“West said you had to tell me something.”
He nodded. “I was also up in my room, before and after Blade left, screaming at the walls for someone to hear me. To tell Shev I needed to talk to her.”
She reached for his hands. “What is it, Ram? What’s happened?”
His expression scared her. “That is what I need to know. I looked through the bag Shev gave to you and found two things that shook me to the core. A note from my sister warning me about traitors and begging me to stay close to the Fireborne. She wrote it in the code we’d come up with when she was young. The one she used to send me letters when I first moved to the warriors’ barracks. I also found another book. A forbidden book. There is no way Shev would have touched it, could have touched it, let alone given it to me.”
Aziza’s head was spinning. “What are you talking about?”
“This particular book is the only one of its kind. It was locked away in a vault over a thousand years ago. I didn’t mention it before because I’d forgotten about it. It was never to see sunlight again, since it contained the most thorough unburied account of the last blood ritual, a story handed down from father to son and printed before anyone knew what it truly contained.”
“And that was in your bag?”
When he nodded she swore under her breath. “The Jiniyr have been so determined to set you up as being connected to them, to the first three ritualistic murders, that it makes me think that Shev and I must have been wrong. It can’t just be about hurting me or separating me from Brandon. There has to be more. Everything pointed to you. Underbridge, a particular type of girl—with no family to speak of. A particular type of play—knives. And now this book about blood rituals that no one should have, all wrapped up in a bow in your bag. Why can’t they see that it’s too perfect to be anything but a setup?”
Ram shook his head. “Whoever put it in there without Shev noticing had to have been someone who didn’t draw suspicion. Someone who knows her. Someone with friends in the highest halls of Qaf. She couldn’t have known—but she must have suspected something was wrong. I believe she must have instructed Hania to write that note. To warn me of her suspicions.” He swore. “If that book were discovered to be in my possession, the Jinn might kill me themselves, and anyone who’d learned of it, whether or not the wolves had gotten ahold of me. But what reason other than you would they have to put me in the Enforcers’ path? I am just a soldier. An exiled soldier.”
“You’re my Qarin. That was reason enough to kill the others.” She blew out a frustrated breath. “But what happened tonight—it doesn’t fit. Brandon said Blade had her throat cut and she was left in an alley. Nothing like the other killings at all, except it still pointed to you.”
“I turned her down,” Ram reminded her. “Maybe if I hadn’t they would have followed their pattern. I made a different choice and they had to change their plans.”
He took his hands from hers and clenched them into fists. “I don’t know, Aziza. We’re missing something. But until we figure out what it is, we must protect the book with our lives. Or destroy it. From what little I read, it is the closest the Jiniyr will get to the perfect recipe for any blood ritual, including soul casting.”
Something horrible occurred to her and she pressed a hand to her chest at the pain it caused. At the panic that seized her. “What if Shev is in danger? Whoever gave her that book might know she was growing suspicious. Might want to tie up loose ends before we can tell her. What if she’s already dead?”
Getting off the couch, Ram knelt down in front of Aziza and tried to reach for her, but she shook her head, pushing him away. “No. I should know what to do. I’m Fireborne. I’m supposed to be justice. People are not supposed to die around me. How do I fix this? Go out into the street and scream her name? Try to force open a door again? I can’t lose anybody else, Ram. Not you. Not Brandon. Not even Te. I can’t do it.”
“Breathe, Aziza. Listen to me. I understand. You know I understand. I never believed I could live without my connection to Shev. My center. The place in my heart where accord is found.” Ram’s gentle, familiar words sent tears streaming down her cheeks. “She was more than family to me. She was a piece of my heart. And when I dove into the water, I knew the instant she’d made her decision to sever our bond. I could feel it as if I’d been gutted. I kept breathing, my limbs kept pushing me forward, but it was like dying.”
He caressed her hair, pushing it out of her face, behind her ears. “For a while I hated you. Hated poor innocent Penn. Hated Shev. I didn’t know what I was. Who I was. I had no direction, or hope that any was coming.”
He laughed. “That’s a lie. I had hope. In you. You never stopped. You didn’t nag or lecture. You didn’t judge, and you certainly didn’t lie and declare your undying love for me to fool me out of the darkness. You took me to your damn circus school instead. You showed up to watch me take out my sexual frustrations on other women. You were just there.”
Ram kissed her forehead so lightly she almost missed the caress. “Then one day I woke up and realized that the pain wasn’t quite as deep. I didn’t hate everyone. Shev is still there, you see. Even though the bond is broken…I’d had it. I’d learned to be a better Jinn from watching her. To look for truth when the lie is easier to believe. To be strong. I’d like to think that I taught her how to be more irreverent. How to laugh, something she never did as a child before our spirits merged. I know, in my heart where our link used to be, that she is still alive.”
Aziza sniffed and bent down to kiss his forehead in return. “I think you’re special all on your own. But don’t let that go to your head.”
Ram closed his eyes as if reveling in the innocent kiss. “If you hadn’t distracted me, I would have come up with a moral to my story that would have tied things up perfectly. Never interrupt a story. We’ll let that be the moral.”
Aziza couldn’t believe she was smiling, no matter that her lips were still trembling. “I think the moral is obvious—love never goes away. As long as we remember it, it exists.”
Now she was quoting Te.
Love never went away, but people did. She didn’t want memories or mental recordings. She had too many of those already. Too much lost love. She wanted the real thing. “The story doesn’t tell us what to do. Doesn’t tell us how to get that book we’re supposed to protect with our lives either. Or the one that tells me what I’m supposed to be doing right now.” She’d left the journal Dern had given her at Penn’s.
“Did somebody order a bag of books?”
“Greg.” Aziza spun around and then ran to him. He dropped the bag and opened his arms, lifting her up in his strong, comforting embrace. Home. His arms always felt like home and family. She needed that now, and he didn’t hesitate to oblige. He never did.
“I’m here, babe. It’s okay. It’s going to be okay,” he murmured, as if soothing a child. Aziza buried her face in his neck and he rocked back and forth on his heels, holding her close. “I called, and Hillary is at the flat to protect Penn. Devil should be there by now too, since he came in for the party I’m now even more excited about going to. And did you know there are tunnels that lead all over town?”
A dainty, feminine hand rubbed small, gentle circles on her back. Chiye. “At least, one that goes back to our place in Soho. We picked up a few things, including Ram’s bag. West said he would need it.”
“I also brought Adam’s pictures. I was showing them to Chi, but we can talk about that later.”
When Ram moved out of the way, Greg carried her into a small living room and sat down with her in his lap. Then Chiye covered her with an afghan, her expression tender.
Greg lifted one hand from her to grip Chiye’s gently. “Thank you, Chi.”
In reaction, Chiye blushed and ducked her head. “You’re welcome.”
Greg noticed Aziza watching and grinned ruefully before pulling her closer, shifting until she was settled more fully on his lap. “Get comfortable. Now it’s time for Saint
King Greg to get caught up. West sees the future? Something about sand? Did you ask him where Joseph is? If he knows more about the treaty or the Jiniyr? If he knows what will happen if you find Adam’s vial and take it?”
“All good questions,” West said as he joined them, his shirt still off, revealing his scars to Greg’s fascinated gaze. “Most of which she already knows the answers to, after someone guided her to the right source. She would have told you all of this by now, but you’ve been understandably distracted.” He set a platter full of tumblers and a plate of sliced cheese and grapes on the coffee table. “We should have another drink and take it slow. Chiye needs to be caught up so she doesn’t feel left out.”
“Let’s have it then.” Chiye smiled, kneeling on the floor at Greg’s feet with her hand on Aziza’s knee. “You know I love your stories.”
Her eyes were red. More tears. Hearing about Blade had affected her far more than realizing she’d moved from one location to another in what must have seemed to her like less than the blink of an eye.
Aziza hesitated. Should Chiye be hearing this if she was only human? Would it scare her the way it had Tabitha? “Chiye, I’m not sure you want to know—”
“Stand up, Aziza.” West spoke quietly, but confidently. “Stand up right there in front of the fireplace and show her who you are. You have enough control. Show her. Trust me, she won’t disappoint you.”
Aziza climbed out of Greg’s lap reluctantly and stood, watching the woman she was becoming friends with. Watching all of them.
“Show her, Aziza,” Ram murmured.
“Don’t be afraid,” she muttered, looking down at her hands.
Burn.
Chiye squeaked and dropped her glass on the carpet. “Huck up. But that’s brilliant, is what that is. Beautiful.”
Aziza smiled slightly at her excitement, looking down at her hands, which were now covered in blue-white flame. “It’s something.”
“You’re reacting better than I did.” Greg laughed. “Of course, we had no idea what she was at the time.”
Aziza turned and sent a small burst of power into the fireplace, instantly sparking the logs that were piled neatly inside, before focusing on turning down her flame.
Hot air balloons. Flying. Chiye on the aerial hoop.
When did this woman she hardly knew become her happy thought?
“It looks cool, but Aziza Jane has suffered because of this,” West told Chiye. “The people who killed her family, her parents and her brothers, and the people who killed Stacy and the others… They want to use her, and their desire could kill millions of people. Destroy worlds. That’s why we have to protect her. Keep her secret.”
“I understand.” Chiye frowned in irritation. “Well, I don’t completely understand, but I’m not an idiot, West. And I’ve kept your secret well enough.”
She looked over at Aziza again and smiled. “Sisters, then?”
Aziza breathed a sigh of relief. “Sisters.”
“I know you can keep a secret,” he responded. “And now Aziza does too.” He raised his voice. “Can Ram?”
Ram was sitting on the floor opposite the couch, watching Aziza. He glanced over at West and smiled. “I can. There are few things the Jinn and Niyr agree on. Fear of the keeper line is one of them. It’s something they can’t observe. Can’t control. The Mayet’s secret. You are an unknown element in our eternal chess match.”
West’s grin was infectious. “And doesn’t that just make you like me more?”
Ram snorted. “I have to admit it does. Is my word good for you?”
West sobered. “You wouldn’t be here if I didn’t know you could be trusted. Exile or Jinn warrior, I trust you with my life.”
“How can I disagree with a keeper’s vision?”
“You can’t.” West leaned back in his chair. “The Zhaman, who sees more of the future than I could ever hope to, knew these events would unfold,” he began, his southern drawl hypnotic. “Time is the river she navigates, and in that river all points converged on the one destined to embrace everything the Mayet had to offer. One woman who would face Death in his own house, whose existence would bring us full circle after thousands of years. Those are her words, not mine. I had to memorize them as a child.”
“Dern says it’s not about destiny,” Aziza said quietly. “It’s about choice.”
“Who is Dern?” Greg’s words sounded slightly slurred. Strange. “And if she always knew it would be Aziza, why did she send the sand to her brothers?”
“To allow the chain of events to unfold as they had to,” West answered, his voice warmth and whiskey. Peaceful. “Some destined events cannot be changed by choice, no matter how difficult they are to face. There was no future where Emma Stewart and Zayid Ammu could remain together to love each other and raise their children in peace. No future where Tarik and Adam survived. No choice but to give Aziza the chance to fulfill her destiny. The sand was sent for her to find. It was a convenient excuse for those waiting in the shadows to act.”
Aziza’s legs gave out and she dropped to her knees, the fire warm against her back. No future where they survived. “The Mayet said Joseph is being hidden to protect me.”
West’s voice lowered in sympathy. “Aziza Jane, hidden sounds like alive to me. You knew it weeks ago and now you are sure. Take comfort in that, if nothing else. Would you really want him to be found when so many eyes are focused on you? He has no way to protect himself. They will use him against you.”
Looking for him is selfish.
She didn’t need to use her abilities to understand what he was saying. Her head began to throb and the room was starting to sway slightly as she caught a scent in the fire. “What is that smell?”
“Incense.” West sounded farther away. “It’s a family recipe. I should warn you, it has a potent effect.”
“Dern mentioned incense and the keepers…but I don’t have the incantation. I left it at Penn’s with the other books.” Aziza waited passively as he knelt down beside her and guided her body until she was facing him in front of the fire. Then she studied his chest again. The marks. “Did you drug us, West?”
“I knew you would ask me that. Maybe, but I’m still not a vampire, no matter what Tabitha thinks.” He reached for her hand and placed it on his scars, hissing through his teeth. “I saw this. Your Niyr Qarin pointing you in the right direction, the direction we wanted her to. But as much as you love to read, Dern relies too much on his old notes and journals. You don’t need an incantation, you need to get out of your own way. Your scene with Ram helped bring her to the surface, but the fear and doubt, the guilt you continuously cling to, these are all useless emotions that create obstacles to your finding what you most need to know. This is how you get there. I can take you.”
The keeper’s child can guide you.
She was hot. Roasting.
“That’s it, Aziza Jane. Let it go.”
“So you aren’t coming on to me?”
“Definitely not. You are irresistible, it’s true,” he mused. “You shine. It’s no surprise they all want you.”
“You’re beautiful too.” Aziza frowned. “Stop flirting.”
West bit his lower lip. “That’s not what tonight is about, but you make it hard to remember.” He glanced over to the others, whom she’d forgotten about. “At least, that’s not what tonight is about for us.”
What did he mean? Aziza followed the direction of his gaze and gasped. Greg and Chiye had pushed the coffee table out of the way and were stripping off each other’s clothes. Right in front of them? Right now? “What are they doing?”
“I want you, Aziza.” Ram was sitting in the chair West had vacated, his sweatpants pushed down and his hand around his deliciously hard erection as he watched her with dilated emerald eyes. “Every time I close my eyes I see you. I feel you around me, crying out as I fucked you in the garden. I see you screaming my name as I whip you with a dragon tail, and us together on my bed the way we were that night. Just wat
ching each other come. I want you any way I can get you. Whatever makes you burn.”
“Oh my God.”
West caressed her hand where it rested on his chest. “There was no other choice. The incense in the fire contains the essence of Mayet. It is meant only for those who are joined with the sand. Keepers and Fireborne. I have found it simply erases others’ inhibitions completely. Shows us the desires that lurk beneath the surface.”
He’d found? “Have you done this before?”
“Do I look like a saint to you?” He nodded at Chiye. “Look at how happy our girl is. I hope they stay together. Love and friendship could save her.”
Our girl. She had to protect her.
Aziza looked back at the couple and her eyes widened. Chiye was naked, stunning on her hands and knees, her head thrown back, facing Aziza as Greg knelt beside her and spanked her with a firm, cupped hand.
“Yes,” Chiye cried. “Yes, please.”
Greg hummed his appreciation. “I would love to see you tied up on this floor, showing everyone how beautifully you beg for more.”
She knew she wasn’t meant to see this, but she couldn’t look away. She’d never imagined Greg as a top. She watched him command Chiye to spread her legs and he began to spank her sex, feeling an answering heat between her thighs when the woman begged and pleaded with him for more and moaned when his erection pressed insistently against her side.
“Is that what you want?” Greg demanded. “Do you need it again so soon, baby?”
“Yes,” Chiye whimpered. “Yes, please. I need it again.”
Again?
Swearing, Greg spanked her again and then grabbed her hips and slid her around roughly. “Good answer. Because I fucking need it too.”
His cock, flushed with blood and need, disappeared inside Chiye’s sex with a powerful thrust. “Yes,” he shouted. “God, you are perfect for me.”
Aziza couldn’t believe what she was thinking. “Greg is sexy.”
West chuckled. “Hush now, you already have more men than you can handle. Share the wealth. Look at them. All those two can think about right now, in the midst of all this danger, is what they’ve found with each other. But Greg will be there when you need him. And you will need him. You’ll need us all by the end.”
Make Me Burn: Fireborne, Book 2 Page 22
