CHAPTER TWO
"Your brother is in danger. Only you can save him."
"My brother is dead." Reign Nicolis refused to take the bait Nephythys, Goddess of the Dead had laid. Shoulders embedded in the wall, feet dangling off the floor, over a pool of his cooling blood, his chin didn't move from it place on his chest.
"He is alive, for the moment," Nephythys said.
She stood before him. Her voice filled with faux concern for the brother he hadn't seen in two millennia. He wouldn't meet her gaze or give her anything she wanted. But he couldn't stop himself from answering.
"You lie." His voice vibrated with anger. Her words and everything between the crown of blue hair on her head to the tips of her toes were a deception. That's how she tricked him to Chemmis, the home of the Egyptian Gods. With subterfuge and innuendos. He wouldn't fall for it again.
"You know I cannot lie."
That much was true. Nephythys dealt judgment to all followers of the Egyptian gods. Her words determined their final resting place in the underworld. Either ascension to the stars or perpetuity roasting in Duat.
"Come, I will show you."
Freed from the wall, Reign dropped to his feet. His bones creaked and his muscles ached. Whether days or years, he could not guess how long she'd left him hanging until he obeyed. Using Roman was a new tactic in her latest attempt to make him comply with her wishes. He'd tired of her games long ago.
Nephythys turned and lead the way through the dim passages of her white palace to a sunbathed room. So long in darkness, the light stabbed his eyes.
"Look into the Scrying bowl. The first waters of the Nile will show you see the truth." She pointed at a bowl waiting on a table in the middle of the room.
Made from beaten gold and strewn with hieroglyphics carved into the surface, Reign couldn't ignore his interest. He wanted to see, needed too. But—"How will I know it is not a memory you have stolen from my mind and manipulated?" Finally, he looked at her. He took in her alabaster skin and pale blue hair.
She glided closer. Her whisper thin linen coverings showed more skin that it hid. The delicate fabric molded to her curves drawing attention to her pert nipples and the vee where her thighs joined. He almost wished he could feel something other than disgust and betrayal when he looked at her. This display was beneath her station.
"You will know, Reign. Have trust." Her lips curved.
He laughed. A brittle sound which surprised even him. Trust was not something he would ever do again with Nephythys. Her pouty lips trembled with artful dismay. He waited for a tear to fall just to see how long it would take for her to give up the effort. A full minute passed before she lowered her dry eyes. The Goddess of the Dead didn't cry either.
Reign turned to the bowl and looked into the muddy waters drawn from when the Nile was but a spring. An image appeared in the swirling liquid. His face on another man's body. His twin.
"Roman." Relief and sorrow tore through him. For the first time in two millennia, he saw his brother who should have been long dead. How had he survived all this time? The image faded, but not before he caught a glimpse of a nightmarish creature that stalked his brother.
"No!" He grabbed the bowl. A force shoved him to the opposite side of the room. "Bring him back." He demanded.
"There is no way to reform the link. You have destroyed it. But I can give you more than a watery image of your brother." She rushed through her words as if she read from a prepared script.
"Give me? You let me believe Roman was dead." He struggled against the power confining him.
"You never asked if he was alive. You never cared to know what happened to him. All you had to do was ask."
"For a price."
Her words struck bone. He didn't ask, not because he didn't care about Roman's fate, the answer was too painful to face. Their last moments together were filled with acrimony after they'd both failed in their duty.
"There is always a price. To help your brother, I can send you back."
Reign stared at the bowl. He'd be a fool to trust her. "He has survived this long without me—"
"Anubis' champion stalks him."
"Why. What could he have done to draw the attention of your son?"
"Anubis believes I sent you to stop his involvement in the human realm. He thinks Roman is you. Your brother fights your battle. And he is losing."
That was not possible. Other than him, none surpassed Roman on the battlefield. "My brother is a warrior—"
"He is not the man he once was. Time has softened him. You saw him. He ran from the battle, not toward."
Though it pained him, he couldn't deny her words. "You do this out of the kindness of your heart?" He chuckled at the absurdity. As Judge and Jury of the pantheon, she had no understanding of kindness.
I have a price." Nephythys released him and then sidled closer. "All I need is a promise that you will return to me—"
"—To be a slave to your whims?" He couldn't let her get that close to him again. "No."
"Then your brother will die." She stated and leveled a steady gaze at him.
He'd always protected Roman. Always. Right now, he was fighting for his life. Reign clenched his fists to keep from hitting something.
"I want a willing, attentive lover."
"You want a pet," he gritted.
"I want you. With love in your heart and passion in your body."
"And what will I get?" When she didn't respond, he had his answer. He turned away, ready to return to his gilded cage.
"I will free you from The Vanquished. No longer will your demons haunt you."
To be free of his tormentors. What would he give to have that relentless torture cease? Their voices silenced forever? Anything. And she knew this. "You had this ability all along and withheld it. To punish me, bend me to your will."
No emotions showed on her face. But her coiled hair quivered in response to her agitation. She couldn't lie, so she chose not answer.
Whispers gathered in his head. The Vanquished, his constant companion had awakened. Quickly, their wails rose from incoherent babble to mournful screeches which tore at his sanity.
"Negotiation are over. Do we have an agreement?" Nephythys folded her arms under her breast, plumping them even more.
The choice should be simple: Freedom from The Vanquished and a chance to save his twin. And all he had to give up was his soul. Not like he had used it in last two thousand years. Still, he had to know. "Let me touch you." He stretched a hand toward her.
Immediately, a soft glow shielded her body, protecting her from any physical contact.
"You know you cannot. All are forbidden to touch me."
Nothing had changed. To relegate himself once more to her version of love, left a chasm in his gut. But, he had no options. He couldn't let Roman die because of him.
A null raced into the room and stumbled into a low bow. "Great Goddess, The God SET approaches." Breathless, the servant trembled.
Reign almost smile. SET had granted him a reprieve from a lifetime of servitude. Reign leaned into her. He brushed her protective barrier. She retreated. He followed, backing her into a wall, crowding her. She couldn't haggle with SET about to make an entrance. "One day. That is all I will give you."
"No, this is not a negotiation." The tips of her hair flamed.
"I have changed my mind. One hour is all I will give you."
Her attention snapped from him to the open archway, and returned. "No. You will give me all that I demand."
"Then we will wait for your husband's arrival."
Anger flashed in her eyes, but she looked to the archway again.
His lungs tightened, searching for the air that suddenly vanished from the room. Reign wobbled. His muscles jellied and he slammed into the table for support.
"All right! I agree." A copy of Nephythys separated from her body and cupped Reign's face.
He didn't have the strength to push her away when her lips covered his. In a sweet rush, some of her power transferred to him.
"Until you return to me, I give you part of my vis'Ra, my energy. It will grant you immortality, the power to fade and flash, and care for your needs." An icy wind circled the chamber. "They will not last long." She rushed. "Goodbye, my love."
Her vis'Ra coursed through Reign's veins, a poisonous brew which propelled him from one realm to the next. He materialized as a metal monstrosity stopped a few feet away. He braced for attack. The door opened and Roman appeared. Stunned, Reign couldn't move as his brother strode by without pause.
"Roman?" He called and received no answer. How could he not see him, know he was here? Had time and distance truly destroyed their bond?
The door to the house behind him opened and a woman ran into Roman's arms. Fury pulsed through Reign. He expected to find his brother engaged in battle, not entwined in an intimate embrace. He bargained his life for this? Once more, his brother placed what lay between a woman's thighs over family. Too many times drink and women came between his twin and his duty. As mercenaries, their honor lay in their ability to wield the sword in your hand, not the lance fools hung their pride on.
Roman swung the woman up and carried her to the waiting conveyance. Unlike the other women his brother had wasted time on, this one he held close and tenderly kissed. Had he found the one who had caused him to lose his soul?
No woman was worth that. Nephythys proved that.
"Roman, I am here."
Still, his brother ignored him. Reign grabbed Roman's shoulder. His hand passed through. He wasn't real. What had Nephythys done to him? Behind him something crashed. He spun and saw a beast, the hybrid nightmare he had glimpsed in the Scrying bowl. The beast Anubis created and the goddess ordered him to defeat.
The gods and their petty games. Reign could kill it now, save his brother and return to his cage secreted in Nephythys palace. His gagged at the thought of being subjected to her idea of love, but that was the bargain he'd made. Whether now or later, the price had to be paid. He would do this for his brother and the woman. At least one of them would have peace and their line would continue.
Roman entered the metal carriage. It roared much like the beast, then settled into a throaty rumbled. The rear wheels smoked the black road. The beast leaped from the wooden structure and landed inches from Reign. It paused and studied him.
It saw him when his brother hadn't.
Reign's hand itched and a weight rested in his palm. A sword. Jagged. Sharper than sin, dark as night, and larger than the one he use to wield in battle was clasped in his hand. He lifted it.
Heavy, good for cleaving.
Roman sped away, cloudy fumes trailing behind. The beast followed. Its claws dug into the black road, leaving chunks behind.
Reign charged after both. Fast and agile, the beast pulled away. Nephythys vis'Ra surged in Reign's veins. His atoms shifted, separated. Panicked he couldn't stop his body from dissolving. Suspended in the air as a heavy mist, Reign quelled his terror. If the gods could do this, then too would he. With a thought, the distance between him and his prey vanished.
A force yanked him to a stop, reeled him back, and slammed him to the ground. Pain ripped through his skull. The Vanquished, his personal army of demons, shrieked inside his skull. He'd thought Nephythys would have alleviated the curse so he could return quickly to her servitude. He wasn't surprised fortuned didn't favor him. It never had. violent
For countries, for kings, and for emperors, he killed. To honor the Nicolis name, he killed. And to protect the one person he loved—his brother—he killed. Too many to count fell beneath his blade, but with each kill came a price.
Though he tried, he couldn't move and soon he would lose rational thought and descend into madness.
No. His fingers cracked the hard surface of the black ground and searching for earth to hold onto and center him. Sometimes touching the ground from which all things sought sustenance, helped suppress the riot in his brain. But there was not dirt beneath the surface of this strange ground. An ashy, gray substance cover fingers instead fertile dirt.
Roman must return. Without his brother's easy temperament to balance the darkness in Reign's soul, The Vanquished ruled, and he would become a mad man, no better than the beast. He hadn't traveled all this way to become the thing he would kill.
A whimper gave him the strength to turn his head a fraction. A woman stumbled from the house. She wobbled on unsteady legs. Her hair, a wild curly mass obscured her view. The woman rested on one of the wooden columns. One wrong step and she'd trip on the scattered debris and tumbled down the stairs. He had to get to her before she fell.
Fighting the demons weighting him down, Reign forced himself to his knees. Then he crawled, closing the distance between them. Each step, the cries of The Vanquished lessened, replaced by calming silence. If he were pious, he would offer a prayer that she stay put until her reached her. She pushed away from the column. Her ankle twisted. Seconds before her skull would've smashed onto the ground, Reign dove beneath her and absorbed the brunt of the fall.
Damn the Gods.
The feel of her solid form blasted through his petrified center. He hadn't realized how much he missed this. Human contact. The simple act of touching and being touched. Warmth and the softness of a woman. So long denied, now he feasted.
He buried his face in her mass of curly hair and inhaled jasmine and honey. A moan ripe with longing ripped from his throat and he fitted her lush curves more intimately to him. She shivered and her breath curled in the air. Gently, he rolled and let her slide from his arms to her back. The pale glow of artificial light bathed her face and he forgot to breath. Something so lovely couldn't be real. Wasn't real. Touching her shouldn't be allowed.
Desire to taste her luscious lips—this one time—dug its claws into him, and drew him near. He brushed her wild tresses from her face and stroked a finger down the side of her face, leaving a bloody streak. A quick search and he discovered a gash on the side of her head. He hadn't saved her. And while he pawed her like an untried youth, she lay dying.
The sound of shuffling feet whipped him around.
"I called for an ambulance." An elderly lady pushed open the short wooden gate. A halo of silver hair gave her an angelic appearance.
"Can you help her?" Reign asked when she kneeled opposite him. The elder stared, her gaze bore into him, and he couldn't turn away from the watery eyes. Beneath her glare, something inside him wanted to retreat, slink away, and hide like a chastised child. Then her withered face stretched into a smile.
"Alexis will be fine," she said.
"Alexis." He repeated the name and returned to study the woman he'd saved.
"She's stronger than even she realizes," the elder said.
Her voice soothed him in a way he couldn't explain. The quiet drone of a distant wail caught his attention. It approached. Another slightly different wail joined it. Together, they set his inner demons on edge. Red, blue and yellow lights dissected the night and two metal monstrosities screeched to a halt a few feet away. He stood, ready to defend.
"It's all right. They're here to help." She looked up at him. "They'll take care of her."
He wanted to care for her, but that wasn't his mission. "I will leave." It pained him to say those words. Leaving was the last thing he desired, yet he had too. Reign lingered for a moment longer before stepping into the shadows of the house and fading away.