Vampire Sheikh by Nina Bruhns Read Free Book Online Page A

lord,” the messenger answered, shifting on his feet. “There’s a, um, bit of a disturbance. The guards are…not sure what to do about it.”
    Seth let out a sigh and went to his armoire to pick out clothes appropriate for a public appearance. “What kind of disturbance?”
    â€œA woman. A mortal. Demanding entrance to the palace.”
    Seth paused with a frown, thought, and remembered. Ah. The promised blood sacrifice. That was quick. “Sheikh Shahin must have sent her.”
    The messenger appeared acutely uncomfortable. “I don’t believe so. But she insists on speaking to you, my lord. Only you.”
    Not totally unexpected under the circumstances. “Is there a problem?”
    The man shuffled again. His face grew red. “She’s, um, quite angry.”
    Seth was beginning to have a bad feeling about this woman. “Why on earth would she be angry? Is she not bespelled?”
    â€œI think not, my lord.”
    Seth smoothed his formal black robes into place, tied a red sash around his waist, then gave the messenger a hard look. There was definitely something the man was not telling him. “Does this mortal woman have a name?”
    The man avoided his gaze. “I, um…”
    Suspicion suddenly curled through Seth like a serpent ready to strike.
    Mithra’s balls. It couldn’t be. There was no way she could have found Khepesh on her own.
    And besides, no, she wouldn’t dare….
    But one look at the messenger’s apprehensive expression and Seth knew his suspicion was correct.
    Fury flooded through him. And with it, all trace of the blood weakness fled from his bones. He could not believe the temerity of the woman to show her face here!
    â€œBy the gods!” he cursed as he flew from his rooms toward the Great Western Gate. “I will have her head on a platter! And the person who led her to our portal shall find his head on the end of my captain’s sword!”
    As Seth approached the monumental silver gate, he saw that a small crowd of immortals had gathered, sensing the high drama unfolding. The shemsu of Khepesh all knew about the Haliday sisters. And about Nephtys’s vision of Seth’s future consort and soul mate, a beautiful blonde whom Nephtys had joyfully identified as Gillian, the youngest sister. But Seth’s embracing of the vision and admitting the young Haliday woman into the per netjer had led to a string of disasters…culminating in her fleeing Khepesh with Lord Rhys right after the annual Ritual of Transformation—the elaborate ceremony where Seth should have taken his annual blood sacrifice. This year Gillian had been his chosen sacrificial vessel.
    Everyone knew of these events.
    But what the gathering crowd didn’t know was that to save Gillian, Rhys had waylaid Seth, and he had never received the sacrifice. Which was why he was now suffering the weakness that had his head reeling.
    Rhys and Gillian had been summarily banished from the palace as traitors, and they had fled straight to Petru, the per netjer of the Sun God, ruled by Seth’s enemy, Haru-Re.
    When Sheikh Shahin had subsequently discovered that Gillian possessed two sisters, one of whom was also a blonde and who greatly resembled her, Nephtys had changed her story. “It must have been Josslyn Haliday I saw in my vision!” Nephtys had insisted.
    But Seth wasn’t buying it. He wanted nothing to do with either woman. Gillian Haliday had brought nothing but heartache and catastrophe to himself and to Khepesh. Because of his naïve belief in the vision, and in the possibility of love and companionship with that woman, he was in a personal hell of his own making, and his beloved per netjer was on the brink of annihilation by the enemy.
    And he’d be damned if he let that woman’s sister through his gates to wreak further disaster upon them all.
    â€œSeth-Aziz!”
    He could hear Josslyn Haliday’s