Forbidden (18 page)

“How many nexuses are there?”

“Mmm …” Cleo tilted her head, tapping a finger to her chin as if she were doing a mental count in her head.
“I believe there’s somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty.”

“Like … where are these nexuses?”

“All forty of them?”

“Umm …”

“I don’t think I could remember all fifty … ,” Cleo said, trailing off.

“I’ll settle for the most important ones,” Docia said weakly as Cleo’s number seemed to jump with every sentence. Cleo either was completely oblivious to it or was pretending to be an airhead to suit her purposes.

“Cairo is a key position. Venice. Fiji. Carnaby Street, London. There’s one in San Francisco, one in the French Quarter in New Orleans. A little town just north of Montreal, Canada. Honestly, I can’t list all one hundred of them off the top of my head. But the most important one for you is going to be the one in New Mexico. They call it the Land of Enchantment, did you know that? Isn’t that funny? If they only knew. It’s home to one of the busiest and most powerful of the nexuses. And also the seat of our government. The desert sands and their towering rock formations … there in their raw form feel much like home to us.”

“You know, this is a bit overwhelming, but I think I’m beginning to adjust.” She waved the shoe under Cleo’s nose. “Apparently I can be bribed!”

Cleo chuckled. “I know, right? I have to admit, when we were first Blending, this was the first commonality Desirée and Cleopatra found with each other. Fashion. Shopping. Beauty. The pursuit of all of it. Vain, perhaps, but we find it an excellent grounding point to help us make up over arguments.”

“Arguments? You … argue with yourself? Selves? I mean … ,” Docia faltered, not yet sure she understood what she was talking about.

“The Blending is like … two voices singing in beautiful and perfect harmonization. It feels and sounds true and delightful, a single note of beauty made by two separate beings. But that harmony isn’t always perfect,” Cleo said with a shrug. “Desirée and I are like … the very best of friends. Very much of one mind on most things, if you’ll pardon the pun. But occasionally we will argue when we see things differently.” Again, she waved away the topic of herself as if it were a pesky fly in her face. “Enough of that. We should dress.”

“Isn’t it a little late for dinner?” Docia asked.

Cleo put down the beaded clutch she had been eyeballing and looked at Docia with surprise.

“Hasn’t anyone explained to you … ?” Cleo didn’t bite her lip the way Docia did when something was troubling her, but Docia could sense the tension suddenly rolling off her. Of course, that just made Docia ten different kinds of anxious. “We Bodywalkers are … nocturnal,” Cleo supplied gently. “We live our lives in the darkness of night and sleep in the daytime.”

“You … you mean, like a
vampire
?” Docia asked, her voice hitching a little.

“Like a Nightwalker,” Cleo corrected matter-of-factly. “A species of creature that prefers the darkness over daylight … for many different reasons. Mainly because …” There she went, not biting her lip again. No doubt she was trying to figure out how to not overwhelm her. Docia could have let her off the hook by telling her it was too damn late. “Let’s just say, for now, that daylight causes us significant difficulties. There are those who say it is Ra’s punishment, and that we angered him by thinking we could live forever. Because of that we cannot walk in Ra’s light. Suffice it to say, the effect is something you want to avoid. Right now you are not as susceptible because you are not fully Blended,
but it will still affect you to some degree. More specifically, it will affect Hatshepsut.”

“Will it kill her?”

“No,” Cleo said sharply. “But it could drive her insane given enough time. And believe me, the last thing you want is to be host to an insane Bodywalker.”

Ram was lurking in the doorway of the queen’s suite, eavesdropping on everything Cleo was telling her. Not that he didn’t trust the oracle. He did. Mostly. Desirée had a sound head for the most part, and so did Cleo. But they both had a streak for mischief a mile wide and loved to take any opportunity to give him, Asikri, and any other highly placed male in the government pantheon a bit of trouble now and then.

However, it seemed she was being genuinely kind to the new queen of the Bodywalkers.

When he had sent Cleo in to Docia, he had realized all of this might come more easily to Docia if it was delivered by a woman’s touch.

And much easier on you.

On that, he and Vincent were in complete agreement, as they usually were about most things. Vincent had been just as floored by the feel of Docia in his arms as Ram had been. He was just as stunned and at a loss as he was. They had been rocked to their core, neither understanding why or how. Ram had been advisor to Menes for thousands of years, by his side at every incarnation. He had protected and cared for Menes’s beloved queen, hunted for her, and brought her to Menes every time she was reborn. Every time he had put her hand in
his and handed her up to his pharaoh, giving her away to him with ease and pride in his success.

And never once in all his many years of touching her, dancing with her, handing her up and taking her down from conveyances or beasts of burden … never once had he felt the rocketing sensation of heat and desire that he had come to feel every time Docia touched him.

True, every original brought something new and different to the carbon it hosted, and it was because of that that they were an ever-evolving species and every incarnation, every regeneration, made them something a little bit more … or even a little bit less … than they used to be.

But the one constant in their universe had always been thus:

Menes loved Hatshepsut. Hatshepsut loved Menes. His soul was devoted to hers, and hers was devoted to his. Theirs was a love like no other in the history of man or time. It had transcended death over and over again. It was the one thing the Bodywalkers could count on never changing. It was the one thing that gave them enduring faith in their king and their queen. It was the one thing that kept them coming out of the Ether again and again. For they all wished to have what Menes and Hatshepsut had. They all hoped to one day find what their king and queen had found. What had withstood the test of time.

So when he had kissed her earlier, things had shattered within him in ways he could not explain. He had broken faith and trust with Menes. He had accosted his queen. He felt as though he had somehow tainted that perfection between Menes and Hatshepsut. It felt as though he had just destroyed his every ideal.

And yet deep inside of him there was this powerful, insidious force that seethed with the need to feel her again. It wanted her so desperately and would not listen
to his harsh internal lectures about how she was forbidden to him and any other man save Menes.

Perhaps it was because she was so much more Docia than she was Hatshepsut right then. It was not his queen, but this fragile young original that had stirred his body and his soul. But that was splitting hairs, fabricating excuses. Only death would cleave Docia from his queen … and that made her forever and always Menes’s. Menes had all but gone mad with grief the last time he had lost his beloved queen. Ram dreaded to think what would happen if he ever learned that she had been touched intimately by another. By his most trusted friend.

You must close yourself off to her forever.

But how was he to do that when she would be there every single minute of every long day that he lived and served his pharaohs?

And that was when she screamed. Screamed as though Bodywalker and mortal were being ripped apart. As though fear itself had been born in her heart. He was in the closet and by her side in a heartbeat, preternatural strength making it an action that took all of an instant. Thunder crashed against the house in a sudden violent percussion, the black beyond the window flashing a brief bright white as lightning chased back the darkness.

He was there, reflected in the mirror she had been staring at in horror only a second before she’d kicked it over, sending it crashing into pieces on the floor. The instant she felt him she threw herself against his chest, seeking comfort from the only familiar thing she knew in a world rife with unfamiliar things. He thought nothing of wrapping her in his arms in comfort, hushing her with gentle sounds against her forehead as he cupped her head and pressed her face to his chest. Her hands were gripping him against his back, trying to lock on
the broad muscles she found there, but he was holding her so tightly that they had flexed into hard planes of unyielding flesh. Eventually she just fisted her hands and pressed them against him.

“No! No! I can’t do this!” she wailed, her voice muffled against him. “I can’t be her! I just can’t!”

He knew what had upset her. Until she Blended fully with the queen, she would see only Hatshepsut’s reflection in any mirror or reflective surface. At least, the way Hatshepsut had looked in the prime of her original life. He had barely caught a glimpse of black braided, beaded hair and brightly painted eyes before the mirror had fallen. But he didn’t need to see it to know how beautiful she had been in her time. He had seen that reflection time and again over many generations before she had fully Blended with her host. But it wasn’t that face he wanted to see. It wasn’t those eyes he yearned for.

He touched her chin and pulled her face up, fighting as she resisted him, her fear still palpable. But eventually she gave in and looked up at him, her tear-washed mink-colored eyes so painfully beautiful to him.

“Do not be afraid,” he breathed over her wet face, drawing on unknown strength to keep from kissing her tears away, even though that was all he wanted to do. But Cleo was there, watching anxiously. He could not take such liberties in front of a witness. He could not take such liberties at all.

“I can’t be a queen! I don’t know how! I like me just the way I am!”

“Were you just the way you were, you would be dead.”

It was a harsh thing to say, but he delivered it in a gentle voice. Still, she jerked back as if he had slapped her in the face. In a way, he had. It made her sobs catch in her throat, and he could tell by the look in her eyes that she wanted to hate him right then.

Perhaps that would be all for the better,
he thought.

But he had not overestimated her intelligence and logic. She sniffed hard, her body hiccuping in little jerks as she held on to those little sobs.

“I— I would have,” she agreed after a long minute. “I suppose you think I am very ungrateful,” she said, her words still hitching on her awkward breaths.

“I think you forget that everyone in this room has gone through exactly what you are going through,” he said gently. “Do you think Vincent was thrilled to take on so much baggage? He was a professional soldier, born to live and die as a navy SEAL. Then I come along and screw up a perfectly heroic, noble death, telling him I’m the right-hand man to a king. He balked a great deal at first. Almost dangerously so.”

“But you changed his mind?”

“Actually … Vincent has a very strong grasp on concepts like duty and honor. It wasn’t much of a stretch for us to find common ground in that.”

“Okay. Right.” She took a breath. “I made a deal, after all, didn’t I? I can’t renege because it’s not always comfortable for me. I came back for a reason.”

“And that reason was?”

“Well, for a lot of reasons. I just … I just wasn’t finished yet,” she said. “And I couldn’t let my brother deal with my death on top of all the other deaths he’s had to deal with. His family …
our
family has all died, and we’re all that’s left. Just me and him.”

That made Ram frown.

“You’re saying all your family is dead, except you and your brother?”

“Yes.”

“Shit,” Ram muttered.

That got her immediate attention.

“What?”

“Well, let’s just say if it were me and I was a cop
whose sister was the only loved one left in my life … I wouldn’t take a phone call as proof positive that everything was okay.”

“Well, he can’t find me here. He doesn’t even know where here is,” she said hastily, reaching to take hold of his hand. “Seriously, if I say I’m okay, Jackson will listen to me. He knows I don’t lie to him.”

“Jackson will think you are being coerced. Or forced. Or that it was some kind of a fake. He won’t be satisfied until he lays eyes on you.”

And he could tell by the way she bit her lip and the worry creasing her forehead that he was right.

“So what do we do?”

Good question. It wasn’t as though he could just let her go. There were too many things out there dying to get their hands on her. If they got hold of her in this vulnerable stage, there was no telling what they might do to her.

Actually, that wasn’t true. He knew exactly what they would do to her.

Marissa sat at her desk, tapping a pencil anxiously. It was very late at night and there was no logical reason for her to be sitting in her office, sneaking peeks out the glass in her door at the bullpen, where Jackson Waverly and a small contingent of cops were poring over hundreds of camera shots of cars going through the tolls at estimated time slots, looking for a black Lincoln SUV.