Charmed: A Haven Realm Novel

by Young, Mila

  “Well,” I said, lifting my arms high out of frustration. “What’s the plan?”

  “Black magic is most powerful at the peak of the night,” explained Zand. “As the sun sets, his power will grow stronger. We must get him at his weakest. Trap and bind him.”

  I glanced up at the golden orb, sitting at the midday position in the sky. Light magic at its strongest. With two genies by my side, I had no doubt we could defeat the scumbag vizier and get Ali and Kaza back.

  “Can we somehow trap the vizier in the lamp?” I asked.

  Both Zand and Dahvi nodded.

  “To get the lamp, we will need to sneak in,” said Zand.

  Hah! Finally, my skills would come in handy. Thank the gods. I’d felt so useless without any magic to contribute.

  “Okay,” I said. “I know a few ways in.”

  “No.” Zand grabbed my hand and ran his thumb over it.

  Fire scorched through me, leaving me breathless and wishing he’d never let me go.

  His next words brought me crashing back to reality. “During my surveillance of the palace, I found four tunnels, one leading to each tower of the palace.”

  I’d never heard a whisper about any tunnels. Nor had I found any evidence of them in all my sneaking around. I’d been everywhere in Utaara, and there was no place I couldn’t find a way into. I searched Zand’s heart, and images flashed in my mind of even more tunnels, all of them connecting to different realms within Haven.

  Perfect. Once we defeated the vizier, we had an escape route to the ideal little life I envisioned by the sea. If that option didn’t work out, we could find a new home in either The Cove or near Scarlet in Terra.

  “Where do we find these tunnels?” I asked, bursting with excitement to retrieve Ali and Kaza and to start our new life.

  “I tracked an entrance back to a wall a few blocks to the north,” said Zand. “But there is a door sealed by magic.”

  Of course, there was. The vizier had cast it himself.

  Zand touched the band on his wrist. “No. This is the work of a djinn.”

  Recollections flew back to me of the city circle tower, which people said was haunted by a djinn. They left tributes there in hopes the djinn might grant their wish. And it did sometimes. How the djinn managed to do so while trapped, I didn’t know…the entire concept didn’t seem to make sense. Then again, neither did genie magic or dark sorcerer power.

  “A djinn is more powerful than a genie,” Zand said. “With our limited magic, we might not be able break its spell.”

  A drowning sensation captured my gut.

  Something poked me in the back, and I twirled to find Dahvi’s magical carpet waving a tassel at me to get onboard.

  As always, Dahvi lifted me onto it, and Zand leaped on beside us.

  Did I mention I loved having genies by my side? Zand for protection. Dahvi to comfort me. Kaza to make me laugh. I set my mind to the fact that soon we’d be reunited as a family.

  Normally, I was the planning type, laying out every part of my mission in advance. Entry and exit points. Spare tools for unforeseen circumstances. Various “Plan Bs” in reserve in case of emergencies. But today, I was going in completely unprepared and out of my depth, to fight against an evil sorcerer wielding dark magic. A sudden coldness tightened around my entire body. What was I getting myself into?

  At the djinn wall in the center of the city, rock scraped as Zand’s magic shifted a loose block about the size of a tiger, leaving a space wide enough for Dahvi and I to hunch down and enter. Stale air, probably hundreds of years old, blasted us, and I coughed, pulling my shirt over my nose.

  “Gods, I can hardly breathe in here,” I said.

  “Shall I make it smell like roses?” Dahvi adopted the smartass tone I’d expect from Kaza.

  Either Dahvi missed his brother, or he was trying to lighten the mood. Gods knew, I needed something to take my mind off this rescue. For the last hour, a vice had clamped down on my heart, one I knew wouldn’t let go until my brother and the genie were safe and sound, and we were a thousand miles from here. But humor always did the trick when it came to making me a little less stressed.

  I tickled his armpit for being cheeky, and he gave me a quick kiss.

  Zand closed the stone block behind us, releasing a puff of dust that stuck to my hair and eyes. I blinked a few times to dislodge the dirt and rubbed the rest away.

  I groped around in the pitch black that had swallowed us. “A little light, please.”

  “We must conserve as much magic as possible,” warned Zand.

  Fire snapped to life, crackling and writhing on his palms. Its illumination stretched about twenty feet in either direction, revealing the same view on both ends. Large bricks, stained with red iron marks from water dripping down the sides. Tree roots crawled along the wall, seeking the water, ending where they found it. Spiders hunched in their webs, which clung to the corners. Gods only knew where they got their food when there wasn’t another bug in sight.

  The chill clinging to the air raked along my skin, and I rubbed my arms for warmth. Arachnids and darkness didn’t bother me. What turned my bowels to water was the thought of the evil awaiting us in the palace.

  Dahvi ran his palm flames along my upper arm, and an invigorating warmth filled me, chasing away my fears. Dahvi—my strength, my rock. I leaned into him so our arms just touched. Fire sizzled between us. I needed his calming energy right now. The possibility of losing my brother was turning me into a crazy mess, and only Dahvi kept me sane.

  “Thanks,” I said, looking up at him through my lashes.

  “Anything for you,” said Dahvi, flashing his gorgeous smile.

  Awww. I loved how adorable he was. Out of all my genies, he was the most considerate and the sweetest. I didn’t know what I would have done without him by my side.

  “Enough of that, Brother,” said Zand, kicking Dahvi’s behind playfully and pushing him forward.

  I loved this fresh, new side to Zand. His stiff broodiness got a bit boring.

  I laughed and smacked him on the ass. “Don’t get jealous.”

  Zand offered me an urgent kiss before moving on. “I’m not. I just don’t want him getting all the attention.”

  I touched my lips, which were tingling from the impact of both their kisses, and smiled. Gods, they were sexy. Once my brother was safe and the vizier dead, I fantasized about bringing each of them back here for some alone time. Separately, of course. I imagined each of them, fucking me all day until my pussy stung from too much sex. I pictured myself screaming as loudly as I wanted, with no one to hear me. Heat pooled between my thighs, but I pushed those thoughts aside to concentrate on Ali and Kaza’s rescue.

  Our footsteps crunched on the ground as we made our way deeper into the tunnels. Silence suffocated us, as if the genies had descended into dark thoughts of their own. Based on the stiffness in Zand’s expression, I assumed he’d prepared an attack of his own on the vizier. The deep lines in Dahvi’s forehead told me he worried for his brother’s safety.

  More than anything, I wished someone would say something because my mind, too, kept drifting to endless possibilities that could go wrong. I blamed it on us not having a backup plan in case of an emergency. Winging it was at odds with the planner in me.

  “So, what are we going to do with the vizier?” I broke the silence as I stepped over a tree root jutting out of the ground. “Kill him? Imprison him in a land far away? Stuff him in the lamp?”

  “I vote for the first option,” said Dahvi. The lightheartedness he’d shown earlier had all but disappeared.

  “Careful, Brother,” warned Zand. “You know the rules.”

  Oh, Zand… Such a stickler for genie law. We’d only reserved that plan if the vizier killed anyone.

  An unexpected tremor rocked the passage, and we all crashed into the wall. The shuddering vibrated all the way up my legs. A deep groan echoed down the tunnel beneath the palace. It sounded like the whole place was about to collapse
or something. It was almost as if the vizier had ears in the tunnel, heard our plan, and decided to attack first, to kill us before we could reach him.

  A lump sprang up in my throat. I spun around, squinting into the darkness at the edge of Dahvi’s flame.

  “What was that?” I asked.

  Zand tilted his head, as if listening. “The djinn who sealed the tunnels is here.”

  I glanced at Dahvi, but he, too, was focused, as if a voice from another world called to him.

  “The vizier is a sorcerer of old,” Zand repeated, as if passing on the story. “His dark magic trapped her in the city’s walls for three hundred years.”

  That bastard! How many other creatures had he abused for the sake of accumulating his power? My stomach prickled with remorse for the poor djinn. I couldn’t imagine being bound to the city for several lifetimes.

  Dahvi spoke up. “Our sister requests our help in getting free.”

  Geez. The quaking sure was a funny way of asking for help.

  Fissures snaked across the ground as another quake rumbled. This one was much stronger, and I almost lost my balance.

  Zand grabbed me protectively, pulling me up against him, steadying me.

  My fingers dug into his waist.

  “She doesn’t agree with us taking a human as a mate,” advised Zand.

  My chest thrummed at the mention of the word mate, pumping a delicious, electric charge through me. Until now, I’d never been anyone’s mate. Hadn’t been looking, to be honest. Beyond my own basic needs, my brother’s health and survival was my first priority. Everything had changed the second I had met the genies. Having three mates made me the luckiest girl in Haven.

  I pushed aside those thoughts for the moment. For now, I just wanted to focus on one thing at a time. Prime objective number one: save my brother and Kaza, and in the process, don’t gain any new enemies, like a cranky djinn.

  “Brother, look.” Dahvi pointed to the tree roots on the wall.

  A black mass crawled over them, burning the fibers and turning them to ash. Dark veins stretched through the bricks. Sand on the ground blackened as if burned.

  Suddenly, a sickening nausea gripped me, and I didn’t feel so confident in our odds. “The dark flame.”

  The quaking and groaning ended at the mention of those words.

  Like we needed any more magic to contend with. Wasn’t the vizier, the dark flame, and a severely pissed-off djinn enough to deal with?

  “Watch your step,” said Zand, taking careful steps, as if avoiding booby traps.

  Nerves tense, gut clenched, I followed close behind him in case I needed a magical get-away from my buried prison beneath the streets of Utaara.

  Gods knew how much time passed before we reached a sealed door with strange markings carved into it. I sure hoped Zand could do his magical shifting trick; otherwise, we might have to return the way we’d come and sneak in the old-fashioned way. My way.

  Pushing past Zand, I let my fingers trace the foreign symbols. The marks scorched with magical fire and spat embers.

  Zand ran his finger along a circle carved in the stone, exposing more writing, which he read out loud. “Here rests the mighty djinn Wanessa. Punished for refusing to do the vizier’s bidding. Only when she performs the spell she was summoned for, or the vizier leaves this Earthly plane, will she be released.”

  Well. That was easily solved, then, wasn’t it? We were going to slay the vizier and free this djinn.

  “Our poor sister.”

  The forlorn tone in Dahvi’s voice made my heart ache.

  Both genies pressed their foreheads to the door as if it were some sort of djinn ritual.

  When Zand straightened, he placed a hand in the circle at the center of the door. Fiery shapes shifted across its surface. Fireworks flashed outward like party sparklers. Rock cracked and groaned as it inched open. Sand poured off the top of the door. The noise slammed down the corridor.

  Uneasiness tumbled inside me. I half expected to encounter something nasty on the door’s other side. Guards with swords raised, ready to slice me to bits. A three-headed dragon or something, waiting to roast us to a crisp. The vizier with a ball of dark flame to turn us to ash. But none of that presented itself. Only a dusty stairwell, lit by blazing torches. Something about the glowing stairway didn’t feel right. As if someone had expected our arrival via this route. I mean, who would light torches in a stairway leading to tunnels sealed by magic doors? It almost felt as if the vizier had anticipated this move.

  Chapter 14

  A sudden wind picked up in the tunnel, tossing my hair over my shoulders. Sand swirled on the ground, in small circles at first, then widening and lifting into the air, until it was a miniature whirlwind.

  My stomach locked tight as things got even crazier.

  The building tornado pounded us with dirt, cobwebs, water droplets, and dust. I lost sight of my genies through the haze tearing around us. Fear clutched at my throat as I groped blindly for them, grazing one of their arms. Wind ripped at my clothes, dragging me away, and my feet scraped along the ground.

  “Azar,” shouted Zand.

  “Where are you?” I yelled back.

  Strong hands grabbed my waist, steadying me.

  Zand.

  But even his great strength wasn’t enough to keep us rooted. Gale-force winds tossed us aside, and we crashed into a wall, pinned there by the wind’s pressure.

  At that instant, my life flashed before my eyes. Death snaring my genies and me in the tunnel. Ali and Kaza, perishing at the hands of the vizier or their infections. My heart shrank at the thought.

  The debris hitting us eased off, allowing me to glance up.

  A feminine shape made of sand began to form inside the whirlwind—first her legs, then her torso, her arms, her shoulders, and her head. With a loud snap, the dirt transformed into skin and bone. In an instant, the squall died down, but my ears still rang from all the noise.

  A djinn stood before us…more precisely, a Shaitan like Kaza, judging by her golden crop top and rippling, silk pants. Talk about a looker. Perfect golden skin without any blemishes. Hair, whisked up in a tight ponytail and not a single lock out of place. She stood tall, with plenty of cleavage on display, making my small chest feel inadequate by comparison. Large, round eyes, haunted by years of captivity within the city’s wall, watched us.

  Why had my genies chosen me as their mate over someone as goddess-like as her? Or the several thousand other stunners back in djinn land?

  Dahvi scraped to his feet from the wall opposite us.

  Something about her cold expression didn’t sit right in my belly. I scrambled over to yank him back down, but he moved out of my reach.

  Zand remained by my side like a good guard dog. He grabbed me tight, as if ready to spin me out of harm’s way in a second. Still, his protective presence didn’t settle the uneasy feeling in my guts.

  “Sister,” Dahvi cried, rushing to give the djinn a hug.

  Dark lightning charged on the onyx wristbands she wore—symbols of her imprisonment to the vizier. She raised a palm covered in henna tattoos stretching all the way up her arm. But that didn't stop the big, cuddly genie. At his embrace, she stiffened, and her expression hardened. Her yellow irises flashed with magic. Another blustery wind whisked Dahvi away, tossing him at the wall, and he thudded onto the ground beside us.

  “Dahvi!” Instinctively, I jerked free of Zand to go to my blue genie.

  A force smacked me against the bricks. Pain splinted up my spine and through my skull. For a few moments, I couldn’t see past the black dots blurring my vision. When my eyes refocused, I found the same invisible hand holding Zand, too.

  “Sorry, Brothers,” said the djinn, her voice icy and her wristbands spitting dark bolts of magic. “But the vizier gave me a choice. My freedom or yours.”

  Shock struck me like lightning. That bitch. She was betraying her kind. The selfish part of me understood the Shaitan’s need for survival. But the compas
sionate side did not.

  Several balls of lava pelted the Shaitan. She screamed, clutching her arm, and stumbled backward.

  The djinn’s magic hold on me released.

  Zand’s stance declared war, legs and arms spread wide. He was ready to get the djinn if she made another move.

  An assault of wind battered us, slamming me to the ground. Being the easy target didn’t sit well with me. I wasn’t going to get ten meters down the hall without being beaten to death by the Shaitan’s air magic.

  The genies held their ground, lifting their arms to shield their eyes.

  A tight ball of panic looped in my chest. I had to face facts; we were in deep trouble. My genies still weren’t at full capacity, and they’d be facing off with a more powerful being that could kick their asses. But if they couldn’t get past her, we stood no chance of saving Ali and Kaza.

  “Brother,” said Zand, handing Dahvi the glass containing the magical sands. “Give this to Kaza. I’ll handle this.”

  Dahvi accepted the cure with a nod.

  “What?” I backed away, unable to handle the heat Zand gave off. “No!”

  Deep in my soul, I knew I couldn’t stop him. He’d die fighting to save me. Each of his steps forward told me that was his plan.

  “We have no quarrel with you, Sister,” warned Zand. “Join us, and we will help you get free.”

  “You can’t defeat the vizier,” snarled the Shaitan, black streaks of magic circling her. “He keeps me trapped here with his dark magic.”

  Suddenly our odds of success felt incredibly small. Having to fight a djinn then the vizier.

  Dahvi flung me behind him.

  A vortex spun around the Shaitan as she beat at Zand with all her might. He struggled against the bluster, inching forward slowly. Several fireballs exploded off him and pounded her. The force field of wind swirling around her deflected the attack, tossing them onto the bricks, which melted beneath the fiery assault.

  I peeked around Dahvi, digging my nails into his arms. Watching the two fight, I felt utterly powerless. With every fiber of my being, I longed to tear that bitch's head off for siding with the vizier. For daring to threaten my genies and me. But that was never going to happen in a million years.