Page 17 of Hot Zone

Tessa shrugged. “I will find something. A trader’s ship, perhaps.”

Artemesia tapped a front tooth with a long, buffed fingernail. “Xerxes upon occasion sends envoys to far-flung places. Mayhap you could arrange passage in the retinue of one.”

Tessa nodded. “An excellent suggestion, Your Majesty.” Was this all an elaborate ploy to get a potential rival out of the court?

“Artemesia!” a male voice called out. The baritone was compelling as it vibrated deep in Tessa’s gut. A hypnotic sound of pure machismo.

The queen’s eyes went limpid, then seductive, then calculating in the blink of any eye. “Hippoclides,” she breathed.

Forgetting Tessa instantly and entirely, the queen whirled and hurried back toward her bedchamber, almost as if mesmerized.

Wow. That guy must rock in the sack. Tessa turned to take a peek at the Greek general who held an imperious queen at his beck and call.

He stood on the steps, a powerful-looking man with a toga draped carelessly around his large frame. Artemesia rushed up to him and the two embraced, kissing with a fire that would burn a lesser building down around them. The man clasped Artemesia’s behind, hauling her up against him while she tore his toga off his shoulder. They were half-naked before they reached the doorway.

Tessa looked around the walled garden in dismay. How was she supposed to get out of here? The only exit was through the queen’s bedroom.

Malah appeared from out of nowhere. “Come with me, my lady. Your interview is over.”

Is that what that was? An interview? Bemused, Tessa followed the servant, oh, joy, back into the bedchamber. Artemesia and her lover were going at it like a pair possessed, and Tessa averted her gaze. But the slap of flesh on flesh, Artemesia’s cries of ecstasy and the man’s grunts were self-explanatory.

Tessa breathed a heartfelt sigh of relief as she slipped, unnoticed, out of the chamber.

And ran straight into an immovable wall of muscle.

A thoroughly annoyed voice muttered, “There you are. I’ve been looking all over for you. We need to talk.”

She closed her eyes in chagrin. Rustam.

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