by Nina Bruhns
“Ray!” Nephtys cried, pulling at her arms, betrayal flaying her expression. “What is this? Tell them to let me go!”
“Meruati,” Haru-Re said soothingly, coming over to Nephtys and gently putting his hand against her cheek. He kissed her and said, “It’s all right. It’s just for show. I would never let my men harm you, you must know that. But play along with me now. If Seth-Aziz thinks his sister and his chosen consort are both in mortal danger, he will surrender without a fight. No one will be hurt or killed.”
Oh, please.
Despite her quaking limbs, Joss barely resisted snorting. Surely, Nephtys wasn’t falling for that load? She might be in love, but she wasn’t stupid.
“I am not Seth’s chosen consort!” Joss yelled at him as a distraction, to give the priestess a chance to get hold of herself and think straight. Besides, she was really getting tired of everyone saying that. Were they all deaf and blind? “Seth-Aziz doesn’t give a damn about me, so your plan won’t work!”
He spared her a narrowed glance. “That’s not what I’ve heard. But even if it’s true, your sisters will hardly let him sacrifice you.”
Oh, God. Her pulse took off at a tear. For a second she’d forgotten Gemma and Gillian were with Seth. But Ray’s assessment was correct. Her sisters would cut off Seth’s head themselves before letting anything happen to her.
“You’re wrong,” she bluffed, but even to herself the statement lacked conviction. She looked to Nephtys for aid. If they were going to get out of this, it would have to be through her influence.
Nephtys gazed at Haru-Re with an expression so wounded that Joss thought his heart must be made of stone. “I can’t believe you’re doing this,” the priestess lamented, tears welling in her eyes. “You said you love me. You said you want to make me the happiest woman in the history of time!”
The hardness of his face shifted, and with a sigh he signaled her captors to let her go. His voice softened as he took her hands and kissed her knuckles. “I do, my only heart. I want to lay the world at your feet. To give you the bright sun and the two horizons and all the goodness that enlightenment brings. But you have to see, to do that I must claim victory over Khepesh and Seth-Aziz.”
“Why?” Joss demanded desperately, when it looked like Nephtys might cave at his pretty promises. “You already have all that. What does eliminating Khepesh do for you, other than satisfy your insatiable greed for power?”
Fury swept over Ray’s features. Lightning flashed overhead, lighting up the darkening sky over the palace. “By the love of Horus, you are insolent!”
The grip of his warriors tightened.
He slashed up a hand and boomed, “Hold her up so her lover can see what he risks with this attack!”
She screamed in terror as his men obeyed, lifting her high over the upper parapet. They were at least three stories above the ground, of which a narrow band around the foot of the wall was covered with large, sharp rocks that had been arranged in colorful, beautiful patterns. But from her perspective they looked positively lethal. No doubt even immortals who fell onto their jagged points would be smashed beyond healing.
Oh, God!
She wanted to twist and jerk herself free, but one slip of her captors’ fingers and she would bounce off the wall and plunge to an instant, horrible death.
She stifled another scream when they thrust her far out over the wall’s edge, and a circle of brightness appeared around her as though she were lit up by a floodlight. She held her breath, praying for her life.
She knew Seth must have heard her screams through their blood connection and could feel her abject fear. As proof, the gait of his stallion faltered and he wheeled about, peering up and yelling to those around him. His muscular horse reared and pawed the air as he reined it in and stared straight up at her across the thousand yards of desert that still separated them.
The warriors charging at full tilt behind him wheeled their mounts away in confusion to avoid mowing him down. Against the fast-dimming orange and yellow of the sunset’s last glow, she could see Shahin’s silhouette gallop along the front line, shouting orders so the army slowed and eventually came to a chaotic standstill.
Sweet Jesus.
Joss forced herself not to look down. Told herself not to search out her sisters in the distant turmoil. But it was impossible. They were much closer now, and she saw clearly when Gillian and Gemma converged on Seth and started to argue and gesticulate at her and then him. He didn’t appear to answer, didn’t even seem to hear them, just continued to stare up at her hanging there like a Christmas angel as his stallion reared and chomped at its bit to start the charge again.
Seth wasn’t the only one being yelled at. Behind her, she heard Nephtys argue with Ray.
“—barbaric! I will not go along with this savagery! I never believed the awful things they said about you, always thought you were a good man beneath it all, but now I—”
“Enough of this!” Ray shouted. Joss cringed as bolts of lightning flashed through the sky above, now darkened nearly to black. “Your brother can go straight to the fires of Hades! He is the one attacking me, in case you missed noticing!”
“Because you’ve been threatening Khepesh for weeks! And you took Seth prisoner!” she argued back just as vehemently. “He probably thought you were going to execute him and burn his palace to the ground!”
There was a silent pause, and Joss wished like hell she could turn around and see what was happening. But when she heard Nephtys gasp, it wasn’t hard to guess.
“Blessed Hathor!” Nephtys cried. “You were going to kill him! Oh, Ray, you promised me you’d back away from this horrible feud if I consented to wed right away!”
“I’ll back away when that viper of a brother of yours is nailed into his fancy coffin,” he shot back. “Permanently!”
Joss heard Nephtys gasp even louder. “And what about Josslyn?” The priestess’s question wavered with anguish. “Do you plan to execute her, too? To let your minions drop her from this parapet to her death?”
Omigod. Dread swamped over Joss, and an unbidden sound of dismay escaped her throat. Did Nephtys have to bring that up? She squeezed her eyes shut against the burning tears that threatened to break loose.
“Killing the daughter of one of my immortals is the last thing I want to do,” Ray clipped out. “But Josslyn Haliday’s fate is now firmly in the hands of Seth-Aziz.”
In a strangled tone, Nephtys protested, “No. I won’t let you. If you do this awful thing, Ray, I swear I’ll—”
“You are mine now!” he barked at her. “And you will do as I say!”
Joss heard Nephtys swallow audibly. “So that’s how it is. I thought you were willing to change, for me, Ray. To stop this never-ending madness, because you love me,” she said, in almost a whisper. “But I can see now I was wrong. So very wrong.”
“Nephtys—” he began impatiently.
But he never got the chance to finish.
Because Nephtys went calmly to the edge of the battlement and stepped up onto the parapet next to Joss. The priestess smiled sadly at her and whispered, “I’m so sorry.”
And then she jumped.
Chapter 22
“Noooo!”
Seth could not stifle the anguished roar that erupted from him as his sister stepped over the side of Petru palace wall and started to fall toward the earth. His heart screamed, tortured, because he could never get there in time to save her.
Even so, he lunged from his saddle, shifting before he hit the ground. He changed to an eagle, flying as swift as an arrow toward her. Perhaps he could—
But before he reached her, a huge, scaly monster with giant wings swooped under her falling body and caught her on its back.
Haru-Re had shifted into a golden dragon just in time to save Nephtys.
Swallowing down his thundering heart from his throat, Seth’s eagle flew close and circled the beast to make sure his sister was all right.
She was quietly weeping and c
linging to the dragon’s neck as Haru-Re winged her back up to the top of the rampart…where Seth saw that Josslyn was finally being hauled back in over the parapet by the bastard warriors who’d held her over the edge.
Fury the likes of which he’d never known burst through him. By the gods, he would avenge this outrage!
Suddenly he saw that Josslyn was not tracking Haru-Re and Nephtys’s progress through the sky, but his own…the only person of the dozens gathered on the ramparts whose eyes were on the lone bird of prey rather than the dramatic rescue. Did she know the circling eagle was Seth?
He swooped closer.
Josslyn’s face was a portrait of worry as she shook her head at him and frantically tried to wave him off.
He didn’t think so.
As the dragon landed on the battlement with its precious burden, Seth spun down after them and shifted. He landed on his feet in front of Josslyn, his back to her and his sword gripped in his hand, ready to cut anyone to ribbons who tried to come between them.
With a roar, he unleashed his element. Chaos descended on the warriors of Petru, both on the high ramparts and those beyond the wall of the palace. Their camels broke ranks and started to run amok, spitting and bucking off their riders, who scurried back into the palace in a jumble of confusion.
In the middle of it all, unaffected, Seth and Haru-Re squared off. Nephtys was still weeping, an arm held up defensively across her face as the dragon stood on its hind legs and gathered her in with its wing. Flame poured from its mouth, licking at the sphere of protection that Seth had thrown up around himself and Josslyn. He could feel her behind him, hands shakily gripping his tunic, fingers digging into the flesh of his arms.
The air was electric with dark power. It roiled and churned around them, whipping up in a hot, foreboding breeze that burned at his skin.
Seth wanted to grab Nephtys away from the beast that was Haru-Re and flee with her and Josslyn back to Khepesh and safety. But he couldn’t reach his sister. Not tucked as she was under the wing of the fire-breathing monster. Not without leaving Josslyn open to harm.
And he would not risk Josslyn.
Nor would he leave Nephtys.
Haru-Re raised up and roared back, fire bursting forth from his mouth, preternatural energy spraying from every shiny scale on his huge body. He must kill the beast. Seth summoned every ounce of strength he possessed and every last vestige of magical power and lifted his sword high above his head.
He may die this night, but by the balls of Mithra he would take Haru-Re with him!
They each took a step toward the other, faces set in masks of hatred. He started to swing his sword.
“Stop!” Josslyn’s authoritative command cut through the night air, for the second time startling both Seth and Haru-Re into halting in their tracks.
She shoved around him and stood with her fists bunched on her hips, staring the two of them down like the very image of Isis.
“Are you both insane? Why? Why are you doing this?” she demanded.
He and Haru-Re glared at each other for a split second, then swung their gazes to the mortal woman who had dared to interfere.
By the gods, it would take a thousand years to list all the reasons for the eternal battle between Seth and Haru-Re. Between Khepesh and Petru. Between darkness and light.
And yet, as he thought about them, each of those infinite reasons slowly withered and paled in Seth’s mind, leaving but a single one: the fact that Haru-Re was threatening the two women Seth loved more than life itself.
Standing here today, expecting to die, ready to die, he realized there was only one thing that mattered in this world.
Love.
Everything else was meaningless.
“Get behind me, woman,” he ordered Josslyn, suddenly terrified he would lose her at the exact moment he finally understood what Nephtys had been telling him all along.
Josslyn Haliday is your soul mate.
“No,” she said, stubborn to the last.
Sekhmet’s teeth! He wanted to grab her and—
Nephtys wriggled out from under Haru-Re’s dragon wing and ran over to Josslyn. They wrapped their arms around each other and stood their ground, united against him and Haru-Re.
“Josslyn’s right,” Nephtys said tearfully. “You are both so blind! I can’t stand this!”
With a swirl of golden scales, Haru-Re shifted back to his human form. But instead of the fire-breathing fury Seth had expected to see on the face of his enemy, he saw only bewilderment and dismay as Ray turned toward Nephtys.
“Why did you do it, meruati? Why in the name of the gods did you jump like that?”
Her eyes filled, and she looked miserable. “Because I can’t stand by and watch the two men I love kill each other! I would rather die than to have to choose one of you over the other.”
Her words stabbed at Seth’s heart. Hadn’t he just thought exactly the same thing about her and Josslyn?
“What would you have us do?” Ray demanded hoarsely. Seth frowned, wondering where this was coming from.
Josslyn’s shoulders squared. “Make peace,” she said, the words echoing loudly across the battlement.
“Now it’s you who’s insane,” Ray ground out, more like himself, casting a sidelong glance at Seth. Then Ray looked back at Nephtys and beckoned to her. “Come to me, my heart. Please. I need you with me.”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I can’t. Not unless I know things will be different between you and my brother.”
“But I don’t see how that’s possible!” Ray said, spilling frustrated sparks from his fingertips.
“I’m told,” Josslyn interjected, “that you two are the last of the vampire demigods. That once there were dozens of you, and hundreds of peru netjeru flourishing in Egypt. Thousands of shemsu keeping the ancient rituals. Now they’re all gone. Only Khepesh and Petru are left. Do either of you really want to be the last one standing in this twilight of the gods?”
“Of course!” Haru-Re said in bafflement, obviously not getting the nuance of what she was saying. “Who wouldn’t want to be the sole ruler of the immortal world?”
“Me,” Seth answered with a tired sigh. Frankly, he didn’t care either way. He just wanted the followers of Set-Sutekh to be left to live as they wished, with no interference from the outside world and no fears of their home being attacked or taken over by a megalomaniac demigod.
Haru-Re frowned at him. “I don’t believe you.”
Seth shrugged. “It’s true. I am bone-weary of this eternal struggle for dominion. I miss the friends who have been taken. I despair of the old gods ever returning, and I yearn to spend the rest of my nights puzzling the meaning of life, wrapped in the arms of my beloved.”
He glanced at Josslyn, who was listening with parted lips and a look of hopeful wonder shining in her eyes. She swallowed and turned back to Ray. “You see? You’ve been fighting all this time for something that is now freely offered for a word of conciliation.”
Ray’s gaze sought Nephtys and hesitated a long moment. As though he understood the import of his response to his future with her.
“This…this is what I’ve wanted for as long as I can remember. To be the sole demigod left on earth. To have the power and magic of this world at my fingertips. To be the ruler of all the immortals and spread the golden light of dawn throughout the land.”
“Yes,” Nephtys said wistfully. “I knew that.”
“But,” he continued, “I would give it all up, meruati, if that is your wish. You are more important to me than any possession or promise of power. I don’t want to lose you a second time. I couldn’t bear it. Please say you’ll come back to me.”
Seth could see the heart of his sister melt completely. “Do you mean it?”
“With all my heart.”
“Then I will. Oh, Ray, I will.”
“And by the crown of Horus, please Nephtys, swear you’ll never, ever jump from a place higher than two feet again.”
A slow smile curved her lips. “My sweetest love, I knew you’d catch me. I know you’ll always catch me, Ray.”
The Guardian of the Sun looked stunned. “That’s a hell of a lot of trust to have in a man like me.”
“Yes,” she said softly. “It is.”
Chapter 23
The two armies were recalled, and at dawn the next morning a joint Great Council meeting was convened, where Joss’s plan was to be argued by the leaders of Khepesh and Petru.
It seemed like a no-brainer to her. But then again, she was the new kid on the block. Her sisters, however, agreed with her, so she was pretty sure it was a good plan. Gillian and Gemma sat in the audience with their men, lending moral support as Joss explained her solution to the somewhat stunned—and very suspicious—councils of the two peru netjeru.
“Set-Sutekh is the God of Darkness and Lord of the Night Sky,” Josslyn said after a few words of greeting and introduction. “Re-Horakhti is Lord of Light and God of the Sun.”
“Everyone already knows all that,” one particularly cantankerous old goat pointed out immediately.
“So then the answer is obvious,” she continued undaunted. “Rule jointly. Khepesh shall be masters of the night, and Petru will reign during the day.” She smiled. It was so easy. That they hadn’t put this in place themselves about four thousand years ago was flabbergasting.
Still, every member of both councils frowned.
“That’s it?” one asked, to head shakes and murmurs from the rest. “That’s your answer?”
“In all its simplicity. Really, what more is needed?” She knew there were issues to be solved, but really, people. Share or die. Didn’t they see that?
The cantankerous goat rose to his feet. “Ridiculous. This addresses nothing,” he pronounced, starting to leave.
Gemma, the cultural anthropologist and born mediator, prompted her with a nod from the back of the room.
“Naturally,” Joss continued, “the Great Councils will have to hammer out the details, so everything is divided fairly between you. That is an immense responsibility, which will take all the intelligence and skill of both councils to accomplish.”