Vampire Sheikh (5 page)

The vampire in him reared up in howling need, ripping with ravenous claws at his insides to come out. It wanted to gorge itself on her crimson bounty until he lay prostrate with satiety, his strength and power safely returned for another year.

Or until Haru-Re killed him.

Beneath the sleeve of her
gelebeya
her hand twitched. He sensed she held something in it. No doubt a weapon of some kind. As if that would save her.

He took a stride toward her, unable to stop himself from drawing nearer. The blood rushing through her veins was calling to him. Filling him with blood lust.

Filling him with sexual lust.

Closer now, he saw that beneath the covering of dust and the hideous scarf her face was much prettier than he'd first believed. He wondered what the rest of her looked like….

“I don't want to enter,” she quickly said, stepping backward to avoid him. Her growing fear was starting to wear down her confidence.

Good.

“No?”

A lock of golden blond hair fell across her cheek from beneath its cloth prison. She pushed it aside. “No. I just want you to let my sisters go.”

He yearned to rip that scarf off her head. Since he was a youth he'd always preferred blonde women. The rare, exotic color aroused him. Would the rest of her hair be as pale a yellow?

He felt his fangs begin to lengthen. And so did his cock. Along with a simmering fury that it should be this particular woman who'd awakened them both.

“And if I don't let them go?” he asked, wanting nothing more than to rid himself of her disturbing presence, to rid himself of the harrowing temptation of her blood, to rid himself of
her,
for good.

All he needed was an excuse. A means to do so that didn't violate the tenets of Khepesh that he himself had established.

“I told you,” she said, but her voice caught on a quaver, betraying her. “I'll bring the law down on this place. And the American government. And the press. Whoever will listen. Trust me, they'll
all
listen.”

He took another furious step toward her. There!
Right
there
was his reason! He started to summon the guards.

She lifted her chin. “And don't even think about harming me or my sisters. Because I've sent letters. Lots of them. All outlining exactly where we are and what's happened to us. To be opened in case I don't return.” Her luminous blue eyes glowed with triumph. Eyes he had far too quickly dismissed as unattractive—and unwise.

He halted. He could easily sense when a mortal was lying. But she wasn't. She was telling the truth.

This was the final straw upon his patience. And thank merciful Isis, the thing that indelibly sealed her fate.

“So to be clear, Miss Haliday, you refuse to enter Khepesh of your own free will?” he asked evenly, knowing what a refusal meant. He would have no choice but to act, and no one would fault him for fulfilling his duty to protect his people. Indeed, they would blame him if he didn't take immediate and decisive action.

The letters could easily be dealt with. But she must be silenced. Forever. The
shemsu
understood this. His palace guard had already moved into position, ready to jump to his command.

“Of course I refuse!” Josslyn Haliday declared hotly. “I want no part of your uncivilized cult. Please, I just—”

That was all he needed.

“Seize her!” he barked, and in the blink of an eye his guards had her captive. “Take her to the temple,” he ordered, “where she will serve Set-Sutekh for the rest of eternity as a
shabti.
Now go!”

Josslyn let out a cry of protest, fighting the guards as they began to drag her in through the gate. Seth angrily hurled a spell of immobility at her and her screams cut off. She went limp in the grip of the guards, though her eyes still darted around wildly.

Suddenly another scream sounded, this one coming from the tunnel that led down to the palace from the desert aboveground.

“No! You mustn't!” the woman's voice cried. “Let her go! Let her
go!
”

It was Gemma, Josslyn's sister, riding a camel at full tilt toward them. A black hawk swooped in after her, circled her head once, then flew down to the foot of the gate. Before its talons hit the stone, its body stretched and grew, transforming into the shape of a man. A very angry man.

Shahin. He landed in full dudgeon, robes swirling, swearing a blue streak and yelling at his woman to stop.

I'm sorry, my lord!
he called silently between curses.
The news reached her and she lit out of the oasis before I could catch her.

Seth ground his teeth. What
was
it about these accursed Haliday women that their men were ever at a loss to control them?

“Please, my lord,” Gemma cried, leaping from the camel, avoiding Shahin's grab and throwing herself to her knees on the stone floor before Seth. She looked up, her eyes pleading. “Please. Don't do this. Not a
shabti.
Spare her, at least for now! Give me a chance to talk to her. To explain. To change her mind. Seth, in the name of the magic we shared, I beg you.”

It was the only thing that could have stopped Seth in his fury. But it had the desired effect. He halted.

Shahin finally reached Gemma, pulled her to her feet and clamped his hands on her arms in a firm grip.

Josslyn's horrified eyes were on the sheikh. She tore them away to fasten them on her sister, and they filled with tears.

Gemma's did, too. “It's okay, Joss. I'm okay. Everything'll be okay,” she called to her. “I promise.”

Not if Seth had anything to say about it.

But the sight of their anguish was an unbidden reminder of his own sister, held captive by a man she hated, and Seth's conscience felt another prick. He would do anything in his power to get Nephtys back, anything to ease the suffering he knew she must be enduring.

His temper dampened a fraction, and his conviction wavered.

Then, all at once, something dropped from Josslyn's hand. It was not a weapon. When Seth saw what it actually was, his fury returned at double force.

“By the claws of Sekhmet,
where did you get that?
” he roared.

The growing crowd of
shemsu
moved swiftly backward, away from his wrath.

In a nanosecond he was at Josslyn's side scooping up the object that had landed by her boot. There was no mistaking it. It was an amulet belonging to Nephtys—a scarab beetle made of the finest purple amethyst, with Haru-Re's distinctive cartouche carved on its belly. The bastard had given it to her, the morning after he'd taken her virginity. She'd carried it with her all these years as
a reminder of the love she'd once had for the man, and of his cruel betrayal of that love.

Seth hated the sight of it, but he knew she would never have willingly parted with the scarab. Had something happened to her?

“Tell me where you got this!”

Josslyn gazed at him with silent, desperate eyes, still bespelled and in the grip of the guards. In a heartbeat he lifted the spell so she could speak and waved a hand at them to let her go. He stalked closer.

“From a woman called Nephtys,” she blurted out hoarsely, steadying herself to blink up at him in terror. “She said she was your sister.”

He bent over her, making her shrink down in fear. “I don't believe you. Tell me the truth!”

“I
am
telling you the truth!” she said, panic blanching her cheeks. “I just met her a few hours ago. Somehow she knew who I was and that I was searching for Gemma and Gillian. She told me they were here, in an underground compound, and she showed me the entrance to the tunnel.”

If this was indeed the truth, which he reluctantly sensed it was, not only was his sister unharmed, but it seemed she was not quite the helpless prisoner of Haru-Re that he had assumed. He'd have to think about the implications of that later.

“And the amulet?” he demanded, pacing away from Josslyn, not wanting to stand so close to her. The smell of her blood was making him lose his concentration. And his will to be rid of her.

“She gave it to me to give to you. As proof she'd sent
me. She said to tell you—” Josslyn's eyes flared and her words cut off abruptly.

Seth went still inside. What schemes had his sister set in motion now?

“Tell me what?”

Josslyn's lips pressed together.

Gemma wrestled free of Shahin and rushed to her sister, throwing her arms around her. “It's all right, Joss. For God's sake, tell him what he wants to know.”

“I can't,” she whispered hoarsely.

“You have to. It's the only way to save yourself.”

Josslyn swallowed heavily as she looked at her sister, her face going deathly pale. Her gaze flitted to Shahin, then to Seth, then back to Gemma. “I don't remember the rest. Honest.”

It didn't take a demigod's powers to know that this time she was lying through her teeth. She was a horrible liar.

“Joss. Please,” Gemma pleaded softly. “Trust me.”

“Listen to your sister,” Seth warned her quietly, the vicious need within him crouching, readying to strike. “Or suffer the consequences.” The
shemsu
eased farther back. He was even more dangerous when he went quiet.

Josslyn tried to clear her throat and failed. A tear trickled down her cheek, making a glittering track in the dust there. Gemma wiped it tenderly away.

Josslyn shuddered out a breath, hesitated one last time, and said, “She said you should remember her vision.”

He could smell the fear and desperation coming off
the woman in waves. He could also feel there was more to it.

“What else?” he demanded even more softly.

She shook her head. “Nothing.”

“Don't lie to me, Josslyn. I will always know when you lie to me.”

Another tear broke loose and fell from her lashes. Gemma gave her a squeeze of encouragement. “It's okay. I promise.”

“She said—” Josslyn closed her eyes, then opened them and met his. “She said I should offer you a bargain.”

“What kind of bargain?”

“A bargain for my sisters' freedom.”

Inwardly he cursed Nephtys. She knew damn well he had no power to grant either Gemma's or Gillian's freedom. They had both willingly joined the
per netjer,
and only death or banishment freed them from that obligation.

So it wasn't difficult to discern what Nephtys had in mind with this little scheme of hers. She'd sent the Haliday woman straight into his arms, into his bed, as a gift, all done up in a dirty striped ribbon, in hopes that she would somehow make up for her sister Gillian's colossal failings in that regard.

“Joss, you don't have to—” Gemma began.

With a swift thought, he strangled her words.

“In exchange for…?” he prodded Josslyn. He wanted to hear it spoken aloud. He wanted to roll it around in his mind and savor it before he spit it out. And he didn't want the sister's infernal interference.

“In exchange for…” Josslyn reluctantly said, “allowing you to use me…to ease your need.”

For a long moment there again was absolute silence around the gate.

Gemma glared daggers at him. The
shemsu
held their collective breath. Josslyn was no doubt praying he would refuse her. And he, well, he was carefully weighing his options.

If she was offering herself to him of her own free will, to use her as he saw fit…well, that put a different spin on things than him having to pursue her, to talk her into submitting to the blood sacrifice…or anything else he might desire of her.

Not that he wanted anything more to do with the woman after slaking his voracious need for sustenance. At least not in the way Nephtys had envisioned.

However…

Spurred on by the prospect of feeding, the blood lust pounded through his flesh like a thousand marching feet. Adrenaline had brought him this far in their battle of wills, but it was now taking all his powers to keep from giving away the state of his ebbing strength to his people. The smell of her blood was driving him mad with hunger, driving his temper to the breaking point. And his ungovernable cock was not helping matters. It had grown instantly hard at the thought of having Josslyn Haliday at its complete mercy, offered up to him at her own suggestion.

The fact was, he could make any bargain he wished, because he held all the power. Because she believed he possessed what she wanted, and she had no idea that it
was indeed she who possessed what he so desperately needed.

He made the logical decision.

He leveled a gaze at Shahin. “Get your woman and hold her,” he ordered. His captain of the guard obeyed, pulling Gemma from Josslyn's embrace and banding his arm around her. Although, to be sure, it looked more like an embrace than any kind of compulsion, and she didn't put up too much of a fight. It helped that Gemma had actually come to trust Seth over the past weeks since their intimate encounter.

Though that was probably about to change radically.

“Are you willing to do that?” Seth asked Josslyn. “To submit yourself to me? To become the vessel of my sacrifice?”

The color drained from her face. Her eyes grew wide as saucers. “Wait.
Sacrifice?
What kind of sacrifice?”

And didn't
that
just figure? “Nephtys didn't tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

Seth's lips curved in a humorless smile, showing her the tips of his long, lethal fangs.

“My dear, I am vampire. And my need? It can only be slaked with your blood.”

V
ampire!

The word screeched through Joss's entire body, striking a cacophony of fear within her. It couldn't be true. It
couldn't
be.

“Are you kidding me?” she managed to croak.

Twenty-four hours ago she would have rolled her eyes in incredulity at Seth-Aziz's outrageous assertion. But at the moment, she was acutely aware that no one else around her was laughing. Not even Gemma. Not that Gemma
would
laugh. In her work as an ethnographer, Gemma was forever being spooked by the tales of ancient gods, vampires, and shape-shifters told to her by the local village women. Like their flower-child mother, Gemma believed in such things.

Joss didn't.

At least she hadn't until last night, when she'd almost been bitten in the neck by that horrible man Ray, who'd
suddenly seemed to grow fangs. And then, just now, when the man embracing Gemma had shifted from a hawk into a human being right before her eyes. All while Joss's body was being held mutely in place by some horrific power that she couldn't begin to understand.

It was tough not to believe even the impossible when presented with compelling evidence like that.

My God, she'd landed smack in the middle of the twilight zone!

“I assure you,” Seth-Aziz said, his dark, sexy eyes watching her like he wanted to devour her whole, “I do not kid.”

Great. So he was actually asking her if she'd let him drink her blood. And heaven help her, those fangs did not look like the fake kind attached by some expensive cosmetic dentist.

A spill of something tangible in the air brushed over her like soft, warm fur, raising the fine hairs all over her body. Ever since she'd first approached the huge silver gate, she'd felt the thick, powerful aura of some indefinable, otherworldly energy enveloping her, like last night, only a thousand times stronger.

His aura?

Deep down, she was suddenly, terrifyingly convinced he was the real thing. An honest-to-God vampire.

Lord, was she losing her mind?

Had she and her sisters stumbled into something very, very evil and scary that would mean the end of them all?

She thought suddenly of her vanished mother, and wondered in horror if
she
had stumbled onto the same
cult of unnatural beings? Was that why she'd disappeared all those years ago, so close to this very spot?

Oh. Mygod.

In growing desperation, Joss licked her lips and glanced to Gemma for help. Oddly, her sister didn't look terrified in the least. She seemed more angry at Seth-Aziz, that he wouldn't let her speak, and kept giving him furious looks. When Joss finally caught her attention, she just shook her head and mouthed the words, “I'm sorry.”

No help at all.

Joss glanced back at Seth-Aziz, who continued to regard her with those disconcertingly dark and mysterious bedroom eyes.

They were irresistibly hypnotic, seeming to draw her down, down, down, into their black depths, luring her in with an erotic promise of God knew what. Tempting her to give in to his dark blood bargain.

Tempting
was the word, all right. Though not classically
GQ
handsome, Seth-Aziz was far more attractive and alluring than any man had a right to be—tall of build, dark of hair, broad of shoulder. There were surely worse things she could imagine than to be bitten on the neck—or anywhere else for that matter—by this man.

Wait.

No.

What was she
thinking?

And yet, what choice did she have?

“If I agree to this…exchange,” she said, shaking off the unwanted sexual stirrings and banding her arms across her midriff, doing her best to ignore that weird
energy swirling about her, “do you swear you'll let my sisters go at once?”

Seth-Aziz tipped his head in an off-kilter nod. Another brush of dark, brooding power tingled over her skin. “If they wish to leave Khepesh, I promise I will not stop them.”

“Or your guards, or anyone else? They'll be free to go at any time?”

He lifted his hands, palms up. “Agreed.”

She suddenly realized her fingers had strayed to her neck, touching the place she imagined he'd put his lips when he bit her. His gaze had followed the movement, watching her like a predator watches his prey.

Her face heated and she forced her hand down again. She tried to recall the many Egyptian vampire stories Gemma had repeated to her and Gillian over drinks on the verandah, tales of wicked shape-shifters going from village to village in the dead of night, stealing away young women to service a powerful vampire demigod with their blood and their bodies.

She glanced nervously at the shape-shifter Shahin.
Jesus.
To think those stories could be true, that it may even have happened to her own sisters! And was about to happen to her…

Seth was watching her expectantly through lowered lids.

“Will it hurt?” she blurted out, a shudder going down her spine like a washboard.

He smiled knowingly, showing off those glistening white fangs again. “On the contrary,” he said, his voice a velvet rumble. “It will be quite pleasurable for you. For both of us.”

She shivered as a lick of heat curled through her center and touched the pearl of her need. And recalled that according to the stories, a vampire's bite induced a sexual gratification unlike any other a woman could ever experience.

“And after…after you finish, you'll let me go?” she asked, fighting off an avalanche of apprehension.
This was a really, really bad idea.
Lord, what if she
liked
it?

His smile grew sultry. As if he could read her thoughts, he said, “After being with me, I assure you, you will not want to leave Khepesh.”

Oh, God.

She was pretty sure her face was beet-red by now, though why she should be affected by his false flattery, she had no clue. She looked like a filthy beggar dressed in this old rag, and it was crystal clear that until her mention of a bargain, he'd had absolutely no interest in or attraction to her as a woman. He was too powerful, too good-looking, not to get this reaction from females all the time. He was just humoring her to get to her blood.

“Let's say I
do
want to leave,” she pressed, swallowing down the insanity running through her head.

Instead of answering, he reached out and tugged off her scarf. Her hair fell in clumps around her shoulders. It had been hot under the cloth and she reached up convulsively to run an embarrassed hand through the sweaty mess. Which was stupid, because she didn't
care
how she looked to him.

His gaze moved over her like a Realtor assessing the
potential value of an overgrown, run-down, fixer-upper. Which made her cheeks flame even more.

He said, “You will be free to join your sisters, if that is your wish.”

Behind her, she heard a commotion, and she turned to see Gemma wrestling to get free of Shahin, who still held her in his grasp. Towering and muscular in his human form, Shahin wasn't about to let her go. But Gemma didn't appear frightened of him. She still looked mad as a hornet, glancing between Joss and Seth-Aziz. Still unable to make a sound.

Joss turned back to him, suddenly even more nervous. “I don't know what you've done to my sister's voice, but I want to speak with her before I agree to any of this.”

Seth-Aziz didn't even consider her request. He shook his head immediately. “No.”

An avalanche of foreboding tumbled through her. “Why not? What are you afraid she'll tell me? Are you lying about something?”

His eyebrows drew together. “What possible motivation would I have to lie?” he returned. “Indeed, why would I bother to bargain with you at all if I didn't mean to keep my word?”

He glanced pointedly at the armed guards standing at the ready, scimitars in hand. They'd taken her prisoner once, barely lifting a finger. They could grab her again, was the implication, and he could easily force himself on her if that was what he wanted to do.

Still. He hadn't denied her accusation.

Something wasn't right. She could feel it in the electric brush of tension arcing between them. In the
increased roil of the weird, supernatural energy that permeated every molecule of this place.

She glanced covertly around, searching for the camel that Gemma had ridden in on, praying Seth wouldn't sic those guards on her before she and Gemma could reach it. But it must have wandered off, around the first bend in the tunnel. They'd just have to make a run for it.

“Okay,” she said, “In that case, you can forget the whole thing.”

She did an about-face and started to stride away, back toward Gemma, the tunnel and the camel. She'd just grab her sister and they'd—

“Stop,”
Seth-Aziz ground out. “Do
not
—”

But just then Gemma broke free of Shahin and ran up to her. Joss grabbed her hand and started to sprint for the tunnel and freedom. To her confusion, instead of going along, Gemma pulled her firmly to a skidding stop. She shook her head and grasped Joss's upper arms in firm fingers. “No,” she clearly mouthed.

“What the hell, Gem?” Josslyn cried in dismay. “We've got to get out of here!”

Again Gemma shook her head and glanced in appeal at Seth-Aziz. Glowering fiercely, he crossed his arms in front of his chest. Gemma looked back at her and sighed. She pulled Joss into a tight hug and kissed her cheek. Joss could feel the conviction in her gestures, the intense desire of her sister to reassure her. Then she mouthed “Go back” and turned her around so she was again facing Seth-Aziz, and gave her a little shove.

Joss balked. She couldn't believe this was happening! Did her sister
want
her to become the…the next human sacrifice of a vampire?

Apparently she did. From behind, Gemma once again put her arms around Joss and gave her another hug. Then she let go and gave her an even firmer push toward Seth-Aziz.

Her meaning couldn't be clearer.
Go to him. Submit to him. Do whatever he asks of you.

Seth-Aziz's expression betrayed nothing. It had gone from glowering to carefully blank as he stood splay-legged with his arms crossed imperiously over his chest, as though he owned the entire universe and they were just visitors.

Joss swallowed heavily. She trusted her sisters more than she trusted anyone else on earth. She did. And if Gemma said she must do this, to free her and Gillian, then she must. Joss was the oldest, the responsible one. The one the other two looked up to. Depended on. It was up to her alone to keep the family together. And she would do it. So they could once again be just that—a family.

She thought of their mother and father and how much it had hurt to lose them. She couldn't lose her sisters, too.

She just couldn't.

No matter the sacrifice.

So she straightened her shoulders and took a deep, shaking breath and began to walk back toward the gate.

To the vampire lord, Seth-Aziz.

And toward a terrifying, unknown fate.