What happens when a quartet of immortals try to defend a star-crossed pair of lovers from a vengeful demon?

In this thrilling Hidden Empire romp, Fae noblewoman Louisa Carstairs and her vampire knight husband Henry are celebrating a successful archaeological dig when they’re interrupted by the arrival of Henry’s globetrotting Maker Countess Fyodora Korelev and her fierce dragon-shifter mate Callum Brown.

But Fyodora hasn’t crossed continents for a social call.

A brilliant young scholar is being hunted by a malevolent smoke demon, and the only way to save him is to find the soulmate he lost in another lifetime—a beautiful nymph who just happens to be descended from the goddess of the Nile.

Now the four immortal adventurers must race through the ancient temples and forgotten tombs of Luxor as they search for the missing nymph. Between sarcastic banter, supernatural mayhem, and enough romantic heat to rival the desert sun, Louisa and Henry soon discover that theirs isn’t the only legendary love in the sands of Egypt.

Excerpt available here.

• Paranormal Romance, Historical Romance
• Word Count: 30,000
• Heat Level: 4
• Published By: Belaurient Press

Books in the Hidden Empire series:

• Shadow of the Swan
  
• The Crimson and the Black

Novellas and Short Stories in the Hidden Empire series:

• A Gentle Fall of Snow
• Goddess of the Nile

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Where to Buy

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Cairo, 1896

Lady Louisa Carstairs (née Wallingford) cursed under her breath in a manner that would have appalled the somewhat sodden British aristocrats and other expatriates at Cairo’s Wilshire Club. The cause of her cursing was the bills spread out in front of her, the last costs of her Uncle Charles’s recent dig. As his assistant, it was her task to reconcile them against the myriad scraps of paper with her uncle’s dreadful handwriting on them that passed for his records system.

At least there’s more than enough money to pay for everything. That was thanks in part to her generous husband Henry, but Uncle Charles’s much-improved reputation among Egyptologists and their rich sponsors had also helped greatly. And the dig had been fabulously successful, revealing the tomb of the Seventeenth Dynasty vizier (and time walker, as it turned out) Amhemmet. She could still remember the excitement of opening the tomb, followed by the shock of finding an anachronistic statue of a young man with European features.

Not to mention its other features. The statue had boasted an impressively erect male member, and its outstretched hand offered a strange pair of smoked spectacles with the words “Ray-Ban” embossed on the temples. She wondered where—and when—Amhemnet had found them. It’s rather obvious what Ray-Ban means, but what are those odd frames made of? Some sort of black tortoiseshell?

It was a mystery for another day. For the moment, she needed to focus on finances. She flicked her fingers and a green pasteboard ledger floated over to her from a bookcase. Levitation was one of the abilities she had received almost a year ago after dying at the hands of a mad Fae noble known as the Swan King and being resurrected as a full Fae herself. Although right now I’d trade it for the ability to decipher Uncle Charles’s handwriting.

Before she could begin making entries, a knock sounded at the study door. “Come in,” she called.

Sir Henry Carstairs peered around the door’s edge. “Good morning, dearest. Are you terribly busy?”

She closed the ledger. “Nothing that can’t wait.”

“Good. I’ve just received word that we’re about to have visitors.” He held up the beige paper of a telegram. “Fyodora has been expelled from England and is on her way here.”

“Expelled?” Countess Fyodora Korelev was her vampire husband’s Maker, as well as a peripatetic world traveler. But they’d had no warning that she was on her way to Cairo. “What on earth did she do to get expelled?”

“It seems she got into a bit of a scrape with Tate and the ministry,” her husband said wryly. Behind its deliberately opaque title, the Ministry of Antiquaries was responsible for all supernatural entities and magic users within the British Empire. Founded by Henry in Tudor times, he had guided it over the centuries until last year’s incident with the Swan King had prompted him to retire and turn over the reins to Lord Ishmael Tate. “I already received a telegram from him this morning. Fyodora had decided to involve herself with one of their cases. Being herself, she annoyed him to the point where he wanted to banish her permanently.” He rolled his eyes. “Unfortunately for Tate, the case involved rescuing kidnapped selkie girls and was brought to a successful conclusion with her help, so a year’s exclusion was the only punishment he could administer.”

Louisa bit her lips to hide a smile. The seal shapeshifters were members of Faerie, and the last thing Lord Tate wanted to do was offend the powerful Fae. “I see. How long will Fyodora be here?”

“I’m not sure. Oh, and she’s bringing someone with her, a dragon shifter by the name of Callum Brown.” Henry’s thick eyebrows lowered. “It seems that they’re mates.”

That came as more of a shock than the news of Fyodora’s arrival. Since her marriage to Henry, Louisa had learned much about the magical beings known as Folk (differentiated from human magicians, who were known as Practitioners). Vampires were classified as Folk, as were Fae and shifters, and the last group often had soul mates to whom they would pledge eternal love and fidelity. It was difficult to imagine Fyodora as a shifter’s mate; the beautiful vampiress was a sensual creature who would eagerly bed anyone who took her fancy. “I never got the impression that Fyodora was of a mind to settle down with anyone,” she said cautiously. “Much less a dragon shifter.”

“We’ll find out more when she gets here, I suppose. She said she’d be arriving on the afternoon steamship. I’ll have Nura prepare the suite down the hall from ours, and Masur can start stocking up on extra blood.”

If Fyodora was going to be in Egypt… “Did you ever send her the sketches I made of the statue?”

“I did,” Henry sighed. “She’ll insist on seeing it, won’t she?”

“Most likely. We’ll have to plan an excursion to its hiding place.” The rest of the tomb’s contents had been turned over to local officials, much to the annoyance of Uncle Charles’s British colleagues and the delight of his Egyptian ones, but they’d decided to hide the statue in a remote location near the Valley of the Kings. Quite apart from the fact that its erection was likely to cause widespread outrage if it were ever to be put on display, the sheer anachronism of the piece would cast a shadow over her uncle’s dig. No one outside of the ministry would ever believe that Amhemmet possessed the ability to travel through time; it would make far more sense to call the tomb a forgery and be done with it.

The statue truly is impressive, however, and not only because of its endowment. It would be entertaining to hear Fyodora’s ribald commentary on it, and a trip down the Nile to Luxor could be pleasant.

Although privacy will be at a premium. It struck Louisa that Henry looked very handsome in his crisp tropical linen suit, dark hair brushed back neatly from his long face. A pulse of desire trickled sweetly through her and she rose from her chair, smoothing her skirts. “It occurs to me that once Fyodora and her dragon mate are here we’ll be quite busy entertaining them,” she said, allowing a little purr into her voice. “Perhaps we should take advantage of our free time while we have it?”

His teal eyes lit up with interest. “And what would you care to do, dearest?” he said, voice dropping into the low, rumbling timbre that she adored, especially when it was growled into her ear as he made love to her.

She rounded the desk and walked into his arms, twining her own around his neck. “I was thinking we could return to our room for an hour or so and find something to do there,” she said playfully.

He grimaced. “Unfortunately, Nura is currently cleaning the room, and the bed has been quite stripped.”

“Oh.” She tried to quell her disappointment. “Well, it was just a thought—”

“A capital one, and we shouldn’t discard it so easily.” His hands cupped her bottom, fabric rustling against his palms. She squeaked as he lifted her easily, setting her down on her deck. “Especially since we do have this most private study.”