Page 45 of Vengeful Mates
“It’s worth a try, though?” Anticipation swelled in her voice.
I fucking hoped so. This task consumed thousands of hours in the Library of Thoth. Sleepless nights. Thankless nights.
I smiled, pretty unconvincingly. “Of course.” Aaliyah once told me my face contained a thousand secrets, all unreadable.
I moved to her side, letting her read the documents along with me. Pages torn from ancient books, two thousand years or older by my guess.
“Fucking Mads.” I resisted the urge to crumple the pages. “No damn respect for books!”
“Total book nerd.” Aaliyah stroked my back.
Damn straight. I traced my fingertip along the papyrus. Books contained sacred pages. Stories from every civilization. Knowledge. Wisdom. History. Warnings of what went wrong throughout antiquity to serve as guidance for future custodians. Every page ought to be worshiped and preserved.
I lifted the pages to read from them. “Anubis, Keeper of the Dead, vexed at being replaced as King of the Underworld by Osiris, cursed the god with the inability to lay with or touch his wife, Isis.”
Nothing we didn’t know. Mads previously warned us about the cult in Eastern Egypt in 2030 BC that worshipped Anubis, aka the Dark One.
“The curse may be broken by destroying Anubis.” I lowered the piece of paper. “We can’t destroy a god.”
Aaliyah’s aqua gaze met mine, imploring. Fucking begging. “Our gods can.”
I shook my head and wrapped an arm around her waist. “Impossible. The gods made a pact millennium ago not to war with each other. The last time they battled, Ares destroyed a planet in our solar system.”
“Fuck.” Aaliyah bit her nail, and I pulled her finger from her teeth, preserving her sexy, dark nail polish.
I spanked her ass. “That’s for your dirty mouth.”
She nudged my leg with her hip. “You love it, Daddy.”
I did. But I also took any opportunity to punish her. “A dirty mouth that’s going to take my cock tonight.”
She patted her hands together, and my dick twitched, ready to go there and then. Later. The book nerd in me called to solve her problem, and that urge was stronger and more dominant.
Aaliyah tapped her lips, and hell, my damn dick swelled thicker, drawn to her gorgeous mouth. “What if we kill Colton? Will that kill Anubis?”
Blood rushed south and made it difficult for me to think. “It might,” I croaked, jiggling a leg, telling my boner to take a fucking hike. “Not literally, but it might satisfy the condition of the curse.”
Aaliyah threw herself into my arms, banding her arms around my neck, crumpling the papyrus between us.
“Shit, Sorceress. You’re crushing a document of antiquity.” I couldn’t believe I turned down a hug from my woman or a chance for fucking her for a damn book.
“Oops.” She pulled away, slowly removing the script from my fingers, setting it on the table behind her, then launching back into my arms. “Better, Book nerd?”
I spanked her ass. “Yes. Don’t let me catch you doing that again or there will be hell to pay.”
She grinned, her bond and squeezing legs on my hips welcoming the punishment. “Yes, Daddy. And hello to Little Daddy.”
I chuckled. A damn tug on my magick called me to Thoth’s Library. “I’ve got to go to the Great Library. Want to join me? Suck my dick while I read through scrolls?”
She snorted and thumped my chest. “Yes, to both questions.”
That was my girl. Always up for knowledge and entertainment.
I kissed her on the mouth hard and unforgiving. Just how she liked it.
With a smirk, I opened a portal to Thoth’s Library, tugging my woman through it. Halls of sandstone, jewels, art, and gold greeted us. Fingers linked, we wandered through passages in search of the head scribe. Stone chipped as the record keepers chronicled history into them. Clay clinked as women crushed ocher in pots and mixed it with water and plant gum to form ink. Men lugged bundles of papyrus and delivered them to the preparation room, where it was cut into stalks, soaked in water, pounded into pulp, and pressed into sheets of paper.
In the head scribe’s chamber, the record keeper waited for us, bowing his head in greeting. Skin old and worn like the leather fashioned on thousands of books stored in the library. Brown eyes opaque from age, but nevertheless hungry to devour knowledge.
