Goddess of the desert, let me come up with something better.
The flail hummed under my fingers as it sucked Marsum’s magic deep into it. Marsum just stared at me as I slid to a stop in front of him. A moment passed where we just stood and then all hell broke loose. I pushed enough of the pride’s energy back to them that they all woke. And they were as pissed as me.
I snapped the flail forward, going for his belly—and the twin balls smashed into him, sending him to the side. From the ground, he spun the spear, the blade nicking my left arm. I flinched and Marsum used the advantage to his fullest, running flat out at me.
I backed up as fast as I could, keeping him in front of me.
“You can’t kill me,” he snarled as he swept his spear at me. “And I will have you one way or another.”
He drove the point of the spear to the left of my legs and then swept it outward, slamming me onto the ground. The wound in my leg and arm were slowing me down, even with the strength of the pride running through my veins. Those veins were running out of blood.
Marsum dropped his weapon and leapt onto me, his body pinning me to the ground.
He clamped his hands on my wrists and lifted them above my head. “You stopped fighting me.” He tipped his head to one side. “Why?”
I smiled as Lila swept by and touched the middle of his back. The cold shot through him and into me but didn’t freeze me.
He roared and the ice on his back shattered, his magic ghosting around us. “Nice try, but the fire of the desert will always save me.”
Before I could move, he slammed his mouth over mine and kissed me. Well, kissed maybe on his part. I writhed and fought to get away from him, driving my knees into his side, twisting and fighting to get him off me.
Heat, fire, the desert, roared inside me in answer to the magic he shoved into my belly. Fire I didn’t understand, yet instinctively knew came from my mother’s side.
He was lighting the fire of my Jinn blood. That was what he’d been trying to do before, using Maks.
Marsum wanted me to connect with him, to make me want him, which would never happen. I managed to shove him off. “What did you do to my curse? Why is it not trying to kill me?”
He grinned at me and ran a tongue over his lips. “It was never meant to kill you. The curse was meant to send you back to me to have it removed. Assuming you were alive. And once I realized you were alive, I changed it. I made it so you would be drawn to the desert, that everything in your life would bring you here. To me.”
I stared at him, my jaw hanging open as I saw the last leg of my journey replay in fast forward. How everything and everyone seemed to be sending me to Marsum, albeit for different reasons.
I stood there too long.
His magic wrapped around me and I screamed as he pulled me toward him once more.
My arms were pinned again. He took advantage of it and slammed his mouth over mine, his magic shoved deep into my body, lighting things I never knew were there.
My blood boiled under the heat, under the power we held together.
I started to sink into myself. To feel I could change things for the better if I but embraced what Marsum offered.
His fingers slid into my hair, holding me to him.
As suddenly as Marsum was on me, he was yanked off. My eyes remained closed as I struggled to understand what was happening. I opened my eyes and blinked up at Maks standing over me, one of my own kukri blades in his hand. Blood dripped down the side of his face and those blue eyes held all the sorrow in the world.
“Goodbye, Zam,” he said softly.
Without another word, he rammed the blade into Marsum’s throat, cut through his spine and took his head. Just like that, my heart shattered.
“NO!” I screamed the word as an explosion of magic sent me flying through the air. I tumbled head over ass, and a tiny pair of claws dug into my arm. I shifted as I fell and Lila took the weight of my smaller form easily.
“To the horses!” Lila yelled to the rest of the pride and they scrambled, mounting and following Lila as she flew us out of the Oasis to the east, deeper into the desert. Away from the power that flattened the trees and sent up a sandstorm that swirled out of nowhere.
I stared back at the Oasis where Maks stood, his body disappearing under the black of Marsum’s magic and soul as it moved into him. His head tipped back and he roared to the sky, deep and guttural as the Jinn around him went to their knees. A new power had been born.
And I’d lost the one man whose soul matched my own.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Lila flew with me until we could no longer see the Oasis. She lowered me to the ground and I shifted and mounted on Balder. It took all I had not to break down in front of those I was meant to care for.
I drew a breath and forced the words from my mouth. “We need space between us and the Jinn.” I looked to Flora. “Any suggestions, fairy godmother?”
She smiled but there was pain in it. “No.”
Ford cleared his throat. “There’s a watering hole about a day and a half from here. That would be closest.”
I tipped my head at him. “Lead the way, Ford.”
No one argued, no one suggested going back to Ish and the Stockyards, not even Steve. I watched them all. Five horses were not enough, but we made do. Kiara, Darcy, Flora, and Nell rode the four remaining horses. The cub—Frankie was his name—rode with Kiara. Steve, Ford, Benji and the cheetah—Asuga—stayed in their four-legged forms and ranged around us.
Asuga was happy to lead the way with bursts of speed, then waited for us well ahead. Ford traveled next to me and Balder, quietly at first. But Ford, being who he was, couldn’t contain himself.
“Maks isn’t coming back to us, is he?” he asked.
I glanced down at him. “I don’t know.”
His eyebrows dug deep. “You think there is a chance?”
Lila looked back at me from her perch between Balder’s ears. I let myself follow the energy of my pride.
I found them all easier than I ever had before. Lila, Ford, Steve, Kiara, Darcy, Benji, Shem way to the north, and even the cub Frankie . . . the others were there on the periphery, and it would be up to them if they joined us or not.
My lower lip trembled as I realized there was no connection pulling me to the west. There was no connection to Maks at all anymore, though my desire to ride to the desert was there, at my back. The curse of Marsum still in play maybe? A tremor stumbled through me. Flora rode on my right and she reached out and touched a hand to my arm.
“If you love him, he’s not lost. Love is the only power that can truly save a soul,” she said.
I drew a breath and nodded. “You’re wrong. I know what it is to lose people. I see my brother even though he’s dead. He’s gone but not. Maks . . . is the same.” I looked back to Ford. “We have to go on, Ford. He’s gone.”
“For now. He saved you because he loves you, Zam. Because he loves us,” Lila said. My eyes went to her again.
Before I could say anything, she lifted off and shot into the sky, tiny crystalline tear drops falling from her eyes like sparkling jewels.
She was right about that. Maks had done what he’d done so there would be no guilt on us, but also because Marsum would have kept coming. He would have kept chasing us. Maybe Maks could hold back those urges?
Only time would tell.
And until then, I knew my heart would remain as it was . . . shattered.
The watering hole Ford led us to was smaller than the Oasis, but it was fine for our needs.
We untacked the horses, rubbed them down and fed them before our group huddled around a fire. The first night, I bade them all sleep, and I would take the watch. I couldn’t sleep. Every time I closed my eyes I saw Maks and heard him whisper goodbye.
The fire we lit burned bright against the dark of the night, and the flames hypnotized me. I know, because I blinked and Ishtar was there, standing at the edge of it. Around her was the ghostly edges of her ro
om.
“You . . . how did you call me here?” she asked softly.
Both my eyebrows shot up. “I did not call you here.”
She stared hard at me. “You did, Zamira. How is it that my hyenas have not caught you?”
I shrugged. “Never send a dog to do a cat’s job, Ish. You should know that by now. They’re all dead.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You think to mock me?”
“I think you’re a fucking douche,” I snapped. “Which means you have something up your sleeve.”
“Give me the jewels and I will leave you to live in peace. You cannot understand what needs to be done. You are a child, and a weak one at that.”
Oh, she just had to go there, didn’t she?
I made myself smile. “You can have the jewels—” her eyes lit up, “over my dead and rotting corpse.”
The smile slid. “That can be arranged.”
“Not if I get to you first.” Shit, shit, shit, where did that come from? I was not going to take on a desert goddess! But my blood was boiling—that same heat Marsum started as he kissed me had lit me once more. I snapped my fingers and waved a hand as if dismissing her, and the vision was gone.
Only it didn’t just erase her, it replaced her with another person who liked the visionary shit.
The Emperor did a slow turn while his ghostly image stood in the fire. “Interesting that you can do this so soon after being awakened. I suppose I should not be surprised.” He nodded slowly. “What is it you wish to discuss?”
I frowned. If he thought like Ishtar that I’d called him here, then I didn’t want to look like a fool as I’d done with her. “I didn’t take your fucking jewel from Marsum.”
He closed his eyes. “That is rather bad news.”
I frowned. Why didn’t he flip out? Where was the monster everyone told me he was? Was this a game like Ishtar where he would try and lull me into believing he was something he was not?
I tried another tactic. Prove him wrong. “You said I would die without your help.”
“I’ve been known to be wrong once or twice in a thousand years.” He smiled as if some inside joke were being shared between us. Seriously, what the fuck was his game?
I went on. “And that if I killed Marsum, with your help, you would return my brother to me. Marsum is dead. I want my brother back. Now.”
He shrugged. “You didn’t kill Marsum. That was the deal.”
I took a step toward the fire. “You fucking dirt bag!”
He held up a hand. “Peace, granddaughter. There is always a way to return the dead to life. Within the wyvern’s lair is a way to do so. That is all I can tell you.”
I opened my mouth and another question popped out. “You were impersonating my brother. Weren’t you? To motivate me?”
He smiled. “Ah, perhaps my skills have gotten rusty. Yes, that was me.”
The Emperor had used my own grief against me. I gritted my teeth, struggling to talk evenly. “And my brother in the strange box?”
“That was real. His soul is trapped. It’s the only way of possibly bringing him back if he is not allowed to move on.” He sighed. “I am tired, and my fool of a son is here. I must go.”
He made the same hand wave motion that I’d used to dismiss Ishtar and I was once more the only one awake at the campsite, no vision haunting me.
I sucked in a sharp breath and stumbled back a few steps. “How the fuck did I do that?”
The question was not meant to be answered.
“Your magic, much of it is instinctive,” Flora said quietly from my right. I turned to her.
“Instinctive?”
“You will need some training, to tap into it, but much will come to you as you need it. That is the way of some magic.” She shrugged. “But try not to get into a pissing match with Ishtar. She might have loved you once, but she has lost her marbles as she gained stones.”
I didn’t disagree. But I knew Ishtar and I were far from done.
Flora and I spoke at length, quietly, throughout the remainder of the night about what we should do next. The next morning, I was ready to move us on.
I waited until their bellies were full and their guards were down before I stood. I’d been unable to eat, my stomach churning with the thought of what was coming.
“We cannot go to the Stockyards. Ishtar has returned to the land and that is her home.” I felt the weight of their eyes settle on me. “The Emperor is not yet free, but it could happen. And then there is the falak to consider. If someone were to kill the Emperor, then the falak would be freed onto the world. We can’t have that. But the Emperor is growing in strength and it may be a matter of time before he is free. Unless something is done about it.” I drew a slow breath, trying not to think of the falak, the one monster bigger than even the Emperor. How the hell he kept it from devouring us, I would have to find out in order to keep it from happening. But that was not today. Today was about pulling our shit together and standing tall. “I am the alpha of the Bright Lion Pride, a family whose calling was to give protection to those who needed it. The world needs protection now more than ever, and I intend to do something about this.” Fucked if I knew what, but those words needed to be said. I drew another breath. “Those who wish to stay with me may stay. Those who wish to go may go.”
Steve stood. Of course, the dumb fuck did. “I’m not bowing to you.”
I curled my lips. “Didn’t ask you to bow, dipshit. I said you could come with me, or you could go your own way.”
He glared at me. “You’re saying that you’re going to save the world? That’s what you’re saying?”
I swallowed hard once, pushing the doubt away, and then nodded. “Yeah, something like that.”
Ford looked up at me. “And how do you intend to do that?”
Lila sat on my shoulder and tightened her hold on my ear. “We have a journey ahead of us. One that will be fraught with danger and death.”
I rolled my eyes to her. “You really think that’s the way to convince anyone?”
She shrugged and I saw the glint of humor in her eyes. “Well, I think that some of them need to understand how bad it could be. This is not a game. This is a real as it gets.”
Slowly, they all stood. Even Benji, even Nell, Frankie and Asuga. Shit, even Steve. That was going to be a fucking gong show the first time he decided to challenge me. And I was sure as the sun rising in the east that it would happen.
Fuck my life, it would only be a matter of when.
Kiara locked eyes with me. “I want to make this world better. Safer for all of us.”
My heart swelled as their energy fed into one another, as their strength buoyed each other. I nodded. “Then we’re in for a wild one. We still have Ishtar’s hunters to contend with, as I’m damn sure she’s going to send more. The Jinn to the west. And then whatever we are going to face to the east.”
“East?” Steve growled. “Those are dead lands. Why are we going to the east?”
I locked eyes with him. “Because there is only one person, one creature who can help us untangle this shitty mess we find ourselves in.”
He frowned. “Who?”
Here we go, I thought, time to put on my weapons, my armor, and dig in for a long fight to find her.
“The Oracle.”
Afterword
Coming Fall 2018. . . .
“Oracle’s Haunt”
(The Desert Cursed Series Book 4)
“Karma. It’s pronounced ‘Ha-ha’ you know.”
~Lila
www.shannonmayer.com
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Jinn's Dominion (Desert Cursed Series Book 3) Page 24