The Sight

by Savannah J. Frierson

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  THE SIGHT: CITY OF SIN

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  EPILOGUE

  More about the CITY OF SIN Collection

  About the Author

  City of Sin

  The Sight

  Savannah J. Frierson

  The Sight: City of Sin

  Copyright © 2017 by Savannah J. Frierson

  Book editing/formatting by Savannah Frierson

  Cover Art by Kylie Gray

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to five years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-945568-14-5 (ePUB)

  ISBN-10: 1-945568-14-3 (ePUB)

  Published by SJF Books LLC. Printed in the United States of America.

  Nothing kills the soul that commands to evil like seeing the beauty of the heart.

  Shams-i-Tabrīzī

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you so much to my readers for going on this journey with me! I’m so glad you all have enjoyed my first foray into paranormal romance! As always, many thanks to my Patreon patrons. You all are fantastic!

  Thank you to Karma Frierson and Angela Lawson Mizell for your invaluable eyes and insightful comments. Jaie and Amie’s story couldn’t have been done without you!

  And finally to Ursula Sinclair, Melissa Stevens, and Taabia Dupree. It has been a pleasure to work with such creative and talented women. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of this project.

  The Sight: City of Sin

  Dominion angel Jaie may have lost his djinni, Aminata “Amie” Fisher, but at least they were winning the war against the daemons, right? Nevertheless, there is something strangely familiar about the unknown ally in the fight to defeat the daemon leader Donas, heartbreakingly so.

  Yet as the battle between Creation and daemons escalates, Jaie suspects a love he’d thought lost may not actually be lost at all. He also realizes an ultimate victory truly requires an ultimate sacrifice.

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  Read all 12 books in the City of Sin Collection

  AFTER MIDNIGHT by Ursula Sinclair (Available Now!)

  RELEASED BY DESIRE by Melissa Stevens (Available Now!)

  THE LIGHT by Savannah J. Frierson (Available Now!)

  DAMNATION by Taabia Dupree (Available Now!)

  WHEN DAWN COMES by Ursula Sinclair (Available Now!)

  REVEALED BY DESIRE by Melissa Stevens (Available Now!)

  THE FIGHT by Savannah J. Frierson (Available Now!)

  SHAMELESS by Taabia Dupree (Available Now!)

  THE EVENTIDE HOUR by Ursula Sinclair (Available Now!)

  REDEEMED BY DESIRE by Melissa Stevens (Available Now!)

  THE SIGHT by Savannah J. Frierson (Available Now!)

  REKINDLED FAITH by Taabia Dupree (Preorder Now!)

  Collection recommended for 18+ only due to the content of the works.

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  CHAPTER ONE

  Bodies littered the Strip like confetti, but there was nothing to celebrate this night. The year wasn’t even five minutes old and this was already the longest one yet. She had allowed this, stood by and done nothing as a daemon’s horrific wish came true.

  Playing long games meant too many lost hands, and she’d never taken to the gambling tables. The casino floors were usually too full of smoke for her sensitive nose and lungs, were usually too loud for her amplified hearing. There were too many auras that danced in her eyes and made her feel as if she were caught in a Gaussian blur.

  Too many fervent wishes she’d had little choice but to grant.

  Oh, how she wished she could now. To let a slot hit jackpot, a pair of dice to roll out right. To allow the fruition of simple vices that didn’t determine the fate of an entire city…world.

  Street lights flickered back on. Casino marquees and signs illuminated the devastation. The loud drones of car horns blared out over the holiday music that was being piped from a nearby block party celebrating the turn of the old year into the new. Death, pungent and acrid, choked her.

  Donas was laughing now, sounding like a suave Casanova instead of a soul-hungry daemon. Despite being dressed in a designer suit, the sight of him made her skin creep and crawl, as if it would melt off her bones at the unholy fire blazing in his eyes. Plumes of black smoke billowed from his mouth, nostrils, and ears. His smile was macabre, showing teeth that reminded her of the shards of glass that had pierced her body that fateful night when his dangerous wish had come true.

  “I wish for Aminata to give you her abilities.”

  Her angel had spoken with no inflection, no softness, but with the promise of well-delivered retribution. He’d placed his trust in her with those words and this was how she was paying him back.

  Unfettered carnage.

  “This is just the start,” Donas declared to his cheering daemons. Soon all the souls will be mine, and with them, all of Creation!”

  The bodies upon his despotic, daemonic altar bubbled and evaporated into the air, leaving scorch marks in their wake. The daemons laughed, their voices clicking like gun chambers empty of bullets for report, and danced upon the remnants of the dead.

  Her gut wrenched when she saw him. Her angel. Wings gloriously spread, scepter raised valiantly in the air, and his army behind him, he froze at the sight of the melee below. He was too late.

  If only the fire blast heading directly for his chest had been too late too.

  “Amie!”

  Aminata “Amie” Fisher gasped, her body breaking its floating to submerge fully into the pool. She came up blinking, her unseeing obsidian eyes stinging from the salt of the water. She glared in the ruby-red aura’s direction.

  “Is the cave on fire?”

  “Huh?”

  “You’re yellin’ at me like somethin’s on fire, but I don’t smell anything burning.”

  Her companion huffed. “I’ve been calling you for the past two minutes! Have you gone deaf too?”

  Amie rolled her eyes, not that her friend would be able to tell because of her all-black orbs, but shook her head. “Sorry, Aaliyah. I was…” Connecting, mining the secrets of a power-hungry daemon who’s about to win a decisive and costly victory. “Thinking.” Thinking how anyone could possibly forgive me for what was to come.

  Aaliyah grunted, her leather pants squeaking with each step she took. Amie followed her progress with her head, slowing turning it to the left as Aaliyah continued before sitting on a cushioned pool chaise by the lip of the natural saltwater pool Amie had made Aaliyah wish for all those months ago.
The water replicated the Atlantic Ocean’s balance perfectly; however, that didn’t mean Amie didn’t have quite the soft spot for the Pacific nowadays.

  “Amie!”

  Amie jerked and her cheeks heated. “Sorry. Hi. How can I help you?”

  Aaliyah sighed and shook her head. “You need to be careful, Amie.”

  Amie snorted and shook her own head, falling back into a float. She didn’t want to revisit that vision—a vision that would come true the evening after next. She hated she had to give Donas this win; but if Creation wanted to win the overall war, it was a sacrifice that had to be made.

  “I am being careful,” Amie insisted. “No one knows where I am, still, and it’s been months.”

  “Uh-huh,” Aaliyah grudgingly agreed and cleared her throat. “Jaie’s back in town.”

  Sheer stubbornness kept Amie’s breath from hitching at the news. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t known Jaie would return to Las Vegas, after all. He’d been in the vision: tattered armor hanging limply off his solid form; silver streaks of angel blood pouring from his temples, blooming from his flank, and oozing from his full, bottom lip. The wounds were all results from mere taunting taps from Donas. The daemon wouldn’t be ready to send Jaie falling straight to hell until everything within Jaie had been broken beyond repair. And though the supposed loss of her had gone a long way to accomplishing that, Jaie still stubbornly stood.

  Hubris. That was one of Donas’s many faults and Amie was determined to play it like a fiddle, no matter how grotesque the music produced.

  “He looks delicious, just so you know.”

  Amie smiled a little. “I’d expect nothing less.”

  “I’m sure you wouldn’t,” Aaliyah agreed. “But the sight of an angel on a mission? That’s mouthwatering!”

  Amie’s smile grew. She’d seen a focused Jaie before; and while her angel was beautiful regardless, he wore righteous fury so very well.

  “But he did ask me something really weird when I saw him,” Aaliyah approached, her voice sounding like the aural equivalent of a cat ready to pounce on an unsuspecting mouse.

  Amie would play along, though she was no Mickey. “What’s that?”

  “He asked if there was any chance you yet lived.”

  Amie blinked, feeling her lashes spike thanks to the water. She breathed evenly though her heart rate kicked up a notch. “Oh? And what did you say?”

  “I asked him why did he ask that?”

  “What did he do?”

  Aaliyah’s silence echoed loudly amid the gentle lapping of the water against Amie’s body. Frowning slightly, Amie broke her float again and stood this time. Rivulets of water sluiced down her form and the garment she wore plastered against her skin, leaving nothing to the imagination. Her nipples were erect thanks to the change in temperature; her large belly felt even more distended against the soaked fabric; the skirt of her dress clung to ample thighs and hips. It almost felt like a lover’s grip, like Jaie’s when he used to take her to the Pacific and love her so well so she could sleep.

  Amie shuddered and pressed her face into her hands. Her lesion-free hands.

  “That’s what he did.”

  “What?” Amie asked, pulling down her hands and facing Aaliyah with a frown.

  “Put his hands to his face—well, to his mouth—and closed his eyes.”

  Amie licked her lips and closed her eyes, hiding her face in her palms again. She barely registered the gentle splash of water, but she sunk into the hug Aaliyah offered her.

  “I could tell you that you probably shouldn’t have done it, but I don’t blame you,” Aaliyah said once they were both sure Amie’s urge to cry had passed.

  The “it” she’d done: astral projection.

  One good thing about being holed up and in hiding meant ample time for research. Aaliyah had suggested the possibility about why pop-culture genies could appear from bottles or other tight spaces.

  “There’s got to be a reason that’s become associated with you djinn,” Aaliyah had said, “but I bet it’s more sophisticated than that. It usually is.”

  And it was. Amie could already see auras, already speak into minds, but there was a deeper level she had to access to project her entire body to a space where she wasn’t. Meditation had aided her ability, stilling her mind so she’d become one with the universe in ways she hadn’t before. Aaliyah had helped her practice but never had she gone so far, clear across the country. She also hadn’t known she could be tactile, could touch.

  Only sheer force of will had kept her from breaking down in Jaie’s arms.

  But she could do it now, in the embrace of someone who’d become a dear friend. And despite how abrasive her half-daemon friend could be at times, Aaliyah had been just the support Amie needed.

  “Were you wearing this when you Visited him?” Aaliyah asked when Amie pulled back.

  “Yeah.”

  “I bet you had him completely shook,” Aaliyah said, and Amie could hear the amusement in her voice. “You look like a goddess.”

  Amie’s cheeks heated amid the compliment and she sucked her teeth. “Aaliyah…”

  “You do!” her friend insisted, and Amie knew she wasn’t lying. No one could lie around her now. This was another trait she’d discovered, also thanks to Aaliyah. Amie had laughed long and hard listening to Aaliyah complain she could lie to angels but not to djinn.

  “I think it’s to make sure we only grant true wishes,” Amie had told her friend. “Otherwise, could you imagine the havoc we’d accidentally wreak without that failsafe?”

  “It’d be entertaining at the very least,” Aaliyah had deadpanned, and the women had started up mutual giggles after that. Amie hadn’t anticipated much laughter when she’d decided to enact this plan with Aaliyah’s help, but she’d been glad to be wrong about that. The tears, however, she had anticipated, and Aaliyah had been patient with her through those as well.

  “Jaie always looked at me like I was the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen,” Amie admitted, coming back from her thoughts. “Sometimes it felt overwhelming.”

  “I know,” Aaliyah said. “When Micah looks at me…still…” She inhaled deeply. “Sometimes I don’t feel worthy of it.”

  Amie hugged her friend again, squeezing for good measure. The daughter of a witch and a daemon, Aaliyah had been on the opposite side of this war for a long time. But her love, Micah, a former archangel, had given up first his humanity, then his divinity, to protect her and never regretted his choice. As strong as the couple was, doubts could still crop up every now and again. Amie understood that very well.

  “Even ugly or broken things deserve love too,” Amie whispered into Aaliyah’s ear. “And the beautiful and whole can do that loving.”

  Aaliyah broke the hug but grabbed her hands. Amie let her breath slip through her teeth as the other woman drifted gentle thumbs along the backs of her hands. Earlier that day, they’d been bumpy like the gravel road leading to her grandmother’s house. Now, they were as smooth as supple leather.

  “I should tell you that you’re playing with fire, but I won’t,” Aaliyah said after a moment, squeezing her hands. “When in the face of the person you love, how can you pretend as if you’re not already burning?”

  Amie closed her eyes. The moment she’d seen Jaie standing in her waters, she’d been enflamed, beset by the feelings that roared inside her. She hadn’t wanted him to let her go. Ever. But they both had their duty. Their love couldn’t sacrifice the rest of the world.

  “This better all be worth it,” Aaliyah said, squeezing Amie’s hands again. “You deserve to be loved.”

  “I am loved,” Amie said, proud she could say that with confidence instead of doubt. “And I love. That’s why I’m doing this.”

  She stepped back from Aaliyah and returned to floating. Amie could feel Aaliyah’s gaze upon her, the frustration and the sadness on her behalf.

  “You know he’d give up everything for you,” Aaliyah said quietly. “Like my Micah
did.”

  “I know,” Amie said, her breath shuddering out of her. “That’s why I have to remain dead to him.”

  “You gave him hope,” Aaliyah said. “That’s a dangerous thing to give an angel, especially one as powerful as Jaie. He’s not going to rest until he discovers the truth.”

  Amie nodded, conceding that. Yet that glimpse into Donas’s mind illuminated another truth to her as well. “He’ll be very busy in the next few days. And after what happens, he might very sincerely wish me dead.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  “My intel is solid. I know Donas is planning something tonight.”

  Jaie looked intently at Aaliyah, giving her some credit that she hadn’t buckled under the weight of his stare. They’d regrouped right before the beginning of Orion’s annual New Year’s Eve celebrations, although the mood felt much more muted this year than last. Last year, most of the Fraction leaders in the room hadn’t known about the threat Donas posed. Now, everyone had felt the loss of someone by Donas’s hand.

  But Jaie had a niggling suspicion one person wasn’t as lost as they’d previously thought.

  “Your intel has been the most solid resource we’ve had in ages,” Orion said. A thread of suspicion laced his voice. Indeed, Aaliyah’s “contact” had helped them in many skirmishes against Donas’s minions, sending them to locations or protecting people usually before the daemons could arrive. In his irritation, Donas had been getting sloppier and sloppier, his newfound “abilities” seemingly not as helpful as he’d thought they’d be. It was a wonder Donas hadn’t been smarter about his wish. Hadn’t he ever seen Disney’s Aladdin?

  Of all the thoughts for you to have in your head…

  Jaie allowed a corner of his mouth to curve at Orion’s mental communication.