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"Go!" the handsome man roared.

The servant, or whoever he was, complied, and the woman went with him.

In the tunnel, they acted too soon. She repeated these words in her mind. And so the trap into which she'd fallen had not been meant for her. But still they had confined her. Unwanted yet imprisoned. It is not her, the man had said. So the trap had been set for a woman.

As she had fallen, she'd been sure it was Julie who had done it, who made the floor in the temple vanish from underfoot. That all of it had been a terrible ruse; Julie Stratford's sweetness, her repeated statements that she desired only to help. But she remembered now the startled look on Julie's face, the way she'd flung her arm out to stop Cleopatra from teetering and then falling through the hole.

It is not her...

Julie Stratford hadn't set the trap. These immortals had set the trap for Julie Stratford.

But why?

And more important, would she herself now be released?

Whoever these immortals were, better were her chances of escape if they didn't learn her identity.

The slat closed with a terrible grinding sound.

The darkness closed around her. She blessed it. It gave her time to think and breathe.

Her heightened senses couldn't detect departing footsteps. And so the door was incredibly thick, incredibly heavy. Designed to hold back the strength of one like herself.

But did they know she was immortal? Had they peeled back her eyelids while she'd been lost in her dream?

No telling...

The slat opened again. She jumped.

"Look at me," the man said.

She turned her face to the wall.

"Look at me!"

She refused.

"Did you hear those hounds? Do you hear the dogs, still barking at the sound of how you cried out? Obey me or I will set them loose upon you, right here in this cell."

"Then I will tear them limb from limb with my bare hands," she cried. It was the contempt in the man's voice that caused her to snap. And in doing so, she'd turned her face to the light and given him a perfect look at her blue eyes. A terrible mistake. For now he gazed at her with a wondrous expression. His smile looked triumphant.

Too late, she turned her face to the wall again.

"And so our trap may yield the wrong woman, but it has snared another immortal," the man said. "This is interesting. This is most interesting."

"Bring me your dogs and I shall do what I can to deepen their interest in me as well."

"They are as strong as you are. It should make for quite a spectacle. Do you fancy yourself a Roman gladiator? I watched many of them work in the Colosseum. You lack their build."

"They lacked my sharp eye."

He laughed.

But still, the thought of immortal, powerfully strong hounds descending upon her in this cell, it chilled her. But she couldn't display this feeling. Not to this strange being. This strange male who had sought to place Julie Stratford in this very cell, perhaps so he could menace her in just this way.

But he has the elixir! He must!

And how awful the choice seemed now. How impossible. To charm the cure to her ailment from this reluctant, vile captor, or to seek her escape so she might confront Ramses once more.