Egyptian Lover 3: Ardeth & Amenhotep Read online

  Egyptian Lover 3: Ardeth & Amenhotep

  Isabella Jordan

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright ©2006 Isabella Jordan

  No part of this e-book may be reproduced or shared by any electronic or mechanical means, including but not limited to printing, file copying or sharing, and email, without prior written permission from Changeling Press LLC. Willful violation of this policy will result in suspension of account privileges and will lead to prosecution.

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  ISBN (10) 1-59596-421-5

  ISBN (13) 978-1-59596-421-2

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  Changeling Press LLC

  PO Box 1046

  Martinsburg, WV 25402-1046

  www.ChangelingPress.com

  Editor: Connie Alberts

  Cover Artist: Fabiano Fabris

  This e-book file contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language which some may find offensive and which is not appropriate for a young audience. Changeling Press E-Books are for sale to adults, only, as defined by the laws of the country in which you made your purchase. Please store your files wisely, where they cannot be accessed by under-aged readers.

  Chapter 1

  “Alex? You’ve got company!”

  Alexis Peters looked up in surprise. The loud stage whisper from her roommate was so out of character that she had to. Candace rarely got excited about anything.

  “Who is it?” Alex asked.

  Candace waved her arms frantically, motioning to her to come into the living room, as if she were bringing in a 747. What was going on?

  “Just get out here,” Candace demanded. “You are not going to believe this. The whole campus is in an uproar.”

  As much as she wanted to finish reading her Egyptian antiquities newsletter, curiosity made her put the laptop aside to see what the big deal was. Climbing off the bed, she slid her feet into her sandals. Candace waited just inside the door, literally bouncing on the balls of her feet.

  “Geez, Candace.” She shook her head at her friend. “Is Orlando Bloom out there, or what?”

  “Even bigger, Alex. You are so not going to believe this.”

  Apparently not.

  Following her friend out into the living room of their shared apartment, Alex saw a man with dark hair pulled back into a ponytail sitting on her couch. He was a large, powerfully built man in his black leather jacket and faded jeans. Alex easily recognized the strong features of his face, from the hard, carved line of his jaw to the steely set of his familiar, hazel eyes.

  Holy crap! This was big. Hunter Storme, a huge international movie star, was sitting on their couch.

  He offered a boyish smile. “Alexis?” His deep voice was familiar from countless action movies.

  Shaking his hand, Alex just nodded and stared up at him.

  “I’m Hunter Storme.”

  “I know.” Now what are you doing here? “It’s nice to meet you.”

  He cleared his throat, his gaze cutting to Candace. “It’s nice to meet you too, Candace, but I’m wondering if I might talk with Alexis alone.”

  Candace stood fidgeting for a moment before she seemed to realize that she’d been spoken to. Then she nodded, disappointment flashing in her eyes as she glanced at Alex. “Can I go in my room or do you need me to leave the apartment?” she asked.

  “You don’t have to leave the apartment,” he told her. “Thank you.”

  Alex watched her roommate head off for her bedroom, waiting anxiously to hear why the movie star wanted to talk to her of all people. Once Candace had closed the door behind her, Alex glanced up at her guest.

  “How did you make it up here without getting mauled?” she had to ask.

  Tipping his head toward her front door, he said, “I’ve got good bodyguards.”

  Not that he needed them. Hunter Storme was a world renowned martial arts expert. He could probably handle himself just fine no matter where he went, even on a large college campus.

  “So you’re here to see me?” Alex began, curiosity killing her now.

  He nodded. “I need your help, Alexis.”

  “Alex,” she corrected him.

  “Alex.” Motioning toward her couch, he sat back down. “Someone I love, my daughter, is missing and you might be the only one who can help me.”

  His daughter? Her gaze locked with his, searching his hazel eyes. Eyes that were familiar to her, and not because she’d watched him kicking ass in the movies. After studying him for several seconds, it slowly occurred to her who his daughter might be and why he might be there. “Carson?”

  Hunter Storme nodded.

  “You’re Carson’s father?” Alex asked in disbelief.

  It made perfect sense. Carson had his eyes, his confidence. Alex had been told by more than one person that Carson was into martial arts but she was likely much more than that with Hunter Storme as her father.

  “I am,” he spoke slowly, his tone serious. “And I need to know if you know what happened to my daughter.”

  Shit. Not again. Alex didn’t want to think about what had happened in Karnak last year. “I wasn’t there the first time the group was attacked. The night before Derek Scarborough and his friend Richie Stevens had slipped a drug into my drink. Carson saved me that night. Got me out of that bar. I heard when they were attacked the next day no one was seriously injured. One girl had broken a wrist. A couple of others were beaten up. We heard a group of tourists had been slaughtered in the desert a few weeks before. They were spooked enough to call off the year’s research trip and return back to the States before anyone else got hurt.

  “The next day I was well enough to go back to the precinct with Dr. Jill Andrews, Carson, and a few others to take a few photographs and close everything down for the season. There was a particular set of hieroglyphics Dr. Andrews wanted me to see. I’m good at reading hieroglyphics and hieratic. I wanted to go along, even though the group had been attacked the day before. We were attacked again, only this time… everyone else was killed, except me and Carson.”

  That had only been the beginning of the nightmare Alex had miraculously lived through after being kidnapped by hideous creatures. She tried not to think about what had happened to her while in captivity. She couldn’t and keep her sanity.

  She didn’t have to answer many questions when they’d found her at the door of the hospital in Cairo either. She’d been in shock and when the Egyptian authorities had reached the conclusion that she’d wandered back from Karnak somehow, she hadn’t disputed the story. What had really happened was just too incredible to believe.

  Yet as bad as her own experience had been, she couldn’t get past not knowing what had happened to Carson. She’d later heard Derek’s body had been found in Cairo, and Carson was wanted for questioning about his death. “The last time I saw her was right before the attack at the precinct in Karnak.”

  “What do you remember?”

  Alex swallowed hard. She could still hear the pounding of hooves in her mind, the fear that had paralyzed her at that moment when the riders had carried her off into the desert was still too real. “Not much,” Alex told him. Please don’t ask me about that day. “Not much at all.”

  The man’s hand slid over hers in a purely paternal way. Alexis welcomed its warmth, the strength he lent her even though he was a stranger. “Alex, I’ve had the best investigators looking into what happened in Karnak. I’ve personally been there and looked around. I’ve pushed all the buttons I can push, and I’m no closer to finding out what happened to my little girl t
han I was when I started. Money I have, connections I have, but in the end, none of it matters. I’d trade every bit of it to have my daughter back and safe. Do you understand?”

  Alex nodded. She most definitely did. Carson’s fate had haunted her.

  And then there were the dreams, all of the strange dreams. No way would she tell him that shit. He’d think she was crazy. There were as many sexually graphic things going on in her nighttime fantasies as there were horrors.

  “Carson has done so much for me. I wish I could help you. I wish I could help her some way but…”

  “I think you can help me, Alex.” His hand tightened around hers. “You’re my last hope. You were among the last people to see Carson. According to the authorities, you survived that attack, and, in shock, made your way back to Cairo the next day. Is there anything you remember at all?”

  If only that had been it. He didn’t know about the hours she spent with those faceless creatures in that cave. Alex’s heart squeezed in her chest at the plea of a father looking for his child. She wanted to help. She wanted to believe as much as he did that Carson was alive. What would happen if she explained to him the indescribable horror she’d experienced in those hours in the cave? He’d probably write her off as the biggest nutcase he’d ever seen. And it still wouldn’t help him find Carson because she didn’t know what had happened to her. She only remembered that whisper in the darkness lingering in her memory and then she could only guess at its meaning.

  Who I am doesn’t matter. I’m saving you in the name of someone I love. Someone who cares about you.

  Had the someone who cared about her been Carson? And the man, the thing, that had delivered her to the hospital… well, she tried not to think about that too much.

  Alex wanted to help but she just couldn’t. It was bad enough that all of this had been dragged back to the forefront of her mind. She’d worked so hard to suppress it over the last year, even taking sleep aids so she could rest at night.

  “I’m so sorry, Mr. Storme,” she said finally. “I really don’t remember much about what happened. I never saw Carson. She helped me. You have to understand that I’d give anything to find her, but I just don’t know what.”

  Desperation was easy to read in his eyes, but he nodded his acceptance. Releasing her hand, he reached into his jacket and pulled out a business card. Flipping it so that she could see the back of the card, he showed her two handwritten numbers.

  “Alex, these are my personal numbers. Think about it and call me if you remember anything. I beg you.”

  Taking the card with a shaking hand, Alex nodded. “I will.”

  Hunter Storme rose from the couch, stuffing his hands into his pockets, staring absently at the floor. “I’m so proud of her, you know.”

  It wasn’t lost on Alex that he referred to his daughter in present tense.

  “I wasn’t able to make it in when she received her doctorate. Every day I wish I’d been there to see her, to… tell her how much I loved her.”

  Because she felt like she had to, Alex rose from the couch and wrapped her arms around him, feeling his pain. His arms closed around her and he began to rock her back and forth before he released her.

  “Carson used to wear a locket,” Alex told him. “I asked her what was in it once and she showed me the picture of a relative of hers who’d disappeared in Egypt a long time ago. I remember she told me no matter what happens people we care about never truly leave our lives. She said we carry them around in our hearts and minds just as she carried that old photograph in that pendant.”

  His eyes glittered with unshed tears now.

  “She would say that.” His smile was wry. “I’m selfish enough to want her here though, not just in my heart and mind. I can’t let go, Alex. I can’t believe she’s…”

  He didn’t have to finish the sentence. She knew what he couldn’t say. She couldn’t believe that Carson was dead either.

  “If you think of anything, call me. Anytime,” he told her.

  Alex watched him walk to the door and out of her apartment, taking a deep breath against the memories and thoughts she fought everyday.

  Chapter 2

  Alex was determined not to dream that night. She couldn’t. Not after her visit with Hunter Storme had brought back all of the memories of the attack in Karnak. She found the wound was still raw, hurting.

  She’d stared at the bottle of pills on her dresser, medication that she’d gotten from the sleep clinic that was supposed to suppress dreams and aid her in maintaining a sound sleep. The proper dose was two and it had been a long time since she’d taken that. Time had pushed everything into the corners of her mind, making it a little easier to deal with. Usually she took just one pill and that worked great because she didn’t wake up feeling drugged the way she did when she took two.

  Tonight every memory from Egypt was back and the wheels of her mind wouldn’t stop spinning.

  Taking three pills out of the bottle, Alex popped them into her mouth and downed them with the rest of her diet soda. She would sleep tonight, damn it.

  Tomorrow she’d carry on with her life as she had for the last year. She’d focus on her Master’s degree, on her research. Returning to Egypt was out of the question, so she’d decided to shift her studies to other ancient societies. Anything but ancient Egypt.

  Sleep came swiftly to Alex, and when it did she found herself in the familiar landscape that had dominated her dreams since she’d left Egypt. It appeared that in her efforts to make doubly sure that the dreams didn’t surface she’d caused them to return with a vengeance.

  The cave. The scene of her nightmare in Karnak. Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!

  Alex stood just outside the mouth of the cave in her dream, waiting for the screeching and wailing to begin. Any moment those hideous creatures would dash out of the cave and surround her and drag her inside. That’s what always happened in her dreams, just as it had in life. They’d hurt her, whipping her and cutting her skin with razor sharp claws. She’d never understood what it was they’d wanted from her. She couldn’t understand what they were saying, and worse, they had no faces. They were just specters in black tattered robes, shoving her face at two ancient pieces of worn stone with writing on them. For hours it had gone on until finally she’d come to see a pattern in those ancient symbols, and was able make out part of it…

  Yet at the moment in her dream it was silent. No wailing, no screaming. When she peered into the cave she saw the warm glow of a cheery blaze and a man, sitting on the ground at the fire with his back to her. Something about him seemed familiar to her. In the way of dreams she found herself entering the cave, approaching the fire and the man.

  “I’ve been waiting for you.”

  Alex froze at the gentle sound of his voice and when he turned to glance over his shoulder at her, her breath caught in her chest. She knew him. The half of his handsome face she could see was darkened by shadows but still, she immediately recognized him from somewhere…

  “Who are you?”

  “Come sit with me.”

  Well, there weren’t any signs of the monsters that were normally here in her dreams. Sitting at the fire with him seemed safe enough. Since she didn’t know who or what she was dealing with, she sat on the other side of the fire from him. The only trouble was that put him between her and the exit.

  This is only a dream. Remember that.

  “Who are you?” Alex tried again. “And why have you been waiting for me?”

  Damn, he was nice looking. He was clearly a native judging by his looks and his heavy accent. His eyes appeared black in the darkness of the cave, the flames reflecting in them like unholy light. The features of his face were strong and could have been carved from stone. His black hair just touched his shoulder in thick waves that made her fingers itch to sink into it. The man’s shoulders were broad and the black robe he wore parted just enough in the front for her to see the hard, muscular expanse of his chest and the small golden amulet he wore around
his neck.

  Wow, she had to wonder if Hunter Storme could kick this man’s ass.

  “You are mine.”

  “Excuse me?” The way he stated that as a fact unnerved her. He’d said it with as much certainty as one would say that the sky was blue or water was wet.

  “You are mine,” he said, slower this time, emphasizing each word for her. “Do you not remember?”

  Remember what? Her heart started racing at the intensity building in those dark eyes. What was he talking about? Reaching through the flames he grabbed her hand. The instant he touched her images flashed through her mind of the night in the cave.

  The creatures that had held her captive were closing in around her. She had no idea what they said in their dark speech but she sensed their patience with her was nearing its end. Alex had known in that moment her time was running out.

  When three new beings entered the cave, the scene had erupted into chaos and great violence. Flashes of a creature with a man’s head and a lion’s body and two other men doing battle with the faceless ones tore through her memory. Alex remembered being paralyzed by fear, standing in the center of the terrible battle unable to do anything else but watch in horror.

  Then someone grabbed her, just as this man had grabbed her. A glimpse of his face filled her mind. His face, the man on the other side of the fire. She remembered glancing down to see his hand clutching her wrist, a stream of blood running down his strong arm and seeping into one of the many cuts they’d made on her skin.

  As quickly as he’d grabbed her, the man released her. There were no signs that the flames had touched his skin though his arm had extended through the blaze for several seconds. All at once, she was returned to the peace of the cave and the tranquility surrounding the fire.

  Only she was far from tranquil. The strange man who sat watching had saved her that night in the cave. He’d been the one to spirit her out though she was pretty certain he wasn’t the one who delivered her to the hospital. “You saved me,” Alex whispered.