ritual Sins by Anne Stuart

can
, she thought defiantly.
You know exactly what I’m thinking.
    His faint, cool smile was answer enough. “Lie back and close your eyes, Rachel. The caregivers have said you should rest your voice for twenty-four hours. They’ve given you herbs to help the pain and bruising. What you need now is rest.”
    There was no way she could disguise the alarm in her eyes at the thought of what Luke Bardell might think of as herbs. As usual he was a step ahead of her, reading her perfectly in the murky light. “The majority of the caregivers are licensed professionals who’ve chosen to follow a new path, Rachel. They’re doctors and nurses and therapists. Alfred oversees them, guides them. Their care, combined with the healing forces of the believers, work miracles. Now lie down.”
    She glared at him in silent defiance.
    “Lie down,” he said again with great patience, “or I’ll put my hands on you, and that’s the last thing you want, isn’t it?”
    Her mute alarm was answer enough. She lay back on the pallet, noticing belatedly that for allits thinness it cushioned her bruised and aching body quite nicely.
    “You’re not afraid I’ll hurt you,” Luke continued in that voice that was perhaps one of the most dangerous of his very real weapons. “You know better than that. You’re frightened of the alternative.” He lifted his hands and looked at them absently, as if they belonged to someone else. Rachel looked too. They were such beautiful hands, strong, with their encircling tattoos of thorns, and for a brief, mad moment she wondered how they would feel, touching her.
    She lifted her gaze, to look into his deep, unreadable eyes. There was no way he could guess what she’d been thinking, she told herself. But his faint smile, devoid of mockery, was unsettling.
    “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” he said. “No one will hurt you, I promise.”
    Her body felt heavy, useless. She had no defenses, not even her voice, and he knew it She couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, and her eyelids were so heavy she couldn’t even glare at him. She sank back, mentally cursing him, cursing whatever drugs the benevolent caretakers had pumped into her system, cursing Angel, but most of all cursing herself for her stupid arrogance and pride in not recognizing the danger Angel presented. She’d been warned …
    Of course, that warning had been couched indeliberately provocative terms. Anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of human nature; Rachel Connery’s in particular, would know that she would find the challenge irresistible. There was no avoiding the humiliating truth—she’d been set up. Offered to the homicidal Angel as a virgin sacrifice.
    She didn’t think they’d really wanted to kill her, or she’d be dead. It must have been along the lines of teaching her a lesson. She had no doubts whatsoever that the command had come from the man sitting beside her in the smoky darkness. Calvin would have been just carrying out orders.
    Naturally, she’d been rescued in time. Bloody but unbowed, wasn’t that the phrase?
    She was so sleepy. Drugged, of course. She tried to rally her anger to keep her mind alert, her body awake, but it was no good. The flute music in the background was low, insinuating, sliding through her veins on tendrils of melody, and the incense burned in her eyes, her nostrils, cleansing, purifying.
    She let herself sink, unwilling to fight any longer. Tomorrow would come, and she’d be stronger. Fueled with her righteous rage, she could fight then. For now she could float.
    Luke stared down at her. He’d warned them to be sparing with their use of drugs, and in returnhe’d watched her struggle needlessly against their effects. She needed the healing powers his caregivers could provide. She needed the healing powers he could provide.
    He’d first become aware of his odd gift while he was in prison, and he counted its appearance as the start of his new vocation as messiah. The notion always amused