Queen of Kings by Maria Dahvana Headley Read Free Book Online Page A

skin and felt it warming under her touch. Her pain, if not gone, no longer mattered.
    Antony’s dark eyes opened, and she kissed him. She brushed her fingers over his stomach, felt the edge of the wound that had killed him, and sensed it healing. The goddess had done as she’d promised.
    â€œ Te teneo ,” she whispered in Latin. “You are mine.”
    His hands rose to cup her face, stroking her jaw, her lips, her earlobes, her hair.
    â€œYou followed me,” he said, and smiled. “I did not think you would.”
    She realized that he thought they were both dead, traveling together to the Duat.
    â€œNo. We live,” she told him. “I’ve brought you back.”
    She laid her face against his chest, listening to his heartbeat. “I am yours,” she said. Her eyes brimmed with tears.
    Antony moved uncertainly, restless, silent. His hands brought her face up to his, and he looked into her eyes.
    â€œYou betrayed me,” he said.
    â€œLady! You are taken alive!” Charmian shrieked from the staircase, and then flew from the stairs to the opposite side of the room, pursued by one of Octavian’s legionaries. He’d somehow penetrated the sanctuary, scaled the walls, removed the bars, and fitted himself through the window.
    Cleopatra spun, searching for Sekhmet, but the goddess was gone. Gone! How dare this man, this plebeian, break into her sacred place? How dare he force the goddess out?
    Cleopatra threw herself in front of her husband, blocking the soldier’s access to him.
    â€œYou are in the presence of a goddess,” she told the invader, and her voice did not shake. She was herself again, the queen of Egypt, fearless. “Leave this place or face the consequences.”
    She needed only a few minutes more for Antony to recover himself, and then they would go forth, together again. She would show compassion. She would let this man go.
    If not—she grasped her ritual knife. It was a once-in-a-lifetime act, the summoning of such a power, and she had lived through it only by luck. She’d given all the blood she could give and still walk the earth. She could not bring her love back a second time.
    The legionary rushed toward the queen and her beloved, his sword drawn.
    Suddenly, Cleopatra was racked with knowing . She could smell the legionary’s sweat, the sweat of an endless, unpaid march, of years of battle. And more than that. She could smell his children back in Rome, their hunger and hope. She could smell the sea in his hair. She could smell his longing for a woman, any woman. The Whore Queen , that was what he believed her to be. She heard it now, his thought of taking her as a chained captive to present to his master. He thought her weak.
    The fool. He was nothing to her.
    Her heart swelled with a clean, white fury. Her limbs shuddered in their sockets, her spine became a sword of flame, and her lungs filled with the heat of the desert sand.
    She heard herself gasp, felt herself consumed, and then the world went black.
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    C leopatra looked down at her hand, feeling something strangely heavy. Her head spun, racked with pain, and she narrowed her eyes, trying to focus on what she held.
    What was it? She gazed at it for a moment, uncertain, her fingers pressing into its slippery, scalding edges. The thing ran purple over her fingers, weighty and profane, still trembling with its last life.
    His heart.
    She’d torn out his heart.
    She screamed and flung it away from her, away from Antony. Her servants crept along the wall, their eyes wide with horror.
    Against her will, Cleopatra found herself looking down at the legionary’s ruined body. She had the taste of metal in her mouth, blood running from her lips to soak her garments.
    What had she done?
    â€œLady,” Charmian whispered. “Lady?”
    Antony took a rattling breath, a cry of agony. Cleopatra turned and saw the legionary’s sword piercing her beloved’s