Dammit! That was a low blow. She knew how I felt about the hinn. I turned to face her. “Will they come after you here?”
She shook her head. “We didn’t come via a direct route. They won’t be able to track us. Will you help us free our people?”
Vritra squeezed my shoulder.
I focused on my asura brethren. “We are a fist. We work together or not at all. So, what do you say guys?” I scanned the faces of the asura. “You fancy kicking some djinn arse?”
“I’m always up for a little slice and dice,” Laila said, a wicked curl to her lips.
“I think we could take our unity for a test drive,” another asura said.
The room was suddenly alive with the buzz of anticipation.
Vritra raised hand and silence reigned once more. “We’ll help you,” he said. “But in return, you will fight alongside us against the cosmic gods, and against your own people.”
Alara closed her eyes for a beat, her shoulders lifting and falling on a resolute breath. “We will fight with you, and maybe when our brothers and sisters see that we are not afraid to stand up for what we believe in, they will no longer be afraid to join us.”
The four djinn with her didn’t contradict her which made me think she must hold some kind of rank over them. She was, after all, a princess, even though right now she looked like she’d been dragged backward through a hedge. My simmering anger settled, and I saw the djinn properly for the first time—the cuts and bruises and the bedraggled clothes. They’d stood up for what they thought was right, said no to the big guy, and fought their way here to me.
“Look, you guys look wiped. Grab a bite to eat and then we’ll formulate a plan.”
Relief flashed across the djinn princesses face. “Thank you.”
I glanced at my watch, it was almost three in the afternoon. Melody was expecting me there for the broadcast, but liberating Mira was something that couldn’t wait. The djinn were just a bonus. My friend was the most important thing. If there was a slight chance I could save her, then I’d be there.
“Go, get changed,” Vritra said. “I’ll keep an eye on our guests.”
The asura led the djinn to the buffet and began loading up their plates, and I headed for the door. I had a phone call to make and a wedding dress to get out of.
I’m coming, Mira. Just hold on.
***
What’s your plan?” Vritra asked Alara.
“We materialize in the cellars a level above the dungeons. The guards switch every two hours, leaving the dungeons unmanned for around fifteen minutes—enough time for us to get into the sublevel and release the prisoners.”
“And then?”
“We get back to the cellar and shift out.”
“It sounds simple. Too simple. Why do you need us to help you?”
“Because, by the time we’ve opened the cells and freed the djinn, the guards will be on their way down. We’ll need to fight our way out. It is impossible to shift out of the dungeons due to the alloy in the walls and ceiling, and the guards will have weapons designed to incapacitate our kind, but not yours. You will be unaffected by their weapons.” She wrung her hands. “We can’t do this without you.”
One of the other djinn spoke up, his voice low and calm. “We are not a violent race. We fight when need be to protect our own. Conquest is not something we actively seek out. But times are changing, and the council has been corrupted. What we did to your people, it brings shame upon us. Help us and allow us to atone.”
His words were saturated with sincerity and the last of my reservations evaporated.
There were five djinn. So, that meant… “We can send five asura, right?”
Alara nodded. “Yes, there are five of us, so we can carry five.”
Vritra spoke up. “We discussed this while you were changing,” he said to me. “Laila, Vikram, Nina, Dhani and I will go.”
“What? No. I should go.”
He arched a brow. “Why?”
“Because I’ve been before and Mira is my friend.”
“And Paimon?”
My jaw tightened as I bit off the nastiness I wanted to use to respond to that. Instead, I sent a wave of rage barreling into him. He exhaled sharply through his nose and blinked rapidly.
“We’ll only be a moment,” he said to the gathered. “Let’s talk this through,” he said to me. He strode for the door and after a moment of collecting myself, I followed.
Outside the room, I turned on him, guns blazing. “Did you seriously just throw Paimon in my face?”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me.”
But I did. “You don’t trust me, do you? You think I still have feelings for him.”
He opened his mouth as if to protest, then snapped it closed again. His eyes narrowed. “And don’t you?”
Oh, my, God. Was he seriously going there? “He. Tried. To. Kill. Me.”
His expression softened. “Yes. But the negative actions of others don’t always mean we stop loving them.” He swallowed hard. “If he still holds a piece of your heart, I would try to understand. I’d wait for you to be mine.”
Oh, man, I was so gonna smack him upside the head in a minute. “I don’t love Paimon. And right now, with the way you’re acting, I’m beginning to question loving you.”
He flinched as if I’d slapped him.
Dammit. “I didn’t mean that. I mean, I meant it about Paimon, but not the bit about not loving you.” Gah.
He cupped my shoulders. “I’m sorry. I really am. I don’t know what got into me. Jealousy most likely.” He offered me a small apologetic smile. “It’s an emotion I’m unaccustomed to feeling.”
“Well, there’s no need to be jealous. And if that’s the reason you want to go then fine, we can both go. We’ll just leave touchy feely Laila behind.”
“Now who’s being jealous?”
We locked gazes and then burst out laughing.
He sobered quickly. “As much as I’d like to, we can’t both go,” Vritra said. “One of us must stay behind as leader. You are my queen now, Carmella. If I go, you must stay.”
“Then you stay. They need you, not me. You’re their king.”
“Yes, I am. I’m centuries old and I’m a demi-god, which gives me a distinct advantage, so let me use it. You’ve already put your life at risk on numerous occasions. Let me do this. I want to.” He cupped the side of my face, and ran his thumb back and forth over my cheekbone. “I promise you, I will come back to you unscathed.”
I closed my eyes, reveling in his soothing touch.
“Do you trust me?” he asked.
“Of course, I do.” But my stomach was in knots, and my palms were sweating at the thought of him going where I couldn’t reach him. “I can’t stay here wondering if you’re okay.”
“We’re connected, you and I,” he said. “You’ll know if something is wrong, just like I did when The Circle was attacked. When you called, I was already in the car on the way over.”
No wonder he’d arrived so quickly. “How will I know?”
He pressed his forehead to mine and breathed me in. “You’ll know.” He placed a hand over my heart. “You’ll know in here.”
And if something went wrong, how would I get to him? “You better come back to me, you hear me.”
He flashed his teeth in a cocky smile. “Have you ever tried keeping a dragon away from his mate?”
Pushing up on tiptoe, I wound my arms around his neck and kissed him with everything I had. My heart and soul were in that kiss, my fear, my longing and my love. We pulled back and his eyes were all pupil, our breath desperate rasps. It was always like this when we touched. It was never enough, but now wasn’t the time.
He reluctantly released me. “Once this is all over, I promise you, we’re not leaving the bedroom for a week.”
“Just a week?”
He let out a bark of laughter. Then cupped my face and pressed a hard kiss to my lips.
We entered the training room hand in hand. Laila and the other asuras had already picked their rides, and it looked like Alara was waiting for either Vritra or me. With everything screaming inside me to hold on, I released his hand. He stepped up to Alara and she wrapped her arms around him. She locked gazes with me and inclined her head and then they were gone.
***
An hour crawled by, and I must have worn a groove in the floor of the training room. My stomach was a churning mass of anxiety, and my palms were sweating like a bitch.
“He’ll be fine,” Gita said for the hundredth time.
Kiran reached for my hand to halt my progress across the room. “You’d know if something was wrong. You’re mated.”
Yes, Vritra had said the same thing, but it didn’t help. What did help was the support of the other asura keeping vigil with me. Their presence was the only thing keeping me together. This was how Vritra had felt every time I’d rushed head first into danger—this impotent inaction, this mixture of apprehension and anger.
This was karma.
The food hadn’t been touched since Vritra had vanished with the djinn. Everyone was on tenterhooks. He’d be back soon. Any minute now, he’d materialize with Alara and the other djinn.
Mission successful.
Except every minute that ticked by was another empty one. As far as I knew things were going well with the broadcast. At least I assumed they were, because if there was an issue, Melody would have messaged or called by now. It was almost six in the evening. God, where the heck was Vritra? Where were my asura?
An icy breeze kicked, ruffling my hair and stung my fever hot skin. My pulse jumped. It was Paimon’s signature, which meant they were on their way back. The air shimmered and Alara materialized clutching Paimon. He was bloody and barely conscious; his body limp in her arms. She lowered him to the ground. A sob tore from her throat as she fell to her knees beside him. She gathered him against her and held him tight.
I stared at the pair, locked in an embrace, and then over her head to the space behind her. The others would be along shortly. Vritra had obviously hitched a ride with one of the other djinn because Alara had wanted to hold Paimon.
A long minute ticked by during which the only sound in the room was Alara’s gentle sobs.
My gut twisted in pain, and my lungs crashed sending the air whooshing out of my body.
Vritra.
He was in trouble. “Alara? Where are the others? Where’s Vritra?”
She continued to weep, rocking Paimon back and forth.
A flame burst alight inside me, blue and hot and ready to explode. “Alara? Where are the others?” My tone dropped to soft but lethal.
The djinn didn’t seem to hear.
The fire exploded outward in a roar. “Where the fuck is my mate?”
Alara jerked and her head snapped up. Tears trailed down her bloodstained face which was contorted in shock. “They’re surrounded. Pinned in. I had to get him out. I had to get Paimon to safety.”
“You left them and ran?”
She shook her head, her mouth a mournful maw. “I couldn’t risk losing him again.” She clutched Paimon’s semi-conscious form to her breast. “I had to get him to safety.” She nodded as if reassuring herself.
“She left them?” Kiran said.
“What the fuck?” another asura exclaimed.
But my attention was focused on Alara’s pale face. “Since when did you give a fuck about him? You love Amon remember?”
“I loved Amon. Things change. You should know that.”
Had she just made a fucking dig? The wrongness was a churning pit inside me. My mate was in danger.
Gita touched my elbow. “It’s okay. She’s got Paimon to safety, now she can go back and help them.” She looked down on Alara with a tentative smile. “Right?”
Alara glanced down at Paimon. “I can’t. I can’t leave him like this.”
She couldn’t leave him? A tsunami of wrath turned my vision crimson, and with the asuras cries as a backing track, I was on her. My fist tangled in her hair and I dragged her across the room.
“Grab him,” I ordered the nearest asura named Mani. My voice was more dragon than human.
Mani jumped into action, and interpreting my order for what it was, he grabbed Paimon in a choke hold and pressed a dagger to the unconscious djinn’s throat.
Alara bucked in my grip. “Please. Don’t.”
I yanked her head back and bared my teeth. “Then take me to my mate, you traitorous bitch.”
Her emerald eyes were wide in horror, but I didn’t give a shit. She was nothing to me, and neither was Paimon, all that mattered was Vritra, my asura warriors and Mira. The djinn could rot for all I cared.
“All right. I’ll take you,” she whimpered.
I glanced up at Mani. “If she returns without us, kill him.”
I pulled the bitch to her feet and grabbed her tight. My claws dug into her flesh. She screamed and the world shattered.
13
We materialized in the midst of chaos. Yells and shouts and the clang of metal on metal filled the air. It took a moment for my brain to make sense of what I was seeing. We were standing in a wide, high ceilinged, stone corridor. Djinn in dark leather armor and boots held back a bunch of ragtag djinn still lugging shackles, and in the center of it all, magnificent and proud, was Vritra in dragon form.
His body lashed from side to side as he roared and snapped, crushing where he could. Alarm bells went off because his movements, usually sinuous and lethal were jerky and uncoordinated. Something was wrong and then the picture came into sharp focus. His armored skin was damaged—crisscrossed with glowing welts. He swiped at two guards to his left, missed and buckled. His huge body slammed against the wall, and his eyes rolled back in his head. One of the djinn jumped forward and slashed at Vritra with a shimmering silver sword. The metal made contact with a hiss, cutting through my mate’s armored scales, all the way down to the delicate flesh beneath. My blood turned to ice. This shouldn’t be happening. It couldn’t be. Our armor was penetrable only by dragon bone.
My stomach was a pit of lava as I grabbed Alara by the throat. “What is that? What are they doing to him? I thought you said your weapons couldn’t hurt us.”
Her deception was reflected in the dullness of her gaze. “I’m sorry,” she said. “They created it after you countered our attack at the yaksha meeting. I couldn’t tell you. You wouldn’t have come if you’d known. I’m sorry. So sorry.”
“We would have come. We just would have come prepared.”
The urge to squeeze the life from her was an unbearable pressure in my temples, but my mate’s roar of pain was more compelling. Slamming her against the wall so hard her eyelids fluttered, I pressed my face up to hers until we were almost nose to nose.
“Show me how fucking sorry you are, bitch. Help my people get the fuck out of here. Now!” I released her, stepped back and unleashed my dragon.
My dragon was pissed. Like melt the skin off your bones, and burn you to ash kind of pissed. I hadn’t breathed fire before. Was it even possible? Yeah, there it was waiting in the pit of lava at my core, bubbling away and ready to be tapped. As the world shrank and my vision melted to scarlet, Vritra turned his head, sensing me for the first time. We locked gazes and the connection between us snapped taut, as if testing itself, and then slackened, secure that we were bound—secure in the transfer of power. I sensed Laila, Dhani, Vikram and Nina as they joined our connection, and the power within me expanded with their personal signatures. Behind Vritra, the asura began to shine just as they had after the mating ceremony.
We were a fist.
I opened my lethal maw and roared. The djinn guards attacking Vritra stared in shock. If I hadn’t been so furious, their horrified faces as they turned to me would have been almost comical. Yeah, fuckers, you didn’t know there were two of us, did you? So, how do you like your djinn? Lightly toasted or crispy fried? I unleashed the fire. It engulfed them,
devouring them with its blue and purple heat. They didn’t even have time to scream, and that was okay, because I liked them much better as a pile of ash.
Vritra’s shock channeled down our connection and slammed into me. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t breathe fire. Don’t worry baby, I got this.
Alara ran in front of me. “Don’t. Please don’t kill them!” She waved her arms to get my attention.
Bad move, because I was livid, my dragon was furious and nothing was getting in our way.
“Please, they’re just following orders,” she said. “They don’t deserve to die.”
My conscience, which would probably have twinged if in human form, remained resolutely silent. They’d hurt my mate and they’d attacked my people. They deserved to die. More fire erupted from my jaws, as I cleared a path to Vritra.
Alara’s scream was a symphony to my vengeance and pain. Vritra buckled again. The glowing welts weren’t healing. He should be healing. Why the heck wasn’t he healing?
Poison.
The word was clear in my mind as if Vritra had spoken it, and then nausea hit me like a sledgehammer. Not mine, but his. They’d poisoned him. He was dying, and I was feeling his pain. This was what I’d felt the moment after Alara had materialized in the training room with Paimon clutched to her breast like a prize. I’d felt the first slice of their new deadly weapon as it had slit my mates armor open like an overripe peach.
The guards scattered, as I barreled forward, spewing flame at everything that moved. I had to get to him, had to get him out of here.
“Carmella!”
Mira? I glanced behind Vritra to see my hinn ally cutting a swathe toward me. A djinn came barreling around the corner behind her.
Amon.
His chest was bare, his loose pants torn. He came to a skidded halt taking in the scene and then his body burst into flame. Not my fault. Not my fire. No, Amon was an efreet and, yeah, he was doing some damage. Together, he and Mira cut down the remaining guards. She was magnificent even without weapons—kicking, spinning and cracking heads. Many of the guards were either dead or unconscious. Laila skewered the last of them, and the asura and rebel djinn came running up the corridor to join us.
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