by Nina Bruhns
“And I’ll cherish every minute we have together. Oh, Rhys, I’m so happy.”
“I love you,” he said, and kissed her smiling lips.
“I love you, too,” she said, and his heart swelled.
He shifted to al Fahl and she climbed on his back, and together they rode off into the desert, the ghost stallion and his mortal mate.
And their love would last until the end of time.
Epilogue
I’d stop her passage,
hold her for questioning,
then sit to enjoy the range of her voice
as she raged like a fury on and on.
—Papyrus Harris 500
Nephtys swept into Seth’s dressing room, grabbing a goblet of wine from a table by the door as she passed by. “Sweet Isis, that was some performance, my brother,” she announced, somewhat surprised, but with no small amount of gratification. “I told you your intended would come around. Merciful Min, she was practically—”
She halted in midsentence when she realized no one was listening. “Seth?” she asked. Her puzzled query was answered with a pained moan from…the floor behind the dressing screen.
“Hadu!” She set down the wine and rushed to his side. “By the stars of Nut, what happened to you? Are you hurt?”
He groaned as he struggled to sit up. “Only my pride. And my head,” he amended, pressing his fingers into his temples and massaging them. “I swear to Sekhmet, if I ever catch that accursed Englishman, I’ll…”
“Shall I call the guards?” she asked anxiously when his words trailed off into another moan.
“No. Just Shahin. No one else.”
She stuck her head out the door and called for the sheikh to be brought.
“What do you mean, catch the Englishman?” she persisted. “I thought Kilpatrick was confined to his rooms.”
That’s when she noticed that her brother was wearing only his linen undergarments. “Oh, dear,” she said with a prickle of foreboding.
“What the hell happened here?” The sheikh stole the words from her lips when he strode in and saw her expression along with Seth’s state.
“The ceremony,” Seth said, allowing Shahin to help him to his divan. “It wasn’t me. It was Rhys.”
Nephtys’s eyes widened. “Well! That explains Lady Gillian’s sudden turnaround in affections. But how on earth did he manage to overpower you?”
“His Sufi knockout herb,” Shahin guessed, and Seth nodded.
“I should have anticipated the move,” he said. “But I was frankly expecting him to take her during the ceremony, not before it.”
Nephtys blinked at him. “You were expecting to be attacked?” she asked incredulously. “And did nothing about it?”
“He didn’t attack me. He drugged me. And carried out the ritual to perfection, I gather.”
Shahin scowled. “Down to the bite. They were quite convincing, he and the woman. His powers are far greater than any of us guessed. He will be a danger to Khepesh now.” This last Shahin said with profound regret in his voice. He started for the door. “I’ll have the gates sealed.”
“Too late. They are long gone by now. They found the ancient hidden passages.”
Shahin’s eyes narrowed. “Then I’ll mount a search. He won’t dare go to his estate. And he won’t have gotten far in the desert carrying the woman.”
“No.” Seth got to his feet, and Nephtys hurried to offer her supporting arm. “No search. Let them go.”
“You can’t mean that, hadu! What they have done is unforgivable. Both should rightly be put to death.”
“Which is exactly why we must let them escape.”
She exchanged a look of dismay with Shahin, who just looked pensive. “Does this Sufi herb muddle one’s judgment after rendering one unconscious?” she asked him in alarm.
Shahin turned a thoughtful gaze to Seth. “Not to my knowledge.”
“Seth!” she exclaimed, wanting to knock the sense back into the man that the herb had knocked out. “You know they’ll head straight for Petru. Right into the welcoming arms of our enemy!”
She gasped in dismay as she remembered her vision. The one where Rhys Kilpatrick was doing just that, being greeted by a smug and smiling Haru-Re. The vision was coming true!
“With any luck,” Seth murmured, bringing her back to the present with a jolt.
She froze, her mouth dropping open in shock. “Hadu, what are you saying?” she whispered.
A forbidding smile played with the corners of Shahin’s mouth. “What he’s saying, my lady…is that he planned this.”
She searched her brother’s face and found the terrible truth written there. Her blood chilled at the immense danger he had deliberately put them all in. “Does he know?” she asked hoarsely. “Kilpatrick. Did you plan it with him? Or are you just hoping he’s as loyal as you want to believe?”
He put his arm around her shoulder and gave her an affectionate kiss on the cheek. “You tell me, my sister. Look into your scrying bowl and tell me if I’ve misjudged the honor of my friend.”
She did not want to let it drop, but she could tell he was weary and his head was hurting. “By the gods, you are impossible,” she said with a mixture of love, exasperation and profound worry. “This cannot end well.”
“Only the future will tell.”
“And what of the Lady Gillian?” she asked sadly. “She was to be your greatest love. The wise consort all of Khepesh would look up to in years to come. You’ve let her slip through your fingers!”
Her brother sighed. “Sometimes the best way to win a woman over is to let her follow where her heart leads her. If she is truly meant to be mine, her heart will bring her back to me.”
She was about to protest his ridiculously faulty reasoning, but Shahin strode toward the door, reminding her of his presence. “In the meantime,” he said, ever the practical one, “you will need another sacrifice as soon as possible. I shall go and try to find someone appropriate.”
“Be discreet,” Nephtys told him. “Seek her aboveground. We don’t want it known the ceremony was a fake.”
Seth raised a hand. “Wait.”
Shahin halted, hand on the door. “You have a preference, my lord?”
“Perhaps.” Seth narrowed his eyes. “Do you still have that note Miss Haliday wrote to her sisters?”
The sheikh patted his robes. “Still right here, as you ordered.”
“Well,” the high priest of Khepesh said with a slow, calculating smile. “I think it’s time to deliver it, don’t you?”
ISBN: 978-1-4268-6473-5
LORD OF THE DESERT
Copyright © 2010 by Nina Bruhns
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