Shadow of the Sheikh (3 page)

T
he priestess Nephtys had made a huge mistake. And she wasn't quite sure what to do about it.

Slowly she walked through the silver gate of Khepesh Temple into the first courtyard. A large, rectangular room with silver papyrus-shaped columns rimming the walls, this was the Festival Chamber where the high priest led the immortals of the palace in feasting and celebrating their god.

She glanced around, remembering the day so long ago when she had been initiated into the
per netjer
of the followers of Set-Sutekh, becoming an immortal. How happy she had been on that day! Finally, there had been somewhere she truly
belonged. She still felt that way, all these years later. Her adopted brother Seth-Aziz was the high priest, and Khepesh was her home. She would gladly die for it…and for Seth.

She'd been a young woman back then, her heart still aching from the betrayal of the man she loved—a man who had traded her away without a second thought to her love, because at the time she'd been a lowly slave, unworthy of a high priest's serious attentions. A quick sip of her blood, a thorough fucking, then instantly forgotten. She'd been a sensual curiosity, no more, mainly due to her pale skin and exotic cloud of wavy red hair.

But no longer.

Joining the
per netjer
of Set-Sutekh, Haru-Re's arch-rival, had been her first step toward a revenge she'd been desperate to wreak. And now, after so many, many years, that revenge was finally in sight.

Except…

In her eagerness to help her adopted brother win the love of his life, she may have brought ruin down on all of them, and doomed Khepesh to annihilation.

Last week had been the annual Ritual of Transformation, part pomp and circumstance, part sexual bacchanalia, where Seth-Aziz must partake of fresh human blood. He had also planned to take
Gillian Haliday as his consort. Even though Gillian had fallen in love with another, Nephtys had insisted they go through with it. She'd had a vision of the future where Seth was in love with Gillian, and she with him. But at the ceremony, disaster had prevailed; Seth had been deprived of his sacrifice, and the lovers had fled.

Shahin had said the two blonde sisters resembled one another. Could it have been
Josslyn
Haliday in the vision, and not Gillian after all?

Nephtys wanted to cry in frustration. How could she have been so wrong?

Considering the events of last week, it seemed a strong possibility. But she would not go to Seth with a mere suspicion. This time she must be absolutely certain of her information. She would not risk her brother's heart and the future of Khepesh again on just a possibility.

Determined to find a way out of the mess she may have wrought, Nephtys walked through the first courtyard and into the next, the Courtyard of the Sacred Pool. Sparkling water poured over the edges of the pool with a soothing noise; floating water lilies with huge round-rimmed pads bearing bright pink flowers scented the air with a sweet pineapple and spice fragrance.

A place of meditation, it should be calming to her nerves.

It wasn't.

Because she knew what she must do. And it terrified her.

Unconsciously, she touched the place on her neck where twin bite marks had nearly faded away. But the powerful magic still lingered there on her skin. Marking her. Cursing her. Horrifying her.

Calling to her…

Even at the touch of her own fingers, a shock of erotic sensation coursed through her center, as though
he
had touched her there.

Demigods only needed to feed once a year, but that didn't prevent them from doing it more often. Back when she'd been slave to Haru-Re, they had often indulged in blood play, simply for the intense pleasure it gave both of them. Like the most powerful of drugs, a vampire's bite was addictive. An addiction five-thousand years had not diminished. Five-thousand years of waiting and yearning.

And then after all that time, last week he had come to her.

But it had just been a dream
, she told herself for the hundredth desperate time since the harrowing dream-visit from her former lover on the night of the ceremony.
Not real.
It couldn't have been. Haru-Re would have had to penetrate the sanctity and infallible security of Khepesh Palace to have come to her in the flesh. Utterly impossible.

Just a dream,
she argued with herself.

But how could a dream have bitten her on the neck leaving his bloody marks? And left a touch-spell that still had the power to make her quiver with otherworldly pleasure…?

What kind of treacherous magic had Haru-Re learned since they'd last met and shared each other's bodies, to be able to do such a thing in a dream? The thought frightened her as nothing else could.

She prayed for strength to do what she must.

She walked through the portal to the inner temple, the holy of holies. Her
shemats
, the two young acolytes who had been tending the offerings, smiled and inclined their heads respectfully, then slipped away to give her privacy.

The temple sanctuary looked especially beautiful tonight. The torch-lined walls were clad in glittering silver, the floor made of obsidian so black it was like treading upon the empty void of space. The arched ceiling was fashioned of dark blue lapis lazuli, the exact color of the night sky, spangled with inlaid diamonds that sparkled and winked in the same constellations as the trillion stars over the desert aboveground. It never failed to fill her with awe.

There were six gorgeous, pedestaled altars, lined up three on each side of Seth's intricately carved obsidian sarcophagus, which also served as the large central seventh altar. They were all still
overflowing with fragrant offerings of flowers, fruits and wine leftover from the transformation ceremony—the ceremony her brother had missed, thanks to Nephtys's costly mistake.

It was time to rectify that error and try to learn the truth about which sister truly belonged with Seth-Aziz.

But to do that meant to risk having a vision of Haru-Re instead. After that first time, he had come to her twice more in dreams. Would he be able to reach out to her through her visions, as well?

Again she touched the spot on her neck. A trill of sexual awareness spilled through her and she moaned in despair. How would she ever resist the pull of his command? He seemed frighteningly determined to recapture her loyalty—and her body.

She raised her palms and prayed to Set-Sutekh, Lord of Storm Winds and Patron of Chaos, to lend her the strength of his powerful will to stay strong.

Then she rose and made her way to her suite of rooms in the
haram
, the living quarters of the temple, seeking out her private meditation chamber. That was where she kept her best scrying bowl, the Eye of Horus.

She lifted the bowl and set it down amidst a scatter of soft floor cushions, and with a wave of
her hand she lit the hundred or so delicately scented candles that surrounded it.

She took a deep breath.

“Bring me a vision, oh Eye of Horus,” she pleaded softly as she poured water from a sacred pitcher into its depths. “Please, please, let me know which of these troublesome sisters is meant to bring my brother happiness.” As a prayer it lacked grace, but it was all she could manage in her present state of mind.

The sparkling clear water rippled gently in the bowl, spreading a feeling of peace through her limbs.

But when the vision came, stark and brilliant like a reflection of the sun's rays, it brought nothing but dismay and confusion. The woman Nephtys saw was not the blond sister from her previous vision. This woman had hair the color of flame. Even from the back, it was hair that made her gasp in recognition.

It was her own.

She was not here at Khepesh, but in the Palace of Petru, the stronghold of their enemy. And she was kneeling in submission before its master, Haru-Re.

Sweet goddess Isis!
What had she done?

G
emma Haliday was not normally an impetuous sort of person. And this was exactly why.

Shading her hand against the blazing midday sun, she watched the dust of that little urchin Mehmet's hastily retreating donkey rise in an ever-diminishing plume toward the sky. She should have known better than to hire the boy as her guide. Gillian had sworn he was honest—as far as it went for a native guide on the west bank of the Nile Valley—but had failed to vouch for his reliability.

Obviously it sucked.

What had she been
thinking
of, coming out here like this? Unfortunately, she knew exactly what she'd
been thinking of. Or rather,
whom
. The mysterious man from yesterday had been with her all night long, starring in dreams that made her blush to remember.

So where was he now, this handsome desert sheikh of her dreams? She could use a little help here.

At least the black hawk that had been circling above her for the past several miles hadn't abandoned her. Yet.

Gemma sighed in resignation and turned her little mare, Bint, in a three-hundred-sixty-degree circle, taking her bearings. Well. Whatever bearings one could get out here in the middle of freaking nowhere. Literally. Nowhere.

There was no sign of the oasis that was her destination. Big shock.

Behind her was the slight craggy rise on the horizon marking the top of the
gebel
. The rugged cliffs were the distinct border of civilization—both ancient and modern—the universally recognized line in the sand beyond which anyone who valued their life dared not venture.

Anyone, that is, but Gemma.

Fool that she was, she'd believed Mehmet when he'd told her he knew of the black-clad nomads she was asking about, and was willing to lead her to
their encampment at an unnamed oasis out in the western desert.

Not one of her more brilliant moments.

She was now well above those cliffs, up on a sand-covered high desert plateau which marched on in undulating sweeps for a thousand desolate miles to the west. Should she go on? Hope she was close enough to spot the telltale palms of the watering hole on her own? Or should she turn back…? It wasn't like she could get lost, really. Head east and you'd hit the Nile eventually. The real problem was the possibility of running out of daylight or drinking water. The burning sun overhead was brutal, easily fatal to those who weren't prepared. But the night was even worse; the nasty creatures that lived out here were largely nocturnal. Snakes. Scorpions. Hyenas. Jackals. And predators of the two-legged variety…

She let out a frustrated sigh. Oh, what the hell. Gillian was probably fine, Gemma told herself.
She
was the one who'd end up hyena bait if she didn't find her way back to the villa before sunset.

At a faint rustle of whispering sand, she shivered and peered around at the ground below Bint's hooves. A dark shadow flitted past. She tipped her gaze up to the sky and spotted the hawk, still flying lazy circles above her. For some reason the large bird of prey had royally spooked Mehmet. Enough
so that five minutes after it started trailing them the boy had taken off like a frightened jackrabbit heading for home.

Gemma was very familiar with the stories the locals told about the mythical black hawk,
al Shahin
. That the bird was really one and the same as Sheikh Shahin, leader of the death warriors, an immortal shape-shifter who served Set-Sutekh, the ancient God of the Underworld. The mystical hawk was said to be a harbinger of death, that those who saw it should run for their lives. Which was just what Mehmet had done, the little brat.

The hawk above glided down closer to her, sweeping past in a rush of wings and whistling air, then soared up to ride the thermals just above her head. A shivering thrill went through her. She couldn't believe he'd come so near!

He was incredibly beautiful. His matt black feathers were sleek and long, his scalloped tail fanned and elegant. He was big, his wingspan wider than her outstretched arms. As she watched him, his head cocked and his piercing black eye focused on her, as though he were deliberately studying her, as thoroughly as she was him. Sizing her up.

That's when she noticed the gold band around his pupil.
Omigod!
Just like the man's yesterday! Gemma's arms bloomed with goose bumps.
Could man and hawk be one and the same?
Sheikh Shahin,
the shape-shifter?

Wow.

Ho-
kaay
.

She was officially losing it here. Too much sun. And
way
too much imagination. Time to turn around. This had been a really bad idea anyway.

She reined the mare back toward the
gebel
and home. Suddenly, the hawk swooped down in front of her, letting out a blood-curdling avian cry. Gemma screamed as Bint reared, pawing the air, panicked by the predator's attack. Then the horse turned and bolted in the other direction, galloping deeper into the desert.

“Whoa!”

The hawk wheeled and flew up into the sky behind them.

Pulse pounding, Gemma reined in her mount, quieted her, and turned her around again. This was too weird.
Definitely
time to get out of here. She kicked Bint into a canter.

But the hawk came at them again, spooking the terrified horse back around to the west.

Gemma's pulse took off at a dead run along with Bint. Her hands started to shake as she struggled to get control of the panicked animal, her heartbeat thundering, her mind in a whirl of stark disbelief. She was nearly as frightened as her trembling mount.
What the hell was going on? And why, oh why, hadn't she thought to bring along Joss's shotgun?

After two more tries, both she and the trembling horse gave up and stopped turning for home.

It was like the hawk was toying with her. Steering her westward. Preventing her from following Mehmet back to the Nile Valley and the villa.

Taking her…somewhere.

Which was just plain crazy.

Wasn't it?

By now both she and Bint were breathing hard and the poor horse's eyes were wild with fear. She decided to wait it out. It was still early afternoon. She had time and plenty of water. Eventually, the hawk would get bored with its game, and leave her alone. Meanwhile, she could search for the oasis.

So farther and farther into the western desert she rode, through the waves of shimmering heat that rose from the brown earth. Until the rocky ground gave way to golden dunes, and when she looked over her shoulder the crags of the
gebel
had disappeared completely below the horizon. Leaving her with no landmarks by which to steer home, other than the sun. And still no sign of the oasis. How far could it be? Mehmet had never said.

Gemma pulled out her water bottle and took a long drink, trying to calm her jangled nerves and
to wet her throat, which had gone dry as the desert sand around her. She was really starting to worry.

Tipping her head up for a quick look, she realized with a start that her tormentor was gone. The black hawk had vanished.
Oh, thank God!
She quickly capped her bottle, wheeled her mount around and kicked Bint into a run.

And galloped straight into the path of a half-dozen men on camels moving swiftly toward her, the wind filling their cloaks like the wings of death.