warrior!”
“Of course not.” He put his fists on his hips, goading her further because he needed to get the accusation out before it poisoned him. “Direct action has never been the way of an Isis witch. Your kind prefers stealth and tricks.”
“You don’t have the right to be angry, jackal,” she spat. “We have done nothing to you but what we had to.”
“The Daughters of Isis abandoned us!” he thundered. “You turned your backs on your own people, your own men and gave yourselves to the people of Greece and Rome! Left us to protect the temples while the Two Lands fell. We were there, fighting the undead and the curse of Ammit while you were being feted in Athens and Pompeii!”
“We escaped with our lives!” Tia shouted. “We had no choice but to flee after your clan declared war on us by murdering our high priestess!”
He drew back, eyes wide, nostrils flaring, and for a moment, she thought he meant to strike her. “What. Did. You. Say?”
Her hands settled on her hips. “I. Did. Not. Stutter.”
“The Sons of Anubis have never taken an innocent life!”
The door crashed open, men and jackals flying into the room. Tia flinched as they surrounded her, guns and teeth bared. Memories slammed into Marcus, memories of a time when the children of Isis had stood hip to hip with the children of Anubis, fighting with them instead of against them. He remembered his mentor, Sekhanu, with his mate, the Isis High Priestess Asharet, and how their love had united the witches and jackals. Just as he remembered how their deaths had separated both sides forever.
Hector stepped forward, placing himself between Markus and the furious witch. “Do you need us to remove the witch, my lord?”
Eagerness drenched his tone. Markus knew how much his second wanted blood, especially an Isis witch’s blood. “No. She’s already sworn to help us. She just learned the origins of the curse, and didn’t take the news well.”
“How can you be sure one of the Daughters caused this?” She gestured to the stricken men, ignoring the weapons pointed at her. “What proof do you have?”
“Your magic has a scent, unique to Isis witches,” he told her. “As we can smell the Lost Ones even in the Great Western Desert, so we can smell magic cast by one of you. Our men reek of it.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Here.” He grabbed her forearm, dragged her to the cell holding the half-shifted jackal. “Use your senses,” he growled. “Feel the magic rising off him like a landfill stench then look me in the eye and tell me it isn’t born of an Isis witch!”
She spread her fingers wide, her chin lowering. His hackles rose as he felt her call her power, but he kept his expression blank to all but anger. After a moment she gasped, stumbling back from the bars.
“Great Mother Isis.” Dismay clogged her features. “It feels like the magical working of one of the Daughters’ circles, but it’s...wrong somehow.” She shook her head. “It must be some sort of trick. It goes against all the tenets and aspects of Isis. How can you expect me to believe this was caused by the Daughters?”
“How can you expect me to believe that one of the Sons took the life of a high priestess of Isis on the temple steps?” The accusation angered him anew, rage reflected in the snarls of the men and jackals arranged around them. “What proof do you have?”
“That high priestess was my great-grandmother, Asharet,” she said, her voice thrumming with emotion. “Her dying words were ‘watch the jackals.’ And there was a dead jackal beside her.”
Markus crowded her. “That dead jackal was Sekhanu, my mentor and Asharet’s mate. He would have no reason to slay the love of his life.”
“The dead jackal was my great-grandfather?” she whispered, stricken. “I didn’t know—grandmother never said. She doesn’t like to speak of that time. She only told me that she’d received word that Asharet and many other Daughters were killed, the temple steps littered with the bodies of jackals. Aya gathered as many of the remaining priestesses as she could and headed south. Eventually they made their way out of Egypt.”
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