Read Seti's Heart for Free Online Page B

now.”

    “Civilized? How is covering yourselves with cloth from neck to ankle when it is not needed for protection from the elements a mark of progress? It seems idiotic to me, as if your people wish to keep secret the fact that they have genitals.”

    Logan blinked. “Point taken, but you still can’t do it. You’d be arrested before you got ten feet from the building.”

    Seti rolled his eyes. “As you wish. Secure clothing for me if you must, but hurry. I wish to shake the dust of this place from my feet as soon as possible.”

    “Do I look like your personal valet?”

    “My apologies,” Seti replied sarcastically. “We will sit here until your Dr. Perry returns. Then you can explain to him how his precious sarcophagus was destroyed, and that the naked man is, in fact, the mummy he has so jealously guarded these past fifty years.”

    Logan opened his mouth to retort, but closed it again with an audible clack. His head swiveled, looking back and forth between Seti, sitting regally before him in all of his naked glory, and the ruins of the Vault.

    Shit. Seti is right. Perry will never believe me. One look at the mess in the basement and Perry will have me spitted and roasting in courtroom hell. Breaking and entering. Vandalism. Grand Theft. The possible charges loomed up before Logan’s eyes in big, flaming red letters. He could already hear the prison cell door slamming shut and his life as a free citizen saying goodbye for the next ten or twenty years.

    “Wait here,” Logan ordered, pointing a finger at Seti. “Don’t move, and don’t touch anything. I’ll be right back.” Before Seti could say a word to the contrary, Logan raced off.

    He took the stairs two at a time, not wanting to waste a moment waiting for an elevator that was notoriously slow and cranky. Logan flew up the four flights of stairs, reaching the Lobby level of the Museum out of breath, but in record time.

    He threaded his way against the flow of the steady stream of visitors, entering the Museum gift shop. Logan grabbed a black t-shirt that read, appropriately enough, “The Dead Come Alive at the National Museum of Natural History,” and a pair of matching sweat pants with the logo of the Museum embroidered at the hip. A pair of flip-flops completed his purchase, which he charged to the last of his charge cards that miraculously still had credit available. He grabbed the clothing from the cashier without waiting for either a receipt or a bag, returning to the basement praying that Seti had listened and was still there waiting for him.

    He was, although he looked less than happy about having been made to wait. His dark chocolate eyes narrowed as Logan approached, and the air took on a decidedly frosty chill.

    Tough titties, Logan thought. This superiority thing Seti had going was starting to get on Logan’s nerves. He thrust the shirt, pants, and sandals at Seti with a barked order to get dressed. “Hurry up,” he said. “I’ve got to get you out of here before Perry comes back.”

    Seti stared at the clothes in his hands as if he’d never seen such things before. With a start, Logan realized that he probably hadn’t. All facts pointed to Seti having spent the last five thousand years in a box, Logan reminded himself. “I could hear everything that went on around me,” Seti had said. Hear, but not see.

    Logan sighed, reaching for the t-shirt. “Let me help you,” he offered, fitting the shirt over Seti’s head. “Your arms go in the smaller holes.”

    Within a few moments, Seti was dressed, looking like any one of a thousand tourists who visited the Museum each week. Except that Seti’s phenomenal body made the cheap t-shirt and sweat pants look as good as if they were tailored Armani. He wore them with grace and ease, as if he’d been born to them.

    Damn it. Logan realized that he could dress Seti in a potato sack and the man would still look like a million bucks. He was going to draw attention, like it or