by Cassie Ryan
Uriel thought he saw a flash of pain and weariness in the piercing green eyes before Michael forced a smile. “All I can tell you is that as of right now, we must not interfere in the paths of those four succubi.”
Raphael snorted. “Officially? Are you giving us a hands-off order?”
Michael shrugged. “No.”
Silence fell as they waited for more elaboration from Michael. When none came, Uriel clenched his teeth.
He understood Michael’s reasoning for being secretive and mysterious, but that didn’t stop it from pissing him off. He sighed, glad he’d already given passage to his property to Jezebeth and Noah. Michael had said no interference from here forward, so Uriel hadn’t violated any orders.
Uriel glanced up and his gaze locked with Michael’s, the intense green gaze burning into his as if the other Archangel was trying to communicate something, but Uriel wasn’t sure exactly what. He opened his mouth to ask when Michael glanced away and stood in a lazy, graceful motion. “But it would behoove us to find the other journals as quickly as possible. Even Lucifer agrees on this point.”
Uriel frowned as he realized Michael had just admitted that he’d spoken to Lucifer—something they’d all suspected, but had never had confirmed until now. Michael and Lucifer had been best friends before the fall, and many had wondered how much of that continued even afterward.
A quick glance around the table showed Gabriel and Raphael were just as surprised as Uriel.
When Uriel glanced back toward Michael, the Archangel was gone.
Jez stared out the window at the giant gray Djinn and sighed. “Terrific. Him again.”
“You know him?” Noah squeezed her hand and she returned the pressure, trying to offer reassurance she didn’t feel. Djinn were hard to read, and she hadn’t run into this one in centuries.
The Djinn smiled, his booming laugh sounding inside her head, as Djinn communication tended to. “I’m flattered you remember me, little one. Who is this human you travel with?”
Noah stiffened in his seat and Jez glanced at him willing him to remain silent until she could gauge the situation. “He’s my guide. Tasked with getting me back to Lilith right away.”
Careful to conceal her actions from the Djinn, she took Noah’s cell phone off the seat where she’d left it, and with one hand typed a text that said, “Trust Me” and laid it on the seat for Noah to see. She just hoped she really knew what she was doing.
The Djinn’s smile was only a hint of shadow in his smoky face. “So I’ve heard. Semiazas is offering quite a bit to ensure that doesn’t happen. I was lucky to recognize your energy signature and come out to investigate.”
“What do you want?” She mentally held her breath, waiting to see what the Djinn was after.
“What I’ve always wanted, Jezebeth.” His voice had dropped to a silky whisper inside her skull, like a cat chin marking its territory. “You.”
Jezebeth sighed and hoped he didn’t sense that it was in relief rather than frustration. She’d avoided this Djinn for several centuries, but apparently her time had run out. “What are your terms?”
“Jezebeth,” Noah hissed. “You can’t mean to—”
Jez cut him off with an impatient gesture and tapped the cell phone with their joined hands. They could’ve run into a million other creatures who would kill them on the spot, but this was one they could survive the encounter with and possibly still make it to Yuma on time.
Noah glanced at the cell phone display and closed his mouth, but he didn’t look happy.
The Djinn’s large form rippled, giving Jez the impression of eagerness. “One day with you changed into my current Djinn form.”
“I don’t have a day.” She crossed her arms over her chest and stared at him. “One hour.”
He grinned like a child who knew he was about to receive a long-awaited toy.
The Djinn had fixated on her because she was the only shape-shifting succubus in existence. All the other beings who could change forms would have nothing to do with him, and until he completed his service—the Djinn equivalent of an internship into full Djinn warrior—no other Djinn would associate with him either. The Djinn valued strength and individual accomplishment. Jez had no idea why they thought thousands of years of alone time was character building, but it just made her glad succubi didn’t share the same beliefs.
As for the Djinn, if he couldn’t complete his service on his own, he wasn’t considered worthy to join their ranks.
His form wavered as a breeze blew through him. “Twelve hours.”
“Two hours.” She shrugged. “I’m on a tight time frame here.”
“Not my problem. You’ve turned me down for years, purely because you can’t tap my energy and it wouldn’t count toward your quota. Now I have something you want—safe passage—and it’s going to cost you.”
Jez thought back over the several times she turned down the Djinn—sometimes rather rudely, and hoped those past actions didn’t end up biting her in the ass. He’d always seemed to find her when she was in the middle of something urgent. “If you kill me and collect the reward from Semiazas, even if he does hold up his end of that bargain, that means you’ll have seven thousand more years of long, lonely service to complete with no hope of reprieve.”
His brows pinched and a twinge of guilt wormed through her. She couldn’t imagine spending a millennium cut off from her own kind, living out that time in solitude with only those humans or supernaturals who stumbled upon her prison to pass the time with. But that was the way of the Djinn.
“Three hours, and even that will put me in danger of not making it back to Lilith’s lair on time. Which, if I don’t do, will mean that same seven thousand years of lonely service for you.”
His lips thinned into a hard line. “Four hours. I’ll accept no less, Jezebeth.”
She studied him skeptically. “And afterward you’ll let us go and forget you ever saw me?”
The Djinn nodded once and Noah rolled his eyes and huffed out a small breath. “Him too with the one nod thing?” He turned to her. “Jezebeth, you don’t have to do this. We’ll find another way.”
Jez ignored Noah and concentrated on the Djinn. “And Noah will remain safe before, during, and after?”
The Djinn nodded once and Noah threw up his hands. Jez wasn’t sure if it was because she continued to ignore him, or if it was because of the Djinn’s nod.
“He will have my extended protection. None will harm him or you during those four hours.” The Djinn’s smoky form floated closer. “Although afterward, once you’re beyond my range, I can’t promise any protection.”
“Fair enough,” she said, short-circuiting Noah’s attempted objection. “I accept your terms.”
“Jeze—”
Noah’s words were cut short when the world fuzzed out and then refocused. Jez shuddered as she let her molecules recover from the Djinn method of dematerialization. This was her first experience with it, and one she didn’t look forward to repeating.
Her eyes slowly adjusted to the dim light that was able to filter into the cave where she currently sat on the cold, hard ground. She had excellent night vision, so suspected her body was still throwing off the effects of the travel. The walls were reddish brown and the tang of mold rode on the thick air.
Noah groaned from beside her, their fingers still twined. “What the hell was that?”
The Djinn’s booming laugh echoed inside her skull. “That’s the Djinn method of travel, human.”
“Noah. My name is Noah,” he croaked out as he pushed himself up to sit, leaving the backpack he’d been clutching when they transported lying at his feet.
Jezebeth smiled as warmth curled through her stomach, chasing back the cold from the cave as she squeezed Noah’s hand.
She’d been a supernatural all her life and had endured being called succubus, whore, and an endless litany of other labels. By supernatural terms, Noah was even lower on the power totem pole than she was, and yet he stood up
for himself each and every time someone called him by his species and not his name. He reminded her of one of her sisters.
“You’ve found an arrogant one, here, Jezebeth. Maybe I should remind him what his place is—”
“You promised safe passage for both of us before, during, and after,” she reminded him.
The Djinn’s features morphed giving Jez the impression of pouting. “I wouldn’t have hurt him, Jezebeth. I was just going to play with him a bit. It tends to get boring and lonely here.”
“I’m sitting right here.” Noah pushed to standing and pulled Jezebeth up next to him. “There’s no reason to talk about me in the third person.”
Jezebeth smiled as Noah pulled her close in a protective gesture. She turned in his arms and laid her palm against his cheek not sure how much he knew about the Djinn. “I made a pact with him.”
He sighed and nodded. “Since the penalty for breaking a Djinn pact is death, I know you have to go through with it.” He glanced past her toward the towering Djinn. “I trust you. But I don’t have to like it.”
Jezebeth smiled and leaned forward to brush a kiss over his lips.
Before he could react to the kiss, she pulled back and turned to face the Djinn. “I’m ready.” She concentrated on the large gray form of the being in front of her and within seconds, the familiar tingling that signaled her change flowed through her body.
Jez waited for her form to solidify, and then remembered that as a Djinn, that wasn’t going to happen. She felt as if her body were in a zillion tiny parts, all her molecules constantly bumping against each other, but somehow loosely retaining a general form.
“Whoa!” Noah stumbled back away from her and she glanced down noting how tiny he was in relation to her current form.
“It’s all right, Noah.”
Noah bent over wincing, his hands over his ears. “Stop shouting!”
Jezebeth concentrated on a quiet whisper instead. “Sorry.”
Noah cracked open one eyeball and glanced up at her before standing straight and facing her. “Better. You okay?”
She smiled and nodded once. “Fine. We’ll talk again in four hours.”
Noah frowned, his jaw clenched hard, but he returned her single nod.
Jez turned back toward the Djinn. “So how do we do this?” Djinn didn’t have sex until they were fully initiated, so unlike what Noah feared, that’s not what the Djinn wanted from her.
“Just relax and trust me to keep my promise that I won’t hurt you.”
She resisted the urge to giggle. Jez couldn’t count how many times she’d heard that in some form or another over the years when it did apply to sex.
The Djinn floated forward until the edges of their forms touched and then his molecules slid between hers, stretching them apart. A quick spurt of panic arrowed through her when her molecules stretched to accommodate, but she battled her fear back and forced herself to relax and just let it happen until they completely overlapped.
When it was finished, their floating forms slowly sank until they pooled against the floor like two vaporous beanbags curled together.
The Djinn sighed and relaxed against her—the Djinn form of cuddling and comfort, and something they were denied until initiation. Jezebeth had always thought it a cruel and unfair practice, and most likely what made the Djinn so vindictive and cruel, but then, they saw those as qualities of strength.
She reached out with her mind, wondering if it was true that Djinn could read each other’s minds while merged. Her energy easily reached inside the Djinn’s mind, but she found only peaceful oblivion.
The damned Djinn was asleep!
She shook her head and smiled. She mentally shrugged as contentment slid through her making her eyelids droop as a heavy, languorous sensation crept over her.
“Jezebeth?”
Noah’s soft question jarred her to alertness and she glanced down to find him staring up at her with concern and strain etched across his handsome features.
“I’m here.”
“What’s going on?”
“He’s a child Djinn, and this is their way of comfort. In order for them to come of age, they have to spend a millennium alone and tethered to one location. He wanted some comfort and cuddling.”
Confusion flashed across Noah’s face. “So, he doesn’t want sex?”
Jezebeth shook her head. “No. Just this. He’s asleep.”
Noah blew out a long breath, his lips curving into a smile. “You scared me there. I’m glad you’re okay, and I’m glad I’m not going to have to watch you have sex with someone else.” He stiffened as if he realized what he’d said. “I mean, it would be weird to have to watch you have sex. You know . . .” He shrugged, not meeting her gaze as he ran his hand through his hair. “I’ll be over here taking a nap when you’re done.”
“Noah.” When he glanced back at her, she smiled. “You can lay on us. Djinn forms are very comfortable, and it’ll save you from lying on the hard ground.”
“I won’t wake him, will I?” Noah’s expression was dubious as he walked nearer and slowly reached out to press a hand against the bottom edge of the combined Djinn form as if he were testing the softness of a mattress.
She grinned. “You can’t hurt either one of us. The molecules will shift to accommodate your weight.”
Noah climbed carefully onto them and Jez could sense him somewhere near her thigh as he relaxed onto his back. “Wow, this would be a great bed if there wasn’t a volatile Djinn attached.” He laughed.
“For what it’s worth, Noah, I don’t think I’d be very comfortable watching you have sex with someone else either.”
A blush crept up into Noah’s neck and face and he nodded, but didn’t turn to look up at her.
Jez wasn’t sure what his reaction meant, but she knew then that if Noah ever was forced to watch her have sex with someone else, she wasn’t sure she could go through with it.
Damn, Jezebeth. Get a grip, he’s a human.
Her inner voice made sense, but she shoved it aside and concentrated on the comforting cocoon of warmth that filled her, the warm pressure from Noah, and the deep sleep that beckoned to her.
“Night, Jezebeth,” was the last thing she heard from Noah as she drifted off to sleep.
12
As consciousness slowly filtered back to Noah, he noticed he was spooned against a very warm and very naked woman. He took stock and found he was still fully dressed.
A deep breath filled his lungs with the tantalizing pomegranate and honey scent that always clung to Jezebeth, and his cock hardened inside his jeans at the realization that it was her supple body that lay just in front of him.
Liquid warmth filled his chest as he listened to her deep, even breathing, and he allowed himself a few minutes to enjoy the wonderful sensation of being close to her.
When Jezebeth was awake he was constantly reminded that she was a succubus, but like this it was easy to imagine that she was just a woman. A very attractive, desirable woman who was a constant surprise, keeping him on his toes and never doing what he expected.
He smiled as she murmured in her sleep and shifted more comfortably against him. She pulled his arm tighter around her stomach and relaxed back with a deep sigh. Her soft hair against his face was like warm silk, and he rubbed his nose against the soft mass, breathing deep.
What was his big hang-up with her being a succubus anyway? It wasn’t as if he’d ever cared that the women he dated were virgins or not. True, several millennia of sex with others, and not just humans, was probably part of what pricked at his pride. But if she didn’t sleep with them, she’d die, so did his moral hang-ups really apply in this situation?
He sighed and enjoyed one more long moment of just holding her close, her comforting warmth seeping contentment into him with every slow breath.
Noah forced himself to open his eyes and chase back the last vestiges of sleep.
He found they were still inside the Djinn’s cave lying on some type of
soft mattress. No pillow sat beneath his head, but whatever they lay on was covered in purple satin.
He wasn’t sure where the Djinn had gone, or if they were vulnerable to attack, regardless of the Djinn’s promise. But he was reluctant to move and not only wake Jezebeth but end their time spooned together like this.
He decided to compromise. He’d look around, but before he did, he gave in to the urge to place a quick kiss against the back of Jezebeth’s left shoulder. Her skin was silky and tempting against his lips, but he forced himself to pull back and not linger.
He sat up slowly, pulled his arm out from under her, careful not to jostle her.
She murmured again and then rolled onto her stomach, revealing the most perfect shapely ass Noah had ever seen. Her back was smooth and lean, her long, dark hair spilling around her as she leaned her cheek on her forearm. She looked like a beautiful sculpture come to life, and a sudden urge to kiss his way over every inch of exposed skin surged through him.
He tightened his hands into fists against the compulsion. He wasn’t sure if she’d push him away or not, but he still wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to find out. He still needed to work out his misgivings over her being a succubus before he started anything.
He swung his legs off the mattress, stood, and turned in a circle to look around him. The rust-red color of the walls was dimly lit by what appeared to be the glow of moonlight that filtered in from somewhere high above him. The cave seemed entirely empty except the queen-sized velvet purple mattress that sat in the middle of the floor with Jezebeth still sleeping soundly on top.
Something shimmered on the far side of the cavern, catching his attention, and he glanced at Jezebeth to make sure she was all right before he went to investigate. Her back rose and fell in even intervals and one hand was curled under her chin, a childlike gesture that made him smile.