Damian pulled me back, shaking his head, and pressed me against the wall of the stairwell.
I held my breath as the two figures passed below. Their magic exuded scents of summer days, tea in the morning, and ripe oranges. One was a shifter, the other…I wasn’t sure. Both had golden bands on their wrists.
Manacles.
“Prisoners. These must be some of the sups that were kidnapped. The djinn enslaved them,” I whispered.
Damian nodded. “That would make sense.”
Many genies sought subjects to enslave. Bastards. Was this my heritage? I almost didn’t want to know.
“We have to free them. I can’t leave them.” I looked at Damian. “There must be a way to bring them with us.”
“No.” Damian reached for my wrist. “We can’t let on that we’re here. Not yet.”
My anger flared, and I snatched my hand away. “How could you leave them?”
“Right now it’s us or them. We need to keep a low profile.”
I knew he was right, that there was so much more at stake, but it pained me. I thought of Rhiannon, bound like this and at the mercy of the djinn. I felt sick. “I’m coming back here to save them, I swear to fate.”
“Fine. For now, let’s go.” He continued down the stairs, and I followed reluctantly.
We entered a colonnaded courtyard that encircled a garden resplendent with fountains and elegant statues.
“Wow,” I murmured. This place was unreal.
Djinn were known for their extravagance. Feasts, sculpture, art, treasure—they ravenously sought the finer things in life.
I thought of my wardrobe. Okay, that checked out.
As I mulled that over, footsteps echoed across the courtyard. “Hide!” Damian growled, and we flattened our backs against a pair of pillars.
Once safely tucked away, I stole a glance. Two hawk-headed warriors escorted an ornately dressed man bound in manacles down the colonnaded corridor. The man carried an elaborate silver diadem. Bingo.
They passed without spotting us, and Damian motioned for me to follow them. “Fifty-fifty chance they’re headed toward the treasury.”
“Or the djinn,” I muttered.
We got lucky, however, and they led us straight to the vault. There was just one problem: we had no idea how to get in.
We came around the corner as the last guard disappeared through a golden wall decorated with silver clouds. Approaching, Damian studied the wall. He moved his arm in an arc, tracing runes in the air. He’d done something similar in his office to access his vault, but this time, nothing happened.
He lips pressed together. “This will be complicated.”
While I inspected the wall for some type of clue, the silver clouds shifted abruptly, joining to form a pattern on the wall. The air crackled, and Damian pulled me aside just as the two warriors reappeared.
They looked straight at me.
“Hi,” I said, then summoned a surge of wind to my fist and decked one of them in the face. The gust magnified the impact, and the hawk-headed warrior slammed into the adjacent wall and fell unconscious. Damian had his partner down in seconds.
The man with manacles reappeared and stood stock-still, gaping. Slowly, he raised his hands in surrender.
“We’re going in there,” I told him, pointing at the wall. “How do we get in?”
“You have to make the clouds fit the pattern. It’s magic. I…I can’t do it.” He gestured to his manacles, which must have been enchanted to block his magic.
I bet Rhia had a pair just like that. Bastard djinn.
“I think I got this,” I replied, then reached out with my magic and pushed the clouds.
“Please don’t! The djinn will kill us all,” the man begged.
“We’re going to figure out how to stop him and free everyone. Please help us.”
He hesitated, then reluctantly showed me the pattern.
As soon as the secret portal turned translucent, the man turned and fled. I looked at Damian. “Should I go after him?”
“No. Our timer just started. We’ve got to move quickly.” He grabbed my wrist and pulled me through the portal, which shut behind us.
We were in a small, dark antechamber. Two torches burst into flame as we entered, illuminating a second gilded door. Damian wove runes in the air, and the lock clicked open.
“You sure do know your way around a robbery, Mr. Malek,” I said.
He raised an eyebrow. “You’re a willing accomplice.”
Fair point.
The door rumbled as it slid open, and torches flickered to life.
I gasped.
Unimaginable riches lay before us. Gold and silver furniture. Ornate statues. Piles upon piles of coins. Pearls. Boxes inlaid with gems. Persian rugs. Even a golden sarcophagus. How had the djinn accumulated this much wealth?
“Holy shit,” I muttered, and glanced at Damian. He didn’t say a word, but his eyes, now dark, burned with desire. “Hey!” I shoved him. “Let’s get what we came for and find Rhiannon.”
Damian shook his head as though freeing himself from a spell. He pointed straight ahead to a niche in the far back wall. “That.”
A glowing gem was perched on a platinum pedestal. Its colors shifted in the flickering light as if it were at first a ruby, then an emerald.
“Dragon Heart,” Damian whispered, his eyes fixed on the gem.
We scaled a heap of treasure to reach the stone. Scrooge McDuck made it look way easier. My feet sunk into the coins, and it was impossible to get a grip with my hands. It was an inglorious ascent, but finally, I made it.
I reached for the gem, but Damian grabbed my hand. “Are you crazy?” he demanded.
I looked at him, dumbfounded. “Isn’t this what we’re here for?”
“Yes. But you can’t just take it.”
“Oh, shit. Of course, it’s booby-trapped.” I tried to cover my embarrassment. “Sorry, it’s been a while since I’ve seen Indiana Jones.”
That was a lie. I loved Indiana Jones, and I’d watched it with Rhiannon last month—though I didn’t support tomb raiding.
Damian inspected the pedestal from all angles. He muttered an incantation and pressed his fingers against six points in the wall. Each time, there was a little flash. With that task completed, he stood back, contemplating for a second, then announced, “Okay, I think it’s safe.”
He reached out and snatched the glowing gem, and I held my breath, waiting for something to come crashing down. Nothing did.
“Nice job,” I said.
As we slid back down the mountain of coins, my boot dislodged something—an old, leather-bound book. I plucked it from the treasure and read the cover: Secrets of the Djinn.
“Look at this!” I cried.
Damian turned, aghast to find the book in my hands. “What happened to not touching anything?”
Coins clinked behind me.
Oh, fates! I turned as a giant serpent burst out of the treasure pile in a hiss. Its head loomed ten feet above me, and two savage white fangs dripped with venom. It must have been more than twenty feet long. The muscles under its skin rippled, and its head shot forward with lightning speed.
I jumped back, but I was too slow. Its fangs gashed my left arm. Agonizing pain racked my body, and I staggered back, stumbling on the coins.
Damian launched two icicles at the serpent, but it dodged them with ease.
Ice power? That was new.
The creature lashed out with its tail and slammed Damian into a pile of statues. He leapt to his feet and drew his black, radiant sword from the ether in a burst of purple smoke.
I trembled with delirium as I summoned my magic, but nothing came. In desperation, I pulled my khanjar from its sheath. My grip was weak, but I fell into my fighting stance.
Damian dodged and rolled, but the serpent was so fast. He spun through the air and brought his blade down, slashing through its tail. It didn’t cut the snake, however, but rather passed straight through. The section h
e had severed dissipated in smoke.
The serpent lashed about. It was unbalanced now, and Damian had the upper hand. His wings burst from his back, and he vaulted into the air above the creature’s flailing body. Damian dropped down onto the serpent’s midsection, and I wondered what he could possibly be thinking.
The serpent shuddered as blue energy rippled through its body. It thrashed wildly at first, but then its movements slowed, then ceased altogether. It was frozen solid.
“Sweet fates,” I muttered.
Damian slid down the pile of gold to my side, wings retracted, but I didn’t have the wherewithal to appreciate the view. My head spun, and pain surged through my arm. When I looked down, I saw the problem: my arm was turning to gold.
Damian grabbed my wrist, and I felt his magic course through me. Unlike the times before, this was agonizing. My back arched, and I clenched my teeth, trying to maintain consciousness.
Slowly, I felt the life returning to my arm. My vision cleared, and the pain subsided.
“Thank fates that worked,” I mumbled, looking up at his angelic face. “I owe you big time.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” He looked me up and down to make sure I was all right. “Okay, Midas. Let’s get out of here.”
Was that a joke? I cocked my head. “Technically, Midas had a golden touch, not a golden arm.”
He shook his head and helped me to my feet. “Lesson learned?”
“Ab-so-lutely. Is the snake dead?”
“Frozen for the moment.”
“Good.” I reached out and snapped up the book.
Damian stared. “Fair enough,” he muttered, then grabbed an emerald necklace and some golden bangles and shoved them in his pack.
I looked back at the serpent, still frozen in place. “How did you do that?”
“That?” He paused. “Just something I picked up from the ice devils. Let’s get out of here before he melts.”
I nodded and rubbed my arm. He picked that up quickly. Is he a mirror mage, too?
The portal in the wall was locked. Thankfully, I recalled the proper configuration of the cloud pattern.
It only took two tries.
Pleased with myself, I led the way through, only to come face to face with half a dozen hawk-headed guards. Two had bows, while the rest leveled their barbed javelins at us.
“Not again,” I groused, and shot a blast of wind that knocked them back into the wall. “Come on!”
We dashed down the hall. The guards clambered to their feet and charged after us, and those with bows took a couple shots on the run. I pushed Damian to the side just as the arrows whipped by.
We turned a corner and skidded through an ornate doorway into another hall.
Footsteps echoed behind us. We were momentarily out of sight, so I made a split-second decision. I grabbed Damian’s jacket. “Hold on and be quiet!” I ordered, then pulled him against my chest and called the wind. I flipped us into the air, pressing our bodies up against the corridor’s high ceiling.
We hovered face to face, hidden by the low doorway. He was heavy, and his solid body pressed down on mine, causing a heat to rise in my belly. Damian looked like he was about to say something, so I pressed my fingers over his lips. They were soft and warm, distracting.
I pulled my attention to the corridor below and shot a sharp burst of wind at a door down the way. Luckily, it was not locked. The door slammed open just as the guards rounded the corner. I held my breath and buried my face in Damian’s shoulder. We were sitting ducks if they looked up.
The guards slowed for a second and looked around. Thankfully, they took the bait and darted down the hall to the open door.
As soon as they were gone, I dropped us silently to the ground, and we hurried back around the corner, retracing our steps.
“I enjoyed that.” A hint of a smile tugged at Damian’s lips as we ran.
I forced back a smile, worried he would see how much I had enjoyed it, too. “They’ll figure it out soon and come back this way looking for us. We need to lose them.”
He gestured to an archway up the hall. “There’s a stairwell this way—come on. I have a good feeling about this direction.”
We raced down the stairs at top speed. I tripped, my feet thundering against the steps. Shit. So much for sneaking.
There were several arched doorways at the bottom. We ran through the central arch and barreled through a small antechamber, emerging into a large, colonnaded room with high ceilings. The walls were draped with tapestry and lit by the warm glow of burning braziers. A carefully laid banquet filled a long table on one side of the room—and there, in the middle of the room, stood Rhiannon, holding a tray with a tall silver teapot.
She gaped, and the tea set slipped from her grasp. The silver platter and pot crashed to the ground with a metallic clang that echoed off the walls.
Rhiannon looked at the disaster, then ran toward me. “Neve!” she cried, but before she could close the distance, her body jerked violently backward as something pulled her up short. She collapsed to the ground.
“Rhiannon!”
As I ran to her, she got to her knees, coughing, and tugged on a long sliver chain. It led from a collar at her neck to a point high on one of the columns. “Freaking chain!” she muttered, then yanked on it for good measure before embracing me.
I wrapped my arms around her. “Are you okay?”
“The bad news is I’m now a tea servant. The good news is that there’s unlimited baklava. The other bad news is that I’ve gained half a stone since I’ve been here.”
Despite the terror of the moment, I laughed. “Fates, I missed you. We’re gonna get you out of here.”
“You’re insane to have come.”
I stepped back to examine her. Rhiannon had golden cuffs around her wrists and ankles, as well as the golden collar and silver chain. She was dressed in exotic fabrics.
“You look damn sexy in all this gold,” I said, “but I think we need to get you out of it.”
“It’s nice bling, but it blocks my magic. The chain’s new. I’ve been, uh…less than cooperative.”
Damn. Magicuffs.
I turned to Damian. “Can you get her out of these?”
He knelt by her feet. “I’ll try.”
Damian began to weave runes in the air. After a minute, there was a pop, and the ankle cuff dropped to the ground. “One down. Four to go.”
At that instant, palace guards swarmed into the room.
I swung my left arm across my body, slashing outward with a sheet of wind. The guards flew back, but I knew more were coming.
Rhiannon clapped her hands together in joy. “Holy shit, Neve! You’re blowing my mind.”
“I learned some new tricks,” I said, then turned to Damian, “Break her chain and collar first so we can run!”
“I can’t. I’ve got to do the cuffs first. Everything is linked together.”
“Triple shit.” I unsheathed my dagger, ready to fight.
With a sudden burst, the air drained out of the room, and my ears popped. It was hard to breathe. The flames sank low and changed hue, filling the room with an eerie blue light. A rumble like low thunder rolled around us, and smoke poured into the room and took form.
The djinn.
My knees weakened.
The air vibrated, and waves of magic rose around him like an undulating desert mirage.
His power smelled of frankincense and left a dusty taste in my mouth. Something deep inside of me stirred. It was unnerving—I couldn’t quite explain it. Not desire or any emotional connection, but something deeper. Something that drew me toward him like a moth to a flame.
The djinn sneered at Damian. “Good to see you again, dear friend. The last time we met, I let you be, out of pity. This time, you won’t be so lucky.”
I stared at Damian. They knew each other? What the hell had I signed up for?
The djinn turned to me, narrowing his topaz eyes. All the hair on my neck stood on end. “And
you. A half-breed. Interesting. Where did you come from?”
The alarm bells inside me jangled, and my arms felt as if electricity was surging through them. I had never been so small.
The djinn towered over us, his skin a radiant blue. His eyes were lined with kohl, and his arms and chest were covered with intricate white tattoos, like calligraphy written across his body.
I looked down at my arm. My tattoo had grown again. Would mine become like his? There was so much I didn’t know about myself. As I studied his face, his eyes pulled me forward, step by step. Could he help me? Could he be the answer? I tried to summon the nerve to speak.
“Thieves!” he bellowed. His thunderous voice knocked sense into me. This djinn was no friend of mine. He threw his arms wide, and columns exploded around us in a cloud of dust and fragments. Flying marble chips sliced my face as I tumbled to the ground.
Damian struggled to his feet beside me but was blasted over with another explosion of stone.
Rhiannon was on her knees on the other side of the room. She fruitlessly tugged on her chain with bloody arms. “Get the hell out of here, Neve. Now!”
The force had knocked the wind out of me, and I strained to speak. “No.”
With a slight wave of his hand, the djinn hurled her against the wall, then turned toward us. She crumpled at its base.
“Rhiannon!” I screamed.
Damian grabbed me by the arm and pulled me stumbling toward the door. The djinn casually waved his hand at us. I tried to block the incoming gust with a wall of air, but it was feeble compared to the might of the djinn. We flew head over feet through the doorway, and the guards were on us in a second. I sent a blast of wind at them, but they were prepared for my tricks now. Three were able to dodge the gust, taking to the air using their feathered wings.
Damian leapt up and lashed out with magic, sending a burst of hail into their bodies. Feathers exploded through the chamber.
We dove underneath our airborne assailants and sped down the hall. Rounding the corner, Damian pulled me through a side door and locked it with a charm. The door shuddered as something heavy pounded against it.
“Can you hold the door with your magic?” Damian asked. “I need to unlock this window, but it’ll take a minute.”
I channeled wind at the door, pinning it shut, while Damian muttered an incantation behind me.
Wicked Wish (Dragon's Gift: The Storm Book 1) Page 9