by Nina Bruhns
Gillian wasn’t the only one who’d had a bit too much to drink. The mood for the ceremony was pure bacchanalia, men and women crushed together in an ebb and flow of naked limbs and breathless anticipation. The air was thickly fragrant and electric with immortal power. It sparked over her skin like sensual fur, seeking out the most secret places of her body and bringing them to life. It was impossible not to feel the excitement and eroticism of the night stroking her flesh.
Music, strange and melodic, drifted through the room, and as one, the crowd began to move back and forth in a rhythmic dance. The sensual power increased.
She gasped as it washed over her, raising goose flesh along her arms in a tingle of yearning desire, pooling between her thighs.
The wake of the crowd pulled her along toward the Courtyard of the Sacred Pool like a magnetic force. She didn’t resist. She found herself succumbing to the will of the mob, her mind gradually accepting what was happening. As she relaxed, her body came to life with breathless sensitivity and shivers of carnality the likes of which she’d never before felt.
A narrow, curved bridge had been erected over the pool, with a small platform at the center. The exotic night lilies were in full bloom, a sweet-smelling forest of fanciful pink discs below. The crowd urged her forward, excitement nipping at everyone’s heels. When she reached the platform, on cue the throng hushed. This was where she was to repeat the sacred incantations she’d memorized in the library.
As she did so, the crowd began to chant along, an eerie, dissonant harmony, their words and notes meshing in an extraordinary way with hers. Her mind spun, falling dizzily into unity with the collective. The sounds seeped into her consciousness, got tangled up in her ears and her mind, drawing her in deeper, somehow infusing her with their seductive meaning even though she didn’t understand the language that was spoken.
Go to him
he who is bright with ten thousand
pleasures!
His fragrance of desire spreads like a
floodtide
drowning your eyes, and your head whirls
as he drinks his fill…
Was she being hypnotized by the crowd? Or bespelled…?
She lost all measure of time as they sang on and on, a beautiful, lyrical prayer to their god that he accept her blood sacrifice and shower his blessings upon his faithful servants. All the while her body hummed with a vivid, erotic vibration that aroused her senses to the point of madness and made her ache to be part of the roiling mass of bodies below, touching and tasting the drug of their immortality.
Or rather, one man’s immortality.
The song called to her and her body answered with a cry for Rhys. It was him she wanted.
She wanted to be a part of him, touching and tasting the drowning sensations of the man she loved.
She looked down at the people, searching for him, knowing in her desperate heart she wouldn’t see him. But how she wished he would miraculously appear!
When you really need me, whisper my name. I’ll be there to keep you safe.
But that wasn’t possible. He was far away by now.
And she’d have to face this on her own.
Nephtys beckoned, and the shemats led her over the bridge and down to the threshold of the inner sanctum, the holy of holies. The cave-dark chamber was alive with the glitter of two thousand tiny votive candles. The sweet spice of incense and ambergris and a thousand flowers wafted from the six side altars.
Her breath caught in her lungs.
An impossibly tall figure stood before the obsidian sarcophagus in the center, muscular and powerful, towering over everything around him. He looked like a huge statue of the god come to life. The brilliance of his raiment nearly blinded the eye. Diamonds covered his silver collar and black kilt, sparkling more brightly than the stars in the heavens he worshipped. The high, distinctive crown of Upper Egypt shone like mother-of-pearl on his head, making him appear even more ominous.
He wore a half mask of silver, with lapis lazuli forming the elaborate eyes and hiding his features, but there was only one man it could be: the vampire High Priest Seth-Aziz. And he was truly magnificent.
She felt a deep shiver of unwilling and terrifying attraction low in her belly as he lifted his hand toward her.
“Come, my chosen one. Join the god and feed his hunger,” his voice boomed, echoing through the courtyards of the temple like thunder.
The crowd urged her on. She didn’t want to go.
Her knees trembled, her blood felt as insubstantial as faerie wings in her veins. She felt dizzy with fear.
Whisper my name. I’ll be there.
“Rhys,” she whispered, needing him desperately.
She felt a whir of magic within her heart at the sound of his name on her lips. Giving her the courage she needed.
The stern eyes behind the mask pinioned her with their authority, willing her to obey and come to him. To release herself to his dominion.
It was impossible to resist his command. Of their own volition, her feet stepped over the threshold into the narrow chamber, and she went to stand before him. She closed her eyes and took his hand, swallowing heavily when his fingers closed around hers.
“My love,” he said, the words low and filled with emotion. Her eyes shot open in shock.
She looked up at his face. And that’s when she realized that the eyes looking back at her, shadowed by the mask, were not black, but the color of amber.
Rhys!
She opened her mouth to exclaim, but he bent to cover her lips with his, capturing her cry of joy and swallowing it as his own breath.
“Shh,” he admonished into her mouth. “You must not give me away.”
“But how—”
“The secret passage.”
Her heart soared and quailed at the same time. “What about Seth?”
“Drugged. With a sleep herb from my garden.”
He broke the kiss and straightened, leaving her breathless for more. She reached for him, and he took her in his embrace.
The crowd cheered its approval. The vampire had claimed his sacrificial vessel!
“Is it really you? This isn’t some trick of magic?” she asked, terrified she was being deceived.
“It’s really me, my darling.”
Her body trembled to his touch, recognizing her lover by the tender way he held her, and by the subtle, earthy scent of al Fahl on his skin.
He raised a hand over her head, performing a thundering incantation over her and the immortals beyond.
“We must be gone before he awakes,” he murmured as the crowd chanted a response. “An hour at most to complete the ceremony.”
But the spell was real, and his power wove through the onlookers, spilling through her body like a fire-fall. She swayed and quickened with an intense surge of physical desire.
She caught sight of the huge altar behind him, gleaming black and ready for her sacrifice. “But you’re not a vampire…” she murmured breathlessly. Wishing for a split second he were…
He showed her a vial of blood secreted in his palm. “I’ve seen the ritual a hundred times and can do it in my sleep. The crowd will pay more attention to each other than to us, reveling in the pleasures of the magic.”
In illustration, he threw out his hands and chanted a few words. Instantly, the air was charged with a thick current of carnal awareness.
“Oh!”
A shock of erotic sensation coursed through her body. He caught her hands as she reached out to steady herself. His touch sent her mind spinning, her body suddenly a mass of need.
For him.
She wanted to cry out his name, but stopped herself. “My lord!” she moaned instead. “Please!”
He continued to chant, and the throng of celebrants joined in with fevered enthusiasm as he unfastened the row of buttons down the front of the stole that covered her neck and shoulders. The hum of power around her leaped to a crescendo. It was blissful agony. She didn’t think she could wait patient
ly while he finished taking off her wrap. She wanted to rip it off and grab him. Make him take her. His fingers brushed her naked skin, thrumming her arousal like sexual harp strings.
“Hurry,” she urged. “Please hurry!”
He smiled, the architect of her body’s capture, the sorcerer who’d enchanted her heart. She wanted his hands and his mouth on her. And his awesome power within her.
He slid the stole from her shoulders, baring her chest to his gaze and her throat to his bloody kiss. Her breasts rose and fell with her panting breath, the bodice of her gown far too tight against her aching nipples. She wanted him to tear it off her and take them in his mouth.
The crowd’s chanting rose, urging the vampire to put his fangs to her neck and take his sacrifice. Excitement flushed through her, as his strong fingers grasped her arms, pulling her closer. His power was intoxicating, overwhelming; it flowed through her like potent liquor, robbing her of reason, making her flesh scream with need.
She knew she was bespelled; she didn’t care. It felt too good.
“Do you give yourself to me?” he boomed so the restless, rowdy crowd could hear. “Do you wish to feed the god with your body and nurture him with your devotion?”
“Yes!” she answered, and with a shiver of surrender, she gave herself over to him.
He swept her up into his arms and carried her to the altar, where he laid her down. The black stone was slick and cool as ice against her bare back, and Rhys was hot, so hot, against her front as he mounted the altar and knelt over her.
He slid his hand behind her neck and lifted her upper body to press into his broad chest. His fingers brushed across the side of her throat, seeking the pulse. He bent over her and opened his mouth, licking a path along the throbbing vein he’d found. She burned with the contact, his tongue like a flame to her flesh. A flame of arousal.
His mouth opened wider and the edges of his teeth grazed her painfully sensitive skin. Erotic shivers cascaded through her breasts and down to the core of her need.
His eyes sought hers.
“Yes,” she answered his unspoken question, needing him with every molecule in her body. “Do it.”
His mouth closed around the flesh of her throat and he sucked. She felt a jolt of pleasure between her legs, like he was sucking her there. She moaned, tilting her head to give him better access. She felt boneless, helpless, at his complete mercy. His tongue flicked and she gasped, feeling the sensation on the nub throbbing painfully between her thighs.
His hand closed around her breast, his thumb rubbing her beaded nipple through the thin silk of her gown. He bent down to suck her there and she bowed up in intense pleasure, crying out. The first tingle of orgasm shimmered through her body.
“Don’t stop,” she begged. “Please don’t stop!”
He tugged down the top of her bodice, grasping her taut nipples with relentless fingers, and returned his mouth to her throat. The quiver of climax blossomed, impossible to stop. She writhed under him. Reaching…reaching.
His teeth clamped around her frantically leaping pulse and he bit down, sucking hard as he squeezed her nipples. She screamed.
Orgasm seized her in its clutches and tore through her, throwing her entire being into a savage whirl wind of quivering, shaking, bone-melting pleasure.
And that’s when she felt two sharp pricks biting deep into the flesh of her throat.
Fangs?
Her universe exploded into a gush of blood and another searing, mind-bending orgasm. But she had just enough presence of mind to think, oh, my God!
Had Seth awakened?
Chapter 21
While unhurried days come and go,
Let us turn to each other in quiet affection,
Walk in peace to the edge of old age.
—Song inscribed on an Earthen Vessel
Thankfully, by the time Rhys concluded the ritual act, his immortal peers were deep into lascivious celebration. Gillian had fainted, overcome by the drowning erotic power she’d been deluged with at the end. And possibly by shock. She hadn’t been expecting the fangs.
Even though his own body still buzzed dangerously from the experience, craving release, he could not delay their departure. He leaped from the altar, scooped her into his arms, and wove quickly through the crush of revelers, back through the temple to Seth’s dressing room.
He adjusted her body in his arms to close the door behind them, and her eyelashes fluttered open. She gazed up at him, her expressive green eyes still glazed with a lingering haze of pleasure.
“Rhys?” she asked, her voice uncertain.
“Shh. We need to be quiet,” he said, glancing around to make sure they were alone. “Unless you wish Seth to awaken and find us. I assure you, he won’t be in a very good mood when he does.”
“So…” she whispered hoarsely. Her fingers went to the wound on her neck and her gaze to his mouth. Her face had drained of color. “You’re a vampire?”
He could feel the warm stickiness of the blood that had spilled from his lips and down his chin. Her blood. And his own, which he had gathered in the vial and used to make the bite appear more realistic.
The fangs were gone, but the taste of her lingered on his tongue. The air charged between them, and he looked down at her, still hot and needy. She had found release. He hadn’t.
But this wasn’t the time. They must move quickly.
“No.” He set her onto a divan, pulled off his mask and crown and tossed them aside. “I’m a shape-shifter. You know that.”
“You had fangs,” she said, meeting his eyes accusingly.
He probably should have warned her about that part.
“An illusion spell. I wasn’t sure if it would work,” he said, and cast a hurried look behind the dressing screen in the corner to make sure Seth hadn’t stirred. He was still sprawled on the floor where he’d collapsed after drinking the drugged wine Rhys had sneaked in and left earlier.
I’m sorry, my friend. You gave me no choice.
Gillian had sat up and was peering at the wounds on her neck in a hand mirror. “You’re saying these aren’t real?”
“The fangs were illusion, but the effect they had was not. Come. We must hurry.”
He found the hidden lever and opened the low door to the other secret passage she had discovered on the map. He’d been exploring the tunnels for the past two days, pretending to be resigned to his confinement to his rooms, while he was in reality plotting and gathering the supplies they would need for their journey.
“We’re covered in blood,” she said, rising to follow him. “We’ll scare anyone who sees us.”
“I have water to wash and a change of clothes hidden in the old tomb,” he told her.
She took his hand as he was about to usher her into the darkness of the narrow passage. “Are you sure, Rhys?”
He sensed the deeper meaning behind the question, and felt the connection between them even more strongly. He wanted this woman. Wanted her in every way a man could want a woman. He wanted to love her and make love to her, cherish her and grow old with her. He lifted her hand and kissed her fingers. “Never more sure of anything in my life.”
Then he led his woman down into the yawning, black portal toward an uncertain fate.
In the ancient tomb of Seth-Aziz where they’d first met, they cleaned up and he helped her into the masculine head-to-toe Bedouin garb he had chosen as her disguise. That’s when Gillian suddenly noticed the slight change in the inscription that covered the wall of the tomb. In the scene of Seth-Aziz worshipping Set-Sutekh along with his shemsu, another figure now kneeled next to Lord Rhys Kilpatrick. A woman. A blonde. And the name inscribed next to it was Gillian’s own.
She stared at it, startled. “I suppose they’ll chisel us out now,” she said at length. Surprised at the sting of regret she felt.
“Perhaps,” he said, and kissed her. “Their loss.”
“Will you shift?” she asked, smiling.
He smiled back and kissed her a
gain. “Yes. So I can be between your thighs as we ride the wind.”
“Where will we go?” she asked as they stepped out into the pale light of the breaking dawn.
He looked toward the east, to the ribbon of silver-green water, the river that gave this land life. Beyond, the golden disc of the sun broke through above the ragged tear of the horizon, piercing its rays into the peaceful darkness, stabbing out the stars with its bright light, waking the valley to its day of toil and strife.
He turned away and looked toward the north.
“Petru,” she said, following his gaze.
She had done her homework, it seemed. He glanced at her and shook his head. “No. It’s where they’ll expect us to go.”
“It’s where you can remain immortal.”
“That doesn’t matter,” he said. “I want to grow old with you.”
“You said it wouldn’t be a betrayal to join Haru-Re. You said you could work for the good of Khepesh, even in the camp of the enemy.”
“That was before I had you with me,” he said. “It’s too dangerous.”
“I’d like to see my mother again,” she said quietly.
He took her in his arms and held her close. And knew he must do this for her, so she could have peace in her heart. He kissed her hair. “Very well. Petru it is, then.”
She tilted up her face and gazed at him with her beautiful green eyes. There was so much love in them it humbled him. He would do anything for her. Anything in the world to keep that adoring look in her eyes.
“It’ll be fine,” she said. “You’ll see.”
“You’re not afraid?” he asked.
“No.” She rested her cheek against his chest. “I know I’ll be safe with you.”
“You will,” he vowed. “And you’ll be mine for ever. We’ll find the spell to make it so, I promise you. Because I intend to keep you for at least that long.”