A decades-long war in Levant and Nubia. A Hebrew people rebelling against forced labor in the Valley of the Kings. A people on the brink of famine. Beautiful slave Mutnofret finds herself conscripted to the villain's side of the Book of Exodus, when Pharaoh returns from the battlefield to abruptly make her his Second Wife in Ascend, the first book of the ancient Egyptian erotic romance series, Beautiful, Doomed. Excerpt: Mutnofret placed her heavy basket of beans on her hip, her shell-tipped hair swinging over her shoulder. Then, she edged along the side of the golden chariot. She aimed to return to the kitchens, to deliver the hefty stack of beans to the chefs for supper. And she resolved that she wouldn't let this haughty noble disturb her. But as she walked alongside the chariot, brighter than the sand, brighter than rays from the sun god Ra, she felt a lean shadow envelop her. "Your Pharaoh has heard your insult, slave," it pronounced ominously over her. Oh no. Mutnofret stopped as she leaned forward to take another step, frozen like a hippopotamus under a boat. The Pharaoh led forces in Levant, in Nubia. It couldn't be. "Did you hear me, beautiful slave?" The shadow prompted again, demanding attention in an authoritative, but now amused, voice. Caught, Mutnofret forced her knees to bend, forced herself to place the heavy basket of beans alongside her, forced herself to bow - arms outstretched - until her nose touched the hard-packed dirt of the courtyard. She forced herself to bow like the slave she was. "Reverence for your Pharaoh becomes you more than mumbled insults, Mut the Beautiful," chipped the shadow, as he descended from his golden conveyance. She doubted that he could remember her, though he clearly he did. As the Pharaoh's shadow fell over her again, Mutnofret quivered, naked, vulnerable, before him. She felt ashamed that her status forbade her to look him in the eye, to challenge him with her gaze; but also, rage. "My lord," Mutnofret attempted to r