The Series that Just Plain Sucks: The Complete Trilogy

by Charissa Dufour

  Very slowly, the animal features morphed into human ones, and not too shabby human ones either. The toned men stood before us in nearly all their glory; the linen skirting did little to hide their treasures. Each man was muscled and naturally tan. Their jaws were firm and their eyes soft. It was like visiting Chippendales, but with fewer bowties—or so I’m told.

  I felt a smile playing on my lips as my spine lost its structure. From the soft murmurs coming from Emma, I suspected she was having the same problem.

  One of the men stepped forward, his leather sandals flopping quietly against the stone flooring of the room.

  “It has been a long time since anyone disturbed our rest,” he said in perfect English.

  I chewed on my lip for a second, expecting Emma to speak for us.

  “Umm… sorry,” I said when it became clear she was too stunned to speak, much less breathe.

  “What brings you into our midst?” asked the spokesman.

  I wiped a little drool from my lips and cleared my throat. “We needed a place to hide. Just for the day. If that’s okay with you?”

  The spokesman’s perfect lips tweaked up into a smile. “It would be our delight to entertain such beautiful company.”

  To my eternal shame, Emma and I giggled.

  The leader stepped up to me, took my hand, and kissed it lightly. One of the other men, one that had been a badger, did the same to Emma.

  Another giggle escaped my lips.

  “We have been without company for many long centuries,” my man said before turning to the others and saying something in ancient Egyptian.

  The on lookers dissolved back into the stonework, once again becoming hieroglyphics, only this time, they glowed slightly, giving light to the room.

  “I am Pakhet,” my man said as he guided me over to a corner. “And you are?”

  “A-a-ashley,” I stammered, perfectly willing to let him lead me away from Emma.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw her host leading her to the far corner.

  “A beautiful name for a beautiful woman,” Pakhet said.

  One more giggle, just to be on the safe side.

  “What is this place?” I asked, trying to keep my mind off his smooth, sculpted chest.

  “It is the burial ground of our mistress. We are here to bring her pleasure in the afterlife.”

  “Pleasure?” I asked.

  “We are very good at our job,” purred Pakhet, his hand gliding up and down my bare arm; it felt good, and before I knew what I was doing, my own hand reached up to rest lightly on his chest.

  “I bet you are,” I said, feeling more confident with each passing second.

  Pakhet stepped toward me, leaning his head down a little. I tilted my head up to look at him and allowed my eyes to travel to his soft lips. He noticed the movement and smiled.

  “How long did you say you needed to hide?” he asked, his voice soft and alluring as he tilted his head down a little farther.

  “Just the day.”

  “One day can be like a lifetime,” Pakhet said as he closed the distance and caressed my lips with his, so gently I wasn’t positive we had even touched.

  I leaned forward and completed the connection, moving my hand from his chest to wrap around his waist. His hand moved to my waist and dragged me to him, his fingers somehow finding their way under my shirt. I brought my other hand into the game, twining my fingers in his silky hair.

  Pakhet forced my mouth open with his tongue as he pushed me up against the wall. A groan of pleasure escaped my lips as my hand traveled down his back to his buttocks. It was firm under my fingers as they dug into his flesh.

  Pakhet mimicked me, grabbing my backside and hoisting me up off my feet. I wrapped my legs around his waist and allowed him to press me against the wall, our kisses deepening with each movement.

  “What the hell?” cried a voice from the other side of the room.

  Pakhet dropped me in his shock. I stumbled against the wall, bashing my head against the stone. From where I stood, I saw Emma pushing her own lover off and scrambling to her feet.

  To our astonishment, Nik, Josh, and Thomas stood in the opposite doorway from the one we had used to enter this chamber. Each man looked ready to murder the Egyptians.

  “Oh,” I gasped as I grabbed my shirt and pulled it down, just now realizing Pakhet had nearly gotten it off my body. “I’m so glad to see you, Josh.”

  “Really?” he asked, his eyes never leaving me. “Cause it looks more like we’re interrupting something.”

  “How dare you disturb our sacrifice?” demanded Pakhet, his voice no longer sounding gentle or soothing.

  “Sacrifice?” asked each of us in turn, barely overlapping each other in our haste.

  “This is a sacred moment you disturb,” said Emma’s man.

  “To hell with sacred,” snapped Nik. “Those are our women.”

  I wasn’t sure if he was more jealous of me or Emma.

  “They have given themselves to us. They are yours no longer,” growled Pakhet, sounding more like the lion than he had been before our make-out season.

  You horny, lonely idiot! my mind screamed at me. What have you done?

  Before I could answer myself, the hieroglyphs on the wall rushed out and morphed into solid form again.

  Josh, Nik, and Thomas looked around at our growing enemy.

  “Give us the women and we won’t kill you,” said Thomas, sounding more threatening than I had ever heard him.

  I glanced at Emma. I’m sure I looked just like her: a perfect mixture of fear and chagrin.

  “Just an idea,” said Emma, “but do the women get a say in this?”

  “No,” barked all the men, vampires and hieroglyphics alike.

  “Right,” sighed Emma, glancing back at me and grimacing.

  “Oh, screw this,” I snapped, just as annoyed with myself as I was with the men.

  I jabbed my foot into the back of Pakhet’s knee, dropping him to the ground in the one swift motion. This was the release point for the tense group. I saw Josh grab his nearest enemy and bash his skull into the stone of the Egyptian basement.

  At the same instant, the hieroglyphic men’s heads morphed back into animal heads, all accepted Pakhet and Emma’s man. I spotted Emma fighting her man off, who appeared to be trying to do something inappropriate to her, but at three-hundred-plus years old, Emma was a trained fighter.

  Thomas raced forward, grabbing the man with the elephant head and swinging it around by the trunk. He used the elephant-man like a bowling ball, swinging him directly into the chests of three other Egyptians. Nik stood in the doorway, still staring at the scene as though shock had planted his feet in cement, while Josh jumped on the sarcophagi and began kicking the enemy in the head whenever they passed him.

  Meanwhile, Pakhet regained his footing and grabbed me, pushing me up against the stone wall and fumbling with my clothing. It seemed their sacrifice required something other than my blood. Clearly Pakhet didn’t expect me to fight back as he crooned sweet nothings in my ear.

  Despite my anger, I noticed the smooth richness of his skin as I punched him square in the nose. The bone broke and blood burst from the wound, coating my hand and his face in luscious, warm liquid. I grinned at him mischievously as he stood in shock, looking a lot like Nik. I grabbed his neck, almost as though I was seducing him, and pulled him to my waiting mouth.

  At first he leaned down, thinking I had succumb to his charm. At the last second I turned his head and sunk my teeth into his warm flesh.

  I’m not sure if it was the fact his sole existence was to seduce people, but Pakhet’s blood was the best I had ever tasted. As I drank deeply of his lifeblood, I spotted Emma doing the same thing to her man. Though they both were thrashing about, Emma and I easily overpowered them.

  Within minutes, the Egyptian man-beasts were beginning to fall as they tried to battle five very ticked off vampires, Nik having finally joined the fight.

  Pakhet’s knees w
ere just beginning to give out when the central sarcophagi’s lid began to shift. Despite my ecstasy, I noticed Josh’s eyes grow wide before he jumped off the stone tomb, rolling with the fall. After a long, agonizing wait, during which none of us moved, the stone lid fell to the ground with a deafening thud.

  I dropped Pakhet to the ground, assuming his blood loss would be enough to finish him off, in light of this new threat.

  What few Egyptian men still stood, dropped to their knees and lowered their faces to the dusty ground. Out of the stone sarcophagus blazed a bright light, which overpowered the dim glow coming from the hieroglyphic men. From within the rays of light rose a women, her skin olive toned like the men around us. Her dark-brown hair billowed as though there was a breeze through the underground tunnels.

  I have never found myself attracted to women, but even I have to say this woman was everything sexual and sensual. Granted, being in her birthday suit helped, though I suspected she would have appeared just as voluptuous in a 1960’s librarian outfit.

  The mysterious woman glanced around, a smile spreading across her face as she saw the adoring worship coming from her guards. Or maybe she was admiring the veneration of the vampires? I wish I could tell you what everyone else looked like as we stared up at her, but I couldn’t take my eyes off her glorious form.

  I felt more than saw Pakhet climbed shakily to his feet. He stepped toward his mistress and morphed completely into a lion. The woman mounted the lion’s back like a horse and used his thick mane like reins.

  “What is this you have brought me, dear Pakhet?” she asked, her voice dripping with honey.

  “The women were to be given up to you,” the lion said, his voice soundly only minimally more growly.

  “And worthy sacrifices they would have made, but they have proven more powerful than you suspected.”

  “Yes,” agreed Pakhet, his lion head bowing as though he felt her admonition.

  “No fault of yours, dear Pakhet. But I think we can use these powerful women for more. They will feed me longer as guardians than as sacrifices. The men, though, I will take for myse…”

  Before she could finish, Josh barreled into her, knocking her off her lion.

  “No!” Emma and I cried, echoed by the various animal noises of this woman’s guardians.

  Only half aware of what I was doing, I jumped in and tried to tear Josh away from the woman. The three of us became one enormous tangle, and in the process, I took an elbow to the face, though I wasn’t sure who owned the elbow. Somewhere in our rumpus, the naked woman planted her hands onto the sides of Josh’s head.

  The hands began to glow and Josh began to scream.

  Without a second thought, I shifted from trying to protect the naked woman to tearing her hands away from Josh’s face. Something about his cries of agony broke through my supernatural trance. I grabbed hold of the woman’s wrists and pulled with all my might, but she was much stronger than a normal human.

  Her eyes flickered to me, a look of command on her face. When I didn’t change my efforts, her commanding look turned into one of confusion.

  “Love,” she cried, her seductive voice taking on a note of pain. “All in love!”

  Her attack on Josh slackened as she glanced around the room, noting the way all five vampires were once again fighting against her guardians. She released Josh entirely and disentangled herself from us, quickly climbing to her feet.

  “Stop!” she called, suddenly looking as though she’d been on a juice fast for three weeks—weak and lethargic. “Stop.”

  Her guardians stopped mid swing and stared at her.

  The woman panted, struggling to catch her breath.

  “They all love. Love deeply. Get out. We will do you no more harm if you leave us,” she gasped, her words coming in short, exhausted bursts.

  I glanced at Josh, only partially aware that I was holding his hand.

  “Please,” the woman begged. “Leave us.”

  I nodded once. “Let’s go. We can spend the day in a different room.”

  Nik nodded in agreement before helping Emma off the ground and guiding her out of the room, Thomas close behind. Josh tugged on my arm and led me to the exit. At the doorway I glanced back at the woman, who was now leaning against her stone tomb.

  “Who are you?” I asked from the safety of the doorway, absently noting that all but Pakhet had merged with the stone walls and become hieroglyphics again.

  “Qadesh,” she said, soundly only slightly better. “The goddess of pleasure.”

  I glanced around the room, thinking of the shallow pleasure Pakhet had given me. I felt Josh’s hand entwined with mine.

  Sedgrave’s involvement or not, I suddenly realized how deeply I loved Josh. I would do anything for him, give up everything for him, and maybe, just maybe, I would have to do just that.

  Qadesh winced as I quickly worked through my epiphany, as though my love for Josh grew with my realization, and perhaps it did.

  “Go,” she whispered.

  Chapter Fourteen

  We spent the long day in a tiny room, a long distance from Qadesh’ chamber. Josh and I filled the entire day sitting as far from the others as it was possible, our fingers still entwined.

  As we climbed out of the little room, I felt my nerves climb into my throat. Josh would want to talk about what had happened with Qadesh. I think we all knew that her statement about love had not been a passing comment. It meant something, and we might just need to figure out what exactly that was. It might be more simple if our little group were made of up of two men and two women, but having five in our group made things extremely contemplated. Throw in a little Sedgrave and it was a disaster.

  While I consider my situation rather uncomfortable, I knew Emma’s was far worse. She had spent the entire day wedged between Nik and Thomas. Though Nik wouldn’t leave her side, his eyes kept flicking to where I sat with Josh.

  What a travesty, I thought to myself as I closed my eyes and tried to focus on the feeling of Josh tracing the veins on the back of my hand.

  Until Nik and Mikhail decided what to do with Thomas, and until Sedgrave was dead and his affect on Nik was ended, Emma couldn’t fathom what her future might look like.

  I didn’t envy her, having been in a similar situation.

  Now, though, my choice was made. All I had to do was admit it out loud. Why is speaking a truth so much harder than simply knowing it?

  When the sun set, Nik led us out of our underground shelter. We emerged behind one of the pyramids at the other end of the plaza from the Sphinx where we had entered the labyrinth of tunnels. We each stretched, reveling in the freedom of being able to stand up; the tiny room had been too shallow for any of us to stand erect.

  “Did you guys get the mask?” Emma asked.

  Thomas pulled the torturous mask out of his backpack. I took an unconscious step back, Josh’s firm grip the only thing keeping me from running away entirely.

  “Now what?” I asked, my voice cracking under my stress.

  “Let’s get out of the plaza before someone spots us. Split up and meet at the car,” Nik ordered.

  To my astonishment, Josh released my fingers and took off in a different direction. The others broke away and weaved their way through the pyramids toward the awaiting desert. Before I could decide which way to go, I was alone in the late dusk grayness. Not wanting to get caught, I raced away, taking a more direct route toward the city. I was too tired and anxious to be sneaky.

  Unsurprisingly, I was the first to arrive at the car, still waiting where we had left it in the parking garage.

  Josh’s dog appeared, scarring me to death. It gave me a high-pitched bark, tried to pee on the car’s tire, and ran away, disappearing half way down the slope.

  “Seriously need to put a bell on that thing,” I murmured as I leaned against the trunk.

  My eyes dropped to my empty hand and I looked at the blue veins standing out against my white skin, the same veins that Josh had been tracin
g during our day in underground purgatory.

  It was strange. When Nik had ordered us to split up I couldn’t imagine a better idea than some time by myself, but now that I was alone, I didn’t like it. In fact, I felt a sense of dread and panic rise up in my chest. Mostly, though, I was just lonely. I wanted Josh beside me. I wanted to feel his hand intertwined with mine.

  I made a resolution to be open and frank with Josh, even if it scared me to death, even if the voice in my mind kept nagging me—what if his feelings aren’t real, what if we raise Sedgrave and he rejects me?

  I was just beginning to recycle old thoughts on Josh and my fears when I heard a sound.

  I scanned the full parking garage, looking for the source of the sound. I couldn’t place the sound, but something about it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Slowly, I lowered myself to the ground and scooted next to the car tire.

  A second later I heard the recognizable sound of footsteps approaching. My tension increased. They weren’t the steps of a vampire racing to a rendezvous. The tread stopped and started too often, as though someone was looking for something or someone. I realized it could very well be someone looking for their car, but it also could be an enemy.

  Perhaps I was getting paranoid, but the tingle running up my spine said it was the latter.

  The steps grew increasingly close and I chose to get further out of sight. I crawled along our rented car until I reached the engine and squeezed myself between the front bumper and the concrete wall of the parking garage.

  The steps reached our car and stopped, took two more steps and stopped again. From where I hid I could see the searcher peeking around the trunk of the car to the very spot I had been hiding beside the tire. I crawled around the front of the car and slid down the other side, finally eyeing my visitor’s backside.

  He was large and burly, like the kind of man nicknamed “Tank” or “Hulk”. Tank wore a black tank-top, revealing the bulk of the well-developed muscles of his shoulders and arms. At first, I thought he was marked with bizarre tattoos, but the unusual pattern running down his neck and left shoulder, disappearing beneath his shirt, began to glow an emerald green.