She already knew.
She was Poe’s caeli.
She’d known it for a while.
It happened one night at Club Drav when she’d spotted Poe making a deal with a twenty-something mousy girl who had been completely enamored with Poe. For a half of a beat, Willa had been jealous of the girl and then...then the deal was sealed and the secluded corner of Club Drav had been alight with his magic.
From afar, it’d looked to Willa like a snow globe come to life, the white snow replaced with Poe’s vibrant glittering green magic.
She’d practically turned to stone as she stared at him trying to align this new information in her mind.
She had known then what it meant to see a djinn’s magic. She felt like Charlie in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory pulling out that golden ticket.
How the hell had she gotten so damn lucky?
That night, giddy, she’d gone home and looked around her tiny room at the Compound. Everything would change if she told Poe the truth.
As his caeli, would she get to move to Blackwell House?
Would Raina come with?
I don’t go anywhere without my sister. So you get both of us or none of us.
She froze at the thought. Wait. All the champagne bubbles in her chest suddenly fizzled out and then went flat.
How could she be Poe’s caeli and take care of her sister who was a hot mess on the regular?
She sat down hard on the couch. And what if they did allow Raina to come, only for Raina to bring a demon into the house? What would the Blackwells do? What would they do to Willa?
She knew, right then and there. It was a risk she couldn’t take.
A fairytale she could never have.
And now…? It was a promise she was breaking.
But there was no other choice. There was no other choice, right? Dear God she hoped she wasn’t making a mistake.
“I’ll make an exception,” she said now, eyes only on Poe.
Dae pushed away from the bed. “I don’t like this.”
“I don’t care,” Poe said. He stood up and looked at his brothers. “You cannot deny me this. You know what it is to have your caeli. You know what it feels like to have your magic at your fingertips, pounding through your veins. It is ours by right and I will have what is mine.”
When he turned back to Willa, his eyes were glowing green and bright.
A shiver rolled up Willa’s spine.
“If it’s a deal you’ve come for, then it’s a deal you’ll have,” he said.
Chapter 11
POE
Poe was having a hard time keeping his shit together.
Somehow in the hours since he’d left Willa, she’d turned blacker with bruises. She looked vulnerable and weak, but worst of all, desperate.
He didn’t know how to deal with the war going on inside of him. The hunger for the deal. The need to fix her. The desire to have his caeli’s identity at the end of it all.
He’d craved her name his entire life and now it was within his grasp, offered to him by a bartender-psychic, a mortal girl barely a quarter of a century old.
But nothing, nothing could stop him from making this deal.
“I’m ready,” Willa said and met his gaze.
All of the background noise faded away. It was just him and Will and the snap of anticipation in the air.
He inhaled and said, “Repeat after me. I, Willa Locke, wish to invoke the djinn known as Poe Blackwell...”
Once she made a deal with him, they would be temporarily bound. If he were being honest, he quite liked the thought.
Willa echoed his words. With each syllable that passed over her lips, his skin grew hotter.
“…and bind him to me for however long it takes for him to fulfill the three wishes…”
His chest tightened as his magic built. He balled his hands into fists at his side.
“…owed to me by law of The Djinn.”
As soon as the last of the invocation left Willa’s mouth, the magic engulfed him. It was like a dam cracking clear down to the foundation.
The beat of the flood in his veins made his legs give out and he dropped to one knee, hands on the floor to keep himself upright.
What the bloody hell?
This wasn’t normal. A deal never took him off his feet.
Wind roared through the room. It smelled of his magic—earth and forest and cold rain.
Willa’s hair took flight around her.
Time slowed.
His magic burned bright inside of him. His veins shot through with the beat of the sun. He hadn’t felt this fucking flush with power in years. It was like gravity itself was loosening its grip, untethering him from the rules of the world.
Bright green light stretched out from his hands and encircled him and Willa both, wrapping them in the bond of the deal. He was always fascinated by the glow of it, how it lit the room, but yet he was the only one who could see it.
Willa ducked her head against the wind as her hair changed currents and snapped at her face.
The light of his magic clamped down over her wrists and then burned out, taking the wind with it just as quickly as it’d come.
Poe looked up a little breathless. “The deal is done.”
“Fucking hell,” Dae muttered.
The heat in Poe’s veins settled to a buzzing warmth. His vision sharpened, his sense of smell and taste and touch, too. Being djinn afforded him a great many things—immortality, heightened senses—but there was nothing compared to being invoked. It gave Poe the sensation that he was ten feet tall and fucking invincible.
He stood up and licked his lips like he was tasting the world for the very first time. Always at the onslaught of a deal he wished that he could be invoked forever. He was already dreading the end of it.
Willa sucked in a breath. Poe saw the eagerness in her eyes. Was that hunger for him?
His cock twitched at the thought.
“You have three wishes,” he said. “Three and no more. If you understand this, please say yes.”
She nodded and then said, “Yes.”
“I am yours to command until your three wishes have been granted. If you understand this, please say yes.”
“Yes.” She winced as she tried to sit up straighter. “Now how do I make my first wish? I need to be better. I can’t help my sister from this bed.”
Hours ago, he’d been eager to have the deal and to heal Will, but now he very much disliked the idea of seeing a wish slip through his fingers so quickly.
He still wanted her healed, but he did not want this deal to end.
What the bloody hell are you thinking? At the end of this deal, you’ll have your caeli.
He ran a hand back through his hair. “It’s simple, love. Say, ‘I, Willa Locke, wish to invoke my first wish. My wish is...’ Be careful with the wording. I will guide the magic, but I am bound by the confines of the language.”
She nodded and bit at her bottom lip while she thought. He watched as her lip popped out a minute later, plumper and wetter still.
Gods she was sexy.
His body was suddenly buzzing with more than power.
“Okay, here goes.” She inhaled deeply. “I, Willa Locke, wish to invoke my first wish. My wish is that I want to be healed, wholly and completely, from the inside out.”
Poe smirked.
Dae tsked.
The wish was sound, especially for her first.
And since it was straightforward and ironclad, Poe let the magic go about its business.
The wind came back. Just a teasing piney breeze now. When the magic wove around Will, she cried out, eyes squeezed shut, her good hand fisted in the sheets. The magic stitched up her insides, her outsides. It kneaded the blood and the bruises from her flesh.
And just as quickly as the magic assaulted her, it was gone, leaving her panting on the bed as if caught in the vestiges of ecstasy.
“Wish granted, Willa Locke,” he said, his voice husky and deep.
When she’d managed to catch her breath, Willa pulled herself up to a sitting position and swiped the sweat from her now healed brow. She eased the sling over her head. “That was amazing.”
Poe smirked. “I get that a lot.”
She swung her legs from the bed and set her bare feet to the rug. “It’s like I was never hurt. In fact...” She stood next to him, but as soon as she was upright, she swayed. Poe caught her before she stumbled.
“Are you all right?”
She lifted a hand to her head. “Still woozy, I guess.”
“That might be the magic. When is the last time you ate?”
She scrunched up her nose. “A while?”
Poe turned to Mad. “Will you ask Oddie to prepare something?”
Mad furrowed his brow, like he thought to argue, and then nodded. Both he and Dae left then, leaving Poe alone with Will.
“Sit down,” he said and guided her to the wingback. He knelt in front of her, her hand in his.
He could not ignore the pulsing heat rising in his chest.
He’d always thought her sexy. He’d admired her ass from afar. He’d imagined what it would be to have her body beneath his.
But he had never, not once, thought of what it would be to hold her hand and he was immediately struck with how profoundly simple it was, and how deeply it affected him.
He did not want to let her go.
He swallowed down the lump lodged in his throat and asked, “Better?”
She nodded. “Thank you.”
To dispel that unfamiliar feeling in his gut, to give it a shape he understood, he said, “I am duty bound by the deal to care for you while you are my charge.”
She frowned. “I didn’t know that.”
He shrugged like it was no big deal.
It was.
“It is in our best interest that you remain whole,” he added.
“Right. That makes sense.” She looked away.
“If you’re feeling steadier, I’ll take you down to the kitchen. Some food will help.”
“Yeah. I think I’m okay.”
They stood together. He pulled her into him and wrapped his arm around her. She was almost a foot shorter than him, so small and vulnerable comparatively.
He was overcome with her scent, the floral sweetness of it.
He took a deep breath.
“Have you ever teleported?” he asked her.
“Have I what?”
“Hold on, love.” If he couldn’t have her body, he could at least amuse her. Vading was one of the tricks humans loved most.
He tightened his hold on her.
Vading was easy to do so long as you had a clear picture in your head of where you wanted to go. At this point in his long life, Poe had traveled to just about every corner of the earth.
The air crackled as it parted for him.
Willa yelped as they left the bedroom behind and reappeared in the kitchen’s dining room. It took no more than a second.
“How did you—” She stumbled away and touched her face as if to check she still existed.
Poe laughed.
“Is this real?” she asked.
“Quite.”
“That’s incredible. I didn’t know you could do that.”
“Only when invoked,” he pointed out.
“You must miss it when it’s gone.”
“You have no idea.” He nodded at the table. “Sit.”
She slid into the breakfast nook that overlooked the gardens. Everything was blooming this time of year. Two of the large leaded glass windows were open and the air smelled of hydrangeas and roses.
“It’s beautiful out there,” Willa said, her face turned toward the windows and light.
Poe watched her as she took it in.
“It’s a traditional English garden,” he said, because he wasn’t sure what else to say. “My grandmother was a botanist.”
Willa turned back to him. “She did the garden then?”
“No. She died before we moved here. But Red, my grandfather, he’s nostalgic. He won’t admit to it, but he is.”
“Wait.” Willa frowned. “Red? I thought he was your uncle?”
“We tell people he is because—”
“Because he doesn’t look much older than you.”
Poe nodded. In fact, Red could probably get away with saying he was a few years younger, closer to twenty-five than thirty. Poe wasn’t sure how he’d managed not to age much in his last nine-hundred-plus years. Most djinn kept their youth—it came with the territory of being immortal—but most did not just stop aging.
There were rumors about Red. That he was Death’s pet. That he had done Death’s dirty work hundreds of years ago and therefore had her patronage.
Poe used to think those rumors were just part of Red’s urban legend, but all of that changed a month ago when he entered Death’s domain and somehow left intact.
Maybe the rumors weren’t so far-flung after all.
“All of this is blowing my mind,” Willa said. “Your life is insane.”
“You should try living with them,” said a new voice.
Poe turned sideways in the nook’s bench as Oddie came in from the kitchen’s main room. She was wearing her usual navy blue dress and black high heels. Her dark hair was up and pinned back. For a girl of just twenty-three, she had a spine of steel and the wit of a shark.
Poe adored her in the way a brother adores a little sister he does not want. That is to say, he sorta liked her because he could boss her around, but he was also easily vexed by her.
She set a carafe on the table, along with two mugs. Steam rose from the carafe’s spout.
“Don’t mind Oddie,” Poe said and leaned his back against the nook’s wall, propping his boots on the bench. “She’s just salty because she had dreams of joining the circus, not being house manager for a bunch of djinn. What was your act going to be, Oddie? Oh right, the fire-breathing dragon woman.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Yes, that’s right. Would you like to see it? I’ll start with burning down your bedroom.”
Poe laughed and looked at Willa. “See what I mean?”
Willa was grinning, but not at him, at Oddie. “I think you should definitely start with his bedroom. Clearly he deserves it.”
“Hey!” Poe said.
Oddie set her hand on her hip. “I think I like this one.”
Willa beamed.
“Well, it seems I have a traitor in my midst,” Poe said.
Oddie only smiled mildly. “Brunch is almost ready. Did you want a plate?”
As djinn, Poe did not have to eat if he didn’t feel like it. He didn’t have to sleep either. But sometimes indulging in human things was charming.
“Yes, Oddie. That would be lovely.”
“Do you plan to eat it?” she said and arched a brow.
“I don’t know. That is irrelevant, isn’t it? If I say I want a plate, your job is to make me one.”
With a sardonic smile, Oddie swiveled on her heel and returned to the kitchen.
Willa leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Does she live here?”
“She does. Are you jealous?”
Willa’s cheeks immediately turned red. “No!”
Poe raised his brows. “Oh?”
“What I was going to ask was, how does someone get that job? Do you, like, put an ad in the paper or something?”
“Oddie was born into it.”
“How so?”
“She’s a Beaumont.” Poe grabbed a mug and poured coffee into it. “She’s part of the longstanding sacra familia, which is just a very old, very pompous way of saying she was born into a human family that dedicated itself to serving djinn. The Beaumont family serves only Blackwell djinn.”
He set the mug in front of Willa. The steam kissed her face.
“All djinn have chosen sacra familias. Most stretch back over a millennium or more. The B
eaumont family committed itself to the Blackwells in the early 7th century.”
Willa held the mug in both hands. “So Oddie never had a choice?”
“When there is an opening, members of the Beaumont family pledge, sort of like applying for a job, I suppose. They choose to do that. They are not required to pledge. From the pledge pool, they are interviewed and then we select one from there. Someone we think meshes well and will live a long life as they are human and therefore mortal. I think Oddie pledged more out of a sense of duty and tradition than a desire for the position judging by the degree of her cheeriness.”
“How old was she when she pledged?”
Poe had to think on it, then, “I believe she was eighteen.”
“That’s so young. Can she quit if later she decides it’s not for her?”
Poe shook his head. “Once a sacra familia has been chosen and brought into our house, they cannot leave. It would be too dangerous for us and them.”
Willa looked at the doorway to the kitchen proper. “That’s awful.”
Poe snorted. “Awful? She lives in this house for free and still we pay her and her entire family a sizeable stipend. What the Beaumont family has gained from this partnership is a great deal of wealth and power. There is nothing awful about that.”
Willa looked down into her mug and blew across its surface. “Money and power are not all there is to life.”
“I beg to differ, love. There is only power and wealth.”
“I think we will have to agree to disagree about that,” she said.
Oddie reappeared with plates in hand. She’d made vegetable omelets, matchstick hash browns, and toasted bread slathered in butter. Balancing on her forearm was a bowl of oranges and apples.
Oddie, for reasons unknown to Poe, was spoiling them.
Poe had never been her favorite. The only Blackwell she had any patience for was Mad. Poe had no idea why. Mad was brusquer, hairier, and a lot less charming.
“Is there anything else you’d like?” Oddie asked once the spread was on the table.
Willa shook her head. “This is amazing. And more than enough. Thank you, Oddie.”
“No need to thank me. It is my job, after all.” She gave Poe a look like she’d heard the conversation and his opinion.
“And you do it so well,” Poe countered.
She rolled her eyes and left.
Two Deals: a Djinn Paranormal Romance (Blackwell Djinn) Page 6
