Ghostland

by Jory Strong

  Nicholette’s knuckles were white where her hands gripped the coarse burlap. She offered the sack to him and he took it.

  “Please tell her we’ll never willingly talk about what happened. Tell her no one knows Nicholas is safe. His client will never accept that her precious son brought about his own death. If she learns that Nicholas is alive, she’ll blame him and find a way to have him arrested.”

  Fear settled like ice in Zurael’s chest. Dread tempted him to ask how Nicholas came to be alive and free while his client’s son was dead. Caution kept his lips sealed. If Aisling had summoned another Djinn . . .

  Aziel returned, carrying Nicholette’s necklace in his mouth. Her worry faded. Laughter and warmth shone in her eyes, highlighting her exquisite beauty and delicate features. She was breath-taking, though Zurael didn’t desire her physically.

  Nicholette knelt and took the necklace from Aziel. She stroked his head and back for long moments before slipping the chain over her neck and standing.

  “I need to leave now.”

  “I’ll pass on your messages.”

  Nicholette spared one last look at Aziel, then turned and hurried away. Zurael watched her for a few minutes, felt the eyes of unseen neighbors noting his presence, but even that couldn’t pull him from the icy foreboding of his own thoughts.

  He returned to the bedroom, intent on rousing Aisling, demanding answers. But the sight of her sprawled in the center of the bed, the covers kicked away to reveal splayed thighs and pink-capped breasts distracted him. Lust flared, as fast and dangerous as a flash fire.

  Zurael crossed the room and stripped out of his pants without being aware of doing it. His cock was a hard ridge along his abdomen, his testicles a heavy, full weight.

  He wouldn’t yield, he told himself as he knelt on the bed next to her. But then her eyelashes fluttered, parted, and he was captured in blue shaded to violet, in a whirlpool of desire he had no resistance to.

  “Zurael,” she whispered, and he answered her call, responded to the subtle arch of her back by leaning over her.

  With a moan, he latched on to a nipple, sucked and bit as she twisted and writhed, moved so his chest hovered above her face. She captured the loose strands of his hair and pulled him downward until she could press her mouth to his flesh.

  Razor-sharp desire spiked through him when she bit down on his nipple. His hips jerked with each touch of her tongue, each suck, and he would have surrendered his seed if she hadn’t taken his cock in hand, cupped his testicles and prevented release with the tight band of her fingers.

  “Aisling,” he panted, and did the unthinkable. He yielded his power to her. Submitted by repositioning them so he lay on his back and she knelt, her knees on the mattress near his head, her sinful mouth kissing downward toward his throbbing penis.

  He palmed her breasts. Tortured her nipples and kissed the silky skin of her belly, bathed in the scent of her arousal when he was presented with her heated lower lips.

  A shudder went through him as her mouth captured his cock head. He wouldn’t beg, he told himself, she would be the one to plead.

  His hands abandoned her breasts in order to cup her buttocks. He pressed his lips to slick, swollen folds. Probed her wet core with his tongue.

  She bucked, whimpered. Took his penis between her lips and sent raw pleasure through his shaft—and he knew the depth of the lie he’d told himself.

  Her name became a plea in his thoughts as liquid hunger consumed him. His hips jerked, lifted off the mattress in urgent rhythm.

  His cock fought to surge deeper, but her hands prevented it. Had she asked, he would have done anything she wanted if she’d just take him further into her mouth, if she’d just bring him to completion.

  A soul-swallowing lust held him in its grip. He was consumed by a carnal claiming he would never have allowed himself with another Djinn.

  Aisling’s fragile, delicate beauty was a trap he couldn’t escape. The more he thought to possess her, the more possessed he became.

  His tongue stabbed through wet folds, licked over the tiny head of her clit. “Aisling,” he whispered and nearly cried when finally she gave him what he craved beyond anything else.

  She took him deeper. Stroked him with her tongue. She sucked on him until his mind was white heat and screams of unbearable pleasure as orgasm claimed him.

  He felt boneless beneath her. Echoes of his release trembled through him, but he had the presence of mind and discipline to return what she’d given him, to send her over the edge with his tongue.

  THEY showered and dressed. Zurael waited until Aisling was in the kitchen, pulling loaves of bread and freshly harvested vegetables from the burlap sack he’d left on the counter, before he trapped her between his arms.

  Somehow he resisted the urge to press against her, to get lost in the sultry heat and sweet allure of her. “Nicholette was here. She and her brother are leaving Oakland without telling anyone he’s alive. They want you to know they’ll never willingly reveal what you did.” His voice became barely more than a growl. “What name did you call last night, Aisling? Who did you summon?”

  “Irial.”

  Zurael went rigid with shock. Fear for her froze the air in his lungs. It made his heart stutter and miss a beat.

  Aisling turned and placed her hands on his chest. Calm blue eyes met the molten, raging gold of his. “He would have killed me if he could. He intended to. But when he saw Aziel on my shoulder, his anger disappeared completely. He asked me if I trusted Nicholas with my life since he’d witnessed everything. When I said I did, Irial agreed to free Nicholas. What happened after that, I don’t know. I couldn’t stay any longer.”

  Zurael pulled Aisling into his arms and rubbed his cheek against the silk of her hair. Hope rose where fear had been. If the House of the Raven stood with him about sparing Aisling’s life . . .

  He shivered when she pressed kisses to his chest. His cock hardened, and he felt her smile against his skin, answered it with one of his own.

  A knock on the door kept him from urging her to her knees or taking her against the counter. He stepped back, but followed her into the living room.

  Raisa stood on the stoop. Bird-sharp eyes shone as they took in Zurael’s bare chest and Aisling’s heightened color. “I hope I’m not interrupting. I saw Javier this morning. He mentioned you’d stopped by the occult shop looking for him. I took the liberty of telling him about our visit the other day. I told him I’d suggested you go there with your questions. He’s willing to meet you for lunch at my tearoom. As I mentioned during our earlier visit, my shop has always been a safe place, a neutral zone for those touched by the supernatural. There’s no way to reach Javier now, but he said he’ll stop by in an hour, just in case you can make it.”

  Aisling said, “I don’t know if I can.”

  “I’m sure Javier will understand if you can’t on such short notice.” She glanced at Zurael, then back at Aisling. “Nicholette didn’t answer her door this morning. Did something happen—”

  “There’s still hope,” Aisling interrupted. “Or at least there was . . .” Her voice trailed off, giving the impression of worry. “If you’ll excuse me, there are some things I need to do before I’ll know whether I can meet Javier for lunch.”

  “Of course.”

  “You handled that well,” Zurael said moments later, when they were in the kitchen again. “Curious she should arrive this morning with an invitation and a question. What happened last night?”

  Aisling told him, though not what transpired with Sinead before or Aziel afterward, and not how she’d come by Irial’s name. When she was finished, she said, “I think I should meet Javier for lunch.”

  Zurael pulled her into his arms. “We’ll meet Javier for lunch.”

  She placed her hand over his heart and felt its steady, reassuring beat. “Do you think it’s safe for you to go with me? The books in his shop—”

  “Probably have very few incantations in them that would be danger
ous to me even if done correctly and by a powerful sorcerer.”

  The beat of Zurael’s heart remained steady, sure, until she stroked the tiny male nipple. Then it jumped and raced, sent a surge of pleasure through her.

  “We don’t have time,” he whispered, his breath warm against her ear, his lips capturing the lobe, sucking, sending a hot stab of lust to her clit.

  “I know.” But she didn’t pull away from him.

  He slid his hands under her shirt, caressed her back with heated palms and gathered her closer so her mound was pressed against the rigid line of his erection. “This is dangerous, more dangerous than you can imagine,” he said, rocking into her, panting softly as she did the same, riding the thin edge of control until the lust burning between them calmed enough for them to separate.

  Aziel emerged from the workroom and scurried through the door. Aisling picked him up, started to tell him he had to remain here, then thought better of it when she remembered the lesson he’d intended for her when they found Nicholas.

  This isn’t the trap I expected, the one I wanted you to see and understand. There’s no spell here to capture anyone you might summon.

  He’d always been more sensitive to spell magic than she, though they’d rarely encountered it when they lived with Geneva. She settled him on her shoulder. “If it’s a trap, I think Aziel will warn us.”

  FROM behind curtained windows and screened doorways, Aisling felt her neighbors watching them as they walked past. Chauffeured cars dropped off wealthy clients, the drivers leaving or remaining at the curb.

  She tensed when a jeep came into view. It was several blocks away, but the camouflage green and brown marked it as belonging to guardsmen. Instinct, a lifetime of habit, made her turn into the nearest alleyway.

  Zurael’s fingers curled around her wrist, halted her when she would have hurried forward. “No,” he said, pulling her behind a wall of shrubbery and using his arm to trap her back to his front.

  The jeep’s engine was distinctive. It drew near, slowed as it passed the alleyway, but didn’t stop. “Wait for me here,” Zurael said before the warmth of flesh became a swirling, heated breeze.

  Leaves kicked up, allowing Aisling to follow his progress until he was beyond the row of shrubs. She gasped when he returned without warning, greeted her with the touch of his lips against her neck. “They showed no particular interest in your house.”

  “When Father Ursu brought me here, he told me the police and guardsmen don’t patrol this area.”

  “Perhaps they’re looking for Nicholette or her brother. Or they might be here on personal business.”

  Rather than retrace their steps to the main road, they continued down the alley and exited onto others just like it, until they emerged onto the street that would take them to Raisa’s Tearoom. As they passed the Wainwright house, the front door opened.

  “Hold on,” Tamara called. “We were just about to send someone with a message for you.”

  One hand supported Tamara’s extended belly while the other grasped the railing as she descended the porch steps. Happiness rose inside Aisling. “You’ve got Anya?”

  Tamara was shaking her head as she reached them. “No. There’s an approval process, which mainly requires paying fees to the government and the Church. By the time it was done and the couple we sent got to the The Mission, the child was gone.”

  Aisling could barely breathe. “Gone?”

  “Yes. The matron wouldn’t provide any information about who took Anya or where she was taken, until the couple we sent reminded her it was a matter of public record and told her they intended to pursue it. Then she admitted to sending the child into The Barrens along with some of her playmates—to some religious community she claims exists there.”

  “The Fellowship of the Sign,” Aisling said.

  Tamara’s face tightened. “That’s the name our friends heard. The matron had no right to send any child into The Barrens without government approval—which I doubt she has. It’s beyond the reclaimed area of Oakland. It’s still considered lawless.”

  Aisling felt heartsick. She worried for Anya more than the other children.

  She’d been so sure Davida hadn’t noticed Aziel going to the sandbox, calling attention to the symbols Anya had drawn. Perhaps it was a coincidence . . . or more likely, given Davida’s dislike of the gifted, she hadn’t known Aisling was interested in a particular child. Instead she’d sent Anya and her playmates away thinking she was saving them all.

  “Levanna wanted me to tell you we won’t give up. We’re trying to find out more about the Fellowship of the Sign and how we can find them in The Barrens.”

  “You’ll tell me as soon as you know?”

  “Yes.” Tamara grimaced as her unborn child kicked. “I need to get back inside.”

  Aisling waited until they were a distance away from the house before stopping and turning to Zurael. “They’ll be on foot. Walking with children and having to remain on guard will slow them down. Even if they left early this morning, you could catch up to them. And if their compound is in the forest past The Barrens, you’d be able to follow them home.”

  “I can’t be in two places at once.”

  She smiled at the fierceness she heard in his voice. “I trust Raisa enough to believe I’ll be safe at her tearoom.”

  Zurael cupped her face in his hands. His eyes glittered with harsh regret. “And when you return home, Aisling? I’ve already failed to protect you once.”

  “It wasn’t your fault.” She saw he was going to argue, and prevented it by putting her hands on his chest, stroking over the firm muscles and hard nipples. “This is our best chance of finding where Ghost comes from. The longer it takes and the more people we ask questions of—the closer we get—the more dangerous it’s going to become.”

  Aisling felt his tension against her palms, his resistance. She felt him struggle against the truth of her logic and finally yield to it.

  “Promise me you’ll send Aziel into the house to make sure it’s empty before you go inside.”

  “I promise.”

  His hands tightened on her face. His eyes bored into hers. “Be safe,” Zurael said before releasing her and walking away.

  Aisling glanced at the sun’s position in the sky and hurried toward the tearoom. She stopped at the shop’s perimeter when Aziel’s claws dug into her shoulder. There were round tables set outside, enclosed by a short wrought-iron fence that looked as if it might once have encircled a prewar garden. Umbrella poles rose from the table centers and a light breeze made the material flutter softly.

  Sigils were carved into the gate and the redbrick pathway leading to the front door. Aisling took them in with a glance, recognized them all as standard wards against the use of magic on the premises. Still, she paused, waited for some sign from Aziel because she knew that despite the sigils she could see and read, there might be others she wasn’t aware of that could offset them and allow for subtle manipulations.

  “Aisling?” a man’s voice called.

  She turned her head. “Javier?”

  He was so average-looking that a blink made it hard to remember what he looked like—or so she thought until Aziel drew blood with his claws. Then she realized Javier wasn’t just the owner of an occult bookstore but a sorcerer in his own right—one strong enough to create a glamour spell to mask his appearance or to dim it so he became forgettable.

  Aisling turned her head, just enough to brush her cheek against Aziel’s in acknowledgment of his warning. The ferret turned his attention to the tea shop and chirped softly, lifted and lowered his head as if saying yes, then slipped from her shoulder and scampered away before Javier reached them.

  “I hope I didn’t scare your pet,” Javier said, offering his hand to Aisling.

  A small tremor of nervousness went through her before she could stop it. The fetishes gave her some measure of protection, but caution had ruled her for so long she still hesitated before touching her hand to his.

&
nbsp; Javier’s smile reached his eyes. It was charming, persuasive, memorable, as if some of the concealing glamour had faded, thought Aisling, though more likely it had changed for another purpose.

  He carried her hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss against the back of it. “My assistant didn’t do you justice when she described you after your visit to the shop. You’re beautiful. Enslaving, even.”

  Aisling stiffened at his choice of words and the sly gleam that had entered his eyes. She pulled her hand from his and glanced at the tearoom.

  “Shall we?” Javier asked.

  Aisling preceded him through the open wrought-iron gate. “I’d like to sit out here,” she said, feeling safer in the open.

  “A good choice.” He pulled a chair out for her when they reached a table. She slid into it and scanned the area beyond the fence, but didn’t see Aziel.

  Raisa emerged from the shop with menus. Simple pictures accompanied the descriptions of food choices, a selection of sandwiches and fruits and cheeses suitable to accompany tea. The teas were listed also, but Raisa recited them rather than ask if Aisling could read. When she’d finished speaking, Javier said, “My treat, of course.”

  Aisling fought the urge to touch the folded dollar bills in her pocket. “No. I’ll pay for my own.”

  “An independent woman. I like that,” Javier said. “But then I suspect there’s nothing about you I wouldn’t find delightful.”

  His flirting made her uncomfortable. The isolation of the farm outside Stockton hadn’t prepared her for dealing with it, and Zurael’s presence in her life made it more unwelcome than it would have been anyway. She needed only Aziel’s reaction to Javier, and her own leeriness about sorcerers and the spell magic they played with, to leave her uninterested in Javier—other than for what information she could gain from him.