Dutch

by Madhuri Pavamani

  He understood the folly of his words as they escaped his lips, but he said them anyway because he loved me and he loved us and he hoped the slim chance existed that I would hear what he said and agree. I could see that in his eyes, those pools that were usually so dark and full of filthy, dirty mischief, now so tormented and full of concern. Almost scared. For me him us and the horrific game of lives played by his father and Death. And he and I caught in the middle and all of it killing us slowly.

  I saw all of that in his eyes.

  I did that to him.

  What happened to us? Where were those two people slamming each other into walls, tongues and hands and lips everywhere, fucking and sucking and stroking each other senseless? I wanted to go back to that cocoon of sighs and discovery and anticipation, of hunger and need, where nothing existed but Dutch and Juma, Keeper and Poocha, a most absurd pair and yet perfectly matched. I wanted him all to myself, his hands and mouth and dick, his eyes and voice and lips. His everything wrapped all around me.

  I wanted.

  I wanted.

  I wanted.

  “I can’t do that, Dutch. She’s my ma.”

  And right there, I pulled the trigger.

  Russian roulette, baby.

  A most deadly game of lives.

  My name was Juma Landry and I wasn’t afraid of shit.

  Those motherfuckers at The Gate could come for me.

  I was ready.

  GLOSSARY

  Alighter: Alighters work with Poochas to assist in the reclamation of the dead. Fixers of memory and circumstance, they often work in teams around the globe to wipe memories and clear the way for a Deader to return to life.

  Deader: Nickname for the dead used by Death, her Poochas, and the Alighters.

  Dosha: A magical being charged with guarding Points. Considered the lowest caste within The Gate, the group with the least power and influence.

  Junta: The enforcers of the rules created by The Ren, the second most powerful group within The Gate.

  Keeper: Deadly assassin of The Gate, trained to hunt and kill Poochas. Only Keepers may become Ren and lead The Gate.

  Khat: (pronounced chat) Death’s Girl Friday. Her main job is to listen to and parse the Deaders’ arguments for returning to life and determine which are worthy of being presented to Death. Also hands down the Poocha assigments and covers any other tasks Death might need handled.

  Poocha: Death’s reclaimers, those beings who help the dead cross back into life. Poochas have nine lives and are the archnemeses of Keepers. Death chooses who shall become a Poocha.

  Ren: The highest authority within The Gate. Only Ren can rule The Gate.

  The Gate: Organization created to maintain a balance between the living and the dead and to keep Death in check. Divided into Ren, Junta, Keepers and Dosha. One is born into The Gate and into one’s class within it.

  The Point: Portals around the world used by The Gate to teleport. Points are guarded by Doshas.

  Keep reading for a preview of

  JUMA

  Coming June 2017 from SMP Swerve

  As soon as I came back to the realm of the living, I knew. Just as I knew the lines on my palm, the freckles along my clavicle, the cut of my breasts, the swell of my hips, so, too, did I know Dutch Mathew. His everything was imprinted on my soul, had been since that first night in the bar when he growled and cursed and almost-fucked me. His darkness was all over me. His danger thrummed in my blood. He was a part of me. So when I crossed, disoriented and somewhat out of sorts, the rhythm of his voice calmed me right away. My body recognized him without my brain fully grasping the reality of him. His smell, the timbre of his voice, the clipped words and slight accent, the hard feel of his chest, the soft touch of his hands.

  Dutch.

  My Dutch.

  The man who cast a cold glance my way and uttered the very words he knew would break my heart. The lover I couldn’t choose but longed for in every crack of my soul. The Keeper to my Poocha, the hunter, the killer, the fiend.

  I lost count of how many days passed since we last touched, but I dreamed of him every night, my hands moving over his body, my eyes reveling in his beauty, my tongue teasing out his sweetness. I cried quiet tears for him and me and everything we would never get to be as the bullshit and idiocy of generations upon generations of machinations and manipulations bore down upon us. I raged and railed against him and his inability to see past the foolishness of his ego and understand the decisions forced upon me him us.

  And I killed.

  I gave in to the homicidal fury flowing through my veins, I unleashed it in all its bloody murderous terrific horror. It was wanton in its selection of targets but hardly so in the planning and perpetration—-that was 1,000 percent purposeful and premeditated. I knew exactly what I was doing how I was going to do it and when it would happen.

  He and I might have parted ways but my need to bring The Gate to its knees to sit up and take notice to respect my power and rage, that never ceased.

  But now he was here and everything I thought I knew felt understood seemed suddenly not so black and white. Not so easy to explain. Nor to forget.

  Because that was part of it.

  The killing.

  I thought if I shed enough blood in the name of my love and despair and pain then I would be able to forget him misplace his darkness confuse his danger. I thought perhaps he would commingle with the gore and soon all of it would flow together until he became my hand my rage my machete and we were as one. I could be both Dutch and Juma, a blackhearted cold-blooded angel of death and destruction, an unstoppable killing machine fueled by a broken heart and the spirit of her other half the darker half the dangerous one.

  Instead, I was just Juma, a girl who loved a boy with such quiet desperation she sometimes didn’t know what to do with herself, who missed that boy so much her skin hurt when she relived memories of his tender touch his kiss his breath, who would die a million deaths to have him again by her side hear his laughter feel his gaze.

  And he was Dutch, all hollows and planes and full lips and brown skin and such intense dark beauty I feared meeting his eyes to revel in his magic, certain I would become so lost in him I would never find my way back to myself. And I needed to hold on to myself if I wanted to survive.

  Because sure, by some ungodly miracle, Dutch was here by my side, holding me, breathing sweetness into my skin, wrapping me in his unique brand of warmth and love and sex and desire but that did not mean he would stay. Or that he wanted to stay. Or that he even wanted to be here.

  Everything about that moment of us lying together, his darkness wrapped around my light, was confused and inexplicable. I didn’t know what to make of it of him of us, so I needed to keep Juma in sight, remember her, and not get lost in him because the possibility existed that once I fully revived, he would leave, and I couldn’t bear to lose him again.

  Because once upon a time, a Keeper and a Poocha made promises to each other that in the blink of an eye were forgotten and new paths were forged. We separated so easily, we could do so again and I wanted to be prepared for that divergence. I didn’t want to be caught off guard like last time because even though I made the break caused the crack created the division, Dutch was the one who departed without ever looking back thinking twice reconsidering me him us.

  So yeah. Me. Juma. I needed to hold on to her. It was a matter of survival and I intended to be the fittest.

  I opened my eyes and rested on Dutch’s chest, letting the golden light of the evening seep into my vision and give everything an ethereal hue, dreamlike and heavenly. I loved that color of light, the yellow that warmed you even when the sun itself was too weak to do the same. I breathed deeply, inhaling Dutch’s delicious scent, his masculine hints of bergamot and musk washing over me, pulling forth memories of him from so many nights past.

  And I remembered.

  We made a plan to take down The Gate. Together. Then the plan changed, I made decisions, he reacted, and whate
ver happened afterward had nothing to do with him and everything to do with me.

  My ma was wrong, I thought to myself as I pushed up on his chest and studied him for the first time in too long—Dutch wouldn’t steal my shine, he loved me too much. But he sure as hell would try to smother my darkness, that I knew for certain.

  “Juma,” he whispered and touched my face, traced his fingers along my throat where the blade had sliced through my thin skin, “Juma.”

  My name on his lips was some sort of mythical succor my soul craved needed yearned for without me understanding. Each syllable kissed by his tongue warmed me in places left cold by his absence, each letter coming together to form the whole sent a shiver up and down my body. I stood on the precipice of him, ready to jump, even though I knew I shouldn’t.

  I kissed his fingers as Dutch traced my lips, his eyes dark and dangerous and just like I loved. He was so fucking beautiful, everything about him affecting me in a most primitive way as my nipples peaked and my pussy dripped and what had seconds earlier been a moment of cold and calculated reflection was now all hot and bothered and hitched-breath.

  “My wife,” he started to explain again but I had heard him the first time and I wasn’t interested in anything having to do with Keeper Sevyn Suleiman. I wasn’t mad at her, or him, I just didn’t give two fucks about her or anything having to do with her relationship to him, which I gathered was about as significant as some stranger walking down Second Avenue. Did she know him, long for him from afar, crave his detached fury, his danger? I had no idea.

  What I did know is that he didn’t love her because the way he looked at me—-like a man starved for brown and freckles and sex and light, like a man so full of craving and lust and a need to rut so primal he could barely contain himself, like a man so deep in his woman he could not move speak breathe—-said it all. If I ever wondered whether Dutch Mathew loved me, this moment set everything straight and let me know that whatever transpired between us that night in my apartment with Death and her offer and me and my decision and him and his proclamation—Don’t touch me, Juma!—he was mad about me.

  So yeah, I didn’t care about his wife. She was a construct of The Gate, nothing more nothing less. She was Khan’s plan and none of her not one atom of her being not one sliver of her soul belonged to Dutch. Mostly because Dutch was mine but also because I was Dutch’s and he was the type that only had room for one great love in his life. And since my voice wasn’t yet fully functional as my vocal cords stretched too tight and made it impossible to speak, I did the only thing I knew to shut him up: I dipped low and kissed Dutch Mathew, wide and open-mouthed, the kind of kiss to make him forget everything but us.

  Our tongues danced around each other as if both hesitant and desperate for that first taste after so long. His hands cupped my ass and held me close as a moan began in my toes then rumbled throughout my being as my body recalled all the ways his hands could make me feel. I pulled away from his perfect mouth, wanting to see him full of lust and desire and heat, lips parted as if about to protest but too fucking turned on to make the words come together in any sort of rational complaint. I licked his upper lip and his lower lip and his tongue, finally his tongue, and the shock of his taste after so long moved me in ways unexpected. My breath caught and my eyes filled and even though I didn’t want to cry in front of him, it couldn’t be helped.

  Dutch Mathew overwhelmed me.

  Plain and simple.

  Acknowledgments

  I said this with my other books, but it bears repeating for Dutch—this whole writing thing is a long, drawn-out process that involves the help of many and the patience of even more. It goes without saying, after a year and a half of working on Dutch, I’ve got some folks to thank.

  Dash and Sydney, because y’all are the most awesome kids ever. I know my books and writing and interviews and promoting and everything else that must happen to survive this game drives you a little nuts, and still you support me, cheer me along, and thrill to all my little victories. You two are The Business. And my hearts. I am one lucky mama.

  Michele, for those hash marks on my cover (and tattooed on my arm)—they are your creation, bursting from your beautiful, creative brain that works all kinds of magic whenever I come calling. And thank you for letting me push my way into your life—our friendship is one full of laughter and tequila and all kinds of foolishness, and I love you girl. Madly.

  Alessandra, because you saw all of the sexy in books II and III of The Sanctum Trilogy and told me to stop fucking around and just go ahead and write some good raunch. I believe your exact words were: “You need to write the Fifty Shades of Grey–type of book people deserve.” I think I did it with D+J—hope you agree.

  Corey and Kayti, because y’all always read my stuff, cheer me on, and believe in me. Thank you. I love you both.

  My beta readers: Sydney, Alessandra, Corey, Kayti, Lara, and Frank. Without y’all, none of this makes sense and I’m stuck creating in a vacuum, a horrible place for a writer to find herself. So thanks for reading all the sexy and all the scary and ummm, yeah, the blow jobs. Because really, one must make sure they’ve got that shit right, otherwise what’s the point?!

  Jason Reynolds for your month of poetry in 2015 and just being the coolest guy ever. I vibed to those words you put down every day in April and along the way, I became less afraid of the word poetry and more comfortable with expressing my inner rhythm, that beat that flows in my head as I write, that thump-thump. I found myself pouring those words and that beat onto the pages of Dutch. All of the poetry in this book is because of you and your words and that brilliant month of writing.

  Gabriel Garcia Marquez because of One Hundred Years of Solitude and that most brilliant first sentence. It captivated me the first time I opened your book and has inspired me ever since. I know I’m no Marquez, but the first sentence of Dutch is all because of him.

  Jena Schwartz, my writing promptress and fabulous cheerleader. Thank you for believing in my inner poet and helping to force her out into the open and onto the page. Those ten minutes every Wednesday—hot damn, I love them.

  Smooth Ambler, for making Old Scout—you guys are the best and seriously, if I could live on that brown magic, I would. Instead, I let Dutch do the honors. Rock on with your bad selves.

  Kimberly, holy fucking shit, you rock. A girl could not ask for a more amazing and devoted and energetic advocate. Your love for Dutch and all of its nasty wrapped itself around me the second we met, your belief in my bizarre-odd-kind-of-out-there writing style has stuck with me ever since. I’ll never forget hearing those words come out of your mouth—I will not let anyone mess with your writing style—hanging up the phone and knowing, regardless of what happened with my books, you would always have my back. I am so honored to call you my agent and even luckier to call you my friend. I love you, girl. Now go get some sleep!

  And finally, for the readers—everyone who has taken a chance on me and my work, gotten lost in my worlds, and come out the other end a fan of the sexy darkness that occupies my very cluttered brain. I cannot thank you enough—without you, there is no Dutch and Juma. You guys fucking rock and I love y’all. Madly.

  About the Author

  Author photograph © Robert Hite

  Madhuri Pavamani is the author of the paranormal romance trilogy The Sanctum. A Southern girl with Northern sensibilities and a slight twang, who still uses the word “y’all” but never “fixin’,” she has an affinity for writing twisted love stories and dark poetry. A graduate of Barnard College, and incapable of leaving the bright lights of New York City, Madhuri works in Manhattan, but rests her head in New Jersey. She loves whiskey, tattoos, Bukowski, and yoga.

  To learn more about her, you can follow her blog at madhuripavamani.wordpress.com, follow her on Twitter at @madhuriwrites, on Instagram at @madhuriwrites or like her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/madhuriwrites/.

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  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  GLOSSARY

  Excerpt: Juma

  JUMA

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright Page

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.