Books by Maggie Shayne (322 page)

Eannatum was alive. And here, in this house—so close and so real and so vibrant that the very sight of him had caused her heart to pound and ache and yearn. It had been all she could do to keep from crying—from flinging herself into his arms and kissing his face. She had touched him, felt his heat. She had heard his voice, and seen the light of life in his eyes. Felt his breath on her hair, and his arms around her ... again.

Why was it so difficult to despise him? And why had her feelings for him not died a thousand deaths by now? All this time! By the Gods, seeing him again, even now, even knowing what she knew of him ... it was as if the years in between had never even been.

She was just as torn now as she had been before. Torn between surrender to an all-consuming, insanely passionate hunger for him and surrender to the equally insane need to crush his corded neck between her slender hands.

Nidaba sat in the chair beside her sickbed, barely able to hold her head up. Strength in an immortal never waned this low, except as a result of some foreign substance flowing through the veins. Eannatum had told the truth about one thing, at least. She
had
been drugged.

So she’d been drugged. But by whom? That remained to be seen. She tried to recall what had happened to her, how she had come to be here, or in some hospital, if he were indeed telling the truth about that as well. But for the life of her, she couldn’t remember anything other than ... than returning to Scotland on the four hundred eighty-eighth anniversary of her son’s death—his
second
death— and finding his burial site defiled, his body gone. Taken.

But that had been a full year ago. How she knew that was unclear, but she did know it. Was certain of it. And yet the time in between remained fogged, and fragmented into hazy bits that made no sense.

It hurt to see Eannatum again. It stirred to life old memories of innocent love, freely given. Of burning passion, eagerly sated. Of dark betrayal too vile to believe. He had taken everything from her once. Her love, her life, her soul...

Her son . . .

Yes, her son. Nicky’s first death, when he’d been a small, sloe-eyed boy—that rested squarely on Eannatum’s broad shoulders. And for that, she would never forgive him.

The bedroom door opened, and Nidaba had no more time to contemplate these things. A woman stood there in the doorway.

The woman was small, her smooth skin at odds with her silver hair. Her eyes seemed too sharp and clear to need the glasses she wore. And Nidaba frowned as she stared into those eyes. Because there was something about them—something familiar. They did not belong in that face, those eyes.

The woman smiled, but it was false. She carried a stack of towels in her hands and came further into the room.

Nidaba got to her feet slowly, in a smooth motion she hoped did not betray the swamping dizziness and weakness she felt. “I prefer to be left alone for now,” she said in the strongest, firmest tone she could manage.

The woman halted in mid-stride, brows arching in surprise. “Have your strength back, do you?”

“Every bit of it,” Nidaba lied. Every one of her nerve endings quivered with warning, and the hairs on her nape bristled. She did not like this strange woman.

“Well, now, I’m the expert, you know. Perhaps you ought to let me be the judge of that, hmm?” The woman came closer, and Nidaba suddenly knew that her smile was false, but the hatred in her eyes ... that was real.

And deadly.

Nathan ran through the large kitchen, nearly colliding with George as he rounded a corner.

Pale and wide-eyed, George stood staring through the open cellar door and down the stairs, obviously torn between his longtime fear of the dark and his love for the woman he’d heard crying out. “It’s Sheila,” George said, fists clenched, almost bouncing on his feet in his agitation. “Somethin’s wrong with Sheila!”

Nathan flicked the light switch at the top of the stairs. Nothing happened. “It’s all right, George,” Nathan said, pushing past him and starting down the stairs. “Stay right where you are. I’ll take care of this.” He took the stairs two at a time, reached the bottom, tried the light switch there. Again, nothing happened.

“Sheila?” he called.

Then he listened. Soft sounds reached him through the damp darkness—ragged broken breaths, as if she were crying. “Sheila, love, what is it? What’s wrong?” Stepping forward, Nathan fumbled in his pocket for a match, a lighter, anything. But he found nothing. Then he saw the small beam of a flashlight, lying cockeyed on the cellar floor, illuminating only a few bricks in the wall. Sheila must have dropped it.

Nathan picked up the pace, bent to snatch up the light, and began moving its beam around. “Sheila, sweetheart, talk to me. Where are you? Are you hurt?”

Then the beam of light found her, and Nathan halted. He thought his heart stopped beating. Sheila sat on the basement floor, cradling a body—an obviously
dead
body, already stiff with rigor mortis. It was a woman, clad only in her underclothes. Nathan swore and moved closer, kneeling down near Sheila, aiming the beam of light on the woman’s face.

And then his head spun, and his chest contracted. “My God, that’s ...
Lisette
!”

“I don’t understand it, Nathan!” Sheila was sobbing, rocking the body in her arms. “I was only just talking to her... but she’s dead. She’s dead, Nathan, my best friend, my mate Lisette, she’s dead!”

The woman in Nidaba’s room flung her stack of towels aside. In her hand a dagger gleamed. A dagger with a jewel-bedecked hilt.

Nidaba’s hand shot to her thigh automatically, but her own blade was not there. And the woman who she knew must be a Dark Witch, lifted hers and charged. Nidaba reacted with the instincts of a seasoned warrior. She ducked the blade and grabbed up the nearest weapon she could get her hands on. A water pitcher. Damn! Nearly useless. The blade hissed past as Nidaba lunged to the side. Then she swung the half-filled pitcher as hard as she could, and it slammed into the woman’s head. Water sloshed and splashed everywhere. But neither it nor the force of the blow seemed to faze her attacker, and within seconds Nidaba found her back pressed to the mattress by the weight of the Dark Witch.

Nidaba held the woman’s wrists, fighting to keep the blade away from her own flesh. But she was so weak, and this other—an old immortal, obviously—so strong. Nidaba let go of the woman’s left hand, using both of hers to grip the right one, the one that wielded the blade. The only result was that the evil one’s left hand was free now, to pound and punish. It clawed, it struck, it bruised. And yet Nidaba bore it, focused only on holding the knife’s razor edge away from her body. Her
heart!

Her face split and bleeding, her body racked with pain, Nidaba broke out in a cold sweat as she lay there, locked in an endless standoff with the woman. The muscles in her arms quivered and burned with exhaustion as she held fast. Her elbows gave, and she shot them straight again. They weakened, and she forced them firm. They fell... and the blade came down ...

“Noooooooo!”

The sound was a long, drawn-out bellow, like the blast of an infuriated, charging bull. And the next thing Nidaba knew, her attacker was knocked off of her by another body.

Eannatum’s body.

The impact launched the Dark Witch through a nearby window. Glass shattered, and Nidaba jerked her head around. But all she saw was the demolished window. Then her view was blocked by Eannatum’s strong back as he looked outside, down at the ground far below.

“Is she... ?”

He turned, breathless, staring at her. “Gone. Dammit, she’s long gone, whoever she was!”

Nidaba lay still, her entire body shaking with shock, adrenaline, pain, and this damned debilitating weakness.

“Is this how you plan to hasten my recovery, Natum? By placing me in the care of Dark Witches intent on carving out my heart?”

He came to her, and she could see the damage of her own face reflected clearly in the grimace of his. “You’re bleeding.” He hurried into the bathroom and returned seconds later with a basin of water and a cloth. Settling himself on the bed beside her, he gently cleansed each cut, bathed each bruise.

He did not seem at all like the man she knew him to be. The man who had tried to have her killed. Who had ordered the execution of his own son in order to protect his precious throne, his precious kingdom.

Even then she’d doubted he was capable of such an atrocity. Even then. And those doubts had plagued her all this time. The murderers had been
his
soldiers,
his
men—men who wouldn’t
dare
to go against his orders. And yet those doubts lingered.

She turned her head to the side to avoid his ministrations. “It will heal soon enough. Don’t forget what I am.”

“I know full well what you are, Nidaba,” he said, dropping the cloth into the basin and setting both aside. “But the regeneration process has been slowed in you. Probably because of the tranquilizers you were given, and your weakened state.”

“All of which would pass quite quickly if you would stop fussing and simply
feed me.”

He thinned his lips. “Come downstairs, then. I don’t dare leave you alone again ... and I have a ... situation to deal with.”

“With a Dark Witch in your house, I would imagine you do.”

He held out a hand, and she merely stared at it.

“In case you haven’t noticed, Nidaba, someone is trying to kill you. Now until you’re back in fighting condition, you’re going to have to trust someone.”

“Someone, perhaps. But you?”

“I just saved your life,” he pointed out. He was still holding out his hand, staring into her eyes.

With a sigh, she took it and let him help her to her feet. “Don’t think that saving my life just now even begins to make things right between us, Eannatum.”

“I am called Nathan King now,” he said, pulling her to her feet.

“Why?”

He lifted his brows. “It’s more in keeping with the times. No one here knows what I am, Nidaba. I would like to keep it that way.”

She sniffed. “No doubt. I would be ashamed too, in your place.” She started toward the door, but when she would have pulled her hand free of his, he tightened his grasp.

“I am not ashamed.”

She glanced back at him, at his blazing eyes as proud as if he were still a mighty king. “You should be.” Then she tossed her head, even though the act made her dizzy. “As for me, I am a Witch. My name is Nidaba. I will not change it, nor will I pretend to be something else, as you do. I am no ordinary mortal, Eannatum. Don’t dare expect me to act like one.”

“Why would I expect that, Nidaba? You didn’t
act
like one when you
were
one.”

She looked at him quickly, in search of the smile she heard in his tone. But it was evident only in the slight sparkle of his eyes.

“Do you mock me, Natum?”

He shook his head slowly. “No, Nidaba. I’m just glad to see you haven’t changed all that much.”

“Haven’t I?”

He shrugged. “You still seem to believe you’re as much goddess as woman.” Reaching out, he tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “It was always one of the things I loved best about you.”

She averted her eyes abruptly, and her voice became choked and hoarse. “Please ... don’t use that word when referring to me.”

“What word?” he asked.

She didn’t answer. Instead she moved carefully into the hallway. Her legs buckled, though, causing her to sway and grip the doorjamb. Eannatum slid his arms around her, beneath her, and swept her up off her feet.

“I can walk,” she protested.

“Not unless you’re strong enough to make me put you down,” he said.

She knew she wasn’t, so she let him carry her through the hall and down the stairs, and she tried not to notice how very protective his strong arms felt around her, or how warm and solid his chest was beneath her, or how deep his eyes were when she looked into them from this close.

But she noticed all of that anyway.

He set her down gently in a rocking chair in what seemed to be a library, and called out to someone. Soon enough a giant of a man, wearing a bright orange necktie over a yellow knit sweater came thumping into the room.

“George, this is Nidaba,” Natum said.

George looked at her and his eyes widened. “You’re the lady!”

She felt her brows go up.

“You got better! I knew you would. I told you she would, didn’t I, Nathan? And she did! See?”

“Yes, George, you were right.”

George eyed her steadily. “I’m a nice person,” he said.

“My name is George. Nathan is my friend. Are you going to break my arm?”

Nidaba blinked, tilting her head to one side, and studying him with a hint of amusement. “Of course I’m not going to break your arm,” she said. “Are you going to break mine?”

George shook his head emphatically from side to side. “No way. I promise.”

“Well, then, I suppose we should get along.”

“George,” Nathan said, “did you take Sheila up to her room as I told you?”

“Yeah, I did. But she’s not right, Nathan. She’s all curled up on her bed, and she’s crying something awful. I tried to make her stop, but nothing I said made her feel any better. I never seen Sheila cry before.”

“Neither have I.” Natum pinched the bridge of his nose as if to pinch away some nagging worry.

“I don’t like it, Nathan. I want you to make her stop. What happened in the cellar that would make Sheila cry like that?”

Natum clasped George’s arm, squeezed, and Nidaba saw that the big man was quite like a child. She also saw clearly Natum’s affection for him. “I’m going to explain all of that later, George. For right now, I want you to stay here with Nidaba. I don’t want you to let anyone come near her. You understand?”

“Not even Lisette?” George asked.

“Especially not Lisette.”

“Okay, Nathan.”

Nidaba sighed, about to argue that she needed no protection, but then decided it would carry no weight, since she couldn’t even get down the stairs under her own power. And Natum sent her a glance that was almost ... kind. Warm. “I won’t be long.”