The Jinn screamed and shot bolts of magic that looked like flaming spears at them as they climbed out of reach, high above our heads.
I spun, digging my back feet into the dirt and launched myself at the closest Jinn, knowing what I was doing was near suicide. But it would get Maks and Lila away.
Part of me knew I was being a fool for someone I shouldn’t have been risking my life for.
The other part of me said fuck it, I cared for Maks, and he was becoming part of my life in ways I couldn’t define. Even if that weren’t true, the Jinn were my enemies and they needed to die.
The screech that left me echoed through the air as I landed on the Jinn closest to me. I hit him in the belly and slashed at him with everything I had. A wildness overtook me as I fought to find my way through his guts to his spine. I would tear it from him. I would destroy him. I would take him to the ground and snap his bones.
I knew this madness. I’d felt it before and knew it made me as dangerous as I could be, but it also put me well inside the realm of death’s reach. The wild madness, though, didn’t allow me to really accept that I could die. Dangerous, deadly, in those moments I was a lion, through and through.
Warm, salty blood splashed around me, coating my mouth and nose. Someone screamed, a long drawn-out wail that pitched all over the place, and then we were on the ground and I was being pulled from him while the other Jinn laughed.
“You don’t think this is that idiot Dirk’s kid, do you?”
Dirk, my father, the man they killed, my hero. And he was not an idiot.
A sudden white-hot fury lit up my reflexes that I couldn’t have held back even if I’d wanted to.
I shifted right then and there, and in a single fluid motion, grabbed my kukri blades and swept them up through the Jinn’s middle, following it with a double slice across his neck, cutting through his spine. The look of surprise stayed with him as his head rolled from his shoulders.
“Yeah,” I said, “I fucking well am.”
Chapter 11
With a dead Jinn at my feet and kukri blades in my hands, the three remaining Jinn stared at me, shock written all over them. Of course, they didn’t think to find any lion shifters in the middle of the desert plains, certainly not one of Dirk’s children. Dirk, the thorn in their side for the entire time he’d lived in the desert. Dirk, the man who’d had two children, both of whom escaped the slaughter of the Oasis.
And now they faced one of those children. I would have laughed at their expressions if I didn’t think I was going to die right then and there.
The flail called to me, a pulse against my back. . . I reached for it, yanking it from the sheath and turning it, sending it into a fast spin before I could think better of it. Before I died, I would take as many of them with me as I could.
I didn’t wait for any of them to move. I slammed the two balls into the Jinn closest to me. He screamed and went flying through the air, slammed into the other two and they tumbled to the ground. Again, if not for the severity of the situation, I would have laughed. They looked like a messed-up version of the Three Stooges, a play my father had reenacted for us on dark winter nights.
Maybe I wasn’t going to die. And if I wasn’t dying, it was time to go. I spun, jammed the flail into its sheath and bolted into the darkness, heading toward the standing stones. Three miles wasn’t that far, but it damn well felt like it in the dark with Jinn at my back. Not that I believed there would be safety there, but the horses were there, and I knew we had a better chance at outrunning the Jinn.
I shifted into my cat form partway there and turned on the speed, scooting across the black plains with twice the speed I had on two legs. But that many shifts that close together and I could feel the energy drag on me.
It was the only excuse I had for not noticing the Jinn on my right as I drew close to the horses.
“Gotcha, cat!”
He shot toward me and I veered to the left without thinking.
The path took me straight through the standing stones. I raced through the center and the Jinn followed. At least, he followed before he slammed to a stop like he’d run into one of the stones. On the other side of the circle, outside the rocks, I slid to a stop, spun and looked back.
The Jinn was floating in midair, his body stretched out, his arms and legs flung wide and shaking as though he were being electrocuted.
Around us the rocks began to hum, singing a tune that tugged me forward. My eyelids fluttered with the warmth that pulled me forward, the call to give myself over to the stones.
“Zam, help me!” Lila screamed. I snapped out of the hold the stones had on me and bolted away and around the circle to where the horses were. To where Maks stumbled toward the circle. Already another Jinn had joined his friend. I shifted to two legs, groaning as I did, and tackled Maks to the ground. I pinned him flat on his back and he still fought with me to get up. His eyes were glazed, and his breath came in gasps. He tried to push me off and in our combined weakened states I have no doubt we looked ridiculous.
Floppy limbs, we probably appeared like rag dolls trying to fend off each other.
I straddled him, sitting on his hips as I held his arms above his head while my own arms trembled with the strain. “Stay with me, Maks.”
He groaned and closed his eyes. “Let me go, Zam. The Emperor calls and I must obey him.”
“No. You’re here with me. With Lila. We need you.”
I knew if Maks had been at full strength there would have been no contest. He’d beaten me once before, and I knew the power in his body.
He gave a sudden burst as if reading my mind and flipped me onto my back. He pushed with both hands as if to stand. I did the only thing I could. I wrapped my legs around his waist and dragged him down to me, growling through clenched teeth.
“You aren’t going anywhere, Maks,” I said.
Now, maybe there was something other than kissing him I could have done to distract him and break the spell the Emperor had on him. Anyone else and I would have just knocked them out, or put them into a choke hold till they passed out, but what would be the fun in that with Maks? To be fair, I couldn’t think of any other way to distract him in those few seconds.
And I’d missed him. I could admit that much to myself if not to anyone else.
I grabbed his face and pressed my mouth hard against his, angling my head, inviting him in closer, opening myself to him. He paused as if he wasn’t sure and then a low groan slid from him into me and he kissed me back, his body pressing down on me, the pull of the standing stones forgotten in the heat between us.
There was no hesitation, then his arms wrapped around me, curling me close to him. The heat that had been there before igniting within us on a dark, snow-filled night, seemed to have grown in the absence. The world around me faded to the points of contact where our skin touched, where our mouths touched, to the taste of him. He felt like home, like he embodied the desert and the fire deep in the sands that I loved. He fit in ways I couldn’t fully grasp, in ways that no one else in my life ever had.
There was zero excuse to hide the heat between us this time, no alcohol to say it was an accident. That we didn’t remember, that we hadn’t meant to touch each other, to get lost in each other’s kiss.
Someone cleared their throat, then a wing smacked against my forehead, startling me. I pulled back a little, breathing hard.
Lila tapped me on the shoulder, whacking me a second time. “They’re gone. So if you’re going to mate right here on the ground, I’m going to sit with the horses and try not to hear.”
I stared up at her. I was still flat on my back, Maks on top of me, and we were pressed hard into the mud.
His blue eyes stared at me like he was seeing a ghost. “I thought I was dying back there, Zam. I thought. . . I thought you were the last thing I would see.”
“Well, you were dying, to be fair.” I pushed on his chest. Now was the time to act casual. Like I hadn’t just kissed his face off, or he hadn’t ju
st had his hands under my shirt branding the skin of my torso with his fingers.
Yup, act casual. That was the plan.
Thank the desert gods for the black of the night that hid the growing heat in my face. Then again, maybe I was lighting the place up like a fucking torch. A giddy noise tried to escape me, and I clamped on it, turning it into a coughing snort that was anything but attractive. Maks stood and slapped me on the back.
“You okay?”
I waved him off, keeping my back to him. I needed to pull my shit together. What the hell was wrong with me? Idiot, I was being an idiot. My body was exhausted, and my emotions were spiking all over the damn place like a ping pong ball in a match with two octopi.
“What happened with the stones? What did you hear?” Lila swept around us. “You wanted to go into the stones, and I really don’t recommend that after what I saw.”
I turned to her. “What did you see?”
“Well, you’d know if you hadn’t been so busy sucking his face off--” She grinned at me, her glimmering teeth glinting. I drew a slow breath and smiled up at her.
“I was not sucking his face off. He was under a spell, Lila. I had to distract him.”
“Well, you distracted him so long that neither of you saw what happened. And the danger was long past when you finally stopped with the kissy face business.” Her grin widened impossibly.
Damn it, she wasn’t going to just let this go. “What happened, Lila? And I don’t need anything but the facts,” I asked as nicely as I could.
“They lit up from inside, their bones and muscle showing through their skin as if electrified, then they were slowly pulled apart, limb by limb, all the while unable to speak,” Maks said softly, surprising me. “You did save me, Zam. I would have walked into that without question.”
I knew it. There was no surprise for me there. I’d felt the pull myself, though it had been milder for sure. I’d at least been able to shake it off. “You’ve seen it before then?”
“Yes, and I’m going to suggest we move away from here. The call is still there under the edges of my skin. The Emperor, if he realizes I’m standing here, will try to drag me in like he did those two.”
Two. Only two. I stumbled away from the stones in time to see a spark whipping across the open plain. “That’s the last Jinn, and he’s headed for Kiara.” I knew without question.
Maks stepped up beside me but didn’t touch me. Maybe that kiss had been nothing more than a passing fancy to him, like the one before. Just a mistake.
Nope, I was not following that line of thought. This was not the time to get all worried about Maks’s feelings, or the lack of, that he might’ve had for me.
“We have to get to Kiara,” I said.
Maks shook his head. “We’re too late already.”
“How does he even know where she is?” Lila landed on my shoulder. “Like how?”
Maks closed his eyes and slumped where he stood. I grabbed him by the arm and helped him to Batman, all but shoving him onto the big horse. Mind you, it meant I got to put my hands on his ass. A small bonus I couldn’t help but notice despite the situation.
Lila snickered as I shoved Maks up. Of course, she’d taken note of just where my hands were. “Convenient,” she muttered.
“Maks, how can he know?” I repeated the question as he slumped in the saddle. Whatever injuries he had were showing themselves now that the worst of the danger had passed.
“He can smell her on you, so he’s following your trail right back to her,” he mumbled.
I leapt onto Balder’s back and spun him around the way we’d come. Lila clutched my shoulder, and I gave a long low hiss to my horse, driving into a mad gallop through the darkness.
Batman bolted after us, but I didn’t look back. Maks was out of danger. But I’d put Kiara right into its path. Kiara, pregnant, the first lioness to be pregnant since the massacre.
I leaned low over Balder’s neck, urging him faster than was smart for the pitch-dark night, but I trusted him and his footing. He picked up on my panic and let loose, leaving the partially lame Batman well behind us. We had to get there. I had to stop the Jinn from taking Kiara.
Otherwise. . . this was all my fault. Fuck my life. If I lost Kiara, everyone would think I’d done it on purpose, that I’d done it to get back at Steve and her for my broken heart. When the truth was. . . I would never put her in danger no matter what happened in the past. She would always be that little cub stuck in the mud with the gorc coming for her and I would always fight to protect her. It was in those heart-pounding moments as we raced along that I realized in my own way I’d tried to protect her from Steve too. That was why I’d been so angry. Because I knew he would hurt her.
And I’d been trying to stop that from happening ever since that moment I’d first rescued her.
Because she was part of my pride, and I was an alpha and protector, despite my size.
I gritted my teeth against the emotions that swelled, knowing they would do me no good.
In the distance, I saw the flames long before I saw the hut and I knew I was too late, but I didn’t slow Balder, not for a second. There was still a chance. I had to believe it was possible to save her.
We came to a sliding, mud-flinging stop twenty feet out from the hut.
Marcel and Stella were flat out on the ground, but no Kiara.
“Kiara!” I screamed her name, already knowing she would be gone, feeling her absence more than anything else. She’d been taken by the Jinn.
I jumped from the saddle and ran to Marcel, dragging him farther away from the flames, then went back for Stella. Though she was three times as heavy, I hardly noticed.
The flames around the hut burned bright gold, red, and green, the flames of a Jinn. Even if I’d had a river at my feet and buckets in hand, I’d be useless against the flames. Magic was the only way to deal with a Jinn’s fire, and magic was something I didn’t have in my arsenal.
I stepped backward and went to Marcel. I dropped to one knee and patted his face.
“Marcel, wake up. What happened?”
He groaned and leaned into me. “Oh, man, that was too rough. This is why we don’t flounce our own women.”
My eyebrows shot up. “You were flouncing Stella?”
“Giving her comfort in her grief.” He slowly sat up and put a hand to his head. “Damn, I’ve got another nub for my efforts.”
He did indeed have a third bump, but I doubted it was a horn. And I doubted it had been Stella who had clobbered him. She let out a groan. “Damn you, Marcel. You said you knew what you were doing.”
I sighed. “It wasn’t either of you. It was a Jinn that did this. He took Kiara.” I’d been hoping they might have seen something, anything that could tell me. . . what? I couldn’t catch the Jinn now, they were too damn fast, and this one was injured and on the run.
They didn’t move like any other supernatural.
I narrowed my eyes and touched the sapphire on my chest. I didn’t think it would help me find her. It was tied to the Ice Witch and gave her power over the weather, over the cold as far as I knew.
I crouched and tipped my head back, heartsick over what had happened. I’d rescued Maks only to lose Kiara. And I’d left her behind, thinking her safer outside my circle.
The clatter of hooves told me Batman and Maks had caught up.
“You couldn’t have stopped him, Zam. Even if you’d taken her with you, he’d have grabbed her from the campsite,” Lila said softly, patting a claw on top of my head. “No one can stop the Jinn.”
Except I had injured him. The only reason there was one Jinn with Kiara instead of three was the standing stones. They’d saved our bacon. But not Kiara’s. I rubbed a hand over my face.
Indecision flickered through me. What the fuck was I going to do?
Marcel stood and wobbled, then helped Stella to stand as well. I pushed to my feet. Bryce needed me, but now so did Kiara. This was not a time to be indecisive. Time was not in our fav
or. The longer I stayed here, the more danger Bryce was in. The longer I stayed here, the more danger Kiara was in. But I knew the one I could save, and it was not Kiara.
“You two,” I pointed at the satyrs who were still holding hands. “I need you to go to the Stockyards as fast as you can. Tell Ish that a Jinn took Kiara. She’ll know what to do.” I hoped I was right and that Ish wouldn’t just be a fucking douche and say that’s what Kiara got for leaving with me. Which was a distinct possibility.
“This Ish, she’ll help the lioness?” Marcel frowned. “I’ve heard rumors that she’s a right bitch. Ish, that is.”
“Yeah, well, she can be, but she cares for Kiara. She’ll know what to do, and if anyone can stop the Jinn from taking her, it will be Ish.” I turned away because lying was not my strong point. I wasn’t entirely sure Ish would help at all, even for Kiara and her unborn child. But for the moment, Ish was the only hope Kiara--and I--had.
I couldn’t go after Kiara, not on my own. I glanced at Maks and he was quiet. Obviously, he wasn’t going to be much help going after her either if the way he’d been staked out in the mud was any indication. He must be one of the weakest Jinn around. I sighed. Of course, he was. Just like I was the weakest shifter, and Lila the weakest dragon.
What a trio we were.
“Go,” I said to Marcel. “And then I will consider your debt to me as repaid.”
He gave me a sloppy salute. “The offer for a flouncing is always there, you beautiful potty mouth.”
Stella snorted. “I don’t think so.”
Marcel opened his eyes wide and tipped his head at me. As Stella turned her back, he mouthed two words.
Save me.
“You shouldn’t have flounced her,” I pointed out as I mounted Balder.
Lila had been quiet the entire exchange and spoke only once Marcel and Stella were out of sight, galloping east toward the Stockyards.
“You think Ish will help?”
I wanted to say yes, but there were too many unknowns with her. “Honestly? I don’t know. But I do know I can’t face Jinn on my own, and he’s moving too fast. He’ll be back with his own kind before I ever catch up.”
Dragon's Ground (The Desert Cursed Series Book 2) Page 10
