Vampire Sheikh (12 page)

He lifted her from the mattress as though she weighed no more than a feather pillow and turned her to face him. “I'm not talking about the passports, Josslyn. I'm talking about you leaving Egypt.”

“What's the problem?” She summoned forth her most indifferent mien. “As I recall, this afternoon you couldn't wait to for me to leave.”

He didn't even have the grace to deny it. “Things are different now.”

“Seth, I told you. This was just sex. I have no interest in making it anything else.” Especially now that she knew the truth.

“Neither do I,” he said, driving the invisible knife further into her heart. “But unfortunately, these things are not solely my decision. The Great Council also has a say when it concerns the welfare of Khepesh. And they've ordered me to bring you to appear before them.”

“Me? I have nothing to do with the welfare of Khepesh.”

“Some would disagree. They wish to meet you.”

“Why?”

“To see if you're suitable.”

She stared at him. She was getting a really bad feeling about this. She might think his priestess sister's woo-woo vision of their supposed future together was just so much hooey, but these people apparently believed in such things. “Suitable for what?” she asked warily.

“You know very well for what.” He leveled his dark gaze upon her. “To become my consort.”

S
eth felt Josslyn's consternation and rejection of the idea as swiftly and strongly as he'd felt his own when presented with the order.

Unfortunately, things really
had
changed, now that he'd slept with her.

By the gods! How had he let this debacle happen? One second he was roaring at her, doing his best to scare her so badly she'd never want him in a million years, and the next he was plunging into her, unable to think of anything but making her his—all his, completely his, in every way.

Utter disaster. Now that he'd taken her body as well as her blood, the Great Council would see it as a foregone conclusion that he'd agree to take her as his consort. After all, why would he refuse? He'd never before refused to take a woman to wife whom they'd recommended. Especially after tasting her blood and being with her
carnally. The choice of consort had never mattered one way or another to him. Women didn't understand him. They weren't interested in understanding him. They were only interested in having mind-blowing sex with a vampire and in the wealth and prestige that being the consort of the high priest of Khepesh and demigod of Set-Sutekh could bring them. There had been a few exceptions over the years, but not many. And those few, Haru-Re had taken a special delight in seeing captured for his perverted amusements.

Part of Seth didn't want another consort. Ever. But another part of him longed for a soul mate with a dull, aching pain in his heart that only the love of a wife who truly understood him could banish. But that was just a dream.

And his wishes were secondary. The only thing that mattered was what was best for Khepesh.

He'd always trusted the neutral objectivity of the council to help him decide which woman to choose, unless he felt strongly enough about one to simply do it without consulting them. In every one of those cases, they'd invariably agreed with his choice.

This time he'd felt strongly enough about Josslyn Haliday to reject her without consulting them. But this afternoon they'd gone against his express wishes and summoned her to the council chambers. They weren't convinced by his arguments. Still, he was pretty sure he could have swung them over to his opinion in the end.

But that was before they'd shared their bodies.

That had changed everything.

He feared he'd sealed both their fates when he'd given in to his fleeting lust.

Except it wasn't so fleeting; already he wanted her again with a need that ate at his insides like a phantom crocodile.

He reached out for her at exactly the same instant she turned away from him.

“Where
are
my clothes?” she asked, still searching for them on the disheveled bed. She got on all fours and peered over the side at the ground.

He groaned silently. Her sexy bottom was to him, lifted as though she were displaying it for his pleasure. Tempting him to further seal their fates.

He moved quickly, quietly, and was behind her before he could think about what he was doing. But again she foiled him.

“I don't understand what could—” She straightened and turned. “Oh! What are you doing?”

“Take a wild guess.” His rampant erection made it easy.

She went red as a ripe pomegranate. “Jesus, Seth. Seriously? After what we just talked about?”

“I did not rape you. Don't even try. You wanted me as much as I wanted you.”

It had been obvious in the way she'd touched him as Mihos Rukem. In the way she'd eagerly spread her legs for him as he'd thrust into her. Fuck the magic of the bites. It had been all
her
begging him to take her.

“That's a matter of debate,” she ground out. “But either way, having sex again would be pointless, because I won't be your consort. I'm leaving.”

He grasped for patience. “Josslyn, you have to know I can't let you go.”

“So Gemma was right. She said you'd threaten me.”

“Threaten?” he said. His lip curled. How naïve she was.

“She said if I didn't join your cult willingly you'd force me to stay. Or turn me into one of those awful
shabtis
as you were about to do before she saved me.”

Oh, that. “Seems to me,” he reminded her, “it was
you
who knocked on
our
gate.”

“Seems to me,” she shot back, “you just said you don't want me.”

He gave her a sardonic look and lay back on the bed. “As a consort. Obviously I do want you as a bedmate.” His still-engorged cock was hard to miss. He looked like a reclining statue of Min, the outrageously endowed God of Fertility.

“You said I could leave anytime after I let you take my blood,” she reminded him tersely.

He stacked his hands under his head to keep from reaching for her. She had a wonderful body, and he was so ready. “Technically, what I said was, you may join your sisters. You are free to do that. After you speak with the Great Council.”

She studied him with a shrewd glare. “Really? You
lied
to me? Why am I not surprised?”

“No. You simply heard what you wanted to hear.”

“You really are a bastard, you know that?”

He shrugged. “I do what I must, for the good of the
per netjer.
And frankly, if you are unhappy with your fate, blame your sisters. If it weren't for them, or at least Gillian, you wouldn't be in this position.”

She glowered. “Is it so easy for you to shift the blame for your own heartlessness?”

He pressed his lips together. “You know nothing of me or my heart, Josslyn Haliday.”

“Oh, I think I do,” she retorted.

“Is that so?” Irritation spread through him lightning fast. And he'd been feeling so good.

Time to change the direction of this conversation before he lost his temper completely.

“Come here,” he beckoned with outstretched hand.

Immediately, suspicion swept over her. “Why?”

Mithra's
balls,
but the woman was annoying!

“Can you not, just once, do as I ask without an inquisition?”

Her eyes darted to his arousal. Her tongue peeked out and swiped over her lower lip. “Probably not.”

“I can make you,” he warned.

Her brows beetled. “You wouldn't.” But he could feel her rising uncertainty.

“I would.” And he did, bringing her over to him with merely a thought.

Her mouth made an “O” of surprise as he compelled her to crawl to him on all fours.

“Hey!” she squeaked.

“I told you, I have something to show you,” he said.

“I can see it just fine from here,” she retorted, but he could feel the jumble of feelings that rushed through her, putting the lie to her dismissive tone. There was resentment and anger, sure, but under those, he also sensed a surge of excitement.
And desire.
Unwilling? Perhaps. But definitely there.

He stretched his arms out to her and waited. He had all night. Eventually she would come to him, and they both knew it.

Several heartbeats later she gave up and lowered herself into his waiting embrace. He put his arms around her, pulling her against his body, side to side, in a nestle, so they were both gazing up at the night sky. He felt her surprise. He knew what she'd been expecting.

“Do you ever look at the stars?” he asked. “Like this, in the darkness of the desert, so you can see every one of the trillion different worlds hovering out there in the universe?”

She glanced at him for a moment, absorbing the change of topic, then looked back at the sky. “Yes,” she said at length. “I like looking at the stars. Though it can make you feel a bit small and insignificant at times.”

“Mmm. I know what you mean.” He adjusted and pulled her a shade closer. He enjoyed the warmth of her body and the softness of her skin against his. He lifted a hand and pointed at a constellation. “Do you know that one?”

She nodded. “The Big Dipper.”

“We call it the Foreleg of Set-Sutekh.”

“Khepesh,” she said, startling him with her ready knowledge of his language. “I learned to read hieroglyphics before I could read English,” she explained with a wry smile when she saw his surprise. “One of the hazards of having an Egyptologist dad.”

He made a face. “And me, I struggled to learn those incomprehensive symbols as a teenager under the merciless tutelage of my father's scribe. I can't tell you the number of beatings I endured before mastering them to his satisfaction.”

“Tell me about the ancient times,” she said, settling in. “What you've done with yourself for all these years.
What was it like to live under the pharaohs and see the rise and fall of a civilization?”

He hesitated. He'd never talked about his past to anyone before. Not in any detail. But for some reason, perhaps her sincere curiosity, he wanted to share it with her. “You understand you cannot reveal any of what I tell you outside of Khepesh? No scholarly papers. No reinterpretation of the frescoes at Amarna. No helping your former colleagues fill in the gaps of Egyptian history.”

She blew out a breath. “I don't see how I could, if you really aren't planning to let me go anywhere.”

“After you've joined the
per netjer
and spent a certain amount of time as one of the
shemsu
, you are free to travel as you wish. The only requirement is you must return to Khepesh once a month at the new moon for the renewal ceremony. Assuming you have no other duties to keep you at the palace full-time, that is.”

She ignored his not-so-veiled hint. “So I could theoretically go back to my job in the States?”

“It could be years. And it's not recommended. The logistics alone would be formidable… Not to mention keeping any knowledge gained here strictly to yourself. Remember, the punishment for breaking one's oath of secrecy to the god is death.”

She shivered. “A long and painful one, I presume.”

“Depends on how you feel about beheading. It's the traditional way to kill an immortal. One of the few that brings permanent death. That and a few rare kinds of poison.” His smile turned lopsided. “Sheikh Shahin is very skilled with his blade, if that's any consolation.”

With a muttered curse, she shivered again, and he
surprised them both by giving her a squeeze and kissing her forehead. “Don't worry. It won't happen. You'll like your new life with us. Remind me to show you our library. That alone will keep you busy for a millennium or two.”

“Library?” she said, looking up at him with renewed interest. “With papyrus scrolls and ancient texts? Like the one they burned in Alexandria?”

He nodded. “Only better, and more complete. Lord Rhys practically lived there his entire first century. Your sister seemed equally enraptured by it.”

“Gemma?”

He frowned at the reminder. “No, Gillian.”

“Figures. Gemma was always more into the present than the past. Gillian is much more like me.”

Only in looks,
he thought, shaking off his residual resentment of the other woman. “Anyway. There are a multitude of pastimes to occupy yourself with at Khepesh. No reason at all to be unhappy.”

She sighed. “I'm not unhappy, Seth. I'm just…”

He touched her chin and gently cradled her face in his palm. “Just what,
heret-ibi?
”

She stilled for a second at his endearment. She obviously knew what the words meant. “She who belongs to me.” But they could also mean “my heart's desire.” He decided not to think too carefully about which he'd intended.

“I'm just a bit overwhelmed,” she finally said. “A lot's been thrown at me today.”

“You've handled it well. Better than most,” he told her.

“Thanks,” she said. “I think.”

He felt her relax a little in his arms. He gathered her closer, resisting the temptation to roll his body over hers and have his way with her. He was still hard as a marble column, wanting her with undiminished lust. But he wanted her trust more. Though Set-Sutekh alone knew why, his admiration for her was growing as strong and compelling as his unrelenting hunger for her body. She was as smart and brave and sexy as Isis herself.

“So,” he said with a mental self-admonishment to patience, “you wanted to know about the ancient times.” He dug in to tell her the long saga of his seemingly endless life, and his all too few adventures. “Well, I was born in the twelfth year of Neferkare, in what you know as the sixth dynasty…”

 

Joss listened with avid fascination as Seth spun out his story of passion, violence and mystery. Mostly he told her about the Egyptian pharaohs and queens about whom she'd studied most of her life: the ruthless palace intrigues, the rapacious bids for power by the temples and their
per netjers,
the bloody wars fought over the most absurd and petty things. The cruelty, the hardships, the lost friends and lovers. The devotion to his god and his duty. And through it all, the loneliness of a man who ruled with stern authority and infallible wisdom, who saw to everyone's happiness but his own.

He even told her about a poem he'd written during the troubled times of his early immortality. A poem she recognized with shock and amazement was the “anonymous” one known as “The Man Who Was Tired of Life,” which they taught in university classes all over the world today. Not just classes in Egyptology
or hieroglypics, but in philosophy and literature classes, as well. She'd taught it herself, in the graduate seminars she'd conducted.

Stunned, she gazed at him with new eyes and an exploding awe and admiration, as he recited it for her in his own language, filling in the blanks that the tattered papyrus had created for modern scholars, and giving her his meanings for the many disputed passages.

Afterward, she fell into an awestruck, almost worshipful silence, listening to the recollections of the man whose great loneliness and heaviness of heart she had glimpsed years before knocking at the gate of Khepesh.