“Every bit of it,” Nidaba lied. Every one of her nerve endings quivered with warning, and the hairs on her nape bristled. She did not like this strange woman.
“Well, now, I’m the expert, you know. Perhaps you ought to let me be the judge of that, hmm?” The woman came closer, and Nidaba suddenly knew that her smile was false, but the hatred in her eyes... that was real.
And deadly.
NATHAN RAN THROUGH the large kitchen, nearly colliding with George as he rounded a corner.
Pale and wide-eyed, George stood staring through the open cellar door and down the stairs, obviously torn between his longtime fear of the dark and his love for the woman he’d heard crying out. “It’s Sheila,” George said, fists clenched, almost bouncing on his feet in his agitation. “Somethin’s wrong with Sheila!”
Nathan flicked the light switch at the top of the stairs. Nothing happened. “It’s all right, George,” Nathan said, pushing past him and starting down the stairs. “Stay right where you are. I’ll take care of this.” He took the stairs two at a time, reached the bottom, tried the light switch there. Again, nothing happened.
“Sheila?” he called.
Then he listened. Soft sounds reached him through the damp darkness—ragged broken breaths, as if she was crying. “Sheila, love, what is it? What’s wrong?” Stepping forward, Nathan fumbled in his pocket for a match, a lighter, anything. But he found nothing. Then he saw the small beam of a flashlight, lying cockeyed on the cellar floor, illuminating only a few bricks in the wall. Sheila must have dropped it.
Nathan picked up the pace, bent to snatch up the light, and began moving its beam around. “Sheila, sweetheart, talk to me. Where are you? Are you hurt?”
Then the beam of light found her, and Nathan halted. He thought his heart stopped beating. Sheila sat on the basement floor, cradling a body—an obviously dead body, already stiff with rigor mortis. It was a woman, clad only in her underclothes. Nathan swore and moved closer, kneeling down near Sheila, aiming the beam of light on the woman’s face.
And then his head spun, and his chest contracted. “My God, that’s... Lisette!
“I don’t understand it, Nathan!” Sheila was sobbing, rocking the body in her arms. “I was only just talking to her... but she’s dead. She’s dead, Nathan, my best friend, my mate Lisette, she’s dead!”
* * * *
THE WOMAN IN Nidaba’s room flung her stack of towels aside. In her hand a dagger gleamed. A dagger with a jeweled hilt.
Nidaba’s hand shot to her thigh automatically, but her own blade was not there. And the woman she knew must be a Dark Witch, lifted hers and charged. Nidaba reacted with the instincts of a seasoned warrior. She ducked the blade and grabbed up the nearest weapon she could get her hands on. A water pitcher. Damn! Nearly useless. The blade hissed past as Nidaba lunged to the side. Then she swung the half-filled pitcher as hard as she could, and it slammed into the woman’s head. Water sloshed and splashed everywhere. But neither it nor the force of the blow seemed to faze her attacker, and within seconds Nidaba found her back pressed to the mattress by the weight of the Dark Witch.
Nidaba held the woman’s wrists, fighting to keep the blade away from her own flesh. But she was so weak, and this other—an old immortal, obviously—so strong. Nidaba let go of the woman’s left hand, using both of hers to grip the right one, the one that wielded the blade. The only result was that the evil one’s left hand was free now, to pound and punish. It clawed, it struck, it bruised. And yet Nidaba bore it, focused only on holding the knife’s razor edge away from her body. Her heart!
Her face split and bleeding, her body racked with pain, Nidaba broke out in a cold sweat as she lay there, locked in an endless standoff with the woman. The muscles in her arms quivered and burned with exhaustion as she held fast. Her elbows gave, and she shot them straight again. They weakened, and she forced them firm. They fell... and the blade came down...
“Noooooooo!”
The sound was a long, drawn-out bellow, like the blast of an infuriated, charging bull. And the next thing Nidaba knew, her attacker was knocked off of her by another body.
Eannatum’s body.
The impact launched the Dark Witch through a nearby window. Glass shattered, and Nidaba jerked her head around. But all she saw was the demolished window. Then her view was blocked by Eannatum’s strong back as he looked outside, down at the ground far below.
“Is she...?”
He turned, breathless, staring at her. “Gone. Dammit, she’s long gone, whoever she was!”
Nidaba lay still, her entire body shaking with shock, adrenaline, pain, and this damned debilitating weakness. “Is this how you plan to hasten my recovery, Natum? By placing me in the care of Dark Witches intent on carving out my heart?”
He came to her, and she could see the damage of her own face reflected clearly in the grimace of his. “You’re bleeding.” He hurried into the bathroom and returned seconds later with a basin of water and a cloth. Settling himself on the bed beside her, he gently cleansed each cut, bathed each bruise.
He did not seem at all like the man she knew him to be. The man who had tried to have her killed. Who had ordered the execution of his own son in order to protect his precious throne, his precious kingdom.
Even then she’d doubted he was capable of such an atrocity. Even then. And those doubts had plagued her all this time. The murderers had been his soldiers, his men—men who wouldn’t dare to go against his orders. And yet those doubts lingered.
She turned her head to the side to avoid his ministrations. “It will heal soon enough. Don’t forget what I am.”
“I know full well what you are, Nidaba,” he said, dropping the cloth into the basin and setting both aside. “But the regeneration process has been slowed in you. Probably because of the tranquilizers you were given, and your weakened state.”
“All of which would pass quite quickly if you would stop fussing and simply feed me.”
He thinned his lips. “Come downstairs, then. I don’t dare leave you alone again... and I have a... situation to deal with.”
“With a Dark Witch in your house, I would imagine you do.”
He held out a hand, and she merely stared at it.
“In case you haven’t noticed, Nidaba, someone is trying to kill you. Now until you’re back in fighting condition, you’re going to have to trust someone.”
“Someone, perhaps. But you?”
“I just saved your life,” he pointed out. He was still holding out his hand, staring into her eyes.
With a sigh, she took it and let him help her to her feet. “Don’t think that saving my life just now even begins to make things right between us, Eannatum.”
“I am called Nathan King now,” he said, pulling her to her feet.
“Why?”
He lifted his brows. “It’s more in keeping with the times. No one here knows what I am, Nidaba. I would like to keep it that way.”
She sniffed. “No doubt. I would be ashamed too, in your place.” She started toward the door, but when she would have pulled her hand free of his, he tightened his grasp.
“I am not ashamed.”
She glanced back at him, at his blazing eyes as proud as if he was still a mighty king. “You should be.” Then she tossed her head, even though the act made her dizzy. “As for me, I am a Witch. My name is Nidaba. I will not change it, nor will I pretend to be something else, as you do. I am no ordinary mortal, Eannatum. Don’t dare expect me to act like one.”
“Why would I expect that, Nidaba? You didn’t act like one when you were one.”
She looked at him quickly, in search of the smile she heard in his tone. But it was evident only in the slight sparkle of his eyes.
“Do you mock me, Natum?”
He shook his head slowly. “No, Nidaba. I’m just glad to see you haven’t changed all that much.”
“Haven’t I?”
He shrugged. “You still seem to believe you’re as much goddess as woma
n.” Reaching out, he tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “It was always one of the things I loved best about you.”
She averted her eyes abruptly, and her voice became choked and hoarse. “Please... don’t use that word when referring to me.”
“What word?” he asked.
She didn’t answer. Instead she moved carefully into the hallway. Her legs buckled, though, causing her to sway and grip the doorjamb. Eannatum slid his arms around her, beneath her, and swept her up off her feet.
“I can walk,” she protested.
“Not unless you’re strong enough to make me put you down,” he said.
She knew she wasn’t, so she let him carry her through the hall and down the stairs, and she tried not to notice how very protective his strong arms felt around her, or how warm and solid his chest was beneath her, or how deep his eyes were when she looked into them from this close.
But she noticed all of that anyway.
He set her down gently in a rocking chair in what seemed to be a library, and called out to someone. Soon enough a giant of a man, wearing a bright orange necktie over a yellow knit sweater came thumping into the room.
“George, this is Nidaba,” Natum said.
George looked at her and his eyes widened. “You’re the lady!”
She felt her brows go up.
“You got better! I knew you would. I told you she would, didn’t I, Nathan? And she did! See?”
“Yes, George, you were right.”
George eyed her steadily. “I’m a nice person,” he said. “My name is George. Nathan is my friend. Are you going to break my arm?”
Nidaba blinked, tilting her head to one side, and studying him with a hint of amusement. “Of course I’m not going to break your arm,” she said. “Are you going to break mine?”
George shook his head emphatically from side to side. “No way. I promise.”
“Well, then, I suppose we should get along.”
“George,” Nathan said, “did you take Sheila up to her room as I told you?”
“Yeah, I did. But she’s not right, Nathan. She’s all curled up on her bed, and she’s crying something awful. I tried to make her stop, but nothing I said made her feel any better. I never seen Sheila cry before.”
“Neither have I.” Natum pinched the bridge of his nose as if to pinch away some nagging worry.
“I don’t like it, Nathan. I want you to make her stop. What happened in the cellar that would make Sheila cry like that?”
Natum clasped George’s arm, squeezed, and Nidaba saw that the big man was quite like a child. She also saw clearly Natum’s affection for him. “I’m going to explain all of that later, George. For right now, I want you to stay here with Nidaba. I don’t want you to let anyone come near her. You understand?”
“Not even Lisette?” George asked.
“Especially not Lisette.”
“Okay, Nathan.”
Nidaba sighed, about to argue that she needed no protection, but then decided it would carry no weight, since she couldn’t even get down the stairs under her own power. And Natum sent her a glance that was almost... kind. Warm. “I won’t be long.”
She simply nodded and watched him go.
“So,” she said to George, who had taken a seat beside her, and was staring at her oddly, “who is this... Sheila?”
George smiled. “She’s Nathan’s friend, just like me. She lives here, does the cooking, and takes care of the flowers, and things like that. She’s an awfully good cook, you know.”
“Is she?” So some woman lived here with Natum. Nidaba wondered what that signified, and then wondered why she cared. “I am starving nearly to death. I would love to sample some of her cooking.”
George looked at the floor. “We could... go to the kitchen and get some... but the cellar door is still open, and I don’t know what happened down there.”
Nidaba frowned. “Something happened in the cellar?”
Nodding, George cast a nervous glance toward the closed library door. “Sheila was down there screaming. And the lights wouldn’t work. And then Nathan went down to see what was wrong. And then he came running back up, pulling Sheila behind him, and he told me to get her to her room, and then he ran up the stairs again. I don’t know what happened. But something sure scared Sheila pretty bad.”
“It scared you too, didn’t it, George?”
He bit his lip and picked at his sweater.
“Maybe we don’t need to go to the kitchen,” Nidaba said, feeling sorry for him. Feeling almost... protective of him, if that wasn’t the strangest thing in the world. It wasn’t like her to go soft over mortals. But this one... well, he’d touched something inside her. “Isn’t there any food any where else in this house?”
George’s looked up and smiled. ‘There’s a fruit bowl in the living room!”
“Then let’s go to the living room,” she suggested.
Still grinning, George swooped down on her like the world’s clumsiest hawk, awkwardly lifting her up into the air. When she protested, he said, “Nathan said for you to stay off your feet.” Then he carried her right out of the library, through a formal dining room, and into a wide parlor with a fireplace on one side and exquisite antique furnishings all around.
None of that caught her eye, though. What caught her attention was the painting—larger than life—above the mantel. An image of a woman in the unmistakable white gown and headpiece of a Sumerian High Priestess of Inanna. She stood in the desert, amid ruins of once great towers, with her arms extended up toward the giant moon. Crescent-shaped moonbeams reflected from her black eyes, and a nimbus of light surrounded her. As if she truly were some sort of divine being. “It’s... me,” she whispered.
“Yeah. I thought so too, but Nathan wouldn’t admit it,” George said, plunking her down into an armchair. He reached out for a bowl of fruit and set it in her lap.
Narrowing her eyes, Nidaba tried to make out the signature that was barely visible in the left corner, hidden within the swirling strands of long black hair. Eventually she saw it. But it was made up of lines in the shape of the old cuneiform script, rather than any modern alphabet, and appeared to the casual observer to be no more than swirls in the blowing sand. But she was no casual observer. The symbols stood for his name: Eannatum.
A scratching sound drew her head around. George leapt to his feet, his face lighting up as he lumbered unevenly toward the closed door.
“George, don’t—” Nidaba began, but even before she could finish the sentence, George was opening the door.
Nidaba tensed... then relaxed as a beautiful, sleek-coated dog dove through the door, leaping on George, and licking his hands. George fell to his knees, hugging and petting the animal. “Oh, Queenie, I’m so glad you came home!” he said, laughing.
Nidaba couldn’t help but smile at the two of them as she bit into a gleaming red apple. “You mean she’s been missing?”
“I was so afraid she wouldn’t come back!” George said in between laughter, hugging the animal, rolling on the floor with the dog.
Like a little boy and his long lost pup, she thought as she watched them.
* * * *
NATHAN WATCHED HER eat.
And he thought that a few days ago he had been leading a placid, calm, even respectable mortal life and had been perfectly content with it. And then, with no more than a glimpse of that face in a blurry newspaper photo, everything had changed. He had broken-and-entered, kidnapped a mental patient, fled the police, and at this moment there was a dead body lying in his basement.
He didn’t know what the hell he was going to do about poor Lisette. Right now, Sheila was upstairs resting, with the help of a double dose of sleeping pills. And George was confused, frightened by all the turmoil, but thankfully distracted from it by the reappearance of his stray. The dog lay underneath the dining table at George’s feet, eagerly but delicately devouring the bits of food George offered.
Nidaba, in stark contrast, wolfed her own meal a
s if she hadn’t been fed in a month. She didn’t even seem to notice that it consisted of prepackaged frozen foods he’d dug out of the freezer and heated in the microwave, with dehydrated side dishes. The stuff must have been buried in there since his pre-Sheila days. Pseudo fried chicken, instant mashed potatoes, heat-and-serve gravy. He was not untalented in the culinary arts, but he’d been in a hurry. The meal had all the flavor of cardboard, but flavor wasn’t what Nidaba needed. Protein and carbohydrates were. Calories, for energy and the strength to restore her. There were plenty in the food he served her.
As she ate, he could already see the changes taking place: the color, slowly creeping more deeply into her skin; her hair, losing that limp dullness, and coming alive, thickening, shining. The changes were so gradual mortal eyes would likely never notice—not until later, when they might well look twice and wonder when she’d improved so drastically. But his eyes were not mortal. And they saw everything. The way her cheeks began to plump and fill out, the slow fading of the dark circles beneath her eyes, and of the bruises that had just begun to form on her face. The mending of her split lip and the cut in her cheek.
George, thankfully, was oblivious to all of it.
Finally Nidaba seemed to have sated her hunger. She drank two full glasses of water, leaned back in her chair, and looked at him, looking at her. Her arms no longer resembled twigs beneath the white nightgown. Her collarbones no longer protruded so sharply. He let his gaze slide lower, to where her breasts pushed at the buttons on the soft white cotton nightgown as they had not done before, making the fabric pull tight and gape slightly in between. He knew she was aware of his gaze, because of the way those breasts reacted to it—peaks stiffening as if his stare was a physical touch. And he could not help remembering the first time he’d seen them full and healthy, and aroused. For just a moment, he allowed himself the pleasure of exploring that memory. He couldn’t have resisted it even had he wanted to.
* * * *
EANNATUM SAT UPON the satin pillows in the throne room, which was filled with honored guests come to attend his coronation. Platters of food were heaped on every table. Chalices were filled to overflowing, and the pleasant, excited hum of conversation filled the room. But he was hearing none of it. He had only one thing on his mind.
Eternal Love: The Immortal Witch Series Page 82
