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“And they are?”

“Menes, the great unifier of Egypt. In his reign he was able to bring upper and lower Egypt together by both war and diplomacy, proving himself capable of both. And then there is Hatshepsut. It was rare for a woman to rule all of Egypt in her time, and yet she did so with strength and fortitude, also unifying many nations into Egypt, expanding trade routes that made the kingdom flourish. She was pharaoh in her own right, long before Cleopatra’s time.”

Docia narrowed her eyes on him, suddenly rising back to her feet as she took in his powerful build and bearing.

“Ram,” she said softly. “Holy hell, is that short for
Ramses
?”

“Indeed it is,” he said with a brusque nod.

“Umm … which one? There were …”

“The second. Ramses the Second.” He shrugged, as if he hadn’t built half the statuary in Egypt, most of it
bearing his likeness. His original likeness. She stared at his face, wondering what he had looked like when he had been the original. She suddenly felt breathless and light-headed. She was standing in front of
Ramses the
frickin’ Second!

“Hey, wait a minute … weren’t you the one who resisted the whole freeing of the Hebrew slaves thing?”

He grimaced. “Details of that situation have been greatly … misrepresented,” he said, sounding put-upon and pained.

“So, no locusts?”

“Docia, I am not interested in discussing the past. It is gone from the world now. There are more important things in the immediate present we should be focused on.”

“What about the fiery hail?”

“Docia,” he warned.

She bit her bottom lip to keep from giggling at his expense.

“Oh, c’mon. Did the Red Sea part even just a little bit?” She held up her thumb and forefinger an inch apart.

He huffed out a sigh and rubbed a pair of fingers against his right temple as if he had a headache. But despite her teasing and her rudimentary knowledge of Charlton Heston’s portrayal of the past, she did know that history looked upon Ramses II as the greatest architect and the most significant pharaoh of all time.

And yet … she realized then that somewhere along the way he had ceded his authority to another … to someone he had looked on as more powerful and more worthy than he. There was a distinct lack of arrogance in an act like that. Provided it had been a peaceful and willing surrender.…

War. Was the war that had killed all those Body-walkers a century ago still ongoing? The Bodywalkers
had decimated themselves … had they learned anything from it?

“Are you still at war?” she asked, her voice sounding very small and squeaky.

“Things have been quiet … but the instigators of the last altercation, as far as we know, have not yet been resurrected into new originals. They died in tandem with our king and queen, who sacrificed themselves to see to it those Templars’ influence and seditious voices were dragged back to the Ether. It was their hope that a hundred years of cooling their heels would calm them down a little … and would keep the unsuspecting human race safe for a while longer.”

“Safe?” she echoed.

“Mmm.” He frowned. “Part of the Templar belief is the subjugation of what they look on as the inferior human race, not to mention the subjugation of the originals who host them.”

“Oh,” she said, the word coming out meekly. She didn’t need a lengthy explanation. She could well imagine what that meant. Docia put a hand to her stomach, rubbing it anxiously as nerves and fear clenched. A Bodywalker had the power to subjugate the soul of its original host.

“God, what the heck have I done? What in hell is inside of me?”

Ram didn’t blame her for her anxiety. There was much to be worried about. The internal squabbles of Bodywalker politics were nothing compared with the malevolence of the other Nightwalkers lurking out there, the other breeds lashed down to the night like the Bodywalkers. There were creatures out there that would tear her apart as soon as they got a whiff of the Body-walker inside of her.

But she was overwhelmed as it was. She hardly needed more horror stories, and as long as she remained in the compound she would be safe from those other threats, so he saw no need to burden her with it all at once. He wanted to give her a little time to adjust first.

He had held off touching her all this time, even though he’d had urges to do so in order to give her comfort or the strength of support. He was unable to reconcile the way she made him react on such a strangely visceral level. But if touching her was disturbing,
not
touching her was proving to be frustrating and painful. He turned away from her, paced a couple of steps, running a hand through the thick waves of his hair in a gesture habitual of Vincent far more than of Ram, a bit of minutia she would not be aware of.

You need to relax,
he heard Vincent say in a rare aside as himself rather than the Blended voice they had long spoken with in thought and deed these past years.
She’s just a girl.

Not just a girl. A queen. She may have been just a girl before, but now she was Hatshepsut, the greatest queen of all time, a dominant, strident personality … and the eternal mate to his king, the one and only man he could have ever stomached ceding authority to. The man who deserved it based solely on his strength and wicked intellect. For as great as Ramses had been in his time, Menes had been greater. Ramses had existed and worked off the backbone of the dynasties before him that had forged the way. Menes had been the core of that backbone. She would see that one day very soon. And, just as she had many times before, she would fall in love with Menes for it.

Ram turned to say something to her, and Docia was there, so suddenly, beneath his chin, bumping against his body. He instinctively reached out a hand to steady her, drawing her close, though by accident or on pur
pose, he wasn’t certain. Her hair brushed beneath his nose and he could smell her, a sandy sweetness of musky incense from the meditation room. She was overly warm, his hands burning once more as they slid over her back. He knew the sensation would last for hours after he let her go, just as it had last time, but he couldn’t make himself lift his hands away from her. He couldn’t seem to force himself to step back. Couldn’t make himself understand that she was destined for another man and forbidden to him.

He couldn’t do that because electricity began to thump through his body everywhere they connected. It tingled and sparkled along all the surfaces of his skin, almost ticklish at first, but it quickly evolved into something much less innocent, something deep and sinful … something that made his blood burn.

And he knew she felt it, too. He could tell by the delicate little gasp that erupted from her pillowy lips, by the warm blush that flew like wings up very fair cheeks, beneath what remained of her bruises. She looked up at him then, her mink-brown eyes widening.

“Who are you in there?” he asked with sudden, breathless heat. He knew who she was. But he had worked side by side with his queen over many ages, and never had he allowed himself to feel … never had he truly felt anything like what he was feeling whenever
this
woman drew close to him.
They had to be wrong,
he thought a bit wildly. He would never betray Menes or her in such ways! And so the demanding question burst out of him, and he found himself giving her a small, jolting shake … as if he could rattle her around a bit and rush her carbon to the surface.

Still he held her. Still his hands remained on her body, keeping her close up against himself. He did not step away. Did not turn free. Did nothing to reinforce the knowledge that she was forbidden to him.

“I’m Docia,” she answered back at last. “I know you say I’m someone else, too, but I don’t feel that so much yet. I feel like I’m still just Docia. Nothing has changed for me. I’m just
me
.”

Even as she spoke, she absently scratched at her shoulder. He pressed his lips together and reached to hook a finger into the collar of her sweater. The soft knitted material gave easily, identifying her braless state as he exposed her shoulder and took note of a lack of a strap. He forced himself to ignore the onslaught of heated speculation that tidbit of knowledge threatened to provoke in him. The area of her upper scapula came into view, and the redness of it was distinct.

“This rash,” he said quietly, “is the evolution of the ouroboros. The mark of the Bodywalkers.”

“Mark? What
kind
of mark?” she demanded.

He reached up with his left forearm, catching the cuff of his shirt in his teeth as a means of pulling up the sleeve of his sweater, exposing the ouroboros tattooed on his forearm. The dual sinuous, elegant snakes were deeply entwined, the head of each snake devouring the tail of the other snake; around and around they went, in perpetuity, a never-ending cycle, the perfect symbol of the symbiotic Bodywalkers, whose lives could not exist without their hosts and whose hosts could not survive without their Bodywalkers’ spirits. And as he turned his wrist, the tattoo glimmered with the iridescence of black scaling, as if they were very real. And if she watched long enough, she would realize that the snakes wrapped around the Egyptian dagger were actually in motion. The tattoo was a living thing on his body, a phenomenon exclusive to the Blending.

“I’m going to have a tattoo? A
snake
tattoo?” She didn’t sound horrified. There were no delicate sensibilities being offended here, he realized immediately. It was pure fascination, and her mink eyes were warm with a
seemingly secretive delight. “I always wanted a tattoo. I never had the guts. The needle scared the bejeezus out of me.” She reached up to fondle her bare, irritated shoulder. “It will be visible with certain clothing. Tanks and camis and such,” she noted.

“Do you wish to keep it hidden?” he asked, unable to keep from following her fingers over her skin with a couple of his own. She was so very warm, and it radiated with the permanence of the tattoos she spoke of into the pads of his fingertips.

“No. I don’t see why. Yours is very beautiful.” She then reached with both hands to touch his forearm, her fingers running through the light, crisp hairs, tracing the winding snakes. The active sensation of her touch on his skin was like the unexpected smack of a cold hand against a hot cheek. Not that she was cold. Far from it. Only that everything about it was sharp, unexpected, and shocking to his whole body. That one simple touch. He must have gripped hold of her at her waist, because she let out a surprised gasp. Knowing how strong he was and how fragile she was as yet, he pulled away sharply. Yet everything about the action felt wrong. It was like leaping out of the warmth of the fine, beautiful desert and plunging into the brutality of an icy, dangerous mountainside.

Then of all things, she blushed. Not because of some shyness that he could perceive, but because of this sense of rejection he felt emanating from her in a wave of tangible emotion, the power of it prickling all over his skin. She didn’t want to feel this way, certainly not visibly, and he could see that struggle all over the awkward turn of her body as she tried to shelter her expression. It was the first indication he had that she was just as aware of or affected by the chemistry roiling between them as he was. He had thought that somehow it was all in his
own head … that he was losing hold of the clarity of who he was.…

He took a breath, slow and deep, and tried to shake off those thoughts. He would not be one of those carbons who went mad, the dissolution of the self and core of who they were so faded over time that they became utterly lost. Just shallow copies of the greatness they once were. His original, Vincent, had come with a stunning fortitude and strength that powerfully reinforced everything that made Ram who he was, who he always had been. A king in his own right, in his time. He had once been powerful enough to choose any woman he wanted. None were off-limits to him.

None.

But this one was. Because he held his friendship and his loyalty with Menes dear, he could not betray either of them by looking sideways at his queen and mate. The sands of time had flowed over and over again, and
every
single time
Hatshepsut and Menes had cleaved to each other with stunning devotion and need.

So much so that Hatshepsut’s death a hundred years ago at the hands of seditious Templar traitors had devastated Menes, and Menes had thrown himself into death in order to follow her to the Ether, rather than forcing himself to live without her.

But this creature was not yet Hatshepsut. The queen was all but dormant inside of her, too weak to move. Perhaps too weak to observe.…

Ram lifted a hand to her, touching her head where her injuries showed worst, although not nearly as bad as when he’d found her a few hours earlier. But he ignored that sign of the Blending and let his touch skim back into her hair.

“What are you … ?”

But she already knew the answer. It was eager in her eyes and in the step forward she took, the way her chin
lifted to present him with the opportunity of her mouth. He smiled for a moment, the expression hard on his face, feeling the bittersweetness of the moment.

This is what you choose to trade away your honor
for?
Vincent questioned inside of him.

It was. And if Vincent did not understand what drove Ram to touch his lips against hers, he quickly learned. Ram had suspected there would be something there, that an experience like no other was awaiting him, and it immediately crystallized for the two male essences sharing their single body. It was a brief touch, barely a kiss, but it was enough to make her draw her breath in sharp surprise. The sensation was all-powerful, a whippet of heat and electricity lashing away from the contact, scoring them both. She drew back with surprise, but he was having none of that. His hands shot to her upper arms, locking around them like steel manacles, holding her and dragging her forward again, this time for a deeper touch … a deeper kiss.

It was like unleashing a tempest. Something he of all people should understand, and yet he did not. Where it came from, he hardly knew, but suddenly there was thunderous sensation riding through him, shocking bolts of heat coursing through his veins. It was that instantaneous and that overwhelming. Thunder and lightning crashed outside of the house, shaking it from the rafters down, making her startle. He ignored it. He crushed her delicate mouth under his, squeezed her arms so tightly it was a wonder they didn’t snap. But he quickly realized he must maintain his hold on her arms for all he was worth or his hands would find other things to do, find other flesh to hold.