She spun, looking around her. Stop the bleeding, right? Stabilize whatever object was impaled. That was first aid 101? But did any of that apply to stab wounds by runed blades to an immortal djinn?
Poe already looked dead, his face pale and lifeless.
But he wasn’t ash. Djinn turned to ash when they died, right?
Why was she still just sitting here? “Fuck!”
She spotted a scarf draped over one of the lounge chairs.
She raced over and grabbed it, winding it around the blade. She didn’t think that was enough stabilization, but it was the best she could do for now.
“Please don’t leave me,” she whispered as she took a breath and tried to think of what to do next.
Call someone. She needed help. 9-1-1? No. They would know next to nothing about djinn medical care.
She fished out Poe’s cell phone from his pants pocket. Dae was the last listed phone call so she tapped his name and clutched at the phone as it rang.
Dae picked up on the fourth ring.
“Almost finished here,” he said.
“Dae?” Willa said.
“Willa?” He was suddenly on high alert. “Where’s Poe?”
“He needs your help.”
One second later, Dae stood in front of her.
She quickly told him what happened with the demon and he cursed beneath his breath.
“That was not our plan,” he said. “But then I suppose he had to improvise.” He dropped to one knee. “His heart has stopped beating. But he should be ash by now if he was dead. What else happened? Anything you left out?”
She started from the beginning. “While possessing me, the demon drank wolfcaine and used that as a threat to make Poe act and then the demon told him I was his caeli and we performed the binding and—”
“Wait.” Dae grabbed her hand. “You’re his caeli?”
“Yes.”
“And you completed the binding ritual?”
“Yes.”
He looked at Poe, then back at Willa.
“Once you’ve been bonded, there is a constant ebb and flow of magic between djinn and caeli. Poe may be the wielder of that magic, but you are the gateway.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you can push magic to him. The gate is still open.”
Hope was like a breath on the back of her neck, sending a thrill down her spine.
Keep it together. Keep it together.
“Come here,” Dae said.
Willa scrambled around Poe’s legs and came to kneel beside him with Dae at her right. Please. Please God let there be something she could do.
“Can you feel the bond now?” he said. “Ashley, my caeli, describes it like a tether that connects her to me, and me to her. It’s a constant hum of energy.”
Willa nodded. “Earlier, I could feel the magic flow toward him.”
“That’s exactly it. Just focus on pushing more to him now. When you think you’ve got it, tell me and I’ll remove the blade. All right?”
Willa licked her lips. “Yeah. Okay.”
Her hands shook. She wasn’t sure what to do with them, so she clasped Poe’s hand in hers and squeezed. His was still warm to the touch.
Please let this work.
Willa closed her eyes and focused on that hum of energy binding them to one another. And as she did, she felt the answering thrill of the energy open in her core. She wasn’t sure how to direct that energy, but she imagined it like a river. If she could just push the current toward him, send the magic flowing his way…
Sweat broke out all over her body like a fever. That had to be a good sign, right? She pushed harder, with everything she had.
“Now,” she said.
She opened her eyes.
Dae pulled the knife from Poe’s chest.
They both sat there staring at him, waiting for something, anything to happen.
And then…
Poe lurched upright and sucked in a breath.
Willa burst into tears.
“Well done,” Dae said and clapped her on the back.
Poe met her eyes. His were still that glittering green, like sunlight on an emerald.
There was no demon in sight.
“What happened?” Poe looked down at his chest and patted it with his hand. He winced. “Bloody hell. Still tender.”
Willa climbed into his lap to wrap her arms around him.
Poe laughed. “I’m all right, love.”
“I thought you were dead.”
“So did I.”
“Is the demon gone?” she asked.
“Oh, without a doubt.”
Willa sighed with relief and then she pulled back and took Poe’s face in her hands. “Don’t you ever do that to me again.”
Behind them, Dae chuckled.
Poe said, “As my caeli commands, I shall obey.” He looked past Willa to his brother. “And the house?”
“All is well. I don’t think Corvin’s team had their heart in it.” He laughed. “All it took was Mad breaking a neck with his bare hands and the rest scattered like flies. We were just cleaning up when Willa called me.”
Willa stood and helped Poe to his feet. He kept his arm firmly locked around her.
“What about my sister?” Willa asked.
Both Poe and Dae shook their heads. “I don’t hear her,” Poe said.
“Neither do I,” Dae said. “Corvin is gone, too.”
Once upon a time, Willa would have dropped everything to find her sister.
But not now.
She’d told Raina that after the demon and the collar, she’d walk out of Raina’s life for good and she’d meant it. But maybe when she was ready, she’d let Willa know she was all right.
“Let’s get you both home,” Dae said.
He reached out to them to vade, but Poe stopped him.
“I can see us home,” he said and his magic rose around them.
Dae grinned. “Bet I’ll beat you there.”
The air cracked open and they were gone.
Chapter 38
WILLA
Two days later, Willa got a phone call from Billy.
“Ms. Locke,” he said, “I made a delicious marinara sauce from scratch. Care for a dinner?”
Willa was not against a delicious marinara sauce, but it was sorta out of the blue.
“What’s going on, Billy?” she asked.
“If you have a few hours,” he said, “you should come. Be here around five?”
Poe almost didn’t let her go, but she reminded him that Billy’d had her back from the beginning and anyway, Poe could find her anywhere, at any time.
“Then let me come with,” he’d said.
To which she replied, “You are bedridden for the next week. Caeli orders.”
He chuckled. “I’m immortal, love. We immortals do not need to convalesce.”
“You do if I say you do.”
When Willa parked in Billy’s driveway, she saw Raina on the deck in a wooden rocking chair.
Billy was nowhere in sight.
“Was the homemade marinara sauce just a ruse?” Willa asked, pretending to be disappointed.
“It’s very real!” Billy called through the screen door.
Raina smiled and pushed up on the deck with her foot, causing the chair to rock. “Hey,” she said.
Willa took the matching chair beside her. “How did you end up here? Where’s Caleb?”
“He got scared.” Raina lay her head back. “He said he was leaving town for a while and that I needed to find somewhere else to live.”
“Jerk,” Willa said, when secretly inside she was throwing a party.
“Billy was the first person I thought of,” Raina said.
“I have to admit, I’m kinda surprised you didn’t call me first.”
Raina looked over at her and squinted against the sunlight. “We need space, Will. I need to learn how to fix my mistakes on my own.”
Willa nodded. “I know.” Sh
e looked over her shoulder through the screen door. She could just make out the broad shoulders of Billy the werewolf at the kitchen stove. “I suppose there’s nowhere better for you to be. Just...don’t take Billy for granted.”
“Billy already made it clear that at the first sign of demons, I’m out on my ass.” She laughed. For the first time in a long time, the laughter reached her eyes.
“Come here.” Willa stood and motioned for Raina to stand with her.
Raina climbed to her feet and Willa tugged her into a hug.
“You can do this,” she whispered. “I have faith in you.”
“Thanks, sis. For once, I think I have faith in me too.”
Chapter 39
WILLA
As promised, for the next week, Willa made Poe stay in bed resting. She didn’t want him lifting a finger or overexerting himself. He fought it for a while, but by the fourth day he had settled into it, and if she had to guess, he was starting to enjoy it.
She’d even managed to talk him into binge watching Dark Nights in Grove Hallow with her, which felt like forcing a dragon into a dress. But a few episodes in and he seemed totally invested in the building plot. Willa’s current favorite character was the brooding cold-hearted vampire Luc. Poe liked to point out all the ways the show got their vampires wrong and it had come to be her favorite thing about watching.
“Vampires have reflections,” he yelled at the TV one night. “And they don’t sleep in coffins.” He climbed out of bed and headed for the door. “I can’t watch this show anymore.”
Willa laughed. “Wait, come back! It’s part of the fun! Wait till you see how they portray djinn.”
This made him stop. “What episode?”
She bit her lip. “Ummmm...ten maybe?” She wasn’t actually sure what episode it was. She wasn’t even sure what season it was.
“Will it make me angry? Are they blue?”
“You’ll have to watch to find out.”
He grumbled but slid back into bed beside her. He grabbed the remote and hit PLAY. The show’s intro started across the screen, but Willa wasn’t watching. Instead, she turned to Poe. He lay on his back. He wore black pajama pants that hung loose from his hips when he stood. Without a shirt on, Willa could drink in the sight of him. God he had abs to die for. Every abdominal muscle was practically its own country.
She reached out and ran her fingers over them and then followed the deep lines between them. When she edged lower to the waistband of his pants, Poe snatched her hand and brought it back up.
“I thought you said I needed rest? I thought you told me not to overdo it?” He was not looking at her, but at the TV. “Besides, Luc is about to ask out Esmeralda. I can feel it.”
Willa laughed and turned to the TV. Luc was brooding his way to the library where Esmeralda practically lived. The girl loved her books.
“I’m willing to break some rules,” she said.
Poe glanced up at her. “Perhaps I will keep it from you another week just to watch you squirm. I quite like seeing you fiery with desire.”
She fell back against the bed. “You’re killing me.”
He rose over top of her and slipped in between her legs. Heat immediately welled between her thighs. Poe took in a deep breath, sensing her arousal.
In an instant, his eyes glowed green. Willa couldn’t see her reflection, but she felt the answering call of the bond in her own gaze and heard the sharp intake of breath when Poe looked at her. Her eyes must have been glowing too. It was her favorite little trick of the bond. She didn’t have djinn magic at her fingertips, not like Poe, but it was as much a part of her essence as it was Poe’s now that they were bound.
Poe dipped lower and Willa felt the hardness of his cock between them straining against the loose material of his pants.
She arched to close the distance.
Poe dodged away.
“Stop teasing me,” she whined.
He inched down her body letting only his breath touch her. He slowly pushed the hem of her t-shirt up and breathed across her belly. Then his hands danced to the waistband of her shorts and slid in along the elastic, just barely reaching far enough to graze her mound.
“I can feel your desire humming through the bond,” he said, his voice low and raspy.
She moaned, sensing his own building hunger.
Why had she ever doubted telling him they were fated? This was where they were supposed to be.
He was who she was supposed to be with.
She had found a place of contentment.
Of safety and belonging.
His fingers slid in around her shorts and to the gusset of her panties. Her clit swelled beneath the barely there hint of his touch.
She wanted him so badly.
She wanted him more than she’d ever wanted anything.
It was as much her desire singing in her veins as it was the echoing beat of his own want vibrating through their connection. This was another part of the caeli bond that she loved. It wasn’t just heat and heavy petting that told her Poe wanted her. It was also the instinctual nature of the bond, of one half wanting the other, of the bond craving wholeness.
The fact that she would have this and have Poe for the rest of her now long life felt like the greatest gift she could ever be given.
“Poe,” she said. She was about to promise him the world if only he’d follow through with his teasing. She would get on her knees for him every day of the week for a year. She would—
He snapped his fingers and her clothes disappeared.
She moaned loudly.
It was as if he could read her mind sometimes.
And then he slid inside of her, joining them completely.
Epilogue
POE
When Willa finally let Poe out of the house, he took her to Café on the Rise for brunch. What a luxury it was to wake next to a woman he loved and then treat her to the city’s best French food.
He remembered how it felt to first take her hand in his. How simple it was. How profound.
And as Willa looked out the leaded glass windows to Halle Park beyond the Café, the sunlight glittering in her eyes, Poe knew what love and contentment was.
It was not power or wealth.
It was this.
It was a quiet morning. It was brunch with his love.
It was watching Willa admire the world while he admired her.
His cell phone rang, breaking the spell and he nearly lobbed it across the room.
He checked the screen.
It wasn’t a number he recognized.
“Go on,” Willa said. “I don’t mind.”
Sighing, he slid to answer. “This better be important.”
“Poe?”
It was a woman’s voice, one he did not recognize.
“Who is this?”
“It’s Cassie.”
Red’s psychic?
He stood from the table and put his hand over the phone. To Willa he said, “I’ll be right back, love. Will you order me the special?”
She was still staring out the windows. “What? Oh, sure.”
“I won’t be long.”
He ducked away into an alcove and brought the phone back up. “Do I even want to know?” he said.
“Did you make up with Dae?” Cassie asked.
“Make up? We aren’t the Jones brothers, darling.”
A waiter smiled and nodded to him as he passed by. Poe ignored him.
“Is that all you called for?”
“No. There’s something else...do you...this is going to sound strange.”
“Well spit it out.”
“I keep seeing a rose. A rose with your brother Thorin. I keep trying to piece it together. What I see isn’t always straightforward and...I thought you might know what it means?”
Poe was cold with foreboding.
Bloody fucking hell.
He leaned into the wall and closed his eyes.
He knew exactly what it meant.
T
he gears were already turning. What did he need to do to protect his little brother? “How long do we have?” he asked. “Your vision say anything about that?”
“It felt impending, but not urgent. I’d say a day or two?”
Shit.
“What does it mean?” Cassie asked. “The rose?”
“Not an it,” he corrected. “A her. Rose Northman of the Northman djinn.”
“Is she important to Thorin?”
Poe snorted. “Put it this way. If Thorin is the kindling, Rose is the match.”
“Oh no.”
“Oh yes.”
“You need to warn him.”
“I will.”
But if he had a day or two, there was still time.
And for now, all Poe wanted was to enjoy a simple meal with his caeli.
Before the Blackwell world imploded.
* * *
Thank you so much for continuing on this journey with me! There is still more Blackwell Djinn to come.
Find out what’s in store for Thorin Blackwell when his past comes back to haunt him and entangles fiercely independent artist Lola St. James in a centuries-old feud.
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Also by Nikki Kardnov
Blackwell Djinn Series
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About the Author
Nikki Kardnov is the author of the steamy paranormal series, The Blackwell Djinn. She currently lives in Michigan with her husband and daughter. She has two maniac cats and an equal number of bats in her basement. She loves naps, coffee, and the color black.
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