by Tula Neal
“Go!” he yelled to his men. “Go!”
They galloped back to the stables.
The horse owner rushed out to them.
“What?” he asked with dread, seeing their faces.
“Arsinoe is dead, and the Ephesians are fighting the Romans.”
“Goddess.” The man’s eyes widened.
“We were never here, should anyone ask.”
The horse owner nodded, turning away from them, dismissing them from his mind, his attention now on protecting his property should the riot at the temple spread to the harbor.
Chapter Eleven
In minutes, the pirates were back on their ship. They hoisted the sails in hurried silence. In the distance they could hear the tumult of the skirmish at the temple. Seleucus hoped the centurions were getting the worst of it. He glanced at Imi, who stood at the stern staring at Ephesus as the city receded behind them. She had not spoken since they’d gotten back on board, but he thought he knew some of what she was feeling.
“Imi.” He pulled her into his arms.
“Do you think if I’d gotten there quicker . . .” She turned to face him, her eyes huge and despairing. “If he’d known she had the relics in her possession . . . ? Perhaps . . . ?”
“Arsinoe was a threat to Cleopatra. She would always have been a threat as long as she lived, so she ordered Marc Antony to kill her. He knew before he asked that she would never renounce her claim.” Seleucus sighed. “I am sorry, Imi. It is politics. Marc Antony needs Cleopatra’s support if he is to conquer the East.”
“But the relics . . .”
He shook his head.
“They are important from a religious point of view, of course they are, but Cleopatra and Marc Antony are playing for very high stakes. He wouldn’t have cared if Arsinoe had possessed Osiris’s very crook and flail.”
“The goddess. I saw her; didn’t you? She was standing on the steps.”
“I saw something.” Seleucus was reluctant to commit himself. He had seen a ghostly form, but it could have been a trick of the light. It was strange, though, how dark it had gotten.
“I saw her. She was so beautiful, but she looked so sad, too.” Imi shivered. “She couldn’t stop him. His gods were behind him, and she couldn’t do anything. What does that mean, Seleucus, that the Great Mother could do nothing?”
“I don’t know, Imi,” he said, tangling his fingers in her hair, cradling her, wishing he could do something, anything, to take away her pain and confusion. “Imi, I will take you to my house.”
She frowned and reared back to watch him.
“You can live there.” The blood thundered in his ears. He wondered if she could hear it. “You will be safe,” he said, urgently. That was the most important thing to him, that she be safe. Had she been standing next to Arsinoe he had no doubt that Marc Antony’s sword would have threatened her next, and then all Hades would have broken loose because nothing, not even a legion of Roman deities, would have kept him from slicing down the general.
“Safe!” She cried. “Think you that I wish to be safe? My mistress is dead, can’t you understand?” Tears ran down her cheeks. “She’s dead. I don’t know where Lucius is or if he’s safe. What will become of him? Of all who loved and followed her? Medir. Hepset. Tetisheri. It’s over. It’s all over. Everything we wanted. She’s dead! Oh, Goddess!” The sobs wracked her body. She sucked in great gulps of air. “I loved her,” she cried into Seleucus’s chest. He stroked her hair in silence, his heart breaking. How he wished he could have taken her pain into himself and healed her hurt, but only time could do that.
“Alexandria,” she murmured.
“What?”
“That’s where I must go now. I have to look for my family. They are probably dead, but there is a chance they’re not or perhaps they escaped and are living somewhere in exile. I can never know for sure unless I go and look for them. I have to make that effort.”
“I will take you there.”
“I cannot pay you.” Her voice caught. “I can’t even pay you for bringing me to Ephesus.”
“The priest’s silver will last us a long time, but, in any case, the ships that sail from Alexandria make for rich pickings, and now that Marc Antony is busy with Ephesus . . .” He left the rest of the sentence unsaid.
A brief, wry smile flickered on her face.
“So, you will not lose by it?”
“No.” He wanted to remind her about his promise to abduct her if she’d persisted in wanting to stay at Ephesus, but now was not the time. She had said nothing about living with him. He hoped he hadn’t read her wrong that night in the cabin. It was possible he had seen on her face what he wanted to see. After all, why should she have deep feelings for him? He had abducted her and planned to sell her as a slave. It was she who had come up with the idea of pleasuring him, but only as a way to buy her freedom, not because she loved him. How could she love him? He had not offered her even the basic courtship that an Egyptian woman of her class could expect from a suitor. But none of that mattered. He had made up his mind. He knew his course of action.
He would take her to Alexandria and help her look for her family. She deserved a chance to see them again if they were still alive but then, whether she willed it or not, he was going to take her away from that city to his home. Cleopatra and Marc Antony were in the ascendancy now, and that was dangerous enough for Imi, but he felt sure Octavian would not look benevolently on the couple’s power grab in the Eastern countries and elsewhere. Even Marc Antony’s relationship with Cleopatra must gall the Roman general. Hadn’t Marc Antony scorned his wife, Octavian’s sister, for the Egyptian? A storm was surely coming, and he needed to get Imi out of it.
“Captain.” One of his crew cleared his throat behind him.
Seleucus released Imi and turned to the man, glad for the interruption.
“Do we sail north?”
“No, south. We go to Alexandria.”
The man glanced over Seleucus’s shoulder at Imi.
“Is this wise, my captain? Cleopatra makes her home there. It is probable that Marc Antony will sail back to her.”
“Or he may head to Parthia or Judea. We have no way of knowing, but it is to Alexandria that we go now.”
The man shrugged and turned away to shout the captain’s orders at the other men.
“He speaks true,” Seleucus said. “Cleopatra has made Alexandria her capital to win the favor of Alexandrians.”
“Yes.” Imi nodded. “It will be a different city to the one I left. Hers.” She was silent for a moment, her eyes turned inward. “I must . . . I want to be alone.” She grimaced, shook her head. “I must put the relics away.” She slipped out of Seleucus’s arms and walked to the cabin. Seleucus watched her go, saw the rigid set of her shoulders, how she walked as if holding herself in, afraid of cracking, and his heart wrenched.
He wanted to follow her and wrap his arms around her, but she needed time to herself. Instead, he strode to the bow. Islands, mountainous and lush, interrupted the horizon. The shoals and reefs around them, little sisters of Scylla and Charybdis, posed a hazard to the unwary captain and his crew, but Seleucus knew them well and had no fear. He glanced behind him. Ephesus was fading into the distance, the masts of the Roman ships no longer distinct. Marc Antony and the Romans knew nothing of him or Imi. Even were they no longer preoccupied by the Ephesians, they would have no reason to give chase.
Arsinoe and the priests and priestesses of the temple had gambled and lost. Marc Antony and Cleopatra had nothing to fear from Imi or the relics but they might consider her a loose end that required wrapping up. Seleucus clenched his hands into fists. After Alexandria, he would hide Imi so well, not even her gods would be able to find her. And if Marc Antony or Cleopatra somehow did, well, his nails dug into his palms. . .
*****
Much later, when the stars had lit up the sky with a million small fires, Seleucus went down to his cabin. Only one lamp was lit. Imi was in bed, lying on the
covers, her chest rising and falling in shallow breaths. Even as he watched, she let out a small cry, her hand rising as if to ward off an imaginary blow, her head shaking from side to side.
“Aieee,” she shrieked. Her eyes flew open, and she sat up. Perspiration gleamed on her forehead. Seleucus crossed swiftly to her.
“A bad dream, Imi. That’s all it was, a bad dream.”
She nodded, panting, all but diving into his circling embrace.
“I saw it again . . . the blood, her head.” She trembled, covered her eyes. “Oh, Seleucus. Do you think she suffered?”
“It was mercifully quick.”
“No, I mean. How could she have borne it?” Her voice was low, wondering. Tears ran down her face. “Seeing his sword rise, knowing what he was going to do, knowing that she was about to die. And she did not flee, did not seek to escape. How brave she was.”
Seleucus said nothing, but he thought that if there was one thing the Ptolemies were known for, it was their bravery.
“Love me, Seleucus.” She shrugged herself out of her tunic. “Goddess help me, but I . . . I do not want to think on death any more this night.” She curved her arms around his neck and drew Seleucus down on top of her. Seleucus closed his eyes at the sweetness of it, of being held by her, of the feel of her. He inhaled deeply. The lavender scent of her hair almost undid him as he remembered the first time he’d smelled it when he’d picked her up on the road to Anxur. Had he known then that his Fate was bound up with hers? He inhaled again and thought he heard the faint sound of someone cackling. Surely, his mind played tricks on him.
“Imi.” Her name rumbled on his tongue.
“Yes?”
“I love you.” The words he’d never thought to speak to any woman, but now that they were out, he felt a weight lift from his shoulders.
She placed a palm on his chest to push him back so she could look into his eyes.
“You . . . ?”
“I love you. Might have done from the first time I saw you.” He gave a slightly embarrassed chuckle, dropped his eyes, then raised them to hers again. “It’s not something I’m very familiar with. Love, I mean.”
“Oh, Seleucus.” She reached up to kiss him, her lips butterfly soft against his. The tip of her tongue licked at his lips. He groaned. Desire flamed through him. He opened his mouth to hers. He loved her. The knowledge of it sang through him. He had abducted her, but she’d turned the tables and captured his heart.
“Imi.” He whispered her name, loving the sound of it in his mouth, in the air. He kissed her neck, pushed himself down to suckle her breasts. His hand moved down between her legs. Her body bucked as he circled her clit with his fingers. He probed further and found she was wet. He entered her with his middle finger. She gasped, her hands stroking his shoulders, his back.
“I did what I was supposed to do.” There was the slightly defiant tone in her voice of someone expecting an argument. “I am released from my vow now.”
It took Seleucus a minute to realize what she was talking about.
“Are you sure?” He knew how it important it had been to her.
“Yes.” She nodded firmly. “I’ve thought about it, and I am.”
Seleucus had no argument to offer her. He’d wanted to hear those words for a long time. Now he climbed over her.
A quick tug at his undergarment and he was sliding his hardened, aching cock into her. He felt like a ship arriving at its home berth. How tight she was. How good she felt. He circled her with his arms, holding her tight to him as he thrust himself into her, withdrew until he almost cried out and then drove himself in again.
“Mine,” he said.
“Yes, Seleucus. Yes.” She crossed her ankles over his back, drawing him deeper, rubbing herself on him to gain her own pleasure. His mouth sought hers. She kissed him back, her passion rising to match his. He possessed her now in all ways. The triumph, the wonder of it, nearly took his breath away.
“Ah.” His body jerked, jerked again. He pushed his hands down to cup her bottom and hold her to him as she continued to rub her clit on his groin.
“Unh.” Her body contorted. Her vaginal walls fluttered against his cock, and he knew she’d found her release.
He lay on top of her for a few seconds more, then rolled off, holding on to her so that now she was on top of him.
She rested her chin on his chest. Her face had grown suddenly serious, and Seleucus felt an anxious pang. Did she regret it already?
“I . . .” She stopped, her expression enigmatic in the smoky light of the lamp.
“Yes?” he encouraged.
“I never answered you about your house in Cilicia.” She took a deep breath, smiled sadly.
Seleucus willed himself to absolute stillness. He was afraid to move, to breathe, to risk doing anything that might prevent him from hearing her. Whatever she was going to say next required his full attention.
“I cannot help Arsinoe any longer, and I do not know what I will find once we reach Alexandria, but what I do know, Seleucus. . . “ he held his breath, “ . . . is that when you are with me, I feel safe, protected.” He exhaled in a whoosh. “I want to stay with you. I want us to stay together.”
Seleucus closed his eyes for a second. He wanted to savor this time, savor the moment. She hadn’t sworn eternal love or said that she wanted to bear his babies but it was enough. It was more than he’d hoped for, and, the gods knew, he had enough love for them both.
He felt her hands on his face and opened his eyes to gaze on his beloved.
“We will, Imi,” he promised fiercely. “Nothing will ever tear us apart. Ever.”
She nodded.
“I think this is why I saw you in the smoke.”
“What?”
She told him everything then. About her mission and about her oath, about the image of his face she’d seen in the smoke and what the old woman had said on the rocks at Velia.
“I’ve been thinking it over all afternoon, and I think the Great Mother knew it could go wrong, that my task might come to naught, but you, I think . . . “ She ducked her head embarrassed. “I think they meant you for me, as a . . . um . . . “
“Reward?” he suggested.
“Something like that.” Her eyes scanned his face anxiously. “You’re not upset, are you?”
“Upset? Why should I be? I want you. I’ve got you. I’m happy.” He hugged her to prove it, burying his nose in her hair.
The distant sound of a sistrum startled them both. Imi turned, her gaze probing the darkened cabin. The tune, reedy and unearthly, appeared to rise from the very boards of the cabin floor. A face materialized in the air. Seleucus grabbed for his dagger.
“No,” Imi cried out. “It’s the old woman from Velia.” She leaped naked out of bed, her arm out as if to touch the apparition.
The old woman smiled as Imi retracted her hand and stared at it in wonder. It had gone straight through the hag’s face.
“You have done well, servant of the Great Mother. Arsinoe is with her father in the company of their divine ancestor, Horus. Grieve not. All is as it must be. Return the relics to the high priest at Alexandria and live with the Mother’s blessing.” The face vanished as quickly as it had appeared.
“My family?” Imi cried, but the cabin was silent except for the slosh of the waves outside.
“We will find them, Imi.” Seleucus pulled her into his arms. “I have a good feeling about it.”
He had stopped believing in the supernatural years ago, but he had a sense about this. They would go to Alexandria, find her family, and return the relics. And then Imi’s life with him would begin properly. Whatever happened in the world, whatever was to come, they would face it together with the blessing of Isis. He drew Imi back to the bed for a night of lovemaking they never forgot for the rest of their long lives.
###
Biography
Tula Neal writes erotic paranormal and historical romance and occasionally ventures into erotica and contemporary a
dventure romance. Her novellas and short stories have been published by Cobblestone Press, New Concepts Publishing and Phaze Books.
Other Books by Tula Neal
The Mermaid’s Mission
Love of a Courtesan
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