by Nina Bruhns
“If you still want me,” she said.
“You’ll become my consort? Right away?”
“Yes.”
“Tonight?”
Her head felt light. “If you wish it.”
“Why?” he asked. “Why the sudden about-face? Is this you maneuvering because Khepesh is defeated? Do you think you can play me?”
“No, Ray. That’s not it at all. It’s because…” She shook her head sadly. “Because you are so wrong about not being loved. Look around you.” A crowd of shemsu had gathered, each face looking more concerned than the next. They respected, and yes, sometimes feared their leader, but they had always loved him. “Your people love you, Ray. And so do I.” His eyes narrowed, still suspecting a trick.
She could see it wasn’t going to be easy to convince him of her change of heart. And she didn’t really blame him for his cynicism. “I believe what you told me last night,” she said. “About not wanting to sell me. And Seth’s father stealing me away and lying about it. I should have trusted you, Ray. Trusted us, what we had.” She hung her head. “I’m sorry. So sorry.”
It was a long time before he spoke. By the time he did, they were alone in the great hall of Petru, the shemsu having recognized a moment of import for their leader and giving Ray the privacy he needed to deal with it. With her.
“And if Seth-Aziz dies?” he asked.
Her heart stuttered at the terrible thought. She loved her brother dearly, and it would devastate her to lose him. “A big part of my heart would die along with him,” she admitted. “But I know that much of the blame for this…vicious animosity between you two can be laid at my door. If Seth dies, his death will be upon my hands as much as yours. I understand that now.”
She felt the full weight of his regard drill into her, making her dizzy from the wash of power that pulsed from him, swirling about her, wrapping her in its electric web.
“What if I no longer want you?” he drawled. “What if I was merely using you as a means to get to Seth-Aziz? What if, now that I have poisoned him and taken him captive, I plan to throw you away like a bad penny?”
She flinched, her skin almost scorched from the heat accompanying his words. “Then I suppose my purity ritual will last much longer than I anticipated,” she said shakily, praying it wasn’t true. She licked her dry lips. “But I’ll wait as long as it takes.”
Ray let out a long, measured breath, apparently finally convinced. “Seth-Aziz won’t die,” he said at length. “The poisoned arrows were not deadly. Just toxic enough to knock him out and make him sick as a bloated vulture when he wakes up.”
Relief swept through her, and her tears threatened to spill over. “Thank you. Oh, thank you!” She wanted to go to Ray and fling herself into his arms for joy, but she had to know one last thing. “I don’t understand. You’ve wanted him dead for eons. Why not kill him now when you have the chance?”
A grim, humorless smile flashed over his lips. A muscle ticked under his eye. “Because Josslyn Haliday convinced me that you’d never forgive me if I did.”
She felt a tickle of warmth track down her cheek and tasted salt. “Oh, Ray,” she said in a strangled whisper. And this time nothing in the world could keep her from going to him.
She slid into his waiting arms and her whole body gave a sigh of happiness and relief when he wrapped them around her and laid his cheek against the top of her head. She half expected him to sweep her up and carry her to his rooms, to his bed, and demand she prove the sincerity of her confession of love and her promise to give herself to him.
But he didn’t. He just stood there, breathing into her hair and holding her so tight that she couldn’t tell where her body left off and his began. At last.
It felt good. So very good.
And it filled her with hope for her future, a future she could finally share with the only man she’d ever truly loved.
But at the same time, she felt a gnawing pain in her heart. For she knew her own happiness had come at the price of her brother’s.
For him, and Josslyn Haliday, and their beloved Khepesh, there would be no future happiness.
And possibly, there would be no future, at all.
Chapter 16
“Oh, thank God. Joss!”
Josslyn looked up from where she was sitting on the bed next to Seth, desperately cutting away the fabric of his trousers from the vicious arrows protruding from his thigh.
“Gillian!” When she saw her baby sister, Joss dropped the knife and leapt to her feet, colliding with her in a huge hug, overjoyed to see her after so many weeks of worry. “Oh, Gillian, is it really you? Are you all right, Jelly Bean?”
“I’m good. And you? You’re not hurt?” Gillian searched her face and body and immediately spotted the vampire bite on her neck. “Oh, Jesus, Joss! You let him do it.”
Joss glanced anxiously at Seth, who was lying as still as a corpse on the luxurious bed. “Who would have thought, eh? I still can’t quite believe it myself,” she said, “but yes. Oh, Gillian, he’s…he’s so…”
How could she put into words how she felt about Seth already, after knowing the man just one short day? It would sound crazy. Especially for practical, logical Josslyn Haliday. Love at first sight? Her sister would think she’d gone off the deep end, or was bespelled…. Which, well, maybe she was. But Seth was right—that didn’t make her feelings any less strong or true.
“I’m so scared for him. Gillian, he’s been poisoned. He once told me that poison was one of the few ways an immortal can be killed.”
“I’m afraid it’s true,” Gillian said. “Rhys has told me that, too.”
Seth looked so pale, his skin so translucent it was almost blue. There wasn’t even a hint of the powerful, magical energy that usually swirled like an invisible maelstrom around his body.
Joss let her sister go and hurried to sit back down next to him, forcing herself to continue to hack away the trouser leg. Her hands were shaking so badly that she was making a complete hash of it.
“I have no idea how to stop the poison from the arrows from killing him,” she said. “And I’m terrified to pull them out for fear he’ll bleed to death. I’ve asked for a doctor, but they say there isn’t one here at Petru—there’s no need because they’re immortal. I have to help him! But how?”
Her sister’s arm came around her and she sat down on the bed, too. “Don’t worry. Rhys will be here in a minute. He’s interrogating the guards about the poison and has sent for the temple priestess, who specializes in herbs and potions.” Her sister frowned. “Probably the priestess who prepared the arrows in the first place.”
Alarm sizzled through Joss. “Are you kidding me? She’s not touching him! Over my dead body!”
Gillian’s eyes widened and she held up a hand. “It’s okay, sis. Rhys will be here. He’s Seth’s best friend. If anything happens to him, trust me, heads will roll. Rhys is beside himself with worry.” She puffed out a breath. “Obviously, Haru-Re is going to know now that Rhys’s loyalty still lies with Seth and Khepesh. Things could get ugly.”
Joss shook her head. “Not if I can help it. I’m getting you all out of here as soon as possible. You and Mom and Dad. And Gemma, too. We’re going back to the States where we belong. Away from this madness.” Now that Seth had been captured and Khepesh was most likely to be destroyed, there was nothing to stop them. Though the thought was surprisingly painful… What would happen to him? Just yesterday she wouldn’t have cared; but now…
No. She couldn’t think about her own feelings. She had to protect her family.
She could feel Gillian’s gaze on her as she reached for a cloth and a basin of hot water from the nightstand and started gently to wash the blood from Seth’s exposed thigh.
“Joss,” Gillian said carefully. “I’m not going back. I love Rhys. Wherever he ends up living, I want to stay with him.”
Josslyn paused in her task and looked at her sister. She saw a mirror of her own growing feelings for Seth, but much, mu
ch stronger because of the time they’d had together. “You’re really serious about this guy.”
Gillian smiled. “Yeah. I am.” Then her expression grew somber. “And about Mom… I don’t really think Dad will want to take her away from Petru. It wouldn’t be…good for her. You haven’t seen how she is, Joss. She’s…” Gillian closed her eyes and got such a pained look on her face that Joss’s heart actually hurt.
She nodded and continued to wash Seth to keep from dissolving into tears. She was old enough to remember how brilliant and vibrant their mother had been when she was with them and still…herself. “I’ve seen shabtis in Khepesh. I was horrified. It breaks my heart to imagine Mom like that. God, how it must be killing Dad. How is he? I want to see them both so badly!”
“He wants to see you, too, sis. But he says he can wait, that you should take care of Seth first. As for how he’s doing…” She gave a sad smile. “He’s dealing pretty well, all things considered. Nephtys has promised to try and find a reversal spell in the library to bring all the shabtis back to themselves.”
Hope soared within Joss as she stroked the wet cloth over Seth’s leg. Imagine having both her parents back, alive and well! Having all of them together again, as a family! And if Seth lived, everything would be perfect again…even if they couldn’t be together. “Oh, Gillian, that would be awesome! Do you really think it’s possible to reverse the spell?”
“I’m praying it is.”
Seth moaned when her ministrations got too close to the arrows, and Joss sent up a prayer for him, too. He just had to survive this! She swallowed down a thick lump of fear for him…and a spurt of guilt.
“I’m so sorry, sweetheart,” she whispered. “Oh, Seth, this is all my fault.”
Gillian raised her eyebrows. “Joss. You know better. Khepesh and Petru have been at war since the dawn of Egyptian civilization. How could this possibly be your fault?”
From her work, Joss was well acquainted with the eternal strife between the gods Set-Sutekh and Re-Horakhti, whom modern scholars call Horus and Seth. Khepesh and Petru were the ancient homes of their followers. But that wasn’t what Joss had meant. If it hadn’t been for her, Seth-Aziz would never have been out tonight in that desert in the first place, naked in bed with his guard down, vulnerable to capture by his enemy.
Joss felt herself blush, and kept her head ducked so Gillian wouldn’t see her red face.
But Gillian was a smart cookie. She let out a choked sound. “Seriously? I’d heard that Seth was caught with a woman…ahem, in flagrante. So that was you? Damn, girl!”
“Sort of,” Joss confessed, chagrined. “We weren’t actually— I mean—” She made a face. “He’d conjured a beautiful bed for us out in the desert, and we were watching the stars and talking when Haru-Re and his men surrounded us.”
Gillian’s brows hiked up further. “Watching the stars and talking, eh?”
“It’s true!”
Their eyes met and they shared a moment of amused sisterly understanding before their gazes both went to Seth’s wound.
“He has to be okay, Jelly Bean. He just has to be. I don’t know what I’ll do if he…” She couldn’t even say it.
“Seth-Aziz is not going to die,” a refined British voice said from the doorway.
“Rhys!” Gillian cried, hurrying to meet a tall, roguishly handsome man as he strode into the suite. It was the same man Joss had seen carrying her unconscious body down from the old tomb on that day last month.
“Did you find out about the poison?” Gillian asked him in a rush. “Is there an antidote?”
He gave her an affectionate peck on the lips. “Slow down, darling. The poison’s not deadly,” he said, including Joss in his glance.
A huge avalanche of relief coursed through her. “So he’ll be all right?” she asked. “Truly?”
Rhys nodded. “Just sick as a dog.”
He strode over to the bed, gave Seth’s wound a quick, efficient study, felt his pulse and blew out a breath. “He’ll do. We just need to get those arrows out of that leg before he wakes up.”
Finally Rhys looked up at Joss. He gave her a disarming smile. “Hello again.” He peered about her, feigning concern. “Should I be worried you have a shotgun hidden somewhere?”
She couldn’t help smiling back. The man was definitely a charmer…when he wasn’t carrying off innocent maidens to preternatural fates.
“Not that my shotgun would do me any good,” she pointed out dryly. “It has an alarming tendency to misfire when I’m around you immortals.”
A grin lightened his face. “Yes. Well. Sorry about that. Couldn’t have you accidentally shooting your sister, now could I?” He gave Gillian an adoring wink. Then his grin faded and he turned back to Seth, examining the entrance wounds of the arrows. “Don’t worry, old man. We’ll have you fixed up right as rain in no time.”
“You’re sure? How long will he be knocked out like this?” Joss asked Rhys, worry rushing back over her.
“Hopefully long enough to extract these nasty things. Seth is an extraordinarily powerful demigod. The good news is he’ll heal quickly. The bad news is he may wake up while I’m working on him. That could be painful.” He winced. “For both of us.”
“You?” Joss and Gillian said in unison. They traded looks. “You’re a doctor?” Joss asked. “Or…have medical training?”
“I was in the British army in Africa in 1885. I did my share of sewing up saber wounds and digging lead from the bodies of my men.” A black shadow passed through his eyes, accompanied by a chill of dark energy that sent goose bumps hurtling over Joss’s arms. “Some of them even lived.”
Oh, God.
He jetted out a breath. “Of course, I wasn’t an immortal back then, and I wielded no magical powers. I’m hoping I won’t actually have to resort to using a knife for this procedure.” His brow beetled. “Damn it all! Nephtys should be here. She’d be able to do this with her eyes closed. Where the hell is she?”
“With Haru-Re,” Joss said. “They were, um, discussing their relationship when I left them.”
Rhys grimaced. “Of all the bloody times to pick.”
“Ray went all postal when Nephtys was more concerned about Seth’s welfare than in Ray’s victory in capturing him,” Joss said.
Gillian rolled her eyes. “Now there’s a shock.”
“She was shocked,” Joss said. “When Haru-Re just now as good as admitted he’s in love with her.”
“Like anybody couldn’t tell that after being in the same room with them for five seconds.”
“About bloody time she opened her eyes,” Rhys muttered. He returned his attention to Seth, who had started to stir. “Right. I’d better do this before he regains consciousness.”
“What about the priestess you sent for?” Joss asked anxiously. “Shouldn’t you wait for her?”
He shook his head. “She’s bringing an elixir that will dull the effects of the poison, but he should be awake to drink it, so he can heal his wounds.”
Joss bit her lip and reached for Seth’s hand again. “You’re sure about this?”
Her sister and Rhys exchanged a look. They both smiled.
“What?” Joss asked, straightening and glancing between them.
“You like him,” Gillian said warmly. “Seth-Aziz.”
“Of course I like him,” Joss returned. “He’s a very interesting man.”
“And handsome,” Gillian pointed out.
“Powerful,” Rhys added.
“Sexy,” Gillian said.
“Intelligent,” Rhys said.
Joss watched the rapid exchange like a ping-pong match.
“Oh, yeah,” Gillian chided. “And you slept with him.”
“And let him bite you, so it must have been good,” Rhys concluded, brows crooking wickedly.
Joss pressed her lips together. “Not that it’s any of your damned business.”
“Oh, it’s very much our business,” Rhys stated. “But that’s a discussion fo
r another time, when Seth is out of the woods.”
“What do you need us to do?” Gillian asked as he sat down on the bed and placed his hands gingerly on the other man’s leg, circling the protruding arrows with a triangle formed by his fingers and thumbs.
“Take both his hands and hold them tight. I’d just as soon not be hit by a bolt of chaos.”
Joss blinked. “A what?”
“Chaos is Seth’s element to call.” When she gave him a blank look, he explained, “When you become immortal, there is always an element that finds you and binds with you, giving you its power, manifesting itself through you. It becomes your element, and you can call on it at will. Shahin’s is earthquakes. Haru-Re has fire. Seth’s element is chaos, and it is an immensely difficult one to master. He is the only immortal ever known to possess it.”
“What is yours?” Joss asked Rhys as he closed his eyes to begin…whatever he planned to do to get the arrows out of Seth.
“Not sure yet.” His lips curved. “I’m still young. I’ve only been immortal for a hundred and twenty years or so. I should begin to get a feel for what my element is in the next few decades.”
Good lord. A hundred and twenty was young?
“Focus your energies,” Rhys instructed, his voice going deep and intense. “Send all your strength and positive thoughts into Seth’s body.”
Great. More woo-woo stuff. Nevertheless, Joss faithfully obeyed. After the past few days, she’d stopped being able to tell what was real and what was mere superstition. Everything seemed to blend as one in this supernatural world. And she would do anything, anything at all, to help bring Seth back to her.
To life, she mentally corrected.
He didn’t belong to her, she reminded herself. He didn’t want to belong to her. Except for short intervals, while they were in bed. He’d said so several times. That last proposal—if you could even call it that—was just because of the sex. And the council’s orders.
Which was fine. Because she didn’t want to belong to him, either.