Книга - Dark Sins and Desert Sands

Dark Sins and Desert Sands
Stephanie Draven


She’s his only hope Escaping a hellish Syrian prison, soldier Ray emerged with uncanny mind-control powers and an eerie ability to shape-shift.But his new power won’t help him prove his innocence. Only one woman can aid him – the woman who’d driven him to the brink of insanity with her cool-eyed interrogation and her hot-blooded sensuality.Yet psychologist Layla has no memory of Ray or her past. Only a feeling of being followed by a strange creature. And now Ray must save her in time to save himself!










“Whatever it is, Layla, it’s going to be all right.”

It wasn’t going to be all right. She was the twisted minion of an evil god. What comfort could a mortal man like Ray really offer her? And yet his arms were the only safe place that she’d ever known. “You have no idea who I am or what I’ve done.”

“I know what you’ve done. I was there, remember?”

“I’m nothing, nothing but what he made me!”

“Don’t say that,” Ray murmured against her lips. “It’s not true.”

But it was true. And yet, as Ray rocked her, it wasn’t fear that surged through her.

She kissed him. Because it might be the last time she could.

She’d never thought that Ray was hers to keep, but she hadn’t realized before now that she wasn’t even her own to give.


Dark Sins and Desert Sands

Stephanie Draven






www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


Dear Reader,

The Minotaur was a bastard child born to a cursed queen. His mother rejected him as a monster and the cuckolded king locked him in a labyrinth, giving him sacrificial children to eat. In the end, it was the Minotaur’s own half-sister Ariadne who helped to engineer his demise.

For me, the symbolism of the story seems obvious. Our darkest secrets can never truly be locked away, and always come with a price—whether it’s a sacrifice of our innocents or our innocence. In this novel, I’ve envisioned a much happier ending for my minotaur, but I hope that, like the heroine of this book, you ask the crucial questions that need to be asked.

I love hearing from readers, so please stop by www.stephaniedraven.com.

Yours,

Stephanie Draven




About the Author


STEPHANIE DRAVEN is currently a denizen of Baltimore, that city of ravens and purple night skies. She lives there with her favorite nocturnal creatures—three scheming cats and a deliciously wicked husband. And when she is not busy with dark domestic rituals, she writes her books.

A longtime lover of ancient lore, Stephanie enjoys reimagining myths for the modern age. She doesn’t believe that true love is ever simple or without struggle, so her work tends to explore the sacred within the profane, the light under the loss and the virtue hidden in vice. She counts it amongst her greatest pleasures when, from her books, her readers learn something new about the world or about themselves.


To my brother-in-law and sister-in-law for their service.

And to my parents, who gave me a moral compass

with which to navigate the world.




Prologue


The eyes are the windows to the soul.

The old proverb was wrong, Ray thought. Eyes aren’t windows to the soul; they’re doorways. And through those doorways, Ray Stavrakis could cross into another person’s mind. Into memories. Into dreams. Into fears. Into the darkest corners of the human soul.

Unfortunately, Ray had never seen the eyes of the man he was trailing, and, in the dark, he could only glimpse the back of his victim’s head.

The old Syrian neighborhood in Aleppo was a confusing labyrinth of twisting cobblestone streets and covered bazaars, but even without light from the occasional hanging lamp, Ray knew his way as if it were mapped in his blood. After all, Aleppo was part Greek and part Arab—just like him. His ancestors had settled in Aleppo after leaving Crete; he should’ve been comfortable here, but so soon escaped from his dungeon, every sensation stung.

The faraway horns of taxis in the distant marketplace pained him like trumpets blaring directly into his ears. Someone in one of the apartments above was smoking a hookah pipe and the smoke floated down from an open kitchen window, mixing with the heady scent of oregano. The smell sickened him; it was as if, having spent two years in a box where the stink of sweat and blood and urine were his only companions, he couldn’t bear any other odor now.

Swallowing his bile, he stalked his prey through the narrow, shadowed streets, his long leather coat snapping at his heels with every step. The man he followed walked faster, slipping a little on the cobblestones. The street was slick with the evening’s dew, which mixed with moss to form a primordial ooze. Still, Ray’s footsteps kept pace, clopping steadily behind, closing in.

Bathed in the faint yellow light of a street lamp, the man turned to look over his shoulder. Ray saw the furious whites of the Syrian’s eyes—the threshold—and those dark pupils beckoned. Ray leaned forward, ready to seize the man’s mind, but something made him hesitate. Maybe he wasn’t yet the monster they tried to make of him. He wanted to give the man a chance. Just one.

As his prey opened his mouth to shout for help, Ray shoved him beneath the stone archway, his broad forearm at his victim’s throat. The Syrian struggled, barely choking out in Arabic, “Who are you? What do you want?”

The Syrian’s voice was the sound of petty tyranny, the sound Ray had learned to obey for his survival. It was almost enough to make him quake. But Ray reminded himself that he was free now. He wasn’t the one trying to run away. “Don’t you recognize me?” he snarled at his former prison guard. “Then again, you did put a bag over my head.”

The first hint of recognition showed in the man’s eyes. “I know you … Rayhan Stavrakis.”

It was good to hear his name. A name gave him back a little of his humanity. After all, in the dungeon, he’d had no name. They’d only ever called him by number. He watched his former guard struggle, trying to catch his breath. Ray saw the man’s fingers twitch, inching for the pistol in his pocket. So much for trying to do things the nice way.

The guard shuddered. “How did you escape?”

Just like this, Ray thought. Focusing his powers, he reached into the periphery of the Syrian’s mind and seized control. Ray had escaped by turning his captors into his puppets. Now he’d stay alive the same way. “Drop the gun,” Ray commanded, feeling the slightly dizzying rush of his power. “And give me your wallet.”

To the guard’s obvious astonishment, he obeyed Ray’s commands. The pistol hit the stone and skittered away as the man reached for his wallet and thrust it into Ray’s hand. All the while, his eyes were wide. “How are you doing this?”

Ray couldn’t have answered that question even if he wanted to. “Where are you keeping my family? Tell me, or I swear I’ll end you right here.”

The guard’s astonishment turned to fear. Even in the pale light, Ray could see that the blood was draining from the man’s face. “We don’t have them!” the Syrian cried. “They’re back in your country. Safe. We only told you we captured them to make you talk.” It was what the others had said, too. “I’m telling you the truth,” the guard insisted. “What else do you want from me?”

At this question, Ray heard himself snort into the dark, low and bestial. There were so many things he wanted. He wanted the past two years of his life back. He wanted to clear his name. He wanted to know who had accused him of working with the enemy. But the Syrians didn’t know why his own government had wanted him tortured, nor had they cared.

“I want the woman,” Ray finally said. Every day he’d spent in the dungeon, he’d held her face in his mind, obsessed. He remembered her questions and her cool-eyed stare. He hadn’t had these powers then; he’d been at her mercy and he remembered how her questions inexplicably, impossibly, were worse than torture. Most of all, he remembered the way she’d toyed with his emotions. “The psychologist. The one who interrogated me. I want her name. Her real name.”

The guard’s mouth tightened into a thin, infuriating line of silence.

Ray had already given the man one chance. He wouldn’t give him another. As the anger welled, Ray’s scalp felt as if it were being pierced by some outgrowth of bone. His feet seemed to harden into iron hoofs. He never knew if it was an actual transformation, or just the sensation that accompanied his power. He only knew that when he bucked forward, he was able to ram through the pathetic psychological bulwark his guard threw up against the invasion.

Then neither man was simply standing on the street; they were both inside the Syrian’s mind.

“Get out!” the Syrian shrieked, but Ray was unmoved. The maze of the man’s mindscape wasn’t complicated. To the left, a shadowy upbringing of poverty. To the right, his secret fondness for pornography and his fear of scorpions. It shouldn’t be difficult to find the information Ray was looking for.

“Wh-what are you? Just a bull. Just a creature,” the guard stammered, as if to reassure himself. He wasn’t the first to mistake Ray for an animal. Perhaps he wasn’t mistaken at all. Lowering his head so that his sharpened horns twisted like glinting daggers toward the man’s heart, Ray chased the panting and terrified guard through his memories, ramming open another door, and then another. At last, he cornered the Syrian in the memory of the room with the steel floor.

The air puffed out of Ray’s nostrils in an angry cloud of rage. Here, in the guard’s memory, Ray’s torture lived vividly. Ray saw himself on the table, blindfolded and strapped down, his hardened muscles bracing and twitching as the guard swung a set of bloody cables in a hissing arc through the air until they broke with a snap on the bleeding palms of his shackled hands. The well-aimed blows had felt like a jolt of electricity. Agony had jumped up his arms and exploded in his temples. Ray remembered. This torture made the toughest men scream and he’d been no exception. He watched now as his memory-self twisted and writhed, rattling the chains against the table in torment.

He’d always wondered if his tormentor felt any guilt or regret. Now that he saw it through the guard’s eyes, he knew the answer. No guilt, no remorse. Not even the coldness of duty. Instead, he felt the man’s sadistic pleasure at the memory, sickly sweet, almost sexual in nature, and it stoked his rage.

“What do you want?” the guard pleaded again. “What more do you want?”

“I told you,” Ray said. “I want the woman.”

“She was a civilian contractor working with the Americans. I don’t know her name!”

But he did. The memory was filed away in the cluttered recesses of the Syrian’s mind and Ray was able to find it. Ah, there she was. Dr. Layla Bahset. How could someone so exquisitely beautiful have taken any part in such ugliness? He’d have to find her and ask her himself. Ray would be the interrogator this time, and she’d help him clear his name if it was the last thing she did. The very last thing.

The Syrian lingered in the torture room, obviously enjoying the memory. Inside the mindscape, Ray could make the Syrian feel anything. Ray could make him gasp for air and think he was dying, so he grabbed him by the throat and the man stopped breathing. But unlike the Syrian guard, Ray didn’t enjoy the pain of others, so he relaxed his mental hold.

The man came up gasping, without any apparent gratitude. “I’m not sorry for what we did to you, Rayhan,” the guard rasped. “I liked how you screamed. And why shouldn’t I have enjoyed it? For once, they gave me a real traitor to punish. A man who cannot decide if he’s one of us, or one of them.”

It was a common, but foolish taunt. As if Ray couldn’t be both an American and a Muslim—not that he believed in God anymore. “You enjoyed my screams?”

The guard wheezed. “So much. And when they catch you and throw you back in that box, I’ll make you scream again. You’ll beg—”

“Shut up!” Ray’s teeth clenched, his temper a haze of red blood. This same man had burned his inner thighs with cigarettes and had locked him in a coffin for days on end. Now Ray shoved him against the blood-spattered wall of the imaginary torture room and growled.

The guard laughed, an edge of fear in it. “When they catch you, I’ll break each bone in your hands and feet and make you thank me like the dog you are.”

Ray felt himself snap, pulling the Syrian forward by the neck.

The guard gasped over the fingers clamped around his imagined windpipe. “Where are you taking me?”

Ray didn’t answer; he just dragged the man like the carcass of a hunted animal. The guard began to scream even before he realized it was the room with the scorpions. Ray had glimpsed it, the memory of a boy playing in the sand, stung again and again by the creature’s venomous stinger. Perhaps it was a real memory or only a childhood nightmare. It didn’t matter either way. Hauling the man to the door, Ray threw him inside.

There, in anticipation of his fear, the scrambling scorpions multiplied and swarmed over the guard’s face and hands. The man struggled to escape them, his mouth open in silent horror. He tried to pull himself up from the depthless sandpit of his own terror, but before he could, Ray slammed and locked the door.

On the dark streets of Aleppo, one man slumped under a lamplight, clutching desperately at his face. His eyes rolled back and his lips went blue with fear as he screamed incoherently about scorpions. The other man—the one in the dark leather coat—dabbed at the rivulet of blood that dripped from his nose. “Dr. Layla Bahset,” he murmured, then turned and walked away.




Chapter 1


Questions to try, answer or die, what am I?

Layla Bahset had a secret; she didn’t know who she was.

Oh, she knew her name, but standing here with her feet in the timeless sand, staring up at the persimmon sunrise over the Mojave Desert, she remembered nothing of herself before she’d come here. Beyond the past two years of her life, Layla’s mind was bare—every glimpse of memory bounced like tumbleweed out of her grasp. She remembered no family. She remembered no friends. She didn’t even remember where she’d lived before moving to Nevada.

The certificates on the walls of her office told her that she was a licensed therapist; her diplomas boasted the finest schools. But she couldn’t remember attending them. She was a riddle with no answer—a complete mystery to herself—and the one rare puzzle she didn’t want to solve.

As the dry morning winds whipped hair into her face, it prickled like the needles of a cactus, but Layla didn’t mind. For in spite of all the things she didn’t know about herself, there was one thing of which she was absolutely certain: she belonged to the desert.

It wasn’t just that her skin was the color of golden sand and that her hair was as black and glossy as a scorpion’s shell. It wasn’t even that her eyes had been described as a lush green oasis. It was that when she looked into the desert, she felt as if the desert looked back.

Even out here, alone in the dunes, she knew that someone was watching her. She didn’t know who he was or what he wanted. She only knew that he was closing in on her like a storm, getting darker, and closer, every day.

“Tell me how you felt the last time it happened,” Layla prompted and her patient twitched like a frightened warhorse, about to rear up. Some people might be surprised at how shy the eighteen-year-old art student was, given that his gregarious father was a Pulitzer Prize–winning war reporter, but Layla’s heart went out to him. “Tell me, Carson. I want to help you.”

The young man just shoved his hands down into his pockets like he was totally lost in the world. “You’re gonna laugh at me.”

“No. I only want to help you,” Layla said in her most soothing voice, just as everything about her office was meant to soothe. The neutral colors, the soft rug and the nondescript lamps had all been chosen carefully. “I promise, I won’t laugh.”

Carson stared out the office window and Layla followed his gaze. Her office had a spectacular view of Las Vegas and the mammoth mountain ridges that encircled the city like a fortress, cutting it off from the ordinary world. By daylight, the flat expanse of Vegas seemed almost commonplace with its craggy maze of middling skyscrapers and tired tourists stumbling out of the casinos like bleary-eyed vagrants. But at night, Las Vegas would be different. The lights would sparkle even before darkness chased away dusk. Then the tourists and the gamblers would be gods again, their eyes clear but for the avarice. At night, the visitors and the city’s residents would mingle on the streets together to party. There would be an atmosphere of festival, the magic stuff of life. But unless she could help young Carson Tremblay, he would never get to experience anything like that.

“My dad thinks I’m on drugs or just doing it for attention,” he said.

“Are you?” Layla asked.

Carson shook his head. “I guess I thought I was just some kind of moody artist who gets off on destroying shit. You know, like those rockers who smash up their guitars? I even wondered if maybe I was allergic to paint. But it doesn’t just happen to me in galleries or studios. The last time it happened, I was visiting the Grand Canyon with my family and my girlfriend. Well, she’s my ex-girlfriend now. I scared her off with what I did.”

“What triggered it?” Layla asked.

Carson’s lower lip wobbled. “It wasn’t fear of heights or fear of falling down the cliffside, if that’s what you’re thinking. It’s just that when I looked at the enormity of the canyon—the jagged rocks and the water-carved curves—I picked up the tire iron and started swinging it blindly.”

It was hard to imagine a gentle soul like Carson Tremblay wielding a tire iron. The young man hadn’t hurt anyone, but he’d destroyed his father’s car, upset his family, and scared away the girl he loved. “Were you angry, Carson? Did something make you so angry at your father that you’d want to smash his windshield and the headlights?”

“Yeah. No. I dunno. My dad wanted us all to look at it, you know? He’s gotta know everything. He’s gotta uncover everything. I guess that’s his job as a reporter. But I was just staring at the rocks and the scrub. The wildlife and the barrenness. It was everything right and wrong with the world, and my heart started pounding.”

Layla’s heart started pounding, too. Thinking of the desert. Thinking of the yearning.

“I heard this rush in my ears and I went weak with a cold sweat,” Carson said. “I tried to close my eyes, like I couldn’t bear to look. It was just too …” He struggled to find the word.

“Beautiful,” Layla breathed, finishing for him.

At last, Carson met her eyes. “Yeah. Exactly. Too beautiful. Can things really be too beautiful?”

Layla was sure of it. Things could be too beautiful. Too delicious. Too pleasurable. Desires were dangerous. Passion unlocked things in a person that might otherwise be best left undisturbed and unexamined.

Layla cursed herself. She shouldn’t have let her mind go there. Without any real memories of her own, she seldom brought her own issues into therapy. It was one of the reasons she was very good at this, she told herself. One of the reasons she justified keeping her memory loss a secret. This way, it could be all about her clients. She could help people. Heal people. “Carson, you may be suffering from an unusual case of Stendhal Syndrome.”

“I looked that up on Google,” Carson said, meandering around her office as if he couldn’t make himself sit still. He stopped by her bookshelves, running his fingers over the spines of her neatly organized books. “It’s where tourists faint or freak out after seeing great works of art, right? But I told you, it doesn’t just happen in a studio, and even if it did, I’m an artist. I can’t avoid art. I’ve got an exhibit this week. There’s got to be a cure.”

Some therapists would recommend a psychiatrist who would almost assuredly prescribe antidepressants, Layla thought. But that would treat his symptoms, not the underlying cause. Besides, she worried about deadening his emotions. She didn’t want to turn Carson into someone like her. Someone numb to everything but the fear. Someone who couldn’t even remember herself and didn’t want to.

“Carson, I think we’re going to try something called trauma-focused cognitive-behavioral therapy, which is a fancy way of saying that we’re going to slowly expose you to the trauma until you have a more balanced perception.”

“I don’t know what any of that means,” Carson said. “But I guess you know what you’re talking about. I mean, you must get some real crazies who come in here.”

Layla glanced up to see that he’d plucked a piece of paper off of her shelf. Carson handed it to her. “I like to think I’d never really hurt anybody, but if I ever get like the guy who wrote this, I hope you have me locked up.”

Layla didn’t recognize the note or the handwriting, which spelled out the words in bold strokes upon a slip of paper that was crisp and textured like papyrus. But she recognized a threat when she saw one: I’m always watching you, Layla, and when I come for you, there will be a reckoning.

As she crumpled the note in her hand, her heart hammered so loudly in her chest that she worried her patient would hear it. All this time, she’d been half-convinced that her nighttime rituals of checking her locks were simply what any sensible woman who lived alone would do. But now she knew her dread wasn’t imagined. It was all real, scrawled in bold black ink.

He’d been here. He’d slipped past her vigilant assistant and her locked doors. Whoever he was, he’d been in this very office. And he was coming for her.

It took Layla several long minutes to regain her composure. If she let her mask slip, her patient might see how terrified she was, and it might ruin all the progress they’d made together. “You’ll never become like that, Carson, and no one is going to lock you up.”

Fortunately, they were interrupted by Layla’s efficient—and officious—assistant Isabel who tapped lightly on the door to let them know that the session was over. While Layla tried to hide her shaking hands, Isabel marshaled Carson out of the office, then returned with a cup of tea and the newspaper, folded over to the crossword puzzle.

It was a nice gesture, but Isabel wasn’t normally the kind of assistant who catered to her, which meant that Layla must not be hiding her emotions as well as she hoped. “What’s the occasion?”

“Feliz cumpleaños!” Isabel crowed, and just like magic, she produced a lone muffin with a lopsided birthday candle on top. “Happy birthday, Dr. Bahset!”

Was it her birthday? Layla fought the urge to check her driver’s license, which was the only way she could have known for sure. Layla hadn’t celebrated her birthday last year and her confusion must have been obvious, because Isabel added, “And don’t fuss at me that you don’t like sweets. It’s a low-fat bran muffin. Bland and tasteless, just how you like it!”

Layla did prefer bland. Food was just fuel, after all. “Thank you, Isabel. It was so nice of you to remember.”

Isabel clucked as she lit the candle atop Layla’s bran muffin. “Who else would remember?”

That wasn’t quite fair. Over the past two years—the only two years of her life she could remember—Layla had made friends. Well, colleagues really. And she occasionally dated. There were other people in her life, but admittedly, probably none of them knew whether or not it was her birthday. After all, she’d become a master at deflection, always turning conversations away from herself and away from her past.

“Let’s celebrate tonight!” Isabel said. “Come out with me and the girls.”

Layla was tempted. After reading that threatening note, she didn’t want to be alone tonight. But Isabel was the very definition of a social butterfly with a swarm of adoring fans always in her wake. Layla wasn’t sure she could handle quite so much company. “I’m really tired lately.”

“Don’t be loco. Come with us to amateur hour. I’ll teach you to dance up on stage.” Isabel, who was studying to be a sex therapist, managed to say this as if it weren’t scandalous at all.

“No, thank you. I prefer not to be paid for my skills in dollar bills.”

“Ha! I think you got other plans. Is Dr. Jaffe taking you out tonight?”

“Boundaries, Isabel. Boundaries,” Layla warned, picking up her pen. She always did crosswords in pen.

“Chica, you’d have more fun if you didn’t have all those boundaries.”

Layla didn’t dare reprimand Isabel for her sass. After all, Isabel not only helped Layla keep track of her day-to-day life, but stood as a living reminder of all the lies she’d spun to cover the things she didn’t know. Isabel was the first person Layla had fooled into thinking that she wasn’t an amnesiac, and because of Isabel, it was easier to fool the rest. On the other hand, sometimes it seemed as if Isabel wasn’t fooled at all. “You’re sure not dressed for a hot date tonight, Dr. Bahset … “

Layla wouldn’t have the first idea how to dress for a hot date. She owned a closet full of dark skirts and high-necked blouses. Isabel, by contrast, was always dressed as if she had a hot date. Today Isabel was wearing a curve-hugging suit and leopard print heels that weren’t entirely office-appropriate but made her look like some kind of sex goddess.

Isabel handed Layla a lovely box from a fashionable Las Vegas boutique. “Here. A present for you. Open it, then I’m gonna sing.”

“You didn’t have to get me anything,” Layla started to say.

But Isabel held up her hand. “Trust me, I did. You need somebody to put a little sexy in your step!”

Neatly folded beneath sparkling tissue paper was a siren-red dress. Layla pulled it out, laying it over her knees. “It’s lovely, thank you.” And it was. Given Isabel’s own taste in clothing, it was a remarkably restrained choice: a knee-length, sleeveless sheath with delicate shirring at the neckline. Layla didn’t own anything like it.

Isabel grinned. “Wear that on your date with Dr. Jaffe and he’ll want to give you birthday spankings.”

“Isabel!”

Isabel laughed and in spite of everything, Layla couldn’t help but laugh with her. Her incorrigible assistant had that effect on everyone, so as far as Layla was concerned, Isabel could say, do and wear whatever she wanted.

“Happy birthday to you …” Isabel sang, her voice a Spanish purr. But when Layla leaned over to blow out the candle on her bran muffin, Isabel stopped her. “Wait. What are you gonna wish for?”

That was a good question. Layla already had plenty of money, though she had no idea where it came from. She had a successful practice, but not successful enough to justify her fat bank account. So, what should she wish for? Did she dare wish for her memories back?

“You’re thinking too hard,” Isabel scolded. Then she leaned forward, pursed her ruby-red lips, and blew out the candle. “There, I made a wish for you!”

Layla put the dress back in the box and tried to make her desk as neat as it was before Hurricane Isabel arrived. “I’m afraid to even ask what you wished for me.”

“Just because I can’t find a man who can keep up with me doesn’t mean you have to settle,” Isabel said, sashaying toward the waiting room. “All I’m saying is that you shouldn’t be surprised if a new man comes walking into your life. And unlike Dr. Jaffe, this one will actually be your type!”

“I’m pretty sure I don’t have a type,” Layla assured her. But did she?

She couldn’t remember anything from her past. No husbands, lovers, boyfriends. She was only dating Dr. Nate Jaffe because healthy adult women had relationships. The aging psychiatrist was interested in her and it’d seemed easier to go to bed with him than to say no. She was fond of him, but not more than that. She couldn’t let it be more because whatever lurked in Layla’s past, she knew it was dangerous, and she didn’t want anyone else to have to pay the price.

Ray was home. Well, he was stateside anyway. For the past two years, he’d imagined himself climbing up the steps of his mother’s front porch—the one she swept clean and adorned with pink petunias. He’d imagined his nephews throwing open the front door and running into his arms to welcome him. Instead, he’d had to sneak back into the country under an assumed identity, greeted only by the bells and whistles of the slot machines in McCarran International Airport.

Las Vegas was where he’d find Dr. Layla Bahset, so here he was.

The first thing Ray did was rent a cheap motel room that accepted payment in cash. Now he stood before the grimy bathroom mirror, which was steamy from his shower. Staring at his reflection, he tried to recognize himself. As a soldier, he’d always been fit, but the musculature of his hulking shoulders was something entirely new. He’d wasted away in a dungeon for two years; he should’ve been gaunt and frail. Instead, his biceps bulged and his muscles strained over the broadness of his chest.

But not everything about him had changed. He still had the marks of his captivity. The burns, the cuts, the lashes. Some parts of his body were a gnarled web of scar tissue that made him shudder to look at. Ever since he’d escaped, he’d been going on pure adrenaline. Now that was subsiding in favor of exhaustion, and his limbs felt heavy and sluggish. He thought about sleeping, but then he’d be at the mercy of his nightmares. If he wasn’t dreaming about being locked in a box, then he was dreaming about his brother’s suicide or he was dreaming about Afghanistan. The hail of bullets. Screaming at his buddy to stop shooting. All the blood …

Best to stay awake. At least for a little longer.

He had a palpable need to hear his family’s voices and make sure they were okay. He’d never thought he’d miss his mother’s nagging or his father’s sardonic comments, but he did. He only hoped they’d be happy to hear from him even though he was a fugitive. No. He couldn’t even call them. The last thing he wanted was to incriminate or shame his family, which meant there was only one person in the world that Ray could contact.

Jack Bouchier answered on the third ring. “Howdy!”

“It’s me,” Ray said.

There was a shocked pause on the other end of the line until his old war buddy finally said, “Naw … it can’t be. Ray?”

It was almost too much to hear his name spoken by someone who knew him when he was a soldier, when he was still a man and not some kind of monster. Emotion welled up in Ray’s throat until he wasn’t sure he’d be able to speak over it. He had to squeeze his eyes shut. “Yeah. It’s me.”

Jack’s slow and lazy Southern drawl suddenly snapped to stiff attention. “Where the hell are you, brother?”

They had been brothers. Brothers-in-arms and more than that, too. There was no one Ray trusted more. But even though Jack was a good ol’ boy from Virginia with ancestors he could trace back to the Jamestown settlers, that didn’t mean Homeland Security wouldn’t pick up the call. “Not on the phone,” Ray said.

Jack breathed heavy into the phone. “They wouldn’t tell us what happened to you. You just didn’t show up for muster one mornin’ and when we asked, they told us to mind our own business.”

Ray’s knees wobbled, so he sat on the edge of his motel room bed. “Just tell me about my family. Are they okay?”

“They’re fine, Ray. I ain’t gonna tell you they’re right as rain, but they’re fine as they could be under the circumstances. When I came back stateside, I helped ‘em hire a lawyer for you, but you done disappeared. They’re scared outta their wits for you.”

Ray bet they were. His parents were immigrants. They’d fled from Syria and even though they’d always taught Ray that America was different—that America was a place of laws and tolerance—he wasn’t sure they ever truly felt safe. “Tell my family that I’m innocent and I’m alive. I’ll owe you one.”

“You don’t owe me shit,” Jack said. “Not after what you done for me.”

Ray didn’t like to think about what he’d done for Jack, so he didn’t say anything.

“I owe you big, Ray, and you know it, so what else do you need?”

“I need you to believe that whatever anybody says about me, I never worked with the enemy. You’ve gotta tell my family that and don’t do it on the phone.”

“You got it. Then I’ll come get you. Just give me an address and I’ll jump in the pickup.”

“Can’t.” Ray rubbed his neck, the image of beautiful but cold green eyes dancing mockingly in his mind. “There’s someone I need to take care of first.”

It wasn’t difficult for Ray to find Layla Bahset’s office. She hadn’t gone to any trouble to hide her identity. She was listed right there in the Las Vegas phone book like she was just an ordinary woman and not evil incarnate. This had probably been a mistake—to come directly to his interrogator’s office in the middle of the day. They’d have him on the security cameras and someone might be able to identify him. But unless he planned to stalk Layla Bahset down the street, like he’d done with the guard in Aleppo, this was the easiest way to handle things.

“Hola,” the woman at the desk purred, eyeing him with unabashed interest while her fingers arranged a vase of flowers. “My name is Isabel. And aren’t you just trouble in a tight black T-shirt … “

She was a glamazon with cinnamon-brown eyes, Latin curves in all the right places, and a smile that could cause a war or two. Ray felt himself flush under her magnetic charm. She was sexy as hell and it’d been a long time, but Ray couldn’t let himself be distracted by flirtation. He’d come here for Layla Bahset. He’d come here for justice. He’d come here to clear his name. Nothing less would satisfy.

“So, will the doc see me, or not?” Ray asked.

“Lucky for you, Dr. Bahset’s a workaholic. I’m sure she’ll squeeze you in, Papi.”

Were they already to the nickname stage? “Thanks, Cha-cha,” Ray returned, swiping a piece of candy from her desk. He popped it in his mouth hoping the sugar would steady him, but the intense sweetness put him even further on edge.

Dr. Bahset’s office door was half-open, and he took a moment to watch her. Was it just Ray’s imagination, or had he been in prison so long that every woman looked like a goddess today? Layla Bahset was as flawless as he remembered her, and Ray found that comforting. If a wisp of her black hair had escaped the confines of her severely upswept coiffure, it might’ve given him pause. If her lips had been slightly chapped instead of delicately glossed, he might’ve hesitated. But she was perfect. Beneath the demure white blouse and dark skirt, there wasn’t a single crack in the facade through which her humanity might have shone through.

Yet here she was, in the flesh.

It all happened in slow motion—fractional increments of time. He stepped into her office and locked the door, hearing the satisfying sound of the bolt sliding into place. Layla Bahset looked up, her emerald eyes disarmingly and deceptively warm. He remembered those eyes, as green as the Nile and as timeless as the pyramids. Eyes so penetrating and pitiless that his throat had constricted with every question she’d asked. Now he made himself just as hard and pitiless. His boots rapidly closed the distance between them and her smile faded. His coat caught the edge of a low end table and overturned it just as she rose to her feet to call for help.

Then he had her.

Kicking her chair out of the way, he slammed her against the bookshelf and felt her go boneless with fear. Rage blinded him as he wrapped his hands around her throat and he struggled not to let the beast in him take over. He reminded himself that he wasn’t here to choke her; he just needed to keep her from screaming. He let her exhale and felt the heat of her breath on his face. Her palms flattened against his chest to fend him off but the rest of her was surprisingly warm and yielding. He could actually feel the heat of her through his shirt. She smelled like something sweet and fragile, like a desert blossom. Like something he could trample and destroy.

Damn. It had been a mistake to touch her. More than two years had passed since he’d touched anything so soft, and the intimacy of skin against skin might be his undoing. Her eyes were closed, lips trembling. He could almost taste the salt of her fear-induced perspiration. It should’ve given him a feeling of satisfaction or mastery, but it only made him hungry for her. Urges he no longer knew he had clawed their way to the surface. With his blood running hot and his knee between hers, he nearly forgot what he’d come here for.

“Look at me, damn it,” he growled close to her ear until her pulse quickened beneath his fingertips and her eyelashes fluttered open. “I bet you thought you’d never see me again, did you? Take a good look and hope it’s not your last.”

Her eyes frantically searched his face as if for something she might recognize, and it infuriated him. Her face was burned into his memory. Her questions were branded into his flesh. That she could have forgotten him was unthinkable. He let his eyes blaze a path to the edge of her mind, but he was so angry he could barely focus on controlling her. The top button of her white blouse had come undone, baring her collarbone, and he wanted to press his mouth into the hollow of it. After everything she’d done to him, she was finally at his mercy. He could have her. He could show her his strength and power now that he wasn’t in chains. The desire to take her was so strong that it actually shook him out of his stupor.

He wasn’t that kind of monster, after all.

He let his grip relax, fingers splayed over her shoulder as she took a desperate breath. “You’re not going to scream, okay?” She nodded and in spite of his admittedly tenuous hold over her mind, she didn’t scream. She didn’t claw at him either. Instead, she did the most astonishing thing. Her delicate hand slipped over the taut sinews of his forearm in a caress. “Let me help you,” she whispered.

He couldn’t remember the last time another human being had touched him in gentleness, and the intensity of it was unbearable. Unbearable. He was an escaped creature of the black dungeon. Perhaps he wasn’t meant for the sounds, scents, or gentle sensations of the world anymore. Perhaps he knew only pain now. Her touch left him unbalanced. Unsteady. He had to pull away. “Sit down at your desk,” he commanded, but he wasn’t sure if it was his power that compelled her or just the fear.

“I want to help you,” she repeated, settling into her chair.

“You didn’t help me when I was in Syria,” he snarled. “You just asked me all those questions, and they’d swirl in my head like you were some kind of sorceress. Like you’d bewitched me. And when I wouldn’t answer, you’d send me back to have my hands and feet beaten until they bled. Of course, that was before you tried to make me think you actually cared about me … “

She shook her head as if she didn’t know what he was talking about and it made him even angrier. “Oh, give it a second and you’ll remember me. You see, everything has a price, sweetheart, and your bill has just come due.”




Chapter 2


What can you hold without using your hands?

Layla couldn’t seem to catch her breath. The stranger had told her not to scream, and she hadn’t. He told her to sit down, and she’d done as he bid, like a marionette. He seemed to have some power over her. Something that she couldn’t explain. Even now, it was as if he could silence her and keep her from calling out for help.

That wasn’t possible, she told herself. It was her job to help the mentally ill, not become one of them. Was it just the fear or the lack of oxygen that had her thinking this way? The situation was so volatile, so unpredictable, so outrageous, that her mind must be suggestible. Hypnotists took advantage of such suggestibility all the time. She just had to calm down and analyze this situation rationally.

The stranger obviously felt persecuted. It was a classic symptom of schizophrenia, but was it possible that she did know him? Was this was the man who had been stalking her?

Layla studied him more carefully. He was dark like an Arab or maybe a Greek, with full and familiar lips peeking out from beneath the stubble on his face. Surely if she knew this man, she couldn’t forget those features. He looked like some desert warrior, some Far East prince, but he spoke like an American, without even a hint of an accent. He was also large, with overly broad shoulders and big hands, but it was his eyes that Layla fixated on. Surely she would remember eyes like those, dark and burning like coal.

“Ray, is that your name?” Layla began. “My assistant said—”

“Remember me, damn you!” His shout reverberated throughout the room like a clap of thunder. It vibrated through her as he stared into her eyes. Too late, she tried to throw up a defense against the invasion of her mind.

And then he was inside her.

* * *

Sand. In all the minds Ray had explored, in all the labyrinths in which he’d hunted down his prey, he’d never encountered a mindscape like this. Layla Bahset’s was nothing but silence and sand. It had to be some kind of facade, a mirage. Where were her memories? Trudging through the dunes, Ray struggled to find the sights and sounds to tell him what she knew.

She must be blocking him, somehow. It couldn’t be possible for a woman with a life, with a past, to have an empty inner world. Up ahead, he noticed a darkened shape on the horizon, sand-swept and half-submerged. He squinted into the imaginary sunlight and pushed forward. What the hell was it? A triangle? No. A pyramid. Was that where she’d locked everything away?

Ray scrambled through the sand, focused on finding an entrance, when he felt the ground go soft beneath him. She’d buried all her secrets beneath this arid desert, and now she was trying to bury him along with them. The desert swallowed his legs, yanking down. Startled, Ray fumbled his way back, trying to follow the thread of consciousness back into waking reality. She was still fighting him. He sank deeper and deeper into the sand. But Ray had come too far—been through too much—to give up now. Did she think she could stop him? She could just forget it!

Forget it!

Those were the words echoing in Layla’s mind when she was wrenched out of some kind of hypnotic state. It was Isabel’s insistent knock from the other side of the door that jarred her back into the present. “Dr. Bahset?” Isabel called, her voice shrill. “Que pasa? Everything all right?”

Layla startled to realize that she was sitting across from a very attractive man and in the tension of the moment, she felt her cheeks burn. What had just happened? The stranger took great gulps of air, as if he’d been drowning. Blood dripped from his nose and she noticed that an end table had been overturned. Had he tripped over it?

The pounding on her office door became louder. “Dr. Bahset, I have a key, you know!”

The bleeding stranger stood, staggering a little as he did so. “This isn’t the end of it,” he told her, accusation in his eyes. “I’ll be back for you.”

So it must be him. The man who had broken into her office and left her a threatening note. The man she’d feared for two years now. So why didn’t she run from him? Instead, all she wanted to do was help him.

“You’re bleeding,” she whispered, pulling a tissue from the box on her desk.

He took it, their fingers touching softly, just as Isabel threw open the door. Then the three of them stood there awkwardly until the stranger brushed past Isabel and walked away without a word.

“Hay Dios!” Isabel said, eyeing the overturned end table. “What happened?”

“I—I have no idea,” Layla croaked. Her throat felt raw and sore, but she had no idea why.

This had never happened before. It was true that she didn’t remember her past, but she remembered everything since the day she first arrived in Vegas. There’d been no gaps. No blackouts. At least not until now.

Isabel came to her side. “Did he do something to you? I’ll call the policia … “

Layla straightened the collar of her blouse, her fingers hovering over the top button. “No police.” If she let Isabel call the authorities, the life she’d struggled to build for herself here would all come tumbling down. All the lies she’d told to cover up her memory loss would be exposed. Her patients would be hurt. What’s more, she was certain to her very bones that her stalker was no ordinary man and that the police couldn’t help her.

Maybe no one could.

It had taken at least five hours for the roaring pain in Ray’s head to settle into a dull ache. Since his escape, he’d never come up against a mind that could physically resist him. But Layla Bahset had. Not only had she fought him, she’d nearly buried him right along with her memories. He’d trapped others in a state of madness, but he’d never come close to being trapped himself. If the assistant hadn’t knocked at just the right moment, Ray wasn’t sure he’d have made it back out with his own mind intact.

He was afraid to try it again without someone to shake him out of it, but the teenaged prostitute’s expression hovered somewhere between curiosity and disgust, her lips making a perfectly cherry-round circle of surprise. “You some kind of freak?”

“Look, kiddo, it’s easy money,” Ray said, setting the alarm clock by the bed. He wondered if motel-rooms-by-the-hour came with a wake-up call service. Probably not.

“Easy money,” she mimicked, shaking out her blond hair and pointing at him with the stained end of her Popsicle stick. “Easy money is how girls like me end up missing.”

He didn’t have time for this. “Just sit down, Missy. That’s your name, right?”

“It’s Artemisia, but yeah, you can call me Missy. Most everybody does.” The hooker looked at him in lurid appraisal for a moment, as if considering whether or not his dark looks and hard body were enough to make her stay. Then some wiser instinct took hold of her. “Never mind. I’m outtie.”

Ray sighed. Nobody ever wanted to do things the easy way. Before she broke eye contact, Ray seized her mind. “Sit down, Missy.”

She fell back into the chair as if pushed. He was relieved to find that it wasn’t a struggle. Except when it came to Layla Bahset, Ray was able to use this power whenever he needed people to look the other way at an airport, or give him money from their wallets. Most times, people didn’t realize what had happened, and shook it off. Unfortunately, Missy seemed acutely aware. “H-how did you do that?” The girl’s garishly painted fingernails clawed at the chair as she stammered, “You’re in my head. You forced me … “

“Look, I promise I won’t hurt you,” Ray said.

“I won’t touch you. I just need you to wake me up if I haven’t come back to myself in an hour.”

“You just want me to wake you up in an hour?”

“That’s right,” Ray said. “One hour.”

The call girl bit her lower lip, shaken but wary. “Anybody could do that for you. Why me?”

“Three reasons,” Ray said, ticking them off. “First, because it keeps a kid like you off the streets for an hour. Second, because hiring a hooker isn’t exactly suspicious behavior in this town. And third, because underage girls like you don’t talk to the police.”

“Why are you afraid of the police?” Missy was way too curious for her own good. “Are you, like, a drug dealer?”

Ray removed his coat and threw it over the back of a chair. It was too damned hot for a coat in Vegas anyway. “No.”

“Then you’re an addict,” she decided, eyeing the scars on his wrists. “You’re going to shoot up, and you want me to make sure you come out of it.”

“No drugs,” he said, holding up a bottle of bourbon. “Just booze.”

And he’d save that for later, when he was sure he’d need it.

Missy was still staring at him, giving careful consideration to his black hair and dark complexion. “You’re a terrorist?”

“No, goddammit,” he snapped. In the army, everybody was supposed to be one color. Green. So he’d laughed it off when war buddies called him Captain A-Rab or teased him about being a Muj. But the assumptions people made about him now were no laughing matter. “I’m just going to sleep for an hour.”

“No you’re not,” she said shrewdly, narrowing her eyes. “You’re going into someone else’s head, like you just went into mine. Aren’t you?”

Clever girl, Ray thought. But he hadn’t any use for clever girls right now. “Will you shut up, so I can close my eyes?”

“How do you know I’m not just going to take your wallet and walk out the door once you’re asleep?”

“Because I peeked into your memories and I know you’re not a thief,” Ray replied. “Now, look, I’ll pay you another hundred bucks to just shut up and let me close my eyes.”

With the promise of cold hard cash, she went silent and Ray tried not to think about how nervous he really was. When his victims were in the same room, it was easy enough to enter their minds, but he’d blown it today with Layla Bahset. She’d nearly swallowed him up in the sands of her mindscape. Now he knew to be wary.

Flopping onto the hotel bed, Ray took a picture of Layla Bahset from his pocket. It wasn’t a glamorous photo; it was from a directory of mental health professionals, and showed her with her hair swept back and a pair of glasses precariously balanced on the bridge of her nose. Ray just needed the photo to help him focus. To help him remember that she had no power over him now. And if he could channel all his strength, she couldn’t hide from him. He’d have to enter the maze of her mind from afar, with just the memory of her cat-green eyes as his guide. He’d stared into those eyes enough times to remember them—he’d pleaded with her to believe him when he said that they had the wrong guy. It was a thin thread of shared memory with which they were joined, but now, hopefully, he could follow it back to her.

Once, he’d been at her mercy, but tonight Layla’s fate would be in his hands.

She’d taken sleeping pills to calm her nerves, so when Layla was half awakened by the rush of air by her ear, she told herself it was nothing. Just an all-too-vivid dream. Then she heard the sound again. A pant, bestial and strange. A breath not her own. A shadow fell across her, as if the darkness was a physical weight pressing down on her.

She wasn’t alone.

Even though she’d locked the bolts on her door, even though she’d checked every window latch as part of her nightly routine, and set her alarms, someone was here with her. The certainty of it froze her heart in her chest and shot a liquid chill through her veins.

Layla opened her eyes slowly, an eternity passing as she lifted her lids by creeping degrees. It was dark, but the casino lights of the Vegas skyline flashed garish in the night and briefly lit his silhouette in slashes of green and magenta. The stranger stared at her, his breathing heavier now that he knew she was awake. She couldn’t see the whole of him, only sense the strain of bone and sinew beneath his powerful muscles. Layla stifled a groan of terror, all but paralyzed.

He was an enormous man. Or was he something else? His chest was a mass of muscle. There was froth upon his … snout? It was as if she could see lust trembling upon his sleek haunches and it made her acutely aware of her body beneath the Egyptian cotton sheets. The way he stared at her made her feel vulnerable, obscene. Yet there must have been a time when it pleased her to have men admire her body, because a primal and utterly foreign rush of pleasure ran through her blood right alongside the fear. And she felt suddenly quite unlike herself, filled with some carnal delight that a man would seek her out in her own lair, that any man would dare.

Questions to try, answer or die, what am I?

As the little rhyme echoed in her mind, Layla slammed back into herself. The pleasure was gone and she pulled the sheet over her body. “Who are you?” she asked, her voice a low, terrified whisper. “I don’t know you.”

His answer was a snort of taurine rage that echoed through the bedroom. “You’re still so pretty when you lie…. “

Layla hissed, pushing herself up so that her back was against the silken headboard of the bed. “I want answers,” he said, coming closer. “I want my life back. I want justice for what you did to me.”

What had she done to him? Was her eal, or some figment of her imagination, one of her lost memories come hauntingly to life? In desperation, she whispered the only words she could think to utter. “Are you the man from the desert?”

The words fell from her lips before she could stop them, and in response, she thought she saw furious flared nostrils. She thought she heard the thunder of hooves on her floor as he shouted, “You know who I am!”

“I don’t,” Layla said, shaking her head so violently that it dizzied her. “I can’t remember.”

“Then I’ll remember for you,” he said, his weight settling on the bed as he crawled overtop of her. “Let me in. Let me inside you.”

Was he a rapist? She’d be overtaken by his bulk, helpless against his size and strength. Layla shrank back, the sheet bunching up to expose one long bronzed leg all the way to the thigh. She saw the glint of sharp horns, as if he were intent upon goring her. Intent upon slashing through the sheets. Intent upon impaling her. She threw her hands in front of her as a defense, then heard herself scream.

This time, Ray expected the barren landscape of her mind. But there were subtle changes. The pyramid was more prominent, and he saw an entrance made of rotted old wood and iron. Maybe he could charge it—break it open and lay her memories bare. Inside the mindscape he was as strong as a bull. Ray threw himself against the entrance, his massive shoulder rolling into his charge. Wood splintered and he heard the groan of hinges. He charged again, and again, smashing and bashing for what felt like hours. He ached with the effort, his throat parched with thirst, but all at once, the entrance gave way and he found himself standing in the labyrinth of an ancient Egyptian tomb.

He found only one torch burning, and he carried it through the sand-filled passage until he heard a low growl. He didn’t see Layla’s memories. Instead, amidst the glittering gold and carnelian pillars, a lioness appeared and said, “You shouldn’t be here. Men who come near me die. They die. Choking, gasping … “

Shit! It was no lion, it was her. It was Layla Bahset. The same cat-green eyes. This was the way his cool, clinical interrogator envisioned herself in her own mind. Or maybe she was just trying to scare him off. “Don’t threaten me.”

“He’ll hurt me if he finds you here,” she said. “More importantly, he’ll hurt you. He’s watching … “

“Who?” Ray asked. “The guards? The sick bastards who got off on watching me bleed? I’ve already taken care of them. They aren’t ever going to hurt me again, and neither are you.”

“I’m different now,” the lioness said. “I help people now. I heal them.”

“I don’t care what you do,” Ray growled, though that wasn’t strictly true. “I want to know why I was pulled out of my unit in Afghanistan. I want to know why I was arrested. I want a name. I want to know who it was that accused me of treason.”

“My memories are locked away from me in the antechamber,” she said. “And even if I could give you a name, what good would it do?”

What good would it do? The question made crimson fury pass like a taunting veil before his eyes. If he had a name, he could confront his accuser. He could prove his innocence. He wouldn’t have to live as a fugitive anymore. He could be a free man.

“I can’t free you unless you free me,” she said, with a look of anguish. “Save me.”

Had she read his mind now? Ray was getting confused. “How can I save you?”

“Make me feel something,” she said.

He could have blinked only once, but when he did, he no longer saw a lioness on the ground, but a woman on her hands and knees, staring up at him with a needy gaze. Naked. Completely naked. He couldn’t look away, unable to tear his eyes from the way her hair flowed like a dark river over her bare shoulders and the elegantly arched curve of her back.

Layla seemed to luxuriate in his openmouthed fascination. She let him look at her glistening body in vivid color. The taut nipples, dark as berries. The thatch of dark hair between her thighs. She let him stare. She was enticing him, daring him to come closer and touch her. “Make me want something. Make my pulse quicken with excitement. Make me sigh with longing. Make my body weak with pleasure. Make me, make me, make me.”

Oh, the things he wanted to make her do …

But it had to be another trap. Just as she’d tried to bury him in sand this afternoon, now she was trying to make him lose himself in lust. He had no intention of becoming a desiccated carcass in the ruin of her mindscape. And yet, the heat of her wanton invitation was so strong that Ray felt himself harden in response.

If she understood the monster he was now, if she knew the mixed-up milieu of desire and hatred for her that swirled inside him, she’d run. Instead, she beckoned and Ray was atop her before he knew it, his body crushing down on hers. She didn’t recoil, not even when she must see him for the horned monster that he was. She stretched her hands up as he lowered his head. Together, they rent the sand, with … his horns or her claws, he couldn’t tell.

He was angry with himself, and angry with her. With his blood running hot, he’d nearly forgot what he’d come here for. He’d come here for answers, for justice. Nothing less would satisfy.

And then she asked, “Will you save me?”




Chapter 3


What lives without a body, and speaks without a tongue? Everyone can hear it, but it’s seen by none.

Her plea was an echo and it tore something inside him, making him thrash. Another sound followed, shrill as a siren, and he thrashed again. Something shredded as a cacophony of beeps exploded in his brain. Someone was shaking him, pulling him out of Layla Bahset’s mind and back into his own body.

It was the teenaged hooker that woke him up. A good thing, too. The alarm clock was ringing and probably had been for some time. What he’d seen inside Layla’s dream had nearly unraveled his sanity and now a headache roared behind his eyes with renewed vengeance.

“What’s the matter with you?” Missy asked, eyeing the shreds of fabric in his hands. He looked down to see that he’d torn the bedsheets, ripped them with such violence that lint floated in the air around them like fairy dust. What’s more, he was burning up, and the motel room was fetid with his sweat. Then there was the blood, freely flowing from both his nostrils.

Missy took a few steps back. “Dude, are you sick? Are you trippin’?”

What was wrong with him? Ray used the ruined sheet to soak up the blood. He felt as chapped and dehydrated as if he’d been trekking a real desert. “Get me something to drink,” he barked, and tried to get his shaking under control while she padded across his room and returned with a cloudy glass of his bourbon. He drank it down in three swallows and it burned all the way.

Squinting his eyes back into focus, Ray saw that his bag was open, his papers all over the floor. There it all was; all the clues and clippings, the file folders and photographs. “You went through my things?”

“I’m not a thief,” the hooker said. “But I am a snoop … or didn’t you see that when you were snooping in my head?”

A group of hooting partiers crowed about their winnings in the parking lot outside and Ray winced at the noise. The motel room door did little to block the sound and it bothered him. Everything bothered him. The colors, the smells, the sounds.

“So who is she?” Missy asked.

“I don’t want to talk about it. In fact, I’ll pay you double to just shut up.”

“Double! No shit, big spenda!” the hooker gasped in feigned astonishment as she waved Layla Bahset’s picture around. “Seriously, who is she?”

Layla Bahset was his tormentor, the cool-eyed bitch who had tried to win his trust—tried to convince him that there was something between them. But it had only been a trick to get him to confess to crimes he didn’t commit. She’d abandoned him in that hellhole. She was a fiend. But now he’d seen inside her mind and … What had he seen?

He should know. He’d destroyed enough minds since he’d been cursed with these powers. He’d left his jailers and torturers trapped and ruined, afraid and devastated. But he wasn’t sure that even he could have taken all her memories and buried them in sand. And he hadn’t done it. Someone else had. Someone else, someone more powerful, had gotten to her first. The realization rocked his world. There might be others, just like him …

“You should really keep all your notes on a laptop or something,” Missy was saying. “Otherwise you just seem like a paranoid nut job.”

He wasn’t paranoid. They’d taken his dog tags from him and put a black bag over his head. They’d bound him with a plastic zip cord that cut into his wrists. His protestations of innocence had made no difference at all. These were just the times.

Ray’s nose seemed to have stopped bleeding, so he threw the bloody rags onto the floor. Then, with a shaking hand, he reached for the glass and the bourbon and filled it. “You can go now.”

Missy didn’t move. “I don’t think you should be alone right now.”

“Will you just get the hell out?”

Missy snorted. “Are you going to make me?”

He couldn’t make her do anything in this state. He could barely hold his drink. “Fine, stay or go, I don’t care, but if you stay, put some clothes on.”

“I am wearing clothes,” Missy objected, straightening her miniskirt so that it covered more of her legs. “Besides, you were all hot and bothered in your sleep. So what’s the matter now? Don’t you want me?”

He realized she was actually propositioning him. “Not gonna happen, Jailbait.”

“Why? I don’t charge much. Don’t you like me? I’m not your type?”

“Ask me again in ten years,” Ray said, too weak to get up and gather his things, and still thinking about the woman who was very much his type, all naked in the sand.

Missy arranged some of Ray’s notes in a new pattern on the floor. “Maybe I can help you find the guy who ratted you out. That’s who you’re looking for in all these little pieces of paper, isn’t it?”

“Nobody ratted me out.” Ray took another swallow of liquor. It soothed his nerves. “Somebody flat-out lied about me.”

“And you think this woman in the picture knows who it was?”

Ray nodded. But a fat lot of good it was going to do him now, with her mind wiped clean. He’d hit a dead end and now Missy was laughing at him. “What the hell is so funny, Missy?”

“This chick is a shrink but you were trying to get into her head.”

“Hilarious.” Ray smiled wanly, throwing her a wad of cash. He guessed she’d earned it.

He’ll hurt me if he finds you here, the lioness had said. He’s watching. Was it just the crazy talk of a woman who’d had her mindscape destroyed by someone like Ray? Possibly. But she’d asked him for help and he’d sensed that she was actually in danger.

He shouldn’t give a damn. But he did.

“Hey, Jailbait,” he said to Missy, who was on her way out the door. “Maybe you can help out … I want you to follow Layla Bahset.”

Layla gasped fully awake. The horned monster had only been a dream. She was safe and alone in her own bed. The only thing she had to fear was the syrupy sweetness running through her veins, a dull but incessant throb between her legs. She still remembered the feel of the monster that had crawled into the cradle of her thighs and she didn’t have to be Dr. Freud to understand the symbolism. Could there be a more potent icon of masculinity than a well-endowed bull?

She thought she wasn’t the kind of woman who responded to things like that, but now the sensual tension streaked across the canvas of her body and trailed off, leaving her … unfinished. Incomplete. Wanting. It was better when she didn’t want things, when she didn’t need things, when she didn’t feel like some kind of flower bud that wouldn’t blossom.

A swath of morning sun made its way up the stark white bed and she watched it move over the pillows. Dear God, how long had she slept?

It wasn’t until she slipped out of bed that she saw the jagged rips in the beige silk headboard. The fabric was slashed, like some horned animal had pierced it in the midst of angry passion, and Layla’s heart seized. Throwing on a robe, she ran to check the bolts on her front door. All the locks were still in place. The alarm was set. There was no sign that anyone had been here. No sign at all—except for her torn headboard.

Layla returned to the bedroom and stepped out onto the balcony. The whole expanse of Las Vegas spread out beneath her at a comforting distance. Unless the man in her dreams could fly, there was no way he was actually in her high-rise bedroom last night. It was a dream. A nightmare. She must have slashed the headboard herself. Her stalker had terrorized her so thoroughly that she could no longer tell what was real.

She knew the old saying. Physician, Heal Thyself. It wasn’t going to cut it anymore. She’d built her life on a shaky foundation and now it all seemed ready to come falling down. Reluctantly, she admitted to herself that it was time to ask for help.

She should’ve invited Nate Jaffe to her condo, but it was Layla’s compulsion to pretend everything was fine that made her agree to meet Nate for dinner. She donned her lovely new red dress, the gift from Isabel. Pearls might have been a nice touch, but the only jewelry she ever wore was a sixpence coin on a long chain around her neck. Her first memory was finding that coin in her hand, and now she was afraid to be without it. Once she was dressed for dinner, she put on her happy face and hailed a cab. And why not? In this city, everyone wore a mask. From the feathered showgirls at the Rio to the gondoliers at the Venetian. In Las Vegas, how was anyone to know what was real?

A young blonde teenager in a miniskirt was standing by the street, sucking on a red Popsicle, probably in some vain hope it would cool her off. Technically, prostitution wasn’t legal in Vegas, but it was a technicality barely observed and it was clear to Layla that the young girl was working. Another lost soul in need of saving …

The cab ride to the casino was brief. Stepping from the taxi onto the curb, Layla was hit with an oppressive wall of heat. It made her dark hair wilt, her knees soften, and little beads of perspiration gather on the back of her neck. The Egyptian motif of the Luxor had always bothered her. She told herself it was because the decor was a callow mockery of her ethnic heritage, but it was more than that. Layla couldn’t bear to look upon the statuary outside, and having to actually pass under the sphinx at the entrance of the casino made her shudder. What’s more, the inside of the pyramid was a claustrophobic maze of confusion. Balconies hung out over the floor, elevators moved along diagonal paths, and the lighting seemed low and eerie.

It shouldn’t be so stark, she thought to herself. Ancient Egypt was a riot of paint and color. Why these thoughts crowded her mind, she couldn’t say and, already upset, Layla wasn’t sure how she was going to get through this night.

At the restaurant inside, Dr. Jaffe had already ordered for her, and now smiled expectantly from across the table. Layla gave him what she hoped was her fondest smile. They ate. They talked. He complimented her dress. It was all very pleasant. After all, Nate Jaffe was a very nice man. More importantly, he was a psychiatrist and she needed his help.

As she dragged her fork over a nest of green asparagus sprouts in a hollandaise sauce, Layla thought about what she should say. I can’t remember who I am. No, if she started with that, he’d realize how long she’d been pretending, and feel betrayed. Someone is stalking me. That would certainly get his attention, but he’d insist on calling the police. I think someone can hunt me down inside my own mind. If she told him that, he’d worry about her sanity. Which, admittedly, he should.

“Don’t you like your filet?” Dr. Jaffe asked, peering over his spectacles.

“You know I’m indifferent to food,” Layla said, then dared to glance up at him. People weren’t meant to be indifferent, were they? They were meant to enjoy the pleasure of taste. They were meant to inhale beautiful scents that made them sigh. People were built to feel strong emotions other than fear, weren’t they? It was something hardwired, right down to the lizard core of the brain. She was meant to feel things, to taste things, to take pleasure in things, even if she couldn’t remember who she really was. “Would you kiss me?” Layla asked.

Nate Jaffe stopped midsentence. She had no idea what he’d been saying, and from the look on his face, neither did he. She’d kissed him before.

She’d gone to bed with him, too. She knew he wouldn’t hurt her. But in the past, she’d never felt more than the faintly soothing sensation of skin upon skin. Last night, in her dream with the monster, she’d felt something more. Now she wanted the man she was dating to take the spark inside her and coax it into a flame.

Dr. Jaffe didn’t make any sudden moves and when he leaned forward to kiss her, Layla closed her eyes. It was a very proper kiss, one borne of sincere affection, but it didn’t make her feel like she had last night. Nothing had changed, and even the decorative hieroglyphs on the wall, stolen from some ancient tomb, mocked her with their message of doom.

It was the hieroglyphs—not the kiss—that made the blood drain from her face.

“Layla?” Nate Jaffe was staring at her, but she couldn’t reply. “What’s wrong?”

I can read hieroglyphics, she thought. That’s what’s wrong. Among so very many other things. The symbols swam before her eyes, taunting her. There had to be a simple explanation for it. Maybe she’d been an archeology student in college. Maybe her parents had been curators of a museum. If she remembered her past, it would somehow make sense. “I have to tell you something,” Layla began.

Dr. Jaffe’s face reddened and he spread his palms on the table. “You don’t have to say it, Layla. I’ve known for some time that your heart isn’t in this relationship.”

Layla’s mouth fell slightly open. “Nate—”

“Are you going to deny it?”

Layla brought her lips back together, unable to tell even one more lie. A fatal moment of silence passed between them before he looked away. “We’re both adults,” he said, motioning to the waiter for the bill. “Let’s just end things while we can still be friends.”

She hadn’t come here to break up with him. She’d come here for his help, but given the hurt in his eyes, she didn’t dare ask him for anything right now. She’d call him tomorrow. Things would be better in the morning. They’d have to be.

He paid the bill and escorted her out of the hotel like the gentleman that he was. As they passed out of the lobby onto the street outside, he even gave her fingers an affectionate squeeze. “I’m sorry things didn’t work out,” he said, and then, because he looked so forlorn, Layla pressed a very soft kiss to his cheek.

After four tours of duty, scouting missions were a thing of second nature to Ray. What amazed him about Vegas was the ease with which he could hide in plain sight. Poised near the Luxor entrance with a disposable camera in hand, pretending to take photos of the sphinx, he knew the precise moment that Layla Bahset stepped out of the casino wearing that smokinghot red dress.

He snapped a quick shot of her giving her date the polite brush-off. Ray didn’t recognize the guy with her. He was older, with silver hair and gave off a well-mannered vibe. Totally not the type he would’ve envisioned for her, but whatever. Ray didn’t think the guy was a threat. Even so, as she walked away from her date, Layla looked upset. She started down the drive toward the strip, rubbing her bare arms against the cooler night air.

Keeping his head down, Ray followed her, but he wasn’t the only one. Maybe it was his training. Maybe it was a preternatural instinct. Maybe it was because he couldn’t figure out why a cabbie would be wearing sunglasses at night. Whatever it was, he turned his head at just the right moment to see the driver lift a radio to his mouth, his attention riveted on Layla’s retreating form.

Son of a bitch, Ray thought. So she was in some kind of danger. And not just from him.

Ray didn’t like the crowds, didn’t like the noise and the neon lights of the strip, but he kept his eyes on her. As he followed her, he noticed that she had a catlike grace. Maybe it wasn’t just a fluke that she envisioned herself as a lioness. Still, she didn’t seem comfortable in the night and she sure didn’t have the focus of a predator. She didn’t even look up to see the dark sedan that pulled around the corner, creeping behind her. Seemingly oblivious to her peril, she crossed the street, her sensible black pumps clicking against the pavement.

Ray followed her. So did the sedan.

Layla paused on the sidewalk outside the Golden Calf Casino. It was a crappy little hotel, nestled amongst the bigger, more glamorous ones. Hawkers and hobos gathered beneath the gilded statue of a steer, upon which was fastened a sign announcing the nightly pancake special. Layla stared, as if she were lost.

It was at that moment two big, beefy guys stepped out of the dark sedan.

Ray could have let it happen. He could have let them—what, arrest her? Attack her? Kill her? It’d be the least she deserved. But he couldn’t let it happen. She was still the only chance he had at proving his innocence, he reminded himself. The information he needed was buried inside her ruined memory, and as long as he kept her alive, he still had a chance of digging it up.

Ray strode toward her and she turned. He saw just the corner of her eyes, the green glint of surprise. It was enough. He slipped into the depths of those eyes and grabbed onto the edge of her thoughts. “Put your hand in mine and keep walking,” he said.

Forcing her to obey should’ve been easy, but with her, nothing ever was. He slammed into the same wall of resistance, and not wanting to wait for his powers to take full effect, he grabbed her hand and yanked her forward.




Chapter 4


He follows you wherever you go, but when you turn to meet him his face doesn’t show.

It was the man of her dreams—literally, the man of her dreams—but he was no shadow monster now. No snout, no hooves, no glinting horns. Still, he clutched her hand like he could break it. He’d come out of nowhere and she’d been taken completely by surprise. “Wh-what are you doing?”

His close-cropped goatee scratched her cheek when he leaned in to whisper, “Someone’s following you, so shut up and keep walking.”

She took a few steps with him before she could stop herself. It was as if she wasn’t moving her own legs; he was. But that was impossible. As they threaded their way through the crowd into the casino, the sirens of a winning slot machine screamed at them. The scent was beer mingled with sweat, and a thumping music played static behind the roar of voices.

“Who’s following you?” he asked, and she started to turn her head to look. “Don’t let them see you looking! Glance over there, at the glass doors. See the reflection?”

She saw them. Two clean-cut guys in suits pushing through the revelers. She tried to get her wits about her. For all she knew, the men could be chasing him, not her. She shouldn’t let him guide her to the stairway behind the bar, but her hand felt small and somehow secure in his calloused palm. His presence, dark and brutish as it was, made her more … alive. She was actually feeling, and though it might be the death of her, she didn’t want it to stop!

Still, she found the presence of mind to ask, “Who are you and where are you taking me?”

The question seemed to infuriate him. “You really don’t fucking remember me, do you? My name is Ray. You probably remember me better as Prisoner Twenty-Four.” The harshness of his words carried even over the hustle and bustle of the casino, and effectively silenced her until Ray skidded to a stop just outside of a bank of elevators. They nearly mowed down an elderly man who had just come down from a higher floor with his bags in hand, obviously ready to check out.

“What’s your room number, gramps?” Ray barked.

“Five-thirteen,” the elderly man answered, his jaw going lax and jowly as he stared into Ray’s eyes.

“Give me your hotel key,” Ray said, and Layla watched in astonishment as the old man did as he was bid. “Now go for the pancake special and forget to check out.”

With that, Ray yanked Layla into the elevator. Until that moment—until the elevator doors shut—she’d thought that the stranger was in command of himself and in command of her. He’d been unbelievably strong, aggressive and self-assured. But the moment the two slabs of metal slammed together, shutting out the brighter light and noise, she watched her captor’s face go ashen. The look that passed over his eyes was something desperate and feral.

She heard the deepening of his breathing as he backed up against the wall. She could’ve asked him a thousand questions in that moment. She could’ve asked why he’d grabbed her off the street. She could’ve asked where he was taking her, and why. But watching the blazing intensity of his dark eyes lose focus and turn glassy, her instincts as a mental health professional kicked in. “Are you going to faint?”

“I don’t faint,” Ray said, punching the button for the fifth floor and every one after it. His voice was filled with pain and contempt and sweat broke out over his face as he stumbled.

It’d been the closed doors that had triggered him. She’d seen it with her own eyes. And now his heart was beating so hard she could actually hear it. “Take a deep breath and focus on my voice,” she said quietly. “If you can calm down, the feeling will pass.”

“What the hell would you know about it?” he growled.

Layla wasn’t surprised that he lashed out at her. “I know a panic attack when I see one.”

In answer, Ray turned and pounded his fist into the door, as if he could batter his way out. Given the force of the blows, maybe he could. “Why is this elevator so goddamned slow?”

He looked like a trapped animal—one who might be willing to gnaw off his own arm to escape. He stumbled again, and this time she steadied him. “Close your eyes and imagine the desert, wide and open to the horizon.”

He sagged against her, the bulk of his weight pinning her to the wall. She couldn’t tell if he was even conscious anymore. He was a big man. He wasn’t just tall; his shoulders were also very wide. His coat had fallen open so that the outlines of his muscles were clear beneath his black T-shirt. Something pressed hard into her side, and she looked down to see that he was wearing a holstered gun. It should have terrified her, but the proximity of his masculinity, so raw and powerful, also awakened the same yearning she’d felt in her dream.

“It’s going to be all right,” she said, softly stroking his arm.

Back in Syria, every time they’d thrown Ray in the coffin, he’d wondered if he’d seen light for the last time. The elevator brought back that sensation, and the terror had crawled up inside him until he was ready to claw the doors open with his bare hands.

Beautiful. As an army translator, he’d lived through firefights and hostage situations. As a prisoner, he’d been beaten and left for dead. But what frightened him now? A goddamned elevator. And to make matters worse, she was on hand to witness his weakness. Like she needed another weapon in the arsenal of tricks she’d used to chip away at his psyche and find the cracks.

As soon as the elevator doors opened, he flung himself out into the hallway, crashing into the opposite wall.

“Count your breaths and breathe slow,” she said, offering her voice as an anchor against the rising tide of panic. But they were being followed; he didn’t have time for slow. Through sheer force of will, Ray straightened up and herded her down the hallway to the old man’s room and pushed her inside. He shut the door and peered out the peephole.

He didn’t see anybody coming, but that didn’t mean they weren’t out there. Ray ran a hand through his sweat-soaked hair, then checked his gun. It made him feel more secure somehow, to touch it. “Unless those guys are determined to search every room and alert casino security, we’ve probably given your entourage the slip for now.” The panic was subsiding, but he was still unsteady. If she wanted to scream, or push past him and run away, he wasn’t entirely sure he’d have the power to stop her.

She didn’t try. Instead she said, “I’ll get you a glass of water. It might help.”

It was surreal to watch her return from the bathroom, carrying a drink for him, like she was Florence Fucking Nightingale. I heal people now, she’d told him in the shifting sands of her mindscape. Right.

He took the water and drank it down, then sat down on the bed, hard.

Layla was relieved to see that the stranger seemed to be coming back to himself now, getting it under control. But his eyes were still on her, pinning her in place like a red butterfly against a mat. “So now what? Are you going to shoot me?”

He snorted. “Is that why you think I brought you up here? To shoot you? Seriously?”

“The only thing I know is that you’ve taken me hostage.”

“Lady, I just rescued you,” Ray said.

“Is that why you have a gun?”

“I have a gun because people are after me. Let’s both hope I won’t have to use it.”

“Why would you need to use it?” she asked, her voice rising an octave. “People seem to do whatever you say…. “

“It’s my animal charm,” he said, but his acid tone was anything but charming. He slammed the empty glass down on the bedside table. “So let’s see if I have this straight. You don’t know who I am. You also don’t know who is following you. What the hell do you know, Doc?”

Layla had held the secret inside her for so long, it seemed impossible that she was going to admit it to a complete stranger. But when the words left her lips, they came out in an exhilarating rush. “I don’t know anything! I don’t remember anything but the past two years of my life. I woke up in the desert, in my car, holding an old sixpence coin in my hand—this sixpence,” she said, pulling the necklace out of her neckline so he could see it. “I thought maybe I was from England, but my wallet was filled with dollars and I had an American driver’s license.”

“And that didn’t jog your memory?” he asked, examining the coin.

“No. I didn’t recognize myself and I don’t recognize you either. When was the last time we saw one another?”

“Twenty-four months, thirteen days and six hours ago … I got in the habit of counting when I was locked in a box.”

Twenty-four months, Layla thought. Two years ago. Before she lost her memory. “And how did we know each other? Were we …” In spite of herself, her eyes drifted to the bed.

“Screwing?”

Her cheeks suddenly burned, both because of his crass word choice and because of the way her insides flip-flopped at the mere suggestion. Were they lovers? It was the only way she could explain her physical reaction to him. Or why he was stalking her and leaving threatening notes in her office.

“We never went to bed together, no,” Ray finally said, but not before letting his gaze travel up and down her body. It made her go hot all over. “I was arrested because some anonymous informant accused me of colluding with the enemy in Afghanistan. You were my interrogator. I was innocent. I am innocent. But you let them torture me anyway.”

The heat in Layla’s body went to sudden chill. She had to sit down on the hotel room wing chair to keep her knees from buckling. “You must be mistaken.”

Ray took off his coat and threw it at her. Now that his arms were exposed, she saw the crisscrossing lines of scars near his wrists. “Does this look like a mistake?”

“You could’ve made those marks yourself,” she said, slowly.

He yanked off his holster—gun and all—throwing it onto the bed. Then off came his T-shirt. She watched the pure artistry of his torso in motion, his bare stomach coming into sharp focus. He was beautiful. Like some bronzed statue of an ancient athlete. But she wasn’t the type of woman to wilt at the sight of a man’s rippling muscles. She wasn’t like Isabel, all open and sensual, so the feelings that rose in her weren’t because of his raw physicality. It was the way he was staring at her, predatory and intense, compelling her to look at him. Really look at him.

As she stared, he turned so that his broad back was exposed to her, and now her breath caught in her throat. Scars knotted across his spine. The pale marks twisted together, snaking across his flesh like serpents coiling for a strike.

Layla’s hand went over her mouth to stifle a gasp.

“You still think I did this to myself?” he asked.

For a moment—just a moment—she could envision his wounds, bleeding and raw. She thought she heard his throaty cry of pain and shook her head to dislodge the terrible sound. Was it possible that he was telling the truth? Could she be responsible in some way for the agony written large upon his flesh? Layla shook her head. No, it wasn’t possible. She may not have all her memories, but it wasn’t in her to hurt anyone. She was a healer. A healer.

“Convinced that I’m telling the truth yet, or do you need to see more?” His hands went to the front of his jeans, and he snapped the button open. “‘Cause I’ve got plenty to show you.”

“Don’t,” Layla said, reaching out to stop him. Their fingers tangled, right there at the front of his pants. Embarrassment flared even hotter at her cheeks and she tried to yank back. He pressed her fingers against the fabric, so that the rough teeth of the zipper scratched her skin. He was close to her now, and the scent of him filled her nostrils. The potent evidence of his masculinity at eye level was overwhelming and the reality of her situation hit her all at once. She’d been abducted by a stranger off the street and was now holed up with him inside a hotel room. Worse, he was looking down at her like some djinn about to devour her.

“Unzip me,” he said.

Her mouth went dry. She couldn’t say what made her do it. Maybe he was in her head, compelling her obedience. Maybe she was too afraid of him to refuse. Or maybe it was the heated sensation that curled in her belly. She pressed the flat of one palm against his thigh, French manicured nails splayed over the denim. Then she tugged gingerly on his zipper with the other hand. It was obscene to watch herself do this. Curiosity mingled with humiliation.

For one brief and wildly insane moment, she wondered what it would be like to touch him. Both shame and titillation shook her to her core as he slipped the waistband over his hips and exposed his boxer briefs and, just below the hem … the marred flesh of his thighs. A row of puckered burn marks trailed down his leg. Someone had taken a hot poker, or a cigarette, and pressed the burning end into his skin, over and over again. The sight seared into her, as if she’d been the one burned. “I did this to you?”

“No,” he said, his voice low. “But you worked with the people who did.”

It couldn’t be true. If it was true, it made her sick. It made her even more of a stranger to herself than she already was. So how could it be that she was also feeling something warm, something petal-soft and exquisite? Something like she imagined arousal was supposed to feel. No sooner did it begin to blossom inside her than it was crushed under the weight of recollection. “You’re Rayhan Stavrakis.”

“That’s right.”

She couldn’t make sense of her memories, but she was astounded to be remembering anything. “Greek … Arab … Syrian?”

“American,” Ray growled. “Not that it matters.”

“I’m sorry,” Layla whispered, staring at his scars. The words were so completely inadequate that she nearly choked on them. “I don’t remember much, but I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah? Well, now you’re gonna make it up to me.”

Well, wasn’t Layla Bahset just full of surprises? Ray watched the blush intensify on her upturned cheeks, and though she’d completely misread his intentions, her reaction made him hard. Very hard. He remembered what she’d said to him when he’d entered her sleeping mind. “Make me want something,” she had pleaded. “Make my pulse quicken with excitement. Make me sigh with longing. Make my body weak with pleasure. Make me, make me, make me … “

Now she was poised at the edge of her chair in that red dress, nearly on her knees. Those glossy lips of hers were near enough to his cock to kiss it, but his desire was squelched by the humiliation he saw in her eyes. She’d once insisted he was a terrorist; now she apparently believed he was the kind of man who’d force her to trade in sexual favors. He wasn’t sure which assumption was worse.

Tugging his jeans up, he fastened them again. Deciding it might be easier to control himself if she were at eye level, he said, “Stand up.”

She rose, and he realized she was trembling. She stood there in front of him, hugging herself. He’d taken the calm and composed lady shrink and rattled her to the bone. It didn’t make him feel good about himself. The fact that she didn’t remember what she’d done didn’t make her innocent, but there wasn’t any satisfaction to be had from terrorizing someone who couldn’t appreciate the karmic justice of it. “So, Doc, when I said I wanted you to make things up to me, what did you think I meant?”

“You know what I thought.” Her words were like ice.

“Yeah, well, I’m interested in your mind. The information I need to get my life back is locked in that pretty head of yours and you need to tell me what you know. That’s the only way you can make things up to me.”

“I just told you that I have amnesia. But if what you’re saying is true, there has to be a record of what happened in your case somewhere. Maybe you should file a request under the Freedom of Information Act.”

“A FOIA request? That’s your brilliant solution? Sweetheart, I didn’t even get a lawyer, much less a trial. No, the only way to prove my innocence is to find my accuser and you know who that was.”

“I don’t know who gave evidence against you. I don’t remember.”

“Maybe you don’t want to remember,” he snapped.

She shrank away as if she thought he might strike her, or ravish her, or worse. Though it scalded his tongue to comfort her, he found himself saying, “Look, you don’t have to be afraid that I’m going to … take advantage of you.”

Her green eyes looked haunted and lost. “Maybe I’m afraid I want you to.”

What kind of game was she playing with him now? It was like a matador snapping a red cape in front of a wounded bull. Heat seared through his body and tinted his vision with scarlet need. It’d been one thing to meet the alluring lioness in her mindscape, the one who tempted him with her blatant sensuality. But to see the confusion of the buttoned-up woman in front of him was an entirely new kind of torment. One that dizzied him.

“You’re bleeding again,” Layla said softly as Ray swayed on his feet.

He’d obviously used his powers too many times in the past few days. It was all catching up with him. There was never a time when he hadn’t experienced pain and blood in the aftermath, but Layla was harder to control than anyone he’d encountered before. Keeping her here with him was taxing him beyond endurance.

“You should let me go, Ray,” she said softly.

“I didn’t just snatch you off the street for my own reasons, okay? You’re being followed.”

He could see that she didn’t believe him. “Those men that you yanked me away from, they looked like federal agents. Which makes me think they aren’t after me. They’re after you.”

Ray shook his head, hand coming to rest on the back of his neck. His control over her was fraying. “No, Doc. I’m telling you, they were watching you.”

“Well, I’m not afraid of government officials.”

“Goddammit, Layla! People with badges aren’t always the good guys. Do you think that with skin like yours, with a last name like yours, that professional courtesy is going to save you if they’ve decided you’re a threat to national security? Did the fact that I fought for my country matter a damn when I was being tortured?”

Suddenly, he was breathing faster. The world seemed to narrow into some dark tunnel, and if she gave any answer to his question, he didn’t hear it.

Layla watched him collapse. He toppled like some felled animal at sacrifice. He fell hard, his head bouncing when it struck the floor, his mouth going lax. Instinctively, Layla rushed to his side, stooping to feel for a pulse. She found one, but he didn’t respond when she said his name.

What was wrong with him? She remembered that he’d suffered a nosebleed the first time she saw him in her office. He was bleeding from the nose again now. Maybe he was suffering from high blood pressure or some far more serious ailment.

She should call an ambulance. No. He’d kidnapped her. She should call the police. But if she did, it was all going to come out. All of it. They’d find out that she’d been hiding her amnesia for two years, and no one would believe her when she told them about the mental powers that Rayhan Stavrakis had exerted over her. They’d think that she’d gone crazy.

Maybe she had.

This was her chance to escape, but she couldn’t just leave him here bleeding on the floor. She pushed on his shoulder, trying to roll him over. He was brawny, heavy, hard to move. She managed to angle his mouth toward the ground so that he wouldn’t choke on his own tongue but she didn’t know what else to do. She had a doctorate in psychology; she wasn’t a medical doctor.

But Nate Jaffe was.

Layla fumbled for her cell phone in her purse and dialed. After five rings it went to voice mail. Why wouldn’t he pick up? Okay, he was obviously still smarting from their breakup. She’d just have to go get him. Nate’s apartment wasn’t far from here and her captor didn’t look like he was going to regain consciousness anytime soon, so Layla bolted for the door. If there really were other men out there following her, then she’d just have to risk it.




Chapter 5


A barren woman with skin cracked and dry, still enchants men though none know why.

Though Seth was a desert god, he hated the Mojave. Not just because it was a New World desert, far and remote from his own Egyptian home. He also hated the Mojave because as a war god, he believed that a desert should devour. A desert should destroy.

A desert shouldn’t give birth to a neon monstrosity like Las Vegas.

The city was like no proper desert metropolis of old. It had no citadel; it sent no chariots into the sands to conquer. It didn’t join with the sand and sun and powerful ring of mountains. Instead the Vegas architecture was a blend of archaic myth with modern excess—an adult fantasy-scape at the very edge of reality, where magic blurred with the mundane. With its garish lights and glitter, the city beckoned visitors and residents to worship the myriad relics of man’s gloried past. It became a fertile oasis for washed-up immortals. And why not? Where else but Vegas could deities walk comfortably amongst the mortals without fear of discovery? Here a primitive goddess of dancing could easily take on the guise of a showgirl. Where else but Vegas could a trickster god hide in plain sight, running a casino? Where else could a god of revelry gorge himself in an actual bacchanalia, but at Caesar’s Palace?





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