Because that’s what she did that night.
She wanted me to fuck her, but what she really wanted was for me to have the balls to love her. She wanted me to understand that there she was, exposed, naked, raw for the taking and she wanted to know if I was man enough to recognize that and give it back to her tenfold. Because a woman like Juma deserved ten times the love she gave and I knew this, I lived with this every day, wondering why she’d picked me when she knew I couldn’t give her what she deserved.
Needed.
Demanded.
And yet she stayed. She persisted and I learned and slowly the walls came down, or she climbed over them, until eventually we landed at this place, this house, this kitchen. Surrounded by some of the most important people in my life and all of them focused on her.
Beautiful Juma.
Fierce, confident, eyes-full-of-fire-and-fight Juma.
Hands-on-my-hips, I’ma-dress-you-down-right-here-right-now Juma.
Pay-attention-to-me Juma.
I-demand-it, I-require-it Juma.
And we did. Every motherfucker in that room paid attention. It was fitting—if anything, she was always meant to be a focal point, of mine and damn near everyone else’s whose path she crossed. She was that spectacular. And goddamn, I fucking loved her.
“The Gate has consistently taken umbrage at any and all acts committed by my Mistress but had no issue with prior Masters and any cross rates during their reigns,” Juma continued, pursuing a line of thought I knew she’d researched endlessly and that drove her nuts. “But now suddenly it’s a problem, Death is crossing too many Deaders and my kind is being hunted and tortured with a vengeance previously unseen. And for what? To perpetrate some sick agenda of a madman with too much power?”
“No thank you.” She shook her head and I swear her freckles danced in the waning sunlight of the evening. “I’m going to kill everyone working for him and then I’m going to kill him. And you all can help me”—and here she paused to make eye contact with everyone in the room, as if daring them to contradict her—“or you can sit here and keep arguing about things that don’t matter. Y’all can do whatever you want, just stay the fuck out of my way.”
Then she stepped toward me, pressed her lips to mine, and smiled.
“Oh,” she added, as if suddenly remembering some random tidbit she should share with the group, “Miss Suleiman, you should know that despite the fact that Dutch is an idiot and sometimes too caught up in the madness of his life to recognize the simplest of truths when they are right in his face, I am not. I am fully aware that you do not love him and am assuming your marriage to him is a plot of his very fucked-up parents, so I will not hold you in any way responsible for assisting this union to reach fruition, nor do I think you have eyes on all of this brown magic.”
Juma leaned close and I wrapped my arms around her waist as she glanced back and kissed my throat, a wicked gleam in her eye. “However, should you ever want to join us for some extracurricular play time, I can assure you we’ll make it well worth your while. You can even bring that fiery man of yours.”
Juma laughed and kissed my arm. “But be warned”—she looked up and continued, serious, quiet, her voice a low hiss—“I don’t know you and Dutch doesn’t know you. You and that man of yours are not part of this tight circle, so trust should I ever learn Dutch is right and he is not exaggerating and being his usual asshole self and you are as horrible as he makes you out to be, it will become my personal mission to hunt you down and kill you with my bare hands. Dutch will watch and we’ll both make sure your last moments in this life are your worst.”
Poor Keeper Suleiman.
From her expression—the wide eyes and held breath, the inability to craft a response—it was evident she’d never crossed paths with anyone quite like Juma. In fact, the utter silence of the room suggested no one had crossed paths with a being like Juma, and I fucking loved that.
I laughed as I pulled her close, kissed her neck, and considered how she stood in front of a Keeper twice her size and cut that Keeper down with her fierce spirit and some choice words. Juma turned back and watched me for a second before laughing and kissing me and smiling. And just like that, the room exhaled—you could feel it, the relief. It was palpable, mostly because none of these fuckers knew what Juma was capable of, none of them knew whether or not she might kill them, and holy fuck, that was sexy as hell.
So I laughed.
And I know the sound startled Avery and Kash and Frist, but fuck them, I was happy. Kind of. Probably not at all. But Juma could make me think I might be happy so fuck it, I laughed. And Juma laughed as I covered her mouth and Frist watched us out of the corner of her eye and she chuckled and pretty soon the whole room was a little lighter and less on edge, everyone ignoring the fact that just minutes earlier, Juma had announced she planned to single-handedly take down the very organization we had all been raised in, the only place some of us knew to call home.
Despite the fact she’d made clear her agenda was to kill my father.
“Juma,” Avery spoke as the laughter died down and I could tell that despite his smile and seeming good nature, he was very serious, “how exactly do you plan to kill Khan Mathew, if I might be so bold as to ask?”
Juma glanced back at me for a second, not for permission because she never asked for permission to do anything but I imagine because she wanted to let me know she was going to answer him and I probably wasn’t going to like what she had to say.
“I already told you, Avery,” Juma replied as she shrugged out of my embrace and absent-mindedly touched the hilt of her blade. “I’m going to kill everyone in my way until he’s the last one standing and then I’m going to kill him.”
“Have you ever met Khan?” Avery asked.
Juma cocked her head to the side and seemed to consider her words for a second but I knew she was really considering Avery and what kind of man he was. “No, can’t say I’ve had the pleasure.”
“Because if you had then you would know he is always surrounded by a contingent of the deadliest, most loyal Keepers, is as smart as he is twisted, and is a renowned killer himself, and were he to get his hands on you, I cannot imagine the atrocities your body would endure.”
Juma chuckled low in the face of Avery’s concern.
“I am hardly afraid of some man who makes a habit of torturing his son and using his power to launch a bullshit agenda based on greed and desperation. Fuck him.”
This time it was Avery’s turn to appear amused.
“And what of The Black Copse?”
Juma appeared momentarily confused and it was my turn to intercede.
“Come on, Ave. You’re not serious, are you? The Black Copse? Veda’s vanity project?” I lit a smoke and waited to hear what nonsense would spew forth from his lips.
“Dutch.” Avery shook his head. “I love you like a brother, but you’re such a fucking idiot. The Black Copse is very real and it’s become quite evident your sister is ten times more twisted than your father.”
“The Black Copse is some childish bullshit patched together to deny me my birthright and ensure Khan installs a puppet regime, willing and capable of continuing his sick agenda of blood and mayhem. Do not sit here and try to convince me otherwise. You know better.”
“What I know is that while you’ve been underground for months, Veda has amassed power and instilled fear and I cannot implore you enough to sit up and take notice before it’s too late,” Avery replied, his voice low and serious. “There is a major rift within The Gate, making right here and now our chance to strike and take Veda down.”
I laughed.
I couldn’t help it.
I knew I shouldn’t because I had known Avery long enough to know he was being serious and I should listen, but it was motherfucking Veda, that sick, twisted bitch I could not escape, no matter how hard I tried. Veda, the same girl I’d pinned against the wall and could have easily killed, should have killed, that evening in the Palace. Goddam
ned pathetic, narcissistic Veda.
No way.
Fuck her.
I opened my mouth, hell-bent on launching into another Veda-filled diatribe, when Frist’s gentle voice cut through the death-metal rage ringing in my ears, her softness the perfect counter to the black cacophony exploding in my head. “Dutch, please. Fucking calm down.”
I never said she had a pretty mouth, just that she had that voice . . .
“And goddamn listen to someone besides yourself for a change,” Frist growled at me from across the room, her long arms crossed in irritation, her eyes full of controlled fury and just like that, I knew.
“What happened to you while I was gone?” I asked her.
Frist held my stare as everyone but Juma shuffled uncomfortably, obviously ripe with the details of whatever happened to Frist in my absence, just hesitant to share them with me.
“Your sister and I had a bit of a scuffle,” Frist replied, her voice deadpan, her expression nonplussed as she pulled up her shirt and revealed a nasty scar running from her top rib to her hip. I moved toward her and dragged my fingers along the ghastly mark that cut across her perfect skin. “Trust me, she looks worse.” Frist smirked and winked and moved my hand away from her body. I paused for a moment and noted a new and distinct distance between the two of us, one that had never before existed but now was there for all to see, and even though it made me a little sad, I couldn’t help but smile.
Mostly because Frist wasn’t sad at all. In fact, she looked ready to take on several motherfuckers at once, ready to start something, and finish it, too. As much as I loved her and wanted to protect Frist from all of this bullshit—me, The Gate, Veda, The Black Copse—the fact remained that she didn’t need it from me or anyone else.
“So don’t be worrying about your darkness doing this to me, Dutch. Your psychotic sister did this to me, and then she learned the hard way that I’m more than a pretty face and some purple hair.”
I nodded and Frist laughed and I lit a smoke and for the second time in less than an hour, the room seemed to exhale whatever stress it had been holding, wondering how I would react to the news of Veda and her bullshit invading my very private—and what I once believed to be very protected—close circle of friends. And in the midst of the ease and conversation, the shared exhalation, I noticed a blank space.
I scanned the room but it wasn’t necessary, I simply did it because Juma made me suffer ridiculous bouts of wishful thinking—it was part of her magic that I hoped to glimpse brown and freckles and hips and sex. I knew I wouldn’t, but goddamn if I didn’t want to.
Avery caught my eye from across the room and raised a brow.
“She left,” I said, and watched as he and everyone else repeated my foolish scan of the room. “Don’t bother. She’s long gone,” I added as I checked my weapons and readied to leave.
Avery caught sight of my preparations and put a hand on my wrist. “Uh-uh. You’re not going anywhere. We’ve got shit to discuss.”
I shook him off and continued my weapons check. “That’s where you’re wrong, Ave. I’m going after her.”
“Dutch, you just admitted she’s long gone and none of us know where to,” Avery countered. “Do you even know where she goes when she isn’t with you? And if you knew, could you even follow? I think not. Not in this body of yours.” Avery gave me a once-over. “You are not her kind.”
Avery’s words stilled all of my chaotic motion, the checking and snapping and sheathing and everything else my fingers and hands and eyes were busy doing as my mind spun high-speed circles through the traffic of worlds and places and realms she could be, and for a split second I wondered how long he’d been waiting to say that. To hone in on the very important, very unique, highly circumspect differences between Juma and me. And as quickly as that thought entered my consciousness, so too did I shake it off because the simple fact of it was Avery was one thousand percent correct.
When Juma and I went our separate ways, I had no idea where she existed, in what plane of reality, or how she got there. Again, it was part of her magic. And if she didn’t want to be found, then no matter where I went or what I did, I wasn’t going to be able to find her. It was the nature of Poocha versus Keeper, Death versus The Gate. Had it worked any other way, then what would be the point? I mean, it was already a meaningless mindfuck, but imagine if my kind could follow hers whenever wherever.
“Let her go, Dutch,” Kash’s gentle voice urged. “She’ll come back.”
“Or she’ll get killed and I’ll find her,” I replied with a dose of resignation, “just like this time.”
“Yes.” Kash squeezed my shoulder as he passed me on his way back to the table with a steaming plate of food. “Or she’ll get killed and you’ll find her. It cannot be helped, Dutch, and you cannot stop her. You can work with her or around her but you cannot stop her. She is a force of nature unlike any we have seen. God bless Veda and her goddamned tomfoolery. Your lover is going to fuck. her. up.”
Kash looked almost sheepish as the foul language left his lips and all of us smiled because it was always rather special when he did that shit and I suspected if the kitchen wasn’t full of all of us, Avery would have leaned over the table and kissed his partner full on the mouth.
“She only has so many lives,” I added, not quite ready to admit defeat. “I can’t just let her keep losing them.”
“And you can’t stop her from doing so either, Dutch. They are her lives, to do with as she pleases,” Kash countered, his voice gentle and almost sad, as if Juma had gotten under his skin as much as she had mine. “Loving her does not give you the right to make decisions for her, just the right to support her and love her more.”
I stared long and hard at Kash, my blood full of rage and frustration at his words and their truths and the fact I couldn’t do a fucking thing to alter their veracity. I gripped the back of the chair so hard I thought the wood would explode into tiny splinters, needing to hold something and cool down, slow my heartbeat, shut down the noise in my brain.
Kash looked up from his food and smiled, that familiar gentle curve to those dark lips, a slip of front tooth showing, and again I settled because that motherfucker and his smile always managed to make me settle. “Ease up, Dutch. Deep breaths, chap. That chair’s not going anywhere.” And his eyes flashed to my hands and the whites of my nails and slowly I did just as he suggested and eased up, lit a smoke
inhaled
exhaled
and calmed the fuck down.
Kash smiled, nodded my way, and returned to his meal while everyone else kind of settled into place with food and drink and some low chatter. I remained above it all for a while, watching my friends (and that woman) smile and drink and laugh and eat, envious of their ability to go on with their lives with such ease, never having to worry about finding their lover dead in some back alley in some random corner of the world, never having to conduct a perverse countdown of her remaining lives, never having to wait for her to cross back to life and love.
But all of those nevers also meant they had no idea about hips and freckles and low laughter and a pussy that tasted like heaven and a body made to be wrapped around me and all my bullshit. They didn’t know lemons and honey and grass and light. They would never know touching and sucking and fucking. They would never know Juma. Not my Juma.
I was a lucky bastard, I thought to myself as I took a seat at the table, lit a smoke, and poured some Scout.
“So? What now, good people?” I asked, then caught the eye of Keeper Suleiman and added, “Except that one. Fuck her.”
24: JUMA
Death.
Her realm. So much so it didn’t even have a proper name.
Her space. All of it, as large or as small as her mood pleased.
Her rules. Always her rules. No questions asked.
And here I was, back again.
I needed to check on Ma and meet with my team to get an update on the progress of her reclamation, so walking these halls�
�halls that today were covered in paintings from Picasso’s blue period, while rich Persian rugs muffled my steps—was an unavoidable necessity. That didn’t mean I approved of the current decor. I rolled my eyes at the obvious melodrama the interior design evoked—I liked the space much better when it was austere and minimalist.
This, the abstracts and too-many paisleys, wouldn’t have annoyed me as much if the fact I had to check in with Death didn’t exist. But it did, so here I was, despite this exercise in hierarchical bullshit being nowhere on my list of favorite things to do. It mattered little, this check-in. What did matter was that she was my Mistress and I could only be gone for so long before she came looking for me. And I didn’t want her looking for me. I wanted her as far away from my shit as possible. So I played her game and checked in, like the good little Poocha I was.
Or I planned to check in.
Eventually.
First, I wanted to walk and think and reflect on my last twenty-four hours. And in all that thinking and walking and reflecting, I found myself lost in thoughts of hands made to wrap around my hips, full lips at my throat, a flash of dark eyes, and that voice that moved through me in ways no other sound did, making me ache everywhere for some of him to be all over some of me.
Dutch.
I don’t know how he found me and I never asked because it didn’t matter I didn’t care I wasn’t interested in the how-why-where-when of his discovery, I just wanted to be the discovered. After so many endless months of falling asleep with his name on my lips, to wake in his arms was surreal and a part of me wondered how I ever left his side how I would ever sleep again without him next to me how I would ever open my eyes again and not see his beautiful face right there next to me.
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