Page 6 of Hot Zone

Two

Great galaxies above. Who was that woman?

Rustam shook off Artemesia like a pesky fly, while across the room the stranger’s aura crackled, practically violet around her. Only a psychic of extraordinary power could gather so much energy to herself and not implode.

Other thoughts, desperately hopeful thoughts, crowded in. Had someone come for him? Was he finally rescued?

“Make yourself into a monster,” Artemesia hissed.

“Not now,” he snapped back.

“Do it or I will have you whipped.”

He might be her slave, but even she knew not to cross certain lines with him. He was fortunate that she was the sexual predator she was—and that he could sate her appetites as few men could. Otherwise, his lot in life here would have been much worse. Even without the sex, though, he held a measure of power because of his psychic abilities that even she could not deny.

“Touch me with the rod and you will die where you stand, woman.”

Artemesia jerked back. “Mind your tongue,” she muttered.

He looked up to where the glowing stranger stood by the fire. Curses! She was gone. Who was she?

Irritably, he turned his attention to the rabble at his feet. Ignorant and superstitious, their minds were child’s play to manipulate. Sending an image of himself as some creature or another barely required conscious thought, let alone tapped his true mental power.

Maybe because he was angry that the stranger had slipped away, or maybe to teach Artemesia a lesson, he sent them all an image of the most gruesome creature he could imagine.

The crowd screamed in horror. There. Let that be the stuff of legends for centuries to come.

He projected the image long enough to give everyone nightmares tonight. Then, in disgust, he dropped the sending and leaped easily from the stage, leaving Artemesia to make her own way. A pair of eunuchs jumped forward to lift her down.

He strode across the room in search of that globe of violet energy and the woman it hovered around. The entire room was still suffused with a faint afterglow of the stranger’s aura. Incredible.

He pretended not to hear Artemesia calling out to him in that demanding whine of hers, which set his teeth on edge. But then a pair of Immortals, Xerxes’s personal guards, grabbed him by each arm. He could’ve fought them, and likely defeated them, but a dozen more guards would replace them. And the idea was to stay alive long enough to escape this godforsaken court and get back home.

He stopped, chagrined.

Artemesia’s arms wrapped around him from behind and she purred in his ear. When would the woman learn that he was not fond of things feline?

“Does not the feast put you in the mood for pleasure, Rustam?” she murmured seductively.

The woman was attractive enough, her sexual appetites sufficiently depraved to keep even him mildly entertained. But he wasn’t in the mood tonight.

Apparently, she wasn’t going to take no for an answer, however. Meanwhile, the residue of the strange woman nipped at Rustam’s skin and frayed his mind until he was so edgy he could hardly contain his own power.

He looked around urgently for a convenient male. Someone of sufficient rank and political influence for Artemesia to deem worthy of her attention. Someone young and strong enough to pleasure her long into the night.

There.The distinctive toga of a visiting Greek. Rustam recalled hearing that some general was newly arrived, Hippoclides of Dardanus. He’d supposedly come to negotiate an eleventh-hour peace with Xerxes before the Persian emperor annihilated Athens and conquered all of Greece.

The Greek’s back was turned, but from the massive musculature of his bare shoulders he was a bull of a man, fit and in his prime. Impatiently, Rustam reached out with his mind and dragged the Greek away from a goblet of wine and to his feet.

A group of drunk Persian nobles stumbled past, staggering intentionally-by-accident into the Greek with shouts of laughter.

Rustam took a quick step, placing himself directly behind the general. Planting his hand between the man’s shoulder blades, he physically shoved Hippoclides at Artemesia.

As the Greek bumped into the Persian queen and grabbed her to steady her with an exclamation of apology, Rustam mentally blasted them both with a full broadside of lust.

Sparks practically jumped off the couple as they gazed into each other’s eyes. The queen grabbed the Greek’s hand without a word and dragged him off toward her chambers. There. That ought to keep Artemesia occupied for a while.

The residue of his mind blast sent the entire hall into a renewed frenzy of sexual activity. Tonight he would have no trouble collecting a bedful of beautiful women eager to experience the legendary sexual prowess of the Sorcerer of Halicarnassus. Only one woman was on his mind, however. A shadowed form in a dark cloak and bathed in power.

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