At that moment, an almighty splash exploded in the pool.
Megan squeaked and jerked away as Lucian looked at the center of the pool. In a crackling of mandarin-scented magic, something floundered wildly in the water.
Jinx!
Lucian’s heart squeezed unexpectedly. He found himself flying through the water until his arms found her and pulled her to the surface.
* * * *
Luke-warm water filled Jinx’s lungs. She panicked and thrashed her arms wildly. The cuts and burns ignited in the warmth of the water as she struggled to swim to the surface. Everything appeared blurry. Unable to decide which was up and which was down, she floundered. As she began to drown, she suddenly felt arms surround her. Tight grips bit into her flesh and then, thankfully, hauled her from the water. Blessed air touched her face. She coughed. Trying to concentrate, she tried to utter a spell to help, but the water in her lungs was too heavy and made her cough even more. Semi-digested food and bile poured hot and sour from her mouth as she retched. She groaned and sucked down some air.
“Jinx.” Lucian’s voice sounded close. Hands ran over her burned cheek and skimmed the cut on her chest. “What happened?” he demanded.
He was okay! Relief flooded through her. Jinx opened her eyes to see him but was bedazzled by the sunshine streaming through a skylight in the roof. She turned her head away. As her brain registered more effectively, she realized she was in an indoor bathroom. A massive pool-like bath, clad in heavy mosaic, sprawled before her. Doors opened onto an overgrown courtyard. Lucian was naked.
Her heart hammered fast as she slammed her eyes closed, again.
Thank goodness he was all right. She heaved a breath.
“Look at me,” Lucian barked. “Where have you been? What happened?”
Jinx gingerly peeled an eye open and turned her head to face his voice. She wearily scanned his expression. It was as she had expected—angry.
“Jinx,” he growled. “Where have you been?” She felt his hot hands bite into her upper arms. Far from being painful, she gasped as heat and passion filled her. Lucian jerked his hands away as if stung.
“I...” Jinx began, all too aware her nipples were visibly hardened peaks beneath her sodden shirt. “I went to Kuala Lumpur.”
“Why?” Lucian bellowed, his eyes flashing red with rage rather than passion.
Jinx recoiled and braced her hands behind her on the vomit-covered mosaic. She slipped a little and gagged on the sudden, sour stench.
“I had to,” she mumbled, not daring to glance at his hard, brown eyes.
“Had to? Did I command it?” he barked. He was kneeling down on the wet mosaic. His sculpted chest heaved, and the muscles on his legs bunched. His manhood was thick and partially aroused, resting against his thigh. Jinx felt the spit in her mouth dry to nothing. She gulped and licked her lips, unable to answer him.
“Answer me.” His voice resonated with sudden and forceful power. She felt compelled to answer him.
“To save you,” she gasped, her nipples tightening again and her loins melting.
“What happened to you?” he asked. She felt his gaze still tight and unerring on her rapidly reddening face.
She put her hand to her burned cheek and ran over the raw, bubbled flesh.
“I, uh, got into a fight,” she said lamely.
Lucian was silent. He put his hand on her cheek for a brief second before returning it to his side.
“Why?”
“I had to save you...” she murmured. “You’re my master.”
“I won’t die.”
“You would have,” she confirmed as her treacherous gaze slunk to his crotch, again.
“What did you do?” Lucian whispered. “Did that bomoh do this?” He gestured again to her cheek and the cut on her chest.
She nodded dumbly.
“I’ll kill him.” Lucian’s voice was like gravel. His eyes burned red with rage. Jinx’s heart flip-flopped like a stranded tadpole.
If he was angry now, how angry would he be when he discovered she handed over her lamp to the bomoh? She looked around the bathroom, ardently hoping Lucian would ask no more questions. It was then she noticed a naked woman leaning on the edge of the bath. Her ample breasts sat like over-ripe melons on the tiles. Had he been here alone with her?
Jinx felt irked and vaguely outraged. “Who is she?” Her voice was strangely strangled.
Lucian scanned the room and looked at Megan. “One of Silenus’s maenads,” he said calmly.
Jinx scowled and stared at the benches lining the bathroom. Fluffy, orange and white towels littered the ground. There, nestled amongst a pile of Lucian’s discarded clothing, was the fake lamp. It glittered innocuously in a shaft of sunlight. Had he been alone with her?
“What did you do?” Lucian asked. Jinx was about to answer when the clip-clop of cloven hooves heralded the arrival of a satyr.
“What is this stench?” Silenus’s voice broke any further discussion. “Willow, clean this mess up,” he snapped. He looked at Lucian and then Jinx. “Lucian, old friend.” He beamed. “Glad to see you’re well.” He hauled Lucian to his feet and, despite their states of nakedness, embraced him soundly and unashamedly. Lucian pulled away. His face was still tight and cool.
“Silenus, it’s good to see you,” he murmured, but his attention immediately flew back to Jinx.
Silenus noticed the gesture and grinned wickedly. “Did Megan satisfy your needs?” She is well-versed in–”
Jinx glared at Lucian. He interrupted Silenus before he could finish.
“My genie claims I was dying,” he said coldly. He didn’t take his eyes off Jinx. She winced. “Is it true?”
“She does not exaggerate. You have been very ill indeed, old friend.” Silenus looked hungrily down Jinx’s body. “Willow, clean this mess. Megan?” he barked. The naked woman in the pool stood and sauntered from the bath.
Water cascaded down Megan’s body like a scene from a nineties risqué movie. She wasn’t young, but her body was well preserved. Her stomach was smoothly curved with no marring stretch marks, and her breasts were positively buoyant. Jinx hated her at that moment.
“Yes?” Megan said, her voice bland. Just then, a harassed-looking dryad scurried in from a side door. She was dressed in a maid’s uniform with long, brown hair resembling sticks swaying in the momentum of her rush.
Everyone stared at her in silence.
Without looking at anyone, Willow the dryad gave a quick murmur. Jinx’s vomit disappeared with a sparkling of magic. Without pause, and only the quickest, most nervous glance, Willow promptly turned and ran from the bathroom. She slammed the door in her haste.
As if catching Lucian’s momentarily surprised glance, Silenus spoke. “She’s an orphan,” he said with a nonchalant shrug. “Her tree was chopped down several months ago, and she went a little crazy. Priapus, one of my satyrs, found her and brought her back. She has nowhere to go, and we needed a maid.”
“She’s not a maenad, then?” Jinx asked.
“Hell no.” Silenus laughed and threw his head back. “You’d have to be desperate to take a dryad. Dry as an ancient cave, or so I’ve been told. Not even Dionysus wine can limber them up.” He chuckled, again.
“Dionysus wine?” Jinx asked.
The maenad answered for her. “It’s an aphrodisiac wine. We use it to enhance our revelry every full moon.”
“Oh.” Jinx didn’t need any aphrodisiac wine to limber her up, not when Lucian was around at any rate; nor did that blonde Megan, she noticed. Megan was naked and standing precariously close to Lucian, while looking rather hungrily at him.
Jinx suddenly felt a little angry. Had that maenad “satisfied” Lucian? The thought ate at her.
“Can you get dressed?” she suddenly snapped and pulle
d herself to her feet. Her pants were saturated and clung to every crease on her body. Just as her eyes couldn’t help devouring him, Lucian’s eyes devoured her, running from the curve of her small breasts down to the cleft clearly visible between her legs. His flaccid manhood swelled minutely. Jinx’s throat became dry again as other parts of her became even wetter.
“Jinx, what did you do in Kuala Lumpur to heal me?” Lucian growled. His voice was low and threatening.
She looked up, avoiding answering as she dried herself in a puff of smoke. Before he could ask again, she swiftly attired Lucian in a pair of ashamedly low-slung boxer shorts.
“I swear I’m going to get angry,” he growled, ignoring the clothes. He gripped her wrist. “Tell me. What did you do?” Jinx was reminded again of her stinging injuries. She didn’t have the energy just now to heal them.
“Lucian,” she said, “the Pater Rex’s pledge was killing you.”
“It’s not now...why?”
She couldn’t tell him.
“I bought us a little more time. That’s all.”
“How much time?” he barked. “That’s enough with the partial answers.” Lucian stood towering over her.
“A day…that’s all.”
Lucian ran his hands through his hair. “Silenus, leave us,” he snarled. Silenus shrugged unconcernedly.
“You never were one for genteel manners. Come, Megan. It’s clear you’re not wanted.”
Megan smiled cruelly as she passed Jinx. “Oh no. I was wanted, Silenus…most definitely wanted.” She winked.
Jinx stiffened as a hot swoop of jealousy nearly unbalanced her.
Lucian’s expression was furious as he stared at Silenus and Megan exiting.
“Did you screw that maenad?” Jinx asked.
“Did you screw that bomoh?” Lucian asked at the exact same moment.
There was a prolonged, awkward silence.
He curved his lips into a smile. “No,” he murmured and ran his hands down the length of his arms. “You?”
“No,” she said and released the breath she didn’t realize she was holding. If she hadn’t been quite so weary, she would have sent magic tendrils around him to draw him close to her. It was their ever-looming separation that held her immobile.
As if he read her mind, he pulled her to him. She collided with his chest, and energy sparked between them. Jinx lifted her chin to meet him, all too aware of her stinging injuries and bad breath.
“Don’t kiss me,” she breathed, quickly averting her gaze before his lips could meet hers.
“Why not?” he asked. “If we only have one day left, it’s the one thing I’d like to do before I die.”
“What? Kiss a genie who’s just vomited and is too weak to even magic a mouthwash?”
He hesitated as Jinx stifled a laugh.
“It’s okay,” he said and offered her a sneaky wink. A small smile tugged at Lucian’s lips.
Jinx reached up and stroked his jaw line, hating how her hand trembled with exhaustion or trepidation, just which she wasn’t sure. Lucian’s lips lost their smile as his expression became unreadable once again. She allowed her touch to fall and let her hand hang listlessly beside her.
“All right, but answer me one thing. If you didn’t sleep with the bomoh, what did you do to get us extra time?”
Jinx cringed. The gnawing guilt and worry rolled sickly in her belly. What could she say to him?
“It doesn’t matter,” she said finally. “Please, let it go. We’ve only got a day. Let’s not waste it.”
Lucian’s lips tightened. She saw him warring with himself. Finally, the line of his lips loosened. “Okay.”
“Really?” She was surprised.
“Yes, I’ve had time to consider things. I think maybe we should try and find Antigone. If we have only have a day, she’s our greatest chance.”
Jinx felt her heart halt as the realization hit her.
“Now you tell me.” She wanted to cry. “I...”
Lucian raised an eyebrow but kept his thoughts to himself. With a scorching hand, he brushed her hair behind her ear. The gesture was achingly familiar. He furrowed his brow and looked at her wounds. “Are you in pain?” he asked quietly.
“I’m...I’m...fine,” Jinx muttered.
“Go heal yourself.” His voice turned stern. “Have something to eat. Then, we can go together and find Antigone.”
Why couldn’t he have said this before I gave the lamp to the bomoh?
“Lucian,” Jinx began, feeling compelled to confess.
He ignored her and continued blithely, “Don’t ever leave me without my permission, again.”
Chapter Twelve
Jinx washed in a small bathroom set off from Lucian’s bedroom. Her tiredness from travelling was fading, but the churning dread in her stomach had not abated. What would Lucian do if he discovered she handed over her lamp for nothing? If they found Antigone, and she had the strength to remove the pledge, sacrificing her lamp was for naught.
She felt utterly wretched. Jinx glanced in the mirror. Her nose was inordinately large with the peculiar lighting in the room. Small, dim yellow lights lit the room from niches in the walls. For a moment, she stared and hated herself. She ran nervous hands over her small breasts, down a line, to the crinkled, old stretch marks on her belly.
“Are you finished?” She heard Lucian’s voice through the door. Jinx closed her eyes and bit her lip. She always made mistakes. She’d never learn.
Taking a deep breath of humid, soapy air, she clothed herself in a swathe of rainbow smoke and opened the door.
She stepped out of the bathroom not really knowing what to expect. There was anticipation in the air, hovering threateningly like a swarm of mosquitoes. She immediately saw Lucian. He was reclined against the wall with a heavy look in his eyes. Jinx had dressed in a flowing dress of graduating black and purple. It displayed the gentle bones of her décolletage in a delicate ‘V’ and flowed in dancing folds to her ankles. She felt his eyes devour her. Flushing, Jinx tore her gaze from his and searched the room. Lucian’s bag was there, sitting like the proverbial elephant in the room. The false lamp sat on top of it, glimmering innocuously in the flickering of the whirring fan. Guilt clawed its way from her stomach to her chest as she inhaled sharply. She felt rather than saw Lucian look at her, carefully assessing her, and looked at him guiltily. As if sensing her angst, his usually brown eyes flashed a facet of red. Was he suspicious? Was he angry? Was he horny? Maybe he was all these. She wasn’t sure.
“What’s wrong?” she croaked.
Lucian said nothing. He continued to recline against the wall and looked her up and down coolly—from her sandal-clad feet to the small swell of her breasts. She shuddered. Her reaction to his silent assessment brought a self-assured smirk to his generally unreadable face.
“What?” she asked again, running a self-conscious hand down her dress. “It’s hot,” she said in defense of her choice of outfit. “Dresses are cooler in this heat...there’s no air conditioning.”
“Do you hear me criticizing?” he asked after a moment. “You look…” He paused and ran his tongue over his wickedly white teeth. “You look lovely.”
“Oh.” Jinx felt heat rush up her neckline. “Thanks”.
Lucian smiled and gestured to a bowl of food on the dresser. Jinx stared at the vase of flowers next to it and picked up a peeled rambutan. She popped it in her mouth.
“You’re being suspiciously nice,” she muttered between mouthfuls, nearly choking on a pit before spitting it out. Lucian shrugged and continued to watch her. She picked up some sliced mango.
“I like to think I’m one of those people who improves on closer acquaintance,” he murmured. “Is there anything you want to ask or tell me?” Jinx felt the slither of mango slip down her thro
at. She gagged.
“Uh...” She wiped her mouth on the back of her hand, leaving a slimy snail-trail of juice. “No.”
“No?” He quirked an eyebrow.
“No.” She took a nervous step away.
Lucian rubbed his chin. Jinx heard the scrape of his stubble against his long fingers. His eyes flashed red, again.
She looked nervously at the lamp. Did he know?
“Come here,” he suddenly commanded. The words pulled a soft cry from her lips, but her body immediately stepped toward him. She was his genie and could not refuse.
Unable to stop herself, she took yet another jerking step then stopped a meter away from him.
“Closer,” he growled.
* * * *
By the gods, he wanted a woman. Jinx stood before him, nervousness oozing from every pore. Her large, dark brown eyes darted around the room as if she felt trapped and was searching for escape. It turned him on. It was wrong, but it did. His encounter with Megan left him high and dry with a screaming, unfulfilled erection. Her eyes darted, again—this time toward her lamp. Without a shadow of a doubt, she was hiding something. Her muscles tightened visibly as she stiffened her shoulders.
“I said closer,” he muttered.
Jinx bit her lip. Without waiting, Lucian captured her in his arms and drew her small frame close to his. There was a moment of heat as their bodies collided. Unable to control himself, he ground his erection into the soft flesh of her belly, wanting her to feel his need. He heard her breath whoosh from her lungs. The pupils in her eyes dilated, nearly swallowing the irises.
“We should go find Antigone,” she gasped, struggling weakly against him.
Lucian felt a growl deep in his throat. He gripped her tighter, refusing her freedom. “Later. You need more energy,” he growled then lowered his head to press his lips on hers.
By the gods, she tasted sweet.
Jinx kissed him back, shyly at first, then tentatively testing and tasting him. He kissed her harder. Some primordial, primitive urge wanted him to show her his strength, his passion, his power. He heard her groan beneath him as he poured power into her. He wanted to protect her but seemed incapable of doing so, it was bewildering. Jinx groaned, again. Lucian finally pulled back, unable to give her anything else without taking a whole lot more.
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