Once Upon a Rainbow, Volume One

by Mickie B. Ashling

  A NineStar Press Publication

  Published by NineStar Press

  P.O. Box 91792,

  Albuquerque, New Mexico, 87199 USA.

  www.ninestarpress.com

  Once Upon a Rainbow, Volume One

  Copyright © 2017 by Sydney Blackburn

  Copyright © 2017 by K.S. Trenten

  Copyright © 2017 by Riza Curtis

  Copyright © 2017 by A. Fae

  Copyright © 2017 by Dianne Hartsock

  Copyright © 2017 by J.P. Jackson

  Copyright © 2017 by Donna Jay

  Copyright © 2017 by A.D. Song

  Copyright © 2017 by Mickie B. Ashling

  Cover Art by Natasha Snow Copyright © 2017

  Edited by: Jason Bradley

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact NineStar Press at the physical or web addresses above or at Contact@ninestarpress.com

  ISBN: 978-1-947904-29-3

  Printed in the USA

  First Edition

  November, 2017

  Also available in paperback

  ISBN: 978-1-947904-30-9

  Warning: This book contains sexually explicit content, which may only be suitable for mature readers. Gingerbread contains depictions of non-con and attempted assault.

  Once Upon a Rainbow

  Volume One

  Sydney Blackburn

  K.S. Trenten

  Riza Curtis

  A. Fae

  Dianne Hartsock

  J.P. Jackson

  Donna Jay

  A.D. Song

  Mickie B. Ashling

  Table of Contents

  Morning Star by Sydney Blackburn

  Fairest by K.S. Trenten

  Gingerbread by Riza Curtis

  Sleeping Beauty by A. Fae

  Little Match Girl by Dianne Hartsock

  Hood's Ride is Red by J.P. Jackson

  The Gingerbread Woman by Donna Jay

  White Roses by A.D. Song

  Once Upon a Mattress by Mickie B. Ashling

  Morning Star

  Sydney Blackburn

  To Lina and Rebecca—you know why!

  Chapter One

  TARIQ DUCKED HIS head and murmured, “Yes, master.” He understood exactly what his master wanted him to do, even if he did not understand why. Magic had its reasons. Malik was a saahir of great renown and Tariq was fortunate to be his apprentice. One day, he too would know the mysteries of sihr and the healing blessings of barakah.

  His unquestioning obedience was rewarded with a careless caress as Malik’s elegantly long fingers brushed through his dark hair, lingering a little too long. Or so Tariq imagined.

  His feelings for his master and mentor were wrong. He knew that. Malik, great sorcerer that he was, would be horrified to know the wayward thoughts and unnatural desires of his apprentice.

  Tariq was embarrassed when those fingers then moved lightly over his ear, sending a tremor of desire through his slight frame. He resisted the urge to push his head into the touch. His cheeks were burnished with shame when Malik lifted his chin so that they were eye to eye.

  “It’s not just about stealing a perfume jar, my boy. It’s about the future. Our future.”

  Tariq swallowed as his heart beat a little faster. “Y-yes, master.”

  Malik smiled warmly at him and released his chin to take his hand. He slipped a brass ring, still warm, onto Tariq’s finger and then closed both hands over Tariq’s. “This ring holds a spell of finding and returning. It will take you to the treasure room and bring you back safe to me.” He released Tariq’s hands and reached into the folds of his robe again, this time pulling out a small sandglass. “Set this upon your arrival. When the sands run out, the ring shall transport you back here, so waste no time staring at the marvels you may see. You are there for one thing only.”

  Tariq reached for it, accidentally brushing Malik’s fingers with his own. Power seemed to spark through him until the ring, loose on his finger, rattled against the sandglass and whatever spell that might have woven vanished.

  “The perfume jar that weighs empty. It shall be as you desire, master.”

  TARIQ COLLAPSED IN a heap, coughing and choking and clutching at the thick carpet beneath him as if he might fall off the very floor. The magic of the ring that had transported him had torn him apart and put him together in a rough fashion that left him nauseated and dizzy.

  Awareness of the soft wool beneath his cheek helped steady him. Thank goodness it wasn’t dusty. Why had Malik not warned him of the effects of the ring? Perhaps a saahir such as Malik was able to use it without ill effect. Belatedly, he recalled the sandglass and carefully set it on the floor.

  The room was cavernous and dimly lit by rays of sun piercing small decorative openings at the top of the thick walls. Tapestries were hung at odd angles. Ornately carved tables and chests filled the room, their surfaces covered with enamelled vases and precious statues. Smaller boxes spilled out jewels that glinted and cast a rainbow of coloured sparks over the smooth sandstone walls. The carpet he’d landed on was but one of several stacked on the floor, golden threads capturing stray beams and winking at him from delicate arabesques.

  The sand was falling rapidly. He had no time to admire the many fine riches surrounding him. Where might one store perfume jars in such a room as this…? He turned slowly around, seeking shelves or cabinets. There, to his right, in the corner closest to the great doors most people would use to enter the treasure room, stood a large cabinet with girih-patterned doors.

  There were clear, if narrow, paths around the piles of forgotten treasures, and Tariq took care in his haste to find what his master needed. He threw open the doors of the cabinet and saw half a dozen shelves laden with perfume jars of every description: coloured glass, smoothly gleaming metal, glass and silver, glass and gold, bejewelled, or merely intricately filigreed.

  Cautiously he picked up one of the vessels. It was a blue globe with a simple silver stopper, and he raised it into the light. It was opaque, and he realized he had no idea what the difference was between a full jar and an empty one. He touched the stopper, hesitating. Malik had told him not to open the one that weighed empty. What if this was the very jar he’d been sent to find? And if it is not, he thought, Malik will be terribly disappointed in me.

  Eyes squeezed shut, he yanked the stopper from the jar, but the only result was a waft of orange blossom from the oil within. Tariq replaced the stopper and hefted the glass globe in his hand, judging the weight of it.

  He glanced over at the sandglass, but from this position, he could not see it. He replaced the jar and picked up the others, one at a time. He gently hefted each one, putting it back if it seemed of similar weight to the first, resisting the urge to rush.

  The memory of Malik’s hands wrapped around his returned. It was the most intimate touch his master had given him, so warm… The clatter of a perfume bottle on the floor startled the memory away, and Tariq cursed softly under his breath.

  The noise drew no immediate response, and the jar was one of the silver ones. It had dented, but remained intact. He put it back on the shelf, turned so the dent wouldn’t show. All the more mindful that his time was short, the desire to hurry grew. This one—full; that one—full; this one�
��ah! He examined the jar in his hand. It was a rich green glass globe, encased in a filigree of silver arabesques like metal lace. A single emerald was set into the end of the stopper, and Tariq found himself about to open it, to ensure it was the one.

  What are you doing, fool? Malik would surely know, and if it’s his favour you want… It was a fool’s hope indeed to dream of Malik’s favour in that way, but a smile, those long fingers in his hair in benevolent approval, that was enough.

  Tariq tucked the jar into the folds of the wide sash at his waist and walked in careful haste through the maze of precious objects to find the sandglass. He should not leave anything behind. As he approached the stacked carpets, the last grains of sand fell and he tensed, readying himself for—the ring! It was not on his finger! In a shower of sparks, the ring flashed out of existence.

  Tariq ran to the carpet, but not so much as a scorch mark betrayed that a ring had ever been there. It was gone. And so was his way out of this room.

  He was trapped. In the treasure room in the heart of the palace of Zeyn ibn Safwah al-Matgarhi, Sultan of the Land of the Evening Sun.

  Chapter Two

  TARIQ MIGHT NOT be the most aggressive of men, but it was not in him to wail at circumstance. He had to find some way out of this room, the entire palace, and then figure what to trade for a camel at the city gates. Even supposing he got that far, it would be many days’ trek across the desert to the kingdom of Sijilmassa. There, in a souk of the small kingdom’s capital, Malik the saahir kept his own shop behind a keyhole door with star-shaped cutouts of girih patterns on the shutters. Within, he sold healing potions and all manner of elixirs and incenses.

  Tariq had been apprenticed to this most handsome of men only a year, after Malik had spotted him with his father’s wares across the souk. Son of a dyer, he’d no aspirations to be anything more until Malik had grasped his chin and lifted his face to study it.

  Tariq still did not know what Malik had seen in him that day. He’d been so taken by the sorcerer’s appearance that he’d not heard the few questions Malik had asked of his father. He knew only that it was a great honour to be chosen, most particularly at his advanced age.

  He had learned the ingredients of many potions and healing balms. He had worked in the sorcerer’s shop, exchanging jars and boxes engraved with powerful sigils and prayers for coins. But as yet, Malik had taught him but one spell, one that allowed him to see if an object was ensorcelled. It was his job to fetch many an object Malik required. He understood. It was his first year.

  But he was nineteen and most young men his age were nearing the end of their apprenticeships. People thought him dull-witted, and Malik seldom corrected them.

  He would only smile and run his beautiful fingers through Tariq’s hair and say, “He pleases me well enough.”

  He wasn’t certain if Malik realized that people assumed he was a catamite, rather than an apprentice. But since he would not have objected to that sort of intimacy with his master, he made no protestations of his own, in public or private.

  Malik never treated him as a halfwit, though, and now he had to prove he wasn’t, that he was worthy of being apprentice to a saahir.

  He tucked the sandglass into his sash and approached the great wooden doors sealing the room. He didn’t even need to cast the one spell Malik had taught him to know a powerful magic lay upon the doors. It tickled his skin, like lightning in the desert.

  No wonder the sound of the falling jar had drawn no attention. Why waste human guards at a door that would…well, he wasn’t sure what it would do precisely, but he had little doubt that opening those doors would bring more trouble than he could dodge, even if he knew in which direction he should dodge. The treasure room could be in the midst of a maze, for all he knew.

  He looked up. The upper part of the walls was at least open to the sky, but he had no way to climb that high, nor would he fit through those decorative openings.

  He refused to consider he had no other option than to risk an encounter with angry men in possession of very sharp swords. Malik had said the perfume jar contained powerful sihr. Pulling the stopper must release it. He murmured the words Malik had taught him to reveal magic and withdrew the jar from his sash. He had not the experience to know, but it looked to him that the magic contained was somehow connected to the jar. It shouldn’t dissipate if opened. If only he knew more!

  Before he disobeyed Malik’s instruction and pulled the stopper—which was not certain to aid him—he considered: if the treasure room held this enchanted object, it might hold others.

  And how will you find them, if you have to recite the spell of your seeing over every single thing? He sighed, his thumb rubbing absently over the filigree silver covering the perfume jar. There was no food in here, nor any sort of privy.

  The green glass was warm in his hand, inviting him to pull the stopper. Malik’s displeasure was secondary now, for surely if he could get the jar to Malik, it would be better than dying here, the jar still in a locked treasure room. What sort of magic was in it, anyway? An oil that, smeared on his body, would make him invisible? That would be ideal. He would still set off the magical wards, but at least no one would be able to see him.

  But what kind of oil had no weight? Maybe it was a flight spell, like those used on certain carpets. Trying to guess was pointless. He found he’d already grasped the stopper. It was as if the jar wanted him to open it. So he did.

  Flames sprang from the small opening. Tariq dropped the glass jar to the stone floor and backed away, stumbling against a chest in his haste. A small wooden box crashed to the floor and flawless pearls spilled everywhere. The flames grew larger, but even as Tariq struggled to put distance between himself and the fire, he realized it threw no heat. He flung himself over the chest to crouch behind it. He stared, slack-jawed, as the flames reached the height of a man…and then burned out, leaving a man in their stead.

  A naked man. Magnificent as a statue from a heathen land, skin the rich colour of ground cinnamon, flowing black hair, and flashing eyes as dark as Tariq’s own. He had thought no man could be more handsome than his master, Malik, but the natural glory before him proved him wrong. He could not look away, but surely he could hide himself before he was caught staring. He shifted his weight back on one heel, slipped on a pearl, and fell to his ass with a clatter as more jewels rained down on his head.

  When the rain of stones ceased, he looked up to find a hand offered. Although he tried not to look, his eyes seemed to have a will of their own. The man was dressed, now, somehow. Almost. His beautifully muscled chest was bare, and the sash he wore over top his salwar was tied carelessly about his hips, rather than his waist—but he was no longer naked. His head was still bare of any scarf, leaving his luxurious hair free. It looked as soft as a woman’s, and Tariq lowered his gaze even as he let the stranger help him to his feet.

  “You are a jinni,” he said.

  The man bowed with a flourish, a gesture long out of fashion except among the nobility. “Yours to command, master.”

  Tariq’s jaw dropped again, and he closed it abruptly. “I am no man’s master.”

  The jinni gave him a curious look. “You possess the jar.”

  “I do not,” Tariq said, looking past the jinni to where the jar lay on the stone floor, unbroken, the stopper nearby.

  The jinni smiled, a marvellous thing. His full lips were surrounded by neatly trimmed hair, while his cheeks were shaved clean except along the line of his jaw. The smile showed gleaming white teeth.

  “Pedantry,” he said and raised his hand. The stopper slid into place as the jar flew across the room and into the jinni’s hand. He passed it to Tariq, pressing it into his hand with both of his own, much as Malik had held his hand upon giving him the ring.

  Thinking of Malik, he blushed with guilt. The ring had returned with neither Tariq nor the jar; would his master be worried? Angry?

  One hand released his and two fingers lifted his chin, startling him.

&nb
sp; “Such a pretty young man.”

  Chapter Three

  RIDHA STUDIED THE young man whom he was now obligated to call master. He looked bashful, confused, and oh so pretty. His bare head was covered with fine dark hair the colour of dried dates and just long enough to invite fingers to run through it. It framed a face with cheekbones carved by the wind, a nose almost too long, and lips that looked like they might plump up nicely with a kiss or two. But his eyes enchanted him most, the darkest brown he’d ever seen, and surrounded by long lashes more often seen on a woman. There was something in those lustrous brown pools, something that called to him.

  How long had it been since he’d enjoyed a pretty young man? Or woman, for that matter. It didn’t bear thinking upon. Surprise on the young man’s face softened to desire, and Ridha dared press his mouth to those lips, gently. When the youth reacted only with quickened breath, he kissed again, testing the rich-coloured hair with his fingers.

  Tentative was the kiss he received in return, and again, and the youth was suddenly kissing him ardently. Yes-ss, he thought, but wait, who is the boy kissing…?

  He broke the kiss and frowned at the young man. “A moment, precious one. Who is it you want more than me, that you pretend I am someone else?” Had that ever happened to him before? Certainly not that he could recall.

  “I wasn’t— I didn’t—”

  Reading thoughts was not one of his talents as a rule, but the name Malik was too prominent to miss. “Malik? He must be kingly indeed,” Ridha said, trying not to sound annoyed.

  The youth drew back, his cheeks taking on the colour of ripe fig flesh, a dark purple stain that looked delicious. Ridha wanted to taste every bit of the boy’s skin with a desire that seemed more than several decades of celibacy might account for.

  “Might an enslaved jinni ask some questions of his new master?”

  “I am not your master,” the young man repeated. “If you tell me why you think so, then you may ask what you will of me.”