by Pat Esden
Hazy moonlight drifted in through the window at the end of the hallway. I made my way toward it, my flashlight beam brightening the hall even farther. Still, an uneasy feeling gave me the chills and I shuddered. I hated the dark. Maybe less than in the past, but it never would be on my list of favorite things.
Across from the narrow servants’ staircase that led downstairs, there was a small alcove with a locked door. Behind that door was another steep staircase that went up to an attic and then up again to a widow’s walk. I’d gone to the walk once before, when Zachary begged Chase to show it to me. It was a gorgeous place, perched on top of Moonhill’s highest rooftop. It also was dangerous as hell, with steep slopes on every side and no place to land except the ground, three-plus stories below.
I set down my bag and the quilt beside the door and put my flashlight in my mouth. I’d always lived by my dad’s motto of being prepared for anything. Recently, I’d taken it to heart and started keeping a few select tools in my shoulder bag, mostly for picking locks. Moonhill had about a million of them and my curiosity couldn’t stand not knowing what they hid.
I got out a screwdriver and wire and in a second the lock clicked open. Chase had a set of keys, but waiting down here would give him a chance to beg off, though after yesterday’s Doughnut Olympics, I couldn’t see why he would. Except that there was a spark of fear deep inside me that had been ignited by the weight of his gaze and the sadness in his eyes when he’d explained why he didn’t want to put off driving by his mother’s house. “I can’t afford to have anything take away from my focus, not with everything that’s going on.” I knew on the surface he was referring to his mother. But I couldn’t help but wonder if he was also using this as an excuse to pull away from me, and I was quite certain my bitching at him in front of Kate and everyone couldn’t have helped.
After I gathered up my stuff, I opened the door. But as I went to step onto the first tread, something touched my ankle and the air chilled. Like a ghost brushing past.
My heart launched into my throat and I leapt back from the stairwell, fanning the flashlight beam all around me and back toward the main hallway.
But there was nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Holy shit. What had I felt?
Cold sweat iced my spine. I pointed the beam into the stairwell.
Nothing again.
Everyone claimed Moonhill wasn’t haunted. But I was certain something had touched me. The temperature had definitely dropped.
Panic overwhelmed me and I froze, unable to move. But if Moonhill really didn’t have ghosts, then it might have been a shadow-genie like the one I’d seen in the gallery a few weeks ago. Olya had strengthened the magical wards in the gallery to keep genies from using that weak point in the veil as a gateway into our realm. But what if those wards had failed? Or what if a genie had gotten in through a different weak point and was wandering around the house?
A thump came from behind me.
I winged my flashlight beam toward the sound. A tapestry hanging on the wall rippled as if caught in a breeze. My pulse went wild, but my legs refused to move.
The sound of a throaty growl came from below the tapestry, close to the floor. I moved my flashlight beam downward and it trapped the misty outline of a shadow. It was low and small, and cat-shaped. It reached up and batted the tapestry, a soft thump resounding as the fabric slapped against the wall.
The tension went out of my spine and I blew out a relieved breath.
It was the tiger-striped cat from the research room, the one Kate and Olya had covered with the Methuselah oil, the one fated to appear ethereal from sunset until sunrise. Zachary’s cat.
“Silly kitty,” I whispered as it zinged to the staircase and slipped upward, bounding from one tread to the next. Stepping inside, I pulled the door shut behind me and followed the cat up the dark stairwell to the attic. Once there, I flicked on the first light switch I came to.
A dusty bulb wavered to life above me, its dim light filtering down onto the last flight of stairs that went up the walk. As I climbed up them, the bulb’s faint shimmer was joined by square reflections of moonlight coming in through the widow’s walk’s windows and stretching across the walls in pale, rippling sheets. It was beautiful and about a million shades of eerie.
A thousand steps later—or at least it felt like a thousand—I reached the top of the stairs and stepped out onto the widow’s walk’s deck. A breeze blew my hair back from my face. I hooked the rebellious curls behind my ears and made my way to the walk’s wooden railing. Moonlight bathed the slate rooftops, and the gardens and lawns far below me. The ocean stretched luminescent white and plum-black to where a hint of dawn glimmered on the horizon. Behind me a stark moon settled on the treetops, lost somewhere between its first quarter and full. I shivered at the sheer power of the view and shivered again from the chill in the air.
I set my shoulder bag down on the floor next to a wooden chaise and wrapped the quilt around me. The deck was fairly small, only room for a couple of Adirondack chairs, a tiny table with a pentagram carved into its top, and the chaise. It was well maintained, though. My guess was that Chase and Tibbs used it to watch the grounds sometimes and the pentagram pretty much screamed that witchy-type rituals also happened up here.
I snugged the quilt tighter and sat down on the chaise, resting my elbows on my knees as I gazed across the rooftops and gardens toward the ocean. The faint trill of a wood thrush’s morning song reached out from the forest’s depths. A robin joined the chorus as the darkness lightened a shade.
“Hey,” Chase’s voice came from right next to me.
Startled, I jumped to my feet and spun toward him, leaving the quilt behind. “Wow. How did you do that? I didn’t even hear the door open.”
“Comes with the territory,” he said, handing me a plastic bag full of ice. “What’s up?”
I shrugged. “I couldn’t sleep and thought it might be fun to watch the sunrise.” I retrieved the bottle of strawberry vodka and orange juice from my bag and set them on the table. “Maybe toast the new day? Want one? Virgin-style or with a touch of something extra?”
“The extra sounds good. But just one.”
I opened the bag of ice and scooped cubes into each cup. “I kind of wanted to make up for being a bitch in the research room too.”
He squeezed my shoulder. “Forget about it. I should have told you about the feather.”
I smothered a smile and focused on pouring the orange juice, the ice crackling as the warm OJ flowed over it.
“We’re still going to Bar Harbor later, right?” he asked.
“Yeah. Around ten.” I added vodka and used my finger to mix the liquids. “By the way, I checked to see where Beach Rose House was.” I swallowed hard. Bringing this up would most likely ruin the mood, but it was important. And I had a feeling we wouldn’t get many moments like this again soon. I brought him one of the drinks. “It’s in Bar Harbor. We could stop by while we’re in town—if you want.”
“Ah, maybe.” Taking the drink, he turned away and walked to the railing. He stared out toward the ocean, his head, broad shoulders, and muscular arms silhouetted against the skyline. “A facility like that isn’t going to let strangers just walk in and visit.”
“We could try.”
He sloshed the cup in a slow circle, then lowered his gaze to drink as if he could foresee the future in the icy liquid.
I slipped up next to him. “What are you thinking?” I asked quietly.
The cup’s plastic sides crunched a little under his tightening grip and his voice lowered. “In the realm, when we headed into the arena to spar or fight, I used to calm myself instead of getting hyped up like most of the slaves.” He took a sip and set the cup on the wide railing. “We had to walk down this tunnel, one at a time. There were these rosebushes, glass instead of green leaves and thorns. They roofed the tunnel and would block it off behind us as we marched forward, so we couldn’t leave. I’d—” His jaw tensed.
“Yeah?” I was afraid he wouldn’t go on.
His voice became taut and even more hushed. “I’d walk down that tunnel and pretend I was walking down my mother’s driveway, the trees’ canopy overhead, my mother holding my hand. Her hands were always so smooth. We’d wait at the edge of the road for the bus to come. She smelled like whatever we’d had for breakfast: bacon, French toast. She never let go until I stepped up onto the bus’s first step. That’s what I’d think of while I walked down that tunnel with the glass thorns closing in behind me. That’s what I was thinking about yesterday in the car. You parked right where Mother and I used to stand beside the mailbox, waiting for that bus . . .”
I didn’t know what to say as his voice faded. He slid his arm around my waist and I leaned in, resting my head against his shoulder. We stood there like that—me snuggled in close and him motionless—watching as red and yellow rimmed the horizon, brightening the tops of the waves and glistening on a jagged outcrop of rocks slowly being engulfed by the rising tide.
“My dad used to tell me a story,” I said softly, to break the silence, “about ships getting hung up and wrecked right off the shore of Moonhill on what he called the Pirate’s Coffin.” I nodded toward the jagged outcrop. “Is that it?”
“Yeah,” he said. “There’s a hollow in the top of it, shaped like a casket. Things wash into it during high tide and get trapped: driftwood, sea glass . . . A few days after I was rescued from the realm, I found a bottle in there.”
I took a couple of sips of his drink. Getting mine would mean leaving the warmth of his arm and I didn’t want to do that. More than anything I wanted to keep him talking. In fact, I didn’t care if we made love this morning, as long as I was with him.
“That’s cool,” I said. “Was it old?”
“It was black and it had a rough pontil mark on the bottom, like it was hand-blown. It looked genie-made to me.” His tone was so calm that it took a moment for me to get the significance of what he’d said.
I pulled away from him. “Genie-made? What was it doing in this realm?”
“I figured it had gotten thrown through a weak point in the veil and ended up in the ocean somehow. Your grandfather and Kate thought I was being paranoid.”
“Paranoid? Why would they think that? It could have held a genie, maybe a criminal they didn’t want in their realm. Someone could have let it out and thrown the bottle away.”
He laughed. “Don’t worry about that. There wasn’t a genie in it.” He shrugged, as if surrendering to the idea that he was wrong. “Five years ago, I had no idea that hand-blown bottles were made in this world as well as in the realm. I’d been so young when I was taken. Most likely it was an antique bottle made by a human, probably washed up from a shipwreck.”
My mind flashed back. Grandfather and Kate had thought Chase was being paranoid when he told them he believed Dad was possessed by a genie, a suspicion that had proven true. “But you could have been right,” I said.
“Perhaps, but when I found the bottle it was sealed and there was a note inside. It reminded me of... Annie, I left other people back in the realm besides your mother: friends, half brothers, they’re all probably dead by now.”
I hugged myself against a chill. There had to be a solid reason Grandfather hadn’t believed him. “I’m guessing the note wasn’t written in the genie language?”
“If it had been, that would have made all the difference.”
“What did it say?”
He rubbed his branded collarbone. “It was faded.”
I frowned. That rub was one of Chase’s tells. He was fibbing. Not a big lie, more like he was avoiding the truth. “But you still suspect it came from the realm, don’t you? Was it signed?”
He took me by the shoulders, his ocean-deep eyes meeting mine. He let go with one hand and lifted my chin, like he often did before he kissed me. His voice deepened, thick with emotion. “You’re beautiful. I don’t want to stay away from you.”
My brain refused to register what he’d said, but the sadness in his eyes set free the fear I’d struggled to ignore.
“Annie,” he said. “We can’t do this anymore, at least not until I get back.”
I shook my head. He couldn’t be suggesting—I refused to believe it. “What are you saying?”
“When I’m with you, I feel more alive, energized. It gets stronger every time.”
“And that’s a bad thing?”
“I—It’s overwhelming. More powerful than you can imagine.”
I laughed. “Actually I can. Being with you is amazing.”
He didn’t smile and numbness spread through my body.
“Last night when I was kickboxing with Zachary,” he said, “the kid got a hit in. He thought I gave him the opening on purpose, but the truth was I’d let my focus slip. I was thinking about you.”
“Oh.” I wanted his thinking about me to always be a good thing, but I could see what he meant.
He looked down at his knuckles. “That’s not all. When I felt that hit, I struck back.”
My thoughts reeled. He loved Zach like a little brother. “But you didn’t hurt him, right?”
“I caught myself and pulled the punch just in time. But Annie, I could have killed him.” His fingers brushed my face, his eyes once again filling with regret. “I’m not talking about forever. When I get back from the realm, we can start over, take it slower. But I need to take a break right now. I have to train. Get my head in the right place before I go to the realm.”
Turning away from him, I swallowed the ache in my throat and wished to the heavens that it was getting dark instead of light, then there’d be no chance of him seeing the tears welling in my eyes.
His hands moved down my arms and he whispered gently, “We have to do this—for your mother’s and father’s sake. I need to focus on the mission.”
A lump tightened my throat. “That can’t be all,” I said, keeping my voice steady, afraid he’d hear the trembling. This wasn’t connected to his nightmares. At least I didn’t think it was. “Tell me what’s really going on. I deserve to know.”
“Until you, I’d managed to—” His grip on my arms tightened and he groaned as if in pain. “Annie, I’m at the age where genies mature. The aura gets stronger. The instincts really kick in, aggression, other abilities. Testosterone and adrenaline bring on the change faster. It makes us hyped up instead of focused. It’s especially bad for half-ifrit guys like me.”
My mind staggered at the enormity of what he was saying. Maturing. Changing. Sure, I’d known he wasn’t the same as other guys. He’d even mentioned the maturing thing when I’d asked him why he didn’t have any tattoos. “One permanent one to commemorate each fight is allowed, but only after a warrior reaches maturity. Before that, temporary marks are applied and only for fights.” He’d said it like maturing was a specific age, no different from being old enough to legally buy liquor or get a driver’s license. Why hadn’t he really explained?
He let out a long breath. “I can’t stop what’s happening, but I can slow it down, make it more manageable. What’s most important is that I don’t let it come on full force right now. I need to be at the top of my game when I go to the realm.”
I wanted to wheel around and shout that there was an obvious solution that wouldn’t involve screwing with our relationship. He shouldn’t go. He should let the other men do it. But I wasn’t about to insult him. He knew what was going on inside him better than anyone, his limits and the risks. Besides, if anyone suggested I back off and not play my part in this rescue, I’d be blistering angry and would do it anyway. This was something he had to do or the guilt of escaping at my mother’s expense would destroy him.
An empty feeling uncoiled inside me. I slipped from his grip and turned to face him. “Just until you get back, promise.”
Before I could think, his lips were on mine, hungry and forceful, opening, moving as if he couldn’t get enough. He uttered a moan, a deep sound welling up from his very core. I kissed
him back, lips parting, my tongue seeking his. He yanked the buttons of my shirt open, his tongue and teeth trailing shivers of pleasure down my neck. Gasping, I raked my fingernails across his hair, gripping his head as his mouth moved toward my breasts, sucking, licking. My nipples hardened, bliss and pain mingling into an unbearably sweet sensation.
My shirt fell away, the cool air titillating my heated skin. I gasped and trembled. His lips returned to mine. The full length of his sculpted, hard body pushed against me, coaxing me backward and down onto the quilt-covered chaise. His hips rolled against me, his mouth now grazing my shoulder blades. I closed my eyes, lost in the rush of his weight on top of me, and his kisses. I groaned and ran my fingers up under his T-shirt, feeling his silky skin, roped muscles, the ridge of a scar, his nipples. His fingers moved downward, stroking my whole body and sliding between my legs, touching, fondling. I moaned again. My body thrummed with desire for him. I heard his zipper open.
“Wait,” I panted. I wriggled one arm free, reached for my bag, and fumbled for a foil pack.
He guided my hand, helping me slide the condom over his eager cock. I wanted him. Wanted him so badly I couldn’t wait. And this time, unlike ever before, he didn’t tease or hesitate. There was a mad desperation to the way he made love to me, hard and fast, as if a battle raged inside of him, one side wanting to drive me to insanity, the other wanting nothing more than to reach the oblivion of climax.
His aura burned bright as a comet. It didn’t just bathe me like it had before. This time its blue light melded into me, penetrating every cell of my body, my pores, my hair, my bloodstream, my heart, and my mind, all possessed by him. My ears rang and my head swam from the power of it. I could smell his passion, too, the white-hot scent of a welder’s torch, the smell of rain sizzling on parched pavement. The rush of it was almost more than I could bear and there was no holding back—explosive and fast as a summer storm, I came. He came a second later, his body shuddering on top of me, his breath hot and rapid against my neck.
But even as I lay there in his arms—his fingers brushing the damp hair from my face, kisses soft and gentle—the high still pulsed and lingered inside me, and the aura’s soft blue glow shimmered in the air around us. And the truth of it all hit me again, hard. I wanted more. Of him. Of us. And I was afraid of losing it.