“Will you do the honors?” Jan swept a hand toward the door.
The women stepped back as Angela heaved the door outward. The darkness and silence from the cave’s interior was so complete that Morgan caught her breath. Cool air poured from the tunnel like liquid.
Rosa released her hand and gripped her arm, instead. “Did you say this would be fun?”
“I’d hoped so.” Her stomach had gone queasy.
The group of women formed a single line at the mouth of the cave. The tour guide stood behind Angela at the threshold, where Angela greeted each guest. She wore blood-red lipstick to match her dress, and black braided leather bands around her wrist and neck.
When Rosa reached out to shake hands, Angela shot Morgan an appreciative look. “I see you’ve brought me a present.” Morgan held out the lavender gift bag sprinkled with glitter and butterflies. Angela laughed. “No.” She inclined her head toward Rosa. “I meant her.”
Morgan dropped her hand to her side, still holding the lavender bag. She should have chosen a color that matched Angela’s heart. “Don’t get cute. It doesn’t suit you,” Morgan replied.
Angela smirked. “You know I always get what I want.”
Morgan leaned close. “Fuck off, Angela, or I’ll tell your friends how you wet the bed until you were twelve.”
Angela bared her teeth and narrowed her eyes. “You wouldn’t dare.”
Morgan bared her teeth in return. “Try me.”
Rosa looked from one woman to the next. “Do you two even like each other?”
“Our fathers are twin brothers.” Angela said.
“We’re expected to…cooperate.” Morgan added.
Angela frowned at Morgan and looked back at Rosa with a sparkle in her eyes. The glint disappeared when her gaze rested on her neck. “You’ve been marked.”
Morgan lifted her chin. “Fair warning.”
Angela sighed. “Guess I’ll have to play with my old friends. I was hoping for someone…fresh and new.”
“In case your friends are also looking for playmates, tell them we aren’t interested.”
Rosa turned to Morgan and lifted her brow. “So that explains your sudden desire to bite. You wanted to send a message.”
“Angela likes to pretend she’s a vampire,” Morgan explained. She lowered her voice. “We’re competitive, but she wouldn’t dare touch you and start a feud. Our fathers would be furious.” Morgan grinned. “I thoroughly enjoyed biting you, by the way.”
Rosa edged closer and whispered back, “I liked biting you, too.”
Angela grimaced. “I can hear you, you know. I have extrasensory perception.”
Morgan rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right.”
Angela ignored her and pursed her lips. “Sex with the same old, same old. I’d hoped tonight would be different.”
“Hey, it’s your event.” Morgan retorted. “You wrote the guest list.”
The tour guide came up behind them to hurry them inside. “Don’t let the bats out.” She broke into giggles and her blue eyes crinkled at the corners.
“Querido Jesús,” Rosa prayed, and then crossed herself. “Are there really bats in here?”
Jan nodded. “Thirty to forty live in the deepest, darkest, coldest section of the caverns. It’s called the Devil’s Den.”
Rosa swayed and caught Morgan’s forearm.
“We probably won’t see them. They usually exit through holes to the outside world at night.”
“Damn.” Angela said. “What’s the use of touring caves if I don’t see any fucking bats?”
Jan opened her mouth in a wide O to reply, and then snapped it shut. She was clearly trying to mollify her client when she added, “We’ll look for some.”
Angela stalked off.
Jan hurried behind her. “Let’s go, ladies. We have lots of territory to cover.” She lit lanterns mounted on the walls as they all disappeared inside.
“It’s freezing in here,” Rosa complained.
Jan nodded. “Crystal Cave maintains a constant temperature of fifty-four degrees Fahrenheit, year round.” She waved a hand at the shimmery walls. “This is the Crystal Ball Room. The walls are embedded with calcite crystal that looks like diamonds.”
“I think it feels great in here,” Angela said. The group behind her murmured agreements. “Hey!” She wiped her face. “Water just landed on my nose.”
The tour guide smiled like Angela had just won the door prize. “That’s five years’ good luck. Those are baby stalactites above us, though they’re fifty to one hundred years old. A splash of water on the head means a year’s worth of luck.”
“What’s it mean when water hits your arm?” A full-figured redhead asked, brushing off droplets.
“That you got wet.” Jan laughed, but the redhead didn’t smile back.
Jan cleared her throat and led them through a tunnel into the next expansive cavern. In the center of the room stood a stalagmite about seven feet tall and thick as a young tree. Water droplets had hardened to form an asymmetrical base.
“This is Altar Rock,” Jan said with a tinge of pride. “It’s thousands of years old and the centerpiece of Crystal Cave.”
“Holy shit!” Angela yelled. “That’s the biggest strap-on I’ve ever seen.” The others broke into uproarious laughter.
The tour guide seemed momentarily nonplussed. Morgan figured the woman had no idea what Angela meant. It wasn’t until Angela dropped her dress to the floor and stood naked before Altar Rock that Jan seemed to get a clue this wasn’t your average birthday gathering.
Angela reclined on her back near the bottom of the altar, stretched her arms over her head, and spread her legs. The cold, hard floor didn’t seem to bother her in the least. “Anyone want to give me my present?” She stroked her pussy and beckoned them to come forward. The others dropped their dresses and gathered naked around her. The redhead sank to her knees.
Morgan turned to Rosa. “Gee. It’s a happy-birthday orgy.”
The tour guide watched in fascination as the redhead licked and sucked Angela’s clit within the circle of her lantern light. The other women began to kiss and stroke one another. Idly, Jan touched her own breast beneath her blouse, and her breathing turned shallow while her eyes remained fixed on Angela. When Angela shouted out her climax as her spasms hit, Jan moaned.
The redhead pulled Angela to her feet and placed her hands on her plump breasts. Then she swept her hair aside and offered the column of her neck.
Morgan trained her flashlight on the pair, a horrible realization dawning. Rosa pulled at her sleeve and made little whimpering noises.
Angela turned and hissed at the golden glow, her eyes turning a malevolent red. She opened her jaw and her incisors flashed. When she turned her face away from the light, the points of her teeth came down hard on the redhead’s carotid artery. Blood spattered down her naked limbs. Angela began to suck and keen.
A second woman licked the dripping blood off the redhead’s arm. Another stroked the halves of her ass, found the entrance to her pussy, and began finger-fucking her from behind. The redhead cried out with pleasure.
Instead of running away, the tour guide set her lantern on the floor and began pulling off her clothes.
Morgan gripped Jan by shoulders. “They’re real vampires! This isn’t a party game.”
Jan shook her off, finished stripping, and took two steps forward, entranced. “I want to know what it feels like.” Nude women led her away.
Morgan understood with sudden clarity that the only reason Angela hadn’t bitten her was because they were blood relations. There were certain taboos even vampires wouldn’t break. Yet she wasn’t safe from the others if Angela didn’t protect her. Neither was Rosa. In a blind frenzy of bloodlust and sex, Angela might let anything happen.
Then Angela would control her. The vampire would like nothing better.
Morgan dropped to her knees and dumped the contents of her gift bag. She scooped up the necklace inside and held it out
. The antique silver cross glistened, refracting the light from the crystal walls.
“Get behind me, Rosa!” Morgan moved to protect Rosa’s body with hers.
Vampires hissed their displeasure. Some lifted their arms to shield their eyes. Others lurched forward as if to attack but then pulled back.
Morgan draped the cross around her neck and fought to pull Jan free from the women licking her breasts and pussy. Jan reached out to Angela, instead, and was swept away. The vampire carried her to the base of Altar Rock, opened her legs, and sank her teeth into her inner thigh. Jan screamed in ecstasy.
Morgan and Rosa turned and ran.
“Good-bye forever, Angela!” Morgan laid rubber out of the parking lot. Miles down the road she pulled the car over and hugged Rosa until she stopped shaking and crying.
“I’m so sorry.” Morgan kissed every inch of Rosa’s lovely face. “I’m buying you the entire season of Glee. Rachel Ray’s new cookbook, too. At Christmastime, we’ll go to Radio City.”
“You were so brave.” Rosa offered a forgiving smile and touched her cheek.
“The cross was insurance, in case Angela’s weirdness was the real deal.”
“You were brilliant. That’s another reason why I love you.”
“You do?” Morgan’s spirits lifted.
Rosa wrapped her in a soothing embrace. “It’s time I made that crystal clear.”
BELOVED
Shayla Kersten
World of the Pharaohs Exhibit:The warrior goddess Sekhmet was known as the Eye of Ra, raining death and destruction on Ra’s enemies. Sekhmet is often depicted with the head of a lioness, the fiercest of desert creatures.
However, Sekhmet’s blood lust was so great, it didn’t dissipate after the battle was won. With mankind in danger of extinction, Ra tricked Sekhmet by turning the Nile red—except the liquid was not water but beer colored with pomegranate juice. Sekhmet slaked her thirst with the potent liquid. When she aroused from her stupor, she was the gentle goddess Hathor.
Hathor personified love, motherhood and joy and was usually depicted with the horns of a cow framing a sun disk. Some legends show the two as a single goddess or aspects of the same one; others have them as separate entities. However, all indicate their destinies were intertwined.
Sekhmet laughed aloud at the plaque explaining the relationship between her and the stupid cow. Irritation at the legends only added to her increasingly foul mood. She whirled around, then stalked away.
The thirst grew ever sharper with each step, adding to her aggravation. Parched like the deserts of her youth, her throat ached with need for the soothing caress of rich, warm liquid.
The air was thick with delectable scents. Choices, choices… She could almost taste the sweet copper-tinged blood. And the fear that accompanied it. But something…a hint of something familiar lingered in the air. A scent, a feeling, too vague for clear thoughts or words.
Sekhmet paused and let her eyelids droop almost closed. She gave in to the ancient call and raised her head to sniff the air like the predator she once was. The short series of snuffles shook the thick bush of braids on her head, rustling with the memory of a lion’s mane.
Something gold shimmered in the strategic lighting of the exhibit, reminding her of her nemesis’s skin. So far, she thought she’d escaped the bitch’s notice.
She hoped the cow wouldn’t find her in a backwater state like Arkansas, even if the capital city was hosting an Egyptian exhibit. The irony of stalking prey among the ruins of antiquity wasn’t an accident. Sekhmet rarely did anything by accident.
The familiar hint of myrrh and cinnamon wafted toward her sensitive nose. A flash of skin appeared in the corner of her eye. The teasing trill of a familiar laugh caught her hearing.
“How in the name of Ra…” Sekhmet twisted toward the vision but it was gone. She was gone. “Or maybe I’m finally losing my mind.”
Others had. Lost their minds…their will to live. Most of the old gods were gone. Wisps in the wind, ending like a sandstorm in the deep desert. No witnesses, no one believing enough to mourn. Not even the pharaohs survived in spite of her role of protector.
Sekhmet wasn’t sure how she’d lasted so long. Maybe the bloodlust did more than threaten mere mortals with death and destruction. Could it keep her own demise at bay?
Another flash of gold, a hint of dark hair with brick-red hennaed streaks.
“Damn her. How does she keep finding me?” Sekhmet slipped through the crowd, twisting and turning through the human throng. She regretted her choice of clothes as her long cotton skirt swished around her ankles, distracting her with trivial annoyance.
A few minutes ago, the warm, thrumming scent of blood and low murmur of people enthralled her. Now she wanted them all to leave and make the task of stalking her new prey easier.
Another whiff of cinnamon wafted from behind. A quick twirl on her heel only revealed mere mortals gawking at the remnants of a more glorious time, of her time.
Anger twisted deep in her gut as she wove through the crowd. The bloodlust grew stronger. Heat flushed Sekhmet’s skin. Barely suppressing the need to roar like an angry lioness, she stalked through the crowd. The sea of people parted before her, once more giving her the respect deserved by the Eye of Ra.
A low throaty laugh penetrated the haze of red. Myrrh and cinnamon almost overwhelmed the heated musk of her prey. A curtain rustled. A door nearby creaked.
Sekhmet slipped behind the heavy material.
A strong arm caught Sekhmet around the waist; another went around her shoulders. A hand on her mouth kept her from doing more than growling her displeasure. A quick yank pulled her through a doorway. As the door slammed shut, darkness descended.
“Hello, lover.” Hathor’s breath teased Sekhmet’s ear. “Long time, no see.” The softness of warm, perfumed breasts pressed against Sekhmet’s back.
Arousal combined with the desire for blood. In spite of her anger, Sekhmet’s pussy pulsed with need. Only Hathor could inflame and calm all Sekhmet’s appetites at once. Even when Sekhmet didn’t want her to. “How the fuck do you find me?”
“I can smell your heat rising across time and eternity, babe. I’ll always find you.” Her mouth nuzzled Sekhmet’s earlobe.
Hathor’s grip on Sekhmet’s waist eased. Her hand slid up to the thin silk shirt covering Sekhmet’s flesh. Gentle fingers brushed against an already puckered nipple.
Pleasure shuddered through Sekhmet in spite of her anger. Since the time of Pharaoh, Hathor managed to calm her desire for death and destruction. At first, the bitch just got her too drunk to do anything about it.
The memory of pomegranate beer both nauseated and aroused Sekhmet. Eventually, Hathor lured her into submission by a different kind of drink, and she had found peace in Hathor’s arms.
Sekhmet pulled out of Hathor’s grip. “Why can’t you let me be?”
“You know why.” A click preceded a light flickering on. Hathor’s dark gaze penetrated Sekhmet’s resolve.
“Too bad. I’m not falling for your routine again.” The storage room was crowded with furniture—benches, chairs, even a small couch—but Hathor’s presence made the room seem even smaller.
Hathor, like Sekhmet, hadn’t changed in thousands of years. Her lush almost overripe body befitted the goddess of love and motherhood. The top of her full breasts swelled above the low-cut neckline of the simple linen dress. Buttons down the front threatened to pop in their valiant effort to contain Hathor’s ample bust.
“Oh, yeah?” A delicate eyebrow rose as a smile curved Hathor’s full lips.
These were the lips that could make Sekhmet scream for more and mercy at the same time… Her willpower weakened as Hathor took a step forward.
“You know you can’t resist. Ra made us this way. Part of each other.”
“Bullshit.” Sekhmet took a step back but found the closed door impeding her escape. “You’re finally going senile if you’ve bought into that old legend. We’re not the same
. Not one. Never have been.”
“Believe what you will. The truth is the truth.” Hathor pressed her hands on the door behind Sekhmet, framing her between perfumed arms. Hathor leaned in. Her breath teased Sekhmet’s mouth. “I’ve missed you.”
Shivers of desire warmed Sekhmet’s skin as she bit her lip. She didn’t trust herself to speak. Her answer would reveal too much. Instead, she pressed her back tighter against the wall.
Hathor moved forward until her breasts crowded against Sekhmet.
The simple touch set Sekhmet’s blood racing, pulsing heat through her pussy. A groan betrayed her.
“Did you miss me?” Hathor’s nose brushed against Sekhmet’s then her head tilted, aligning lips to lips.
One hand slid down the solid wood door, coming to rest on Sekhmet’s waist.
“I think you did.” A soft kiss. “I can smell your arousal.” The next kiss pressed a little harder. Hathor’s other hand dropped to Sekhmet’s breast.
Fingers tweaked a hard nipple. Her hand cupped Sekhmet’s flesh.
“I want to taste you.” Hathor’s arm snaked around Sekhmet’s waist, pulling her closer. “Bury my face in your heat and your cream.”
Sekhmet’s breath caught. Her heart tried to beat a hole through her chest. Need wracked her body from the tips of her toes to her scalp. She couldn’t say yes. She wouldn’t say no. Instead, she plastered her hands against the door and flattened her back against the solid support as her knees went weak.
“So stubborn, my love.” Hathor’s chuckle colored her words with her amusement. “Fine. Play the martyr while I have my way with you…” Hathor ran her hands down to the hem of Sekhmet’s shirt.
Closing her eyes, Sekhmet savored the warmth of Hathor’s hands as they slid up her stomach. Her breath caught in her chest as Hathor cupped her breasts, finger and thumb tweaking sensitive nipples through the thin material of her bra. Before she could catch her lip between her teeth to bite back a groan, Hathor’s mouth found hers.
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