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The stone dais was only a few inches tall, but my stomach dropped as if I’d leaped off a mountaintop. My heartbeat thudded a ponderous rhythm in my head, so slow I could count seconds in between each beat. Warm, pearlescent energy dripped down on me, almost like heated oil or molten sunlight in droplets I could feel tracking down my skin.

Emotions surged through me. Some my own, but mostly Hers.

Abounding joy. Shining pride. Overwhelming love. A mother’s unending, unconditional love as Her feathered wings enfolded me.

A sense of rightness flowed through me in this perfect moment. Everything I ever needed to know and understand about the universe, this life, my purpose, was here. Crystal clear. Shining like Her eyes as She gazed down at me. She didn’t need to tell me what my future held. I knew. Everything. The past and future unfolded inside me like a perfect bud opening its petals to the pure love of the sun.

Not Ra’s cruel, brutal light, glaring with all his fury and jealousy, but the nurturing energy and warmth that brought forth all life. The sun that heated the earth, allowing seeds to sprout and bees to pollinate and make their honey. Bright green energy, chlorophyll bursting forth with life. A profusion of rainbow colors all over the spectrum. Flowers and buds and fruit brought forth beneath Her glory. Sparkling water, the giver of life, slipping through cracks and rocks, bringing barren soil to life once more.

I felt the ebb and flow of waters across the earth like blood flowing through my veins. I heard the rippling flow like a steady deep trickle of a never-dry wellspring. Stars wheeled overhead in a steady, nearly inaudible drone. The music of the universe in time with the constant spinning of the earth beneath my feet. We were but a tiny droplet of water against the expanse of the universe. Yet like a giggling child playing with paints, I dragged my finger through the droplet and watched an explosion of fresh ribbons of color and energy flow through the endless oceans of space.

“THIS IS YOUR LEGACY, DAUGHTER OF ISADOR.” Her diamond eyes shone so brightly it pained me to look at Her, even while I reveled in this precious glimpse of the goddess. I couldn’t see anything beyond that brilliance. Burning into me. Through me. “I AM YOU AND YOU ARE ME. TO SEE YOU IS TO SEE ME. TO HEAR YOU IS TO HEAR ME. I WALK THE EARTH ONCE MORE THROUGH YOU. DRINK AGAIN, BELOVED CHILD, AND REFRESH THE ENDLESS WELLSPRING OF POWER WITHIN. SHOW THE WORLD WHO I AM.”

When I died and came into power, She pierced Her wrist and allowed me to drink. This time, She enfolded me closer. My lips pressed against Her long, sleek neck. Her skin like polished ebony, so hard and cold like stone. For a moment, I even wondered if my fangs would pierce Her. Though I’d had no trouble with Sekh’s stone sphinx when he came to me.

When a goddess wants Her vampire queen daughter to taste Her, She certainly wouldn’t allow my fangs to break on Her impenetrable skin.

Though there was the extra side effect my bite carried. It seemed incredibly presumptuous, even blasphemous, to give a goddess an orgasm. If that was even possible.

She laughed, a deep, sensual rumble like lions settling in to feast. The distant promise of a raging thunderstorm. The groan of the earth right before a devastating earthquake.

“I AM SHE WHO GAVE YOU THE POWER, SHARA. YOU INHERITED THE BLISSFUL BITE FROM ME.”

The sound of my name on Her lips shattered through me. Swelling, expanding, casting me adrift into the stars with Her as I sank my fangs into Her throat. Her blood flooded me like the mighty Nile at the height of the rainy season. Dark and swift and deep. Unstoppable. Tearing me apart, sweeping me away like a tiny stick in the force of Her power. Too fast for me to taste or swallow. Only consume. Filled.

So much blood.

17

RIK

Shara stepped onto the stone dais and disappeared. Literally. The entire platform blasted with light like a supernova explosion. Flinching, I involuntarily turned my face aside for a moment. Eyes squinted, searching, I strained to see anything at all. The entire dais was only ten paces or so across, yet I couldn’t see anything inside. Not the stone chair. The carved wall behind it. Nothing.

Tears streamed from my burning eyes, but I couldn’t see even a dark shape moving a foot away. Her bond wasn’t gone but her mind and spirit had flown so far away I couldn’t feel her. Not a sense of her anywhere.

If she was well. Hurt. Scared. Injured.

If she needed me. If she called for help, and I couldn’t hear…

My mind knew she was with the goddess. Certainly nothing could harm her in Isis’ presence. Yet I couldn’t prevent myself from blasting my eyeballs in the brutal light, searching for any sign of her. The tips of my boots pressed to the very edge of the stone. My hands clenched into fists at my sides, fighting the urge to reach inside and feel around like a blind man to find her.

Seconds passed like eons, and the blast of light began to soften. Blazing white warmed to a golden dawn. Two lights. Two stars. Spiraling down into the velvet night sky.

Of Shara’s eyes.

The last of the light sank into her eyes. She sat on the throne, eyes open, mouth parted, her fangs glistening. Blood dripped down her chin and splattered her chest, skyrocketing my heart rate. Braced to be blasted to queendom come, I stepped onto the dais and dropped to my knees in front of her.

“Shara? My queen?”

Her eyes remained unfocused and she didn’t blink. She didn’t breathe. Her bond gleamed inside me, the same as always, but still and silent, a distant echo into nothingness. As if she were still far, far, away. I dipped my awareness through her body quickly, searching for any injury to explain the blood.

“Remember when she came into her power,” Daire whispered beside me. “It took her a few moments to come back to us.”

On my right, Guillaume reached out and lightly laid his fingers on her inner wrist, her hands slack in her lap. Listening for a pulse. He shook his head, his face grave.

“She is not dead.” Sekh bit off each word with quiet, contained fury. “She cannot die.”

“She’s died at least three times that I’m aware of,” Guillaume replied evenly. “She can and will come back. She just needs time.”