by Sara King
Her first shuddering wave of pleasure came a few moments later, when his fingers started tracing themselves up her sides and back, no longer needing to pin her to his chest to keep her clinging to his embrace. Panting, not about to allow the djinni to get the upper hand, she once more found his shaft—hard as stone and almost too hot to touch—and began stroking it in the manner he had shown her.
She grinned as his lips stiffened against hers in a groan. Oh yes, she thought. She could enjoy this new weapon. He seemed so…helpless…when her hands touched him there. Feeling his body tighten against hers, her grin widened. Deliciously so.
But instead of spasming under her attentions, as he had before, the djinni reached out, put his big, hot hands to her sides…
…and tickled her.
“Manuke khara!” she laughed, falling to the ground to get away from him, even as the exhilaration began building in her lungs.
As he fell with her, the djinni’s body stiffened, and with it came a rush of Fourth Lander magic that suddenly wrenched Kaashifah’s world upside down and spun it like a top. She flattened to the floor to convince herself she was still solidly upon the earth as the violet magic swirled around them and the very stone vibrated as ‘Aqrab boomed, “You have reset your seven days.”
There is so much power there, she thought, stunned. Like the very universe itself was at the djinni’s disposal.
Then he was above her, tickling her again, his arms, legs, and torso acting as a cage, keeping her squarely within reach of his fingers. Kaashifah screamed and writhed to get out from under him, thrashing gleefully at the djinni’s renewed assault. Forced to use the strength of the Third Lander, she crawled out from underneath him and went on the offensive, lunging onto his back before he could scamper off. Anchored to the First Realm, the djinni shrieked and tried to throw her to the side, but Kaashifah wrapped her legs around the base of his torso and pressed her advantage.
Sometime during the hours of struggle that followed, the djinni wound up atop her, their arms and legs entangled, both of them breathing wildly, sweat slickening their flushed bodies.
“Do you…” the djinni panted, ‘pinning’ her to the floor of the cave, “…surrender?”
Kaashifah grinned up at him. They both knew she could throw him off with enough force to probably bury him in the wall, but she’d given him the ‘advantage’ several times in the course of the night. “And if I refuse?” she asked, raising her chin with faux imperiousness.
“Don’t…” he gasped above her, “…refuse.” While Kaashifah could continue for days with the assistance of the wolf, his head was hanging down in exhaustion. “If you…get on top…again…I think…I’ll just…pee myself.”
She grinned as she felt his arms trembling where he held her down. Softly, meeting his eyes, she whispered, “And if I surrender?”
‘Aqrab perked up immediately, grinning. “You become my captive.”
She bit her lip around a smile. “I’ve never been a prisoner of war before.”
“You should try it sometime,” the djinni said, his impish grin widening. “It takes a little getting used to, but in the end, it’s not that bad.”
Kaashifah had to laugh. “And what would you do with your prisoner of war, djinni?”
“Oh,” the djinni said, cocking his head as if he had to think about it, “probably this.” The djinni lowered his head and kissed her again, deep and passionate, his lips questing against hers, hot and seeking. Her heart already singing from the play, this time, Kaashifah had only a moment of surprise before she was melting into him, groaning under his touch.
‘Aqrab’s big, hot hands began moving in gentle paths across her body, and it wasn’t much later before Kaashifah lost herself, her skin becoming like a sizzling arc of pleasure, just waiting for release. Within moments, his dark fingers, sliding down her tawny body, left her shuddering with the same uncontrollable, full-body contortions that had left her begging him last time. This time, however, the touch was a thousand times more delicious, with his great body stretched out above hers, hot and hard, solid and resisting as she clung to him, gasping.
“Mon Dhi’b,” he whispered against her neck, still tracing his fingers against her ribs as he kissed her shoulder and collarbone. “Do you want this?” His voice held a note of desperation, and for the first time, she felt the hardness touching her core.
Kaashifah’s world suddenly slammed back into focus. The sensitivity of her skin instantly abandoned her and, in the face of cold, hard reality, she froze. He would take me. Like a man to a woman.
Finally, and completely, destroying her Fury.
She had no temples with which to purify herself, no altars with which to offer her blood for forgiveness, no priestesses to hear her confession. She had nothing to bring her back from that kind of despoilment. Her pendant, her robes, her sword…all of it was lost to her. There was only her, the djinni, and three thousand years of silence.
And, she realized, as he tentatively lifted his head to meet her gaze, in three thousand years, she had had but one companion, one person who had been there for her, throughout it all, and it had taken a brush with death before she had been able to see it.
“Kaashifah?” he said, his voice a whisper.
She’d been fighting that fact for three thousand years, ever since that first moment at the oasis when he’d looked up and met her eyes, smiled, and offered her a date, and her heart had started to hammer at his beauty. She’d been fighting it right up until the day, with his stubborn djinni passions, he had bargained his way into touching her, caressing her. When he had willingly spread himself out for her perusal, when he had contracted her to draw his form. When he had taken her breath away, given her pleasure. It was then that the tides had turned. That very first touch, his hand against hers, just as he must have known it would. He’d opened her eyes, allowed her to see. She loved, she realized, startled, the feel of him, the look of him, the smell of him. But, most of all, she loved what he’d given her.
Joy. Fun. The ability to play. Things she hadn’t felt since she’d immersed herself in the mantle of a Fury. Things that, as he slowly peeled that heavy cloak from her shoulders, were opening her heart every time she looked upon him. Things that, once her soul had been reminded of what she had given up, it had latched onto with the anxious desperation of a starving thing. Secretly, she had come to look forward to his touch, to his bargains. It was why she had made that final effort to break free, to grab her mantle and yank it back around her shoulders before she lost it forever—somewhere in their bargains, somewhere along the journey, he had won. She wanted to feel his passion as much as he wanted to give it.
The silence was a hum between them, the djinni’s hardness throbbing at her core, his violet eyes full of need. Outside, the winds started to pick up into a roar.
The djinni smiled gently and kissed her chin. “I can wait, mon Dhi’b.” He started to roll off of her.
Kaashifah grabbed his arm in a spasm.
The djinni hesitated, a slight frown on his brow. “What—?
“Just stay,” she commanded. “I’m thinking.”
Cocking his head at her, after a moment, the djinni gradually lowered himself back atop her. “Don’t think too hard, mon Dhi’b.” When she said nothing, only continued her deliberations, he began kissing her gently upon the neck, then down her collarbone. While the sensations would have driven her completely over the edge before, now Kaashifah was too torn, caught between her past and her present, and barely felt it.
Here she was, a Fury, thinking about surrendering to a djinni. She felt the first rush of shame slither through her gut as ‘Aqrab’s mouth found her breast, but she savagely shoved both the feelings back down. She’d spent countless years devoid of passion, devoid of every emotion that gave her any fulfillment, her soul any nourishment. Even the enjoyment of the kill had been hollow, a meting out of justice, nothing deeper.
In just a few brief weeks, the djinni had shown her something that ha
d her excited about waking up each day, looking forward to his devilish, word-twisting schemes, finding pleasure in the simplest things. She was not going to go back to that emptiness.
And where was the shame, really? Billions of other women shared a man’s embrace every day. It was necessary for reproduction, and a Fury was no exception. And, as the djinni had delighted in pointing out, she had the same needs as every other woman on the planet. As far as she could remember, her Lord had given no exact words forbidding the embrace of a man. At least not directly. There were plenty of texts, plenty of commandments written out by intermediaries that explained the taboos and punishments associated with such. But direct command, from her Lord’s mind to hers? She could think of none. Something so essential to the nature of a Fury, and she’d received no instruction? What if there had been a mistake in the translation? What if her Sisters had been wrong?
“You said,” she whispered, completely unfazed by the djinni’s lips around her nipple, “that once there were male Furies?”
“Once,” ‘Aqrab said, breathing on an areola.
The hot fire of his breath was a distant feeling that she ignored, her brow tightening in thought. Male Furies. Half the children born to a Fury were male, but they were always killed as ‘abominations.’ It was Law of the temples. Males were unclean. It was in the scriptures. It was known.
But why would her Lord have given his warriors the ability to birth male children if he never meant for them to survive?
The djinni had moved his attentions down her stomach, tracing his lips around her navel.
“What happened to them?” she asked.
‘Aqrab hesitated, eyes on her abdomen. “Well, I was not yet a denizen of the First Realm, so all I have is bardic stories to go by, but I can sing you one, if you wish.”
“Just tell me what happened,” Kaashifah said. “Paraphrase.”
The djinni considered. “In the beginning, the female Furies fought alongside the males as equals. They worked together under the guidance of War, meting out justice upon those who broke the Pact of the Realms. Then, after many winters of mankind had passed, with countless battles come and gone, a male Fury rose to power. He was very charismatic, very beautiful, and many flocked to him, from all the Realms. He had many followers, and he took his task as a peacemaker very literally. He stopped the fighting. Completely. Banned it, and killed anyone who was caught with a sword. Found the bloodshed unnecessary, and many agreed with him, for it was a very dark time. So, once he’d ended every war, bringing about the first Great Peace, he sought to take over the Realm and ban the Lord of War from its doors, so that War would never visit the world again. And he succeeded, for a time.”
“Unfortunately, without War, without that divine energy powering their people, the humans began doing other, more disgusting things. The corruption spread, debilitating the world, like a rot within the flesh of one’s leg. Societies began to collapse from the inside, for, by banning the energy of War from the world, he had also banned the energy of brotherhood, love of life, ambition, courage…”
Kaashifah interrupted. “Love of life.”
“Yes,” the djinni said, tracing a finger around her navel. “One of the aspects of your Lord that, I’m afraid, you’ve been missing.”
She bit her lip and looked away as tears stung her eyes. “Go on.”
He shrugged. “It went on like this for some time. There was peace, but the world was rotting, the energy that usually helped it flourish cut off, people and plants withering and dying. A female Fury, one who had never given up her sword, one with similar charisma and beauty as the great leader who had ended the wars, but a cunning mind as sharp as her sword, saw this rot for what it was and rebelled. Thus began a war of Furies. They began a great war that threw the world into darkness, the only light those of the wings of the angels, as their swords clashed above the land.”
“And we won,” Kaashifah whispered, already knowing where the story went.
‘Aqrab kissed her belly down to her thighs. “One would assume. The story says that the victors, mostly female, brought the vanquished, mostly male, to a great mountain where all could see, and cut their wings from them with the sword of War and cast them down the mountainside as mortals. As to what happened next…” He shrugged. “From one extreme, they swung to another. The female survivors, still stained with the blood of their brethren, were distrustful of the male, and, as tensions rose and it looked as if a number of them might lay down their arms for the great Peacemaker, who still spread his word across the land in mortal form, the new Fury leader eventually had all the males—and any other sympathizers—executed in the night. And from there, well…” He shrugged. “It is history.”
Kaashifah frowned. “The Sword of War is a myth.”
The djinni kissed down the inside of her leg. “I’ll tell you of another myth. It has to do with a djinni, kindling the inner fire of a maiden…”
“I’m thinking, ‘Aqrab,” she growled. “Let me think.”
He heaved a huge, wistful sigh and lowered his chin onto her leg. Lazily, he began to trace circles with a hot finger on the inner flesh of her thigh.
If the Furies once had males amongst their ranks, with her Lord’s blessing, then was it that far a cry to suggest that they had once bred each other? And, if the great Fury leader had killed off the males of her species, wouldn’t they have naturally had to turn to human males as a suitable replacement for their numbers? And if they were afraid of another Peacemaker, then what was to stop them from leaving their male babies in the nest of a Roc? Or in the Void? And, once that precedent had been established, what was to keep them from making temples and enlisting priestesses to do the unhappy work for them? To bleed the babies in the dark while the mothers were taken elsewhere to mourn? And, to protect the mothers’ hearts, how hard would it be to write new ‘Laws’ into stone? To alleviate the guilt? To stop the questions?
‘Aqrab moved his attentions upward, to the tiny birthmark above her navel, circling it languidly with his index finger.
And, once the Laws had been written, what was to say that her Sisters of so long ago, wrapped in fear of losing a child to the Laws, had begun to shy away from the male touch? Would she not have begun to see that touch as a taint? Something to be avoided? Something that, if it succeeded and a male child was born, would corrupt the soul?
What if, to ease this dilemma over the old Laws, newer ones had been made? What if males were to be avoided at all costs, and that their touch itself was impure? What if breeding became solely a means of reproduction, something to be loathed and dreaded?
Then something else occurred to her, as the djinni entertained himself with the hair between her legs. The priestess who had saved her. Amongst her many ramblings, the woman had spoken of ancient times, of divine matches being blessed by the gods, of tempering the light of the Furies’ sword with the love of their hearts. Kaashifah, grateful for the fact that the woman had saved her life, had never given her over to her Sisters for the blasphemy. Now, she began to wonder…
What if Furies were not only allowed to make matches, but expected to?
“I’ve heard…rumors,” Kaashifah began, “that Furies can be granted a mate by our Lord.”
The djinni’s finger froze. Clearing his throat, he said, “Ah, yes, I believe I’ve heard such in the stories, yes.”
“And that it used to be common.”
Slowly, his finger began to work again, tracing the tender lines of her stomach. “Before the temples, I believe it was.”
The temples. Kaashifah frowned. She remembered the priestesses well. Mortals, but with hard, work-lined faces, utterly emotionless in their daily life. They had been their caretakers…and confessors. What if the words a Fury received in the privacy of her own mind, when spoken in hushed tones to those caretakers, began to be twisted by the very priestesses who tended them? What if, when a Fury received the call to mate, it was translated by the priestesses as an order to breed, a general command rather
than as a specific person?
And if a Fury could breed with a male, why not a djinni?
Then the reality hit home for her as she remembered her Lord’s command. Kaashifah, Maiden of the Sword, you shall conquer the djinni of Ji’fah, spread his blood across the land, and bring his heart back for my perusal.
Her Lord wanted him dead. He wanted her to cut out his heart.
“What are you thinking?” the djinni asked softly, tracing a knee.
She made a disgusted noise. “How I must kill you, in the end.”
The djinni cleared his throat nervously and sat up on his elbow to get a better look at her. “Well, uh, mon Dhi’b, I’ve been thinking about that, and seeing how a djinni doesn’t really bleed, I was thinking perhaps the meaning was more metaphorical.”
Kaashifah snorted. “You will not word-twist your way out of this one, ‘Aqrab. It is the last clear message I received from my liege. I will obey it.”
‘Aqrab opened his mouth like he wanted to argue, then heaved another huge sigh and slumped back to busy himself between her legs.
But still, Kaashifah was torn. She was her Lord’s Blade of Morning. His greatest warrior, cast down by her own Sisters because of her Lord’s favor. And yet, this djinni had begun to open her eyes to the world, and her soul had been drinking it up like a starving thing.
Why did she have to kill him? It didn’t seem fair.
And it wasn’t fair, she realized. Nothing that had happened to her throughout her life had been fair. It had been a slew of disappointments, despair, and loneliness. Now that she finally had company, now that she finally had some happiness, her Lord was going to take it away?
No. She felt her Fury rising, felt her anger coming to a head. It was not going to happen. She wouldn’t let it happen. Not again.