AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Without giving him the chance to answer, I turned for the exit. My three guys were standing just inside the door, waiting for me just like they'd promised. Talin saw me heading toward them first, and his beautiful blue eyes lit up. I watched his lips move, then the others broke off their conversation and turned. They were nothing alike, and yet so similar. Each one was alluring in his own way. From Talin's stark and chiseled features to Eladehl's golden elegance, to Wraythe's pure masculinity.
But as one, they fell into step beside me, and we left the room as a group. The gauntlet had just been thrown down, but what Priest Oryll didn't understand was that I didn't have any other option. Ihadto pass this class. I needed to master the Path of the Body. I'd made a deal with a god, and if I wanted him to hold up his end of things, then I had to hold up mine.
I had to become the kind of priestess who could make anyone believe, because the gods were dying. Their power had diminished when people forgot they were real. Zeal had made me a promise. He would give me the one thing I wanted - to stay with the people I loved - but in exchange, I had to surrender to him completely. I had to do what he needed of me.
I had to fix an entire religion, and I had no clue where to start.
Chapter 2
Nariana
"What was that about?" Eladehl asked as we made our way back to our suite.
"Oryll made it clear that he will fail me out of the Path of the Body and into another if he's not impressed," I explained. "He and Ghale seem to think I'm a distraction, and that the other students can't handle it."
"Fuck that," Talin grumbled.
Wraythe dropped a hand on my shoulder. "What are you going to do?"
I let out a heavy sigh. "I don't know yet, but he wants me to be impressive."
"Thenbeimpressive!" Eladehl said, pulling me to a stop in the middle of the initiate wing. "Look at you. I mean, I'm gorgeous, but you? You look like Zeal's gift to the world. You make guardians squirm when you just walk into a room. So, if the class is about sexual temptation, then stop trying to be a normal girl. Embrace your hotness."
"I like that idea," Wraythe said dryly.
Talin laughed once before tugging Eladehl back toward our rooms. "Guys, we need to figure a few things out. We've now had orientation for each of our classes, and in all of them, she's been called out. Every one. Ghale was a dick about it, too."
Wraythe grunted, making it clear he was still annoyed. "That asshole said he expected her to figure out quickly why pretty little priestesses have guardians."
"And all but hinted that he intended to make me quit," I added. "In my course for the Path of the Obligation, Priestess Elma asked how I intended to find the time to study with all of my other responsibilities. She sounded worried, but nice about it."
"Elma..." Talin said as if he was trying to place the name. "Older woman? Like in her seventies? Little round glasses and waist-long white hair?"
"Yeah," I agreed. "Plump, but in the way that makes you think she'd be perfect to hug."
"She was in the hall when you were tested," Talin explained. "So she saw your marks, and probably heard Zeal using my voice."
"How?" Eladehl asked, and he clearly wasn't referring to the woman's presence that day. "You seem to recognize every priest and priestess in this temple. When did you get the chance to meet them all?"
Talin let out a heavy sigh. "When my father died, everyone who could came to offer their condolences. In reality, they were making it clear to my brother that our family still has responsibilities to the temple. Some were trying to figure him out, others wanted an 'in' with him. The result was a few months of being the most respectable acolyte in the world."
"Yeah," I said, turning away from the student area to aim for our set of rooms, "but all this means is that I have to be better at everything than the rest of you. I'mnot, though."
"But you have a god on your side," Eladehl pointed out. "Nari, stop trying to be the best at all five things, and just make a sixth. Be the best atyourthing."
"Sounds more like what Zeal wants from you," Wraythe agreed.
I looked over at Talin. "Any ideas?"
He paused as we reached our room. Where most new initiates were housed like students in a single hall, we'd been given our permanent suite already. Wraythe and Talin, as our guardians, had their own small rooms across the hall. Eladehl and I were declared partners. That was as close to husband and wife as priests ever got, but it was not a declaration of monogamy. Far from it. Being partnered meant that we would perform together, console each other, and that we had not only a physical connection, but an emotional one that went far beyond who we shared our body with.
Typically, students tried out relationships in their initiate years and settled down with a specific partner near the end of their secondary education, declaring themselves around the time they graduated from initiate to disciple. But Eladehl and Wraythe had been my friends in our student classes. We'd been inseparable for over three years now. We loved each other in so many ways. First, they'd been my closest friends, then my pillars of support, and somewhere in the middle of that, they'd become the men who held my heart.
And then there was Talin. I'd known him just under three weeks now, but it had been intense. I'd lost my virginity with him, he'd been marked as my guardian, and he'd stood beside me when the entire temple thought I faked the dark lines put on my body in the Choosing Ceremony. He'd proven himself in so many ways, yet we didn't have the history that I did with the other two.
Together, the four of us piled into our suite, heading right for the couches in the living room. I dropped my dildo on the coffee table in front of me and flopped back against the soft cushions. Talin claimed the seat beside me, leaving the other couch for Eladehl and the chair for Wraythe.
"I think," Talin said, "that Eladehl has a point. You're trying to make this about five Paths when you should be making it about one. Zeal wants you to follow the Path of Temptation."
