“I am human,” she mumbled against his chest. “I feel human.”
Ram sighed. “No, you don’t. You still think human, but you feel like something more. Someday you’re going to have to accept that. You are Fireborne. You hold Jinn and Niyr and the living sand inside you. You have a fire in you that never stops burning. You must acknowledge what you are without fearing the people who love you will leave. They will not leave you, Aziza. And you will not leave them. You have to give them, and yourself, a chance to prove that.” He swore softly. “I’m not saying what I wanted to say.”
“What did you want to say?”
He pressed her head more firmly against his shoulder. “That Brandon isn’t the worst Enforcer I’ve ever met. I still despise his race and dislike him, but I don’t currently loathe him. Unless he does something to get on my bad side, which is highly probable, I may someday be able to understand your attraction.”
“High praise.” Aziza laughed against his neck, her body still shaking a little from the intensity of her climax. From the image that had finally thrown her over the edge. “Why are you complimenting an Enforcer, Ram?”
If what Shev said was true, that Enforcers had killed his sister during her exile or were still holding her captive, it made her understand his distrust of Brandon even more. She would never be able to view any of the Jiniyr with anything but hatred after what they’d done to her family.
“Because he has the power to protect you and I don’t.” Ram’s voice was hushed. “He is trying to protect you, albeit in the usual kalbu way—which is not the way you need. And you care for him. You might even love him. My feelings for you are strong enough that I don’t want to stand in the way of your happiness. Whatever and whoever makes you happy.” He chuckled ruefully. “Though I am selfish enough to hope whoever you end up with is willing to share.”
“Ram—”
“Let’s not talk about that any more tonight, yes?” His voice held a tinge of sadness. “Will you tell me what you saw of Qaf, Aziza? The club?”
She allowed him to change the subject. She needed to think about something else. “Why was it a club? Was it built there because of Underbridge?”
“Not because of Underbridge. That nightclub was one of my old haunts long before the human club was a twinkle in the owner’s eye.”
Aziza frowned. “So it’s just a coincidence that Underbridge was built on top of a Jinn sex club?”
“There is no coincidence.” He shrugged. “The veil or barrier between the Jinn world and yours is very thin, Aziza, and it affects each side in different ways. In Qaf, when we focus, we can see you. All of us. In fact, children are taught simple spells and meditations to block out your busy world so we can focus on our own when we need to. Particularly in our formative years and when we study the old ways with the priests.”
“Is it like two realities overlapping?” she said, thinking about what she had seen.
“Yes. Or your ghosts. Some Jinn go mad if they can’t shut it out. Most of us have grown used to you. Even fond of you. And we have incorporated our versions of much of your entertainment technology. Humans excel at toy making.”
Aziza looked up at him, resting her chin on his chest. “How does it affect this world?”
Ram’s smile grew smug. “All the art and architecture you believe you create? We built it first. Some part of the human mind must see us, at least subconsciously. Those able to tap into it made the Coliseum. The Louvre.”
“Underbridge?” she smiled.
“It is well designed, don’t you think?”
She raised her eyebrows. “So you’re saying your people invented everything.”
“Everything important. All those factories and pointless boxy buildings must come from somewhere else. A boring, nondescript world that has no concept of art and no love for the land on which they dwell. Now tell me what you saw at the club.”
Aziza became aware of their positions and her lack of underwear. She scooted off the bed and scooped up her pants, slipping them back on before meeting his aroused green gaze again.
“Actually, I do want to tell you what I saw at the club. Who I saw after we played. Shev was there. I brought her through the mirror and talked to her in the ladies’ restroom—which still sounds crazy to say.” She laughed. Then she pointed to the knapsack by the door. “And the bag you asked about earlier? She left something for you.”
He sat up swiftly, his easy expression disappearing. “You brought her through? What are you telling me?”
“I’m telling you my hand was in Qaf. It was very surreal. Shev seemed impressed. Or nervous, I couldn’t tell. And she wasn’t alone at the club. She said your younger sister is following her around hoping she’ll help bring you home.”
Every muscle in his body tensed. “Hania was there? She is visiting Shev?” He swore in a language she didn’t understand. “What is her mother thinking?”
Her mother? “What do you mean?”
“I was a tau’ma. A warrior. I was separated from my family at a very young age to solidify my connection with Shev, but I was still close to them. Close enough to worry for the woman who bore me, that she would allow her youngest and only unsullied child take such a risk with her freedom.”
Aziza crossed her arms. “What risk is she taking? She’s trying to help her brother. She doesn’t want to lose him the way she lost…”
Ram narrowed his gaze. “Shev told you that too? It sounds like your conversation was more about me than the reason for her absence as your Qarin. Yes, my other sister was lost to us. Exiled for her inability to separate our reality from yours. For putting others in unnecessary danger. Hania has done nothing but excel in her studies. She will be a future leader of our people—if she does not thwart the law by harassing a tau’ma warrior whose link has been severed. Shev knows if the two of them are seen together too often, Hania will be the one who suffers.”
“That is a stupid law. Shev is the closest thing your family has to a connection with you. She was an extension of you. Like family.”
His expression turned to stone. “Not family. There are things about my people you don’t understand, Aziza. Lines and laws that are different than yours for a reason. Now tell me what Shev said. Exactly what she said.”
Aziza shook her head, unwilling to disturb their intimacy any more than she had. “You’re right. Shev said the same thing I did. You’re being set up to look guilty to the Enforcers. Only she thinks it’s just to hurt me. To pit you and Brandon against each other more than you already are. To push him to do something I could never forgive him for.”
“Bring me the bag, Aziza. Then tell me everything.”
Chapter Eight
The leader of all werewolfkind had an office in the damn Gherkin. Aziza only knew this secret bit of London trivia because she’d been cooling her heels there for almost an hour.
“Really?” she asked Hillary for the third time, glaring at the closed door.
“I’m truly sorry, Aziza,” Hill said from her desk. “He must be taking an important call. I’m sure he’ll see you any minute now.”
Her expression was saying something entirely different. Something more in keeping with what Aziza was thinking. He was doing it on purpose.
Biting back a snide reply, she took a breath and counted. When she’d woken up this morning, she’d been surprised that Hillary was already at Penn’s flat to tell her the Alpha had an opening and the meeting would be happening after lunch. She’d allowed Hill and Penn to fuss over her and dress her, mostly because she was in shock that the Alpha had agreed so quickly. It had only been a few days. She’d assumed he would make her wait for it to show her his irritation. She just didn’t think she’d be waiting the entire time in his office.
At Hillary’s request, she had foregone personal style in favor of showing respect. There were rules about how to dress to meet the Alpha. A lot of rules. She’d been advised to keep her makeup minimalist and use soap without any scent. Her hair was tamed and
coiled in a French twist. And she’d had to dress in a feminine skirt and sweater set that she wouldn’t have worn to anything but a fifties costume party, though Te would probably love it.
Penn had assured her that, on the bright side, it brought out the blue in her eyes.
Aziza wanted to bring out someone’s eyes…with a letter opener. Women were dying—Stacy and the others, Paige and Charity, had died—and she was expected to waste her time playing dress-up for the king douche of all hellhounds? Weren’t his people supposed to be focused on protecting humanity?
But she’d made a promise that she would play nice. She was doing this so no one could stop her from investigating or get in her way. So Ram wouldn’t be taken in. So Hillary and her cousin Devil, Brandon’s uncle, wouldn’t pay for her hesitation.
She was doing this for Brandon.
He’d left more messages, but she still couldn’t bring herself to call him back. Anger and guilt, need and fear of loss, all fought for domination inside her whenever she thought about it. Maybe this would help. It would show him she could hold her own with his father. Show him she didn’t need his protection. And hopefully help him get his boss to back off so they might have a chance to be together. If they had a chance at all, after he found out about the things she’d done two nights ago at Underbridge.
And after Underbridge.
Simply thinking about it made her blush, made her feel breathless and guilty. Needy, but not just for Brandon. She’d forgotten how easy it was to be with Ram. There was no judgment. No lines she couldn’t cross. She didn’t have to hold anything back for fear of how it would sound. She could talk about her feelings for Brandon, about her fantasies, and it didn’t bother him. She didn’t worry about him looking at her any differently, with anything less than desire and admiration in his eyes, if she admitted to her more shameful thoughts and emotions.
She’d told him everything Shev had said, except for her refusal to see him, and he’d listened quietly, holding her in his arms with the bag beside them. When she pulled out the top book and handed it to him, he’d smiled with genuine pleasure, telling her it was a book of poetry from her old Qarin, the one Ram and Shev had replaced after he was murdered. Odes to the Precious One. The book inspired by Aziza.
They’d stopped looking in the bag then, and he’d read aloud from the book for a long time, beautiful poems about a little girl who was lost and far from her true home, who had suffered through trials, never knowing how special she was, and broken the poet’s heart with her tears.
Aziza had fallen asleep by Ram’s side.
The dream that followed had started out as a memory of her childhood. Of her mother’s dire warnings and endless prayers. She’d raced away from the fear she could see swallowing her mother whole and run straight into another desert nightmare.
The buildings swallowed by the desert. The bodies broken and burning on the charred, black sand. When she looked up, she’d seen Chiye spinning too fast on the aerial hoop attached to a sinking hot-air balloon, disappearing from sight before Aziza could get to her. She’d run in her direction, but stumbled over an obstacle—it was West, buried neck-deep in the sand, horror in his eyes. Her Reaper Razia was covered in blood and laughing at her from above. Chiye’s blood, she’d known without question. Aziza hadn’t saved her.
She’d woken gasping and covered with sweat, and it was hours before she could fall back to sleep again, this time downstairs on West’s couch. Alone with her fears until the morning came and she knew she had to return to her aunt’s flat.
It was a horrible dream. One she wouldn’t have had to think about if she hadn’t been stuck in this waiting room for over an hour.
Finally Hillary got up for no apparent reason and gestured for Aziza to follow her. She mouthed one last “I’m sorry” before opening the office door and gesturing with her slender hand. “Mr. Nash will see you now, Ms. Stewart.”
Grimacing at the uncomfortable, supposedly sensible pumps that went with her outfit, Aziza did a quick mock curtsy for her aunt’s girlfriend. “Thank you, Hillary.”
Yes, thank you. And I hope your boss is polite so I don’t accidentally set him and the Gherkin on fire.
She folded her hands together and walked into the office, pausing when she realized no one was sitting at the giant mahogany desk. Had he demanded her presence then kept her waiting, only to disappear on her? “Mr. Nash?”
“Do you know what my job is, Ms. Stewart?” Aziza jumped at the male voice that came from the floor-length windows to her right.
She studied him. This was the Alpha? He wasn’t the carbon copy of Devil and Brandon she’d been expecting. He was slender, smaller than the other men in his family, and his posture said he was perfectly at home in his expensive suit. He had his back to her, the sun shining through the glass onto hair that wasn’t black or brown, but gray. Completely gray. Wasn’t Devil the older brother?
He tilted his head. “I believe I asked you a question, Aziza.”
Right. His job. “You’re the Alpha?”
He turned, shaking his head and lifting his finger, allowing her a look at the handsome, clean-shaven jaw and narrow features that went perfectly with his suit but not his species or the Nash line. “Now, you see, that’s too ambiguous an answer. Alpha is a title. There are, in fact, more than a dozen Alphas in the world as we speak—all my lieutenants, all answerable to me, but still Alphas in their own right. The difference between us comes down to one word. The. The Alpha.” He met her gaze and flashed her a quick, sharp smile. “I suppose you could say I’m the CEO of my species.”
Aziza bit her tongue as hard as she could and nodded politely. He gestured to the chair in front of the desk. “Sit. I insist.”
When she obeyed, he moved to sit on the edge of his desk, closer to her than she would have liked. “My job as CEO is complicated, but I enjoy it. I’m a details man. I care about all of my people, and most of my time is spent helping them to better themselves. To succeed. Our main source of income and our crown jewel is real estate, of course, but there are many enterprising werewolves who have to come through me if they want to start another type of business after their obligations as Enforcers have been fulfilled.”
“You aren’t all Enforcers?”
His chuckle was condescending. “How one-dimensional we must seem to you, Ms. Stewart, that you believe that. Particularly after all the time you’ve spent with Hillary and my son. Surely one of them informed you that while Enforcer service is required of all werewolves for a period of time—our version of the Peace Corps or community service—it is not a lifetime commitment. If, after that period, they choose to retire as my brother Devil did and seek to start a family or a business, or be of some other service to our community, they are welcome to. They are only recalled in extreme cases. Luckily, we do have a significant number of young men and women who choose to continue in their enforcement careers once their tours are finished. Brandon, for example.”
Brandon chose to remain an Enforcer? “I had no idea.” She’d never asked.
“Your lack of curiosity saddens me. But we are more than hunters, Ms. Stewart. We are a thriving community unto ourselves, and we contribute to humanity in myriad ways, not only by capturing and killing the unnatural spawn who infest our world, but also by protecting the environment and preserving our natural resources.”
This wasn’t Brandon’s father. Devil’s brother. It couldn’t be. This was a practical joke. An infomercial on the wonders of being wolfy.
He glanced over her shoulder and continued speaking. “Just the other day, one of my—”
“Mr. Nash, I wanted to request your permission to…” Her voice faded when his gaze returned to hers, his stare turning cold and a growl rumbling in the narrow chest beneath his suit.
“I’ll forgive you the interruption once, Ms. Stewart. Do not test me with another.”
Before Aziza could decide whether to apologize or light him up like the Fourth of July, the Alpha took a breath and smiled a
gain. “Forgive me. I feel like a young man giving my first speech to the board of directors.”
Standing, he held out his arms as if to embrace the air around her. “I’m in the presence of the Vessel of Fire. A childhood story come to, if I may say so, vibrant, radiant life. The last thing you want to hear about is my full workload or my people’s trivial day-to-day lives. I’m sure if you had a choice you’d much rather be behind a desk than having to save the world—three worlds—from utter destruction. Not even I would take that kind of promotion,” he added with a laugh. Then he sobered. “In fact, though I understand the pressure of holding an entire species on my shoulders, I imagine if your choice were mine…I’d rather be dead and let the mantle pass to another than carry that kind of responsibility.”
There was something so wrong with the way he said that, she couldn’t stop herself. She let her power come to her, imagined the whisper of wind blowing through reeds and saw the feather in her mind as she sought confirmation of the truth.
Usurper. Power hungry. Liar. Do not trust this werewolf.
No surprise there. Aziza stood up, taking a small step back. “I don’t require your flattery, Mr. Nash, or your advice. I suppose it’s a good thing you aren’t the Fireborne, since the mantle might not shift in time to save your people as well as the human race you’ve vowed to protect from the Jiniyr.”
The Alpha curled his lip, almost unconsciously it seemed. “Ah yes, the Jiniyr. I’ve read the files. Is Razia his name of the one who killed your family? The Vessel’s nemesis? In some ways, he’s a rather anticlimactic villain, if you’ll pardon my opinion. A single Niyr who ran at the first sign of trouble. I would consider him and these Jiniyr of his more a natural evolution of the treaty than a true threat.”
“Excuse me?”
He smiled, shrugging. “I’m not saying they shouldn’t be wiped from this earth. My life’s mission would be fulfilled if I knew we’d never have to deal with the stink of Jinn or Niyr again. But looking at it from a business standpoint, it stands to reason that when a binding contract bans two parties from working against each other, an alliance would be almost inevitable for good or ill.”
Make Me Burn: Fireborne, Book 2 Page 15
