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Goddess, Spellbound
Adult Coloring Pages
to complement
Goddess, Spellbound
Book 3 of The Goddess Connection
Copyright © 2017 by Cate Masters
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These adult coloring pages are intended
for anyone who enjoys Egyptian mythology
and legend as I do.
GODDESS, SPELLBOUND
Chapter One
Nothing irritated Sandy Whitaker more than an uncooperative mummy. Especially when said mummy was part of the most important exhibit of her career as museum curator.
She threw the full force of her weight—admittedly, not the most effective leverage—into shoving the heavy table back to its original spot. The position she’d calculated as the optimum angle for visitors to view within the glass-encased display, reserved for the most sensitive and highly prized pieces. She’d carefully arranged every item, but somehow, the damn mummy had moved. For the second freaking time.
“Good thing I hold you in such high regard. Or else”—her scolding lost momentum when she stepped closer to the warrior— “you and I would have a serious problem.” Prophetic words. Or just a statement of fact, since her obsession with him had distracted her from the moment he’d arrived. His robust appearance had puzzled the archaeologists who’d discovered him, but more than that captivated Sandy. The strong line of his jaw. Large, wide-set eyes. The downward slant of his thick brows, a seriousness balanced by the curve of his lips, not to mention other curves. Thanks to his sleeveless, knee-length tunic, she had a glimpse of his chiseled calf muscles, and ripped biceps. Her imagination filled in the rest.
Yep, fantasies about a mummy tipped the scales toward the strange-to-bizarre category, yet she didn’t think of him as the mummified remains of an ancient Egyptian warrior. His presence radiated amazing strength and filled the enclosure.
Maybe that was her problem. Too much hanging around old artifacts, dead people included, and not enough getting out among the living, breathing types. Which reminded her… a whole bunch of the latter sort would show up for the opening. Every detail had to be perfect. She’d decided to place the mummy inside the glass enclosure because of the ability to better control temperature and humidity and its location away from exposure to sunlight—and people. Not even the security guard had a key to this space. So how the hell had the mummy moved?
“You have the best spot in the room, so stop messing around.” One more nudge, then she stood back to examine her work, arms folded across her chest. Nope, not quite right. She wanted people to share her thrill and awe at being able to view at close range an object originating from thousands of years ago.
Though her tiny university-affiliated museum generally went ignored in Philadelphia, this time would be different. A world-class exhibit would propel them into the spotlight. Finally, she might get her dream job of curating in the major leagues. Maybe even—her breath stilled—The Metropolitan Museum.
She stood beside the warrior and wagged her finger. “They won’t be amazed by your awesomeness unless you stay where I put you.”
Since the shipment had arrived, the mummy had been nothing but trouble, and that was beside his tendency to steal her focus, to stop her dead in her tracks to stare at his stunning features.
No matter how many times she glanced at him, her reaction was always the same: wow. Okay, sometimes double wow. Whoever mummified Iker must have worked magic with embalming fluids. Talk about your Pyramid Text spells—someone must have cast a doozy of a spell on him. His skin tone appeared almost healthy, with solid tissue beneath. If she believed in fairy tales, she’d glide across the room to him, lean over him and touch her lips to his to awaken him.
“They sure put a lot of care into the process.” She’d never seen such a remarkable specimen. Better preserved than Egyptian royalty, which made it even more odd. This warrior had held a high rank during Pharaoh Hatshepsut’s reign, but nowhere near that of the ruling class.
At a swoosh from behind, Sandy whirled. “Oh, it’s you.” Not her warmest greeting for an employee, but an involuntary shudder ran through her, and she was pretty certain not from relief. Howie Fisher, her latest—and most disconcerting—intern stood in the entryway. His anti-social behavior gave her the willies. And it wasn’t the first time the strange noise sounded, with Howie appearing soon after.
“Chatting up the warrior again?” Howie approached on soundless footsteps.
For about the thousandth time, she quashed the impulse to ask where he bought his shoes. Maybe she could buy him a pair with hard heels. Or bells. Anything to give her advance warning. Since she’d first met him, standing within twenty feet of Howie caused her spine to tingle as if Tasered, her senses to heighten in alert. Silly, she knew, but she couldn’t prevent the response from happening over and over. Firing him without any actual cause would land her in deeper trouble, so she countered anxiety by trying to be sympathetic to the poor guy. Girls his age probably avoided him even more than Sandy did.
A nervous laugh escaped. “I’d beg if I thought the mummy would actually pay attention.” So what if she talked to the long-dead warrior? Lying there, the mummy might be some guy sleeping off a night on the town, except he didn’t snore. His body appeared entirely made of muscle, no spare bit, all parts of him crafted for endurance and strength. With his strong jaw, his wide-set eyes and mouth made for kissing, if he were alive today, he’d be a Hollywood box office sensation.
Examining the warrior, Howie’s beaded eyes turned to slits. “So he moved again.”
Not a question, as if Howie already knew the mummy would. And Howie called the mummy ‘he’, while most associates referred to mummified remains as ‘it’. She made an effort not to react, but pointed instead. “Grab the other end, please? We need to tilt the table back.”
The intern slid to the far corner and lifted the heavy glass case as if it were Tupperware. “The same thing happened again in London, you know.”
“With the statue of the goddess Bastet?” Surprise relaxed her muscles and the case slipped in her grasp, but she caught herself and righted it. “That shifted again too?” Weird.
A rare, and brief, smile from Howie. “Yes. It shifted.”
Weird, too, that he found the word funny. The fact that he found it amusing made it less so for her. “That makes what, three times now?”
“Four,” he corrected. “And another three Bastet statues doing the same in London, Paris, and San Diego. And those are only the ones people have reported.” He stepped back, eyeing the exhibit.
No, not the entire display. Howie focused on the mummy’s face. His expression grew unreadable except for the hard determination evident in his soft jaw line.
Disconcerting? Wrong adjective for the intern. She meant disturbing. Everything about Howie, from his almost colorless eyes, set in an unnaturally pale face, to his willowy stature and movements that reminded her of seaweed in a current.
She tried to keep her tone light. “I’m glad you’re keeping up with news in the archaeological world.” Showing a little more interest than he had when he arrived a few weeks ago. She’d nearly passed him over because of his blasé attitude. With no other applicants, and the most important display of her career ahead, she couldn’t afford not to accept his applicatio
n.
His cheek flinched, possibly his attempt at a grin. “Hard to miss it on the Internet. Some claim the artifacts turn to face this country. Roughly the northeastern section of America.”
The way Howie phrased it, he might not have grown up in Arizona, as his resume stated. Still part of the continental United States, sweetie. “Conspiracy theorists love to speculate on pretty much anything.”
“You don’t find it an odd coincidence?”
Another grating thing about him, his sibilant lisp. Any word with a soft ‘c’ or an ‘s’ became a hiss in his pronunciation. She waved off him, plus her negative thoughts. “At the next Big Foot sighting or UFO passing, they’ll forget all about it.”
A partial nod, and Howie’s mouth tightened as he stared at the section of the exhibit opposite them. “That mummy dude doesn’t belong here. He doesn’t fit in with the rest of this stuff.”
Stuff? Sandy’s fingers tightened around the pen she held instead of his long, skinny neck. “You’re right. But Iker is another extremely rare find. He was one of the warriors who came into social prominence following Egypt’s civil wars for their role in reunifying Egypt after a long civil conflict. He probably enjoyed great wealth and