Free The Concubine's Tale by Jennifer Colgan

you with injury, and thus you complied with his demands. He tells me you ran away from the temple out of shame, unable to bear the possibility that the child of someone other than your master might grow in your womb.”
    Nayari kept her eyes averted. Her heart ached for Khanu, to have shamed himself with such a terrible confession in order to spare her Ammonptah’s wrath.
    Her struggle had dislodged the shoulder of her dress again, exposing her breast, the nipple taut with fear. To her disgust, she felt the arousal of the warrior behind her, pressing against the curve of her bottom. She arched away from him, bile rising in her throat.
    “You’ve only to corroborate his story, Nayari. Tell me he violated you, and I’ll set you free. I’ll give you to the house of my nephew, who would be glad of a concubine for himself, even one so misused as you have been.”
    “What of Khanu?” The question slipped out unbidden. No matter what Nayari said to Ammonptah, there would be no mercy for her brave warrior.
    “He’ll die quickly or slowly, depending upon your answer. Confess his crime to me, and I will see that his entrails are fed to the dogs this evening. Protect him, and I’ll think of a more fitting punishment for a man who would betray his king.”
    “You are not pharaoh, and you will never be.” Nayari spat the words, consumed with hatred for the man she’d once thought of as her benefactor.
    Ammonptah’s vicious slap snapped her head to the side. The sting of it felt like acid against the delicate skin of her cheek.
    “I will be pharaoh. But your disloyalty has cost me. Benak-Ra will not want you now that a common servant has taken his pleasure with you. I will have to make another payment in your stead.”
    Nayari only stared defiantly. Tears stung her eyes at the pain Ammonptah had inflicted, but she held her master’s gaze. Secure in the knowledge that both she and Khanu would die no matter what, she denounced her loyalty to the magistrate and spat at his sandaled feet.
    Rather than slapping her again, he laughed. “Take her to the cart. I tire of this.”
    The warrior dragged Nayari from the cave and threw her bodily into the back of the oxen cart. He climbed in after her and secured her wrists together with a leather thong. Musky darkness closed over her when he drew a tightly woven mat across her body. She lay there, sweltering, her hands tingling and her body aching with misery.
    Somewhere along the journey back to Coptos, she fainted in the overwhelming heat, and her fevered dreams turned to Khanu and the precious life they might have created together.

    Cait’s torpor began to lift as she told the rest of the story from Layton’s journal.
    Though just as compelling as the account contained in the scroll fragment, she’d often wondered about the veracity of what came next. It seemed too fantastic, even for the mystery-shrouded world of ancient Egypt.
    Beside her, Grant leaned on one elbow, his gorgeous eyes intent. He seemed to be drinking in every word. “Tell me Khanu rescued her,” he prompted, then he induced an electric shiver in her when he ran one hand over the curve of her hip.
    She shook her head sadly, wishing the details were different. “He’d already been captured by Ammonptah’s soldiers, some of whom he had counted as friends only a few days before. Layton speculated that Khanu attempted to kill Ammonptah on the advice of Set and that some of the magistrate’s own men were loyal to Seti and tried to help. Those who were not discovered the plan after Khanu confessed his true story to a trusted few. Since none dared reveal themselves, no one could help the lovers, who were taken back to Coptos and bound to stakes on opposite sides of a windowless temple room. What happened next is largely speculation, but—”
    Grant lowered his gaze. “Ammonptah tortured them to death, no doubt.”
    “Worse.” Cait closed her eyes, trying to block out the more lurid details of the tale Layton