Mortal Seductions

by Allyson James

  A mad light burned in her eyes. Demitri looked at her, and his heart broke. He’d been a fool to think he could ever keep Val under control. She’d been letting him control her, behaving herself because she liked being with Demitri. But Val would get bored with their bliss, and she’d rampage again. She was already starting.

  The pain of it tore at him. He’d allowed himself to get close to her, to fall in love with her. If he’d delivered her to Aphrodite right away, he’d have felt regret, but now it would hurt like nothing in his life ever had.

  He pressed his hand against Val’s and twined their fingers together. “I have a better idea. Why don’t I take you to a place you’re forbidden to go? A meadow so beautiful it will break your heart. We’ll make love there, the best we’ll ever have.”

  Her eyes flicked to a lighter blue. “You intrigue me. Where is this forbidden place?”

  “Olympus.”

  Val smiled, her eyes sparkling. “Oh, lover, you are wonderful. A demon on the sacred mountain?” She wrapped her slim arms around Demitri’s neck and kissed his lips. “Take me there, my love. You won’t regret it.”

  DEMITRI woke in the hotel room in Luxor to find tears on his face. He threw back the covers and went to the window, opening it to let in the cool night air.

  The dream made Demitri realize he was already tempted to make the same mistake he had in the past—to try to protect Valenarian despite the proof of her evil. If Valenarian was breaking free again, Demitri had to stop her.

  He knew he was still in love with her—in love with the Val he’d laughed with and shared wine with, had kissed both playfully and passionately. But no one should die because Demitri was in love. Leon had been lucky that Valenarian had stopped at sex.

  Demitri hadn’t really wanted to watch them in Cairo—not at first—but he hadn’t dared leave Val alone with a mortal. And then he hadn’t been able to walk away. He’d burned with jealousy to see her with another man, and yet at the same time, it felt right that Leon should be there. Demitri wasn’t sure about that idea. He only knew he’d gotten hard watching them, and it had taken all his will-power not to walk in and join them.

  Demitri left his room without dressing, walking down the empty hall to Val’s door. He hadn’t explained to Leon that he didn’t need a key. He put his hand to the lock and whispered a word, and the door swung noiselessly open.

  Val lay tangled in the sheets, her dark hair tumbling around her like strands of silk. She was heartbreakingly beautiful.

  She slept quietly, her head cradled on her bent arm, her lips parted a little. Demitri wanted more than anything to climb in beside her, slide his arms around her, make love to her one last time.

  Demitri watched her for a while, then he closed the door, locked it, and moved silently back to his own room.

  VAL was dressed and ready by the time Leon softly knocked on her door. As she invited him in, she again regretted that she didn’t remember being in bed with him in Cairo. He had a fine, hard body, his green eyes holding a warmth that she liked. He was rough and raw, so unlike Demitri, but he had a quiet sensuality that she appreciated.

  His gaze raked her over as though he could see every inch of her body through her flowing clothes. “Ready for breakfast?”

  Val nodded and joined him in the hall. “Did you sleep well?”

  “Not really.”

  Demitri waited near the elevator, and they descended to breakfast together. Demitri kept close to Val like a bodyguard and wouldn’t let her talk to anyone in passing.

  As they ate breakfast, Val tried to start a conversation, but neither man was interested. They spoke only to make a polite request for the salt or the coffeepot, if they spoke at all. It was as though three strangers shared a table.

  Val was finishing her coffee when a smiling young woman stopped at their table. “Excuse me,” she said to Leon. “Are you Leon? Remy’s brother?”

  Both Leon and Demitri got to their feet, and Val stared in dismay. Val knew who she was, had pretty much been expecting her.

  “I’m Felicia Mason,” the woman said. “I work with Remy at the dig. I was meeting some of our sponsors here for breakfast, when I saw you in here, and thought you must be Leon. Do you know you look just like him?”

  Leon agreed neutrally that all his brothers bore a great resemblance to one another. Demitri looked on, stone-faced, while Val ran her fingers around her coffee cup.

  “Are you heading to the dig this morning?” Felicia asked after Leon made introductions to Val and Demitri. “I could give you a ride.”

  The woman was all that was bright and sunny. She was blond, with her hair caught in a practical ponytail. Slender from all the exercise she got on the digs, tanned from the sun. A pleasant face, hazel eyes that held intelligence, a winsome smile. The perfect woman to make Leon happy.

  Val’s heart burned in her chest. It was her task to bring these two people together, but never before had such a simple thing seemed so difficult.

  She made herself stand. “I’d love to go back to the dig. It looked fascinating, and I’m sure Leon is anxious to start helping his brother.”

  Leon flicked her a surprised glance, but his stoic face betrayed nothing.

  “We would be happy to,” Demitri said in his deep voice.

  “Sure,” Leon said. They were back to being polite strangers.

  “Great. Remy’s already working. We start early, because of the heat.”

  Felicia talked in a friendly fashion as they headed for the west bank in her open Jeep. She pointed out monuments as they went, not seeming to notice that her companions rode in utter silence.

  They made their way through bright green fields on the west side of the river, until the cultivation ended abruptly and white desert began. Sweat trickled down Val’s back to pool against her backside, and dust clogged her nostrils. Felicia, on the other hand, looked cool and calm, smiling under her sunglasses.

  “Look who I found!” she called to Remy as they reached the dig.

  Remy lay on his belly near an open hole, carefully brushing dust from something that lay within it. He climbed to his feet and grinned, cracking the sweat and dirt on his face.

  “Welcome to hard labor,” he said. “Leon, let me and Felicia show you around, while your friends have some cool drinks.”

  It was so impossibly cozy. Val felt the demon inside her stir with jealousy, Valenarian snarling to shove this bitch away and take her place at Leon’s side.

  Val seized Demitri’s hand. “Cool drinks sound nice. I could use something very cold about now.”

  Remy called a student to lead them to the shade of the largest tent. Leon obviously did not want to let Val and Demitri out of his sight, but after seeing where they were heading, he finally turned and followed his brother and Felicia.

  The grinning student gave Val and Demitri cold cans of soft drinks, then hurried away, saying a minion’s work was never done. Val sat down and sipped the overly sweet drink. It was hot under the tent, but bearable with the sun kept at bay.

  Demitri kept his gaze focused on the outcropping of rock where Remy and Felicia were talking and pointing while Leon looked on. Val sensed Demitri didn’t want to be here with her but also knew he didn’t want to leave her alone.

  “Don’t kill her,” Demitri said, not taking his eyes from Leon.

  Val jumped. “What? Who?”

  “Felicia. I saw the way you looked at her, like you wanted to gouge her eyes out.”

  Val tucked her scarf more securely around her shoulders. “Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t kill women. Besides, she’s my assignment. She and Leon are supposed to end up together.”

  Demitri’s brow furrowed. “Are you sure?”

  “I have dossiers on both of them. She’s the perfect girl next door—lived in suburbs in some place called Michigan, was exceedingly good at her studies, went to college, fell in love with Egyptology, received a postdoc fellowship to come out here and work. Brainy, pretty, nice.” She stopped. “Bitch.”r />
  “Are you always this pleased about your assignments?”

  “I don’t know. At least, I’ve never resented any before.”

  “Does this mean you’re falling for Leon?” Demitri’s tone was light, but he wouldn’t look at her.

  “How could I be? I only ever loved one man, and I doubt that will change.” She gave him a significant look, then transferred her gaze to the bright desert.

  She felt Demitri’s stare. “If you mean you loved me, I don’t believe you.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “Valenarian couldn’t love,” he said stubbornly.

  “I adored you, Demitri. I always will love you, no matter what.”

  “Valenarian had to be stopped.”

  Val turned to him, her heart beating faster when she found his dark gaze directly on her. “I never blamed you. It was my fault for not controlling myself. We could have had something special, and I ruined it.”

  “We did have something special.” His voice wrapped around her like sunshine.

  “I know we did. I was just too stupid to acknowledge it.”

  “I wish . . .” Demitri trailed off. His eyes were haunted, the pain in them evident.

  Val sighed. “Don’t wish. It can never be. Just—when I’m gone, remember that I loved you.”

  Demitri closed his hand over hers. He bowed his head and kissed her palm, letting one tear trickle down his cheek.

  The hot breeze stirred their hair and clothes. Outside Leon crouched at the base of a rock with his brother, learning about digging up the past. Felicia hung over them both, smiling and excited, a mortal woman untouched by darkness. She should at least find happiness, Val thought. Someone in this mess should.

  LEON tried to concentrate on what Remy was telling him, but his attention repeatedly strayed to Val and Demitri under the tent. They sat side by side, seemingly resting, but Leon could feel the tension in them all the way over here.

  Like hell he was going to let Demitri do anything to Val. If she did have a split personality, and one of those personalities was out of control, that wasn’t her fault. She needed help, not Demitri’s weird insistence that a goddess no one believed in anymore would judge Val and kill her.

  No killing. Leon had seen enough of that. As a medic he’d cleaned off the bodies of young men who, first time away from home, had been shredded to bits by debris from bombs. Those boys hadn’t done anything, didn’t have evil thoughts or evil plans—they’d just been standing in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  Why Leon had never been hurt in his two tours was beyond him. He’d accompanied platoons out, had patrolled the highway with them, had done everything from disinfecting insect bites to holding a man as he died. Even the chaplain couldn’t tell Leon why he remained whole, though the man suggested that perhaps Leon hadn’t filled God’s purpose yet. At the time, Leon had thought that meant he still had to take care of his mother and brothers, but perhaps it meant he needed to come to Egypt and save Val.

  Felicia said something, and Leon dragged his attention back to what Remy was trying to explain.

  “When we remove the fill, we find things that got caught in it,” Remy said, his Louisiana accent sounding both strange and familiar out here in the desert. “Beads, combs, little things people might have tossed out as unimportant. But they’re important to us.”

  “Trash can tell you more about a civilization than treasures,” Felicia put in.

  Shit, these two finished each other’s sentences. Leon glanced up to find Felicia’s gaze resting on Remy’s bent head, wistful hunger in her eyes.

  Good. Baby brother needed someone, and this girl liked to dig in the dirt just like he did. They’d make a great couple.

  “We keep the things we’ve already studied and cataloged in a storeroom at the dig house,” Remy said, unfolding to his feet. Felicia casually looked away, pretending she wasn’t interested in everything he did.

  “Some of them are quite pretty,” Felicia said. “Faience can be lovely.”

  “I’ll show you,” Remy said, then gave Leon a meaningful glance. “We can talk there.”

  “Bring your friends,” Felicia said. “They’ll enjoy seeing the artifacts.”

  Val would. Leon suddenly wanted to show her pretty things, wanted to watch her smile in delight. “Sure. I’ll get her.”

  Remy grinned. “Leon has his eyes on that good-looking lady. He’s ready to cut out her boyfriend.”

  “Ex-boyfriend,” Leon said.

  “See what I mean?”

  Felicia smiled. She had straight, white teeth, courtesy of a Michigan orthodontist. “I can keep a secret. Although her boyfriend—sorry, ex-boyfriend—is pretty hot.”

  “Is he?” Remy looked over at the tent, the idea clearly new to him.

  “Trust me. Some of the women out here haven’t seen beefcake in a long time.”

  “Gee thanks, Felicia,” Remy drawled.

  “Archaeologists are always dirty and hunched over. They only clean up if they’re being interviewed.”

  “That goes for the female archaeologists, too.”

  Felicia stuck her tongue out at him, and Leon had to look away. They were so sweet they were nauseating. His thoughts flashed to the future—Remy and Felicia coming to the bayous for Christmas, dragging their blond, sunny children behind them. The kids would romp around Uncle Leon’s houseboat, play at being archaeologists, and be impossibly cute.

  Leon’s imagination put Val there with him, smiling at the children’s antics and looking devastatingly beautiful as always. She’d bring them drinks from the kitchen, slip off her shoes as she walked out onto Leon’s back porch.

  Sure. Like that’s ever gonna happen.

  “Leon?” Remy waved his hand in front of Leon’s face. “You awake?”

  Leon straightened up and brushed off his jeans. “Yeah. I’m right behind you.”

  They collected Val and Demitri, and Remy led them all back to the dig house. The house was long and low, with bedrooms and a kitchen and living room opening to a central courtyard. One end of the U-shaped complex held two large rooms, one a lab with tables covered in instruments, from microscopes to computers. Through the lab was a storage room, the door to which Remy unlocked with a key on his crowded key ring.

  The room was packed with shelves. Half the shelves were loaded with labeled boxes, the other half contained artifacts all laid out neatly. There were partially assembled pots, piles of potsherds, fragments of flat slabs covered with hieroglyphs. One shelf held beads of all shapes and sizes, another an assortment of tiny figures carved of stone and pottery. Val glanced over it all with interest, but Leon felt a bit dismayed. Some of this stuff was minuscule. It would be easy to smuggle out with no one knowing.

  Remy’s brother shut the door. “The missing things have all come from here.”

  Felicia nodded gravely, obviously in the know.

  “You keep it locked,” Leon said, looking at the door. “Who has the keys?”

  “An inside job, you mean?” Remy shook his head. “The door is usually locked, but we let people in all the time. People working in the lab need to get in and out of here. It could be anyone.”

  “Are the things valuable?” Val asked, scanning the shelves.

  “Not intrinsically,” Remy said. “We’ve already photographed and recorded all the pieces that are in here, and they’ll go to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo when we’re done. The thief isn’t going for the obvious stuff—our lab equipment and the computers. They specifically want the artifacts.”

  “Why?” Leon asked.

  Felicia answered. “Collectors will pay a lot of money for antiquities, even small things like ushabtis and potsherds. It’s illegal to take what we find out of Egypt, but people will pay a high price for these things and stay quiet about it.”

  Val peered at a long string of bright blue beads. “Some of it is beautiful. I love the jewelry.”

  “Faience,” Felicia said. “It is pretty, even if it’s only ce
ramic.”

  Demitri came to see what Val was looking at, then he tensed, his body stilling. Neither Felicia nor Remy seemed to notice, but Val looked at him sharply.

  In front of them was a necklace of blue faience, the beads placed in order on a card, though whatever string had held them together must have long since dissolved into dust. At the bottom was the remains of a pendant. It looked like a flat charm with a woman etched into it, but the right half of the pendant was gone, the remaining edge ragged.

  “Where did you find this?” Demitri asked, never taking his eyes from it.

  Remy glanced at it over Demitri’s shoulder. “In the fill from the tomb we’re clearing. We never found the other part of the pendant. It might have broken off when the tomb was robbed, and the robbers dropped it. It might have come from another tomb entirely, maybe thrown away by the robbers because it was broken.”

  “No, this was broken deliberately, a woman split in half. It’s a curse.”

  Felicia looked interested. “Are you sure? My specialty is Egyptian magic—spells and curses, rituals and things. I’ve never seen or heard of that one. I could research it.”

  Demitri shook his head but continued to gaze at the necklace. “It’s not important.”

  The words were offhand, but Leon’s senses sharpened. The necklace was important, very important, from the way Demitri’s eyes had gone catlike, his slitted pupils widening. Demitri looked straight at Leon, then he closed his eyes and turned away.

  LEON didn’t get a chance to ask Demitri about the necklace. Demitri’s driver came to fetch them back to the hotel in Luxor, and Demitri obviously didn’t want to talk in front of the driver. Neither did Val. When they reached the hotel, Demitri sent for room service for Val, locked her in her room, gave Leon the key, then disappeared.

  “Business,” he said flatly when Leon shot him a questioning look. So much for that.

  Leon showered off the limestone dust and sat down in his room to go over what Remy had told him about the layout of the archaeological site and who had the keys to the artifact storage room building.