by Nina Bruhns
“So brave. So pretty,” he murmured, brushing his lips over her cheek. “So sweetly responsive.”
She shuddered in revulsion and tried desperately to pull away.
“No, don’t fight me, my dear. It’s no use, you see.”
His strong fingers combed into her hair, bunched it and pulled back her head, exposing the bare column of her throat. She watched in horror as he drew the forefinger of his other hand slowly down the vein that throbbed there wildly. The expression on his face terrified her. He looked…hungry. As though he wanted to bite her like a—
Oh, God.
His lips parted. That’s when she saw his two eye teeth begin to lengthen. And sharpen. Like fangs.
Oh, God. OhGod, ohGod!
She tried to scream but couldn’t make a sound. She tried to struggle but still couldn’t make her muscles work.
“You’ll enjoy this,” he murmured, touching the end of his tongue to the tip of his fang. A drop of blood blossomed and he curled it into his mouth. “I promise.”
She squeezed her eyes shut and prayed to wake up from the nightmare. This is not happening!
Suddenly the night silence was shattered by a frantic pounding at the hall door. “Miss Haliday!” a muffled voice called. “Miss Haliday, are you there?”
Thank heaven!
Ray peered furiously at the door. Joss did, too, summoning every ounce of strength and trying with everything she had to cry out. Still no sound emerged.
The pounding continued. “Miss Haliday!” She didn’t recognize the voice. Couldn’t even tell if it was a man or a woman. She didn’t care. She just wanted them to come in and save her!
Ray swung his glare back to her. “Do not think this is over, Miss Haliday. I will be back,” he growled. “And don’t try to run. Make no mistake, I will find you, wherever you are.”
He let her go, and with a rush of blood, movement returned to her limbs. She jumped away from the monster and lurched for the hall door. “I’m here!” she cried to her nameless rescuer. “I’m coming!”
Harold Ray gave her one last evil look. “And I’m warning you. Stay away from Seth-Aziz.”
With that he turned, and in the blink of an eye he was out on the balcony. There was a rustle of what sounded like wings, a shower of sparks, and then he was gone. Vanished.
For a second Joss was paralyzed with disbelief. And by an overwhelming incredulity that filled her whole being over what she’d just been through, what she’d just felt, and witnessed.
She quickly shook herself and rushed to the entry door, flinging it open.
“Thank you! Oh, Lord, you have no idea how—”
But no one was there.
Just a lone copper-colored cat stalking noiselessly down the middle of the Persian carpet with tail erect. Otherwise, the corridor was silent and completely empty.
Good grief. Maybe she was going nuts. Which might actually be preferable to…
What?
She let out a long, unsteady breath.
Merciful heaven.
What the hell had just happened to her?
Chapter 2
That same day
Khepesh Palace
The Western Desert, Upper Egypt
The demigod Seth-Aziz, high priest of Khepesh, needed blood. And he needed sex.
He needed to find a mortal woman and take her to his bed, sink his sharp fangs into her silken neck and his aching cock into her lush body. To relieve the hunger. And the frustration.
But that wasn’t going to happen.
Not tonight. Nor anytime soon. For that would mean exposing his weakness to his followers, letting them see him as less than the powerful demigod and commanding ruler he’d been for the past five thousand years.
He’d rather die.
Which was fast becoming a distinct possibility. If he didn’t feed before his Full-Moon Slumber he would likely never awaken again, regardless of the prayers and rituals fervently murmured over his black obsidian sarcophagus by the temple priestess.
Not that there was a temple priestess any longer at Khepesh, the secret underground tomb-palace where he and his followers served Set-Sutekh, the ancient Egyptian God of Darkness. A week ago their last full priestess, Seth’s sister Nephtys, had sacrificed her freedom to their archenemy, Haru-Re, allowing herself to be captured by the High Priest of the Sun God and agreeing to become the bastard’s consort.
The thought still filled Seth-Aziz with rage.
So much so, that by sheer force of that emotion he was finally able to marshal the little strength he had left, to do what he must do.
He straightened his spine, thanked the beneficent god for his ritual costume—the dazzling silver mask that hid the pallor of his cheeks, and the shimmering black robes that covered the slight tremble in his limbs—and walked through the stately silver portal into Khepesh Palace temple.
It was midnight on the night of the new moon, the appointed time for the Renewal of Life ceremony. This was when the shemsu, the immortal followers of the Dark God, Set-Sutekh, went through the monthly chants, sacrifices and rituals that allowed them to continue to live forever, to serve at the altar of the Lord of the Hot Winds and Chaos, Ruler of the Night Sky and Guardian of Eternal Darkness.
Luckily, this ceremony did not require a priestess. As high priest of the temple, Seth would preside.
Assuming he didn’t fall over from hunger.
That would not be good. He needed to keep up the pretense. If the council even suspected how bad off he was, they would force him to take a sacrifice, willing or not.
Which he was not ready to do.
Not yet.
Because they would want him to take her.
And as much as he wanted to sink his fangs into the troublesome female, even more he wanted to kill her.
The portal gates were swung open by the shemats, the two young temple acolytes, who bowed respectfully as he entered. He nodded to them, and paused as Sheikh Shahin Aswadi, captain of the palace guard and Khepesh’s army of warriors, approached to escort Seth through the temple to the inner sanctum where he would perform the Rites of Renewal.
You look like death warmed over, my lord, Shahin whispered into his mind as he sketched a formal bow.
Since he, Shahin, and the sheikh’s new woman, Gemma, had shared magic last week when Seth had been desperate for a temporary fix of mortal blood, he and Shahin seemed to have acquired the ability to communicate silently through their thoughts at will. A somewhat unexpected, but handy skill to have.
Seth allowed himself a sardonic smile. Ever since his sister Nephtys had been taken hostage, his good friend the sheikh had also assumed her role as his Official Nag.
Hardly surprising, as I am dead, Seth returned.
“Soon to be permanently so, if you don’t stop this foolishness,” Shahin muttered under his breath.
It was an ongoing battle of wills. Shahin was one of only two others at Khepesh who knew the truth about Seth’s present weakness and the reason for it. But Seth didn’t have the time or energy for a fight. He had duties to perform.
He glanced around at the beautiful hypostyle hall, the first of three courtyards of the elegantly luxurious temple that lay deep underground, like the rest of Khepesh, all lit up by flickering torch sconces. This was the largest courtyard, the festival chamber where his followers, the shemsu, came to feast and celebrate their god. Despite being filled to capacity, the mood in the hall was unusually somber for a Khepesh celebration. Normally their gatherings were loud and festive, part pomp and circumstance, part sexual bacchanalia. But on this night, the shemsu were feeling the weight of an unknown fate closing in upon them.
As was Seth-Aziz.
“Where is your lovely captive tonight?” he asked Shahin as the crowd greeted the arrival of their demigod with a haunting, melodic chant that marked the opening of the ceremony. “Is she not with you?”
Seth could practically hear the sheikh’s teeth grind under the chanting voices. “Gemma is not he
re,” Shahin said, “because, if you recall, she is not immortal and has no need of the ceremony.”
Not to mention Seth’s orders to keep her well out of his path, lest he do something they’d all regret. She was, after all, the sister of the woman who’d brought his life to ruin.
“And Gemma is not my captive,” Shahin added unnecessarily, no doubt simply to annoy him. “She is my chosen woman, with whom I intend to spend eternity.”
Unfortunately, Seth knew that, as well. Shahin’s relationship with the middle Haliday sister had gone beyond captive and master within days of her being kidnapped. Possibly hours. Seth just didn’t like it. Those three accursed sisters were the bane of his existence and the source of all the current disasters befalling Khepesh.
Well, two of the sisters, at any rate. The redheaded Gemma he could tolerate, just, if she kept her distance. Shahin had done well to spirit her off to his aboveground desert oasis encampment.
The youngest sister, Gillian, the wretched betrayer and traitor, was lucky to be beyond the reach of Seth's sword and his wrath. She was presently shacked up with his former master steward and presumably ex–best friend, Rhys Kilpatrick, sharing exile with his own beloved sister Nephtys in the palace of his enemy.
But it was the oldest Haliday sister, Josslyn, of whom Seth truly wanted to obliterate all trace from his life and his universe.
It was because of Josslyn Haliday that his own sister had traded away her life to Haru-Re. It was because of Josslyn Haliday that Seth had made some of the stupidest strategic decisions in his five millennia of existence. It was because of Josslyn Haliday he’d let down his guard enough to feel, at long last, the dim, treacherous hope of having the dulcet touch of love in his life again. A hope that had proven as false as the smile of a serpent.
By the blood of Sekhmet, he wanted to wrap his hands around the woman’s slim, pale neck and—
My lord! “Seth!” Shahin’s urgent whisper snapped him back to the present with a jolt.
He realized he’d stopped walking and was standing in the second chamber of the temple, the Courtyard of the Sacred Pool, glaring into the lovely, water-filled basin like a mad zombie.
The surrounding crowd eyed him worriedly. Murmurs of concern rippled through the chamber.
Sweet tears of Isis.
“Sorry,” he said, gathering himself. “Just saying a prayer.”
Sure you were, Shahin said dryly in his mind, then he muttered aloud, “For God’s sake, Seth, choose a woman after the ceremony, and take the blood you need. I don’t understand why you are being so damned stubborn about it.”
Neither did he. Not really. It wasn’t as if he wanted to die or cease his existence or whatever a demigod did when he failed to awake from his immortal slumber. It was just…he was so damned tired. Tired of the weight of leadership, tired of the eternal war and strife with Haru-Re, tired of the never-ending, grinding loneliness—loneliness he’d thought was finally coming to an end. Because he’d actually let himself believe Nephtys’s vision of at last finding true love and a worthy consort with that damned Haliday woman. Such a gullible fool he’d been!
He knew better. Had five thousand years of a life spent in solitary existence taught him nothing? Had the poem he’d written so many years ago, lamenting over the weariness of life on earth, not been burned in his memory like a never-ending mantra?
Nephtys’s visions were so rarely wrong, he’d told himself. But by the rod of Min, this vision had not only proven false, but it had brought him and the shemsu of Khepesh Palace nothing but trouble and misery, and indeed, to the very brink of annihilation itself.
He took a deep breath, spiced with the fragrance of the thousand flowers and ten thousand sweetly scented candles that filled the hall. “I will feed,” he assured his friend. “Soon. I just need to…”
“To what?” Shahin asked doubtfully when Seth’s words trailed off.
He straightened. “To get this damned ceremony over with.”
“Do I have your word on that?” Shahin pressed. “That you will choose someone?”
“Yes,” Seth relented, just to shut the man up. “I promise. Soon.”
Shahin scowled at the qualifier, but there was little he could do about it at the moment. It was time to begin the ritual.
Seth turned and raised his hands, and started to intone the opening incantation that the shemsu were nervously awaiting. There was a thick thread of tension underlying the love and concern of his people. It swirled and flowed through the courtyard like an invisible tide of otherworldly energy.
He closed his eyes and fed deeply off their collective magic, absorbing its awesome power into his weakening life’s blood, draining every last morsel of strength from it he could.
The magic they sent him wasn’t blood, and it wouldn’t keep him alive, but it bolstered and nurtured his hurting soul as nothing else could.
He continued his measured walk through the temple, coming to the dark portal of the third chamber, the inner sanctum. It was an awe-inspiring setting. The walls were clad in glittering silver and the floor made of obsidian stone so black one’s feet seemed to tread upon the vast, empty void of the universe. The soaring expanse of the curved ceiling was fashioned of dark blue lapis lazuli the exact color of the night sky, spangled with diamonds that sparkled and winked in the same constellations as the trillion stars over the real desert aboveground.
It was here, in the holy of holies, that Seth’s coffin rested, where he took his monthly three-day slumber at the full moon. Inlaid with precious metal and the finest gems, the elaborately carved obsidian sarcophagus lay in the middle of the small, candlelit chamber. Inside the stone nestled the fragile Egyptian mummy case into which his body had been placed upon his mortal death, so many long years ago. That he had arisen from that final sleep, and continued to do so every month since, was known only to the shemsu, the chosen few. That, along with an even darker secret.
That Seth was a vampire.
One of only two vampire demigods remaining in existence on earth.
He approached his sarcophagus, which also served as the central altar, lit up for display in the chamber. The altars were strewn with flowers and candles, cascades of fruit, goblets of wine and censers of smoking ambergris and myrrh—all offerings to their god Set-Sutekh, given in exchange for his blessing of another moon-span of immortality.
With a deep breath, Seth began to chant. Behind him, the shemsu joined in as a chorus. Together, their voices rose in a magical harmony conceived and honed over the passing of the millennia. One by one, he recited the names of each of the faithful, humbly asking for the god’s continued beneficence. For only he whose name was thus spoken lived on.
By the end of the ceremony Seth was exhausted. His head was spinning and his legs on the verge of giving out.
Shahin hurried up to him and put his arm around his shoulders, lending him support under the guise of backslapping brotherly camaraderie, now that the formal part of the ceremony was over and the feasting had begun.
“This has gone far enough,” his captain declared in a low voice that carried no less heat for its lack of volume. “I’m fetching Josslyn Haliday.”
“No!” Seth commanded emphatically. “I don’t want—”
“I don’t care what you want.” Shahin cut him off sharply. “You are Khepesh’s leader, and it is my sworn duty to see no harm befalls you.” You’re on the brink of collapse, my lord. Clearly the lack of a blood sacrifice has affected your ability to make rational decisions.
Seth bit down on his resentment. I could kill you with but a single thought.
But you won’t, his friend shot back. Because you know I’m right.
Seth clamped his jaw, but that made his head spin even more. By the cock of Osiris, he hated this! For all eternity he would curse the malicious goddess Sekhmet for gifting him with this unholy blood weakness!
“No,” he said. “I’m telling you, I will not have that woman here!” Shahin started to argue, but Seth slash
ed out a hand to forestall his lecture. “Fine! Bring someone else. Anyone else. But not her!”
His friend’s assessing gaze bored into him, as though weighing his sincerity.
“By all the night gods, Shahin, I swear to you I will slay her myself if she sets her foot in Khepesh!”
With a pause and then a reluctant nod, Shahin conceded. “Very well. I’ll try to find another woman willing to submit.”
“It’s not like she has consented, either,” Seth ground out, taming his temper.
He shook off his friend’s arm and caught himself before he fell, refusing to be half carried through the festival hall. He plastered a smile on his face, accepted a goblet of wine from a flirting woman and downed it in a single gulp. He turned a cheek to her kiss with a regretful wink. No way did he have the strength for what she was offering.
“Josslyn would do the sacrifice if Gemma but asked her to,” Shahin continued to argue after the woman skipped off. “Gemma knows what it’s like to be your vessel. Hell, she would do it herself if you let her.”
Seth cast the other man a glance. It had been just last week that the three of them had shared the most intimate act three people could have together. It had been at once breathtakingly sensual and mouthwateringly carnal. Seth had taken blood from her then, but only a small amount. And all three were still reeling from the effects. Mostly in a good way, but he wasn’t about to take any chances.
“No,” Seth said. “I don’t dare touch your woman again. In the state I’m in, God knows if I could stop before she…”
He didn’t complete the sentence. The circumstances they spoke of could have any number of outcomes, none of which he wanted driving an irreparable wedge between him and the sheikh. He’d already lost his best friend to this damnable situation. He would not lose another.
“Better it’s a stranger,” he said. “Just in case.”
