“Stories go both ways, Paz, and I do recall you saying you would share yours with me.”
She flicked her wrist. “Just when I was ten, my brother was really into aliens and space crafts, you know, U.F.O. nonsense. Which is probably why he’s working on his astronomy doctorate.”
Jinni nodded, and it felt so easy to talk to him. Memories she hadn’t thought of in days assailed her, but not only the memories, also the warm feelings associated with them.
“Aliens do exist, but continue,” he said with a regal nod.
Her jaw dropped. “Really? You’re yanking my leg.”
A twinkle danced in his dark eyes. “As much as I would love to yank your leg,” his voice reminded her of the slow burn of whiskey sliding down her throat, “I do not jest. He is correct. I am one, in the human sense I suppose.”
She frowned. “But I thought you said you came from Kingdom?”
“And Kingdom is another planet, ergo…” he lifted his brow, a smug look on his face.
Snorting with laughter, she shrugged. “I guess you’re right.”
“Anyway, you were saying?”
“Oh, the movie. Yeah. Well, he wanted to watch some stupid movie about an alien coming to our earth. And the only thing I can really remember about that movie was that the aliens glowed blue at night and how pretty I thought that was, and you reminded me of that movie. You glow too.”
Neither spoke, each one letting the words settle in, maturate and root. If she could have blushed, she might have. But it seemed pointless to pretend something she didn’t feel, they were both semi-dead after all.
“Have you ever been in love, Paz?” Jinni asked, so quietly she’d barely heard it.
“I thought so. Once. I even got engaged. But I broke it off two weeks before the wedding.”
“Why?”
She rolled her eyes, fingering the table, attempting to push some of her energy into the tip. Just so she could feel it, but apart from the brief shock of static, she felt nothing. The “touch” sensation was fading rapidly. The first day she’d felt the world around her still, now… it was getting harder to even remember what “touch” felt like.
“It would be so much easier to say he cheated on me. Or he was a jerk and I was naïve and the injured party. But Harrison was a good guy. He and Todd, my brother’s partner, work together in the same chiropractor clinic. He was really nice.”
Saying it only made her feel worse, she couldn’t look Jinni in the eye. Didn’t want to see his scorn or anger. Richard and Todd, bless them, had been two of the few people to stay on her side after the messy break-up.
“You left him?”
Nodding slowly, she said, “Yes. He was so nice, but…” finally she looked at him, and didn’t see the judgment so many others had cast her way.
“He was not the one,” he said softly. Not a question, just a statement of fact.
“No, he wasn’t. And I didn’t think it would be fair to him to marry him. He deserved someone to be as madly in love with him as he’d been with me.”
“Do you ever regret it?”
Paz stood, and paced in front of the table. “Sometimes. Sometimes I wonder if he was the one and I was just expecting too much.”
She stopped then and looked at Jinni. A perfect stranger. His large brown eyes made her feel slightly dizzy and breathless. He might be blue, but she’d painted him as he’d been. Dark and olive toned, with a proud nose and sensual lips. Her body pulsed, literally beginning to glow brighter. She frowned.
“It means you are experiencing great emotion,” he said gently.
“How come you don’t pulse?”
Jinni stared up at the ceiling, but she knew he wasn’t looking at it, he was looking beyond it. Seeing something she couldn’t. “Because the longer you stay in this form, the more deadened you become.”
The bitterness in his voice made her ache.
The euphoria of earlier began to fade slowly away. Paz glided to a corner window, pressing her nose against the glass. Or at least attempting to, the moment she touched it, she felt a subtle shift in pressure and then her face was sinking through. Like pushing her head through a gentle fall of water.
Jinni’s head poked out a moment later. She sighed bitterly.
“When I was little I used to love pressing my nose against the glass. Feeling the cold shiver up my nose and settle in my cheeks. It made me feel alive. Mom, hated it though, said I was staining her clean glass.”
Crazy, the things she remembered now. Things that’d seemed so insignificant and meaningless before now mattered so much.
He tipped his head.
Again that feeling of needing to get away, of wishing she could go, slowly crept back into her conscious mind. Outside the manicured lawn glinted with the first silvery drops of dew, a gentle breeze stirred through her. The parking lot was vast and completely empty. Streetlamps, with their orangey glow distracted from the surreal beauty of the full golden moon. Stars, too many to count, filled the black sky like a shower of silver glitter.
But gazing at the beauty of the still night couldn’t detract from the knowledge that behind them a warm and inviting golden tunnel waited for her. A tunnel that she knew would bring her a measure of peace.
“I want to go.”
“Where?”
“Away. Out of this hospital,” she glanced at him, at the proud lines of his jaw and sharp slash of cheekbone, and wished again she’d met him before, “I hate it here.”
“Where would you go if you could?”
She glanced up at the sky. The sky her brother had been so obsessed with growing up. Richard had always wanted to find life on different stars. He’d spun magical tales of aliens and monsters. She’d never wanted to see the creatures, but Paz had fallen in love with the murky blue unknown of the universe.
“The stars,” she whispered, “I want to dance on a star.”
Chapter 9
Jinni didn’t have much magic left to him, and what he did, came with a price. But it was a price he’d be willing to pay, if only to see her smile again.
“Do you want to see where I was born?”
Brown, soulful eyes studied him. Then she nodded slowly. “Yes.”
“I can show you. But first, you need to take my hand.”
She slipped her hand into his, but it fell through. “Paz, I am not strong enough to hold you. You have to focus, like I taught you. Concentrate all your energy, and then hang on to me. Can you do that?”
She nibbled on her lower lip and not for the first time he wished he was more of a man than what he was. That he hadn’t spent so many decades lamenting his fate; that he’d at least fought to remain corporeal. If he’d known in the future he’d meet her, he’d have fought tooth and nail to overcome the misery of the last decades. But he hadn’t known, so he’d let himself slowly die inside, a little every day, and now he was a shell of a man who couldn’t even grasp her hand.
“I’ll try.”
She closed her eyes and his body hummed, willing her to do it this time.
Her energy pulsed again, a bright blue glow that made his soul flare in response. Her face looked lit from within as her radiance sparkled and shimmered over her form. There was a snap, a quick rolling spark shifted down her arm and then she released a strong breath and opened flustered eyes.
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.”
If ghosts could sweat, she’d look haggard and worn. As it was her hair had lost some of its shine, her face appeared slightly puffy from energy drain-off.
Paz shook herself and pulled her head back inside the window. Misery clung to her. Jinni shook his head.
“Do not give up.”
“I’m not trying to. This is hard. I was able to lift the sheets up before, I don’t know why I can’t even do this now.”
“I’m immortal, in a sense. It took much longer for me to experience energy drain off. But your humanity accelerates it. It is okay.” He clasped his hands together, mainly beca
use he desperately wanted to hold her arms, comfort and sooth her, but knew he’d never be able to latch onto her. “I know it is hard, Paz. But you are blocking yourself. You believe you cannot do this. So you cannot. Now close your eyes.”
She growled low in her throat, a delicious heated purr that sent shivers straight through him, but did as he asked. She huffed hair out of her face, must have been a habit, because her hair was tucked behind her ears.
“Now, imagine yourself on a beach,” he began, voice lulling and soft, gently hypnotizing. Once, long ago, he’d been good at this.
Her nose scrunched up in the most adorable fashion and his lips twitched. “Do you see the beach?”
“I see blackness. Lots and lots of it,” she whined.
He chuckled and closed his own eyes. The magic resting in his soul flared softly to life, like the gentle glow of candlelight. It flickered low, but steady. Reaching deep within himself, he grasped a hold of the flame and drew that heat through his body. It trickled through him, and for the first time in ages he trembled with joy. With the remembered knowledge of what it meant to grasp the fire.
But he no longer had what he used to have, what he’d taken for granted. Using too much would be dangerous. Hard as it was, he tamped down the thrill of the magic and took only what he needed. Even this little bit would cost.
Making sure to keep a connection between his mind and the flame, Jinni opened his eyes and smiled into Paz’s startled face.
She glanced around, mouth slightly open. “You’re here? In my head?”
In here she did not glow blue, her skin was a tanned olive, her hair darker than midnight, and her eyes the piercing brown of an owl. Dressed in a Grecian gown of sheer white-- Jinni lost his breath-- as her each and every curve came into exacting focus. Exotic and curvaceous, the type of body only a master sculptor could hope to capture. Round, firm breasts rose high as her breathing inched up a notch.
With the same degree he studied her; he felt her eyes on him like a hot brand. He’d dressed himself in the style of the King he’d served. Tunic and pants, the cerulean fabric threaded through with veins of gold.
Around them was nothing but darkness. Her mind was unfocused. Though all of what he was about to do was illusion, there would still be the sensation of touch. Jinni walked up to her. Her eyes were huge in her face, but she didn’t utter a word as his warm hands slid up the length of her bare arms. A rigid rise of goose bumps traveled in their wake and she hissed.
Touching her was like touching something hot and explosive. He licked his lips, his stomach bottoming out. He’d already touched her. When he’d carried her from the plane, but the desire to truly know her hadn’t yet been born in him.
Now it was, and this was so different.
Jinni forced himself to breathe. “Imagine the sand, dove.”
Her lashes fluttered, her gaze held his, as if spellbound.
With a flick of his wrist he helped her to see it.
She gasped as the land swayed around them, the blackness bled away as a wave rolled in.
“Stop the water.” He continued to rub circles on her arm with his thumb, enjoying the touch of her silky, soft skin much more than he’d ever expected.
Paz glanced at the wave barreling toward them. Her mouth set into a tight line, a frown marred her brow and then she said, “Stop.”
Power rippled through the air, danced across their skin, and the wave froze. A curl of blue water forever frozen.
“Good,” he said.
She smiled.
“Now, pick up a grain of sand.”
“Jinni?”
“You can do this, dove. You can.” He grabbed her hand. “Push all that power into your hand and pick it up.”
Paz knelt, studying the sand as if it were a science experiment. Jinni pushed a small measure of his magic into her palm, a tiny flutter of “will.” She inhaled deeply, then reached out and dug her hand deep into the sand.
A delighted squeal fell from her tongue. “I can feel it, Jinni.”
“What does it feel like?” he asked as his thumb traced the curve of her knuckle.
His entire body quaking and alive with the sensation of touch.
“Cold. Hard.” She looked at him, joy shining in her eyes.
“Pick one up.”
Tip of her tongue sticking out the corner of her mouth in concentration, she focused, and ever so slowly held the grain aloft. Her hand shook, and her body trembled, but her laughter was full of light.
“I did it. I did it. Jinni, I did it!”
He kissed her.
Couldn’t help himself.
Her joy was infectious, made him forget that he shouldn’t do it, that it wasn’t a good idea. He wanted her joy inside him. Wanted to drown in it. It’d been so long.
At first her lips were unresponsive. Then she softened, grew pliant in his arms and threw her own around his neck. Pressing in with the fervor of a woman parched. The kiss was chaste, no tongues, no moans, and yet it transcended all that.
It went beyond shadows, loneliness, even death. It was the joy of discovery, of birth and rebirth-- the very beginning of possibility, that sacred moment when it was new and perfect, and beautiful.
“I am sorry, I forgot myself,” he murmured against her lips, leaning his forehead against hers, running his hands up her back, the touch of her skin softer than any he’d ever felt. She grabbed the hands he’d placed on either side of her face and shook her head.
The rich earthy scent of jasmine flooded his head and senses.
“Don’t be.” She looked at him, holding his gaze and forcing him to keep hers. “It’s just too bad that I had to die to learn what it finally meant to live.”
“You want to know where I was born, Paz?”
“Yes.”
“You want to leave this hospital?”
“I do, but what will happen to me if I leave? I have this terrible feeling that if I walk away, I’ll never be able to return.”
“We cannot be gone long, dove. But I’ve still some magic left to me. Enough to safely show you my home. Do you trust me?”
She didn’t stop to think, simply nodded. “I don’t know why, but I do.”
“Then let us go dance.”
Concentrating his magic, he focused on his place of origin. Above the clouds, within the stars. They shot up like beams of pure light.
Paz laughed-- a rolling, booming sound that spewed from the depths of her belly. She glanced all around as the ground around them faded, as the sky opened up. A giant canopy of stars and gases and planets.
She ooh’d and aah’d, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the woman in his arms. Lush curves, huge smile. Hugging her tight to his body, Jinni wished for more, wished it didn’t have to end as he knew it would. If only he could have met her years ago.
Then they were there. At the beginning of his time. He stopped and thrilled at the way she hugged his neck fiercely, almost cutting off his breath. Not that he needed to breathe up here, he’d turned them into balls of pure energy.
Paz looked all around. At the vastness of space, at the colors that exploded in a miasma all around. The deep hued greens and neon blues, the silvery stars, and rose pink expanse of space and time.
“Where are we?”
Jinni turned them, and pointed to a blue sphere. A pinprick of light, almost insignificant, except for the surge of powerful energy that sucked at them, drawing them closer to its sphere.
“That is my mother.”
She laughed. “So you’re the starman, huh? Didn’t they make a movie about that once?”
“Starman?” He shook his head. “She is not a star. She is life itself. What you mortals have called a quasar.”
Just as he spoke a brilliant burst of light streaked from the pinprick of light, anywhere it touched stars evaporated. The brilliance lasted only a second, but it was so bright, that had they been in human form they’d have had to shield their eyes.
“What was that?” Paz asked when the
light faded. “New baby starmen?” Her lips quirked.
Laughing, Jinni shrugged. “Sure. Let us call it that. That power, that energy, that is another djinn being born.” He waved his hand all around. “We are born masters of the stars. We create and design. You cannot see us in this form, but we are here.”
Looking, she frowned. “Then how did you get to Kingdom?”
“I left. I wanted more than creation. I wanted to understand and know the creation. And perhaps I wanted to rule them as well.” His last words were sad, humbled. “I was not a good person then, Paz.”
She traced the curve of his cheek. “That was a long time ago. You don’t seem like a bad person now.”
He snorted. “You do not know the end of my story, dove. Save your kindness until you learn it. You just might change your mind.”
Her lips compressed and Jinni fought to shake off the self-recriminations. This was for her. Not for him to wallow and dwell in his misery.
“I do believe you mentioned wanting to dance on a star.” He held up his hand.
The effervescent smile was back and, as she slipped her hand in his, a symphony only they could hear rode the winds of time, embracing their light in a tight hug. They danced and swayed, hopping from one star to another. Paz laughed and laughed, throwing her head back, breathing in deeply as a rosy flush touched her cheeks.
“I wish I’d known you before, Paz,” he whispered so low he knew she wouldn’t hear. “You would have saved me.”
Chapter 10
Before she was ready, they were back. And something was very wrong with Jinni. He was clutching his middle, and maybe it was just her, but he seemed even less substantial than before. A pale wisp of a shadow against her wall.
“Jinni,” she cried as he dropped to his knees.
“I’m fine, dove.” He gave her a brave smile, straight teeth cutting a path through his face.
“You don’t look fine.”
She reached for his hand, but this time failed to even feel a shock of his awareness. There was literally nothing, no static, no energy. Dead air.
Her stomach rolled. “Jinni?”
He closed his eyes. “It will pass, dove. I’ll return soon. I must get back to my world.”
Demons & Djinn: Nine Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy Novels Featuring Demons, Djinn, and other Bad Boys of the Underworld Page 70
