Shadow of the Sheikh

by Nina Bruhns

  She tried in vain to stop the sudden trembling in her limbs that whispered she should take her mare and gallop away as far and as fast as she possibly could, no matter how dangerous the wilderness was after sunset. Because she had a sinking feeling that going anywhere with this man, regardless of the time of day, would be far more hazardous to her body and soul than any snakes and scorpions could ever be.

  But the steely arm that banded around her midriff told her loud and clear she wouldn’t be going anywhere he didn’t want her to go. Not tonight, anyway.

  She eased out an unsteady breath. Okay. One night, she told herself. She could let him have his way for one night. It wasn’t like she hadn’t already tacitly agreed to it. Or that she didn’t want it. Because she did. It made no sense at all, but she wasn’t afraid of him that way—not physically, not sexually. His hands on her body were not hard or cruel. Their touch spoke of gentle persuasion and breathtaking skill, not of force.

  She would give him tonight. But in the morning…in the morning she was so out of there. No matter how amazingly sexy and tempting the man was.

  Because the whole shape-shifting death warrior thing? That scared the living daylights out of her.

  Chapter 7

  Nephtys was terrified to go to sleep.

  After the upsetting vision she’d had of surrendering herself to Haru-Re at Petru, she was certain he must have discovered a way to bespell her through her dreams. It was the only explanation—if the vision was a true premonition of the future.

  Unfortunately, her visions were seldom wrong.

  But this one must be! She would never desert Seth-Aziz or Khepesh. Never willingly give herself over to her brother’s enemy. To her own betrayer. Never!

  Ray must have found some insidious way to influence her actions by appearing in her dreams.

  She touched the bite marks on her neck and shivered, tamping down the sexual response that coursed through her body at the light touch on her skin. She’d barely slept since his disturbingly erotic nocturnal visits last week, when he’d left his mark on her…in her…

  Meruati, he’d whispered seductively as he’d made love to her in her dream. Come back to me. I need you. I want you here by my side. Come to Petru…

  Lies! All lies!

  He didn’t want her. But he did need her. Or rather, he needed her magical powers. His numbers at Petru were dwindling, and Nephtys was the only priestess left alive who knew the spell that would grant a human immortality. Ray’s seduction was purely self-interest, nothing to do with any tender feelings for her. She knew that.

  It mattered not that she was in love with him. Love meant nothing to a man like Haru-Re. Even in her own heart, the line was thin between love and hate.

  She squeezed her eyes shut and leaned back among the floor pillows of her meditation room, exhausted. If only she could make it to sunset. Ray was the high priest of the Sun God Re-Horakhti, Guardian of the Morning Light; the chances of his venturing abroad at night were far less than during the day. But she didn’t think she could hold out much longer.

  What would happen if he came to her again?

  Would he make her do things, promise things, that would complicate her life even further? Or ruin it altogether? She let out a soft moan of despair.

  “Why do you fight me so, meruati?”

  She gasped and sat up, whirling to the deep rumble of his voice. He lay stretched out among her pillows, his tall, athletic body reposing like a lion at rest. Relaxed, elegant, lethally dangerous.

  “Ray!” She scuttled backward, heart pounding.

  “How did you get in here?”

  He regarded her with a mysterious smile. “You invited me.”

  “I didn’t.” This was one time she fervently wished the old myth about having to invite a vampire into one’s home were true.

  She glanced toward the door, wondering what the chances were that she could shift and make it out of the room before he caught her. She loved her sleek feline body, but there were times she wished she had chosen her Set-animal more wisely. A temple cat had few defenses against the likes of one who could become any creature he wished.

  “Don’t even try,” he admonished calmly, as though reading her mind. “Your fluffy kitty is no match for the savage beasts I can call forth. I wouldn’t want to hurt you.”

  Too late, she thought bleakly.

  “You needn’t shift to be a savage beast, Ray,” she retorted.

  He chuckled, completely unoffended by the insult. “I am rather magnificently forbidding, aren’t I?”

  The man’s ego was colossal. How she found him the least bit attractive was a mystery for the ages. Except, of course, that he was attractive. Unreasonably so.

  “What do you want from me?” she ground out, sticking her hands under her armpits to keep him from seeing them shake.

  “Oh, I think you know what I want.”

  In the blink of an eye he was in front of her on his knees, reaching out to pull her body up and into his arms.

  “No!” she cried, pushing him away. It took all her strength and willpower. “I don’t want you here. I don’t want you.”

  “We both know that’s not true,” he said, the air around him beginning to spark, as it invariably did when his temper piqued. “I’ve never had to force myself on you, meruati. Come. Put aside this distasteful coyness and welcome me properly.”

  His mouth came down on hers and she groaned in dismay. Her powers were no match for his. Nor was her resolve. She couldn’t win this skirmish. But she had to try.

  She turned her head, breaking the kiss. “Tell me how you got in here and I’ll consider your plea.”

  He wrapped his big hand around the back of her neck and brushed his thumb over the bite marks he’d left on her throat last week. An electric spangle of carnal desire shimmered through her and she let out an unwilling moan. It was a deliberate demonstration of his power over her, she knew that. She also knew she had little defense against him, should he decide to just take what he wanted rather than negotiate.

  “An ancient spell,” he conceded when she’d all but forfeited the win. “On a scroll long forgotten.”

  He gazed into her eyes and she forced herself not to look away. Daring him to glamour her. “Then I must find the spell’s reversal, mustn’t I?”

  Slowly he smiled, but didn’t take up her gauntlet. “By the Orb, I have missed you, woman,” he murmured. “No one else dares talk back or disobey my command. Your bravery excites me. Along with your incredible beauty, of course.”

  She battled back the seductive effect of his words and scooted away from him. “Odd that it took five thousand years for you to realize such a profound attraction.” The bitterness in her observation rang loud and clear.

  His lips twitched, his dark eyes following her as she pulled away and flopped down among the pillows again. He said, “Perhaps it is my two newest initiates who remind me of feelings I have long repressed.”

  For a microsecond, her heart stalled. Repressed? But that would imply they actually dwelled in his heart, which she knew to be patently false. “You speak of Lord Kilpatrick and Lady Gillian?”

  In a graceful movement, Ray eased his tall frame down on his side next to her, head resting on a palm above his bent elbow. Far too close for comfort. “Their love for one another is…inspirational. That they are willing to incur the wrath of a demigod to stay together is a testament to the depth of their devotion.”

  So they were in Petru. She’d sought a vision of their whereabouts but had not succeeded. Visions were fickle; she knew that only too well. As was devotion…

  “More like stupidity,” she returned. “Seth is very angry at their defection.”

  Ray’s eyes narrowed. “And yet he has not put a price on their heads. Why is that, I wonder?”

  “Because of my vision,” she answered, semi-truthfully. No doubt they had already told him their reasons for fleeing Khepesh, so lying about that was futile. Better to be straight and not make him suspicio
us. They wouldn’t know of the possible revision to her prophecy. “She is my brother’s future consort.”

  “I rather doubt that,” he said, his long fingers toying with the folds of her gown.

  “Do not think for a moment we won’t get her back,” she said, yanking it away from him. “Seth is quite determined.” Regardless of her position at the temple.

  A dusting of sparkles wafted over his hand. His lashes lowered a fraction. “Perhaps a trade could be arranged. The lady Gillian…for you.”

  She snorted. “Dream on. It will never happen. Seth-Aziz will never betray me as you did.”

  Ray’s eyes flared, then went flat. “No need. Kilpatrick has become one of my lieutenants and has already shared many of Khepesh’s secrets with us. Be wise about your loyalties, my love. It is only a matter of time before I am once again your lord and master, and the one to decide your fate for all eternity.”

  A shiver worked its way up her spine. To her dismay, it was unclear to her whether it was a shiver of horror…or excitement.

  As if in answer, he reached out and ran his fingertips along her cheek and down her throat, again brushing over the bite marks he’d left there. Her addiction flared to life and an agonizing surge of desire swamped through her. This time he didn’t let up. Caressing them steadily with his thumb, he slid his fingers around her neck and, oh, so slowly, he leaned over her. As she watched, his fangs lengthened and sharpened. Her heartbeat took off into the stratosphere.

  “No,” she whispered, but even to herself it sounded like a breathless plea of “yes.”

  He scraped the loose sleeve of her gown down off her shoulder, leaving her throat, chest and upper arm bare and exposed. He dipped under the wide neckline and found her breast with his palm and cupped it. A surge of want shot through her whole being.

  She held her breath, anticipating the touch of his mouth that would send her body into a conflagration of pleasure. But he was a cruel lover and withheld it, holding back for long, endless moments until she thought she would go mad for want of it. Of him. He held his lips over her, a fraction above, never touching her skin, moving with excruciating slowness down to her breast. The warmth of his breath was like the sun on her skin, the suss of her own blood crying to burst free of her veins and into his mouth like a chant in her ears. Finally, finally, he extended his tongue and put the moist tip of it to her breast. She cried out, her body bowing up in blissful want. She pushed her aching nipple into his mouth. He enveloped it and sucked, his fangs piercing her flesh in a sting of pleasure-pain.

  She came up off the bed. And detonated in a mind-shattering orgasm. Which was over all too quickly, leaving her just as needy—a mind trick of her addiction for the vampire’s kiss. Each climax only enhanced her greed for the next.

  He shifted to the other breast, and the agonizing pleasure swept her up into its clutches again. She cried his name and she felt him smile against her flesh. And then she shattered again.

  When it was over, their clothes were gone and he was between her thighs, fisting his cock in readiness to come into her.

  “Who is your lord and master?” he demanded, his voice gritty with his own need.

  She looked up at him, her body screaming for his possession. “Seth-Aziz,” she forced herself to answer.

  A burst of fireworks exploded above them, showering down in pinpricks of heat on her skin. Angrily, Ray pressed the head of his cock against her slick opening, stopping just short of entrance. She saw stars, her body aching in an agony of want.

  “Please,” she begged.

  His eyes narrowed. “Who is your lord and master, Nephtys? Take care how you answer!”

  She swallowed. Hanging on to her will by a thread. “Seth-Aziz!” she croaked past the heart-lump throbbing in her throat.

  A crack of lightning lit up the room. Ray’s eyes flashed with fury. “I can crush you like a scarab beetle, meruati,” he growled. “I can burn you with my fire and suck the life from your veins if you do not tell me what I want to hear!”

  “Then do it!” she spat out. “Kill me and watch your shemsu dwindle and your per netjer slowly die! If I am gone, it will be the end of immortality for all the ancients! Go on! Drain me of my life! I am past caring,” she cried.

  But she knew he would not. Could not. His first duty was to his god. Not his ego, as vast as it was.

  He would not ask for her allegiance again. Three times said aloud was an unbreakable oath to Seth-Aziz. Ray dare not risk it.

  But that did not mean she wouldn’t pay for her defiance.

  “You will regret this,” he ground out. “For I intend to have you! To own you. And when you are again my slave, by the rod of Osiris, you shall not defy me!”

  Bolts of brilliant light strobed from Haru-Re’s fingers as they curled into the flesh of her arm and drove into the mass of her hair. His body crushed onto hers, spreading her trembling thighs with his muscular legs. He held her fast, unable to move.

  Then his mouth was on her neck. She cried out as his fangs stabbed into her. Amidst a surrounding blaze of dazzling radiance, he plunged his cock deep into her. And—may the gods have pity on her—she rejoiced.

  Chapter 8

  “Wow. This is what you call a camp?”

  At Gemma’s fascinated question, Shahin glanced from where they’d paused at the top of the dunes and down to the place he’d called home for the past three-hundred-odd years.

  “Why? What would you call it?” he asked, trying to see it through her eyes. Wondering if her impression was a good one or bad one.

  The camp was situated in a rare permanent desert oasis, tucked into a narrow, sheltered valley in the midst of the sea of massive dunes, a vivid patch of green grass and tall, elegant palms, flowering plants and rippling pools of crystal-blue water. A few dozen multipeaked nomad tents were scattered along the verdant shore, brightly decorated in patterns of red and blue, with hanging tassels and fluttering pennants. Each tent had an awning that stretched out from the front door, under which mounds of pillows lay scattered about on thick Persian carpets. The porches were arranged facing west, toward the daily battle between darkness and light—the one which darkness always won.

  “It looks like something straight out of Burton’s Arabian Nights,” she murmured.

  “Does that mean you approve?” he asked, more curious than anything else. Other women he’d brought here had not been so impressed. Not by the camp, at any rate. The awe had come later.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said.

  Shahin agreed. And he thought it even more so from the reflected colors of the impending night—reds and oranges like the ripening skins of sweet Nubian grapefruits against the cobalt of the sky.

  The woman had once again managed to surprise him.

  As his small troop rode into the oasis, they were met by several servants and a handful of smiling women bearing cups of water. After they dismounted, Shahin accepted two cups and passed one to Gemma.

  “Cut the dust with this, and then we shall have cocktails as we watch the nightfall,” he told her. The sun was nearing the horizon, and it was custom in camp to watch the golden arc in its daily defeat by the power of the Lord of Night.

  He drank down his water in a gulp, tossed his bisht and turban to one of the servants, then called over to a boy standing nearby. “Take care of madam’s horse,” he instructed. “You know what to do, yes?”

  “Yes, my lord!” The boy ran off, a grin on his face to have been so entrusted.

  “Cocktails?” Gemma asked, brow raised, as he led her over to a large tent.

  “There is no sharia law here,” he said, running his fingers through his hair. “We keep the old ways, with no proscription against alcohol. In any case, I am Coptic, not Muslim.”

  She tipped her head in puzzlement. “You’re Christian? Not a follower of Set-Sutekh, as the Shahin legend says?”

  So he was still being tested.

  “I am, indeed, one of the shemsu, a follower. And I am a Christian as wel
l,” he returned, and invited her to sit with him under his front canopy. “I see no contradiction.” He arranged a pile of pillows behind his back and stretched out his legs. It was good to be home. “This is Egypt, a land where—”

  But Gemma wasn’t listening. She was gaping at the camels—what was left of them. They were slowly dissolving, swirling like mist into thin air.

  “They are ghost camels,” he explained, reminding himself this was all new to her. “Not real.”

  She blinked. “But…but we were just riding them! They were solid and…”

  “Conjured. It comes in handy when one must shift back to human form unexpectedly, as today. We are immortal, but twenty miles on foot across the desert is not my idea of a pleasant afternoon stroll.”

  She swallowed. And dropped abruptly down onto the pillows next to him. She ran a hand over her eyes, and he could see her fingers were shaking a little. “This is insane.”

  She drew a deep breath and looked him in the eyes. “You really are what you say. Aren’t you?” But it wasn’t a question, but more of a rasped statement of reluctant acceptance. Finally.

  “Yes,” he said. “It is true.”

  Just then, the servant reappeared carrying a drinks tray, and another with a low brass table, which were arranged on the rug between him and Gemma. Then the servants bowed and melted away. Shahin picked up the pitcher, poured a splash of pinkish liquid into two stemmed glasses and handed her one. “Here. You’ll feel better after a few sips.”

  “Martinis?” she asked, looking at the time-honored shape of the glasses half-amused, half-incredulous.

  He smiled and shrugged, settling back to watch the drama unfolding before them. The glowing golden ball of the sun was just disappearing behind the crest of the highest dune, the air around it shimmering with the dying heat of the day. Fingers of indigo darkness stretched across the sky, reaching, reaching to snuff out the dimming light as it had for an eternity, and would for another.

  He lifted his glass in a toast. “What can I say. I had a good British friend who was a very bad influence.”