Heart Of Darkness
Page 27
Tameri cried out, arching her back as she accepted him. He began to move inside her, withdrawing only to drive into her again and again as she clasped her legs around his hips.
At first there was only the pleasure and lust, scattering every other thought and sensation as the wind scatters chaff. It was only Tameri’s green eyes he saw, her flushed face, her lips parted on moans of ecstasy. Only his own body he felt, the easy shift of muscle, the blood fierce in his veins, the hunger to brand her forever as his alone.
But it could not last. The other presence flowed into his mind: Asar, claiming what Maahes had freely offered. Instinct cried for him to resist, to guard his own soul against invasion.
Tameri saw the doubt in his eyes. She clasped her arms around his neck and drew his face close to her.
“We will never be parted,” she whispered.
He saw the change in her as she let go, welcoming Aset into her soul. He, too, gave way. Asar became a part of him, taking hold of his limbs and his heart and his mind.
But he was still there. And as he loved Tameri, Asar loved Aset, moving in that most ancient of rhythms, bringing her to the very edge of a boundless river of joy and fulfillment. He was present as Aset-Tameri tightened her thighs about his hips, raking her nails across his back as he worked more deeply. The magic spiraled about them, cool and blue and impenetrable.
And yet not strong enough. Their enemy had not conceded defeat. Maahes heard his roaring, and the drumming of his bloodred sorcery against the barrier Asar and Aset had shaped out of their eternal love. It was like the scorching point of a spear striking a shield again and again, searching for the one weak spot where it could break through.
Sutekh’s only hope was to prevent the final embrace that would bind the gods to their avatars and lend them physical form at last. And he was beginning to succeed. The coolness gave way to warmth, bright silver heated in a blazing fire.
Little by little Asar began to weaken. His spirit retreated, and it was as if a great hole had opened up in Maahes’s mind, collapsing in upon itself, stealing far more than life. Tameri’s eyes dulled as Aset lost her way.
Fight, Maahes told himself, told her. Fight.
Perhaps it was only the desire to live that gave him new strength. Perhaps it was something far more powerful, forged so deep within the heart that nothing so insignificant as fear could touch it. But the strength flowed back into Maahes, a mortal strength, at once fragile and invincible.
Tameri felt it. She held him, vulnerable and formidable, reaching for the great Truth that even the vast chasm of Sutekh’s evil could not penetrate. Maahes reached beneath the couch and shook the scroll from his kilt. He got to his feet and unrolled it, beginning to speak the words of the final segment even before he could read them.
The earth shook, and the gods who walked the frescoed walls, hidden behind the figures of Sutekh that had been painted over them, came alive. They burst through the skin of new pigment, their flat figures swelling to three dimensions, and turned upon Sutekh as one, raising staffs and crooks and flails as they circled him with chants in tongues known only to the life-giving soil of the Nile itself.
Their intervention bought only a few precious moments. Maahes set down the scroll and returned to the couch. Tameri opened herself again, and Maahes thrust with greater and greater urgency. Tameri’s gasps drowned the gods’ chanting and Sutekh’s howls of rage. She shuddered and cried out as Leo brought her to climax. The overwhelming pleasure took him, and Asar returned, sweeping through Maahes like a clean, bracing wind…a wind that scoured the tomb, carrying with it the rare blessing of rain. The fire of Sutekh’s fury sizzled and went out.
Then there was silence. Asar embraced Aset as the sun embraces the earth, life united to life, the end of the long night of separation. Aset lay quietly, her breath coming more slowly as she stroked Asar’s arms.
Through eyes no longer entirely his own, Maahes looked about the chamber. Sutekh was gone, and only a pile of ash lay where he had been standing. The other gods had returned to their walls, but there were subtle differences in their postures. Everything Maahes had seen was real. Sutekh had been defeated.
But Maahes knew his time, too, was ending. His and Tameri’s. Soon there would be nothing left of them but a memory. That had been the bargain, the price for restoring Asar and Aset to their guardianship of the world.
Let me see her once more, he begged the god. Let me see her with my own eyes.
Asar withdrew. Not far, but just enough. Leo cupped Tameri’s face in his hand and kissed her with infinite tenderness.
“Leo?”
“I’m here.”
She smiled and stroked his hair. “It was beyond anything I could have imagined,” she said.
“You are more beautiful than the lotus flower.”
“And you are more powerful than the lion.”
He closed his eyes. “I am only a man.”
“My love.” She touched his eyelids. “Do not weep. We may forget ourselves, but we shall never forget each other.”
“If only I had known you when you were young. When we could have—”
Her finger crossed his lips. “We had an eternity.”
When he opened his eyes, her own had grown dim and distant. Aset was taking her again, and this time there would be no retreat.
Leo kissed her one last time and released his tenuous hold on his body. Asar filled the shell that had once belonged to him, filled his mind with thoughts and emotions beyond those any mortal could hope to grasp. Leo slipped his hand through Tameri’s and let himself die.
TAMERI WOKE SLOWLY, Leo’s steady breathing close to her ear. His arm was sprawled across her breasts, his legs entangled with hers. Sourceless light permeated the chamber, the healing warmth of Re as his celestial boat rose from beneath the horizon.
“Leo?”
He murmured an unintelligible protest.
“Leo, wake up.”
Her ear tingled as he teased it with his tongue. “What time is it?”
“Dawn.”
He stretched, his hand coming to rest on her breast. “Where are we?”
For a moment Tameri couldn’t answer. She knew this place. And as the light moved through the chamber, she remembered.
She sat up, earning another protest from Leo. “Tameri, come back to—”
“We should not be here.”
With a rumble of exasperation he sat up, as well, twisting to gather her against him. “Where is ‘here’?” But as he glanced at the walls and the ash and the square doorway, he stiffened and tightened his hold.
“Where are they?”
Tameri turned inward, seeking the goddess. “I don’t know.”
Leo breathed in the scent of her hair. “They let us live.”
A great grief washed over Tameri. “But why? They have waited thousands of years for reunion, for the chance to—”
Do not grieve, my daughter.
“Aset?”
I am here. As Asar is here.
Tameri clutched Leo’s hand. “Do you hear them?”
“Yes.” He squeezed her fingers. “Asar.” He lifted his head. “Why? Why didn’t you take us?”
There was no need, Asar said. It was your strength that defeated Sutekh, not ours.
“But the scroll…” Leo began.
It was but a tool, said Aset. A tool left for one who would understand when the time was right. Without your love, it would have been useless against Sutekh.
“Then why are you here?”
This incarnation is a gift you have given us. A gift you may yet choose to reclaim.
“I don’t understand,” Leo said.
But Tameri did. The Good Gods spoke, not of sacrifice, but of the gift of life. The gift that would permit them to dwell in mortal bodies, not as usurpers, but as partners.
Tameri met Leo’s gaze and saw comprehension wake in his eyes. If they permitted it, Asar and Aset would walk upon the earth as part of them, a part of their souls, never
to die.
In exchange, Aset said, you will have wisdom and abilities greater than those of mortal men. You will live long. You will stand for the good and fight evil wherever you may find it.
And when Sutekh comes again, as someday he will, Aset said, we will be there.
The bargain they offered was generous. But the drawbacks were plain. Tameri and Leo would never be entirely alone.
“We were prepared to give up everything,” Leo said, caressing her shoulders with his lean, calloused hands. “If you…stay with me—”
Tameri hadn’t believed that there would be a future, let alone one with Leo. “Is that what you truly want?” she whispered.
“You little fool. I’ve loved you since you stood up in the lecture hall and told Elgabri he was wrong. And long before.” He brushed his lips across her cheek. “This humble soldier asks the princess to be his wife.”
All Tameri’s doubts, all the fears of this life and the last dissolved like the darkness in the face of the sun. “This princess is pleased to accept.”
“And the gods?”
“There are no boundaries to love, my soldier. Have we not enough to share?”
His answer could not have been more clear. And as he kissed her, the light expanded until it embraced the whole, wide world.
ISBN: 9781460801499
TITLE: HEART OF DARKNESS
First Australian Publication 2011
Copyright © 2011 by Gena Showalter/Maggie Shayne/Susan Krinard
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Table of Contents
Praise
Title Page
CONTENTS
THE DARKEST ANGEL: Gena Showalter
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
LOVE ME TO DEATH: Maggie Shayne
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
EPILOGUE
LADY OF THE NILE: Susan Krinard
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
Copyright