by Sara King
GUARDIANS
of the
FIRST REALM:
ALASKAN FURY
SARA KING
Copyright © Sara King, 2012
Books by SARA KING
Guardians of the First Realm: Alaskan Fire
Guardians of the First Realm: Alaskan Fury
Millennium Potion: Wings of Retribution
Forthcoming Titles by SARA KING
Terms of Mercy: To the Princess Bound
Guardians of the First Realm: Alaskan Fang
Outer Bounds: Tides of Fortune
DISCLAIMER
For those of you who missed the memo, this book is a work of fiction. Alaskan Fury takes place in (gasp!) Alaska. While Alaska is a real (and really cool) place, and the author has real experience with it, it’s a novel about magic and myths, people. While there is a real Eklutna Lake, a real Wasilla, and a real Anchorage, don’t go hunting Furies or Djinn or the Inquisition, because you won’t find them. All the specific characters and places contained herein are merely fictitious—and in some cases, blasphemous—figments of a somewhat kinky author’s imagination. Well, aside from Sleepy Dog Coffee Co. That place is awesome.
Oh, and if you tip really well and rub the jar, about one time in a thousand, a djinni will appear with an utterly superb hazelnut latte.
Dedication
For Buchanan—editor, fact-checker, researcher, brainstormer, addict, ego-booster, and complaint repository. Your editing skills, Google-fu, story ideas, endless patience, and refusal to compromise took this story from the murky effluent of a scatterbrained chipmunk to something not only awesome, but so totally beyond what I ever thought possible that I’m still stunned. Thank you, sir.
For Chancey. Because, when he was six, and I was twelve, we wrote our first novel together.
For Patti. Alaska hath no Fury like a sister scorned. Thanks for cajoling (begging? pleading? threatening?) me into starting this series, sis. Your efforts were not wasted.
For my family, especially my mother and my grandparents, who have given this neurotically workaholic—and hygienically challenged—little writer a place to create her stories, and who are therefore directly responsible for the existence of these books.
And for David, my Little Tractor, who has made the Guardians of the First Realm series possible with repeated applications of his gangly, horny, twisted, stinky, massive, nightmarish, prehensile Size 13s. Like something out of a horror movie, people…
Author's Foreword
After a long, twisted road, this is my 15th book. The rest (aside from the first five or so ‘practice books’) spent the last 3-6 years languishing on my hard drive as I waited for some really cool editor at a big, traditional publishing house to notice me. It didn’t happen, even with a world-famous agent doing his damnedest to get my books out there.
Further, I write fast. I can easily write 6 novels a year—8 if I don’t get distracted—and during those long years waiting for somebody to notice me, I was finding myself in the extremely frustrating position of watching my manuscripts pile up because traditional publishing companies can only take 1 or 2 novels by a single author a year.
So, because I’ve got a stubborn streak a mile wide—and some say because I’m a naïve, dumbass Alaskan—I’m striking out on my own and putting my books out there. Basically casting my dice to the Fates, and seeing what happens. If you like Alaskan Fury, please tell your friends. I don’t have a huge advertising team behind me, so word-of-mouth really helps. On that note, Alaskan Fury never went through a copyeditor. What you see is the result of a few dedicated volunteers, all of whom have poured untold hours into the crafting of the book in your hands. They are awesome, steeped in awesome, sprinkled with awesome. Thanks, guys!
Two very special people were behind Alaskan Fury from Day One. David, my soulmate and (now!) fiancé, found me just as four years of professional representation without so much as an editor’s hint of interest was sliding me into a soul-deep despair. He caught me, tugged me out of the hole I was sinking into, dusted me off, and, refusing to tolerate my melancholic, whiny pityfests, got me writing again. If it hadn’t been for David, I probably would have stopped at book #12.
The second person is a Mr. Stephen Buchanan, who was the brainstorming genius behind this exceptional book. He put a lot of time into this novel, and his wife, Amy, deserves some serious kudos (and author acknowledgements) for letting me borrow his brain and monopolize his spare time for a month. Thank you, Ma’am. (But for the rest of you needy writers out there looking for some serious brainstorming talent, back off, he’s mine.)
If you like Alaskan Fury, I hope you’ll check out Alaskan Fire and keep a future eye out for my Outer Bounds, After Earth, and Millennium Potion series. Alaskan Fire, another Guardians of the First Realm novel, already went up on Kindle in late January of this year, and I have several adventure sci-fi novels (and hopefully Alaskan Fang!!) on the docket to be prepped and published to Kindle over the next few months.
If you’d like to stay updated on my upcoming books as they’re released, check out my Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/kingfiction or email me at [email protected]. I’d love to hear from you!
-Sara King
March 25th, 2012
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Bound to a Djinni
Chapter 2: The Fury of the Fourth Realm
Chapter 3: A Djinni’s Dangerous Game
Chapter 4: The Shifting of the Sands
Chapter 5: By the Blood of the Wolf
Chapter 6: Breaking the Ice
Chapter 7: A Challenge of Seven Days
Chapter 8: Small Kindnesses
Chapter 9: A Fury at War
Chapter 10: The Sleeping Beauty
Chapter 11: Unseasonable Weather
Chapter 12: Works of Art
Chapter 13: A Djinni’s Dance
Chapter 14: An Inquisitor’s Wager
Chapter 15: Unfulfilled Wishes
Chapter 16: The Dragon’s Den
Chapter 17: A Handful of Snow
Chapter 18: The Blacksmith’s Heart
Chapter 19: Return of Thunderbird
Chapter 20: Irrational Fears
Chapter 21: A Clash of Furies
Chapter 22: Angel of Vengeance
Chapter 23: A Dance with Fate
Chapter 24: The Blade of Morning
Chapter 25: A Final Wish
Chapter 1: Bound to a Djinni
“The winds breathe foul today, mon Dhi’b.” ‘Aqrab’s words were like a warm breath against the back of her neck, rousing Kaashifah from a dead sleep in an instant of total panic.
Though Kaashifah couldn’t see the djinni, she knew he was nearby from the way the drapes seemed to waver above the bed. Over the long years of bondage to the Fourth Lander, she had trained herself to almost see the odd flicker of the light where he danced, half in his own land, half in hers. Some days, she was better at seeing it than others. Often, it came and went with her mood. Anger made it easier. Fear…
Well, fear made it impossible.
And there was so much to fear.
Swallowing, Kaashifah sat up and threw on the façade that had kept her sane these last three millennia of torment. “I told you not to enter my room as I slept, ‘Aqrab.”
“You have told me not to enter other rooms,” the djinni said, manifesting out of thin air, a seven-foot mountain of ebony flesh glaring down at her. “But not this one.” He gave her a vicious smile and gestured at the small cabin that the wereverine had built for them.
“I told you not to enter my bedroom as I slept,” Kaashifah snapped, hating the way the djinni could manage to intentionally misinterpret even the most simple commands. “What is there to mistake about that?”
‘Aqrab
’s violet eyes narrowed on her. “Since this is to be my place of residence, and as I am bound to this land, and our hosts built only one dwelling for the both of us, and that dwelling only has one bedroom, this room is technically not your room, but my room, too, making it our room. You never told me to stay out of our bedroom, mon Dhi’b.”
Oh, she hated the convolutions he could come up with in order to reason out his own actions. It was the very reason she had hunted him down in the first place and inadvertently begun this nightmare, three thousand years ago. His twisted, monkey-pawing, oath-breaking, selfish rationalizing that had destroyed the city of Ji’fah. Wiped it completely off of the map with a single wish. He had monkey-pawed a kingdom into ruin, and reveled in it. So much so that her Lord had told her to destroy him.
…and the bastard of a whoreson had bound himself to her to save his worthless hide. Soul-to-soul. Beginning a nightmare that would never end.
“‘Aqrab,” Kaashifah said, “Leave.”
While most days, the djinni would have given her a snide look and asked her to ‘leave what?’ now he simply narrowed his eyes and vanished.
Too many meanings to words. Too many interpretations. Too many loopholes. Kaashifah had learned this long ago, and had been living in torment ever since.
Reluctantly, unsure if the djinni was truly gone due to her own inner turmoil—‘Aqrab kept her as off-balance as possible, as often as possible, because it gave him the power to come and go at will—Kaashifah nonetheless threw the covers off and slipped, naked, off of the bed.
Her suspicions were confirmed when a voice above and behind her said, “I left, mon Dhi’b. And I returned. Perhaps now you will listen to what I had to say?”
Kaashifah fought a surge of terror, knowing the beast was directly behind her, knowing that her naked form was completely exposed to him, but she fought it down and straightened her spine, hiding it well. She could, after all, use her last wish to kill the monster, and they both knew it. And, having begun the duel of souls so long ago at the oasis of Tafilat, to take his head now was to bind his soul to hers in perpetual servitude, from which only her word could grant his release. It was probably the only reason the creature hadn’t already used her body to his delights, repeatedly. After all, as he so loved to claim, he was ‘bored enough to drown’ being imprisoned here. And she knew he craved her body. She could see it, whenever he looked at her.
“Another instruction I gave you, ‘Aqrab,” Kaashifah said evenly, “is never to spy upon me while I am disrobed.”
“I am not spying on you,” ‘Aqrab said. “I am standing within arm’s-reach, fully within the darkness of your lands.” The sneer was back, his hatred firing every word.
Kaashifah fought another spasm of terror and turned, slowly, to look up at him.
True to his word, ‘Aqrab stood less than an arm’s-length away, peering down at her over his huge, muscular forearms, crossed over his enormous chest. He stood like a mountain before her, his black body like a deeper shadow in the half-light. He wore a thin, gauzy sirwal to cover his waist and legs, but not much else. And, through the film of silk, she could see the hardness there, the longing. Three thousand years of longing, for he made it very plain that he held his imprisonment against her, despite the fact that he was the one to do it.
And three thousand years ago, the longing had been just as strong. Back then, she was pretty sure he would have done it out of violence, out of fury for what she had done to him. Now, she was sure he would relish in it, make it last until she screamed for death. He would despoil her in a heartbeat, if she didn’t have the Fourthlander Law binding him by his own making.
The djinni, of course, made no effort to hide his desire. He knew it upset her, threw her off balance, left her terrified of what he might decide to do as a final hurrah, a last goodbye, one glorious revelry before he vanished like a lick of flame to the wind.
It was all Kaashifah could do not to simply break down right there. She’d fought him for so long, endured his torments for so many eons… It had worn at her soul, left her dreading each new day, each new ordeal he painstakingly crafted for her.
“‘Aqrab,” she whispered. “Please.”
He gave her a malicious smile. “Please what, mon Dhi’b? Please take your tiny virgin body upon my shaft and pierce you until you scream? Please break your neck? Or please fetch you a shirt? You must be more specific.”
Kaashifah closed her eyes and fought the despair that had been building for three thousand years. It now weighed on her like a mountain, making it hard to breathe, hard to think, hard to face each heartbeat. “Please leave me alone,” Kaashifah said. “Just go.”
“Make your wish,” the djinni growled, “and I will happily do just that.”
By Fourthlander Law, he was bound to her for three wishes. She had made two. The third was going to be her last, and both of them knew it.
Kaashifah looked away. “Get out of this room and let me dress.”
For a long moment, it looked like the djinni would disobey her. Which, due to the way he had bound himself to her—and her background in the arcane—could mean great pain for him, when she took the shadows of the First Lands and shoved them down the cord at him. It was like throwing water onto a bonfire, and he usually screamed for hours.
She hated to do it, though. She was not, by nature, like him. She did not delight in tormenting others. It was simply something she had discovered, over the time she’d been tied to him. Which made it all the more horrible when she had to discipline him for stepping over the line.
…and all the more certain that he would make her regret every breath she had taken for the last three thousand years, if he ever got free.
The djinni vanished. This time, he waited until she had slipped a shirt over her head before he returned. “Something horrible is on the winds, mon Dhi’b.”
Kaashifah would have snapped at him, then, if there wasn’t obvious concern in his eyes. Kaashifah hesitated, chancing a look at his groin. The hardness was still there, but muted, only half-straining against the silk. She looked away, disgusted.
“Someday, little virgin,” the djinni growled. “You will moan for hours upon my shaft.”
“Don’t call me ‘virgin,’” Kaashifah snapped.
His smiled in disdain. “You prefer ‘whore’, then?”
Kaashifah hurt him, then. She grabbed the nearby shadow and shoved it down the life-cord that the djinni had bound to her. Just a taste, but it was enough to throw him to his knees, gasping, big hands splayed out on the floor, head down, a low whine building in his chest. For long moments, he just stayed there on his hands and knees before her. When he looked up, his violet eyes were full of tears.
And hate.
“You did this,” Kaashifah reminded him, though her heart was already pounding in frenzied terror under the loathing in his gaze. “You put me in this position, ‘Aqrab. It wasn’t me. It was your own hand that did this.”
“Perhaps I missed something,” the mountainous djinni whispered, “but it was you who just poisoned me with shadow, when all I wanted to do was tell you about the whispers on the winds.”
“Because you force my hand!” Kaashifah screamed at him. “You threaten to break my spine. You threaten to force me. Every day, you make my life a living hell because you were too much of a coward to face your own death when it came!”
He slowly worked himself to one knee and wiped the tears from his face with a massive black forearm. “Little wolf,” he said softly, “you obviously misunderstand my words.”
Kaashifah snorted in derision. “Your words are fluid, the meanings changing with the winds, as flexible as your honor.”
She watched his beautiful eyes harden. “That may be, mon Dhi’b,” he said finally. “But, considering that I will be bound to a bag of bones if you die before you make your wish, we both know I will do what I can to keep you alive. And the winds are telling me that you’re in danger.” He said it with a sneer, like he was relaying informatio
n that he would rather see buried in the bottom of a latrine.
Kaashifah bit her lip, her heart skipping a beat. While he delighted in tormenting her, the djinni was also always accurate in his readings of the winds. “In danger how?” she asked softly.
But the djinni’s face hardened. “Wouldn’t you like to know.” And then he disappeared. For good, this time.
Damn him.
Kaashifah finished dressing, taking long minutes to comb out her hair, trying to calm the trembling in her hands. As always, the djinni scared her. He scared her so much she wanted to scream for help from the nearest passerby. But there was no one who could help her. A djinni’s magic was one of the strongest in existence. As convoluted and twisted as their minds, it was almost impossible to unravel. Only a dragon could free her of his curse, and not even a dragon could remove the tether he’d knotted to her soul. That would take her final wish.
Kaashifah pulled on her gloves—in North America, she had learned, men often tried to shake hands with women out of courtesy, and rather than having to choose between defiling her body or insulting the phoenix’s guests, Kaashifah had begun wearing skin-tight gardening gloves under a long-sleeved turtleneck shirt. Thus, once she pulled on her baseball cap, tucked her shoulder-length ebony hair carefully around her ears, and laced up her boots, all that was visible of her skin was a small portion of her face.
Refusing to let ‘Aqrab see her fear, she straightened her spine and walked out the front door, took the extra time to latch it and sweep a few bits of mud from the porch with a flick of her mind, then stepped down to cross the lush grounds to the Sleeping Lady Lodge. A new wave of thrill-seekers was arriving this afternoon, and the wereverine was certain to have concocted some last-minute change of plans, as he had done every time since that first highly-successful scare-fest, that spring.