by Nina Bruhns
Heret-ibi.
Or perhaps she already did.
He glanced at the rising glow of the coming sunrise and then pushed out a breath between kisses.
“We must go. The council will be waiting. Best not to anger them with further delay.”
Her pulse leapt. She’d forgotten all about the summons. She worried her lower lip with her teeth, at once terrified. No way was she ready for this. “I don’t want to. Can’t you make some excuse?”
“It’ll do no good. They’ll know the truth. It’s all right, love. They only want to ask you questions.”
“To find out if I’m suitable,” she said, recalling what he’d told her earlier. “To be your consort.”
With his tongue he touched her kiss-swollen lip on the spot where she’d worried it, soothing the hurt. “Yes.”
“But you don’t want me as your consort. And I don’t want to be forced into marriage.”
“They can’t force you,” he said after an infinitesimal pause. “You must enter the per netjer willingly, and you must give your consent to become my wife. Just as you had to agree to the blood sacrifice. We aren’t barbarians, Josslyn. There are laws.”
She swallowed. “You really think that’s what they want with me?”
“Quite sure.”
“So all I have to do is say no?” She watched his eyes, but he gave nothing away. The man could make a fortune at the poker tables.
“Theoretically,” he said. “In truth, I have no idea how they’ll react. No one has ever said no to them.” Great.
“But I should definitely tell them no, right?”
He gazed at her with that sphinx-like mien. “I may have been hasty in my judgment of you…measuring you by the yardstick of your sister.”
Okay. What was that supposed to mean?
Surely not… Her pulse suddenly leapt in consternation. She wriggled out of his arms and sat up. “What are you saying, Seth?”
“I’m saying Nephtys may be much wiser than I gave her credit for.”
She blinked down at him. “You can’t possibly believe in that…that vision? You can’t want to base your whole future on a crazy dream your sister had!”
“My sister’s crazy dreams are almost never wrong.”
“Almost never,” she emphasized, but she had the sinking feeling he really did believe it.
This was insane!
“So what do you want me to do?” she asked, a shade desperately. Desperate, because suddenly she wasn’t nearly as certain of her own resolve, either. She liked him. She really, really did. And she’d never been so attracted to a man in her life. But was that enough to build forever on? Forever was a freaking long time.
“That’s your decision, heret-ibi,” he said, sitting up. He took her hands. “Just tell them what’s truly in your heart.”
“What if I don’t know? How can I possibly say, after knowing you less than a day?” She squeezed her eyes shut. “How can you know?” She opened them again and saw a rare smile grace his lips. Her heart gave a little flutter. It was amazing what that smile did to his face.
“I don’t have to know,” he said. “I simply accept.”
Her pulse thundered at the implication. “But what about love?”
“Love?” he echoed. “Love has nothing to do with it.”
At that, her chest squeezed painfully. “Oh,” she whispered.
“I must do what is right for my followers. What is best for Khepesh.” He lifted her fingers to his lips. “They’ll ask you to be my consort, Josslyn. I’d like you to say yes.”
She swallowed heavily and felt her stomach sink like a stone. Because she knew what she must do. For her sake.
For the sake of her heart.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and pulled back her hands from him. “I can’t.”
Then into the painful silence a sardonic laugh cut through the shimmering dawn like the blade of a guillotine.
“She’s right, you know,” Harold Ray’s hated voice said triumphantly. “She’ll never be your consort, Seth-Aziz. Because you’ll be dead by sunrise!”
Chapter 14
Seth launched himself up from the bed, sending Josslyn tumbling. In a swift spell he dressed them both in their Bedouin clothes, at the same time spinning to attack his enemy.
At once he saw it was no use.
They were surrounded.
He had been so caught up in the moment, in Josslyn’s reaction to him, that he had let his guard down. For how long had he left them vulnerable? Too long, obviously. Three dozen men on ghost camels had formed a double ring around the dune where Seth had conjured their love nest.
Mentally, he berated himself. But it would do little good now.
He was a dead man.
Haru-Re smiled down on him scornfully, incandescent with victory, and Seth wanted to retch. What had he done? By the gods, what had he done? He was dead and Khepesh would be no more.
He snapped his fingers and the bed disappeared from under them, leaving him and Josslyn standing on the warm desert sand. He suddenly wished he’d gone barefoot in it more often, and absurdly, his feet itched to be rid of his boots.
“Better kill me now, Haru-Re,” Seth ground out, wresting back his focus. “For I will never surrender to you. And you can burn Khepesh to the ground, but the shemsu of Set-Sutekh will never bow to your god.”
Anger swept over Haru-Re’s features. He spurred his camel forward and raised his golden scimitar. Its razor-sharp edge gleamed in the pale rays of the coming dawn. “I believe I’ll oblige you, you whoreson of a scorpion.”
“No!” Suddenly Josslyn jumped in front of him, shielding him from the deadly blade with her body.
Both he and Haru-Re were so shocked they each froze where they stood, Ray’s sword in a slant above his head, poised for the coup de grace.
“You don’t want to do this,” Josslyn said into the stunned silence, her voice loud and strong. “Think about it, Ray. What will Nephtys do when she learns you’ve murdered her brother? Her only living family? Do you think she’ll ever forgive you?”
Fear stabbed through Seth at her reckless boldness. She was going to get herself killed, too!
Ray’s eyes narrowed dangerously. He didn’t lower the sword. Instead, he bored into her with his furious glare.
But Josslyn didn’t back down. “You’ve given her an oath of marriage, but what will it be like to go through eternity bound to a woman who loathes the very air you breathe?” She returned Ray’s glower, feet spread in challenge and her fists planted on her hips.
By the staff of Osiris, she was the incredible one!
To Seth’s shock, Ray’s stony glare melted into guarded amusement. Slowly, the scimitar dropped to his side. His eyes cut to Seth with a flash of derision. “Letting females fight our battles for us now, are we?” he mocked.
“Only when she is evenly matched,” he returned.
A shower of sparks glanced off the golden blade.
Seth smiled. If he was going to die anyway, he’d rather go down in flames than cowering in fear.
“For once we are in agreement,” Haru-Re said, returning his attention to Josslyn with a slow, evil smile. “I think I shall enjoy taming this one.” His voice lowered. “Especially breaking her to the fang.”
White-hot rage erupted in Seth so swiftly he didn’t think—couldn’t think—he just reacted. In a blur he shifted. With a mighty roar he was on Haru-Re, Mihos Rukem’s powerful lion’s body knocking the enemy off his camel and sending the deadly scimitar flying through the air. Bedlam erupted all around them, men shouting and being tossed from camels that suddenly went berserk, butting and braying, biting and spitting. Sand flew in whirlwind dust devils. The light of the coming dawn dimmed.
It was chaos—Seth’s element to call.
And through it all, the only one who didn’t move a muscle was Josslyn. She watched in confusion, rooted to the spot.
Seth leapt toward her, tossing her onto his back with a single jerk of his massi
ve head. He bounded forward through the pandemonium and started to run.
But a sudden burning pain seared into the flesh of his rear haunch, and he stumbled. Josslyn screamed. Another agonizing stab of pain, and he went down, hearing the snap of an arrow shaft as he hit the ground. The muscles of his leg were already numb. The arrow had been poisoned. The edges of his vision blurred. His consciousness slipped precariously. With his last vestige of strength, he shifted back to human form. When he was laid to rest in his sarcophagus, it would be as Seth-Aziz, the human.
“No!” Josslyn screamed. “No!”
Vaguely, he felt his lover fling her body over his, protecting him from any more arrows.
“Cease fire!” he heard Haru-Re’s shouted order. “I want her alive!”
And that’s when he knew her fate would be far worse than his.
In one last futile effort to help her, his element to call surged to life. But this time instead of lending help, the chaos turned inward on him, spreading confusion in his own head instead of among the enemy.
Questions rippled through the fabric of his mind like stones skipping on water.
Why had she done it? Risked her own life to save his?
What did it mean that he wanted to tear Haru-Re limb from limb, if he could but raise himself from the dirt where he’d fallen?
How had it happened that he’d lived five thousand long years, only to meet the woman he was destined to love forever, on the very day he died?
To whom could he speak today? Where was the god he had faithfully served and sacrificed every happiness for? Where was his god, now when he most needed his help and intercession?
Behold, his name was surely detested. More than a monarch, whose subjects mutter sedition when his back is turned.
Death was in his sight today.
Yea, death was in his sight today.
Like the smell of myrrh.
Like the perfume of lotuses.
Death was in his sight today.
Like the clearing of the sky on a starry, starry night.
Like a man who yearns for something he does not know…
But in his heart Seth knew just what he longed for.
And her name was Josslyn.
Chapter 15
Nephtys’s heart stopped dead in her chest when she saw them bring her brother in on a stretcher.
“Seth!” she screamed, running to him like a child to its calling mother. Undignified for a priestess of her rank, but she didn’t care.
He was lying on his side, two arrows protruding from his thigh, one feather-tipped and the other broken off next to his body. Blood matted his fawn-colored Bedouin trousers, a red pool of it staining the cloth of the stretcher under him. His eyes were closed, his features slack. There were no signs of life.
Before Nephtys could get to him, Ray intercepted her. He grasped her arms and held her as she struggled. “Stop.”
“Let me go! What have you done to him?” she cried.
All at once she noticed that the guards walking behind the stretcher were holding another woman fighting to get free, much as Ray was holding her. She was tall, blond and irate enough to spit nails. She looked like a slightly older version of Gillian.
Josslyn Haliday?
Oh, no! Their eyes met and she saw Josslyn’s were red-rimmed and swimming with tears.
Nephtys’s heart sank and she stopped pulling against Ray’s grip. She gave a sob of despair.
Sweet Isis. All was lost.
“By the orb woman! You will not weep for that bastard!” Ray exploded, his voice rising with each word until the palace walls shook like thunder. “I am to be your husband, not Seth-Aziz! You should be celebrating my glorious victory, the capture of my enemy, not wailing over a brother who doesn’t give a hyena’s fart about you!”
She gasped. “How dare you!”
“He doesn’t love you, Nephtys. He hasn’t even asked to buy you back. And he is too damn busy mounting his new concubine to bother mounting a rescue!”
She let out a cry, cut to the quick. Not by Seth’s supposed lack of caring—she knew it wasn’t true, he’d just been waiting for the right time to strike—but by the cruelty of Ray’s deliberate attempt to wound her with his accusations.
Flame seemed to shoot from his eyes, singeing her very eyelashes with the heat of his fury.
She shrank away from him, stinging with hurt. And terror. He could crush her like a beetle under his boot with a single thought. And he looked angry enough to do it if she crossed him now.
Apparently Josslyn Haliday was not so easily intimidated. Or maybe she was just unaware of the danger contained in that temper of his.
“Please, Haru-Re. I beg you,” Josslyn pleaded. “Let me see to Seth’s wounds. Why let him die? What good will it serve? You have him in your power now, a prisoner. Surely that is a worse punishment than death?”
Nephtys held her breath, astounded by the bravery of the woman to attempt reasoning with a demigod in a blind rage.
Ray whirled to Josslyn. Nephtys could see the calculation in his face, weighing her fate for daring to speak.
“You, too?” he seethed, more disgusted than incensed. “Am I surrounded by women who are in thrall to my enemy?”
He pointed a finger at Josslyn, his arm straight as a spear, but he turned to Nephtys. “You show her the way to Khepesh, and less than twenty-four hours later I find them fornicating like two dogs in heat!”
Josslyn flinched and opened her mouth to protest, but she wisely shut it again. “What is it about the son of a jackal you females find so fucking irresistible?” he roared.
Astonishment jolted through Nephtys. Of all the bizzare things for Ray to be infuriated over… Her brother was dying!
“Ray! What is wrong with you?” she demanded. “Exactly! What is wrong with me?” he blasted back. “Why does no one love me with such passion and loyalty?”
“By the goddess, Ray, this is not time to be—”
But suddenly… It was like his words hit a switch and a light went on in her mind.
He made me several offers, yes. But I turned them down. Every last one.
It works both ways, meruati. You would do well to remember that.
Why does no one love me…
But the agonized look on his face said one thing loud and clear.
He meant her. Why did she not love him?
Her gaze sought her brother, nearly lifeless, then returned to Haru-Re. And looked at him from a whole new perspective, seeing his behavior in a completely different light than she had for nearly her entire life.
Her heart stalled, and her world shifted, turning completely upside down.
Sweet blessed goddess.
He loved her. He did!
And just as she had, everything he’d done ever since, good and bad, he’d done because of that love.
He’d loved her back when they were together, and she’d been ripped from his arms against her will. And against his.
But she’d turned against him.
Instead of trusting him, trusting his love, and acknowledging the good she had always known was in his heart, she had believed the lies of others and thrown his feelings in his face, letting her own love and goodness turn to hatred and a burning need for revenge.
All for a betrayal he had never, ever been guilty of.
No wonder he’d turned vengeful and cruel, and struck out at her, wanting to hurt her as badly as she’d hurt him!
Could he really still be in love with her, even now, and could his long-festering jealousy be driving his actions to this day? Was it truly possible?
She knew in her heart it could. Because her own jealousy had driven her actions in exactly the same way.
She was the reason he’d become what he was.
Merciful Isis.
Could he ever forgive her?
“Sometimes,” she answered, her heart breaking for all they’d lost, “it happens that two people take one look at each other and know in their hearts that th
ey are two halves of a single soul.” She gazed into the eyes of the man who was her own other half and always would be, her heart pounding and her limbs trembling. “It would be a shame if something, or someone, came between them and they had to wait a thousand lifetimes to join those souls together and live as one. Don’t you think?”
He stared at her hard. “What are you trying to say, meruati?” His voice was like the tear of raw silk.
Her brother groaned in his unconsciousness, and she glanced at him again. His life may depend on what she said next. But that was not the only reason she needed to say it. At long last, it was time to tell the truth. To lay her heart in her hands and offer it up in all sincerity.
Swallowing, she pulled her gaze from her dying brother and met Ray’s angry, penetrating stare.
“I’m saying,” she said, gathering every ounce of courage to say what was long overdue, “that I love you, Haru-Re. I’ve always loved you. Let Josslyn have Seth. Don’t put her through the misery I’ve had to endure, an endless, empty life without the man I love.”
For a moment he looked stricken, then disbelief swept over his features. Finally, when she didn’t move, didn’t laugh at his gullibility or try to hide the tears that welled hotly in her eyes, his lips parted and for a split second he looked so vulnerable that her heart melted into a soft, warm puddle.
Seth moaned again. Josslyn tried to shake off her captors and go to him. “Please, Haru-Re,” she pleaded.
Without taking his gaze from Nephtys, Ray raised a hand and flicked it at Josslyn’s guards. “Put them in the garden suite and bring her whatever she requests.”
They released Josslyn, who rushed to the stretcher as they carried it off toward their assigned quarters.
“Thank you,” Nephtys whispered. She wanted to go to Ray and put her arms around him. To sink into his embrace and show him how grateful she was to him for sparing her brother’s life, and how sorry she was she’d ever doubted him. But she didn’t dare move.
“If this is a ruse, you’ll bitterly regret it,” he growled.
“It’s not,” she assured him.
“So you’ll come to my bed.” It was a statement, rife with skepticism, but the question that rang within it was unmistakable. “No spurious protests?”