Forsaken (The Djinn Wars Book 5)

by Christine Pope

  In the meantime, he had to hope that she would enjoy the dinner of chicken korma he’d prepared for her.

  A delectable smell entered the room, and Madison’s eyes fluttered open. For just the barest second, she had a moment of panic, since she could tell those were the last dregs of sunset peeking around the blinds, and of course the bunker where she’d been living for the past year had no windows. But then memory returned, and she remembered that she was in the Hotel Andaluz, brought here by the djinn named Qadim.

  And there he was, standing by the doorway, with the incongruous companion of a room service cart next to him. “Did you sleep well?”

  “I did,” Madison replied, realizing with some surprise that she had. Only for a few hours, but that had been enough time for the ibuprofen to kick in and reduce the ache in her shoulder to a dull throb.

  “And are you hungry now?”

  “How could I not be, when you’ve brought up something that smells that good?”

  His rather harsh features relaxed into a smile. “I am glad to hear that. This is chicken korma. Do you like Indian food?”

  “Love it,” she said, which was only the truth. She and Jacob used to go out for Indian food several times a month. With a slight stab of surprise, she realized that was the first time she’d thought of her ex in months. Most of her time had been spent resolutely not thinking of anyone in her past, to avoid dwelling on the dreary fact that everyone she’d known and loved was now dead. Anyway, remembering Jacob only brought on a fresh round of self-recriminations. She wouldn’t go with him to Washington, and he didn’t want to stay in Albuquerque. Had he died alone? In the time they’d been apart, before the Heat struck, she hadn’t heard through the Facebook grapevine that he was dating anyone….

  Qadim didn’t appear to note her distraction, and instead wheeled the room service cart into the suite so he could set it next to her bed. Forcing herself back to the present, Madison sat up a little straighter and pushed back against the pillows. Her shoulder twinged, but not as much as it had when she’d attempted a similar maneuver only a few hours ago. That couldn’t all be the ibuprofen. It felt as if the djinn had done a damn good job of resetting her shoulder.

  To her surprise, she saw he’d brought up a bottle of chardonnay to go with the meal. “You’re sure that’s a good idea?” she asked, then worried that he might think she was asking about something besides basic drug interactions.

  But he merely said, “You’ve only taken a low-level painkiller,” as he lifted the metal cover from one of the plates. “A bit of wine should not make a difference. In fact, it will probably help.”

  “Muscle relaxant,” she commented, and he nodded.

  “Precisely.”

  She fell silent, watching as he finished prepping the meal. Apparently, he’d already removed the cork from the wine before he came up, because he poured it right away. Not too much, only an inch and a half or so in her glass.

  “You can begin with that and see how you feel,” he told her.

  Well, that seemed prudent enough. He’d placed the cart on her right side, so it wasn’t too awkward to reach over and lift the wine glass so she could drink. The wine was cool and clean on her tongue, and she could feel the alcohol the second it hit her stomach. No big surprise, she supposed, since she hadn’t had anything stronger to drink than tea since taking refuge in the shelter. Clay had wisely avoided stocking the place with anything alcoholic, and although Madison supposed she could have scooped up any of an assortment of rare and expensive wines and other liquors while she was out foraging, she’d avoided the temptation. It would have been far too easy to drink herself to death down in that bunker.

  Then she realized maybe that had been rude, that she probably should have waited for Qadim to take a sip of his wine as well. “I’m sorry,” she said. “That was kind of grabby of me. It’s just — it’s been a while.”

  “No need for apologies,” he replied. His gaze moved from the glass she held and to her face. Only for a second, though, before he drank some of his wine. “It is quite good.”

  “Yes,” she agreed.

  “You had no wine where you’ve been staying?”

  It seemed an innocuous enough question, but Madison couldn’t help flicking a quick glance at him to see if there was any subtext she might be missing. After all, she thought it likely enough that he would want to find out where she’d been living for the past year, if only to satisfy his curiosity.

  That wasn’t going to happen. Okay, he’d probably already guessed that her hideout must be somewhere in the neighborhood where she’d fallen from the electric bike, but there were at least thirty houses on that street. Narrowing it down would take some time, especially since the entrance to the bomb shelter was so well hidden.

  “No,” she replied. “Wine isn’t necessary for survival.”

  “I might have to disagree with you on that.”

  There was such a wicked glint in his eyes right then that Madison could feel her mouth curving up in a smile despite herself. “All right — it isn’t necessary for subsistence.”

  “I suppose that much is true.” He set down his glass and pushed the plate on her side of the serving cart as close to the edge as possible. “Can you reach that?”

  It would be a bit of a stretch, but she thought she could manage. She wondered if she should try to sit more upright, but the pillows were supporting her shoulder nicely, and she didn’t want to upset the current arrangement. So she picked up the fork and speared one of the pieces of chicken on it. “Piece of cake.”

  Qadim looked slightly puzzled. “Chicken,” he corrected her.

  Again she had to fight the urge to smile. His English was very good, but it seemed some idioms weren’t in his vocabulary. “I just meant that it was simple enough.”

  “Ah, good.” He took his own fork and scooped up some chicken and rice, then swallowed.

  Madison had yet to take a bite. The food looked good and smelled even better, but what if he’d done something to it, doctored it somehow?

  For what? her mind scoffed at her. You’re lying here with one usable arm. If he wanted to try something, he would have already.

  Assuming that the djinn were even interested in humans. Well, beyond killing them, that was.

  So she put the piece of chicken in her mouth. Subtle spices rolled over her tongue, bringing with them another surge of memory, of sitting in that crazy Indian place out on Menaul and feeding Jacob pieces of naan in between bites of korma. Sharing food like that had gotten them both so turned on that they’d gone back to Jake’s apartment and had sex right there on the living room rug because neither of them wanted to waste the time it took to get to the bedroom.

  Heat flooded her cheeks, and she set down the fork and reached for her glass of chardonnay so she could take a big swallow.

  “Is something wrong?” Qadim asked, giving her a curious glance. “Do you not care for the food?”

  “Um, no — it’s fine. More than fine, actually. It’s better than anything I could have gotten in a restaurant.” She didn’t bother to add that the days of Indian restaurants — or any kind of restaurant at all — were long gone.

  And she sure as hell wouldn’t mention how that unbidden memory of her and Jake screwing like a couple of crazed rabbits on the floor had sent an unwelcome flush of heat all through her. The overall loneliness had been bad enough, but the lack of any kind of physical intimacy was even worse. If she’d known, back before the Heat swept over the world, that she wasn’t ever getting laid again, she would have gone out and picked up the first promising stranger in a nightclub rather than being the good girl she’d been raised to be and waiting until the next relationship came along. Sometimes virtue was definitely not its own reward.

  “I am pleased to hear that,” Qadim said formally, although a certain edge to his inflection seemed to indicate he could tell she was holding something back.

  She’d have to watch that. He might be a djinn, but he looked and acted
human enough, and he seemed to be better at reading humans than an otherworldly creature had any right to.

  Maybe it would have been better if he’d stuck to the Arabian Nights robes she’d first seen him wearing. Because right now, in that dark T-shirt and those nicely faded Levi’s and work boots, he looked too damn human.

  Shoving some more korma into her mouth seemed the best way to cover up the awkward pause that followed his last statement. She chewed, forcing herself to focus on the flavor. It really was very good; her earlier compliment hadn’t been an empty one.

  “You really made all this?” she asked, once she was done chewing.

  “Yes. I like to cook.”

  If he’d told her he liked to put on a tutu and pirouette across the stage at the Bolshoi, she couldn’t have been more startled. “Seriously?”

  One eyebrow lifted. “You sound surprised.”

  Madison started to shrug, then stopped herself abruptly as a nasty twinge went through her damaged left shoulder. “I suppose I hadn’t thought a djinn would even need to cook. You could just snap your fingers or wrinkle your nose or whatever to make the food appear.”

  “That is what some of my kind do,” he said. “Perhaps not the nose-wrinkling, however.”

  “It seems as if it would be a lot easier to just blink your dinner into existence instead of making a big mess in the kitchen and taking hours.”

  “You don’t like to cook?”

  “I hate it,” she said bluntly, then reached for her wine and drank some more.

  Over the course of her dating life, she’d met several men who’d been immediately put off by her admission that she couldn’t stand cooking. Qadim, on the other hand, appeared more curious than anything else. “Why?”

  The inevitable question. She was beginning to wish she hadn’t said anything at all, but something about being around another person — even if that other person happened to be a djinn — seemed to have disengaged the wall she usually put up around herself.

  But he was sitting there, watching her and clearly waiting for her to reply. Maybe she should give him a glib answer in the hope that it would be enough to keep him from asking more questions.

  She thought he deserved more than that, though. One might argue that she would never have gotten hurt in the first place if he hadn’t pursued her, but he hadn’t wished her any harm. He’d just wanted to know who she was.

  And he had patched her up. She’d always owe him for that.

  Another bracing swallow of chardonnay, and Madison said, “When I was ten years old, my mother got sick. Bone cancer. Very fast, very aggressive.” She paused then and glanced over at the djinn, who absorbed this information with a quiet nod but didn’t say anything. “You know what cancer is, right?”

  “Yes,” he replied. “That is, insofar as it affects humans. Djinn can be injured, but we cannot become ill. So we do not suffer from these sorts of ailments.”

  Must be nice, she thought. She filed away the information that djinn could be hurt for possible use at a later date. Not that she’d necessarily want to hurt Qadim, but…just in case.

  “She was in and out of the hospital for treatments. They made her as sick as the cancer. My father was just trying to hold things together — he had a high-powered job and needed to stay focused — so I did what I could to help out. That included trying to feed everyone.”

  “Even though you were just a child?”

  “Kids younger than I was have suffered a lot worse.” Poverty, and starvation, abuse and neglect. At least Madison had never gone to bed hungry, had parents who loved her. Her mother’s final words had been a whispered I’m so sorry, as if it was her fault that the cancer had risen up out of nowhere and consumed her. A few burned fingers and botched stews couldn’t really compete with that.

  And there was Qadim looking at her with compassion in his eyes. As if a djinn could possibly understand what she’d gone through. She didn’t want him pitying her.

  “That was almost seventeen years ago,” she said, knowing he most likely could see right through the brittleness of her tone. “I’m over it.”

  His silence was eloquent, seeming to indicate he didn’t believe her…but that he also wouldn’t contradict her. At last he said, mouth lifting slightly at one corner, “Well, you can be reassured that I will not expect you to cook.”

  She offered him a tentative smile in response. With an injured shoulder and an uncertain future ahead of her, what else could she do?

  Chapter Five

  So much pain. It seemed that Madison Reynolds had suffered a good deal in her short life, even before the Heat had come along and swept away everything.

  But Qadim could tell she didn’t want to discuss the matter further, appeared sorry that it had come up at all. He let it alone, and after they had finished eating, he quietly told her that she would find any toiletries she needed in the bathroom, then left her to retire for the night. She’d looked very weary by then, her fine green eyes smudged with shadow. The day had been difficult enough for her without him bringing up unwanted memories.

  She had spoken with him, though. That was something. She could have eaten in stony silence, refusing to acknowledge his conversation. Perhaps it was only that she’d been alone for so very long that any kind of interaction was its own gift, even if said interaction involved speaking with one of the race who’d been responsible for the destruction of her world.

  Still, her openness was hopeful. It meant he might have a chance.

  A chance for what, he wasn’t sure. His body told him that was easy enough — a chance to bed her would be a wonderful thing. He could wait until she was fully healed and see what happened.

  Yet….

  Something told him he wanted more than that, which was foolish. He’d always been one for casual liaisons, a few weeks or nights or even years of pleasure before moving on. If he became intimate with Madison, what would that mean, precisely?

  As he’d told Hasan, he had no interest in claiming a human as his Chosen. To be tied down to one woman forever? Any of his former lovers would have laughed to hear of Qadim al-Syan ever contemplating such a thing.

  Also, he might have been misinterpreting what he’d seen in her face at dinner, but before the conversation had turned deadly serious, he’d seen a flush in her cheeks, had noted the way her breasts rose and fell under the shapeless T-shirt she wore. He had enough experience of women to know that some sort of arousal had moved through her, even if she’d pushed it away. Surely she must be feeling deprived after living alone for so long. What was wrong with sharing some pleasure, even if that pleasure must eventually come to its end?

  Nothing at all. And once she was fully healed and capable of such things, he would see how amenable she was to the suggestion.

  The next morning, Madison judged her shoulder in good enough shape that she thought she should be able to take a shower. Washing her hair one-handed would be a little tricky, but she figured she could manage. Anyway, she wanted to get cleaned up, and a quick inspection of the bathroom showed that it truly was, as Qadim had claimed, well stocked with toiletries — shampoo and soap and toothpaste and anything else she might need. There was even replacement clothing in the dresser, underwear and jeans and several T-shirts.

  Nothing fancy, though, nothing frilly. Apparently the djinn wasn’t going to pull the standard movie-villain maneuver of making his captive dress in something provocative so he could thoroughly ogle her before getting down to business.

  But Qadim wasn’t a villain. At least, Madison didn’t think so. Unless he was the type of villain who liked playing the long game.

  If he was, she didn’t think there was too much she could do about it.

  Even so, she made sure both the door to her suite and the bathroom door were securely locked. Whether that was enough to keep out a djinn, she had no idea. Probably not, but again, she was just a human female with a dislocated shoulder; her options were fairly limited at the moment.

  Slipping out of
the sling and then out of her T-shirt was a lengthy process, one that had her gritting her teeth in pain and wishing that she’d downed a few more ibuprofen before beginning the procedure. Once she was in the shower, though, the hot water helped to ease some of the discomfort. She wouldn’t ask how there was hot running water when the entire planet’s infrastructure was completely broken down. More djinn magic, she supposed, the same kind that conjured up all the correct ingredients for chicken korma and vegetables and rice. She’d brushed her teeth the night before, but she could still taste that meal, the first thing she’d had in a year that wasn’t made from canned or frozen or freeze-dried ingredients. It had been sublime.

  Qadim hadn’t mentioned anything about breakfast, but it was early still, the sun just barely over the horizon. Normally, she didn’t get up quite this early, but she’d gone to sleep at barely nine the night before. And despite the way it still ached, she could tell her shoulder had improved that much more while she rested. A few more days, and she’d probably be as good as new.

  And what then? she thought as she awkwardly towel-dried her hair with one hand, then scrunched some gel into it. Is Qadim just going to let you walk away?

  Maybe. Hopefully. And walking was all she’d be able to do, since she was pretty sure her bike was now out of commission.

  She still hadn’t quite figured out what Qadim wanted from her. He hadn’t behaved like a man who was sexually attracted to a woman. But then, how would she even begin to guess the way a djinn might act in that situation?

  Frowning, she finished getting dressed before slipping her injured arm back into its sling. The toiletries supplied hadn’t included any makeup except some tinted lip balm, so Madison spread some of that over her lips. Her reflection still looked tired, but there wasn’t much she could do about that. It wasn’t as if she was trying to impress Qadim.

  Tying her hiking boots with one hand also proved challenging, but eventually she had herself more or less together. What she should do next, she really didn’t know. The djinn hadn’t told her she couldn’t venture forth from her room. On the other hand, maybe he’d thought she was still banged up and sore enough that she’d want to stay in bed. Other than her shoulder, though, she was doing better than she’d thought she would. The bathroom mirror had revealed some lovely bruises beginning to show up, including a spectacular blue and purple specimen on her knee, but the aches weren’t nearly as bad as she’d feared they would be.