Vampire Sheikh by Nina Bruhns Read Free Book Online Page B

strident voice calling his name from the other side of the huge double portal even though it soared three stories high and was fashioned of pure, solid silver. He planted his feet and gathered his strength, needing all the authority he could muster. This was one battle he did not intend to lose.
    â€œOpen up! Let me in!” She pounded on the massive gate with her fists, which made a surprisingly loud echo for a mortal. “I know you’re in there! Give me back my sisters! Let them go right this minute, or I’ll have the U.S. Marines on your ass so fast your head will—”
    â€œEnough!” Seth bellowed so loudly there was instant silence on both sides of the barrier. His subjects very seldom saw him angry and even less often heard him raise his voice. They knew it never boded well for anyone caught in the crossfire.
    He ground his jaw and advanced on the gate, sweeping his hand at the portal guard. “Open it! Now!”
    She wanted to come in? Fine. He’d let her in.
    And she would never see the light of day again.
    A long, deep clang resonated, and the portal wings began to move, splitting down the middle and slowly opening inward to reveal the glittering silver outer gate. Both sides were decorated in intricate hieroglyphics, the cartouches of Set-Sutekh gracing the center of each, along with the left Eye of Horus—symbol of the god who’d ripped it from his enemy. The gate was flanked by tall, lotus-shaped, fire-burning torches, flaming bright against the stygian void of the tunnel beyond.
    A lone woman stood illuminated by the torchlight.
    For a second Seth just stared. If he weren’t so angry, and so fucking, ravenously hungry, he would have laughed.
    This?
    This was supposed to be his future wise and beloved consort? She looked more like a street urchin from the slums of Cairo.
    Her face was sweat-streaked and dirty, and she wore an ancient striped gelebeya that looked like she’d stolen from an old man’s clothes line. It hung about her ankles in clouds of dust. On her feet were ugly army boots. Her hair, if it was even blond, was wrapped in a scarf of thepopular Palestinian variety usually worn by clueless tourists and aging hippies.
    The gate reached its zenith and glided to a halt. She had no trouble picking him out of the crowd of observers, who looked back and forth between them as they stared each other down.
    She was fearless. He’d give her that. Or rather, reckless. Did she really think she stood a chance here? A mere mortal pitted against a demigod?
    For a long moment she regarded him, from top to bottom, her eyes betraying an emotion he couldn’t quite decipher. Consternation? As though he wasn’t what she’d expected? Well, that made two of them.
    She took a step forward. “I’ve come for my sisters,” she declared in a loud, clear voice.
    He narrowed his eyes at her disrespect.
    â€œOn your knees, woman, and kneel before the high priest of Set-Sutekh!” the portal guard commanded her, raising his scimitar.
    She faltered for a split second, then her back went up and she took another step forward, ignoring the threat. “I kneel before no man,” she informed Seth archly. “Now give me my sisters!”
    Seth’s fists clenched at his sides, his blood simmering. No one disrespected him in this way!
    â€œCome in and get them,” he growled, schooling his urge to strike the woman dead where she stood. It would take so little, the merest whisper of a thought in his mind. And then he’d be safely rid of her, once and for all. “ If you dare enter.”
    She started to walk, but he lifted a finger and stopped her in mid-stride. Surprise swept over her face at havingher movements controlled by another, as though she were merely a puppet on a string.
    She had no idea.
    â€œTake heed,” he warned, his voice gravelly with the effort to quell his boiling temper, “that if you willingly choose to