Djinn Rebellion Boxset (Books 1 -30: A Post-Apocalyptic Fantasy

by Cage, Jessica

  “Anything else we should know?” Graham asked as the map vanished from the screen.

  “There may be a slight variation in the design, depending on what they are out for. I wouldn’t be surprised if they have been modified specifically for you if you’re a person of interest. In that case, I suggest you keep alert and keep your distance. Move as quickly as you can.”

  “Right, got it.” Graham turned and headed for the exit.

  Ardyn began helping everyone get settled in their new rooms. Unexpectedly, the groups didn’t take to collective corners. Everyone was intermingled. Having gone on a similar mission together, they’d learn to make friends. For some it was a happy reunion with people they otherwise wouldn’t see. Over time, the Earth had benefited from the new order of things, but its inhabitants hadn’t. They’d become segregated and hostile toward one another, even those that were at a time allies.

  “Inda tells me it took some convincing to get you here.” Ardyn approached Jinn who was looking over maps of the vampire territory.

  “Is that so?” He kept his eyes trained on the paper, memorizing the perimeter lines.

  “Yeah, and I don’t mean to be intrusive, but I’m moved to ask you why that was.” When Jinn didn’t respond to his implied question, he went on. “I mean, Nitara is a great woman, or at least she has always been to me. I guess I’m just wondering what would make you turn your back on her.”

  “Turn my back on her?” Jinn huffed. “You know, you’re real bold to come to me with that. Look, I didn’t turn my back on her. I was there for her; I always have been. She is the one who turned her back on me.”

  “But, now that you know that she didn’t want to do it, that she had no choice, you’re back on her side?” Ardyn pressed. He’d already crossed the line, might as well go for the gold.

  “I was never not on her side!” Jinn’s voice echoed, creating a hush that covered the entire compound. “Every day I searched for her, I fought Daegal for her, I battled next to dragons for her! And after everything was said and done, she turned her back on me! She walked away from me! Yet no one seems to remember that part.”

  “She had a good reason.” Ardyn was regretting his decision to approach Jinn with the topic.

  “You say that now, that she had a good reason.” Jinn stepped closer to him. “But perhaps you can answer something for me that no one else seems to be able to. If she cared so much about me, about us as a couple, why couldn’t she tell me about any of this? And don’t give me that bull about what Daegal did or the consequences. There is nothing in this world that Nitara can’t share with me, and she knows that. She could have had faith in me, that we would figure this shit out together. But she didn’t. She walked away, she took the easy way out and yet every fucking person is in my face as if I am the one who did something wrong. Do me a favor and back the hell off. Nitara needs help, and I’m here. I didn’t promise anyone fuzzy feelings and some grand emotional rediscovery!” Jinn shoved Ardyn out of his way as he headed to claim his own room.

  “Well, I could have told you that was a bad idea.” Rosie materialized next to Ardyn and hopped on the table. Crossing her legs, she allowed a shoe to dangle from her toe.

  “I didn’t mean to upset him.” Ardyn took his eyes off the back of Jinn who was walking away from them.

  “Didn’t you though?” She raised a brow. “You were testing him, to see where his loyalty really lies, and you figured out what you wanted. Any fool could see that asking him anything about Nitara right now was going to push him over the edge.”

  “Perhaps you’re right.”

  “Ain’t no perhaps about it, baby.” She smiled knowingly. “But you keep telling yourself whatever you need to if it helps you make it through this.”

  Inda and Graham returned to a quiet tunnel. Everyone inside had remained in their quarters. After Jinn’s outburst, it was a collective agreement to keep the noise at a minimum. When the entrance shimmered, announcing their arrival, they were met by Briar and Ardyn. Jinn remained turned away in hiding. He needed the time to meditate.

  “It’s a fucking minefield out there, and there are more the closer we get to the city,” Graham reported to the greeting party.

  “Yes, I counted nine on my half, and that’s just the trees. Some of the stones looked like they may have had markings, but I couldn’t get close enough to tell,” Inda confirmed.

  “Yeah, the things are everywhere and that’s just here. Who knows how many are in the city or around their home.” Graham was relieved to find that Mike wasn’t there. “Knowing Sarah, the place is probably covered in them.”

  “The good thing is that we know they are here, and we know what to look for.” Briar’s mind was already spinning. There had to be a way around them, some way to neutralize the alarms. “This gives us an upper hand.”

  “Yeah, but how do we avoid triggering them?” Inda took a seat next to the table and the others joined her as they brainstormed for their next move.

  Briar picked up the printed image of the tree she first saw. “It looks like these are of a weaker design. Without fae magic to reinforce them, their perimeter won’t be that wide. I suggest we test one.” Briar pointed to a spot on the opposite side of the map from their current location. “Find one farther away from here and see how close we have to be to trigger one. They will start to glow when they are set off. At least this way we know what we’re up against, and we can divert their attention elsewhere. While they are looking over there, we can be working over here to get things in order.”

  “Sounds like a plan. Whose up for the task?” Inda asked for volunteers.

  “You can count me in!” Jax stepped up from the small group that joined them, including Mike who had been avoiding the vampire in the room. Inda flinched and cursed herself for making it optional. With all eyes plastered on her, she had no choice but to accept his offer of help.

  “Fine, let’s go. But try not to be seen.”

  “That won’t be a problem.” A small fairy, nicknamed Bunny for the bounce in her step, pushed to the front of the group. “I’ve given everyone here a cloaking spell. It shouldn’t be enough magic to set off the wards unless you’re right on top of one.”

  “Good, looks like we’ve thought of everything.” Inda wanted a reason to postpone the trip, any reason at all, but she wouldn’t be getting one. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Good luck.” Mike jabbed Jax in the ribs. The man was in for hell with her.

  Oh the outside of the wall, the sky was bright, which meant they would have free room to roam. The vampires would be down for the count, and their human watchdogs wouldn’t be able to catch sight of the dragon with his cloak. Jax stretched his limbs as he prepared to shift again. He took his time and watched the woman who avoided returning the look.

  “Are you ever going to talk to me, Inda?” He couldn’t take it anymore, the silence from her was more painful than her being away from him.

  “When I have something to say, yes, I’ll talk.” She stretched her neck and tried to alleviate the tightness in her shoulders. “Until then, no, I don’t think I will.”

  “All this time, and you have nothing to say to me.” Jax walked away from the entrance out into the open field. He turned back to her with a sorrowed expression. “I have a million words. My heart is bursting with anger, and confusion … and love. Yet you have nothing to say.” Before she could respond, Jax spread his wings and took to the sky.

  Inda watched him flying for a moment and the tightness in her shoulders extended to the center of her chest. Before the tear could fall, the phoenix took flight.

  “Are you going to tell me what the hell is going on with you?” Ardyn cornered Graham who was headed to his room beneath the ground. The sun was up, and though he was hidden from it, the effects were still just as strong. Mike had created him a special room to keep him away from the noise of everyone else who would be wide awake. “I've never known you to have a problem with anyone unless the reason was valid. No
t even really with the bastards who turned their back on you and accepted Tyrellis as their leader. Yet now it seems you can’t even look at Mike without snapping or sneering. You want to tell me what’s the problem there?”

  “You know there was a time in my life when I was happy. Completely and totally in a way that it took centuries to accomplish.” He eyed the group of slithers that headed down the hall toward their rooms. “I had a part of my life that I protected just as fiercely as everyone here is trying to protect Nitara. You don’t get to live as long as I have without finding someone to share your time with, without building real, solid relationships. I had that at one time. I had that, and it was the best thing in my world. But you know when the wars broke out and the slithers decided to play on both sides of the fence, I lost that. They took away from me the one person that I would give up the world for. They stole from me that eternity of peace and love wrapped inside of a person who judged me for nothing and wanted nothing more than to be with me. Every damn day I think about her and the fact that I will never get to have her in my life again. And now I’m supposed to buddy up with one of the things that stole my love away from me?” Graham swallowed the anger rising from within. He wouldn’t be friends, he wouldn’t play along with what everyone else wanted, but he also wouldn’t start any shit. He was smart enough to know better. He was outnumbered. If anything was to jump off, the people there would no doubt choose Mike over the vampire they’d only just met.

  “Graham, I’m sorry. I didn’t know that you were going through that. You never shared with me anything about your past. I had no idea.” Ardyn had intended to chew the man out for his behavior, but he hadn’t expected to hear of a lost love, or of the pain that Graham was suffering.

  “Yeah, well, some things are meant to be known by the whole world and some things we keep to ourselves because they’re so hard to share. They’re two difficult to breathe life to and have to hash out over and over again.” Graham reached for the door that lead to his isolated room. “Look, I’m down for this fight. I want more than anything to get Nitara out of the hell she’s in, and to be able to free my people from the bastard who claims to be leading us to a better place. But you can forget wanting me and Mike or any of his slithering family to ever become friends. Because, as far as I see it, he is the enemy. They are the enemy.”

  “So, you mean to tell me that you will hold him responsible for actions and decisions that were not his own? Mike wasn’t there and neither were any of his guards. Hell, if they were you would have ripped their heads off the moment they walked in here. They had nothing to do with what happened to your girl.” Ardyn couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He always thought so highly of Graham because he kept to himself and never got involved with any of the vampire drama that was going on around them. He thought the man was progressive and understanding, but what he just said proved that Ardyn didn’t know Graham as well as he thought he did.

  “Yeah, well, see me about that when wolves become friends with the vampires because not all of us want to drink their blood.” Graham kept his hand on the door, ready to escape the conversation. He knew Ardyn wasn’t finished.

  “Did you forget that I'm a wolf? Yeah, I’m different now but I’m still a wolf, and as far as I know, me and you are cool, but you can let me know if I'm wrong on that point.” Ardyn walked away from Graham, no longer wanting to carry on the conversation about which species won the award for being the worst. They all had their shit to bear. There was no clean race of supernatural beings, every last one of them had taken lives and destroyed futures, but they all deserved a clean slate. They all deserved to have a chance to do better than the ones before them. If Graham was so hell-bent on holding his grudge, perhaps he wasn’t the right leader for the vampires. What made him any better than the monster currently leading them? As hard as it was for Ardyn to think that Graham wouldn’t be right, he knew that the alternative was much worse.

  “You know, Nitara really has a way of getting you men all wrapped around her little finger.” Rosie walked into the room that Jinn had claimed for his own. She waited patiently for him to end his meditation. It was important for Jinn, the only way he kept from flying off the handle. “I really need to take a few notes from that girl.”

  “What do you want?” He was in no mood to discuss his feelings about Nitara again. It seemed to be that that was all anyone wanted to do. And of course, just moments after he’d found himself as close to peace as he would be able to get, there was Rosie, ready and willing to shake shit up again.

  “I just came to check on you. I overheard that conversation between you and the weird one.” She sat in the chair next to the door. “What’s up with him? Half wolf, half djinn. Daegal really got into some weird shit, huh?”

  “Oh, did you?” He threw a towel over his shoulder, indicating that he intended to head for the shower, but Rosie ignored the cue. “I don’t know anything about him, but he seems to think he knows a lot about me.”

  “Interesting how that works out, isn’t it? Well if you ask me, he has a thing for your girl.” Rosie was great at pushing Jinn’s buttons, but unlike those around her, she knew which ones to push and when to push them. Jinn was a special sort of man who needed to be nudged in the right direction. Everyone else was coming at him with a battering ram.

  “What else is new?” Jinn was used to it. Nitara had a certain allure that made most men want her. She was confident, a little cocky, and a ball buster. Men liked that. She was also soft and seductive, and men loved that.

  “It doesn’t bother you?”

  “Not as much as this conversation is starting to.” Jinn knew Rosie just as well as she knew him. The woman was playing an angle and he needed to figure out what it was.

  “Okay, so topic change?” she offered a bit too readily.

  “Please.” He tossed the towel on the bed. She wasn’t going away any time soon.

  “To be honest, I’m not sure what the hell else we’re supposed to be talking about here, considering our overall objective is to save she who shall not be named.” She looked at the door and back to Jinn. “But I’m bored and everyone out there is a snooze fest.”

  “We could talk about you and Bruto.” Grinning, he sat on the bed. Finally, someone else’s love life could be on the table.

  “There is nothing to talk about.” She shrugged and delivered the standard response.

  “Oh please.” He’d had enough of everyone in his business but not reciprocating on the newsfeed. “The two of you disappeared together right after all that shit was done in the Cascades. When I got back, both of you had vanished in a mix of pink and orange smoke, and no one has heard from either of you. And now, I call Bruto for help, not him, but both of you arrive, together. You expect me to believe nothing is going on there?”

  “I expect you to mind your business,” she warned playfully.

  “Ah, see I’m the one who has to mind my business, yet all of my personal info is supposed to be on grand display for all to see? You think that’s fair?”

  “Okay, I’ll give you something if you give me something.” Rosie raised a brow. She knew she had him; she was sitting on info that Jinn had wanted for about as long as she knew him.

  “Okay, deal.” It was too good to pass up. For years he had wondered what the hell went on between the two of them and now he had a chance to find out what it was.

  “Bruto and I have, for a while now, had an off-and-on fling. From time to time, we hook up. It’s familiar, nice, and safe. I know that despite how crude the man can be, Bruto won’t hurt me. He is careful with me and my heart. No, it’s no fairy tale love, but hell, I’ve had two or three of those now and trust me when I say, they are so fucking overrated.” She let it sink in, the confirmation that the world wanted but never got.

  “Wow, I never thought I would see the day when either of you admitted to it.” He’d always known that something was going on between them, but he figured he’d be in the dark about it forever. “It’s weird, kno
wing the truth, but now I have so many more questions.”

  “Yeah, well you have, and hell has frozen over, so you’re welcome.” She winked. “And you got the one answer you bargained for, keep the follow ups to yourself.”

  “Ha! Thanks.” Jinn considered trying to push for more info but considering how long it took to get that tidbit, his hopes weren’t high for much more.

  “Okay, now it’s your turn. Spill.”

  “What is it that you want to know?” He made the deal and now he would have to own up to it. He was pretty sure what the question would be.

  “I want to know what’s the deal. All this time you’ve never faltered when it came to Nitara. Since I’ve known you, you have gone to the ends of the world and back for that woman, but now you’re all shaken.” She paused. “Keep in mind that I’m not asking to be nosey or to figure out if you still love her, because I know that you do. I’m asking this because you are my friend, Jinn, and I’m genuinely concerned and worried about you. What’s going on?”

  “After what you just said, I’d think you’d have no problem understanding.” Dropping his head back, he stared at the ceiling for a moment before he gave her the answer she wanted. “Nitara walked away from me. She told me her heart belonged to someone else and she vanished. I didn’t get one-word in. As you said, I went to the ends of the Earth for that woman and all I got in return was a few weak ass words that were barely an apology or a thank you and she was gone. Just like that.” He found the face of his friend and chose to confide in her, because he knew that no one else would understand. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad now to find out that it wasn’t exactly what I thought it was, but that still hurts. And what’s to say that after all this, we save her, and she’s free of whatever spell Daegal burdened her with, that she will really want to be with me? Who’s to say that Ardyn or Graham, or one of the hundreds of other guys who would come banging down her door, isn’t who she really wants? Everyone keeps asking me to risk it all for her but fail to recall that the last time I did that, I came up empty. I have nothing left to risk. What happens this time?”