“I knew you would come, my queen.” The air stirs around him with his magic, it fills the space and brushes against me. “I knew it wasn’t true. It couldn’t be. A love like ours defies everything.”
His words evoke images I can’t make sense of. I see miles and miles of grass stretching in every direction. I hear the snapping of tents in the wind, the clopping of hooves. There’s skin on mine, flickering lamplight, and a voice in my ear. I am yours forever…
The images slide away as quickly as they come.
“Vak zuwi sanburvak,” I say, not needing my magic to respond to him in the same language. It’s there, buried in my bones. You are mistaken.
“Mistaken?” He laughs, and holy shit, whoever or whatever this man is, he’s got a really nice laugh.
He steps up to me and cups my face, and I’m taken aback by how proprietary the touch is. Not to mention the way he’s looking at me.
“I’m not…I don’t know you.” The words don’t exactly match up with their English translations. Whatever old language this is, the lexicon doesn’t even focus on the same things English does. I feel like a different person when I speak it.
“You don’t know me?” His lips twist into a playful smile. “Come now, what sort of game is this, Roxilana?” His eyes twinkle, and he really doesn’t give a shit that he’s naked right now.
I wrap my hands around his wrists, ready to push him away. But at the contact, he lets out a ragged exhale, closing his eyes briefly.
“Your touch, Roxi. How I have yearned for it. I was caught in a nightmare I couldn’t wake from.” He opens his eyes, his expression painfully raw. “Long I have languished. Through it all, I held on to the hope that you would come and save me, my queen.”
Okay, something is very, very wrong here. I’m not this Roxilana, nor am I a queen or an empress. And I’m definitely not his.
I open my mouth to say this very thing when Memnon leans and kisses me.
I suck in a sharp breath.
What in the ever-loving hell?
A naked and newly resurrected man is kissing me.
That thought has barely registered when his lips part mine like I’m a lock and he’s the key. And then I taste him.
He should taste like cobwebs and rotting corpses—but if anything, I swear I taste heavy, decadent wine on his tongue.
My hands move from his wrists to his pecs, my touch knocking away a few more pieces of scale armor. I have every intention of pushing him away, but his tongue strokes mine in the most carnal way, and my fingers decide to dig into his skin instead.
He groans at the pressure, stepping in closer, his naked thigh brushing my clothed one.
And…unwittingly, I kiss him back.
He makes another sexy-as-sin noise and pulls me flush against him, kissing me like he’ll die if he stops.
One of his hands has dropped to my waist, and now he’s toying with the edge of my shirt, and I know exactly where this will go if don’t stop it now.
It takes a whole lot of willpower to break off the kiss, and even then, my feet don’t want to move away from him.
Memnon’s still cupping my face with one of his hands, his dark eyes searching mine.
“I called to you, Roxi. For so long I called to you, but you never answered. My power grew weak, and then it slumbered, only rousing when…” He blinks, looking down at himself, then at my attire for the first time. “Am I dead?” he asks, his gaze rising to mine once more. “Are you here to lead my soul to the afterlife?”
The afterlife?
“What are you talking about?” I say. I step back, out of his embrace. “My name is Selene, not Roxi.”
His brows pull together, his mouth twisting into a frown.
This man is obviously confused. He thinks I’m someone else and that we’re somewhere else, and I don’t know enough about this entire situation to figure out how to handle it well.
His gaze moves to the writing scrawled on the walls. He narrows his eyes as he takes in the inscriptions.
I follow his gaze.
…Memnon the Cursed will sleep the sleep of gods…
…bound to this room…
…powers muted…
…memory cast from the minds of the living…
…forced to sleep…
…never aging, never dying…
I clear my throat. “I…take it you were cursed?”
When Memnon’s face returns to me, his expression has changed, hardened, that scar of his looking stark against his skin.
It takes effort not to piss myself at how frightening he appears.
“It was true, wasn’t it? It was all true. I didn’t believe Eislyn, but she was right.” He catches me by the chin and tugs me to him. “My queen, what have you done?”
“Whoever you are,” I say slowly, “you need to let go of me. Now.” Only after the words are out do I realize I spoke in English.
“What has addled your tongue?” he demands, tightening his grip. His scowl deepens. “Or is this some new language you’ve learned to curse me in?”
All around us, I see his magic thickening the air.
“Whatever it is you have done to me, wife,” he says, pulling me in close. “I vow to you that it will not happen again.” Despite his nearness, there’s no warmth to his touch. Only a punishing sort of possessiveness.
His power closes in on me, and I sense he’s readying some awful spell.
Shit, shit, shit.
I push at him, but this time, Memnon doesn’t release me.
“Let me the fuck go!” Apparently, I can curse in this language.
Cool beans, I guess.
He laughs low, the sound raising the hairs on my arms. “Let you go? Oh no, no, little witch, you’re not going anywhere.”
The man says something too low for me to hear, but I feel his magic rise.
“Not now that I’ve caught you. You thought to curse me?” He shakes his head, though I see betrayal blazing in his eyes. “I will make you pay for what you have done for the rest of our days.”
He steps in close and presses his mouth to mine. I fight against the kiss, but it’s not actually a kiss at all.
Memnon’s power swarms around us. I feel it slipping down my throat and coiling in my lungs.
“Sleep,” he murmurs against my lips.
And the world goes dark.
CHAPTER 8
I blink my eyes once, twice, three times.
Above me is the rough surface of an earthen ceiling. I’m lying on my back, and my cheek is wet. I reach a hand to my face just as a big abrasive tongue licks it.
My familiar. Nero.
“Hey,” I say softly, sitting up.
I rub my eyes. There’s a foggy feeling in my mind, one that often accompanies missing sections of time.
I do, however, remember Nero.
My familiar butts his head against my chin, purring a little as he steps in close.
“I’m okay,” I say softly, my voice a little hoarse. “I think.”
He pushes himself to his paws, gives me another brief lick on my cheek, then walks away. Pretty sure that was panther for there, there, now get the fuck up.
Shakily, I stand, glancing around me. I remember this room, with its strange writing and even stranger carvings. I remember tromping through the rainforest to get here.
My eyes fall on the open sarcophagus, its lid broken on the floor beside it. Nearby I see the shredded remains of the scale-mail armor.
And I remember Memnon, with his bourbon eyes and fantastical tattoos and terrifying scar.