Free Dark Sins and Desert Sands by Stephanie Draven Page B

I’m here. It’s important that I speak with her.”
    “Maybe you can come back mañana, ” Isabel said, leaning provocatively across the desk to reach her calendar, briefly exposing her belly. “Let me write your name on her schedule.”
    Again, her sensuality shouldn’t have caught his attention. She had some powerful magic indeed if she could make anything stir inside him at all. This intrigued him because most of the old gods had lost all their powers altogether. Even the once great Osiris now lived amongst the mortals as a funeral director and Horus had become an ordinary airplane pilot. Unfortunately, Seth couldn’t even take pleasure in seeing his old rivals reduced to such circumstances; he feared becoming like them. It was bad enough that he’d been forgotten, but as long as wars were fought he still had power. There was just no one left to appreciate it anymore, no challenges for him, which was why he wanted his minion back….
    Just then, Layla appeared in the doorway to her office, startling him from his thoughts. If Seth had a heart, surely it would have seized in his chest at the sight of her. Layla looked drawn and pale, completely unsteady. But she wasn’t reacting to him. She didn’t remember him. Couldn’t remember him. He’d seen to that. He’d buried her pleasures and joys, her ability to know herself and be known by others. And along with those lost pleasures, he’d locked away her memories,too. Even so, it still angered him that she didn’t drop to her knees in supplication.
    Layla’s clothes angered him, too. The high-necked white blouse covered her well enough, but where was her modesty last night when she wore a red dress that exposed her arms and knees? When she actually kissed the cheek of that puny, pathetic, mortal man?
    Disloyal whore .
     
    “It’s fine, Isabel,” Layla said, motioning for the man to come into her office, where she’d been organizing her case files. She wanted to have everything in order when she broke the news to her patients that she couldn’t treat them anymore. Most of them would take it well, but she’d worked hard to earn Carson Tremblay’s trust. She knew the young artist was in the waiting room, and she needed a few more minutes before she could face him. She was sure that talking to Mr. Carey would be easier. He claimed to be affiliated with the government. Maybe he had something to do with the men she’d seen in the casino last night. She actually hoped so; maybe Mr. Carey could make some sense of it all.
    However, just as Mr. Carey took a seat, too rude even to remove his shades, Layla was struck by something terribly familiar in the way he folded his hands. She’d seen those hands before, those bony knuckles and elegantly cruel fingers. Somehow she was certain that if she touched them, his palms would be dry.
    She knew him.
    He was another man risen from the ashes of her past, and his dark presence frightened her to her core. Her heart seemed to have gone dead and dull in her chest,but she wasn’t ready to admit she didn’t remember him. “It’s good to see you again, Mr. Carey,” she said with as much bravado as she could muster.
    He took off his sunglasses and looked at her. He didn’t gaze at her with the gentle respect Nate Jaffe had always shown her. He didn’t even stare at her like Ray did—with primal rage and animal need. No, Seth Carey looked at her as if he had every right to let his eyes roam over her body. He took his time, his scrutiny harsh and judging, as if finding every line on her face and every unwanted spare inch of flesh on her hips. “How long has it been, Layla?”
    So they were on a first-name basis, then. Layla’s mind raced. They were colleagues, perhaps, but not friends. No. They couldn’t have been friends because everything about him made her want to run. She remembered that he’d asked her a question. How long had it been since they’d last seen one another? “At least two years ago…”
    He was