by Jasmine Walt
“I’m fully aware of my behavior. Are we done?”
“Uh . . . yes,” Dominic said, though he sounded hesitant.
“Did you listen?” Marcus asked as he reentered the tent. I watched his boots as he moved closer, stopping with their toes inches from my bare, dangling feet.
“Yes.”
Kneeling on the canvas floor, he took my hands in his. “I won’t force you to do anything, Little Ivanov, but if you can’t even look at me, in a few hours you’re going to be in unimaginable pain.”
“Why?”
He exhaled heavily. “Not much is known about bonding . . . at least not scientifically. There are no fully bonded couples living today, only some partials. But one thing is certain—bonding withdrawals are both painful and deadly. If one half of a bonded couple dies, the other follows shortly after.”
“You said you’ve been in pain? For months?”
“Since the day you didn’t come back from the At.”
“Marcus, I don’t—” My words ended abruptly when I raised my eyes to his. Simultaneously, I fought the instinct to look away and was drawn to the raw pain tightening his facial muscles. Every possible feature seemed pinched and strained, and his golden eyes glowed feverishly. “I don’t know how to make it stop!” I wailed. “God, Marcus, I feel like a dog slobbering at a bell. I don’t want to be afraid to look at you, and I hate hurting you, but I . . . I . . .”
As I drank in the masculine perfection of Marcus’s tensed face, I realized that Set had given me the one Pavlovian response I needed to overcome his adverse psychological training. I felt the need to look away from Marcus because I didn’t want to hurt him. For months, looking at him without permission had meant his death. But that aversion would hurt him, too. It was hurting him. He was, as Dominic had said, in agony, but I had the ability to take the pain away. That knowledge was the most effective and welcome aversion override I could have wished for.
“I love you, but . . . are you sure you want this . . . to be bound forever? It might not be too late to stop . . . I mean . . . I don’t want to make you do it just because of the pain,” I said, feeling suddenly self-conscious.
“Too late or not, pain or not . . . I want this—you—more than I’ve ever wanted anything,” Marcus said, his voice huskier than before.
His words filled my chest with a warm, joyous glow and shot electricity straight to my core. It was the only confirmation I needed. Scooting to the edge of the cot, I parted my knees and hooked my fingers through Marcus’s belt loops, pulling him between my legs.
“Lex, I—”
“Let me help you,” I whispered, running my hands up over the front of his button-down shirt. The thin fabric did little to conceal the hard ridges of muscle shaping his torso.
With wide eyes and parted lips, Marcus raised his hands to my shoulders. He slid his fingertips over the sensitive skin along my collarbone. “Lex—”
“Let me make the pain stop,” I begged softly. My nimble fingers were undoing the buttons on his shirt from the top down.
“Woman,” he rumbled in his silky bass. “Let me speak!” His cross tone warred with the combination of passion and pain burning in his eyes.
I winced, pausing on the last button. “Sorry.”
Holding my gaze, he said, “I love you, Lex.” He filled his words with countless layers of meaning, and my lips spread into a warm smile.
He looked flabbergasted. “That’s it? A smile?”
Laughing softly, I glanced down to finish unbuttoning his shirt. “Don’t worry . . . you’re getting more than a smile. It’s not like it’s the first time you’ve told me.”
Marcus’s hands, lightning quick, shifted to the sides of my head and tilted my face back up. “Yes, Little Ivanov, it is.”
“No, Marcus, it’s . . . oh.” I closed my eyes to hold back the sudden and furious welling of tears. It was the first time the real Marcus had told me he loved me. Set had taken something invaluable from us—the right to express our feelings in our own time. It was something that could never be replaced and I hated him that much more for stealing it.
“Lex?”
“Hmmm?”
Feather-light, his lips brushed across first one cheekbone, then the other. “Little Ivanov?”
“Yeah?” I whispered, my furious sorrow diminishing immediately.
Burying one hand in my hair, Marcus turned my head so his breath came close against the skin between my ear and jaw. Each time his mouth barely touched me, tendrils of fiery pleasure burst to life beneath my skin. The thumb of his other hand skimmed my lips, and my breath came out noticeably shaky.
“I love you.” His thumb slipped between my lips, tasting faintly of salt as he wet it with saliva from my tongue. The damp fingertip ran softly from one corner of my lower lip to the other, and back. “And only you.”
Tightening his grip on my hair, he tilted my head back, giving him easier access to my neck. He inhaled deeply as he nibbled an electric line to my right collarbone. He licked along the graceful arc of bone in one smooth motion, from shoulder inward, ending by kissing the hollow at the base of my throat. A delicious ache was building within me, and a soft moan escaped from my parted lips.
“I want you,” he said. The fingers of his free hand mirrored his tongue’s path, eventually trailing down to my breastbone and slipping under the low neck of my dress. I whimpered when he ignored my breasts, instead pressing his palm against the center of my chest and smiling against my neck. “Only you,” he whispered.
He raised his head from my throat, removed his hand from my chest, and released my hair. Holding my eyes, he lowered his hands to my knees and slid them up under my dress. The intense hunger in his eyes did as much to prepare me for him as his touch.
There was a tearing sound—Marcus had literally ripped my underwear off. As soon as they were out of the way, I heard the metallic clang of his belt and the sound of his zipper.
“And all of you,” he finished. Gripping my hips firmly, he pulled me off the cot and onto him, both of us grunting as we joined.
While the initial, intense sensation of holding him within me still pulsed from my core, Marcus embraced me tightly and sat back on his heels. So urgent was our need for one another that his quick, rough pace brought me to my peak remarkably soon. And when he buried his face in my neck and groaned, embracing me desperately, I flew away. Throbbing fire exploded in my belly and spread outward with nearly unbearable force. I was falling . . . soaring . . . unraveling. I lost myself and became someone else—the impossible combination of two souls, two minds, two bodies, but one being. I bound myself to Marcus, wholly and completely.
Slowly, as conscious thought returned, I became aware of Marcus’s soft words. He rocked me gently, murmuring ancient, beautiful words that I couldn’t understand. Pulling away enough to see his face, to read it for lingering signs of agony, I found only peace.
“Better?” I asked.
Lazily, Marcus smiled, his eyes like molten gold, and he let out a deep, satisfied hum.
Slipping my hands under the shirt he still partially wore, I ran my fingertips up and down his back, savoring the way he shivered with my touch. “I love you, Marcus.”
He chuckled and brushed his lips softly against mine.
“Marcus?”
“Hmm?”
I took a deep breath. “You said I was trapped in the At for months? What’s the date?”
He tensed, turning to stone even as he held me, and dread took root in my chest.
Leaning back, I asked, “How many days do we have left?”
His jaw clenched, once, twice. “The solstice is in a week.”
My heart felt like it stopped beating entirely.
A week until the solstice.
A week until the Nothingness takes over the At.
Sometime between then and now, I decide the fate of the world. Not good.
30
Enter & Unlock
“I can’t wait to see the chest,”
I said, pulling on some olive-green cargo shorts I’d found in one of the trunks set along the wall opposite the cot. Marcus, still half-naked and lounging on the floor, watched intently as they slid up my long legs. Luckily, Marcus had moved my things into his tent while I’d been trapped in the At, so I had everything I needed at my fingertips. I found my favorite black bra deeper in the trunk and slipped it on. “Is it big? Gold? Covered in jewels?”
Marcus stood, shed the remainder of his clothes, and stretched his toned body, graceful as a cat. I was really enjoying the view. “The chest is . . . hard to describe. You’ll see.”
“Not if you don’t put some clothes on,” I said, giving him a pointed look. “Or are you planning on giving everyone up at the temple a show?”
Smirking, Marcus quickly dressed his lower half in thin, camel-colored trousers. As he shrugged into a white linen shirt, his face turned serious. “Promise me something, Little Ivanov?”
I raised my eyebrows.
“Take it slow once we get in there? The Nothingness doesn’t take over the At for another week—we don’t have to rush opening the chest.”
I recited part of the first verse of Nuin’s prophecy aloud.
She will acquire the ankh-At or
Mankind will wither under the weight of the Nothingness.
“Sooner’s better than later,” I said, and my mood suddenly soured. “You know, I can’t believe Set’s my father. He’s such an evil dick,” I huffed, yanking on a black tank top over my head.
Marcus finished buttoning his shirt, leaving the top two buttons undone, and reached for his boots. “He wasn’t always like that. He was a good man once.”
I shrugged while tying my own dark hiking boots. Silently, I recited the next part of the prophecy.
She will obey Set and destroy mankind or
She will defy Set and mankind will prevail.
She will decide and either mankind or Set will be destroyed.
The world’s screwed, I thought and scowled.
Sighing, Marcus finished with his laces and closed the distance between us, wrapping me in his protective arms.
Breathing in his delicious, spicy scent, I tried to forget about Set, the prophecy, the ankh-At, and the Nothingness for few seconds. “I just want to stay with you, in here, forever,” I whispered.
Marcus pulled away slightly, then lowered his face to mine, kissing me tenderly on the lips. “Come on, Little Ivanov, the others are waiting.”
He threaded his fingers through mine and led me out into the dry heat of the late afternoon.
As we neared the western boundary of camp, Sandra and Vali trailing close behind, I asked, “So . . . how’d you guys find the super-secret entrance?” I frowned. “And what about the other one—the main entrance your geologic studies found?”
“Decoy. As for the—”
Upon reaching the perimeter that had functioned as my prison wall in Set’s fabricated echo of the camp, I hesitated.
“Lex? What’s wrong?” Concern coated Marcus’s deeply melodic voice.
“It . . . it’s just that . . .” Taking a deep breath, I raised my foot and crossed the invisible line, breaking down another of the barriers Set had constructed in my mind. “It’s nothing.”
Marcus’s eyes tightened with worry, but he didn’t speak. He knew Set well enough that he could probably deduce the causes of any odd behavior I displayed after being held captive.
“I’m fine,” I said, comforted by his concern. I tugged him along, and we continued the half-mile trek across superheated sand toward Djeser-Djeseru.
After a few minutes, I said, “Marcus?”
He glanced at me quizzically.
“Why don’t I feel worse? I mean, why don’t I feel like I’ve been comatose for three months?”
“Didn’t anyone explain At-qed to you?”
I shrugged. “Only briefly.”
Sighing, Marcus said, “At-qed decreases the body’s metabolic rate to a near stop. All functions—cardiovascular, respiratory, digestive—slow drastically. You don’t require food or water for many months, maybe even years. You were in the At for months, but your heart beat about as many times as it normally would in a couple of hours.”
“Huh,” I said, thinking it was just another unbelievable item to add to the list of insanity that had become my life.
As we stepped over a short, crumbling limestone wall and into the lower terrace of the temple complex, I took a deep breath, slowly releasing it with contentment. I’d yet to actually enter Hatchepsut’s mortuary temple, and the thrill of approaching such a majestic structure rushed through me in waves. Blessedly empty of tourists, the temple, with its three levels of columned porticoes and terraces, looked like a giant, prize-winning sandcastle . . . or an enormous, beige wedding cake.
“You know, it’s always going to be crazy to me that you were Hatchepsut’s consort. I mean, she was a pharaoh . . . one of the most famous . . . and you had a kid together . . .” I glanced at him, wondering if she’d given him more than one child. I can never do that.
He squeezed my hand. “It was a long, long time ago. She was an interesting woman. She grew quite obese during the second half of her life, or so I heard. I was already gone by then . . .”
“It must’ve killed you to leave,” I said, recalling Neffe’s story of how Set had forced Marcus to leave his family.
Marcus smiled bitterly. “It was painful. I was very attached to Neffe . . . she was a firecracker of a young girl, as I’m sure you can imagine.”
“But not Hatchepsut? You weren’t really attached to her?”
“Our arrangement was more political than romantic.”
I chewed on my lower lip for a moment. “Well, at least you’ve had many, many, many years to make up for lost time with Neffe.”
“True.” The single word sounded hollow, and I knew Marcus’s mind had traveled to times long past. How many years would it take for the familiar structures of my life to devolve into ruins and be hidden by time’s relentless efforts? How would I deal with my contemporary time becoming the distant, ancient past, as Marcus’s already had?
I bumped Marcus’s shoulder with my own. “So . . . you never did tell me how you guys found the hidden entrance.”
Marcus laughed, and the genuine amusement it contained made me smile. “I wish you’d seen it. It was . . . unintentional. Dom, Alex, and Neffe were arguing in the sanctuary of the upper Anubis chapel. Dom said something about your capture being Neffe’s fault, and she shoved him—into a three-thousand-five-hundred-year-old wall. Its decoration crumpled to the ground, revealing a solid limestone doorway.”
“So was there a secret latch to open it, or something?”
Marcus looked at me askance. “I thought you were a professional—a real archaeologist.”
“Oh, shut up.”
“It would seem you’ve watched too many movies,” he teased dryly.
“Well, how’d you get the huge slab of stone out, then?”
“Very carefully, Little Ivanov.”
“Okay . . .” I said, equally irritated and amused by his useless evasion. “I wonder why Set didn’t just tell us how to get into the temple. I mean, he wants me to open the chest and get the ankh-At for him, right?”
Shaking his head, Marcus said, “After the Council chose me as their leader over him, Set changed . . . his mind no longer works like yours or mine. His logic is impossible to understand. Why did he choose to hide the ankh-At here, in the heart of our homeland? Why not far away? Why did he change his mind from wanting to prevent the prophecy—prevent your birth—to actively working toward it?” Shaking his head, Marcus said, “So why didn’t he draw us a map leading to the temple entrance? Maybe he wanted it to be just you and him, not to have other Nejerets surrounding you—Nejerets who would help you defy him.”
Pursing my lips, I pondered his words, rolling them around in my head. I was certain of one thing: Set’s unpredictability made him a whole lot scarier. I shivered.
The mortuary temple’s expansive, sand-colored portico reminded me of the wide front porch on a southern plantation home. Or it would have, if any plantation home had ever been built entirely out of limestone in a dusty desert with lumpy tan cliffs jutting up behind it. It was a bit of a stretch, but I’d always had an active imagination.
I was eager to greet my friends, especially my youthful grandpa. But I was equally as uncomfortable, fully aware that they knew I’d been back for well over an hour and had spent most of that time in Marcus’s tent. The fate of the world was hanging in the balance, but we had to take a sex break while everyone else waited for us. No really, we had to.
Leaning in close, Marcus whispered, “Dom will have told them what you’ve been through and about the bonding—they’ll understand.”
I looked at him sharply. “What? Are you a mind reader now?” The confirmation that they knew what we’d been doing only amped up my chagrin.
Inches from my ear, Marcus chuckled, sending shocks of remembered pleasure dancing along my skin. “Hardly. You were just being exceptionally expressive.”
“Oh.” I could feel my cheeks growing hot. Damn, being bound to him made the most benign interactions feel like foreplay.
Softly, Marcus pressed his lips against my cheek, feeling cool against my flushed skin. “Alex might throttle me if I don’t hand you over within the next five seconds . . .”
Letting go of Marcus’s hand, I approached Alexander. He stood beside one of the seven remaining, mostly intact statues of Hatchepsut still decorating the fronts of the columns, looking equally as regal, though the statue was easily twice his height. He wore a solemn expression as I neared, and closed the distance between us in two large strides. His arms enfolded me in a sturdy, comforting hug.