Mills & Boon : Seducing The Jackal (2 page)

Tia cried out, rushing toward the closest cage. Markus snagged
an arm around her waist, preventing her from reaching the bars. She frowned up
at him, moisture shimmering on her lashes. “What’s wrong with them? I know you
can’t take them to a hospital, but to keep them like this is beyond cruel—it’s
inhumane! Where is your healer?”

Her outraged horror pleased him as much as her tears surprised
him. This particular Isis witch, at least, hadn’t cast the spell that had felled
his men. “They’ve been cursed, somehow,” he told her, deliberately harsh. He
didn’t try to release her, and she didn’t try to pull away. “If we knew how
exactly, we’d know how to treat them. As for our healer, we no longer have one.
She was one of the first to die.”

“Die? You have to do something!” she exclaimed, tugging free of
his hold to grip the bars of the closest cage. “They’re suffering!”

“I did do something. I brought you here.”

A myriad of emotions flew across her expressive face, shock
prevalent. Her lips twisted as she turned away from the cage and looked up at
him. “You’ve just doomed your brothers, jackal. I can’t heal them.”

A cold, hard knot formed deep in his gut. “You can’t, or you
won’t?”

If she heard the menace in his tone, she paid it no mind. “I
can’t. I don’t know how.” She lowered her head, not enough to disguise the
bitterness that filled her words. “Even if I knew how, I’m not strong enough.
You should have shanghaied another Daughter.”

Something turned over deep inside him. It took a moment for him
to recognize it as compassion. He almost reached out to her—to pat her shoulder,
to stroke her hair—he didn’t know. Instead he forced his hand down, fisted it.
He didn’t want to feel compassion for the witch, his enemy. He didn’t want to
feel anything at all for her.

“You are a Daughter of Isis,” he barked, bringing his military
training to bear. “There was a time when your kind served with the Sons of
Anubis, worked to drive the dead back into Duat. You gave us spells to protect
us, spells to arm us and spells to heal us. It is—or was—the duty of every Isis
witch. Though we are enemies now, it is still part of you, part of your nature.
Part of your magic. You can do this!”

Chapter Three

Tia took the verbal kick in the ass for what it was,
rediscovering her backbone with every word the jackal barked out. Straightening
her shoulders, firming her chin, she wanted to believe as he believed, that she
could reach down deep past the centuries of betrayal and hatred, and find the
power that bound jackals and witches together.

You’re
out
of
your
mind
, a horrified voice inside her head said.
They’re
jackals
.
Jackals
!
You
can’t
help
them
!

It didn’t matter that they were jackals. It didn’t matter that
their kind had killed and hunted her kind for centuries. It didn’t even matter
that they had kidnapped her. The two caged jackals were suffering. She had to
try to help. The healer in her could do no less.

She knew her coven sisters wouldn’t understand, much less
agree. To them, the only good jackal was a dead or dying one. Then again, some
of the Daughters had been around for centuries and had experience clashing with
the jackals. Tia was young by the circle’s standards, having been born in the
New World and with no firsthand knowledge of fighting the Sons of Anubis.

“Okay.” She gave a sharp nod. “The first thing we need to do is
make this place more conducive to healing. I don’t suppose we can move
them?”

He shook his head. “It took several of my men just to get them
here. We caged them for their safety as well as ours. Does this mean you can
help them?”

“I can try.” She turned to face him. He really was a slab of a
man, but in a very nice
hot
damn
sort of way. It made her wonder what his jackal
looked like. “I need to go home, get some stuff.”

“No.”

She bristled, even though she knew he wouldn’t agree. “I’ll
come back.”

He clearly didn’t believe her. “The answer is still no.”

“What you want me to do is a big deal,” she spat. “I can’t just
wrinkle my nose and wish them back to health! Did any of your jackals train with
your healer?”

“No.”

“Do any of them possess any talent for healing or spell
work?”

“No.”

“Are there any female jackals who can help me perform the
chants to Isis?”

He folded his arms, a stubborn expression crossing his
features. “No.”

She blew out a frustrated sigh and settled her hands on her
hips. “Are you telling me no because it’s the truth or because you don’t want me
to know? Because I gotta tell ya, if it’s the second reason, you truly
suck.”

The left side of his lips kicked up in a smile as if he found
her pissiness amusing. She wondered if he’d smile if she kneed him in the nuts.
“There aren’t any female jackals available to help.”

Great. He was dooming her to failure before she even started.
“Look. You want to save them, right? So do I, since that’s the only way I’m
getting out of here. So help me here. Do any of you at least know of the ancient
hymns and prayers?”

He uncrossed his arms, just to cross them behind his back,
military style. “We’ve kept up our prayers to Anubis, mostly for protection and
guidance as we go into battle, prayers and blessings as we send the dead back to
Duat, and thanksgiving when we return home safely.”

Tia knew painfully little about the Sons of Anubis, but she
didn’t think their war prayers would work, or their fellows jackals would have
healed already and she wouldn’t be here. Still, she’d take anything she could
get.

“Okay. Maybe those will help to invoke Anubis. Do you have the
right incenses, the right altars to make prayers to Isis and Anubis? If someone
here doesn’t have a sistrum or know how to use it, I need to have my recordings.
All of that stuff is at my house—you know, the sanctuary that you defiled and
kidnapped me from?”

“Yes, the sanctuary that had an entire wall in your sunroom
dedicated to Isis?” He again folded his arms across his chest. “I had my men
gather up many of your things. We were respectful,” he added when she opened her
mouth to protest. “They have all been carefully arranged in the next room. And
we have medical and spiritual supplies our healer left behind, in those cabinets
against the wall. We can set up whatever you need.”

The thought of these jackals manhandling her altar made her
stomach churn. Her shoulders sagged. “Strangers, enemies, touching my personal
stuff, my sacred things. I can’t begin to use them until I purify them
again.”

He didn’t offer an apology, not that she expected him to.
Someone willing to kidnap a person wouldn’t give a damn about her belongings.
“Can you start without those?”

“Probably. I can at least try to find out what’s wrong with
them.” She looked at him again. “If I do, will you let me go?”

“Of course.”

The words flowed from those gorgeous full lips too easily. “I
would have your word, sworn under the watchful eye of the god you hold dear,
that you will let me go once I heal your men. In return, I will swear to Isis
that I will do everything I can to break the sickness that taints them.
Deal?”

Amber eyes bored into hers. She kept her gaze open, honest.
She’d already shown that she was willing to help heal the afflicted men, but she
wouldn’t be able to focus completely on what she needed to do if she had to
worry about whether or not Markus planned to keep her prisoner, or worse.

“Done.”

“Okay.” Breath rushed from her lungs in relief. She’d have to
accept his word—if he had meant what he had said about doing his sacred duty
with the Lost Ones, then swearing to his patron god was no small thing. She had
to believe he would let her go.

“Tell me what happened to them.” She knelt on the floor beside
the cage with the fully human jackal. Glazed eyes stared unseeing as minute
tremors shook his thin frame. She spread her fingers against the bars, reaching
for her healing ability. “You said something about a curse?”

“Yes, they were cursed. By an Isis witch.”

* * *

“Liar!”

The Isis witch leaped to her feet. “A Daughter of Isis would
never attack a jackal warrior!”

“Of course not.” He put his fists on his hips, goading her
further because he needed to get the accusation out before it poisoned him.
“Direct action has never been the way of an Isis witch. Your kind prefers
stealth and tricks.”

“You don’t have the right to be angry, jackal,” she spat. “We
have done nothing to you but what we had to.”

“The Daughters of Isis abandoned us!” he thundered. “You turned
your backs on your own people, your own men and gave yourselves to the people of
Greece and Rome! Left us to protect the temples while the Two Lands fell. We
were there, fighting the undead and the curse of Ammit while you were being
feted in Athens and Pompeii!”

“We escaped with our lives!” Tia shouted. “We had no choice but
to flee after your clan declared war on us by murdering our high priestess!”

He drew back, eyes wide, nostrils flaring, and for a moment,
she thought he meant to strike her. “What. Did. You. Say?”

Her hands settled on her hips. “I. Did. Not. Stutter.”

“The Sons of Anubis have never taken an innocent life!”

The door crashed open, men and jackals flying into the room.
Tia flinched as they surrounded her, guns and teeth bared. Memories slammed into
Marcus, memories of a time when the children of Isis had stood hip to hip with
the children of Anubis, fighting with them instead of against them. He
remembered his mentor, Sekhanu, with his mate, the Isis High Priestess Asharet,
and how their love had united the witches and jackals. Just as he remembered how
their deaths had separated both sides forever.

Hector stepped forward, placing himself between Markus and the
furious witch. “Do you need us to remove the witch, my lord?”

Eagerness drenched his tone. Markus knew how much his second
wanted blood, especially an Isis witch’s blood. “No. She’s already sworn to help
us. She just learned the origins of the curse, and didn’t take the news
well.”

“How can you be sure one of the Daughters caused this?” She
gestured to the stricken men, ignoring the weapons pointed at her. “What proof
do you have?”

“Your magic has a scent, unique to Isis witches,” he told her.
“As we can smell the Lost Ones even in the Great Western Desert, so we can smell
magic cast by one of you. Our men reek of it.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Here.” He grabbed her forearm, dragged her to the cell holding
the half-shifted jackal. “Use your senses,” he growled. “Feel the magic rising
off him like a landfill stench then look me in the eye and tell me it isn’t born
of an Isis witch!”

She spread her fingers wide, her chin lowering. His hackles
rose as he felt her call her power, but he kept his expression blank to all but
anger. After a moment she gasped, stumbling back from the bars.

“Great Mother Isis.” Dismay clogged her features. “It feels
like the magical working of one of the Daughters’ circles, but it’s...wrong
somehow.” She shook her head. “It must be some sort of trick. It goes against
all the tenets and aspects of Isis. How can you expect me to believe this was
caused by the Daughters?”

“How can you expect me to believe that one of the Sons took the
life of a high priestess of Isis on the temple steps?” The accusation angered
him anew, rage reflected in the snarls of the men and jackals arranged around
them. “What proof do you have?”

“That high priestess was my great-grandmother, Asharet,” she
said, her voice thrumming with emotion. “Her dying words were ‘watch the
jackals.’ And there was a dead jackal beside her.”

Markus crowded her. “That dead jackal was Sekhanu, my mentor
and Asharet’s mate. He would have no reason to slay the love of his life.”

“The dead jackal was my great-grandfather?” she whispered,
stricken. “I didn’t know—grandmother never said. She doesn’t like to speak of
that time. She only told me that she’d received word that Asharet and many other
Daughters were killed, the temple steps littered with the bodies of jackals. Aya
gathered as many of the remaining priestesses as she could and headed south.
Eventually they made their way out of Egypt.”

He folded his arms, wanting to believe her, but finding it
difficult to set aside centuries of distrust. Witches and jackals had fought
each other over the stretch of time, until both sides had decided avoidance was
the best policy. The dead needed to stay dead after all, and Isis witches were
just as much a target of the Lost Ones as the jackals were.

“You should consider that Sekhanu died defending his mate from
an outside threat, like another priestess making a power play. Rivalries
happen.”

She shook her head, more in disbelief than denial. “You can’t
ask me to set aside centuries of belief based on your say so. Both our versions
of events are possible. When this is over, I want to learn more. I’m also going
to talk to my grandmother. She doesn’t like discussing that time for obvious
reasons, but it certainly couldn’t have been easy to believe that her father
killed her mother, even then.”

“Let’s propose a truce,” he offered. “Nothing can be settled
tonight, and we have more important matters to face.”

“Agreed.” She turned back to the cells. “We need to light
incense and begin the prayers to Isis and Anubis. If your jackals wouldn’t mind,
I need a couple of them here in human form. The others can relieve them when
needed.”

He gestured to his men. “Do as she says as she’s healing our
brothers,” he ordered, picking two men to remain behind. “The rest can bring in
supplies.”

They left. Hector remained. “What is it?” Marcus asked, though
he thought he knew.

“I just want her to know—” strain shot through his voice as he
gestured to the half-man, half-jackal “—that’s my blood brother, Alonso. He’s
only nineteen. He’s never seen an Isis witch before now, and he’s certainly
never killed one. He didn’t even join us in hunting the Lost Ones until earlier
this year.”

His expression twisted. “And yet, an Isis witch has doomed him
to die, just because he’s a jackal.”

Tia didn’t cower in the face of Hector’s anger. “I understand
being targeted because of what you are,” she told him, her chin high. “After
all, it’s why I’m here, isn’t it?”

Her features softened as she looked at the stricken jackals.
“But I also understand that there is more to the Sons than what I’ve been told,
just as there is more to the Daughters than what you think you know. All I can
say is that I will do everything I can to heal your brother. When this is over,
I will do my best to find out who is responsible for this curse. For right now,
I need your help to help your brother. Can you do that?”

Markus couldn’t hear the magical compulsion of an Isis witch’s
Voice, but he felt the need to help Tia all the same. Hector did, too. He
nodded, some of the tension seeping from his body. “What do you need me to
do?”

“You have a blood bond with Alonso. We can use that bond to
send healing, healthy energy to your brother, while I draw the negative
out.”

“You’re sure?” Hope limned his voice.

“I’m not sure of anything right now,” she retorted, then
softened her words with a smile. “But we have a shared mission. We can only hope
that Isis and Anubis will hear our prayers, recognize our intent and lend their
strength to break this curse.”

Markus watched Tia direct his jackals in setting up everything
she required, bringing in water, bowls, music and an assortment of other things
he couldn’t figure out the use for. He was once again reminded of the Daughters
of old, confident in their abilities and strong in their determination. Asharet
had been much the same, holding her own with Sekhanu who had done the impossible
and united the jackals into a cohesive group against their solitary natures.
Hard men all, scoured fine by battle and the harshness of the Western Desert.
Asharet had protected and defended them all with such devoted ferocity that
Markus had been jealous, wanting an Isis witch mate as Sekhanu had, though he’d
never found the right one. Now he wondered if someone else had been jealous of
Asharet and Sekhanu, jealous enough to want to destroy them both.