by Nina Bruhns
Seth let out a sigh and went to his armoire to pick out clothes appropriate for a public appearance. “What kind of disturbance?”
“A woman. A mortal. Demanding entrance to the palace.”
Seth paused with a frown, thought, and remembered. Ah. The promised blood sacrifice. That was quick. “Sheikh Shahin must have sent her.”
The messenger appeared acutely uncomfortable. “I don’t believe so. But she insists on speaking to you, my lord. Only you.”
Not totally unexpected under the circumstances. “Is there a problem?”
The man shuffled again. His face grew red. “She’s, um, quite angry.”
Seth was beginning to have a bad feeling about this woman. “Why on earth would she be angry? Is she not bespelled?”
“I think not, my lord.”
Seth smoothed his formal black robes into place, tied a red sash around his waist, then gave the messenger a hard look. There was definitely something the man was not telling him. “Does this mortal woman have a name?”
The man avoided his gaze. “I, um…”
Suspicion suddenly curled through Seth like a serpent ready to strike.
Mithra’s balls. It couldn’t be. There was no way she could have found Khepesh on her own.
And besides, no, she wouldn’t dare….
But one look at the messenger’s apprehensive expression and Seth knew his suspicion was correct.
Fury flooded through him. And with it, all trace of the blood weakness fled from his bones. He could not believe the temerity of the woman to show her face here!
“By the gods!” he cursed as he flew from his rooms toward the Great Western Gate. “I will have her head on a platter! And the person who led her to our portal shall find his head on the end of my captain’s sword!”
As Seth approached the monumental silver gate, he saw that a small crowd of immortals had gathered, sensing the high drama unfolding. The shemsu of Khepesh all knew about the Haliday sisters. And about Nephtys’s vision of Seth’s future consort and soul mate, a beautiful blonde whom Nephtys had joyfully identified as Gillian, the youngest sister. But Seth’s embracing of the vision and admitting the young Haliday woman into the per netjer had led to a string of disasters…culminating in her fleeing Khepesh with Lord Rhys right after the annual Ritual of Transformation—the elaborate ceremony where Seth should have taken his annual blood sacrifice. This year Gillian had been his chosen sacrificial vessel.
Everyone knew of these events.
But what the gathering crowd didn’t know was that to save Gillian, Rhys had waylaid Seth, and he had never received the sacrifice. Which was why he was now suffering the weakness that had his head reeling.
Rhys and Gillian had been summarily banished from the palace as traitors, and they had fled straight to Petru, the per netjer of the Sun God, ruled by Seth’s enemy, Haru-Re.
When Sheikh Shahin had subsequently discovered that Gillian possessed two sisters, one of whom was also a blonde and who greatly resembled her, Nephtys had changed her story. “It must have been Josslyn Haliday I saw in my vision!” Nephtys had insisted.
But Seth wasn’t buying it. He wanted nothing to do with either woman. Gillian Haliday had brought nothing but heartache and catastrophe to himself and to Khepesh. Because of his naïve belief in the vision, and in the possibility of love and companionship with that woman, he was in a personal hell of his own making, and his beloved per netjer was on the brink of annihilation by the enemy.
And he’d be damned if he let that woman’s sister through his gates to wreak further disaster upon them all.
“Seth-Aziz!”
He could hear Josslyn Haliday’s strident voice calling his name from the other side of the huge double portal even though it soared three stories high and was fashioned of pure, solid silver. He planted his feet and gathered his strength, needing all the authority he could muster. This was one battle he did not intend to lose.
“Open up! Let me in!” She pounded on the massive gate with her fists, which made a surprisingly loud echo for a mortal. “I know you’re in there! Give me back my sisters! Let them go right this minute, or I’ll have the U.S. Marines on your ass so fast your head will—”
“Enough!” Seth bellowed so loudly there was instant silence on both sides of the barrier. His subjects very seldom saw him angry and even less often heard him raise his voice. They knew it never boded well for anyone caught in the crossfire.
He ground his jaw and advanced on the gate, sweeping his hand at the portal guard. “Open it! Now!”
She wanted to come in? Fine. He’d let her in.
And she would never see the light of day again.
A long, deep clang resonated, and the portal wings began to move, splitting down the middle and slowly opening inward to reveal the glittering silver outer gate. Both sides were decorated in intricate hieroglyphics, the cartouches of Set-Sutekh gracing the center of each, along with the left Eye of Horus—symbol of the god who’d ripped it from his enemy. The gate was flanked by tall, lotus-shaped, fire-burning torches, flaming bright against the stygian void of the tunnel beyond.
A lone woman stood illuminated by the torchlight.
For a second Seth just stared. If he weren’t so angry, and so fucking, ravenously hungry, he would have laughed.
This?
This was supposed to be his future wise and beloved consort? She looked more like a street urchin from the slums of Cairo.
Her face was sweat-streaked and dirty, and she wore an ancient striped gelebeya that looked like she’d stolen from an old man’s clothes line. It hung about her ankles in clouds of dust. On her feet were ugly army boots. Her hair, if it was even blond, was wrapped in a scarf of the popular Palestinian variety usually worn by clueless tourists and aging hippies.
The gate reached its zenith and glided to a halt. She had no trouble picking him out of the crowd of observers, who looked back and forth between them as they stared each other down.
She was fearless. He’d give her that. Or rather, reckless. Did she really think she stood a chance here? A mere mortal pitted against a demigod?
For a long moment she regarded him, from top to bottom, her eyes betraying an emotion he couldn’t quite decipher. Consternation? As though he wasn’t what she’d expected? Well, that made two of them.
She took a step forward. “I’ve come for my sisters,” she declared in a loud, clear voice.
He narrowed his eyes at her disrespect.
“On your knees, woman, and kneel before the high priest of Set-Sutekh!” the portal guard commanded her, raising his scimitar.
She faltered for a split second, then her back went up and she took another step forward, ignoring the threat. “I kneel before no man,” she informed Seth archly. “Now give me my sisters!”
Seth’s fists clenched at his sides, his blood simmering. No one disrespected him in this way!
“Come in and get them,” he growled, schooling his urge to strike the woman dead where she stood. It would take so little, the merest whisper of a thought in his mind. And then he’d be safely rid of her, once and for all. “If you dare enter.”
She started to walk, but he lifted a finger and stopped her in mid-stride. Surprise swept over her face at having her movements controlled by another, as though she were merely a puppet on a string.
She had no idea.
“Take heed,” he warned, his voice gravelly with the effort to quell his boiling temper, “that if you willingly choose to enter my domain, you become mine to rule, mine to do with as I wish.”
She blinked. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she demanded, and he saw the first glimmer of uncertainty flit through her expression.
“Exactly what you think it means,” he informed her.
He could smell her, the mortal scent of her like an insidious perfume of temptation sent to harass his senses. The salt of her sweat. A dusty hint of the fragrant desert above that clung to her clothes. The telltale tang of the dawning fear
within her breast.
And under it all, the sweet, alluring scent of her mortal blood.
The vampire in him reared up in howling need, ripping with ravenous claws at his insides to come out. It wanted to gorge itself on her crimson bounty until he lay prostrate with satiety, his strength and power safely returned for another year.
Or until Haru-Re killed him.
Beneath the sleeve of her gelebeya her hand twitched. He sensed she held something in it. No doubt a weapon of some kind. As if that would save her.
He took a stride toward her, unable to stop himself from drawing nearer. The blood rushing through her veins was calling to him. Filling him with blood lust.
Filling him with sexual lust.
Closer now, he saw that beneath the covering of dust and the hideous scarf her face was much prettier than he’d first believed. He wondered what the rest of her looked like….
“I don’t want to enter,” she quickly said, stepping backward to avoid him. Her growing fear was starting to wear down her confidence.
Good.
“No?”
A lock of golden blond hair fell across her cheek from beneath its cloth prison. She pushed it aside. “No. I just want you to let my sisters go.”
He yearned to rip that scarf off her head. Since he was a youth he’d always preferred blonde women. The rare, exotic color aroused him. Would the rest of her hair be as pale a yellow?
He felt his fangs begin to lengthen. And so did his cock. Along with a simmering fury that it should be this particular woman who’d awakened them both.
“And if I don’t let them go?” he asked, wanting nothing more than to rid himself of her disturbing presence, to rid himself of the harrowing temptation of her blood, to rid himself of her, for good.
All he needed was an excuse. A means to do so that didn’t violate the tenets of Khepesh that he himself had established.
“I told you,” she said, but her voice caught on a quaver, betraying her. “I’ll bring the law down on this place. And the American government. And the press. Whoever will listen. Trust me, they’ll all listen.”
He took another furious step toward her. There! Right there was his reason! He started to summon the guards.
She lifted her chin. “And don’t even think about harming me or my sisters. Because I’ve sent letters. Lots of them. All outlining exactly where we are and what’s happened to us. To be opened in case I don’t return.” Her luminous blue eyes glowed with triumph. Eyes he had far too quickly dismissed as unattractive—and unwise.
He halted. He could easily sense when a mortal was lying. But she wasn’t. She was telling the truth.
This was the final straw upon his patience. And thank merciful Isis, the thing that indelibly sealed her fate.
“So to be clear, Miss Haliday, you refuse to enter Khepesh of your own free will?” he asked evenly, knowing what a refusal meant. He would have no choice but to act, and no one would fault him for fulfilling his duty to protect his people. Indeed, they would blame him if he didn’t take immediate and decisive action.
The letters could easily be dealt with. But she must be silenced. Forever. The shemsu understood this. His palace guard had already moved into position, ready to jump to his command.
“Of course I refuse!” Josslyn Haliday declared hotly. “I want no part of your uncivilized cult. Please, I just—”
That was all he needed.
“Seize her!” he barked, and in the blink of an eye his guards had her captive. “Take her to the temple,” he ordered, “where she will serve Set-Sutekh for the rest of eternity as a shabti. Now go!”
Josslyn let out a cry of protest, fighting the guards as they began to drag her in through the gate. Seth angrily hurled a spell of immobility at her and her screams cut off. She went limp in the grip of the guards, though her eyes still darted around wildly.
Suddenly another scream sounded, this one coming from the tunnel that led down to the palace from the desert aboveground.
“No! You mustn’t!” the woman’s voice cried. “Let her go! Let her go!”
It was Gemma, Josslyn’s sister, riding a camel at full tilt toward them. A black hawk swooped in after her, circled her head once, then flew down to the foot of the gate. Before its talons hit the stone, its body stretched and grew, transforming into the shape of a man. A very angry man.
Shahin. He landed in full dudgeon, robes swirling, swearing a blue streak and yelling at his woman to stop.
I’m sorry, my lord! he called silently between curses. The news reached her and she lit out of the oasis before I could catch her.
Seth ground his teeth. What was it about these accursed Haliday women that their men were ever at a loss to control them?
“Please, my lord,” Gemma cried, leaping from the camel, avoiding Shahin’s grab and throwing herself to her knees on the stone floor before Seth. She looked up, her eyes pleading. “Please. Don’t do this. Not a shabti. Spare her, at least for now! Give me a chance to talk to her. To explain. To change her mind. Seth, in the name of the magic we shared, I beg you.”
It was the only thing that could have stopped Seth in his fury. But it had the desired effect. He halted.
Shahin finally reached Gemma, pulled her to her feet and clamped his hands on her arms in a firm grip.
Josslyn’s horrified eyes were on the sheikh. She tore them away to fasten them on her sister, and they filled with tears.
Gemma’s did, too. “It’s okay, Joss. I’m okay. Everything’ll be okay,” she called to her. “I promise.”
Not if Seth had anything to say about it.
But the sight of their anguish was an unbidden reminder of his own sister, held captive by a man she hated, and Seth’s conscience felt another prick. He would do anything in his power to get Nephtys back, anything to ease the suffering he knew she must be enduring.
His temper dampened a fraction, and his conviction wavered.
Then, all at once, something dropped from Josslyn’s hand. It was not a weapon. When Seth saw what it actually was, his fury returned at double force.
“By the claws of Sekhmet, where did you get that?” he roared.
The growing crowd of shemsu moved swiftly backward, away from his wrath.
In a nanosecond he was at Josslyn’s side scooping up the object that had landed by her boot. There was no mistaking it. It was an amulet belonging to Nephtys—a scarab beetle made of the finest purple amethyst, with Haru-Re’s distinctive cartouche carved on its belly. The bastard had given it to her, the morning after he’d taken her virginity. She’d carried it with her all these years as a reminder of the love she’d once had for the man, and of his cruel betrayal of that love.
Seth hated the sight of it, but he knew she would never have willingly parted with the scarab. Had something happened to her?
“Tell me where you got this!”
Josslyn gazed at him with silent, desperate eyes, still bespelled and in the grip of the guards. In a heartbeat he lifted the spell so she could speak and waved a hand at them to let her go. He stalked closer.
“From a woman called Nephtys,” she blurted out hoarsely, steadying herself to blink up at him in terror. “She said she was your sister.”
He bent over her, making her shrink down in fear. “I don’t believe you. Tell me the truth!”
“I am telling you the truth!” she said, panic blanching her cheeks. “I just met her a few hours ago. Somehow she knew who I was and that I was searching for Gemma and Gillian. She told me they were here, in an underground compound, and she showed me the entrance to the tunnel.”
If this was indeed the truth, which he reluctantly sensed it was, not only was his sister unharmed, but it seemed she was not quite the helpless prisoner of Haru-Re that he had assumed. He’d have to think about the implications of that later.
“And the amulet?” he demanded, pacing away from Josslyn, not wanting to stand so close to her. The smell of her blood was making him lose his concentration. And his will
to be rid of her.
“She gave it to me to give to you. As proof she’d sent me. She said to tell you—” Josslyn’s eyes flared and her words cut off abruptly.
Seth went still inside. What schemes had his sister set in motion now?
“Tell me what?”
Josslyn’s lips pressed together.
Gemma wrestled free of Shahin and rushed to her sister, throwing her arms around her. “It’s all right, Joss. For God’s sake, tell him what he wants to know.”
“I can’t,” she whispered hoarsely.
“You have to. It’s the only way to save yourself.”
Josslyn swallowed heavily as she looked at her sister, her face going deathly pale. Her gaze flitted to Shahin, then to Seth, then back to Gemma. “I don’t remember the rest. Honest.”
It didn’t take a demigod’s powers to know that this time she was lying through her teeth. She was a horrible liar.
“Joss. Please,” Gemma pleaded softly. “Trust me.”
“Listen to your sister,” Seth warned her quietly, the vicious need within him crouching, readying to strike. “Or suffer the consequences.” The shemsu eased farther back. He was even more dangerous when he went quiet.
Josslyn tried to clear her throat and failed. A tear trickled down her cheek, making a glittering track in the dust there. Gemma wiped it tenderly away.
Josslyn shuddered out a breath, hesitated one last time, and said, “She said you should remember her vision.”
He could smell the fear and desperation coming off the woman in waves. He could also feel there was more to it.
“What else?” he demanded even more softly.
She shook her head. “Nothing.”
“Don’t lie to me, Josslyn. I will always know when you lie to me.”
Another tear broke loose and fell from her lashes. Gemma gave her a squeeze of encouragement. “It’s okay. I promise.”
“She said—” Josslyn closed her eyes, then opened them and met his. “She said I should offer you a bargain.”
“What kind of bargain?”
“A bargain for my sisters’ freedom.”