It was his turn.
“No you don’t,” he warned, “not so fast…”
Her smile was feline and delighted, her beautiful blue eyes gleamed with satisfaction, knowing what she’d done to him.
Deliberately, she arched her back so her breasts rose while her legs twined around his and he felt the heated core of her brush against him.
Control snapped and he drove up into her, a hand over her mouth to smother her cry of surprise and delight. He felt her clench around him as he buried himself in her as deeply as he could, all the way to the hilt. Raissa shifted beneath him, her eyelids fluttering as she writhed beneath him to feel him so completely within her. Buried in her, he wallowed inside her to feel every inch, savoring the feel of her pulsing heat around him as she shifted her hips to take him as deeply as he could go.
He looked into her beautiful face to find it glowing with the pleasure of him inside her, her delight clear in her smile, in the radiance of it.
In that moment he was lost, burying himself in her, pounding deep as her hips rose to take him, her hands clutching at his arms, his shoulders, trying to take more.
Raissa felt him pulsing within her, throbbing, so deep, so hard, stretching her, filling her, the delicious friction of him inside her maddening.
Her eyes shot open as she felt him go rigid, his liquid heat pour into her.
His body locked, the muscles of his chest tight, his hips against her, driving deep inside her. He was beautiful, primal and magnificent. Eyes were closed, his face a mask of pleasure, he emptied into her.
That was all she saw as ecstasy took her. She closed around him as her own pleasure rushed through her.
His own pleasure slowly abating, Ky looked down into the serene glory of her face, her smile radiant as her body tightened around him, quivering.
He felt her pleasure run its course as he drew her close again and his mouth found hers, the kiss slow and sweet as he stroked her hair. His legs tangled around hers, pulled her closer so they remained locked together for a few moments more. She snuggled into him.
“God, I love you, Raissa,” he said and felt her lips curve against his throat.
“I love you, too,” she said, pressing a kiss and only a kiss against the steady throbbing of his heartbeat beneath her mouth.
The scent of him filled her, the life of him.
For a moment her arms tightened around him, remembering where they were and what the day to come might bring.
Sharing the thought, Ky’s breath caught and he drove his fingers into her hair, held her tightly against him.
Raissa’s heart ached.
Tomorrow was tomorrow, she reminded herself. It would come soon enough.
A soft voice woke them in the dark of the night, familiar, surprisingly deep. Ryan. It had been his watch after Tareq’s. The sound of it gave Ky a bad moment after John’s betrayal.
“Bossman, hey, boss, Professor,” Ryan said, “Sorry to wake you but we’ve got company.”
Both Ky and Raissa were instantly awake but Ryan didn’t move, grinning a little, flashlight in hand, waiting.
Ky looked at him in amusement. “What are you waiting for?”
“Um, nothing, boss,” he said and disappeared, chortling like a slightly mad and randy elf. “No hurry, the lions have him sort of boxed in at the tunnel and I got Komi to watch them.”
Raissa shook her head, rolling her eyes and grinning. He was incorrigible.
It was clearly, though, not an emergency if the lions had someone boxed in at the tunnel.
“Company?” Ky said, curiously.
With a shrug, Raissa squirmed out of the sleeping bag.
Naked in the moonlight, she was incredible to look at, the silvery light drenching her ivory skin, her full breasts, limning every muscle of her slender belly, the deep dip of her waist, the curve of her hip, and the lovely muscles of her shapely legs. Her hair spilled gloriously over her shoulders, argent in the moonlight, so she seemed a lovely silver statue draped in her rippling hair.
“So beautiful,” he said, gathering up his clothes but taking a moment to pull her close, to feel all that glorious silken skin against him.
Beneath his hands her skin was soft, smooth and warm. If he’d had the time he’d have taken her again right there, simply bent her over and thrust up into her to feel her heat and life close tightly and deliciously around him.
She smiled up at him and he did take the time to lower his mouth for a quick kiss.
Raissa spread her hands over the strong broad muscles of his chest, sliding them up along his ribs to the long, firm muscles of his back, echoing his thought unknowingly as she looked up into the strong lines of his handsome face, his dark eyes gleaming in the moonlight.
Dressed, she called up her swords as Ky bent to snatch up one of the automatic weapons as they passed them, checking it out automatically as they walked toward the entrance to the glen.
Unruffled as always Komi waited at the entrance to the tunnel.
A man wearing traditional desert clothing waited in the shadows. He folded back the mouth cover and stepped out as they approached.
The face was familiar, the strong arched nose, narrow face and pockmarked skin were well known to both of them.
Inspector Hassan nodded to them, eyeing the lions cautiously but without surprise. If he was who Raissa suspected he was, he would have known of them.
Ryan leaned a shoulder against a rock wall, his weapon secured in his crossed arms as if he’d been carrying one for years.
“Go wake, Tareq, would you, Ryan? He’ll want to be here for this, too,” he asked.
Nodding, Ryan said, “Be right back, boss.”
The man in the tunnel entrance looked the worse for wear, tired, battered, with a bruise that darkened one side of his face but he’d quite apparently survived Zimmer’s violent dismissal.
“Inspector,” Ky said, evenly.
The other man looked at him and then at Raissa standing beside him before turning his eyes to the lions as Nebi slipped around her to settle at Ky’s side. Almost out of habit, Ky let his hand drop to the lion’s thick mane. Alu bumped her head against Raissa’s hand and she scratched idly behind the lioness’s ears.
Slowly, the other man shook his head at himself and then he bowed, doing a deep obeisance, his hand going from his head, to his lips, to his heart and then spreading out toward them.
“My apologies,” he said, “to the Guardian of the Tomb.”
Raissa lifted an eyebrow before she frowned lightly and sighed.
“You couldn’t have known,” she said. “What is it you want?”
Standing more straightly, he said. “I am the leader of those who hunt the dark Djinn…”
Her guess was confirmed. That explained much. She’d wondered if any had survived to modern times.
“You missed one,” Ky interrupted, evenly, thinking of Zimmer and Kamenwati.
Having heard those trapped below it had become a lot easier to believe.
With a bow of assent, Hassan said, “As you say. My zealousness blinded me. When I first met the man, he was much different. The changes should have alerted me but I was more concerned you were growing close to the Tomb. There are few these days who know what a Djinn is, much less an evil one. We do not battle so many these days but when we do…they have grown wiser, warier and smarter. And this one was old, very old.”
Men had been lost… good men…men he’d trained, or trained with…had died, back at the camp. They could see it in his eyes.
“When you arrived in the village…” Hassan began, looking at Raissa.
She sighed and waved it away. “It’s done.”
“As you say,” he said again, with a bow.
Tareq came trotting up, his movements stiff, Ryan at his heels.
“Sorry, my friends,” he said, “It’s been some time since I last slept out on the ground. Who is this?”
He seemed somewhat familiar…
Ky said, “Tareq, Inspector Hassan. He’s with the local police. You saw him at the camp.”
“Ah,” Tareq said, with a nod of his head, recognizing the name. “We spoke on the phone.”
The man Zimmer had sent flying.
“He’s also a member of those who protect the Tomb,” Ky said.
Tareq’s gaze sharpened.
“They are coming,” Hassan said. “Zimmer, the man who is Djinn, and his men. And others. Men who seek the Horn for their own purposes. We have been following them, watching all of them. This, however, is our duty and our home and so we have come to offer our assistance to the Guardian.”
Tareq gave Ky and Raissa a look.
It looked as if her original idea to lure everyone to the site was coming to fruition whether she wished it to or not.
The Inspector waited.
She looked at him. “You know if you enter, there is a very good chance you and your men will die here.”
As there was for all of them, Ky, Tareq, Ryan and Komi, even herself.
Thanks to Zimmer/Kamenwati they hadn’t been given a choice.
“We all must die sometime,” the other man answered, calmly, evenly. “Few men are given to know their purpose in life but we have. It is for this and this alone.”
As it had been for her.
Now? She sighed. Only time would tell.
Ky went still as he felt Hassan’s words reverberate through him.
He, too, had always had a purpose. He had it still.
All his life he searched for the Tomb and the one who guarded it. He’d dreamed of her and it. As a boy he’d fantasized about riding to the rescue, defeating the Djinn and freeing her. As a man he’d sought to prove she was real, the mythical Irisi, Nubiti, to know the truth of her. That she’d loved and been loved so much her loss had been immortalized in stone by the man who had loved her in return, and no ordinary man at that, but a great Egyptian general.
Now he’d found it and her with it. Raissa and the love he’d doubted existed.
Both were his now.
She stood beside him and Ky knew she would stand with him, fight beside him, die for him if necessary. It was there in her eyes, in the steadiness of her presence, in her sureness.
Her slender fingers slid between his.
Ky looked at her as she looked back at him, understanding and empathy in her blue eyes.
As he would stand and fight for her.
Having found the Tomb, he would help her close it. Forever. And set her free, at last. Whatever happened afterwards.
Ky looked at Hassan.
He’d been all too aware they were too few against too many. Only he, Tareq and Raissa had any real training, any real combat experience.
“We need all the help we can get,” he said.
It was clear Raissa had considered that, too.
There was no need for either of them to say the obvious. It was her decision though.
He looked at her.
She nodded.
“Bring your people,” she said, snapping her fingers at the lions, who grumbled, shambled to their feet and ambled away, unconcerned.
With a gesture toward the fire, Ky said, “We need to know more about these people you’ve been following.”
Hassan nodded. Then he turned and whistled down the tunnel. About a dozen well-armed men came at a fast trot, almost all of them bearing some kind of an automatic weapon as well as a sword in a scabbard at their waist.
They were prepared for both man and Djinn.
Giving them quick instructions, Hassan sent them off to make camp and gain what rest they could.
“There are two groups following you other than us,” Hassan said, as they walked to the fire and settled beside it.
Raissa bent to stir it up to give them a little more illumination.
A smile crossed Hassan’s normally grim features in appreciation. “The first were those whose purpose we couldn’t ascertain.”
The smile faded for a moment.
“Only eleven in number. They are devout men,” he said, “but they do not speak to anyone. I sent a man to contact them. He didn’t return.”
Mohammed had been a good man, a civil and reasonable man. A devout man as well. Only a madman or a fanatic would have killed him. And so they were likely madmen and fanatics.
Like many, he had some sympathy for such people. The American hegemony was disturbingly predominant and their new tendency to spread their doctrine by force, foregoing their own stated respect for the rule of law made them disturbingly unpredictable and untrustworthy.
Still, he couldn’t support violence for those purposes and if they’d killed Mohammed…
He took a breath. “We suspect they’re of one of the militant groups, Al-Qaeda or one of its off-shoots…These were the ones who attacked you at the Museum.”
No Egyptian would have done such a thing, they had too much pride in their heritage, in their ancient culture, in what their people had begun… Egypt had been the true birthplace of civilization.
“Born to the desert, to its conditions, they followed you from dig site when you fled,” he said. “Knowing the desert, it wasn’t difficult…”
Ky and Raissa looked at each other… How much had they seen?
It didn’t matter.
“Zimmer’s people entered the tomb of Isis’s priestess.”
His black eyes went to Raissa. There was a glint in them.
“Surprisingly, they found it full of snakes,” he said, and didn’t both to hide his amusement. “There was some outcry and a number of bullets fired before they fled but they were fewer in number when they emerged. Still, almost fifty or more remain.”
Ky glanced at Raissa.
She looked back at him, an innocent look on her face but her blue eyes were twinkling.
“Imagine that,” she said, looking back at him.
His dark eyes gazed at her skeptically.
She grinned.
The numbers, though, were still daunting.
“It took them some little time to reorganize,” he said. “The others waited, watching through binoculars. Having been warned then of traps, we bypassed both and searched for you. We were cautious of traps, too, as they will be. It will take them time.”
“We didn’t know where the Tomb was until now, it was best not to know and it was not part of our mission. Our mission was to discourage interest and to seek out dark Djinn so they couldn’t mass or prey on humanity again. To that end we have been successful.”