Beyond the Dark

by Angela Knight

  Even now, she couldn’t guess why they’d chosen her.

  She’d stumbled into that ink-black hollow in ignorance, hoping only for a scrap of shelter from the sun. When its walls had melted and embraced her, she’d thought she was dreaming. When it called her “goddess,” she knew she was. Strange visions had speared through her, lights and colors and whirling stars. She was promised children, heirs who would guarantee that her strong blood lived on. Her mind had been sharpened, her body changed. When she crawled out, gasping, after the transformation, she’d been more than healed.

  She’d been a queen-to-be, if only in her mind.

  As she’d sworn, she’d built her palace around the chamber, its entrance hidden from all eyes but hers.

  She’d sworn revenge as well, the final fruit of which was almost in her grasp. That coward, Ravna—“the King’s Justice” he’d been called then—would pay for overseeing the violation that was done to her. He’d pay for sending the others off so he could rape her one last time himself. Forgive me, he’d mewled as he tore his way into her battered young body. I cannot help myself.

  Tou was happy to help him earn forgiveness. She’d make him forfeit the one reward the gods had given him and denied her.

  “Blessed by the gods,” she murmured. “With everything but a child.”

  Truly, those who ruled human fates were more capricious than the wisest could comprehend.

  “My queen,” said a voice she knew and loved, one of few with the right to enter her presence unannounced.

  Tou turned and smiled at Deir, her dark thoughts evaporating at the sight of the long-time master of her harem. Deir’s hair hung long and silver down his broad shoulders, and she couldn’t help but recall when it had been black.

  Yesterday, she thought with a tinge of sadness for what the gods’ blessings sometimes brought. She took Deir to bed only rarely now. Pleasuring Hhamoun’s queen was a young man’s game, dangerous to those who’d left the strength of their prime behind.

  “Old friend.” The warmth of her greeting called color into his face, a gratification she was pleased to give. “What can your adoring queen do for you?”

  “Would that you did adore me,” he quipped back. “I would have no need to give you my message. The men are wondering when you might visit. They heard you dismissed your council early.”

  “Ravna’s delegation was sighted on the river this afternoon. They may make camp on the plain south of Bhamjran village, but I thought I’d wait to see if they arrived tonight.”

  Deir’s silver eyebrows rose. “You thought you’d wait?”

  Tou shifted in her sandals, aware that his skepticism was justified. As a rule, nightfall was as long as she delayed, her body’s demands being too distracting after that.

  “I’ve been waiting many years for this victory.”

  “Prince or not, Ravna’s son will only be another man.”

  “Will he?” Tou stroked the golden pectoral that draped her neck. It was inlaid with a line of rubies, a match to the cuffs on her forearms and the circlet on her brow. She had dressed as a queen tonight, her finery on display. Out of nervousness, she wondered, or authority? “The stories people tell of Ravna are as wondrous as the tales they tell of me.”

  “Ravna is not your equal, my queen. If he were, you could not have defeated him at Kemet.”

  “Perhaps.” Her mouth curved at the quickness of Deir’s defense. She had more reasons than most to know how true wondrous tales could be.

  “Ravna’s son will not come tonight,” the master of her harem said. “He will want to rest and present himself in good looks.”

  That made Tou smile again. “He is a warrior,” she teased, “not a beauty like yourself. I think he will come as soon as he can, if only to get his humiliation over with.”

  Hurt flicked shadowlike behind Deir’s eyes. Tou had forgotten he’d been a soldier once himself. She put her hand on his shoulder, meaning to soothe his pride. Before she could, one of the slave girls leaped to her feet and squealed.

  “I see torches!” she cried. “Dozens and dozens coming up the avenue. They are here, your highness. Your new husband has arrived!”

  Chills like schools of minnows chased along her spine, different from any she’d experienced at the arrival of previous consorts. Her body tingled with a fervor that was like a touch.

  He is only a man, she promised herself. He would bow before her just as readily as the rest.

  TO Memnon’s mind, Queen Tou’s palace was oddly situated, the land surrounding it too far from the Indypt’s floodplain to cultivate on a useful scale. Odder yet, it wasn’t built on a promontory or carved into a cliff, either of which would have been more defendable. Still, Memnon knew Tou’s men controlled the wadis that led to it. He’d spotted enough of them on the sandstone ramparts, silently watching him and his guard traverse the old riverbed.

  Memnon’s men had touched their weapons as they walked, though none had drawn so much as an inch of blade. The prince appreciated the discipline that had demanded. To walk peaceably beneath enemy eyes had made the back of his neck crawl.

  Not just enemy eyes, he reminded himself. Those eyes belonged to his captors.

  The final approach to the palace was lined not with palms but with obelisks two times the height of a man. The moon spilled like water down their highly polished sides. Red granite, he thought, the color hard to discern at night. Thanks to the sharpness of the shadows, the writing that was chiseled into their surface read clear as noon. Queen Tou had quite a lot of victories to brag about. Memnon wondered how long it would take her tale of the fall of Kemet to join the rest. No doubt, his own small, humbled figure would be carved into the stone as well.

  A long reflecting pool marked the end of the avenue. An easy stroll beyond that the palace complex stretched. Hhamoun was larger than Memnon expected: graceful and wide and more than a match for his father’s royal precincts.

  “We should wash here,” Nico suggested. Memnon’s second-in-command had refused to leave his prince’s safety on this journey in any hands but his. “They will send people soon to meet us, and we don’t want to look like this.”

  Memnon’s jaw clenched as he gazed at the beautiful torchlit palace, where in a matter of minutes he would be transformed from prince to possession. His throat felt as rough as the fine gold sand that was coating it.

  “No one bathes,” he ordered, just as Paneb’s pet, Zahi, bent to splash his face. “If the queen doesn’t like the honest stink of soldiers, she can damn well send me back.”

  Nico took one look at Memnon’s slitted eyes and thought better of his protest. It was a petty triumph, but for the moment it was all Memnon had.

  Their escort appeared soon enough, rendering his small rebellion moot. They were led into a hippostyle courtyard lined with Tou’s soldiers and told to wait. Her men stood at attention and uttered not a word, obliging Memnon’s to do the same. His guard looked thoroughly unkempt from their journey up the river and across the sand. Memnon had to fight a smile for his own childishness.

  And then Tou was coming up the corridor that led into the grand courtyard. Memnon was not the only of his men to jerk a bit straighter. Her form was curved to perfection, her stride as seductive as the handmaiden of a god. Memnon swallowed, his body quickening with lust in spite of himself. The queen was tall, her legs almost as long as his. Their shape was outlined by her tight white gown, the sleek, firm curves drawing the eye. Her golden sandals stopped a few steps away. Wrenching his attention from her strangely erotic toes, Memnon ran his gaze to her face.

  When he reached it, his breath punched from him in an unintended gasp. She was lovely. Even up close, even lit by the strong torchlight, she was as dewy as a young maiden. Her lips were full and stained like pomegranates, her eyes black-lashed almonds of honey-brown. Her hair—and it was her hair, rather than a wig—hung past her shoulders as thick and straight as a horse’s mane. If she hadn’t been wearing her regalia, he’d have sworn she couldn’t
be the queen. She looked innocent, as impossible as that sounded, as sweet and juicy as a ripe orange.

  It seemed whatever age-defying magic the gods had worked on his father, they’d also granted Tou.

  “Well,” she said, the unexpected richness of her drawl bringing his traitorous cock to full erection. “You must have been eager to greet us to come to us in this state.”

  It was a royal “us,” and it reminded him he ought to be on his knees. He fell to them a little too readily for comfort and bowed his head.

  She closed the distance between them, those small, curled toes of hers taunting him again. Painfully aroused, he held his breath for fear of panting. She touched his inclined head like a temple priestess laying on a blessing—except that her thumb swept gently over his sweat-streaked brow.

  He was so filthy he wanted to pull away. To his surprise, when he looked up, she was licking the taste of him from her thumb.

  Their eyes caught, his black to her honey. Maybe her action had startled her as well. She seemed to shudder through her whole body. He could see her nipples peaking beneath the sheerness of her linen gown, the points as red as her pouting lips. His mouth immediately went dry with a longing to suckle them. The scent of her overwhelmed him, the spicy sweetness of her arousal. His cock swelled fuller against its skin and began to throb like drums were beating inside it. Memnon could hardly believe his own reactions. With a single touch, she’d dragged him to the burning state he only experienced once a moon.

  He could have pulled her to the sandstone pavers and thrust into her then and there.

  “Come,” she said, gesturing him to rise. The huskiness of her voice didn’t calm his aching prick one bit. She turned and glanced at him inquiringly over her shoulder, clearly expecting him to follow. He actually trembled with the restraint it took not to reach for her heart-shaped ass, which looked firm enough to have his hands curling into fists. “I’m sure you want to see your soldiers safely ransomed before we move forward.”

  Right then, this wouldn’t have been his first choice, but he had enough pride and self-preservation to pretend it was.

  TOU could tell she’d surprised the prince by touching him, but no more than he’d surprised her. He was filthy, insultingly so, but he smelled like paradise come to earth—a combination of sand and man and Medell oranges. Between her thighs she was wet and clenched, as desperate for possession as she’d ever been.

  Considering how the gods had blessed her, that was desperate indeed.

  When she’d sucked the taste of him from her thumb, a concussion like a chisel’s strike had bolted through the pearl of her pleasure.

  The reaction set her off balance. She hadn’t been able to look away from him, to stop drinking him in like she was parched. He was a big man, solid and muscular. His black hair was soldier-short, not quite long enough to tie back. Even on his knees, he gave the impression of being poised to attack. He didn’t have his father’s face, which relieved her more than it should have. Prince Memnon’s features were rougher, more masculine. His eyes were nearly black, his mouth a hard, thin slash of bad temper. It made her want to kiss it until it relaxed.

  Hardly an appropriate wish for a woman seeking revenge.

  He followed behind her now, his unseen presence seeming to have weight and heat. She hoped her strides appeared less self-conscious than they felt, despite which she couldn’t help glancing back at him.

  Disconcertingly, his dark, sharp eyes were waiting for hers.

  “We’ve kept your father’s soldiers safe,” she said, pretending this speech was why she’d turned. “I think you’ll be satisfied with their condition.”

  Since their transfer from Kemet, the captives had been housed in a tent prison on her grounds. They’d been treated fairly: their wounds attended, their stomachs filled. While no doubt unhappy with their situation, all were hale.

  Her prediction notwithstanding, Prince Memnon seemed less than satisfied when they were led out for his inspection. “This is all of them?”

  Tou studied the storm gathering on his brow. “My men fight to kill. You are lucky there are this many.”

  “You told my father there were only twenty?”

  Oho, she thought, sensing a rift between sire and son. “I did,” she said. “But perhaps you think he sold you too cheaply?”

  His slash of a mouth flattened even more, but then he shook himself. “My freedom is worth whatever my father says it is.”

  Tou allowed herself a quiet laugh. Prince Memnon didn’t like that at all, though he tried to hide how her amusement chafed. For the first time, she realized just how entertaining having her newest husband at her mercy was going to be.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Memnon stood alone in the chambers that would be his home for the foreseeable future. The space was large, even luxurious, with a separate room for Zahi and a door that opened onto the harem’s enclosed courtyard. Sadly, to him the rooms were little better than a prison. He was Tou’s husband now, sworn to honor and obey her according to the terms his father had agreed upon.

  Memnon’s farewells with Nico had been bitter. His second-in-command had wept—angrily, it was true, but the tears could not be denied.

  “Your father is a toad’s butthole to sell you to that whore this way,” he had said. “We fought Queen Tou, lost friends to her in campaigns.”

  “The chance of capture is a soldier’s lot.”

  “Not like this, it isn’t!” Knowing royal walls tended to have ears, Nico dropped his voice. “If ever you wish to supplant that bastard, ever, I am your man.”

  “Peace, old friend. I don’t think your looks will be improved by losing your head.”

  “Mem, your father left Zahi to guard you instead of me. That slinking cat is about as trustworthy as a crocodile.”

  Memnon agreed, but tried to make light of it. “At least the queen is pretty. Certain aspects of my servitude won’t be burdensome.”

  Nico snorted at that, reluctant to be soothed but understanding Memnon wanted to put the best face he could on this. “If anyone can win that bitch’s heart, it’s you. You’re twice the man your father is.”

  “That being so,” Memnon said with a grin, “you can leave me with an easy spirit.”

  The rib-cracking force of Nico’s last embrace told Memnon his spirit was anything but easy. He was relieved when Nico finally left…until the full reality of his situation settled over him.

  “Harem boy,” he muttered. “And to your country’s worst enemy.”

  “Talking to yourself already. Not a good sign.”

  Memnon turned toward the interruption. Two of the queen’s consorts were leaning lazily on either side of his open door. One had hair the color of winter wheat, and the other’s was dark as coal. It seemed the queen wasn’t letting her bedmates laze around eating dates. They looked as fit as soldiers, despite being somewhat fussily attired. Though their kilts were simple, their eyes were lined with kohl and painted green with malachite. The coal-haired one had a long gold earring dangling from one lobe, its feathery, jointed leaves brushing his shoulder.

  “Bit older than her highness’s usual,” he observed. “Don’t know if you’ll be able to keep up.”

  Memnon snorted. Keeping up was the least of his concerns. Given his response to Tou thus far, keeping himself down was likelier to be a problem.

  “I say,” said the wheat-haired man. “I think the queen’s new consort is insulting us.”

  Memnon could see these two weren’t going to leave him alone until he gave them reason to. With a silent sigh, he strode across the soft carpet to face them both. They straightened as he drew near, their eyes exchanging a quick look of eagerness. The look told Memnon his assumptions had been correct. “My insults aren’t what you need to worry about.”

  “Oooh,” quavered the black-haired one with the earring. “Is that a threat, little pr—”

  Memnon would never know if he was about to be called a little prince or a little prick, because he cock
ed his arm and popped his fist into the other’s nose. Not wanting to do serious damage, he pulled the punch. Nonetheless, the man—no lightweight—toppled back into the colonnade, like a door burst open by a battering ram.

  Zahi ran out from his adjoining chamber at the noise.

  “Stay back,” Memnon ordered when the servant would have come to his defense. He kept his eyes on the second man, kneeling now beside his unconscious friend.

  He bared his teeth at Memnon, a display of aggression rather than a smile. “Not good,” he scolded, his eyes glittering with ire. “You broke Abram’s nose, little prince, and the queen has rules about damaging her—”

  Memnon sent this one flying halfway across the courtyard with a well-planted boot to the chest. That brought the others out of their rooms, more than two dozen men in all. Those housed on the upper level leaned over the ornate stone rail. To Memnon’s satisfaction, none appeared interested in trying his patience.

  “I could have taken him,” Zahi muttered, having stepped to his master’s side.

  “I’m sure you could, but that wouldn’t have accomplished what my taking them did—or didn’t you learn that sort of thing while you were playing Paneb’s shadow?”

  “Your father’s eunuch wasn’t lord of me.” Zahi sniffed haughtily, at which the prince could only shake his head. Zahi’s lack of respect for his former master could hardly hearten his present one.

  The man he’d punched—Abram, the other had called him—was beginning to come around. He sat up with the help of two others, the back of his hand pressed to the blood dripping from his nose.

  “Hell,” he said, his gaze on Memnon. “That fist of yours must be made of iron.”

  Since he sounded reluctantly admiring, Memnon inclined his head.