She watched his mobile face, his amber eyes glancing up to melt her bones to honey. Cheftu's hand crept from her waistline, lower. He murmured against her mouth with the pleasure of discovery. Chloe's back arched; her skin felt singed below the surface. She was climbing a mountain of pleasure, each caress goading her along the path. She pulled him onto her, twisting beneath him, lost in a realm of experience.
“Are you ready?” he asked hoarsely.
She murmured unintelligibly, and Cheftu bent to kiss her as he entered. He froze when he felt the tearing in her body. She shrieked into his mouth, suddenly tense and rigid.
“By the gods,” he gasped, “this is not possible! This cannot be true!” he said, his voice harsh. He caressed her face and tried his damnedest not to move. Tears trickled from the corners of her eyes, and her little pants were not from pleasure. She was hurting and scared. He had done this. Sweat ran down his back as he wondered what to do; how could he have known? Then her tension drained as her eyes closed. Her lush lips curled into a smile.
“This is nice,” she murmured, and when she moved, her quick-drawn breath communicated to his barely held control. Urging his response, she caressed the taut muscles in his shoulders and arms.
Cheftu braced himself like stone, trying to ignore the tight embrace of her body as he debated rapidly what to do. This was the answer he needed. This was more than he'd dared to hope. Everything was changed. She wasn't RaEm … but who was she? No one's wife, that was certain. Her voice was rough with desire, the caress of her hands inflaming. What could he do? In a moment the answer would be moot. With surprising strength she wrapped her legs around his waist, pulling him deeper. Cheftu groaned and yielded.
Cheftu suddenly held her close, his eyes shut as he stroked her body inside and out. Once again he started her up the mountain, leading her until Chloe was immersed in a freezing pleasure that blacked out everything except his face. She felt his body tighten and release, then he laid her down as she drifted in the last gleanings of pleasure.
A few minutes later he brought her a linen cloth, dipped in warm water. With a gentle smile he pressed it between her legs. “This should stop some of the trembling.” He climbed onto the petal-strewn couch beside her.
Gathered to his chest, Chloe dropped off to sleep.
Chloe awoke as Cheftu entered the room, carrying a tray. Morning sun streaked the floor. He kicked the door shut behind him, and Chloe blushed. It seemed such an intimate thing, sealing them in alone, together. Remembering that he was an ancient stranger, she felt awkward suddenly.
“How are you this morning?” he asked, sitting beside her.
The memory made her blush … and smile. “My mouth feels like I have eaten papyrus stalks.”
He grinned. “The tonic. You took it all?”
“Aye.”
“I thought you might.” He handed her a goblet of beer and then kissed her after she had drunk. After a lengthy interval he pulled away.
“Moonbeam, we must talk.” His voice was breathy, but his look was serious. He withdrew to the stool across from her and watched her through saffron eyes that were deadly intense, despite the tremor in his hands.
He poured them milk. “This was your first time to be with a man.” It was a statement, not a question. “However, you miscarried a child at one hundred twenty-four days.”
Chloe bit into a hard roll and tried to chew slowly.
“What magic is this where a woman is pregnant, yet untouched?”
Bloody hell … she'd forgotten about that. Not the pregnancy, but that she was the one who had allegedly gotten pregnant and had also lost her virginity last night. She swallowed, thinking furiously. The truth? Yeah, right Although Cheftu seemed open to ideas beyond the range of his senses, how could he believe the truth? That concept of change was too far removed from the ancient Egyptian mind.
“Holy conception?” she offered with a weak smile. He looked stricken, though with Hatshepsut's entire reign built on the very concept of a god impregnating a human, she couldn't imagine why.
“I would think a god, especially, would batter down the maiden door,” he said sarcastically. “You are my wife. You made that choice yourself, even after I gave you the only alternative I could. We have seven more days here … until the end of the week. We apparently have a lot to learn about each other. I will not have a marriage with secrets or boundaries. Neither will I betray you. I have pledged myself, and will be true.”
Miserable, Chloe swallowed. She had heard of women in the desert who were like a virgin every time. What would be her excuse when after seven days she was not? Quite frankly, she didn't want to wait seven days. Cheftu was looking at her quizzically, his gaze full of … what?
“Cheftu … please believe me … but, I cannot tell you now.”
“Someday you will?” He stared at her a moment and then got up and stretched, once more relaxed. “You, assst, the time I came to heal you, you had been in the temple, correct?”
“Aye.”
“What happened to you there?” He turned to face her. “Did the god Amun visit you and fill you with his child?”
“Nay. I don't know what happened.”
He knelt down, his face level with Chloe's. “You are certain you don't know what happened that night? Where the blood came from? It was all over you. Your clothes were in rags, yet the priests in the adjoining room said you had been there since atmu. Where is the soldier you were meeting there? What happened to Phaemon? What is your secret?”
Chloe gulped. He knew. Somehow he knew and was giving her a chance to explain herself. Even she couldn't explain the blood. The man's tortured face flashed before her again. The soldier? Phaemon?
She could kill RaEm.
Cheftu stood and walked away with a sigh. Chloe watched him pace the room, his stride swinging the fringed edge of his kilt around his muscular thighs. She visually traced the curve of pectoral down to the ripples of his stomach. After a few minutes of seeing his bronzed body flex and release, she felt distinctly heated. “My lord?” She pulled back the sheet.
The physical sensations were drugging … but he was emotionally distant as he returned to her. Chloe kissed him harder as she felt tears prick her eyes. Her husband, yet they were married strangers in a world of mere sensation. He wouldn't even look at her. Cheftu rolled onto his back, pulling her above him.
“RaEm?” His voice was hoarse, his tone expectant.
Chloe swung her hair before her face, surrendering to her nerves and hormones. He still wanted RaEm. It was worse than her worst fears. She'd lost her heart, and he didn't even know her real name.
Chloe woke first and snuggled closer to Cheftu. She looked at his broad forehead, arched black brows, and almond-shaped eyes. With a butterfly's touch she traced his jawline, his long, straight nose, the wide lips that were capable even now of sending shivers to her most intimate interior. She curled up, her head on his chest. The despair of last night had faded. There really was something to that concept of being more relaxed after sex. Not making love, she reminded herself, just having sex.
“You look like the cat with the cream.”
“More like the cat full of cream,” she replied. He chuckled and kissed her forehead gently. Turning onto his stomach, he faced her.
“Look at me, my beautiful cat.” His voice was soft, his look pleading. “Explain the garden to me, please. Why did you say those things? Why did you want to hurt me so?”
“I thought the past was past, my lord,” she hedged. How could he think she was RaEm? Because he wanted her to be. He loved RaEm.
“It is past, RaEm,” he said. “It matters not, not really, but I am curious.”
Chloe fingered the linen sheet in front of her and took a stab. She'd been living a lie, why not another one? “We were so young. We knew nothing of life and needed more time to be sure.”
Cheftu looked down, the sun picking up blue highlights in his hair. “We didn't speak in the garden, RaEm. Do you not remember? This wa
s our only conversation.” He leaned forward and placed his lips on hers, light as air and soft, melting her own. She gasped and opened her mouth, and Cheftu explored, slowly and provocatively, its interior. When Chloe was reduced to fluid, he pulled away. “Do you remember now?”
“If we didn't speak, why did you accuse me of saying unkind things?” she said.
Cheftu pulled away. “That too is out of your memory, Moonlight?”
Chloe shrugged, looking away. “There is a lot I do not remember before the accident.”
“It is hard to remember when you are not the same person, haii?” His expression was earnest, his gaze open and tender. “Who are you? From where do you come? Please, please tell me.”
“Why do you want to know more? … I am the priestess of—”
“Nay,” he said. “I know you are not.”
“Why do you want to know? You want me to be RaEm. My story would be madness. You wouldn't believe a thing,” Chloe said, half turning away.
He pulled her back to face him. “Oh, my beautiful sister, I will believe you … anything! I have bartered my life to protect you. I deserve your trust. Give me truth”
“What is truth?”
Cheftu looked at her intently, brushing the fallen hair away from her face, caressing her bottom lip with his thumb. Chloe fought to still her breath in his embrace. “Truth is that I knew RaEm.” He took a deep breath. “Intimately. I became a man with her.” Chloe tried to pull away, but Cheftu caught her close to him, her face pressed against his chest.
His voice resonated through his body. “You look similar—indeed, to most, almost womb-sisters. However, your bodies are not the same. Your mouths are not the same,” he said, pulling her back to look into his face. “RaEmhetepet only took from men. She never gave.” He smiled. “You give, even when you are hurting.
“You are so beautiful, both inside and out. RaEm had only physical beauty, though it took me almost to the marriage altar to find out.” His fingers traced her features, and Chloe looked at him, her eyes filled with tears. He caught a tear on his finger before it dropped and stroked the saline across her lips, his breathing becoming harsher. His gaze was intent yet calculating. He took another deep breath. “Also, because your eyes are different. They are so clean and fresh, like your soul. But they are also observant and appreciative … as green as the fields of ma belle France.”
PART III
CHAPTER 11
After months of hearing an alien language that she could both understand and speak, the French out of Cheftu's finely chiseled Egyptian mouth was like an icy blast.
Chloe jerked away from him. “What did you say? ” she cried in English.
He lunged at her, his eyes pools of amber fire, his grasp iron on her wrists. He babbled incoherently for a few moments until he finally said, in hardly discernible English, “My darling, you have also traveled? From where do you come?”
Chloe looked into his face; his excitement was palpable and unrestrained. Was it too much sex, not much sleep, and very little nourishment? Or just the resounding shock of hearing French from her ancient Egyptian husband? Maybe simply because she could think of no other response? Whatever the reason, Chloe said, “Holy shit,” with a definite American accent and fainted.
“RaEm, RaEm,” a rough masculine voice said. “Plaire à Dieu, why do you not wake up?”
Her eyes snapped open. Cheftu knelt over her, fanning her face and calling to her in a mixture of ancient Egyptian names and French invocations. Regrouping her thoughts, Chloe reached up to touch his face. He swiftly kissed her fingertips.
Speaking slowly in English, she said, “Do you understand me?”
His face lost some of its deep color. “Oui, ma chérie.”
“Do you speak English?”
“Yes. I speak more than twenty languages—most of them dead.”
Her hand froze, because the bulk of questions she had to ask him would not organize themselves inside her fogged brain. She sat up, and he stared at her with fully widened eyes, all his masks of nobleman, priest, healer, and magus gone.
“What is your name?” he asked slowly, stumbling over the syllables. “You are English?”
“Chloe, and I'm an American. Mostly.”
“From where?”
“The United States,” she answered.
His brow furrowed in confusion.
She tried French. “Des états-Unis.”
He waved away her response. “It is a bagatelle. What year?”
“Nineteen hundred ninety-f…” She never finished; his face turned gray.
“The twentieth century?”
“Oui.”
He dropped her hands and turned away, burying his face in his hands. “Haii, mon Dieu …” He shook his head back and forth.
Chloe sat in silence. “Cheftu, what is, was, your Christian name?”
From the muffling of his hands she heard “Francois.” He faced the wall and dropped his hands. “I left my time of 1806.” He turned to face her. “Do you know the name Napoleon?”
“Of course. He was defeated by the British at Waterloo in 1815.”
He glanced at her, not comprehending. She reached out to touch him, quiet the confusion in his eyes.
“So the time in the temple, when you didn't remember, that was when you came through?” he asked.
“Yes. I don't know what I came through, though. When I got here I thought for a while that I was ill, or dreaming … but then … I realized I had somehow traversed a time-space continuum and ended up here.” Her English words, spoken rapidly, fell into a confused pile at his feet.
He stared at her as though she had two heads. In a cracked voice he asked “The hieroglyphs, they have been interpreted? They can be read?”
Chloe frowned at him. “Of course.”
“Who broke the formula?”
“Some guy named …” She bit her lip in concentration, trying to recall that name she'd heard so many times from Cammy, the name in so many of those books.
“Haii ?” Cheftu's face was lined with expectancy.
Chloe snapped her fingers. “Champinion … no, wait, that's mushroom in Spanish. Umm …”
Cheftu stood up and walked to the window, his movements jerky. “Champollion?” he asked his voice a monotone.
“Yep. That's it.”
“Il l'a decouverte sans moi,” he said in an anguished undertone. He faced the black night, his arms braced on the window frame.
Chloe was frozen, her mind spinning. Who had discovered what without him? But more important—he was like her! He knew what it was like to be removed, without warning, from everything! Since he was still here, he obviously hadn't found a way back. She stared at his bronzed back, trying to let the astonishment sink in. Eighteen oh six … He was more than 150 years older than she but the same in this day and age.
It was comforting that the man she loved was not of a race and mentality completely foreign to her. He was European … though she didn't know how long he had been here or anything else. She looked at him and knew that regardless of his age, his nationality, or his name, she loved Cheftu. Not for where he was from, but because of who he was, the risks he took, the level of care he showed. The way he made her feel.
She walked to where he stood motionless. Chloe took his arm and guided him to the couch. “Sit, my beloved brother,” she said, seeing his blank, staring eyes. What was wrong with him? Was he in some sort of shock? Speaking softly in Egyptian, she pushed him down, wondering what to do if he really were ill. He stared blankly at the ceiling.
“Cheftu, Cheftu, wake up, greet the night, the RaEmhetep,” she said. No response. She checked his pulse: it was racing, and his breath was coming in little animal pants. What could have been so horrifying? Napoleon losing the war? Someone else finding the key to the hieroglyphs? What did it matter, here and now?
She took some wine from beside the couch and sprinkled it on his face. He didn't even blink. She splashed water on his face. Zip.
&n
bsp; Biting her lip in remorse, she slapped him across the cheek. He did not respond, didn't even flinch. She sat on the stool, thinking and getting scared. What had made him freak out? Finally she shouted in French, “Francois, Francois, you must wake up, Champollion is doing it without you!”
He roared alert, cursing and swearing as he stared blindly. Chloe reached to gentle him, and he jerked her to his body, growling with fury, lost in an unseen world. Shaking with emotion, he backed her into the wall, kissing her until her lips were raw, filling her with his demonic energy. His hands molded her to him; his nakedness and strength were overwhelming.
Chloe waited for him to take a breath and then ran. He caught her before she took two steps and brought her back against his chest. Her wriggling attempts to run inflamed him further, and she felt his heat and hardness against her back.
He was speaking in ragged French, decrying someone for betraying him, for not believing in him, for not waiting for him. He seemed to think she was the tool of whoever had deceived him and whispered about the pleasure he would take in extracting his revenge. Chloe resisted him as he pressed against her, his hands never leaving her body, his lips and tongue reducing her brain to a pile of red-hot ashes.
Then he began stroking her, and Chloe felt herself merging into him. His touch had gentled, and his caressing hands were pushing her over the edge. They fell onto the couch, his cheek rough against her shoulder. She was trembling, hot and ragingly hungry for him. Then he pulled away.
Once more he stared, unseeing.
She ran her fingernails down his bare chest. He hadn't mentioned another woman. All other questions could wait until afterward. “Do not dare leave me this way,” she hissed.
With a snarl he pushed her onto her hands and knees, his arm around her waist She felt his touch as he filled her, groaning with excitement kissing her neck and shoulders. The experience was consuming, as if he had suddenly become an octopus, and her every need was being met simultaneously. He held himself close to her, moving slowly, seductively. Her ears burned with his words, emphasized by his hands and lips.
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