Mills & Boon : Seducing The Jackal Page 2

  “Jackal, please.” She rolled her eyes at him. “You know, threats tend to make people not inclined to help you. Just saying.”

  “You’re right,” he told her. Surprise lit her face, and he clenched his jaw against the sensual punch to the gut. “But what you don’t seem to understand is that I’m not threatening you. I’m just letting you know what will happen if you don’t do what I want. Just saying.”

  Her chin lifted. “What exactly do you want?”

  He pulled a blade from the sheath strapped to his thigh.

  She recoiled, hands coming up defensively.

  “Relax. I’m not going to kill you.”

  He didn’t say “yet,” but she flinched as if he had.

  Good. She didn’t need to know that he’d only killed in defense of himself or his clan, or in his sacred duty to Anubis. What she did need to know was just how serious he was about keeping his clan safe.

  Reaching over, he grabbed her wrists and slid the blade beneath the nylon tie that bound her. His fingertips tingled against her skin. She trembled as his thumb stroked over her pulse, but he didn’t know if the reaction was due to his touch or the dagger. “Hold still.”

  A sharp jerk and he freed her. She immediately rubbed her wrists, staring up at him. “What now?”

  “Come with me.” He held a hand out to her just to see what she would do.

  Continuing to chafe sensation back into her hands, she ignored his and stood on her own. “This way, I assume?” she asked, reaching for the knob.

  Impressed despite himself, Markus rapped on the door. The witch stumbled back a step as a guard opened the door onto a long hallway decorated with depictions of Lord Anubis in his various funerary roles and the journey through Duat, the Underworld.

  The witch stopped short. Her gaze roamed the walls, taking in each scene, every minute detail. “Amazing,” she whispered as her hand came up to trace the closest brightly rendered image. “The details, the colors—it’s beautiful!”

  Markus allowed a swell of pride. “We tried to recreate the images as accurately as possible, even sourcing as many of the original pigments as we could.” His fingers traced the graceful lines of a lotus flower. “We wanted a remembrance of what we’d lost. Luckily, our clan has never forgotten our past or our purpose.”

  He looked down at her, anger surging again. “Why don’t I introduce you to the artist?”

  Without waiting for an answer, he wrapped a hand around her bicep and dragged her down the hall. Four other doors flanked the hall, but only two had guards stationed outside—the one they’d left and the one they approached, second from the end. The hall then veered sharply right, opening onto a large open room holding a pool table, a massive flat-panel TV, bar and other entertainments before ending at the stairs leading to the upper level.

  He stopped at the second-to-last door, nodding to the jackal standing guard at the end of the hall. The guard opened the door, allowing Markus to shove Tia inside. She stiffened at his treatment, then gasped as she took in the contents of the room. Three strides in, she could see several cells. Jackals occupied two of them. One lay curled on a futon, his upper half human and the lower half misshapen jackal. The other, fully human, lay on his side, eyes wide and unblinking, minute twitches jerking his body. Markus could smell the sour notes of sickness choking the air and the acidic-ash burn of dark magic.

  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 healt
h! 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 thrum
ming 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.”