Page 140 of Anatomy of the Immortal Species
Her eyes widened. The automatic rifles in their hands made her uneasy. Viktor despised weapons. Where was he now?He must be back in the basement, rummaging through corpses again.
A thought struck her that made her stomach churn. Could this be happening because of her? Because of the stolen golden plaque from the Temple of the Dead Immortals? Because of the missing mummy? But if so, why were humans involved? Surely, the Tribunal or the Beduin tribe wouldn’t have joined hands with the humans only to find a mummy?
With a trembling hand, Alex pulled out her phone from the pocket of her white lab coat and dialled Grigor. The prolonged ringing suggested that her twin was likely under the skirt of yet another girlfriend. But Alex rarely called him! Grigor should have guessed that if she was calling, it was something urgent. Like a human invasion!
She tried calling Viktor, but as she’d expected, his phone was out of range. There was no signal in the basement. Still, shereattempted his number, peering out the window. She got a single beep, followed by a dial tone, indicating she had lost the signal!
Her hand dropped to her side when she spotted Viktor kneeling at a soldier’s feet. He wasn’t answering because he was out of range – but because he’d been captured!
Fear snaked through her body, tightening around her throat. Alex had never beentrulyscared because nothingtrulyfrightening had ever happened to her. The closest she’d ever come to real fear had been when the Beduin tribe had taken her. But even then, Viktor had been by her side, and Alex had known that as long as he was there, nothing could affect her.
She moved away from the window and leaned on the edge of the lab bench. She gripped the counter with both hands. Her heart pounded like a hammer in her chest, but her mind was working overtime.
Alex wasn’t a coward. She might not have unlocked her lycanthrope form, but she would not tuck her tail like a frightened puppy, either. Viktor had saved her many times before, and today, she was saving him. At any cost.
The boiling burner caught her attention. She turned it off and began to devise a plan. After deliberating for a few minutes, she still didn’t have any idea how to stand up against two hundred armed soldiers. She would have prayed, but she didn’t even know which god to pray to for help…
Her ears caught a clicking sound. The door to the laboratory opened, and a stranger walked in, moving for all intents and purposes as though he was taking a casual stroll through his own home. He wore no military clothing – only jeans, sneakers, and a dark blue T-shirt – and had no weapons, yet Alex’s eyes still widened.
The man closed the door behind him and fixed his amber eyes on Alex, who pressed her back against the lab bench, wonderingif she knew him from somewhere.
And what was he doing in her laboratory? Well,technically,the lab belonged to Viktor, but he hadn’t been here for a while.
She continued to shrink into her white lab coat as the man inched closer. He was as tall as Viktor, if not taller. He had a lean but toned body, sinewy muscles bulging from the sleeves of his T-shirt, with prominent veins beneath his skin.
He stopped in front of her. “Hello, Alex.”
Alex jumped back, bumping into the lab bench. His voice was pleasant, matching the rest of him – especially the strong jawline and high cheekbones that shaped his oval face. Pale skin contrasted with short, dark hair, hinting that he hadn’t seen the sun in years. Though his equally dark eyebrows lent him a serious, focused look, a playful glimmer shone in his amber eyes.
A small smile tugged at his lips. “Alex Volk, I expected you to be tougher.”
She blinked. “Tougher?”
“Braver. Forgive me, I’ve been trying to learn modern speech over the past few weeks, but I’m not sure I’ve quite grasped it.”
Alex relaxed slightly. Whoever this man was, he didn’t sound threatening. Her instincts weren’t warning her to be cautious around him. “Who are you?”
He frowned. “Are you really asking?”
“Yes,really.”
“I expected you to recognise me, given how much time we spent together.”
“Wehave spent time together?”
“Well, I wasn’t quite as handsome back then…”
Alex grabbed the knife she’d used to remove the stems from the plants for her potion. Raising the blade, she shouted, “Enough games! You have three seconds to explain who you are, or I’ll use your guts for my next potion.”
He laughed. “That’s the spirit I was hoping for!”
The knife flew from Alex’s hand, embedding itself in the opposite wall. Her breath caught in her throat. What had just happened?!
The man’s expression became serious. “They call me the Horned God. You and your friends abducted me from the Temple of the Dead Immortals, where I had been imprisoned for centuries. Fate always knows what it’s doing, doesn’t it?”
“You!” Alex squinted.“You’rethe Horned God? No, no. That’s not possible. The mummy was supposed to be sacrificed to the Horned God, and even if you were that mummy, there’s no way you could be… the Horned God!”
“One of you was going to be killed and sacrificed. To me. They offer me living and dead flesh as a tribute to the two states between which I exist. And as a way to keep me between these two states. But because the sacrifice was interrupted”—he shrugged—“I awoke.”
