Heart of Re
an excerpt

Chapter 1
Leaning against the railing and gazing at the peaceful water below, I took a bite of my apple. The chap that gazed back at me from the water was a happy, but slightly disheveled looking fellow. I combed my short, dark hair back into place as best I could with the fingers of my left hand, but nothing short of a long, hot shower was going to help.
After a season under the Cairo sun, my hazel eyes looked a bit bluer against my tanned skin and khaki shirt, my hair a tinge lighter. I frowned as I recognized a bit of my father in that reflection – Admiral Miles Alexander Wolfe, tall, dark and formidable as hell on the devil’s worst day. We hadn’t spoken in six years, not since I’d resigned my commission and left the Space Service – or abandoned my command, my duties and my Emperor, as Father would have put it.
Today that life all seemed like a very long, very bad dream. I was a galactic archeologist now, one of the most respected in my discipline. Most people would be proud of a son that had managed two very diverse, but successful careers by age 36, but not Admiral Wolfe. Success in my chosen field would never be good enough. His view would always be that I had given up command of a battle cruiser to play in the dirt. As far as the Admiral was concerned, the ancient past was dead and unimportant which made the study of it completely useless – which in his eyes made me completely useless. Chasing pirates on the fringes, and knocking Tholusian heads on the borders of the Imperium is what a Wolfe should be doing.
With a glower at my reflection, I tossed a pebble into the lake and watched me/him dissolve. I have the life I want, Admiral; the life you drug me away from to play your games. If you choose not to be a part of it, so be it.
I turned my gaze pointedly away from the rippling pool and the ghosts within.
Things were going very well for me just now and I wasn’t about to let “the Admiral,” spoil it for me. My dig season in Egypt was almost up, but what a season! My team had discovered an underground temple to Hapy, god of the Nile. Filled in and hidden by the sands of time, an untouched, ancient site in Egypt was a rare prize indeed, and mine had been a royal gem.
If I tried, I could picture the temple in its heyday – could hear the reveling worshipers come to show devotion to their provider, the Nile. During the annual festivals held here, people would throw both treasure and trinkets into the sacred pool below. We’d discovered gold and jewels and jars filled with the bounty of the harvest.
The cavern itself was a masterpiece of ancient art. The walls bore a riot of colorful paintings depicting Hapy and the symbols of abundance the river provided. Row after row of carved hieroglyphics detailed the people’s devotion to their god, and I had carefully documented, translated and preserved each word and image.
For a change, I’d been left to work in peace with no interference from tourists, nosy press, or my “benefactors.” In fact, it was almost too quiet. Life doesn’t usually run this smooth for Nikolas Sebastian Wolfe. Something was bound to come along, and bollocks it up.
Before I could close my teeth on my apple again, it was plucked from my grasp.
I turned with a protest poised on my lips, but it died unspoken in my throat at the sight of the tall, attractive woman who stood behind me, her mouth quirked in a mischievous grin.
I knew it had been too bloody quiet. “Hi, Nikky.”
Her sudden appearance had stunned me speechless, but the dreaded “Nikky” snapped me out of my stupor as effectively as a two-by-four to the chin.
“No, Morgan,” I said, keeping my voice level with an effort.
“No?” she questioned, pouting. “I didn’t even get the chance to ask you anything.” She took a bite of my apple, wiping away a trail of juice that dribbled from her full lips. I tore my gaze from that mouth with an effort.
“The question is irrelevant,” I shot back, attempting to reclaim my lunch without success as she turned away and held it protectively against her, “the answer will still be no.”
“You may change your mind once you hear what I have to say,” she tempted, waving the apple under my nose like some modern day Eve.
I looked uncomfortably around for lurking serpents before I snatched it from her grip and tossed it overhanded into a nearby rubbish bin, then I pinned her blue eyes with mine. “I’m busy, Morgan. Go away. Go far, far away.”
Ignoring the warning tone in my voice, she tucked a loose, golden-brown curl behind her ear and presented me with her best pout. “I’ve found an important piece of our puzzle, but I can’t do this alone. I need you, Nikky.”
I flinched. There was that repellent appellation again; the name grated across my senses like broken glass on bare flesh. I knew exactly what she was doing – she was trying to irritate me in the hope that I would snap and grab her – my resolve had always been weakest when she was in my arms.
I clenched my hands tightly at my sides; there was no way in hell I was going to give her the satisfaction.
“You need my medallion,” I corrected, feeling the cold weight of it safe and sound beneath my dusty shirt.
I’d found the gold circle, with its aqua crystal eye on one of my digs in the Peten region of Guatemala. The temple had been devoted to Horus, the Egyptian sky god. Given sufficient time, I knew I could have learned more from those ruins, unfortunately, I’d had to make a precipitate departure as the place had come crashing down around me. It had been a small temple, just a few rooms, really, but it had contained some of the most cunningly lethal traps I’d ever seen built in the ancient world. In the end, the risk had been well worth it. The find was the stir of the archeological community – an Egyptian temple nestled inside a Mayan ruin. Where had it come from? Who built it? Why was it there? I’d never found the answers to those questions and they burned me still, but for the woman who stood before me, the medallion and what it purportedly led to had become a raging obsession.
On that dig, Morgan Elizabeth Kincaid had come into my life, and if I would’ve had the slightest inkling what a mess she’d make of it, I would have run screaming in the other direction. She was beautiful and brilliant, but she was also irresponsible, impulsive, and as wildly unpredictable as an entire ship load of Drou pirates.
Some days I truly wish I’d left the bloody damned medallion buried in the jungle where it belonged. This, it appeared, was going to be one of those days.
I tensed as Morgan sauntered closer and gazed up at me with luminous blue eyes.
If she had a tail, it would be twitching.
“But I need you too, Nikky.” She traced the line of my jaw with her fingertips. “This time we’ll find it. This time it will be different.” Her nose was just inches from my own as she stood on her toes and leant into me. I could smell the sweet perfume of her hair; could feel her warm breath against my throat. She was as beautiful and persuasive as ever. “Morgan,” I whispered, oh, so sweetly.
“Yes, Nikky darling,” she purred back, her eyes alight with triumph.
“Do not, call me Nikky.”
In one swift motion, I picked her up and tossed her over the railing into the lake below. She hit the water with a satisfying squeal, and I grinned – it was quite cold.
It might have been petty, but I savored my revenge none the less. Dusting off my hands, I turned my back on her sputters of outrage and headed up the tunnel, passing one of my astonished diggers as I went. He hurriedly caught up to me.
“Effendi?”
“Yes, Hassan.”
“Why you throw sitt into lake?” he asked.
“She may look like a lady, Hassan, but don’t trust your eyes,” I cautioned. “She’s really an afreet, an evil temptress.”
His dark brows drew together. “How do you know these things, Effendi?”
“Through pain of experience, Hassan,” I replied. “She’s my ex-wife. If you see her coming, I strongly advise you to run in the opposite direction, or she might whisk you off to some far corner of the universe in search of treasure and glory.”
Now Hassan looked really confused, and a little frightened. He certainly was superstitious for a chap who spent most of his time digging in graveyards.
“What did the demon sitt want, Effendi?” he whispered, as if afraid she might hear.
I patted the gold medallion beneath my shirt. I knew exactly what she wanted, and she wasn’t getting it – or me.
“She’s singing the same old siren song, Hassan, but this time, I’m not listening. This time she’s not dragging me away from a legitimate dig on some wild goose chase after a half-remembered legend that probably never really existed in the first place!” I paused for breath. “Oh no. She is not doing it to me this time.” I declared, unsure if it was Hassan or myself I was trying most to convince.
As we headed out of the cavern, Morgan’s outraged squeal of, “Nikky!” echoed after us. Hassan went skittering past me, dark eyes wide with alarm.
Whistling a jaunty tune, I strolled after him – secure in the knowledge that I had finally gotten the upper hand.