Free The Vampire King by Heather Killough-Walden Page A

An anticipatory smile crossed his handsome features, exposing his deadly fangs.
    *****
    Ramses turned in the rare solitude of his empty quarters and caught his own reflection in the mirror against the opposite wall. It had been a long time since he’d truly looked upon himself. There were no mirrors in the desert, no pools of water to faithfully cast your image back to you.
    And he’d been sleeping.
    With slow, unnatural grace, Ramses crossed the room until he stood before the tall looking glass. Even at its length, it barely encompassed his impressive height. He stared into the mirror – and the handsome, dark-haired image of Amon, the god of gods, gazed back at him through ancient, fathomless eyes.
    Ramses raised his arms at his sides. Wrapped around each generous bicep was a string of black tattooed hieroglyphs, archaic and potent. They were well visible just beneath the edges of the short-sleeved shirt he currently wore. They labeled him for who and what he was.
    With slow deliberation, he ran his left hand over the markings on his right arm. At his touch, they lit up one at a time. He watched them glow for a moment, reminding him of older, better days, and then they slowly faded back into deep, dark black.
    Once more, he turned to the mirror and took in his reflection. It was a mortal reflection. He always took this form when he walked the Earth. With the form came all of the current knowledge of the human race – its cultures, its languages, its technologies. Never before had so much information hit him so hard, so fast. This day and age was new indeed.
    Ramses’ keen gaze trailed over the figure in the mirror, taking in the simple modern garb he wore of a black shirt and jeans and the heavy boots that would have been so uncomfortable in the desert. It had been a very long time since he’d felt the thickness of human muscle and the hardness of mortal bone encasing his form. It was always uncomfortable at first, a touch smothering. But in time, he grew accustomed to the form and could even appreciate some of its attributes.
    Mortal women certainly appreciated it.
    Ramses thought of this now and frowned. There were several female members in the organization he had recently subjugated. They were strong and fast and unafraid. It pleased Ramses that the women of this age seemed more readily capable of recognizing their inherent potential. It had not always been so, and eons ago, he had wondered whether things would ever change.
    But it was not these women who had drawn him to the waking world. They were not why he was here.
    He was here for her .
    Amunet.
    He could feel her somewhere out there. He could hear her heartbeat; it was faint, barely there. Each pulse encompassed a day and a night, so slow as to be nearly nonexistent. She was weak, but she was real and awake, and if it was the last thing Amon ever did, he would find her.
    Ramses Amon , he thought. Ramses . It was the name he took in this form. It was nearly as ancient as he was. It suited him.
    Behind him, there was a tentative knock on his door. Ramses glanced over his shoulder. He waited a moment and then slowly turned to face the door. “Come,” he said softly. It was a voice that encompassed one-one-hundredth the power it was capable of, but humans were sensitive and he had no wish to harm or frighten them.
    The door opened to emit one of the very women he had just been thinking of. She was very young; perhaps only nineteen or twenty human years.
    “Sir?” she asked, obviously unsure as to whether she should be intruding on his privacy. To her thinking, Ramses was her superior officer. He was new in this position, but had more than proven his right to own it. In that, despite his desires, he had succeeded in scaring the mortals around him to some extent anyway.
    “Yes?” he replied, gesturing for her to enter all the way and have a seat on one of the large over-stuffed chairs inside.
    She blushed a little, as all women did in his presence, and