A perfectly arched eyebrow lifted. “Why, to come in and speak with you. There is no need for you to be so rude.”
In answer, he stepped out of the way and swept one arm toward the living room in an exaggerated gesture of welcome. “Well, then. Do come in, Danya.”
Her mouth pursed, but she gave no other response, besides doing as he had bade her and entering the house. He shut the door behind her; a fire crackled in the hearth, and he saw no need to let in any more cold air than necessary, even if its presence wasn’t enough to unduly trouble him.
“Ah, I’ve interrupted your dinner.” She paused a few feet away from the dining room table and appeared to take in the single place setting at its head. “Dining alone?”
“Yes,” he said shortly, moving past her so he could pick up his neglected wine glass. “Some claret?”
“That would be splendid. Thank you.”
As soon as she had spoken, another cut-crystal wine goblet appeared on the tabletop. He picked up the matching decanter and poured a measure of claret into the glass, then handed it to her. “Salut.”
Danya raised her glass. “Salut.” After sipping at the wine, she said, “I will confess that I did not expect to find you like this, Hasan.”
“Indeed? And how did you expect to find me?”
“Why, dining with your charming human pet, of course.” Danya’s silver-blue eyes, ringed in dark lashes, widened in what Hasan assumed the djinn woman thought was an expression of innocence. “You were so protective of her that it didn’t even occur to me that you might send her away.”
While Hasan knew that he owed Danya no explanation of what had happened, he also knew the easiest way to get rid of her was to give her some information. Not all, of course. But if she understood that Jordan was now gone, she would have no reason to come around here and bother him again. He had not spent a great deal of time with Danya, but he knew she had a jealous streak. She had not liked seeing her former lover with another woman…especially a human woman. No, she hadn’t wanted him for herself, since she preferred someone who would worship her wholeheartedly, if even for only a short period.
“Would you like to sit?” he asked politely.
“Thank you, I would.”
She pulled out a chair and sat down — it was not djinn custom for the men to pull out chairs for their women, for of course their powers tended to be equally matched — and Hasan resumed his own seat at the head of the table. Luckily, he had been nearly done with his dinner, and so he snapped his fingers and whisked the dirty plate and its accompanying silverware back to the kitchen.
“If you are hungry, I can get something for you.”
“Oh, no,” Danya said. “I have already eaten. This wine is lovely, though.” She took a large swallow, slightly larger than would be considered decorous, and put her glass down on the tabletop. “So, do tell me. What happened with you and your captive human?”
“She wasn’t my captive,” Hasan countered, although that wasn’t precisely the truth. At the beginning, Jordan most certainly had been his prisoner. A prisoner who was not confined to her room, and who had free run of his property, but they had both known he would not allow her to leave the lands that were his. A cell was still a cell, even if it encompassed acres.
A curl of Danya’s full lips. “If you say so. Leaving that aside…it did seem that the two of you were quite cozy. What changed?”
Since Hasan hadn’t yet wrestled that notion into submission yet, he wasn’t about to give Danya a full or true answer. Even to admit that he wasn’t ready to take a Chosen would be enough to tell the djinn woman he cared enough for Jordan to consider such a thing at all, and he did not wish to provide Danya with such intimate insights. “She was human. What other reason did I require?”
“Well, it certainly hasn’t stopped our friends up in Aspen…or down in Santa Fe, for that matter. But of course, they were resolved from the beginning to have their little human charges, whereas I know you never subscribed to the notion that humans were worth saving at all. This is why I find it so…fascinating…that you could abandon your principles enough to allow yourself to be intimate with one of those creatures.”
Creatures. Not so long ago, Hasan might have used the same epithet to refer to humans. Or rather, he might still find it appropriate in certain circumstances, but not for Jordan. No, she was far too exquisite to be called a creature.
“Momentary madness, I assure you. And when I woke from that madness, I realized the only thing I could do was send her on her way.”
“Oh, surely not the only thing.” Danya’s eyes glinted at him over the edge of her glass goblet, which she’d once again lifted to her lips. “You could have gotten rid of her, just as you have so many other humans.”
Never. Hasan knew he could not give that kind of an impassioned reply, and so he reached for his own glass of wine and allowed himself a sip. “I did not think it quite sporting, considering the circumstances. It was enough to crush her spirit by telling her that her infatuation with me was ridiculous, and that she needed to go.”
There. He was rather pleased with himself for offering those words, for they did make it sound as if the kiss that Danya and Farid had witnessed was far more Jordan’s idea than his. Never mind that simply recalling the expression on her face as she turned away from him and began to walk toward Española was enough to make his throat constrict with remembered pain.
Apparently, Danya thought his comment convincing enough, for she leaned back in her chair and gave him a lazy smile. “Ah, so she threw herself at you. I suppose I can forgive her for that indiscretion, as you can be rather irresistible, Hasan.”
“Oh, I think not,” he said lightly. A gleam had entered Danya’s eyes, one he did not overly care for. He did not wish to flirt with her, or try to rekindle what they had shared. That fire had died and could never return to life. He had already had enough of her selfishness, the way she measured others only in terms of their usefulness to her. “I think more that she mistook my kindness, and so believed there might be something between us.”
“Misguided of her, especially when you consider that in her isolation, she can’t have known about the Chosen, that some of our people have taken human lovers.”
It wasn’t worth pointing out to Danya that the Chosen were hardly the first humans to be intimate with djinn. No, his kind had dallied with mortals for millennia — never in permanent relationships, of course, but in nights of passion that the humans often believed were only vivid dreams, or the work of lascivious demons. However, the kind of pairings the Chosen now shared with their human partners…those were entirely different, joinings that were meant to last for eternity.
Eternity. He wanted to laugh at their naïveté. They might be happy for a few years, or even decades, but the djinn had never been constant. Not when faced with forever. And that was also why he knew he must send Jordan away. He could see how the attraction they shared could be parlayed into a few seasons of passion. Eventually, though, he would have wearied of her, just as he’d wearied of every other woman he’d ever been with. Such an outcome was inevitable.
“No, you are right. She was young and innocent, and not terribly clever about such things. Truly, she had already begun to weary me.”
“And where is she now?”
The question sounded almost innocent, but Hasan knew better. If he told Danya that Jordan was making her weary way south along the highway, he had no doubt that Farid would be sent to dispatch her. Of course Danya would not get her own hands dirty, but she would also have no compunction about getting her current lover to do the deed.
In this, however, it was easy enough to tell the truth. Jordan was in human territory, protected by the devices Miles Odekirk had invented. Neither Danya nor Farid could bring her any harm there.
“In Los Alamos,” he said. Very well, that was a small lie, as he did not know for sure that Jordan would have yet reached that human stronghold. Although he had taken her most of the way, it was s
till a long walk from Velarde to Española, and longer still from there to Los Alamos. There had been no guarantee that she would encounter any of her own kind during that journey, although he’d hoped she might, for her sake.
Danya’s nostrils flared in dislike. “Pestilential place. I’m surprised the elders haven’t come up with a way to blast it from the face of the earth.”
Not too terribly long ago, Hasan had been of the same opinion, although he’d never considered that the elders might try to do something about the human holdouts there. In general, they were far too hands-off for that sort of action. Now, of course, he could only be very, very glad that Los Alamos existed, for it could be a place of refuge for someone he’d begun to care about.
He allowed himself a small lift of the shoulders. “Perhaps. I am somewhat of the opinion that the elders believe if those humans were clever enough to come up with the means to protect themselves, then they should be left alone.”
Danya’s eyes flashed with scorn. “That does sound like the sort of capricious reasoning they enjoy inflicting on the rest of us. At any rate, it seems as if your little pet has found herself a new safe cage. I hope she enjoys it.”
The implication being, of course, that living in such a confined place, surrounded by other limited beings, was a prison sentence of its own. Hasan wouldn’t bother to argue with Danya. Let her think what she wished…especially if it meant she would no longer attempt to pursue any kind of petty vengeance against Jordan.
For himself…well, he hoped she would be happy.
She deserved it.
“God, for the day when I can drink beer again,” Lindsay said, watching enviously as Jordan lifted her pint glass of brown ale and took a sip.
“I thought pregnant women could drink beer,” she replied.
Miles frowned and pushed his glasses farther up his nose. He only had a glass of water in front of him, although Jordan didn’t know if that was out of deference to his wife’s condition, or because he simply didn’t drink at all.
She had a feeling it was the latter. Even on short acquaintance, Miles Odekirk hadn’t struck her as the type of person to worry about whether a certain behavior was polite or not. He was far too focused on his work.
The two of them made such an odd pair, the strikingly beautiful woman in her mid-twenties and the gawky scientist who had to be at least ten years her senior. Maybe once Jordan had a chance to know Lindsay a little better, she’d find the courage to ask exactly how the two of them had ever gotten together.
“Actually, the recommendation was beer for nursing women,” Miles said. “And even that recommendation came under some fire. The risk/benefit analysis was somewhat flawed.”
“Well, we’ll discuss it again after this critter arrives.” Lindsay winced, and put a hand on her belly. “Which, judging by the way he or she kicks, should be any day now.”
“Go for next Tuesday, if you can,” Brent put in. He’d tagged along because Jordan had asked him to. She wasn’t even sure why exactly, except that it would have felt awkward for this group to only include her and the Odekirks. At least this way they were balanced. And Brent was the first person she’d met from this community. She’d only been here a few hours, and she wanted someone around who was at least semi-familiar to her. Anyway, she’d explained the request by saying that Lindsay and Miles might have a few questions about where Brent had found her, and luckily, he hadn’t asked for any real details, had said it was no problem and he’d be glad to come along.
“Why Tuesday?” Lindsay asked, nose wrinkling. “Is this some silly horoscope thing?”
“No,” Brent replied. He was too pleasant-faced to look outright offended, but he clearly wasn’t thrilled by Lindsay’s question. “That’s the date I chose for the pool.”
“The pool?” Miles looked confused. “What pool?”
“The baby pool,” Brent explained. “A bunch of us have a little bet going to see when the kid shows up.”
Even though Jordan didn’t know most of the players involved, she couldn’t help chuckling. “What do you bet? I mean, do you use money here?”
“No,” Lindsay said. She didn’t appear offended by the revelation that people were taking bets on when her baby would arrive — just the opposite, in fact. Her green eyes danced with laughter, even while Miles scowled and reached for his glass of water. “Pure barter system, although really, most everything just goes into a common pot. But people still have small items they can exchange, whether for other goods or for labor.”
“Mitch put in that last six-pack of Guinness he’s been hoarding,” Brent said. “So it was worth it for me to try.”
“What did you bet?” Lindsay asked.
“A month of shoveling someone’s sidewalks and driveway this winter.”
“Ouch. Then I hope you win.”
“If I do, I’ll give you one of those cans of Guinness.”
“That was it,” Jordan put in, as something she’d read years ago popped back in her head. “It wasn’t regular beer — it was Guinness that was supposed to be good for nursing mothers. Something about the nutrients in the malt.”
“Hmm.” Miles didn’t seem overly impressed by this addition to the conversation, but at least he didn’t try to outright contradict her.
The food came then — the promised French fries, and also a very good green chile corn chowder. Serious comfort food, Jordan thought, so good that the absence of meat wasn’t really that big a deal. Did they not do much hunting here? The forests above town looked as if they should have a decent deer population, and possibly elk, too. The Rio Grande wasn’t that far away, either. A steady diet of fish could get old, but at least it provided necessary protein.
Maybe at some point she’d be able to ask. It was possible that the restaurant didn’t have items like that on its menu because the supply couldn’t be guaranteed. Anyway, she’d had plenty of meat and game bird and fish at Hasan’s home in Chama. She used to go meatless all the time in college, often for as much as a week or more.
She didn’t really want to dwell on the time she’d spent with Hasan, though. The best thing she could do was keep him pushed out of her mind. Eventually, her memories of him would fade, and he’d be only one out of a series of interludes in her life, nothing to get emotional about.
“Did Shawn get you settled in?” Lindsay asked, once she’d put down her soup spoon and looked ready to take a break so she could talk.
“Yes,” Jordan replied. “He and his girlfriend Katelyn were very helpful. They gave me one of the vacant townhomes in the Pine View complex, and said I should take a couple of days to get settled in before they put me to work.”
“Oh, yes, everyone works here,” the other woman remarked. She gave her husband a sly sideways glance and added, “Some of us more than others, I suppose. But they’ve got all these charts and tables and schedules to keep track of who’s doing what, and where.”
“What did you do before?” Brent inquired, shifting slightly in the booth so he could look at Jordan a little more directly.
Actually, everyone seemed to be looking at her, and she could feel an awkward flush rise to her cheeks. “Not much. I mean, I’d graduated a few months before the Dying, but I couldn’t seem to find any work in my chosen field, so I was working as a waitress.”
Lindsay gave a sympathetic nod. “I had a lot of friends in that boat. I think part of the reason I was hanging on and getting my master’s was that I didn’t feel quite ready to go out and face the cruel world. Then the djinn sort of took that worry out of my hands.”
“I thought about getting my master’s, but I really needed to get to work. Too bad no one wanted to hire me.”
“Was it really that tough?” Brent asked. “I guess I had no idea.”
Jordan figured he probably didn’t. After all, he looked to be almost twenty years older than either she or Lindsay. He’d probably been settled and married, maybe had a family. His concerns would have been very different from theirs. “It wasn’t ea
sy. I had friends moving back in with their parents, or sharing houses and apartments. I was living at home when the Heat came along.”
“What was your degree in?” Miles asked suddenly. During most of the previous exchange, he’d looked as if he wasn’t paying any attention, but now the blue eyes behind the wire-rimmed glasses were focused sharply on her.
“Environmental studies, with a focus on renewable energy utilization.”
“That would be very helpful here,” he said, “since we run almost entirely on solar and wind power. Did you work directly with those systems?”
“No,” she replied, and tried to ignore the look of disappointment that went over his sharp features. “But I’ve studied the theory. I just wasn’t given a chance to get hands-on. I’m sure I could manage, though, once I was given the opportunity.”
“Oh, they’ll give it to you,” Lindsay said, reaching for a French fry. “Probably more than you want.”
“I want to pull my own weight,” Jordan said earnestly. And she did. These people had been willing to take her in, give her a refuge, a new home. The least she could do was contribute as much as she could.
Besides, days of hard work wouldn’t give her much opportunity to obsess over Hasan. That seemed like an excellent plan. Then she could start to figure out how she might fit in here. Moving on, maybe trying to start a relationship, now that she was someplace where she should be safe.
That might be harder than it looked on the surface, though. All of these people had been living together in Los Alamos for several years now. As far as she’d been able to tell, it seemed that most of them were paired off, like Lindsay and Miles, or Shawn Gutierrez and his girlfriend Katelyn. Even here in this restaurant, the diners appeared to be out as couples, or in groups of couples. People who seemed to be single, like Brent Sanderson, were definitely in the minority.
It’s way too soon to be worrying about that kind of thing, she told herself as she swallowed some beer, then reached for another French fry. You’ve barely been here for three hours. Try to let the future be the future.
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