Shadow of the Sheikh

by Nina Bruhns

  He shook his head. She wasn’t convinced. But she was outright shocked when he began, “Gemma, last night you said you love me. Was that—”

  But he never got to complete the question. It was drowned out by a sudden frantic pounding on the apartment door.

  “My lord!” someone yelled. “Sheikh Shahin! You’re needed immediately! The lady Nephtys. She’s been taken captive!”

  Gemma hurried down the main palace corridor after Shahin, a clutch of guards close at their heels. He’d given orders they weren’t to leave her sight. They were all headed for the council chamber, where Seth-Aziz awaited.

  She didn’t know what was going on and was frightened out of her wits. How could the priestess have been snatched out from the hidden depths of an underground palace? It didn’t seem possible.

  Shahin apparently shared her opinion. That was the first question he asked of Seth when they swept into the chamber.

  The high priest sat at the end of a long obsidian conference table, leaning on his elbows, his head in his hands, obviously in distress.

  When they entered, he looked up. “She’s surrendered to him, Shahin! Nephtys has sacrificed herself to that bastard!” He rose to his feet, fists pounding the table.

  Gemma shrank back against the stone wall of the chamber, trying to make herself as small as possible against the demigod’s rage. Her guards hung back in the doorway.

  Shahin’s stopped in his tracks, obviously shocked. “Why in the name of Osiris would she do that?”

  Seth pushed a parchment note across the table. “Read for yourself!” he thundered.

  Shahin scanned the parchment, then glanced at Gemma with a scowl and back to Seth. “She traded herself for Josslyn?” he said in visible disbelief.

  Gemma jumped to attention. What?

  Seth drilled his fingers into his hair. “It’s over, Shahin! My own sister has doomed Khepesh to extinction!”

  But what about her sister?

  “That’s not necessarily true,” Shahin said to Seth, trying to calm the high priest’s agitation. He swiped a hand over his lower face, rubbing his jaw. “If Lady Nephtys did this, she must have good reason. And a plan. She loves you, Seth, and Khepesh as well. She would never put us in danger. She’d rather die than betray you. You know that.”

  Seth’s eyes squeezed shut. “Until ten minutes ago, I would have staked my life on that being true.” He opened them again and jetted out a breath. “Now it appears I have staked my life upon it.”

  Gemma peered back and forth between the men. “What about Josslyn?” she blurted out, unable to contain her fears any longer. “Is she in danger?”

  Seth’s mouth pressed into a thin, angry line. “Only if she is unlucky enough to cross my path,” he ground out.

  “Nephtys says Haru-Re has sworn to leave her alone,” Shahin assured her.

  Alarm zinged through Gemma’s insides. “And you believe him?” She turned to Seth. “S-sir, my lord,” she faltered, “I th-thought you wanted her here, to be your—”

  Seth slashed a hand down like a hatchet, cutting her off. “I never want to see her face! Or hear her name spoken before me again! This is all her fault! If it weren’t for her—”

  Gemma gasped. “That’s unfair!” she cried as Shahin sent her a warning glance, shaking his head. Gemma ignored him. “Josslyn didn’t have anything to do with your decision to—”

  “Enough!” Seth boomed and took a step toward her. “Have a care, girl, or you, too, will be banished from my sight!”

  Shahin stepped in front of her protectively. “My lord, I’ll take Gemma with me to the oasis encampment and contact my spies to dig up what they can about Nephtys’s situation at Petru.”

  “Yes,” Seth snapped. “Do that! I want to know if she really intends to go through with this madness. My sister, Haru-Re’s consort! It is an abomination!” The normally stoic demigod’s voice pitched to a roar.

  Gemma tugged on the back of Shahin’s tunic. “Josslyn?” she whispered urgently, unable to get past him to ask Seth herself.

  Shahin cursed under his breath, and asked, “And the Haliday woman, my lord?”

  “You heard me. I want nothing to do with the troublemaker! Haru-Re has promised her safety. Leave her to her mortal fate. Now go.”

  She and Shahin exited the council chamber quickly. Once in the hall, with the door closed, Gemma reached for Shahin and clung to him with shaking hands. “He didn’t really mean that, did he?”

  “I don’t know,” Shahin admitted. “But for now, I think it’s best we leave Josslyn where she is.”

  Gemma was terrified for her sister, being out there all on her own to face whatever otherworldly machinations were working around her. It was obvious Haru-Re knew about Joss and was using her to his own ends. Could they really trust his promise? If he realized Joss had been abandoned by Seth, what would he do to her then?

  Josslyn needed to be here, at Khepesh, safe and protected.

  And the irony of that complete reversal in her attitude did not escape Gemma.

  But then she remembered Gillian’s plea.

  Maybe she and Joss really did belong at Petru, to be with Gillian and their mother and father. If they gave themselves up to Haru-Re, maybe he would honor the trade and let Nephtys go. That way Seth could be happy again.

  But…what about Shahin? What would she do without him?

  God, what a mess.

  How could she even think about leaving the man she loved?

  Chapter 23

  Nephtys could see the dazzling blaze of Haru-Re’s anger even before he entered the temple. A living thing, the light of his fury filled the sky above Petru like a thousand suns, flashing, glittering, bright enough to blind.

  Nephtys gathered her strength, calling forth every vestige of power she possessed. She would need every ounce of it to face him down.

  The demigod did not like to be crossed. She would feel his wrath. But she was ready to bear it.

  For Khepesh. For her brother.

  “Priestess!” he bellowed, storming into the temple sanctuary like a tornado of shimmering radiance. Tall, broad, handsome and as golden as the sun he worshipped, his sculpted features were chiseled in a mask of determination.

  By the goddess, he was magnificent!

  “Yes, my lord?” she answered softly. She did not rise from where she knelt at her prayers before the altar of Re-Horakhti, but she did look up. Temple acolytes scattered like seeds in a storm.

  He towered above her, his long fingers curled into tight fists. Sparks exploded around him in a living halo. “You dare break your sacred oath to a demigod?” he roared.

  “No, my lord,” she refuted calmly, though her knees were trembling. “I have not broken my word.”

  He raged on as though she had not spoken. “You shall become my consort immediately! That was our agreement!”

  Now she did rise. Slowly and with the dignity befitting her high rank. Not easy with a huge devil looming over her and pricks of fire raining down on her bare skin.

  “No,” she said. “I agreed to become your consort, but nothing was said about when.”

  A glower swept across his patrician features. “You know damned well—”

  “I am a priestess, my lord,” she interrupted, though her heart quailed, “and I must discharge those duties before taking up those as your wife. It takes time for the rituals.”

  “A year?” he growled furiously. “You seek to provoke me!”

  “What is one more year compared to the five-thousand you have lived quite happily without me?”

  He seized her arms and glared down at her, but the rain of embers diminished. “You keep bringing that up. You must have missed me greatly to be so nettled by my absence.”

  She felt her cheeks go warm. “Like a slave misses the master who sold her.”

  “I never sold you,” he said, his eyes narrowing dangerously. “You were stolen from me.”

  According to whose version of the story?

 
“It matters not. I am no longer a slave, and you must respect the ways of the temple or lose the favor of your god,” she reminded him. “Will you not need the help of Re-Horakhti in the coming battle against my brother and Khepesh?”

  She watched him mentally weigh the risks of defying the god he served. Ray had always done exactly as he wished, but always within the laws of Petru. Not that there was an actual law concerning the obscure ritual she was invoking. But he didn’t need to know that.

  “Do not think,” he said, his voice low and rough, “that you will escape my bed for a year, meruati.”

  My only heart. She hated when he called her that. It weakened her will to hold him at bay. And it wasn’t true. He had no heart. Yet her pulse sped whenever he whispered the endearment.

  He pulled her body close to his. His lips sought hers.

  Her heart beat out of control. At the last second, she turned her cheek. “We have no choice. I must stay pure for the ritual.”

  She prayed fervently he wouldn’t question the lie.

  Against her throat she felt the erotic scrape of his fangs as they lengthened. She shivered, and tried to pull away from him.

  He held her firm, with arms of unbreakable granite. “We shall see,” he murmured, and glided the tip of his tongue perilously close to the nearly faded bite with which he’d marked her. Her addiction from him flared to a burn. Her body clenched with need.

  “No,” she whispered.

  “You are mine, Nephtys,” he purred into her ear. “Your blood, your body, your soul. Mine. And no one will ever take you away from me again. No one.”

  Chapter 24

  “Shahin, there’s something I need to tell you.”

  The anxious way Gemma said those words made Shahin halt as he reached for her. She looked troubled.

  This could not be good.

  She was pacing back and forth across his tent—their tent—wearing a path in the Persian rug. She was still incredibly upset about Seth’s pronouncement regarding Josslyn. They’d returned to the oasis this morning when it had become apparent there was nothing to be done to change his mind. Not at this point, anyway.

  Shahin watched her continue to pace. Now what? There was no way of predicting what she was about to spring on him. He was as much at a loss today to decipher her thoughts as he’d been since the first moment he saw her. If there was one thing he’d learned about Gemma Haliday, it was that she never did or said what was expected.

  “Oh?” he prompted, dread circling his insides like a starving jackal.

  She stopped pacing but wouldn’t meet his gaze. “I saw Gillian last night.”

  He frowned. “What?”

  “While you were gone.”

  His body stilled. But confusion jumbled his mind. “That’s impossible. Gillian is at Petru.”

  To his further confusion, she nodded. “Yeah.”

  She finally turned to face him. “I don’t really understand it, but…she came to me, to Khepesh, while I was sleeping.”

  Relief surged through him. Ptah’s feather. For a minute there… “In a dream, you mean,” he clarified.

  She shook her head. “No. It wasn’t a dream. She was there with me. In your bedroom. Sort of. She said it was a spell. Rhys Kilpatrick was helping her work it. Like I said, I didn’t really get the details. I just know she was there, talking to me. It was weird. She flickered. Like an old movie, badly spliced.”

  He narrowed his eyes. Digested that. “I’ve never heard of a spell like that.” It was possible one existed, he supposed. If true, it would be a formidable weapon in the per netjer’s arsenal. Maybe Seth had kept it a secret, like he’d kept the powers of sharing magic under wraps.

  Gemma dashed that notion. “Gillian said Haru-Re recently rediscovered it. That he’d been using it on Nephtys. That’s how he got to her. To threaten.”

  Ah. That made more sense. But the question occurred to him, perhaps a tad cynically… How had Gillian gotten hold of it so easily? “Does Seth know about this spell?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure. She was only here for a few minutes and we talked about…other things.” She folded her arms over her abdomen, looking ill.

  Apprehension tingled over his scalp. “What things? What did she want?” he asked, his uneasiness increasing tenfold. He had a feeling he wasn’t going to like the answer.

  Gemma bit her lip, and blurted out, “She told me my parents are alive. Both of them. living at Petru.”

  Shahin’s insides went cold as ice. He knew about the mother, of course. But the father, too? “Your parents? Both of them?”

  Her eyes filled with stark pain. “Apparently my dad figured out what happened to my mother. How she’d disappeared. Somehow he found Petru, and joined Haru-Re as one of his followers, to be with her.”

  Shahin was getting a bad feeling about where this was going. “Gillian has actually seen your parents? Talked with them?

  Gemma Swallowed and nodded. “Yeah.”

  He finally reached out to draw her into his arms, forcing a calmness he didn’t feel. “I’m so sorry, kalila. I know this must be difficult for you.”

  But her body was stiff, unresponsive, and he felt a slight tremor in her limbs. God help him. He braced for what was coming next.

  “I have to go there, Shahin. To Petru,” she said quietly.

  He froze. So much for her being bound to him during the sharing of magic.

  “No,” he said vehemently. Unbidden, his element started to rumble underfoot.

  “Yes, I do. With Josslyn,” she went on as though she didn’t know he was on the verge of losing it. “We must surrender ourselves up to Haru-Re, and join his followers.”

  “What?” He couldn’t believe he was hearing this. More earth tremors shook the tent.

  She looked up at him with doleful eyes. “Don’t you see? It’s the obvious solution to this whole impossible situation.”

  The only thing he saw was that she must not really be in love with him if she was ready and willing to leave him without backward glance and go over to his mortal enemy. If she truly loved him, she could never even think to betray him in such a way.

  Well, to hell with that!

  And her, too.

  He clenched his teeth. Hard. The ground below quaked violently.

  “Haru-Re has no interest in you,” he snapped, too hurt by her suggestion to think about his heated response. Her lips pressed together, and he suddenly got the absurd notion that he’d hurt her with the statement. But that wasn’t possible.

  She turned away, wincing at the books flying off shelves that vibrated with his anger. “I’m very aware I’m not the sister anyone wants,” she said evenly. “Joss is the one he wants, the one he traded Nephtys for. She’s the only bargaining chip Khepesh has. But I cant let her go alone to Petru to be a hostage.”

  He couldn’t answer. Speechless. Was she kidding?

  “You want your priestess back, don’t you? Besides, I belong with my family,” she concluded. “And they’re at Petru.”

  He finally found his tongue. “That’s it?” He growled. The earth boomed and shook. “What about us?”

  “What us?” she volleyed back at him, unafraid of falling objects or his fury. “You’ve made it pretty damn clear there is no us, and that you have no interest in making one!” Her shoulders straightened. “I’d be doing you a favour, leaving before you get bored with me.”

  Hot shame sliced through his chest hearing his own heartless words flung back at him.

  Which melted his icy rage. And calmed the tremors thundering through the tent.

  Okay. He deserved the rebuke. And had earned her blame. He’d been a total ass to say that. Even back then, he’d known it wasn’t true. He’d just been in flat-out denial.

  As he’d been up until this very minute.

  “Gemma,” he said, reining in the impulse to grab her and show her how not bored he was. How not bored he’d always be with her. How much he wanted her. For the long-term, not just a few days.
r />   But he had to convince her calmly and logically. Not like a caveman.

  A final shudder rocked the ground beneath them, then all went still and silent in the tent.

  He took a deep breath. “You said you love me,” he said, striving hard for cool reason and a calm demeanor.

  Her shoulders slumped a tiny bit. “I do love you,” she said, reluctance ringing in her voice. Misery shone in her beautiful eyes.

  Hoped swelled his heart that this insane idea wasn’t something she truly wanted. “Then…why?”

  She sighed. “You once said the blood addiction works both ways, Shahin. Well, so does love. It has to, or it doesn’t work at all.”

  He knew that. Better than most men.

  His throat closed convulsively as fear welled up within him. He knew what must come next. It was his turn for confession. Time to make it right.

  In all his years as a warrior, he’d never been this afraid. He was so afraid of committing himself to her. Afraid she would betray him in the end.

  But most of all, he was afraid of losing her.

  He couldn’t lose her. He couldn’t. And because of that, he was willing to take a chance on all the rest. He must take the chance.

  He sucked down the fear and walked over to Gemma. He put his hands over the curve of those stiff, unyielding shoulders.

  “But I do love you,” he said.

  For a moment she stood absolutely still. Then she slowly turned and looked up at him. Her eyes brimmed with wary caution. And something else….

  Hopefulness?

  “What did you say?” she asked, so softly he barely heard her words.

  He slid his hands up and cupped her jaw. “I said I love you. I love you, Gemma Haliday, and I want you to stay with me here at Khepesh. For always.”

  He didn’t add that if she ever tried to escape to Petru he’d hunt her down and tie her to his bed until he changed her mind, using any method at his disposal.

  That would probably not be considered calm or reasonable.

  Her tongue peeked out and slid over her lower lip. “Seriously?”

  “I couldn’t be more serious,” he assured her, watching her tongue worry her lips. He finally gave in and covered her mouth with his. He kissed her until she surrendered, her body melting into his with deep sighs. “Believe me now?” he asked when their lips finally parted.