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  Ammon Runihura signalled his men to release me, then strolled casually around me. “You are even more desirable than I remembered, Teremun.” He paused, examining me thoroughly, then reached down to cup my shaft and balls.

  I jerked away from him, stunned that he would lay hands on me. I backed further away, but his followers prevented me from going as far as I would have liked. He seemed not to notice. He walked to where Tommy straddled the altar, attempting to get off, and the Egyptian fondled the crevice between my lover’s buttocks, probing his opening.

  “Get your bloody hands off him, you bastard!” I shouted at him.

  A frown marred his beautiful, cruel face, and with a wave of his hand, he had me seized again. Then he turned to glare at my lover. “I see this one enjoys the pleasures of lying with a man.”

  My lover snarled his defiance, and I struggled with the guards to get to him, but they held me fast. “You have no quarrel with the Englishman, Ammon Runihura. Free him, and I will do whatever you wish.”

  “No! Roddy, no!”

  “Oh, you will do exactly what I wish, Teremun. But the Englishman destroyed the pearls of Anubis, and for that he must pay. Perhaps I will give him to my guards when I am done with him. If he survives.”

  “What do you plan for him, Lord Runihura?” I asked uneasily.

  “The dark god needs a sacrifice, and your Englishman will provide one.” He gestured toward the statue of Anubis, and suddenly I could see the enormous phallus that jutted from between its massive thighs. It was slick and shiny, and bile pooled in my mouth at the knowledge of the damage it would do to Tommy. “Not as satisfactory as a virgin, perhaps, but time is of the essence, and I find I cannot be too particular. My priests will see that Anubis drives his member deep into Captain Fortescue-Smythe.”

  “That…that will kill him.” I didn’t know whether to weep or to vomit.

  The Egyptian waved the end results aside as immaterial. “He will die. Whether on the phallus of the god, or on the pricks of my guards—or possibly on a knife wielded by you, my pretty prince, once you’re again under my sway—remains to be seen.”

  I tried to swallow a sound of distress, but was unsuccessful, and Ammon Runihura smiled and sauntered back to where his men were forcing me to watch helplessly. At his signal, his priests cut my clothes from me, and I dropped to a crouch as if to shield my nudity. In reality, I slipped the knife from my boot.

  “Rise, or are you that much of a coward?”

  I rose and stood naked before him, staring into the dark eyes that burned with malice. His men retreated to the corners of the room, eagerly anticipating the spectacle that was about to take place.

  “Originally, you were going to be the sacrifice, Prince. You nearly died in the desert, did you know that? You are beloved of Anubis, and the god would not allow that. Had he not forced you to breathe his semen, you would have suffered the fate so many of the stupid, greedy men who disturbed your brother’s tomb are going to meet.”

  “I am not a prince, and my name is…” My voice faded and I felt myself turn pale as I vividly recalled that time in the desert—Charlie dead and I struggling frantically for each breath, positive I was going to die—and what I had thought was a dream of bitter fluid pouring down my throat and flooding my lungs.

  “Teremun.” He stalked toward me, stopping only when we were toe to toe. “Ah. I see the veil of the untold centuries lingers still to cloud your mind. Perhaps this will sunder it.” With that, he wrapped his hand around the back of my neck and pulled my face toward his. In dismay, I watched as his lips drew ever nearer, and then his mouth was savaging mine.

  Tommy growled in fury and fought his bonds to no avail.

  The Egyptian’s thumb pressed hard on the hinge of my jaw, forcing my lips to part, and he thrust his tongue into my mouth. At that moment, the veil was indeed sundered, and as my mind filled with all the young prince’s memories, an alluring scent filled my nostrils. I raised my eyelids in languid acquiescence to find Khentemsemet’s gaze boring into mine. They glittered in triumph, and he awaited my submission.

  I sighed voluptuously and made my glance sultry. “Lord Khentemsemet. It has been so long. I have missed you.” I glanced toward Tommy, who watched in impotent fury.

  “Ah, I see you have remembered. I have waited these wide centuries to possess you once more, princeling.”

  “Roddy, no!”

  “I am Teremun, Englishman,” I told him, then turned my attention back to the high priest. “What need have we of him now?” I flicked my tongue over my lips to moisten them, and slid a palm over the high priest’s chest and up around his neck, pulling his face to mine. “Let him go free. He will never have me, and will that not be a worse punishment than any that could be devised?”

  Khentemsemet seemed to hesitate.

  “Dismiss your minions,” I suggested, and I rubbed my body along his, somewhat surprised he wasn’t reacting to my blatant attempt at seduction. “He is nothing. Take me to your bed, Lord.”

  It was the wrong thing to say, although I couldn’t have known it. Khentemsemet closed his long-nailed fingers around my upper arms, causing the nails to sink into my flesh, and blood beaded to the surface and began to drip down. “It is thanks to your brother that it cannot be the same, and for this, I shall make you pay.” He stepped back and parted his kilt, and I saw the gaping wound at the juncture of his thighs, where his shaft and testicles should have been. It crawled with maggots.

  I shuddered and looked at him with horror, remembering the orders of my brother, the pharaoh: “Your shaft and testicles will be severed from your conscious body and fed to the jackals. You will be bound in strips of linen and buried alive…”

  Khentemsemet struck me across the face. “You will not look at me that way, Prince. I am still the high priest of Anubis. I would have ruled Egypt through you. But I have had the slowly passing eons in that thrice damned wooden coffin to devise an even more satisfying plan, and now I shall rule the entire Earth. With your invaluable assistance.”

  “How can that be, Lord? I was once a prince, that is true, but in this life I am merely the brother of a humble missionary.”

  He leaned close to me and whispered obscene words in my ear. “I will sacrifice your lover to Anubis,” he gloated. “And then, since I no longer have the ability to enjoy your body, I will give you to my priests to enjoy before sacrificing you as well—I’d planned to strangle you with the pearls that once enthralled you, but thanks to the Englishman’s clumsiness, that is no longer possible, so I had to devise another plan. Our dark god promised me that if I delivered you to him, he would give me all I desired, and more. He will sate himself on your succulent flesh, as I often did. But first…”

  His laugh was crazed as he reached for me and ground his mouth down onto mine, forcing his tongue into my mouth. Filled with uncontrolled fury, I snapped my jaws shut, and the copper taste of blood flooded my mouth. Khentemsemet had somehow sensed my intentions, and managed to withdraw his tongue, but not quite in time, and I turned my head and spat out an inch or so of his tongue. He howled in rage, but I had no intention of that being the only damage I did to him. I flipped open the knife and stabbed into him, driving the knife in to the hilt. Then I yanked it up before finally pulling it out.

  I backed away from him, filled with satisfaction at the damage I had wrought.

  This time, it was his priests who howled with rage, and I spun around and watched in horror as they wheeled forth the stone statue and angled the huge phallus to pierce my lover.

  With a wild cry, I dropped the knife and threw myself onto the altar, covering my lover’s body with my own.

  The priests had Tommy’s legs spread wide and his buttocks parted, in preparation for his impalement by the dark god, but it was I who slid into my lover. He grunted as my weight knocked the breath from his body.

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” I whispered. The priests backed away, and now they roared in approval. I bit down on my lip and squeezed my ey
es shut tight.

  But when the god’s phallus touched my anus, there was no pain. It glided smoothly into my nether regions, stretching me, plumbing my depths, and bringing me such great pleasure that I couldn’t help but raise my arse to give it better access to my passage.

  It felt as if cool hands gripped my hips, and the thrusts of the god’s phallus seemed smoother, almost as if a living being was taking what I so willingly offered. I wriggled on the shaft that buried itself within me.

  The god fucked me, and I fucked Tommy.

  Khentemsemet’s underlings reeled back with cries of shock and terror as the living god accepted the sacrifice.

  Tommy moaned steadily under me. “I’m sorry,” I murmured over and over again, while my tears dripped onto his shoulder.

  And when the god’s semen flooded my bowels, I bit down where Tommy’s shoulder and neck joined, and my hips jerked as I spilled myself into my lover.

  Tommy gave a hoarse shout, and went limp beneath me.

  Khentemsemet once again howled his fury—a wet howl—when the statue withdrew one final time, the essence of life spewing from its massive phallus. His followers stared in numb horror, and I slipped out of Tommy and fell from the altar to my knees. The high priest bounded toward me, blood dripping from his mouth and pulsing from the wound in his gut, his fingers outstretched like the talons of a bird of prey.

  I prostrated myself before the dark god and began praying in a tongue I hadn’t spoken in three thousand years, and silence abruptly filled the cavern.

  “Anubis, lord of the underworld, ever have I sought to follow thy commands. I ask thee to spare not my life, but that of the Englishman I love. In exchange I willingly surrender myself to thy desires.” I touched my forehead to his feet, and awaited my fate.

  A crack like that of thunder shattered the eerie silence of the cavern, and I glanced up in time to see a fissure appear in the ceiling. Huge chunks of rock began to rain down upon the ill-fated followers of the even more ill-fated Khentemsemet. Gouts of flame flared up through the sundered ground beneath the temple floor, and shrieks of fear and screams of pain echoed in the vast space.

  I managed to get Tommy off the altar and dragged him into the shelter of the god’s spread thighs, touching my cheek to the cool stone of the statue. All around us was death and destruction.

  Finally, silence filled the ruined cavern, and I climbed out of my refuge. Around me were bodies charred by molten rock and bodies crushed when the roof of the temple collapsed.

  The high priest came staggering out of the rubble, madness rife in his eyes. “I was promised!” He somehow managed a garbled shout. “I was promised!”

  As he came toward me, I backed away, until I could retreat no further. And then, from above me, I sensed movement.

  Khentemsemet’s dark eyes widened in terror, and he dropped to his knees, his arms outstretched in supplication. He screamed, a sound of torment, as the god’s flail swung down from above to slice his body in half.

  I reached out to steady myself, and found my hand on the thigh of the god, as the severed halves of the high priest crumbled to dust.

  Swaying almost drunkenly, I managed to stagger to the spot where I had dropped the slim knife. I stooped, gathered it up, and squeezed the sides together. Once the deadly point snapped out, I sliced through the cords that bound my lover’s arms.

  I reached out a hand to steady myself and touched something cool and moist—the god’s phallus.

  I stroked it, looking up into the snouted face, then leaned toward it and ran my tongue across the tip, tasting the fluid that was somehow not quite as bitter as I might have expected. Unable to help myself, I licked it clean, then stroked it gently before prostrating myself before the god one final time as Prince Teremun.

  Chapter 25

  “Are you all right?” Tommy asked as we helped each other up a staircase that wasn’t as narrow as the one I’d descended earlier. “This way.” He was familiar with the house, and I was willing to let him show me the way. “Roddy?”

  I’d been hoping he hadn’t noticed my lack of response to his question. How could he ask that, when I’d as good as assaulted him? I made a noncommittal sound that turned to indignation as we stumbled out into the mist of a rainy morning. Of course it would be raining. The state of the weather seemed nothing short of appropriate.

  “We need a mount,” I said.

  Tommy gave a huff of laughter. “We need clothes.” He brushed a lock of wet hair out of his eye.

  “Well, if worst comes worst, I imagine we can use saddle pads.”

  “I suppose you’re right. The stables are this way.” He pointed them out, and we continued, wavering and shivering, until we reached the stables.

  We found Anubis inside—the blood bay gelding, not the god, although I wouldn’t have been surprised to find the dark lord of the dead there—irritably pacing a box stall. While I saddled him, Tommy went looking for something to cover our nudity. Unfortunately, most of Ammon Runihura’s followers that we’d seen had been what might be called rotund—they were much larger than either of us. We might well have to resort to saddle pads.

  “Hold on a tick.” Tommy glanced up to the hayloft. “I remember some of Sir John’s grooms used to have quarters up there.”

  “Do you think Runihura’s men might have slept there as well?”

  “It’s a possibility.”

  I sighed and went to the ladder. “All right.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m going up in search of clothing. You’re certainly in no condition to do so.” Although truth be told, I wasn’t so certain if I was either. Movement reminded me of my earlier activities. “Anubis is getting a little restless. Get some grain for him, please?”

  Tommy looked confused for a moment, and I was afraid the blow to his head had done more damage than I’d anticipated, but then he nodded. I waited until he turned his back before I started to climb up. The god’s semen was still damp along my testicles and thighs, and I was reluctant to have Tommy see my debauchery.

  I swung off the ladder and onto the planked flooring. Sure enough, toward the rear of the loft were some enclosed spaces. I supposed I should have been more cautious approaching them, but frankly, the thought any of the Egyptian’s men might be there didn’t occur to me.

  As luck would have it, the rooms were unoccupied, and I discovered spare clothing. However, when I held them up to examine them, it seemed the fit wasn’t likely to be a comfortable one. The trousers looked large enough to slide off our hips, and the shirts could have comfortably covered us both at the same time.

  Well, there was no other choice; we’d simply have to find some rope to use as belts to secure the trousers.

  “Look out below,” I called and threw down trousers and shirts before I climbed back down.

  “I just hope there are no livestock inhabiting these clothes,” Tommy murmured as he approached. He held up a pair of trousers and studied them, and I couldn’t help a bark of laughter.

  We dressed sluggishly as the events of the last hours began to catch up with us.

  Sure enough, the trousers I wore sagged to my knees. I yanked them back up and glanced around impatiently.

  “Here, pet,” Tommy said, holding up a length of rope. “I thought this might come in handy.”

  “How did you manage to cut it?” It was approximately the correct length to act as a belt.

  “This.” His displayed the knife I’d used to cut him free.

  “How did you get that?”

  “You were busy with other things and dropped it to the floor of the cellar. I simply retrieved it.”

  “Clever move.” I couldn’t meet his gaze, so I busied myself with threading the rope through the belt loops. “I lost your duelling pistol.”

  “Oh, you brought one, too? Well, no matter. I lost the one I’d brought as well.”

  “Will your brother be angry?”

  “I’ll buy him a new pair.”

  I k
notted the rope, then went to take Anubis from his stall. The gelding shook his head and snorted, and I stroked his neck and shoulder to calm him.

  “Ready, Thomas?”

  He gave me a puzzled look, but lurched to where we were and tried to mount. He was too stiff from the manhandling and beating the Egyptian had had his minions administer, as well as from my attempt to save him from being sacrificed.

  By an act of providence, Tommy had been well-lubricated from when I had taken him earlier, although I couldn’t quite understand it. Surely the lubrication should have been absorbed by his body?

  He leaned his head against Anubis’s saddle and rested his hands on the pommel, while the reins were wrapped around his hands. “Roddy?” He sounded exhausted.

  “It’s all right, sweetheart.” I bit my lip as the endearment slipped out. After what I’d done to him, he’d never look at me the same way. I had best begin thinking of leaving Greenbriers. Not now, though. I took the reins from him and leaned him against the stall, then led the big bay to the mounting block and went back to Tommy. I wedged my shoulder under his arm and helped him to the block. This time he was able to climb laboriously onto the gelding’s back. He seemed unable to get his feet into the stirrups, so I did that for him. Once that was done, I swung up behind him, and he relaxed into my hold.

  I tapped my heels against Anubis’s sides. “Take us home,” I murmured, and as if he knew we couldn’t handle a speedy gait, he set out at a decorous walk.

  The road was almost invisible due to the mist that shrouded it. It would be some hours before the sun burned it off.

  Tommy shifted uncomfortably. “I’m sore, Roddy.”

  “I’m sorry.” I couldn’t understand how in the midst of all that turmoil in the cellar temple, I had developed an erection. All I had wanted to do was protect my lover, and I had wound up plundering his back passage, while I myself was being impaled on the phallus of the dark god. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to…I was just trying to…I’ll leave as soon as we get back to the Manor.”