Chapter Twenty-Three
We moved slowly northward, pacing ourselves so the cub could walk, and even Kiara who struggled was not pushed too hard.
I shifted to two legs, and nearly fell over. How many times had I gone back and forth now? I put a hand on Ford, letting him take my weight for just a moment before I got my legs under me fully.
“I’m impressed,” Flora said. She’d introduced herself, and said she knew Merlin. Other than that little tidbit, she’d given no indication that she was going to talk much.
“About what?” I looked up at her.
“That you got them all out. Marsum puts too much faith in his dead ones. Where he was during all that, though, I’d truly like to know.” She shook her head, a grimace on her face.
I shrugged, wishing I could throw the sensation that we weren’t out of the frying pan yet. “A lot of luck.”
Her hands were easy on the reins and she was careful with her horse, which made me like her almost as much as what she said next. “Luck is a crock of shit. The harder you work, the luckier you get, girl. But I think you already know that. Don’t you?”
I grinned. “Maybe you are my fairy godmother. If that’s the case, what are we doing next?”
She rolled her eyes. “Fairy godmother does not a psychic make me.”
“You mean telekinetic?” Lila said and winked at me as she landed on my shoulder. I laughed, recalling Ford had thought they were the same thing. He grumbled something that sounded like “show off” under his breath.
Flora looked past me to the bigger lion, then back to me. “What happened to your male caracal?”
Her question caught me off guard and it struck far too sharp a chord. “Nope, not going there,” I said.
She shrugged, rolling her shoulders. I stared up at her, and the white flowing dress with slits up to her hips, and I realized I’d seen others wearing similar attire. “Were you a slave?”
“For only a moment,” she said, and there was a sound of thunder in the distance. “I am a priestess of the thunder god himself. So, while I can’t call on his power regularly, in times of great need I am able to make a rather lovely showing of the weather.”
“Do you need time to recharge?” Lila asked. “I do. The sapphire draws from me in order to work.”
I lifted a hand to her. “You didn’t mention that before.”
“I barely used it before. But I can feel it now. I think if I tried to use it again I’d pass out.”
That tingling sensation of the ax above us grew and I was sure the blade was pressed against the back of my neck. I turned and looked to the south. Even with the sun up, I couldn’t see the Jinn’s Dominion, the towers, or the deadshits. And still no Jinn.
Had they been waiting inside the tower where Benji said they’d all been called? Were they there still, thinking that we were coming to them? How had they not heard the fight with the deadshits?
I chewed on the inside of my cheeks, thinking about that possibility. “We rest for one hour when we get to the Oasis,” I called out. Eyes turned toward me. “One hour, then we’re going to have to double up here and there to make sure everyone who is struggling is being carried.”
Ford bobbed his head first, then the others slowly followed. I noticed he hadn’t taken his chance to cozy up with Darcy on the walk. Then again, Darcy was all but glued to Steve’s side. Kiara . . . I found her on the edge of the group, walking with her head down.
Before I could go over to her, the cheetah gave a chirp.
“Water ahead,” she called back.
I really needed to get names so I didn’t offend them by calling out species. I sighed to myself. Once we were resting at the Oasis, I’d do a roll call and see who everyone was. Maybe they didn’t all want to be part of this suddenly mixed-up pride.
We went in as a straggling group, right to the water. Everyone dropped to drink, including Flora and her horse. Lila winged off my shoulder. “Zam, you going to get a drink?”
I held back, nose flared. “Give me a second.” I turned slowly, looking through the sparse trees to the more eastern side of the water. Once more, the ghost of my father rose through the sand, his massive jaws open in a silent roar, a single word I knew as well as I knew my own name.
Run.
Jinn . . . the Jinn were here even if I couldn’t smell them. “It’s a trap, get the fuck out of here now!” I spun back to my pride as I yelled.
Most were face down in the water, unconscious. I bolted forward, grabbing at them and yanking them back, so that at least they wouldn’t drown. Lila, I lifted and cradled her with one arm.
The slow clap of hands turned me around. From the edges of the Oasis, emerging from the sand like mist, were the Jinn.
The ax against my neck fell.
My hand went to the flail on my back and I yanked it out. Marsum, tall, blond and smirking, strolled toward me. “Really? With my own weapon, you’d attack me? That seems rather foolish.”
“It was my mother’s, you piece of shit,” I snarled and settled into a defensive crouch.
“Well, perhaps, but I made it for her, did you know that? Before she let herself be seduced by your father. I really thought she’d stay with me.” He shook his head and made a tsking sound.
He snapped his fingers and from behind him stepped Maks. His eyes were the hard, violent blue that told me he was not the man I loved.
“Maks, would you die to secure our place as rulers of this world?” Marsum asked softly.
“Yes,” he answered without even a moment’s hesitation.
Marsum held his hand out and curled it as if Maks’s neck were within his grasp. Maks gasped and his hands went to his throat.
I laid Lila on the ground. “Let him go. Now!” I roared the last word and Marsum lifted his eyebrows.
“No. You see, I want you at my side. Your family line is far too dangerous to have you floating around out there on your own.”
Maks struggled, but only in the sense that he fought to breathe. With a scream, I ran at Marsum and swung the flail as hard as I could. He didn’t move. He didn’t so much as flinch.
The flail froze an inch from Marsum’s chest. He smiled at me. “The flail knows its master, Zamira. And it will not harm me.”
The handle under my fingers was warm and I clutched it harder. “No, you are not its master,” I growled. “I am.”
He laughed at me and Maks slumped, forgotten. “You are the flail’s master? You think so, do you? Then why did it stop before hitting me? That was no magic of mine, pussy cat.” He licked his lips. “Your mother was a cagey one. I won’t make the same mistake with you that I did with her. Your leash will be as short as I can make it.”
“Challenge him,” Maks whispered. Marsum snarled and I didn’t hesitate.
“I challenge you.” I snapped the words, trusting Maks as I yanked the flail back to my side.
“Boy,” Marsum snarled and flicked his fingers at Maks, flipping him end over end until he slammed into a tree trunk with a thick, sickening thud.
He slid down and I couldn’t take my eyes from him. The other Jinn didn’t move, except for one I recognized. Vic.
“You can’t challenge Marsum. You have to be Jinn to do it,” he growled.
Marsum tensed and then slowly turned to face me while he addressed his cohorts. “That’s just it, Vic. She is part Jinn. To be exact, she is one quarter Jinn. And only half lion. The Jinn blood,” he strolled in front of me, “is from her grandmother. A fucking half-breed slave of no importance.”
The half-breeds we’d helped escape had the same ability I did to take their clothes with them, and the truth hit me square between the eyes. They were just like me. Or really, I was just like them.
But there was no time to process the thought that I was part Jinn, or what it meant for me, or how it happened. Marsum held out his hand and a weapon materialized, solidifying in only seconds.
A spear with a wicked curved end he spun lazily in a circle. “Challenge accepte
d. If I win, you will be mine in every way.”
“And when I win,” I circled with him, sweating already, “you will be dead as a fucking doornail.”
He grinned. “Oh, I like the sass. I really do. I hope you keep it once I’m between your legs.”
I snarled and lunged at him, swinging the flail toward his legs. Marsum jumped into the air and the twin spiked balls passed through where he’d been.
The Jinn landed lightly. “Don’t think I’m going to go easy on you just because I want to fuck you. You need a lesson about who is in charge here.”
He flicked his fingers at me and the flail flew out of my hand, ripped away from my skin. I screamed as bits of my flesh went with it. There was a splash as it hit the water of the Oasis.
Marsum chuckled. “Yes, I think the flail likes you, but you are not its master.” He strode to me, spun the spear toward me, right at my head. I dove and rolled as the point of the spear slammed into the ground where my belly had been only a second before. I snapped up to my feet but stayed in a crouch.
My entire focus was on how to get to a weapon. Marsum, on the other hand, seemed only too happy to chatter on.
“Have you figured out yet who you are?” He quirked a brow and then swung the spear again, first at my left side and then to my right. I caught it with my hands, deflecting the blows some, but not enough to avoid them completely. The blows to my ribs sent shockwaves of pain through me, and I struggled to breathe around them.
“Fuck you,” I snarled as I stepped back toward my pride. Darcy and Kiara had my two blades. I would have to make do with them. They’d not failed me before.
“All in due time. Though I do think that’s going to make Maks very cranky to have you in my bed. As soon as I get a child in you, I’ll kill him. Put him out of his misery.” He grinned.
My foot bumped into a hand and I dared a glance down. Darcy was there, her eyes wide. She blinked once.
Not unconscious then, but unable to move. Unable to fight.
I looked back at Marsum who—fool that he was—had turned his back on me. I bent and scooped up the blade I’d given Darcy and sprinted at Marsum’s back.
At the last second, I leapt, aiming for his head. One clean cut, he’d be done.
But then Maks would be bound forever.
My wrist rolled, changing the trajectory of the blow to maim but not kill . . . and that was the mistake that cost me everything.
Chapter Twenty-Four
I was in midair when Marsum spun, not with his spear but with his hand coated in the black mist that was his Jinn magic. It wrapped around me, pinning my arms and legs together so fast and hard that my own blade sliced into my thigh.
I screamed both with the pain of the cut and with the knowledge that I’d lost. Just like that, because I couldn’t condemn Maks to the life that waited for him if his father died.
Marsum slowly turned, laughing. “You see, I knew you couldn’t do it. Not that. You’d lose your precious Maks.”
I used the only ace I had up my sleeve. “The Emperor wants you dead, limp dick.”
His smile slid only a little. “So, your grandfather has been chatting with you, has he?”
My whole body seized up, the air rushed out of me and I saw nothing but the vision of before. The vision of the kindly-looking old man I’d thought seemed like a grandfather. And he was.
“Oh, you really didn’t know?” He chuckled. “It doesn’t matter. As long as I have you, the falak will remain quiet. Once you give me a child, I’ll finish the Emperor with your help. As it was meant to be.” He drew me close with a crook of his finger. “You lose, pussy cat.”
I pulled my head back as he leaned in for a kiss. I snapped my head forward, slamming it into his nose. There was a satisfying crunch of cartilage shattering and then the sweetest sound to my ears as Marsum howled.
“Little bitch!” he roared.
“That’s queen to you!” I roared back. “I am a lion of the Bright Pride. I will not be held down. I will not bow to you. I am a queen in my own right!” The words were a flood, the power of my life and bloodline through my father singing through me. “I would rather die than give you anything, let alone a child.”
He snapped his head around to stare at me, blood dripping from his now seriously crooked nose. “That can be arranged.”
He flicked his fingers at me and I flew backward through the air until I was over the water. And then he let me go.
I dropped fast, hit the water, gulped a last breath of air, then sunk as though a stone were tied to me. My arms and legs still bound.
My eyes adjusted to the shadows in the water quickly as I sank to the bottom. I hit lightly, my lungs already protesting the lack of air.
I rolled to my belly and right in front of me was the flail, half sunk in the soft bottom. I wriggled forward, fighting with the water and the wound in my leg. I had no hands to touch the flail so I laid my head against it.
Take the magic around me. Please.
The flail warmed under my head and the bonds on my legs and arms released. I reached forward and grabbed the flail. It wouldn’t work for me against Marsum, but I had nothing else.
And if he thought I was done fighting, he was about to get the surprise of a lifetime.
With the flail in my left hand I fought to get to the surface of the water, my body demanding air. I broke the surface, gulped a breath and something shoved me back under.
Well, something being Marsum.
His laughter reached me even through the water. “So, you broke the spell on your limbs? That is interesting. Maybe you aren’t the weakling everyone has been telling me you are?”
I swam to the other side of the water and broke the surface again, only to be shoved under once more.
Over and over, I fought to get out of the water, would manage a breath and then be pushed deep again.
He was tiring me out.
Making it so I would be easier to deal with.
I don’t know which time he shoved me under when I let myself just float. My body was hungry for more than a gulp of air, and fighting through the water with the flail in my hand was exhausting me far faster than I wanted to admit. Even if I got out, I would not be able to fight him with any sort of skill or speed.
Marsum had won.
I would have groaned had I any air to escape me. I slowly pushed to the surface and this time there was no gulp of air. Marsum’s power pushed me back under the water.
I clenched my hand around the flail. What had I left to me to fight? My weapon wouldn’t hit the bastard. I couldn’t kill him because of Maks. My pride members were flat out.
I felt the darkness come for me, and in a blink, I was no longer in the water, but standing in the middle of a desert, my—fuck me—grandfather, the Emperor, in front of me.
His eyebrows were quirked upward. “Facing Marsum, are you?”
“Are you really my grandfather?” I realized I was dripping water all over the sand as if I were truly there. I knew I wasn’t, but the lines between reality and vision were nearly invisible to me.
He gave me a single nod. “I am. But perhaps now is not the time to discuss your genealogy, seeing as your heartbeat is slowing, and I doubt Marsum is smart enough to realize he’s actually killing you.”
I just stared at him.
He pointed at me with a single finger. “You have connected to your pride more than any other shifter. Use it, use their strength to feed you, to break the hold Marsum has on you. Use it to connect to the magic in the flail. Only then will it be yours when you face him.”
“It won’t fight him!” The words burst out of me as the scene began to fade.
“He threw it away, cast it aside. A master does not cast aside his protégé. Connect with your weapon, Zamira. And be stronger for it.” His voice faded and the water was in my mouth, up my nose, filling my body.
The darkness around me was not that of a vision now, but of death. I sunk into it, connecting with my pride. They were all
there, including Maks and Lila. I stretched my senses further to the flail in my hand. Power rippled through it, the power of the Jinn who’d made it. I tightened my hand on the haft.
I will never throw you away. That was the only thought I had.
A sharp pang in my hand resonated outward and I stared as blood from my palm swirled around the weapon. The red bloom was there and then suddenly sucked into the weapon, gone.
My lungs ached and my muscles screamed for air. I could only hope I’d done enough to connect with my flail.
I drew my pride’s strength to me, their energy flooding my limbs like light cutting through a storm cloud.
It filled me, and in it I saw their hearts. Strong, wild hearts that were meant for freedom and love and loyalty to their pride and packs. A roar of affirmation bubbled up in me, but I held it back as I pushed for the surface, lifting the flail above my head with both hands.
I broke through the water and Marsum’s magic so hard I shot out so my upper body was free from the water before I sunk back. The power of Marsum on me rolled off my shoulders and I swam to the shoreline. My fatigue was gone. The flail was light in my hand.
And I’d never been so angry in my entire life.
I stood and turned to see Marsum on the other side of the water. His eyes were wide, and he was staring at me with a grin plastered on his face. A grin that said it all. He thought he’d beaten me.
“Are you done fighting me?” He started around the edge of the water, the mist wrapping from his fingers and shooting toward me. I twisted the flail, spinning it so the two balls whipped through the ribbon of mist.
Like watching a spinning wheel weave wool, the flail snagged the mist and spun it all on its own, and it sucked the magic into the metal and wood. I smiled back at Marsum. “No, I think we’re just starting.”
I ran around the edge of the Oasis, straight for him. I already knew what I had to do. Bind him. The way he’d bound me. Which meant I needed someone with magic.
I diverted some of the energy coming into me into Lila through the threads of energy that connected us. “Lila, wakey wakey!” A little bit of freezing all around his body should do the trick. At least until I could come up with something better.
Jinn's Dominion (Desert Cursed Series Book 3) Page 23