Mortal Seductions

by Allyson James

  “You might be safer locked in your room.”

  “Aphrodite wants me to shove Felicia and Remy together, which I’d do even if she didn’t insist. I like this part of my job, Demitri. I’ll make sure Valenarian doesn’t take over.”

  Val spoke glibly and hid her worry. Valenarian’s voice had been strong this morning, stronger than it had ever been. Val sometimes heard the demon’s voice faintly, but usually Valenarian either took over completely or vanished. Never had Val felt a duel existence inside her.

  “All right.” Demitri reluctantly rose, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “Meet me back up in the suite at four. If you’re late, I’ll take the town apart to find you.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Val repeated.

  She met Felicia as the young woman entered the hotel lobby looking for her. Felicia wore a plain shirt and pants, and she’d washed up from the dig, but that’s was the extent of her effort.

  “Come with me,” Val said, tucking her hand under Felicia’s arm. “We’ll make you beautiful.”

  “I’d like to see that,” Felicia laughed.

  Val decided to ignore Valenarian and enjoy herself that afternoon. She took Felicia to a dressmaker, and they entered a private, cushioned, closed-off room that was feminine and comfortable.

  A beautiful Egyptian woman sat down next to Felicia and looked her over while an assistant ran back and forth to bring out assorted dresses, shirts and slacks, tunics, and jewelry.

  “I don’t know what to get,” Felicia said, bewilderment in her eyes. “And I know I can’t afford it.”

  “But Demitri can,” Val assured her.

  “He won’t want you buying clothes for me.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. He wants me to spend the money on whatever I wish, and today, I wish to spend it on you.”

  “I’ll pay you back.”

  “No, you will not.” Valenarian snapped forth in that moment, her rage mounting. Stupid, vapid girl. Couldn’t she see that Val was trying to help her?

  Val gasped and Valenarian was gone. The shop owner and Felicia looked at her in concern.

  “I’m fine,” Val said, fanning herself. “I’m warm, that’s all.”

  The shop owner called to her assistant who instantly returned with cool drinks and a cloth for Val’s head. Val accepted graciously, too shaken to protest she didn’t need them.

  Felicia bent over the clothing, probably fearing she’d cause Val a seizure if she argued any longer. After a time, Val sat up and helped her, realizing that Felicia didn’t have any clothes sense whatsoever.

  At the end of the afternoon, they’d draped Felicia in a light yellow tunic covered with deeper yellow roses, black slacks, and sandals with low heels. Val draped Felicia with gold jewelry, holding up a hand mirror so she could see how lovely the ornaments made her. Felicia laughed as the earrings tinkled in her ears and bangles whispered on her wrists.

  Felicia put up another protest at the makeup, but finally let the assistant dab on eye shadow and eyeliner, powder and blush, and a little light lipstick. When Felicia finally viewed herself in the shop’s full-length mirror, her eyes widened. “I’m pretty.”

  “Of course you are. Remy can’t ignore you now.”

  “Yes, he could. I doubt he’d notice a belly dancer if she started dancing in his lap.”

  “Hmm,” Val said, and she abruptly lost control to Valenarian again. “Do you have any dancing costumes?” she asked the shop assistant. “Real ones, I mean. Not the glittery shit tourists buy.”

  The shop owner blinked, but her assistant nodded and hurried out, returning with her arms full of velvet and silk. Felicia gaped at the tiny jacket, the skirt that was simply an embroidered band with swaths of silk that would cover nothing. Minuscule mirrors had been sewn among the embroidery, making the costume shimmer whichever way it moved.

  “Good lord,” Felicia said. “I can’t wear that.”

  Valenarian took the costume in delight. “But I can.” She ducked behind a curtain, where she enjoyed herself closing the jacket over her full breasts and clasping the embroidered band around her hips. She emerged and spun around, laughing as the lovely costume flared.

  “You see?” she said to Felicia. “A good dancing costume makes you look provocative without revealing anything essential.” She raised her arms and began to move her hips and legs in a dance that hadn’t been done in a thousand years.

  The shop owner clasped her hands in delight. “You are very skilled, madam.”

  Val laughed. It felt good to break free, to throw off her shackles. She went through the movements of the old dance, which had been created at a time when dancers were trained to entertain the women of the harem, not the men. This modern shop looked much like a seraglio of old, with silk hangings, carpets, wooden screens, and an audience of women drinking coffee and smiling as they watched her.

  Val changed from a classic belly dance to one much older, from thousands of years ago but still Egyptian. The dancers on tomb walls might have been painted in stiff and angular poses, but the true dance was soft and flowing, erotic and beautiful.

  Val flashed to the past, when she’d danced this same dance for Demitri. She could see him through the haze of memory, lying on his back in a grove, smiling lazily as he watched her dance for him.

  Her body moved in the same way it had then, bangles clinking softly on her wrists and ankles. Demitri had worn nothing but a thin linen tunic, one that bared half his torso. Dark hair dusted his chest, and his long legs were tanned by the sun.

  She loved how he admired her. Demitri loved her body, but she knew in her heart he didn’t love her. He was enchanted with Valenarian and loved to sex her, but he’d never love a demon. On the other hand, Valenarian had lost her heart to him, to a demigod who could kill her without effort. Demitri was the only man she’d never been able to tame, and she loved him with all her heart.

  In that grove, Demitri had risen and caught her hands as she danced. He pulled her down to the ground with him, pressing kisses to her flesh.

  He pushed her dress from her body and made love to her, his eyes liquid dark and sinful. “Do you like what I do to you?” he whispered to her. “Do you like how I make you feel?”

  “Yes,” she moaned, then she screamed it. “Yes.”

  “You’re mine, Val. You belong to me. No one else.”

  “Yes,” she sobbed.

  “Say it.”

  “I belong to you, Demitri. Only you. Forever.”

  In that grove, she’d believed it and thought he did, too. Demitri laughed at her, then he rolled to his feet and changed to his tiger. He wanted to play.

  Val let him chase her through the groves on the edge of the river, sun dappling her skin through the trees. She almost let him catch her, then turned the tables by leaping onto his back and holding tight while he ran like a streak of light.

  She loved him so much. Those days had been the happiest of her life, and she hadn’t known it. She and Demitri had played and made love or walked quietly together, slept together under the stars or curled up inside Demitri’s rooms for warmth. Being with Demitri had made Val feel special and complete. She belonged to him, and she’d thought he belonged to her.

  She whirled in place and the silk-hung shop came back to her, the women watching her dance. Val stopped, tears streaming down her face. Felicia paused in her applause.

  “Are you all right, Val?”

  Val sank to her knees, burying her face in her hands. Valerie was going to let Valenarian die or drag her back to bondage at the hands of the Goddess of Love. A cruel fate for a woman who had trapped herself by falling hopelessly in love.

  Felicia came to her, slender hands touching Val’s shoulders. “What’s the matter?”

  Valenarian looked up at her so fiercely that Felicia took a step back. “They’re not worth it. He’ll pretend to fall in love with you, but in the end, he’ll betray you.”

  “Who will? Remy?”

  “Men! They’re all treacherous
. They’ll cut out your heart and leave you to bleed.”

  Felicia sank to one knee, her expression sympathetic. “Did that happen to you, Val? Did Demitri do something like that to you?”

  Val glared at her, then she burst into tears. She was going to lose Demitri and Leon and everything about life that she loved. One way or another, it was being ripped from her.

  Felicia rubbed her shoulders, her look distressed. Good Lord, the woman cared that a demoness was kneeling half-naked in an Egyptian shop, crying her heart out. Valenarian flung her arms around the mortal girl and wept until she had no tears left.

  “I couldn’t control her.” Val sat numbly in the living room of the suite, sipping the coffee Demitri had handed her. Dark smudges stained her face beneath her swollen eyes.

  “What were you doing?”

  “Dancing.” Val sighed, warming her hands on the cup. “I danced like I danced for you in the olive groves in Greece.”

  Demitri well remembered. He’d lain in the grass while Val moved her body in flowing undulations. He remembered how beautiful she’d been with her eyes lined with kohl, her fingers painted with henna, her gold jewelry tinkling like music. She’d moved her wrists and ankles in sinuous motion, smiling her sensual smile.

  In later centuries men claimed that Cleopatra was the most beautiful woman who’d ever lived, but Demitri knew differently. Cleopatra could make people believe she was beautiful, but she had nothing on Val. Even the famous Nefertiti and the even more lovely Nefertari paled in comparison with Val.

  “Why were you dancing?” he asked her.

  “I don’t know,” Val snapped. “I wanted to. She wanted to. Demitri, you need to figure out how to tame her quickly. I don’t think I’ll be able to contain her much longer.”

  “I’ll try to find Leon. I have some ideas.”

  “What kind of ideas?”

  “You’ll see.” Demitri stopped talking. Nothing was working—Leon couldn’t both help control Valenarian and help his brother. They needed to find the second piece of the necklace.

  Valerie wiped her eyes. “What about the German man who wanted to meet you at the Winter Palace?”

  Demitri shook his head, feeling renewed disappointment. “He tried to sell me emeralds, not broken pottery pieces. He was too high-dollar for what we were looking for. Strangely he ran into an officer from Interpol right after he left me.”

  Val tried to smile. “That wasn’t so strange, I’m thinking.”

  “He was a smuggler, in it for the excitement.”

  Demitri had been angry at the well-dressed, arrogant businessman stealing from a country that was challenged to keep its population fed and clothed. Demitri hadn’t even had to use magic to alert Interpol—he’d only had to signal his friends at the Winter Palace Hotel, and they’d done his bidding.

  Demitri couldn’t get Leon on his cell phone. Wherever the man was as the sun went down, Demitri hoped everything was all right with him.

  TWO lions ran across the darkened desert where no lion had run for hundreds of years. Leon kept pace with Remy, who obviously hadn’t done this in far too long. Remy’s tension flowed away from him as his powerful body stretched low across the desert floor.

  As Leon ran, he felt the worries of the past few weeks rippling from him as well. He realized that before he came to Egypt he’d been drifting, uncertain, numb from his experiences. He’d had no direction, no purpose, no meaning to his life.

  And then he’d seen Val across the hotel lobby, looking beautiful, charming, seductive. He’d followed her and didn’t regret that for a minute. Not long after that, Demitri had walked into his life and confused Leon like he’d never been confused before.

  He and Remy reached a rocky outcropping, and Remy stopped, panting in the cool night breeze. Leon stretched and shook himself, feeling his full mane against his sides. He hadn’t chosen to be a lion in a long time.

  Remy let out a roar that echoed across the cliffs, then his body shifted, and he became human once more. Leon yawned, loving how it felt to open his mouth wide until he felt like he could swallow his own face. Then his teeth clacked together and his balance shifted as he rose on two human legs.

  The two brothers faced each other, Leon a little larger than Remy, Remy wiry and tanned from working on his digs. Leon folded his arms and leaned against a rock, his shifter brain not minding being naked in the desert lit by bright moon and stars.

  “Watch out for snakes.”

  “Fuck snakes,” Leon said, still thinking like a lion.

  “Cobras,” Remy said. “They can kill you very fast, lion or human.”

  “No kidding. Remember all the snakes in the creek behind Mom’s house? Remember when we tried to fish for them that summer?”

  “And Mom tanned our hides?” Remy winced. “I remember.”

  “I miss that life,” Leon said softly. “We had it so good.”

  “We couldn’t stay kids forever.”

  “No, I guess not.”

  The moon glinted in Remy’s eyes, which were slowly turning to his human green. “You’ve never really talked since you got home,” Remy said. “About the stuff you saw in Afghanistan.”

  “No.”

  “I didn’t like to ask.” But he was asking now.

  “I really am all right, Remy. It was bad sometimes, people doing their best to kill each other and us, villages barely hanging on while other people got stinking rich smuggling out the opium. I tried to be nice, you know? Let people know I really wanted to help them. But so many were so burned out they didn’t want to trust, or hope. I hated that.”

  Remy looked at him in surprise. “I was thinking more about the fear of getting blown up or shot.”

  “Well, yeah, that, too.” Leon gave him a tight smile. “But you can’t think about that all the time, or it will drive you crazy. You have to be careful and smart, not paranoid. Paranoid will get you just as killed.”

  “And here I am complaining because I can’t have a ham and Swiss on rye until I get back home.” Remy’s words were light, but he wouldn’t look at Leon.

  “Hey, little brother, guilt is the very last thing you should feel. Joining up was my choice. I wanted a quick way to get money back to Mom and you. Now you’re a bad-ass archaeologist, on your way to being a professor. In the long run, you’ll be able to help Mom way better than I will. I don’t even know what I’m doing out here.”

  “Helping me out. For free.”

  “Because you’re my little brother, and Duprees take care of each other.” Leon looked off into the moonlit desert. “I’ll learn how to take care of myself some day.”

  “What about Val?”

  “I don’t think that’s going anywhere. She’s the lady of my dreams, but she loves Demitri. However this ends up, she’ll go with him.”

  “It’s not like you to give up.”

  “I’m not giving up.” Leon straightened. “I’m just thinking about what will make her happy, not me.”

  “You do that too often, Leon.”

  Leon frowned. “Do what?”

  “Make all your decisions based on what will make everyone else happy. Someday you have to make yourself happy. Just you, no matter what anyone else thinks.”

  Leon didn’t answer. If he ever figured out what made him happy, he might go for it. But he had no idea. The whole world rolled away at his feet, and he didn’t have a clue how to be happy in it.

  He reached for the lion inside him, ready to run back to the dig.

  “Hang on.” Remy was staring at something at the base of the outcropping.

  “What? Snake?”

  “No.” Remy crouched down, disregarding his own warning about snakes by putting his hand into a small hole. “I wonder . . .”

  Leon crouched over him. “What is it?”

  “It can’t be. This area was mapped.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Look at this. It might be the entrance to a tomb. These chips of limestone—they could hav
e been washed here by a flash flood, or they could be leftover from people hollowing out the rock. I wish I had more light.”

  Leon grabbed Remy and hauled him to his feet. “You’re stark naked in the middle of nowhere. Mark it and we can come back later.”

  Remy brushed dirt from his knees, but his gaze was remote. “Do you know what this could mean?”

  “That you found a hole and some rocks?”

  Remy’s smile dazzled him. “It could mean my career. Even with the theft from the dig. No one has found anything out here. It’s too remote. Or so we thought.”

  Leon wanted to laugh. Remy looked like he did when he was seven and discovered a secret stash of candy he’d hidden at Halloween and forgotten about until March. “All right, Indiana Jones, let’s go before we set off all the booby traps. We can come back and get the treasure later.”

  Remy looked at him like he was crazy. “What are you talking about? The Egyptians didn’t leave booby traps.” He piled a few stones together and looked around, memorizing the landscape. “I’ll bring Felicia out here. She’ll love this.”

  “You really know how to wow the ladies.”

  “She’ll think this is much better than some rich guy giving her diamonds. Felicia’s obsessed with archaeology, not afraid to get her hands dirty.”

  “So you like her?”

  “You sound like we’re in high school. There’s nothing wrong with Felicia. She’s a great addition to my team.”

  Leon rolled his eyes as he turned to look again for the lion within him. “So glad romance isn’t dead,” he muttered; then he became the big cat and words disappeared.

  LEON left Remy poring over maps in his lab and answered the seven messages on his cell phone. “Get to the hotel in Luxor as soon as you can,” was Demitri’s first message. The last one was, “Leon, damn it, I need you.”

  Leon tried to call back, got nothing, and left in a hurry for Luxor.

  14

  I heard you were looking for me.” Felicia paused in the doorway to the lab. She wore her new clothes, the tunic moving and flowing as she walked. Her hair curled softly, her face was lightly made up, and earrings tinkled in her ears. For the first time in her life, she felt pretty.