Forbidden

by Jacquelyn Frank

  So no matter how much it hurt him, no matter what it did to him, he had to face one of two choices. Either he had to turn his back on her and leave her to Menes, a thought that felt like a violation in the worst degree, a thought that made Vincent balk furiously and violently within him, or he had to …

  He had to fight Menes to become ruler of all Body-walkers. He had to fight to be pharaoh.

  “Ramses the Great, ruler of all Egypt, whom men have cowered beneath … for whom women have thrown themselves naked at his feet. Mighty warrior. Brilliant king. Brought low by a simple female.”

  Ram tipped his head so he could look into her face. She was sleepy-eyed and smiling up at him, but he could tell immediately by the strength and cadence of her speech that this was not the quirky little Docia.

  “My queen,” he said softly, not knowing what else to say, how else to greet her. She was his queen, just as any man’s perfect mate would always be his queen.

  “I am your queen,” she agreed as she rose onto her elbows, “and you must always treat me as such. Promise me you will.”

  “I will,” he agreed with a nod. “I always have.”

  “Now there you are mistaken, Ram. You have never so much as looked at me before. Never so much as touched me. Barely spoken a greeting or politeness to me.”

  One of Ram’s gold brows lifted in curious confusion. “You know that is not true. I have always treated Menes’s wife, until now, with exemplary respect and deference.”

  “Ah, but I have never been Menes’s wife,” she said.

  Ram frowned, pulling back to look into her eyes. Docia’s sweet brown eyes had warmed, if possible, into something richer, deeper, and, he felt immediately, far more sensual than was normally at the ready. There was a worldliness now, the confidence that came with having lived more than one life, having made all the mistakes of an original and even more as a carbon. But as he looked hard at her, there it was, that unmistakable flash of shyness that so belied the strength of spirit that lay beneath. But he knew it. He felt it. He had felt it from the inside out and then some. She had no secrets from him after that.

  Except perhaps one.…

  “You are not Hatshepsut,” he breathed, his hand against her face drawing her so close that nothing could enter her eyes without his notice.

  “No, I am not,” she agreed. “And before you become enraged, I beg you to remember I was not strong enough to say so before now. It was not my intention to deceive you. You made an assumption, Ram, and I had no way of telling you otherwise. Until now.”

  Ram couldn’t speak for a long moment. Hell, he could hardly breathe. The ramifications of her revelation went so far in every direction that it was impossible to wrap his brain around it.

  “Who are you?” he demanded.

  Her nose twitched and he had a suspicion she wanted to say “Docia” just to mess with him, then rethought herself under the circumstances and considered it wiser not to. It showed a delicious combination of spunk and wisdom that he found ridiculously stimulating. Of course, the fact that she smelled like him at his lustiest and her at her sexiest might have a lot to do with it. She smelled so incredibly delicious that his mouth was watering. It stunned him that he could be so distracted at such a crucial moment. All he could think about was kissing that impishly smiling mouth and driving back into that hot body of hers where he’d known such a dynamic sense of perfection.

  “My name is Tameri,” she told him, and the lowering of her lashes and gentle inclining of her forehead told him a great deal. It told him she had never been royalty. It told him respect and deference came naturally to her. But other than that …

  “Tameri, I have never heard your name before or touched your spirit.” He was positive he would have known it if he had. He would have felt it if he had so much as brushed past her.

  “That is probably because I have not come from the Ether very often,” she said softly, as though it were a confession that lightened her soul. But why? There were many of them who spent long periods, much longer than the requisite century, in the Ether. “And when I have …” She licked her lips nervously. “When I have, I have been priestess.”

  Ram launched to his knees, dumping her onto her back, suddenly seeing a viper in his bed. There was no describing, though, the clash of feelings inside him— knowing she was one of those hateful men and women who were part of the rending apart of their people, even as he knew there would be no living without her.

  She sat up quickly, her hand reaching for him, grasping his biceps where he was as yet healing from the deep marks she had made on him. Right above the forearm, where iridescent scales shimmered with agitated movement around a dagger.

  “Please! Listen to me! Open your heart and open your mind,” she begged him, her eyes that gorgeous mink he’d grown so quickly to love. “I stayed in the Ether because I couldn’t bear it! The war. The constant fighting between the Politic and the Templar. I have so much beautiful faith, no different from your own! Only my faith imbues me with spells and mysticism that you think is poisonous and wrong. It’s not. I swear it. It’s the wielder that makes the difference. The intent that turns a spell or a power to poison. Once upon a time, the Templars’ perspective was just and justifiable. Their demand for a ruling voice was understandable. Your government would have us all exiled. Or so it feels to us. So why not give us room for voice so we can keep that from happening?

  “But over the centuries the Templars have lost sight of what we wanted originally. In the beginning we only wanted fairness and to stop being blamed for the Body-walkers’ very existences. But somewhere along the line, Odjit and the others have perverted the cause into a demand for full power, and others have drifted along on the same path because she and the other head priests and priestesses have made us so hated that we have little other choice. Listen to me, please,” she begged him further. “Please don’t hate me. Don’t shun Docia because of what I am. Don’t dismiss us out of hand because I am just a little bit different than you are.”

  Ram hesitated, the depth of the war within him in his eyes and across his features. There was so much acrimony inside of him, built up after he had met so many deaths at the hands of Templars like her jockeying for power, jockeying to assassinate the rightful pharaoh of them all. He had watched time and again as they had murdered his queen and left his king to suffer, or vice versa. He had felt them torture his bodies or tear through them outright to reach his king. He had not died a natural death in such a long time. Such a long time. Granted, so much about their very existences seemed unnatural, but still …

  A priestess. A Templar. He had bedded an enemy.

  Yet he could not dismiss it as a mere bedding, something so crass. She knew it, too. It was in her damnably precious eyes.

  “Think, Ramses,” she said softly. “You were willing to break with tradition enough to risk taking the woman you thought was your queen, the woman you thought belonged by Menes’s side, because you knew it was the only right thing to do … because your heart told you. Both spirits within you made it undeniably clear, just as both within me felt it to our very core.” She brushed gentle fingertips to her chest, between her pretty breasts, making him realize she was cold. The chill of the early evening was rippling across her skin and her nipples. “If you can break with tradition enough to do that, then perhaps you are the one who can turn away from past prejudices enough to see how very lost some of us are. Perhaps you are the one that might realize that instead of offering us swords and violence, perhaps if you hold out an empty, welcoming hand of forgiveness, this war might dissolve before your very eyes.” She moved closer to him, her gaze imploring and soft, her lips a breath away from his. “Teach the Politic to love us as equals, to welcome us like long-lost lovers, and bring us in as friends rather than vilifying us as enemies that must be punished. Why would we give up this war when our only choice otherwise is to rot in exile or in Menes’s prisons?”

  Ram was no idiot. Over such a long and bitter fight, the Tem
plars had tried so many tricks … so many deceptions. This soft voice, this wondrous body, and those enchanting eyes could all be a clearly crafted seduction. He did not blame Docia. She was an innocent in this matter. He had no doubt that her symbiont had made nothing of herself known until this moment. It explained, he thought, why she had been so very quiet. Even with the weakness of transitioning out of the Ether, even with the daunting task of the Blending at hand, there should have been more of her voice. If not out loud, then at least in Docia’s own mind. But she had deceived him … deceived him into thinking she was his queen.

  “I swear I did not,” she breathed in soft desperation when she saw the distrust in his eyes. “I was gathering strength, letting my host adjust, and letting you guide her into our world. I never said I was your queen. Never made the claim. Never said I was Hatshepsut or demanded to be treated as such. You only assumed.”

  “There is deception in omission,” he said tightly, more because he was trying to figure out how to keep himself from kissing her, how to keep himself from succumbing to the amazing heat and sensation he felt every time they came into contact. What if this was all some kind of elaborate Templar spell?

  He didn’t realize he’d voiced the suspicion aloud until he saw the genuine hurt that sliced through her eyes and across her delicate face.

  “Is that what you think? You think this is somehow unnatural and forced? Well, fuck you and the horse you rode in on!” she snapped at him.

  Docia. That was Docia coming through loud and clear, a sign that the Blending was in full swing. Even she looked a bit surprised at her own reaction. Her verbosity. He found it amusing how different the two personalities inside of this one woman seemed to be. A Templar, notorious for sophistication and strength, notorious for choosing very powerful people when they could. And yet this one had chosen a naïve and very innocent, if mouthy, young woman from a small town with small-town values. She held no great position in life. She had no possible means to further the Templar cause. But she was a good soul. She would never hurt another soul unless it meant saving her own life or the life of someone she was loyal to.

  But this gave new reason to why the Templars had recovered Docia. Not because they thought she was Hatshepsut— they had to know there was no convincing Menes’s loyal queen to shift sides— but to retrieve their priestess and brainwash the human she was about to Blend with. Now the capture finally made sense to him.

  “Who are you?” he asked with narrowed eyes. “Be honest with me. Who are you, really?”

  She swallowed, knowing what he meant.

  “I am Odjit’s niece. But,” she added hastily as understanding dawned on his handsome face, “know this. I have been in the Ether for three centuries, rather than come back and be her pawn. And my father, who is up there yet, is the one who sent me down in hopes of being some sort of messenger.”

  “Your father? You mean Odjit’s brother? You’re telling me that Uro wishes to defect from Odjit’s side? In the past, both have wielded their hands against the Politic again and again, and you want me to believe—”

  “I want you to conceive of a man who sees his sister has gone mad with the hunger for power! He wants more than anything to draw her to heel and end this war! That is what I am telling you! But he knows he cannot manage it without promises from the Politic that the Templars will not be persecuted!”

  “As you have tried to persecute us?” he demanded.

  “And you in your turn have done the same!” She grunted in frustration, pulling away from him and sitting back, drawing her knees to her chest defensively. “We will never make any headway if we continue to fling accusations back and forth. If we cannot let go of our desires for revenge for past grievances.”

  She looked back up at him, her dark eyes imploring.

  “This has to start somewhere. Uro has risked the new life of his daughter in order to send me as an emissary of peace to you and the Politic. He is as tired of war as you are and would see it end fairly. No one needs to conquer the other. It does not have to be that way. Can’t we somehow manage to keep it from being that way? Aren’t you tired of all of this?” Then she turned her head aside and made a soft shushing sound.

  “What was that?” he wanted to know. But he thought he already knew. “That was Docia’s opinion on the matter? And you were overriding her?”

  “I was merely … being more diplomatic than she is. I did not think telling you to ‘stop being a mulish, stubborn ass’ would be conducive to my peaceful overtures.”

  Ram smiled, unable to help himself.

  “So, it seems you have made a believer out of her already,” he noted. He inspected her with wary eyes for a moment. “I have to say, considering all she has been through recently, it surprises me you’ve already made a champion of her.”

  “To be fair, she is not a veteran of the war as we are. She is only just beginning to share the memories of the war that I have. And perhaps you will believe her … believe us … when we claim to be exhausted by it. I want to convince you. I want more than anything to facilitate peace. But if that is not possible, then I have to go. I have to hide, and do so very quickly. Odjit has divined that I am here. She will not rest until she has me at her side.”

  “Why? What’s so important about you? Is it because your father will be coming out of the Ether on your heels?”

  She lowered her face, shielding it a moment, but something inside him understood it was not because she was trying to come up with a deception. More likely she was about to reveal a truth that was going to give him a great deal of power. Power he could use against her.

  But for some reason, she chose to trust him.

  “Because I am by far the only priestess with enough power to defeat Odjit where she stands. You know the old adage ‘Keep your friends close, but your enemies’— or potential enemies— ‘closer’? I was no threat to her in the Ether, and with my father’s protection and my submissive behavior whenever I was here on Earth, she did not feel threatened. But she’s cunning, as you know. It will not take long for her to divine my motives and purpose. And once she gets wind of them, Docia and I will become an enemy of the first order, and Menes will become second. She will feel more threatened by me than by Menes. She will spare nothing to hunt me and see me thrown into the Ether for another hundred years. And she most certainly will not want you and Menes and the body Politic to have access to me.”

  “That is quite a claim,” he said quietly. He had studied her the entire time she spoke. There had been no ego in her words. No false pride or bravado. To her, it had been a cold, hard truth.

  “If you reject me,” she said softly, “you will resign Docia and myself to a life on the run.”

  “Ah. And now a manipulation,” he said dryly.

  She looked up at him through her lashes, and a small, impish smile toyed at the corners of her lips. “If guilt works to get you to see things my way, then yes, perhaps a little manipulation. You and I both know Docia is an innocent in all of this. And I hope you know I chose her very carefully. Not because I wished to endanger her, but because I saw her soul. I saw the good-heartedness in her. I knew that if anyone could help me bridge our differences enough to begin steps toward peace, it would be a simple, truthful young woman who had so much love for her brother that it was all she thought of when given the opportunity to be resurrected. She didn’t think of herself, her things, her own selfish ends. Not until I manipulated her into it. And when she eventually came to wanting vengeance against those who tried to kill her, she only thought about it in terms of legal justice. She wasn’t thinking to hunt them down and kill them … she thought only to sic her law-enforcing brother on them so they would serve jail time. A far gentler approach to justice than we Bodywalkers have, Templar, Politic, or otherwise.”

  “That is very true,” he agreed with a nod. Ram felt as though things were a bit surreal in that moment. This was by far the longest amount of time he’d ever spent in the presence of a single Templar. He’d cer
tainly never had a conversation that had gone beyond posturing or threatening. And when he took a moment to think about it, he realized that he had slept the day away in her arms. She could have, at any time, done any of a thousand things to take his life. If she was as powerful as she claimed to be, he would very likely have slept into his death and not raised a hand in defense of himself.

  Yet she had slept, too, hugging and cuddling him, just as caught up in the residual intensity of their joining. There had been no deception in her reactions. Her tears had told him as much. That honesty had not been just Docia’s, any more than his sense of finding utter peace inside of her had been Vincent’s doing alone.

  “Have you decided,” he asked archly, “who is going to be dominant and who submissive in your Blending?”

  “That is a Templar way of putting it,” she said with a frown. “A radical Templar, in any event. The Blending is perfect. At least it should be. It should be a harmony. Equal give and equal take. We do not come here to seize these bodies, wresting control from their originals. We ask to share and should be grateful to do so. Only Odjit and her like think they have the right to be dictators in their original’s bodies.”

  She looked at him with steady, courageous eyes.

  “You wish to test me? Ask me anything. But my answers will all seem practiced and false to you if you do not trust me. And I know you have no reason to trust a Templar. But you cannot afford to not trust me, either.”

  And to prove it, she spoke soft ancient words, spreading her hands between them with her palms facing him. Suddenly he felt cold for the first time in her presence since their trek outside. Terribly, horribly cold. His feet grew painful, and he jerked back the covers to see them. Ice was growing over them; like kudzu smothering a tree, it climbed his legs. He tried to move, to balk in some way, to fight, but he couldn’t. His whole body was cold and heavy and quickly being encased in ice.

  And then she lifted cupped hands to her lips, spoke a word into them, and blew it softly into his face.