by Sara King
“I surrender, djinni,” she whispered.
Still intent on the surface of her knee, ‘Aqrab’s violet eyes went wide. Slowly, he lifted his startled gaze to meet hers, and she began to hear his heart pounding even as the pleasant heat his body cast off began to increase.
She knew that ignoring her Lord’s call would only be the first of her problems. She knew that, by accepting the djinni, by letting herself be conquered by a man, her sisters would kill him. They would rip his manhood from his body while he still breathed, then cut out his heart and make her eat it.
Let them try, a deep and powerful part of her rumbled, a part that had been too long dormant. Like a mountain sitting up within, it said, I’ll carve their wings from their shoulders and cast them into the Third Realm as food for the barghests.
And Kaashifah had a startled realization. By taking up that mantle, she had become Fury. Her sword, when she wielded it, was unstoppable. If she chose to protect the djinni, her Sisters would fall in droves under her blade.
And they’d abandoned her for three thousand years, bound to a man she could not kill, banished for letting him brush his fingers across her leg. She owed them, she realized with a sudden jolt, nothing.
The djinni took her hand, kissed it, watching her face carefully. “Are you sure?” He trailed his lips across her knuckles, waiting.
The temples were gone, the Laws shattered, the priestesses dead. Whatever Sisters were left had spread to the furthest reaches of the land. Her Sisterhood—if it could still be called that—had no more dominion over her. Until her Lord decided to make his appearance in the world once more, Kaashifah was alone.
Alone…but for a djinni. A djinni who, by his own admission, desperately wanted her love.
“I’m sure,” she whispered, immediately losing control of her pulse to the thrill of nerves and excitement. “Please, ‘Aqrab. Show me.” She felt so vulnerable saying it, opening her heart to him.
‘Aqrab’s breath caught and she felt the heat rolling off of him increase, and for a long moment, he just stared over her stomach at her, his violet eyes showing shock. It seemed an eternity before he said, “Please.”
She blushed, feeling the wave of crimson heat her face. “That’s what I said.”
‘Aqrab started tracing her thigh with a finger. “Is that your wish?”
Her mouth fell open. Her wish? Somehow, his audacity gave her the courage to blurt out, “It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement. You hunger for the act of union and I desire to know what I’ve been missing. I know you’re an expert in such matters, and we both know I’m…” She bit her lip, blushing, and managed, “Inexperienced.”
“Ah.” The djinni traced her thigh a moment longer, dropping his gaze back to her leg in thought. Then, slowly, ‘Aqrab lowered his hand and eased himself back up her body with the smooth power of a stalking leopard, until the length of him was once more pinning her to the stone. He held himself above her a moment, meeting her eyes with a look of raw passion that left her heart hammering. Then she felt his hardness settle against her core, felt the heat of him envelop her as he lowered his hips to hers… Kaashifah felt herself cringing into the stone, her whole body shaking with mingled terror and anticipation. Somehow, she kept her legs open to him, waiting.
His heat still touching her core, the djinni dropped his face to nibble her earlobe. “All that time you spent thinking, little wolf,” ‘Aqrab whispered into her ear, his breath hot against her neck, “gave me some time to think, too.” He kissed her throat, her jaw… “And I think I can find a better place than the floor of a filthy cave.”
All of her anxious, heart-fluttering expectations came to a sudden screeching halt, and Kaashifah had to rewind his words in her mind to confirm to herself that he had actually spoken them.
He’s turning me down.
Kaashifah blinked at him, utterly unable to believe what she had heard. After all this time, after so many bargains and word-weavings with this very moment in mind, he was turning her down? She had finally, after so many millennia, offered herself to him and he was turning her down? After three thousand years of innuendo, of overtures, of hints and suggestions? She had seen the desire in his eyes. From the first moment she’d let him touch her hand. The djinni lived for passion. And he was turning her down?
She was so totally flabbergasted that, for long moments, she couldn’t speak. “I thought you wanted…” she began.
“I do,” the djinni said, nuzzling a hot breath against her ear. “Oh, don’t mistake me, mon Dhi’b. I do.” Lifting his head, ‘Aqrab slid his big fingers through her hair and kissed her passionately upon lips, stealing her breath away. Kaashifah gasped and swallowed a moan as he began to explore her tongue with his own. When he eventually lifted his head to let her breathe, his violet eyes were tender when he kissed her forehead and said, “But I have waited this long. We will make it special.”
Special? What was more special than right now, when she was naked beneath him? When their skin was touching, down there? When she’d offered him her Fury, finally and completely giving in to his passion? Frustrated, dismayed, she nonetheless wasn’t given time to argue, or even think about it, for the djinni dropped his head and began to suckle her sensitive nipple in his sizzling mouth, once more teasing her body into those unstoppable pangs of pleasure. Within moments, he had her mindlessly riding that overwhelming tide of ecstasy, clinging to him in total surrender as he expertly caressed her with his hands and tongue.
Eventually, ‘Aqrab lay down and pulled her atop his big torso, allowing her to catch her breath. As she panted against his chest, his heat began to relax her, easing her into a state of delicious exhaustion. Within moments, Kaashifah felt her mind pleasantly drifting, her thoughts and body warmed by the djinni beneath her. One ear to his chest, she listened to the bellows of his lungs, content to listen to him breathe.
“So, ah, mon Dhi’b, about my wrists…” It was a deep rumble against her ear, vibrating through the ebony flesh beneath her cheek.
“Ungh?” Blearily, Kaashifah jerked and lifted her head. The djinni was giving her a nervous look, holding up a wrist and the golden Realm-wall that held it. She saw wariness in his violet gaze, combined with a thread of fear.
Her eyes falling on his proffered wrist, Kaashifah grinned sheepishly, reached out, and brushed her fingers against the band, unraveling her spell. The glimmering golden rings around his forearms fell away like liquid light, dribbling to the stone of the cave before they disappeared.
The djinni let out the breath he had been holding. “Just like that?” he whispered, sounding stunned.
Kaashifah, who had collapsed back to his chest and was already halfway back to sleep, grunted.
In the long silence that followed, she realized he was staring at her. Probably, she knew, stunned by the fact she hadn’t even considered using her advantage to try and force him into any number of classic, unpleasant First-Lander ‘bargains.’
“I’m like Thunderbird,” Kaashifah said tiredly. “I’ve got what I need.” Then she grimaced, remembering. “Well, for the most part. You could make me some clothes.”
“Ah,” ‘Aqrab said, the djinni apparently finding himself speechless. Clearing his throat, he managed, “I think I might be able to manage that.”
Kaashifah grinned and relaxed into him, once more losing herself to the heat of his body. “Good night, ‘Aqrab.”
Tentatively, he settled his big hands upon her back, enveloping her in his warmth. “Good night, Kaashifah.” She was almost asleep when she heard his whisper of, “Thank you.”
Chapter 16: The Dragon’s Den
Savaxian alighted on his front stoop with a snap of his wings, a haunch of moose in his jaws, the rest of the animal left buried under a snowbank. Not that he couldn’t have carried the entire moose, of course, but a haunch would last him a couple days, and who wanted a massive corpse stinking up the back of his cave when he was trying to slee—
The scent of roast meat wafting
from the entrance of his home made him freeze. Already wrapped in a dozen different wards to evade the humans’ eyes-from-above, he now shot a taproot into the well of his power and prepared himself for a fight.
Mudborn didn’t come this way. Not intelligent ones, anyway. It was too far from any road, too high in the mountains, too buried in snow. Already, he had seven feet to flounder through whenever he went outside to take a dump, and it only just past the solstice.
Thunderbird, the annoying prick, hadn’t come back since the last time they’d scuffled over which side of the marker tree indicated the boundary Savaxian’s land, and Savaxian had sent him home with an assful of fire and a bunch of missing feathers.
Another dragon, then? All the good territory to the north was claimed by elders, which was why Savaxian had been forced to seek out lesser territory to the south in the first place. If a hatchling had discovered his home and moved in, he wasn’t too concerned, but if it were an ancient…
Slowly, Savaxian lowered the moose-haunch to the snow beside his cave and carefully padded forward, one foot at a time, to get an idea of what sort of creature he was dealing with.
The first thing he saw around the corner was a swath of food and blankets, and enough meats, fruits, and delicacies to feed an army. The second thing he noticed was the light in the ceiling, the magic fueling it making his eyes hurt. The third thing he saw was the tangle of bodies stretched out on his floor in the back of his cave, in post-coitus, one big and black, one small and tawny.
…and the black one was much, much too hot. He lit up like a thermal springs in the middle of winter.
A Fourthlander, of some sort.
Immediately, Savaxian’s scales tightened to his back. Fourthlanders—those who had the power to cross the barriers of the realms—were dangerous. He slunk to the shadows, circling around the walls of the cave to get a better vantage point.
Upon closer inspection, the smaller one smelled like wolf. He whuffed in surprise, his head yanking back in reflex. How…vile. Did the Fourthlander not realize that a single bite from the creature could cut him from his powers forever, if he was caught off-guard? Indeed, when he got closer, he could see the silver spiderweb of Thirdlander magic weaving through her veins, pumping through every inch of her body.
“You hear something, mon Dhi’b?” The Fourthlander had not been asleep. Savaxian froze against the wall, a foot up, wrapping himself even tighter in magic.
The tiny, ignorant creature sprawled on the Fourthlander’s chest moaned something unintelligible and snuggled back to sleep. Savaxian would kill her first. Third Landers—especially wolves—were intolerable. Like cockroaches. Savaxian hated cockroaches. He’d seen some, on one of his treks through the lower half of the continent, and had accidentally carried some back home with him in his luggage. The vermin had quickly multiplied and taken over his cave in a matter of days, and he did not want to repeat the experience on a larger scale. Wolves, as pathogenically social creatures, needed to die before they could spread.
Once it was obvious that the moronic Fourthlander wasn’t about to get up and investigate, Savaxian relaxed. Mon Dhi’b. A combination of French and Arabic meaning ‘My Wolf.’ So the fool was emotionally attached to the cockroach. Savaxian could use that. Further, the man’s accent had been old. A few winters of humanity, at least. That would make killing him more difficult. The older ones were…wily. Savaxian had gotten a very good lesson in that from his uncle Trellyn, who had been crafty enough cheat half the countryside out of perfectly good territory on bets and cards, before he’d gotten bored and given it all up to go to Kentucky and get into real-estate.
And unfortunately, judging by the tender way the Fourthlander was embracing the disgusting creature, the act of cockroach-eradication was probably going to be unpleasant. Savaxian slipped closer, stepping over piles of food to get a better look. Yes, he decided, feeling the heat rolling off of the creature, definitely Fourth-Lands. And, though he couldn’t be entirely sure without getting up close and inspecting, he was pretty sure he felt a few ongoing spells bound between the two of them. Was the wolf a slave, then? A geas-bound servant? The Fourthlander was obviously a magus, judging by the brain-stabbing light that was now violating the sanctity of his cavern.
But what kind of Fourthlander had the ability to work magic in the First Realm? He began combing through his memories for myths and legends his parents had passed to him. The Djinn, obviously, but such lasting spells were beyond their abilities. Besides, the creature bore no cuffs and it was in Alaska in the middle of winter, so it was obviously no djinni. Dervishes, but it was too big and too black to be a dervish. Neither elementals of Fire nor phoenix had the ability to weave magic beyond that of their natural inclinations. Both the cockatrice and the basilisk were too simple to work more than rudimentary magics, and surely couldn’t have crossed the realms without help, much less taken mudborn form. A salamander could make the jump, but would be rather powerless this far north at this time of year, with all the plants and most other life in the northern hemisphere asleep and the sun barely cresting the horizon at midday. An efreet, as unpleasant as that buggering little red-skinned bastard would be, was thankfully as unlikely as the rest of it.
Because, obviously, no Fourthlander was going to willingly be on a mountain in Alaska in the middle of winter. The paradox was beginning to make his head hurt.
He supposed it could have been a surtur, a very rare jötunn of fire and volcanoes, as described by the Norse. But were surtur Fourth Landers? He’d assumed all jötunn, being creatures of darkness and shadow, were Third Landers. Yet he could feel Fourthlander magics in his cave, and that pissed him off. Further, jötunn were supposed to be huge, not just large. Twelve and fourteen feet, as opposed to seven. An infant jötunn, then?
Savaxian lowered his neck and cocked his head beneath the tangle of legs and arms, until he got a good look at the creature’s gonads. Yes, he noted, they had dropped. And yes, they were covered in hair.
Humanoids were such disgusting creatures.
Not a djinni, not an efreet, not a jötunn… Intrigued, Savaxian took up a pleasant, out-of-the-way spot and sat down to begin puzzling it out, filtering through the memories that his parents had passed to him, trying to locate the creature’s exact subtype. It took hours, and nothing really made any logical sense. Further, if the creature had changed forms, like the efreet or the salamanders could do, then he was totally screwed and wasting his time. But both the Djinn and the jötnar showed up in his memories as rather large—for humanoids—and the Djinn, at least, were rather black while the jötnar were generally pale. But of course it wasn’t a djinni, for the aforediscovered reasons.
Thus, he had a mystery on his hands, and he wasn’t going anywhere until he solved it. After all, he would have plenty of time to kill them, once he’d satisfied his curiosity. He settled in, wrapping his tail around himself and settling his chin over his back to watch them. It could be a phoenix, he thought grudgingly, though it would not account for the magic he felt. But if it was a phoenix, he was totally fucked. He wondered if it had at least killed Thunderbird on its way north. The vain prick was due for another good scorching.
The food was a clue, he knew. Great mountains of it, and it was utterly inconceivable that they had brought it with him. So it had been made. That meant either a fey—and Savaxian could smell those rat-bastard-hoard-stealing-fucks at a thousand miles—or something with access to Fourthlander Law. That meant…
A djinni stooping to sex with a wolf? That was just…barbaric. Like a dragon downforming to bugger a giant bat. Reminded him of a rumor he’d heard from somewhere over the Alaska range. Some Third Lander succeeded in courting a phoenix. A wereverine, if he remembered correctly. Disgusting.
Then something else occurred to him, and he snorted in surprise.
A djinni could grant wishes.
He glanced at the lavish feast strewn about his cave, mostly untouched, and twisted back to stare at the djinni in shock. The djinni wa
s granting wishes. To a cockroach.
Oh yes, the cockroach needed to die. But there was one other problem to this situation, something that was not seeing, and until he understood it, he was not going to reveal himself and get roasted like an idiot.
Djinni, in all their vast powers, did not have the capability for time-sustained magics. They could not make a sword glow and make it continue to glow. It simply wasn’t within their realm of tricks. Thus, the ball of light had not been made by the djinni. Thus, it had to have been made by the cockroach. Thus, the cockroach was not a wolf.
That was annoying. He hated it when things did not become immediately apparent to him. It gave him a headache. This was his first headache in a couple decades. The last one had been in an attempt to comprehend how a fucking bastard like Thunderbird could mistake the north side of his marker-tree for the south side, when taking his morning piss. The absolute fucking retard. The headache had lasted several days, as he contemplated a thousand brilliant ways to get back at the bastard. His uncle Trellyn, however, had convinced him not to go through with the best of his schemes, which had involved conspiring with one of his brothers to cut off his fucking pony-tail for half Savaxian’s hoard. The only thing that had stopped him had been Trellyn reminding him that his brother Uthmyrenn wanted to see Thunderbird humbled as much as he did, and why give him half his hoard to do something he’d be glad to do anyway?
The argument that had ensued had ended with neither Savaxian nor Uthmyrenn speaking to each other, and Thunderbird continuing to piss on Savaxian’s tree. Like a fucking dog. He would have electrified the tree with a gajillion volts of rock-your-world-nasty, but he doubted it would’ve done much damage to the feather-puffed fuckwad.
Savaxian shifted, finding the thought of the pompous dickcheese unpleasant. So. He was dealing with a djinni who was in the habit of granting wishes. This was interesting. His hoard could use a few more rooms’-worth of gold…