“The djinn you were kissing,” he corrected her, and she lifted her shoulders.
“If you like. But I won’t — I can’t do anything else without you telling me the truth.”
Even in the dimly lit room, she could see the way his body tensed. And what a magnificent body it was, painted in shadow and light, the muscles appearing more heavily sculpted because of the way the glow from the candles moved over his skin. But she couldn’t let herself be distracted by appearances. Not any more than she already had been, anyway.
“The truth,” he said at last, his tone heavy. “Whose truth, Jillian? For I am sure that what I believe to be the truth is different from the truth as Zahrias, the leader of the Santa Fe djinn, might have seen it, or as the elders saw it…or even as my bastard of a half-brother saw it.”
“You have a brother?” she asked, startled, and then wondered why she should be so surprised. After all, the djinn had their own families; it wasn’t as if they sprang full-blown into the world. Zahrias himself had a brother who sounded as if he was his closest friend and confidant.
“Unfortunately, yes. He is there, with the djinn of Santa Fe.” Aldair drank some more of the pinot noir, nearly half the small glass he held. That couldn’t be a good sign, but Jillian didn’t protest, only sat quietly on the love seat and waited for him to continue. “My father took a fancy to a human woman, once upon a time, and sired a son upon her.”
“What about your own mother?” Jillian asked.
“My parents had gone their separate ways many years earlier. It is not the djinn way to stay with one partner for millennia, although when they agree to have a child, they also agree to remain together until their child reaches maturity, which is twenty of your years.”
She supposed that was something, especially when you considered how many human marriages split up long before the children were grown. At the same time, she didn’t much like how the djinn apparently didn’t value long-term relationships. Was that how Aldair viewed his possible future with her, something transitory, to be enjoyed for a time until it was no longer convenient for him?
No wonder she’d run away. Maybe her heart had already guessed at something her mind hadn’t quite grasped.
“What about the djinn and their Chosen?” she asked. “I got the impression that they were supposed to be bonded for all time.”
“They are,” he admitted. “That is an entirely different situation, one that has no bearing on the relationships djinn have with other djinn.”
“Ah,” she said, although she still didn’t quite understand how the djinn could treat relationships with humans so differently from how they viewed liaisons with their own kind. Anyway, she decided to leave that aside for now, to return to the topic of Aldair’s brother. “So your brother is half-djinn?”
“Yes,” Aldair replied, mouth twisting with distaste. “But when a half-breed is raised in the djinn world, he develops his powers just as any other djinn might. For some reason, my father took a fancy to my brother, showed him unnatural favor — including gifting him with wealth and properties that should have been mine.”
Well, that sounded like a terrible thing to do. Even so, she couldn’t see how that would be enough to make Aldair view his brother unfavorably — which he must, judging by the sour expression that passed over his handsome features whenever he mentioned his half-brother. Shouldn’t Aldair’s anger have been reserved for his father instead?
“I guess that wasn’t very fair,” she began, but he immediately cut her off.
“It was the very opposite of fair. I protested, said that it was not right that I should be promised these things, only to have them taken away. But he told me that I should have a good enough inheritance from my mother, where my brother’s human mother could give him nothing. My father said I should understand.”
“I’m guessing you didn’t.”
A flash of blue fire from Aldair’s narrowed eyes, and for a second an odd, harsh draft blew across Jillian’s exposed arms and shoulders, as if the djinn was so angry that he’d allowed his powers to disrupt the air currents in the room. “Why should I understand? He made a promise, and he broke it. He preferred to show favor to his half-breed son rather than to me, his firstborn.”
She wondered what on earth she could say then. Clearly, Aldair had been nursing this hurt and anger for many, many years. Probably far longer than she’d been alive, when you took a djinn’s enormous lifespan into account. Thinking she should steer the conversation away from the subject of his half-brother, she ventured, “But your exile?”
Aldair scowled. “I wanted my revenge on him.”
Back to that again. “Shouldn’t your anger have been directed at your father? It seems to me as if your brother didn’t have much to do with it.”
“You know nothing.” Jillian matched Aldair’s scowl with a frown of her own, but he didn’t seem to notice, only continued, “Do you not think I did not try to appeal to my brother’s better nature? But no, he only said that our father’s wishes were clear enough, and he would not go against them. He certainly had no desire to do what was right.”
She decided to let it go. Since she hadn’t been there, she couldn’t really comment on what might have passed between the two brothers. An only child herself, she wasn’t sure what she would have done in a similar situation, caught between a parent’s misguided generosity and the very real resentment of a sibling. “Okay, so you wanted to get something of your own back from your brother. How did that lead to being banished to the outer circles?”
No reply at first. Aldair reached for the bottle of late-harvest wine, then seemed to think better of it, for he stopped mid-movement and instead clenched his hand into a fist. “Among the djinn, oaths are binding. I broke an oath I had sworn, and that was enough.”
“What kind of oath?”
“What does it matter?” he said angrily. “The elders saw fit to punish me, and I was exiled. That is all you need to know.”
“Are you kidding me?” she burst out, not caring whether she angered him further. “You haven’t told me anything, except that you’re someone who breaks his promises.”
“Some are meant to be broken, for they mean nothing.”
How in the world was she supposed to reply to that? More importantly, how could she ever trust someone who didn’t honor his promises? “You don’t really mean that, do you?”
He pushed himself up from the couch and stalked over to the window, then drew the curtains aside so he could gaze out onto the moonlight-drenched yard. “Yes.”
She’d heard enough. Jillian found herself rising from her seat as well, although she didn’t approach him where he stood by the window. Instead, she told him, “Well, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. You said you would tell me why you were exiled, and you’re going back on that promise as well. So I guess I’ll say good night.”
Aldair turned then, brows still pulled together. “I did tell you.”
“You told me something so vague that it didn’t mean anything at all. I’m guessing it had something to do with this brother of yours, and I suppose that’s one of the main reasons you don’t want to go anywhere near Santa Fe — you want to stay well out of his orbit. All right, I suppose I can understand that. But….” She let the words trail off as she attempted to decide whether she should just leave it there, or whether she should tell him what she’d really been thinking. However, avoiding the truth would make her nearly as bad as he was, wouldn’t it? “But I’m not going to be a party to it. Tomorrow morning I’m heading back to Los Alamos. I won’t tell anyone about you. I promise that — and I keep my promises. But I don’t see any point in staying here.”
In a flash, he was away from the window and at her side, one hand gripping her arm with fingers that felt like a band of steel around her bicep. Voice silkily quiet, he said, “I believe I have already impressed on you the importance of your remaining in Madrid.”
A trickle of icy sweat moved down her back, but Jillian forced
herself not to react, to remain still and calm in his grasp. “Yes, you did. And I told you I wouldn’t reveal your whereabouts to anyone. Why can’t you just accept that?”
“Because I see no reason to.”
Jaw clenched, she responded, “What are you going to do — tie me to a chair or something?”
“If I must. Although there is no reason for me to be that extreme. There is no place you could go on foot where I could not catch up with you long before you even began to get close to Santa Fe.”
Which was only the truth. She’d seen how he could take to the air, cover so much more ground than a person afoot. Yes, she might be able to beat him if she were driving a car, but all the cars in Madrid had been sitting neglected for almost two years. Their batteries had to be dead. She could no more use one of them to effect her escape than she could fly.
“Fine,” she said, fury boiling in her as she saw a gloating smile touch his lips. “You win. But don’t bother inviting me to any more romantic dinners. That ship has sailed, Aldair.” To emphasize her point, she jerked her arm from his grasp. He let go, still smiling.
“As you wish, Jillian.”
If she had to look at that horrible smile for a single second longer, she was going to scream. She turned on her heel and swept out of the room, hurrying up the stairs so she could give the door to her bedroom a satisfying slam.
As soon as she was alone, though, her whole body began to shake. Her arm throbbed where Aldair had held her, and she reached over with her left hand to rub the tender skin. There would be a bruise tomorrow, she was sure of it.
And then she sat down on the bed and stared blankly at the shut door. Would the djinn keep her prisoner in here? Or would he still allow her to roam around the town, confident in the knowledge that he could always track her down, no matter where she went?
For some stupid reason, she recalled the way his hand had cupped her cheek back at the tavern, the way he had kissed her so gently. How could he be so tender then, and yet such a raging asshole now?
Because he’s Aldair, she told herself. It’s all about him and what he wants. You probably don’t even count as a real person to him. How could you? You’re just a mere human, and he’s an almighty djinn.
Tears burned in her eyes, but she wouldn’t let them fall. No way. She would not allow that selfish bastard to make her cry.
If he wanted a prisoner, fine. But he was about to discover that she wouldn’t be a very pleasant one.
Chapter Twelve
Dead silence from upstairs. Aldair wasn’t quite sure what he had expected from Jillian, but after that one slammed door, he could hear nothing from her at all. Was she weeping, or merely sitting on her bed and contemplating all the ways she might get her revenge on him?
Although he told himself it did not truly matter one way or another, he found himself hoping that he had not made her cry.
He blinked the bottle of late-harvest pinot and its accompanying glasses into the kitchen, then did the same thing to bring himself to his room, for in that moment, he did not much feel like climbing the stairs. However, he left the door open so Patches might enter and take his favored spot at the foot of the bed.
At least, that was the reason he gave himself for not shutting the bedroom door. Of course it could not be because he rather hoped Jillian would approach at some point, so she might apologize for threatening to leave.
No, she would never do such a thing. He had seen the true fury in her eyes, even though he did not think she had any real reason to be so angry. Had he not told her that he was exiled because he had broken an oath? What else did she need to know?
Indeed, he thought he had been rather clever about handling the matter, since he had been able to reveal the reason for his banishment without going into any of the details behind his punishment. She would not have to know about his plans to possess Jessica Monroe so he might ruin his half-brother’s happiness, or how he had thrown in with Khalim and his followers when his plans went awry. His revenge on Jasreel was something the elders might have overlooked, for in general they did not meddle with the personal lives of the djinn community. However, joining up with Khalim was the true reason he had invoked their wrath, since by doing so he had gone back on the oath all djinn had sworn not to bring any harm upon the Chosen. Khalim had injured one Chosen and killed another, and that was enough to make all his followers share equally in his guilt.
But it seemed clear enough that Jillian did not think him clever at all. No, she had accused him of breaking his promise to her. Why that should matter so much to her, he did not know, unless she had begun to harbor feelings toward him, and now felt doubly betrayed. It was true that she had responded to his kiss much more favorably than he had hoped — until realization set in, and she fled from him.
Frowning, he settled into his bed, and then heard the soft click of Patches’ toenails on the wooden floor out in the hallway, quickly muffled as the dog crossed over onto the rug. Aldair dangled his arm over the side of the bed. A few seconds later, the dog pushed his cold, wet nose into Aldair’s palm, and settled down so his master might stroke his ears.
The presence of the dog was some comfort, but of course it could not begin to match the pleasure Aldair would have felt in having Jillian in here with him. That was how he hoped the evening would end — that they would eat and drink, and perhaps dance, and at the end he would take her in his arms and bring her up these stairs, and lay her down in his bed so he might make love to her. Taste her enticing flesh and make her his.
But she had proved herself to be far too stubborn, and apparently in possession of far too many scruples, for such a thing to happen. He did not believe her to be the sort of person to hold a grudge, but he also did not know how long she might allow herself to burn with righteous indignation.
No matter. She would calm down sooner or later, and then he could continue with his pursuit of her. In a way, her anger with him added a fillip of anticipation to the entire situation. For when she finally did succumb, her surrender would be all the more delicious, since he would then know how much she’d had to unbend to allow herself to be his.
Yes, he thought he could wait some time for such a pleasant outcome.
You will not talk to him, Jillian told herself as she got dressed the next morning. Or at least, you won’t talk to him unless it’s strictly necessary, like asking where a certain item is located. Things like that.
On the surface, that resolution sounded easy enough to carry out. But she’d never been one to sulk. Neither had Jack. They rarely fought, and the few times they’d had disagreements, they’d basically fallen over themselves to patch things up so they wouldn’t go to bed angry.
Last night, though, she’d been so furious with Aldair that it had taken her hours to fall asleep, and even then she’d tossed and turned, unable to shut off her racing brain. She wasn’t used to that, either. Usually, she could fall asleep fairly easily. But Aldair’s high-handed way of dealing with the situation had upset her to the point where she wasn’t sure if she’d ever been this angry with anyone in her entire life. Some kind of gratitude, to make a prisoner out of the woman who’d been his means of escaping exile, just because she didn’t want to stay in his insufferable presence a second longer than she absolutely had to.
Just to spite him, she resolutely ignored the pretty clothes she’d gotten from the boutique, and climbed into the baggy jeans and shapeless T-shirt she’d found in the previous owner’s dresser in the master bedroom. Coupled with the running shoes she’d worn with her Los Alamos clothes, they made a fairly drab outfit, one that hid her body nicely. No more letting Aldair get an eyeful of her bare arms and feet and ankles, and a decent helping of her cleavage as well. She also pulled her hair back into a tight ponytail instead of letting it fall around her shoulders.
All in all, she looked pretty damn unappealing by the time she was done, which of course was the whole point.
Jillian emerged from her bedroom to the warm, dark chocolate scent
of mocha java drifting up the stairs. So Aldair had made coffee. Whether he’d made enough for the both of them remained to be seen.
She took in a single bracing breath, and then headed down to the kitchen. As she entered the room, she saw the djinn sitting at the table, a mug of coffee and a plate of toast in front of him. Off to one side, Patches wagged his tail in greeting, but he apparently wasn’t willing to give up his spot in case Aldair might offer a piece of crust.
Her captor’s gaze flicked toward her, and his mouth tightened as he appeared to take in her baggy attire. However, he didn’t say anything, only gave her a single nod of acknowledgment before he lifted his coffee and took a sip.
Well, he wasn’t exactly acting friendly, but she hadn’t expected him to. What was more important right then was the almost full carafe of coffee she spotted when she looked away from him. So he hadn’t stooped to that sort of petty spitefulness at least.
So what? she asked herself as she fetched a mug from the cupboard and poured herself some coffee. He’s still keeping you a prisoner here. He doesn’t deserve a medal just for not starting off the morning with a snarky comment.
True enough. Even though in general she liked to drink most of her coffee before she started eating, the silence in the room felt awkward, so she got the loaf of bread out of the breadbox, cut herself several slices, and put them in the toaster oven. The whole time she could feel Aldair’s gaze on her, but he didn’t speak.
Just as she was pulling the toast out of the oven, he said briefly, “That won’t work, you know.”
She didn’t turn around, but began to methodically spread butter on her toast. “What won’t work?”
“The clothes. Do you think I can’t remember what your body looks like…feels like?”
Hot blood rushed to her cheeks, but she told herself that he was just trying to upset her. He might know something of what she looked like, or felt like, but certainly not everything. Not even close. “They’re comfortable,” she said evenly. “I thought I’d do some work in the garden today…it’s not as if I have anything better to do.”
Forbidden (The Djinn Wars Book 6) Page 14