Late that night, Gillian was still shaking from the audience with Seth-Aziz. She wrapped her arms around her middle as she closed her chamber door under the watchful eyes of Nephtys.
“We don’t allow weapons in the temple,” the priestess warned, “but there’s a guard posted at the portal. Do not even think about trying to escape again.”
“Don’t worry. I don’t have a death wish,” Gillian muttered, and shut the door in the woman’s face.
Rude? Maybe. But she was pretty pissed off about being treated like a pawn in a game that didn’t concern her. Hello? She was the one who had to be married to a freaking vampire for the rest of eternity!
It wasn’t even having sex with him that bothered her so much— Okay, fine, yeah, it did, a lot. But just as bad was being completely invisible, her wishes and opinions dismissed as totally irrelevant.
Which, she realized, was the plight women had suffered throughout much of history, and to which many women around the world were still being subjected.
She didn’t like it.
She did not like it one damn bit.
But what could she do? The choice was either submit or Rhys would die. Possibly herself, too.
To Gillian, life was a precious gift. She’d never been able to forgive her father for giving up and walking into the desert to end it all. He’d claimed he loved her mother too much to go on without her, but if he were still alive, he would soon be with her again, if Gillian succeeded in rescuing her.
Where there was life, there was always hope.
She truly believed that.
Which was why, even if she had to live through many unhappy years to come, she would never, ever, give up hope of being with Rhys again.
Somehow, she had to tell him that. Beg him not to do anything stupid, in anger or desperation, and end up dead. She couldn’t face the prospect of a forever without him.
Of course, wandering the halls of Khepesh for all to see in order to reach him and tell him that would get them both killed even faster.
And then she remembered.
The secret passageways she’d discovered on the floor plan from the library! There were two that started here in the temple compound—one in Seth’s private dressing room, and one in the inner sanctum behind the central altar. But where did they end up? She closed her eyes and tried to picture the floor plan. She was pretty sure one of them ended in the residential wing where Rhys had his rooms.
Did she dare?
Her heart thumped painfully in her chest. She had to risk it. She was terrified Rhys might try to stop the ceremony otherwise. Sacrifice his life for her. She had to tell him not to do it.
She waited until well after the torches had been lowered, the priestesses had retired to their chambers, and the haram had grown quiet. Then she crept out and along the darkened hallways into the temple proper. It, too, lay still and silent, the diamond stars in the lapis lazuli ceiling winking at her as she felt with her fingertips along the wall of the inner sanctum for the hidden mechanism that would spring open the cleverly concealed doorway to the secret passage. Even knowing approximately where it should be—directly behind the giant obsidian sarcophagus—it took her several minutes to find it with the tip of an offering knife.
“Yes!” she murmured under her breath as a section of the wall whispered open to reveal a claustrophobically short, narrow space behind it. People must have been a lot smaller in Ptolemaic times.
Praying fervently there were no snakes or spiders living within its tight confines, she lifted her borrowed torch and ducked into the passage. And prayed even harder that she wouldn’t find an armed guard at the other end.