Granted by the Beast: A Steamy Paranormal Romance Spin on Beauty and the Beast (Conduit Series Book 4)

by Rebecca Hamilton

  “She introduced herself and told me I was her new master,” he said. “I told her I wasn’t looking for that kind of relationship, but she wouldn’t exactly take no for an answer. She informed me that the binding between genie and master could only be broken after the master uses up three wishes.” He ran a hand through his long hair. “I rattled off a few wishes quickly, but she told me that wasn’t how it worked. The wishes had to be true wishes. They had to be ‘worthy,’ whatever that means.”

  “It means that genies aren’t stage magicians,” Ramsey said. “They don’t perform for your amusement. Power as earth-shattering as the sort that runs through a true genie is to be treasured and is only released when the master is in dire need or asking for something that is truly from the heart. That’s what makes it worthy, and I’m guessing you figured that out already and used up all three worthy wishes.”

  “How did you know that?” Huntsman asked, narrowing his eyes at the man.

  “Because of what’s happening to you,” he said. “Genies are notorious tricksters. They’re known for telling half truths and for twisting things to benefit themselves. What your genie didn’t tell you, Huntsman, was that the reason the bond between the genie and the master is broken after the third wish, is because the master takes the genie’s place.”

  “What?” I swallowed hard. “So, you’re saying that the reason Huntsman was giving off that insane magical signature—”

  “Is the same reason he’s experiencing that ravenous hunger,” Ramsey said. “His body is changing. He’s turning into a genie.”

  Everything around me was spiralling out of control. First Abram was stolen away and transformed into something else. Now, Huntsman was turning into a genie. While Huntsman didn’t mean nearly as much to me as Abram did, I couldn’t escape one undeniable connection between the men: me.

  Huntsman held out a tall glass of water as he brushed a stray strand of hair from my face.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, as I took the glass from his hands.

  I took three gulps of water before realizing how slimy the glass felt and set the water aside, staring at the grease of the ribs that had transferred from Huntsman’s hands onto my glass.

  Huntsman pinned me with his gaze, as if I were the one who had just received the life-shattering news and not him. But I wasn’t the one whose body was turning on me. I wasn’t the one who was being changed into something against my will, into something I didn’t understand.

  “I’m fine,” I said, forcing a smile up at him. I grabbed a paper towel and wiped down the glass, as if having control over the grease would give me some kind of peace. God knows I didn’t have control over anything else in my life. “I should be the one asking you that question, you know. You’re the one who’s going through something horrible.”

  “I can deal with horrible, Charisse,” Huntsman said. “I’m familiar with horrible. She’s an old friend of mine. What I would rather not have to acquaint myself with is the idea that you’re going to be hurt by this.”

  “How could I not?” I asked, lying back on the couch and tossing my arm across my eyes. “You’re turning into a genie.”

  “A djinn,” Ramsey cut in, rummaging through books on the kitchen table with the eraser end of a pencil in his mouth. “A female genie is a djiniri and a male genie is called a djinn.”

  “I don’t give a damn what you call it,” I whined under my breath. “I don’t want to lose anyone to it, regardless of what it’s called.”

  “You don’t know that you will lose me, Charisse,” Huntsman said sternly. “Your mage assures me there is a way to undo this calamity, and even if there isn’t, we have no idea what happens after one is transformed into a djinn. Perhaps it will be a pleasant experience.”

  I practically snorted out a laugh, though truthfully, there was nothing funny about it. Had he already forgotten the events that led him here?

  “You’ll be sucked into the lamp you found on the ocean floor, where you’ll remain, suffering in the dark, until someone the lamp deems worthy finds you, releases you, and forces you to do their bidding, regardless of what it is,” I said, reminding him of what he’d told me. “If the person you’ll have to call master isn’t aware of the way this works, he or she will make three true wishes, and you’ll be freed so they can take your place. If they are, though, they’ll seal you back in the lamp after two wishes, where you’ll wait—again, suffering in the dark—until someone else worthy finds you and the process repeats itself. So, all in all, no, I doubt very much it’s going to be a pleasant experience.”

  Huntsman looked over at Ramsey, blinking hard at the man. “You couldn’t have just lied to save the woman’s feelings?”

  “I don’t want to be lied to,” I said, removing my arm from my eyes and sitting up. My hands curled around the edge of the couch cushion. “I want to be in this thing, damn it. I know I freaked out a little when I heard everything, but I’m here now, and I’m your best chance at getting around this.” I rose to my feet, and Huntsman did the same. “I’m powerful. Much more powerful than I was the last time you saw me.”

  “I’m aware,” Huntsman said. “Tales of your escapades and The Brothers’ dogged attempts at your life reached me even in the far-off kingdom of Alaska.”

  “So, I hate to break it to you. Alaska’s not so much a kingdom as a state, although I guess that’s not really the point,” I said. “What I’m getting at is: if there’s a spell that can fix this, I’m your girl.”

  “In a different life, perhaps you would have been,” Huntsman said, with a winsome smile across his nearly perfect face. Then, he went and ruined it by winking at me.

  I smiled as I gazed at the scar that now ran across his cheek.

  “How did you get that?” I asked, brushing my fingers across the blemish.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said, grabbing my hand and holding it in place on his cheek. “I will wear it proudly, as a warrior does.” He sighed, releasing me and taking a step back. “I always thought I would receive the honor of a noble death, that I would die in battle, that it would be worth it, that children would tell my stories through generations.” He shook his head. “I never imagined my tale would end as a magical slave to whoever a bottle deems as worthy to use me.”

  “It’s a lamp, not a bottle,” Ramsey interjected, still looking at the books. “And a spell’s not going to do it, I’m afraid. At least, not just a spell.”

  He turned the book in his hand around, laying it on the table turned toward us, and we crossed the room together to look at the pages as Ramsey continued.

  “These are stories of people going through what you’re going through now, Huntsman. The transformation always happens the same way.” He started pointing with a pencil to illustrations on the page as he spoke. “Once the bond is broken and the master becomes the djinn, he’s cast into a deep sleep. When he awakes from that sleep, he has three days before the bottle takes him in forever. Those three days are the only window we have. I’ve found exactly one mention of someone being able to undo the transformation once it’s started, and he did it within the three-day window, but only barely.”

  “How?” I asked, a flicker of hope lighting up in me as I turned to stare at him. “How did he do it?”

  “He found the genie whose place he was taking and forced her back inside the bottle. Because she had been in it before, the bottle recognized her and imprinted on her when the window closed.” Ramsey took off his glasses, cleaned them on the hem of his shirt, and stuck them back on. After clearing his throat, he continued. “But it won’t be easy. Huntsman might have the power signature of a djinn, but the actual powerset doesn’t transfer until the three-day window closes. Which means—”

  “The genie still has her magic,” I finished.

  “Right,” Ramsey said. “So all we have to do is find one of the most powerful creatures in the world and somehow force her to do something she’d probably kill us all for even suggesting.”

  “Simp
le enough,” I quipped, my stomach twisting into knots. “What are we going to do?”

  “The genie is so powerful that she borders on not human,” Ramsey said. “We have to find someone else who shares that similarity, someone whose powers might actually match that of the genie’s, someone so brazen and confident in his abilities that he’d actually rush into a room where he thought a genie was present and try to kill her without a second thought.”

  “Oh my God.” My heart raced. “You’re talking about—”

  “That’s right,” Ramsey said. “We have to bring in the big guns. It’s time we find Abram, and this time on purpose.”

  Finding Abram was what I had wanted for so long. But not for the purpose of risking his life and losing him all over again.

  Besides, how on earth were we going to convince him to help us after what had just happened between us?

  Chapter 8

  It had been an hour, and though we didn’t have much time to waste, I needed to be alone. That’s why I cut out of our apartment to go for a run. And that’s why I didn’t stop running, even after my lungs began to burn as much as my legs.

  After everything that had happened, the idea of pulling Abram into all of this was just too much. No, it was more than that. If I was being completely honest with myself, there was another reason I was having such a bad reaction to all of this, and it made me feel really damn guilty.

  But before I could deal with the wild emotions coursing through me, Ramsey walked up behind me in an alley that happened to be on the complete other side of town than where our home was.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  His voice easily carried over the clattering and clanging of the city and the hum of traffic just outside the alley. Ramsey was generally a soft-spoken man, so whenever he raised his voice, even if was only to be heard more easily, I knew he was serious and wanted my attention.

  “Trying to outrun all of this, I guess,” I said, shooting sparks of energy into an overturned dumpster—the same thing I had been doing for the last thirty minutes. “I messed up, Ramsey. All of it just got messed up.”

  “What do you mean?” He strolled closer, but paused before coming to my side. “I get this is a lot to take in. And I understand that Huntsman is in danger. But I honestly imagined the idea of finding Abram again would be the one bright spot in all of this. Isn’t that what you’ve wanted all this time?”

  I turned to the mage, a mix of anger, astonishment, and disappointment in the fact that, after everything, he didn’t know me better than that.

  “Is that what you thought?” I asked, scrunching my nose. Not because the alley smelled like rotten dumpster food—which it did—but because I was offended to the point of disgust by his question. “Seriously?”

  Ramsey held his hands out complacently. “He’s the love of your life, Char.”

  “You’re damn right he is.” I blinked back a near torrent of tears. “That’s why I was hoping he was out of all of this.”

  I cupped my face with my hands and breathed heavy into them, trying to stop myself from shaking.

  “I was hoping he had a different life,” I continued. “I used to lay awake at night, when the pain was so great that I was afraid it was going to rip me in half. When that happened, the only thing that made me feel like I was going to survive was the idea that he was better off than being stuck next to me and all the crazy that comes with my life. I thought that, without me, he might actually be able to have a good life. I thought he might be happy and free. I thought, if that happened, all of this garbage might actually be worth it and that I could fade away.”

  I dropped my hands along with the pretense that I’d ever be able to stop the tears from streaming down my face. While the tears fell uncontrollable, I did my best to ignore them and continued. “It wasn’t worth it, though. It was all for nothing. All this fight, all this sacrifice, and he’s still trapped here in the darkness. He’s no better off than he was before.”

  “Oh, Charisse,” Ramsey said, stepping over a puddle that might not actually be rainwater to come closer and wrap me in a comforting hug.

  His heartbeat thudded against my chest, and for the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel quite as alone. Even surrounded by people like we constantly were in a city like this one, I always felt like I was by myself. In a matter of seconds, Ramsey changed that.

  “Of course he’s already in the darkness if he’s without you,” Ramsey said quietly. “Don’t you get it, sweetie? You were always his light.” He pulled away from me, looking me deep in the eyes. “Now, come on. I know this is hard, and I know you feel like all of your work has boiled down to nothing, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. The truth is, you’re the only thing keeping this whole damn world from falling into decay. Now, we just have to figure out how to handle what’s next.”

  “That’s nice of you to say.” I sniffled and looked up at him as I wiped my eyes with my wrists.

  “It’s the truth, and there’s nothing nice about it,” Ramsey said. “When I met you, do you know I thought you were little more than a spoiled former model?”

  “That’s probably because your wife hated me,” I said, chuckling and thinking about Briar, my old nemesis and Ramsey’s beloved. “And because that’s pretty close to accurate.”

  “Briar had her own set of priorities back then,” the man said. “As she does now, and it breaks my heart that I can’t be with her.”

  “I’m so sorry about that.” A flash of guilt ran through me as I remembered the conversation I’d had with Ramsey, the one where he decided it was too dangerous to be with his wife at a time like this, when the Brothers were after me and when he’d deemed it his responsibility to train me for the fight that was to come.

  “Don’t you dare be sorry,” he answered. “I know that, in a perfect world, you’d much rather be with the person you love, raising babies and eating at fancy restaurants. Circumstances have dictated that things like that are impossible for the both of us right now, and that isn’t your fault. The fate of the world hangs heavy on the shoulders of those who are tasked with it. If Satina were here, she’d tell you just how proud of you she was.” Ramsey waited a bit. “So would your mother.”

  I took a deep and steadying breath, because I knew what would come next. My mind cleared. Like Satina before him, Ramsey had a way of cutting down to the quick of things when it came to me. With a single phrase, or even a flick of his eyebrow, he could convey exactly what I needed to hear. It was like a magic power he had, and it seemed to come in handy way more than the bag of tricks that were at my own disposal.

  “We have work to do,” I said determinedly. “And not nearly enough time to do it.”

  “That’s true,” Ramsey said. “But, before we do that, there are things to consider. Things that are extremely important and often overlooked.”

  I took a step back from the mage. “What sort of things?”

  “The sorts of things that would affect whether you actually want to move forward with this,” he said and sighed loudly. “The djinn is among the rarest of races in the supernatural world. Their powers are both immense and hard to control. Because of that, most of them were either hunted down and destroyed or banished off-world long ago. In fact, they are so rare that, for centuries, many of the smartest people in the world considered them extinct.”

  “Okay,” I said, narrowing my eyes. Where was he going with this? It didn’t change the facts. “I guess the smartest people in the world were wrong. Lord knows it wouldn’t have been the first time. I mean, I didn’t think they were real, either.”

  “That’s not what I’m saying, Charisse.” He sighed again, this time through his nose. “Djinns are rare, and the fact that Huntsman, someone who is as close to you as almost anyone in the world, came across one and found himself entangled with it, seems like quite the large coincidence to me.”

  My heart skipped a beat as I looked him up and down, finally understanding just what he was gettin
g at. “Are you saying that this might be a setup? Are you insinuating that Huntsman might have been used as a pawn by someone?”

  It went without saying that if he was used as a pawn, it was to get closer to me.

  “Not just someone,” Ramsey said sternly, looking at me unblinkingly. “I’m saying this could have come from The Brothers themselves.”

  While everything around me and the craziness of the past few hours finally clicked into place, my mind started to race. “Why would you think that?” I paced the alleyway, my shoes scuffing over the pavement. Long gone were my designer heels; I’d finally traded them in for some Chucks. “There’s no proof of that.”

  “They’re rare, Charisse,” he said. “Rarer than you know.”

  “Well I didn’t think they existed before today, so I don’t know about that.” I laughed sardonically. “But even if so, who cares?” I asked, throwing my hands into the air. “A lot of things are rare. Do you think four-leaf clovers come from The Brothers, too?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” Ramsey scoffed. “Everyone knows four-leaf clovers are inventions of the Druids.”

  “Ramsey!” I balked. Why did he have to constantly ruin things that were important or magical to me? Sheesh.

  “I’m just saying that we need to be careful,” he continued. “We need to consider every possibility and the outcome of those possibilities.” He stepped toward me again, close enough to lean against the dumpster before quickly thinking the better of it and straightening himself to dust off his jacket. “If this is a trap laid out by The Brothers—”

  “Then they picked the perfect bait,” I said, my voice hard and unwavering. “Because I’m not going to let Huntsman die.”

  “He wouldn’t die,” Ramsey corrected me.

  “No. It would be worse than that,” I amended. “He’d live forever in some horrible torment. It would be hell, Ramsey, and I’m not about to let my friend go to hell.” I shook my head. “Even if it means my life.”