Stone Chameleon (Ironhill Jinn #1)

by Jocelyn Adams

  A screech shattered the near silence. Olivia flew out of a doorway, smacking against the opposite wall and falling into a heap on the floor. Her bloodied face tilted up. Her eyes showed too much white when her gaze landed on me.

  Before I knew I’d done it, my energy sparked along the wall. I thrust my fist to my left. The rock next to Olivia mirrored my action, sending a narrow column of stone to knock against her skull. Her body slumped over and went still.

  Breath held in horror, I gaped at what I’d done. A small amount of relief came as her ribs expanded and contracted with her breaths. A girl looks at me, and I clobber her? I’d been in worse situations and kept a cool head.

  I wasn’t that frightened for Amun, was I? No matter, I couldn’t undo the action and would tend to her after I found Amun and put my blade through the water witch’s heart. If only that would have killed her. Too bad I didn’t know what I’d do when we finally came to blows.

  After switching to the opposite side of the corridor, I continued on to the door Olivia had been propelled through and stopped to listen.

  “And why would I do that, my handsome Amun?” Celeste asked in the same sultry purr I’d heard on my answering machine. “All the other pods are claimed already, and this one is mine. Even if she is ignorant of us, she’s coming of age now, and her instincts will kick in now that I’ve challenged her. I don’t feel like dueling every other week for what’s mine. It’s easier if she’s dead.”

  Teeth bared, I dared a peek around the door frame. Amun stared down his nose at the lilac-haired bitch. He wore a stern expression, one I’d only seen him point at Isaac. The bald guy lay in the corner without his shaved head. A thin swath of water ran across him, and a broken glass littered the blood-stained floor.

  “If you kill Baylou, you’ll break our most sacred law.” Amun stood there, nude and at ease. Didn’t it bother him to have his endowment on display?

  I wanted to hide him from her sight, and from mine, since it seemed I couldn’t help ogling his lovely landscape, either.

  She twittered a laugh that grated against my bones. “But my dear Amun, I haven’t laid a finger on her, nor will I. And besides, we’re liquid and solid, impervious to one another on the battlefield. How else do you propose I eliminate her?”

  “That’s why you need Isaac, because you’re afraid you’re not crafty enough to kill her yourself. If you cause her death, you’ll condemn yourself to the same fate by the highest-ranking male, that being me. There are so few of us left, don’t make me do it.”

  Lashes falling low, she slid her finger along his shoulder, drawing a sigh from him. “That’s why I intend to mark you my Taru first, and once I finish my claim on you, you’ll be powerless to do anything but bend to my will.” As she circled around him like a stalking cat in heat, she drew her lips back to reveal needle-like teeth.

  “No.” His body shook. “I won’t be yours. She’s already shown—”

  “I see no marks.” She traced his throat while I strained to keep my place and not bash her face in. “She’s too late.”

  Foreign words spilled from her lips. Although I didn’t understand the individual words, the jinn part of me recognized the magic in them. “You cannot refuse me.”

  His eyes took on a dreamy state. Staring at her with intensity no less than worship, he knelt before her, waiting. When she opened her mouth to bite him, instinct launched me forward.

  My fist connected with her cheek with a satisfying crack. “He is mine!” I bellowed, slicing my lip on the extra daggers in my mouth.

  A squeal of rage rushed from her as she righted herself, those green eyes flaring. Throwing Amun to the side with strength I didn’t know I possessed, I crouched in front of him, teeth bared. A growl burned in my chest, a primal, terrible sound.

  “Can’t…fight her. Help me.” A glance over my shoulder revealed Amun’s eyes shouting terror better than if he’d screamed.

  “Get out of here,” I snarled. “Before I’m done, her blood will paint the walls.” Marble tile lay beneath me. Yes, that would do nicely.

  I kicked off my shoes and peeled away my socks to place bare skin against the cold surface. As my power awakened the marble, the singing and vibrations flavored my own cells. “Come on, then, if you dare.” I waggled my finger to beg her forward.

  My feet changed first, hardening, growing larger at my will. It happened much slower than with my ebony, because I’d never assimilated marble before. As the rest of my body morphed, my clothes shredded and broke around me, though I gave no thought to my nudity, as my stone forms were androgynous. I grew taller by two feet and wider by a proportional amount, leaving me a giant mass of white and black stone that moved as freely as flesh and bone.

  Celeste’s glossed lips parted, a tiny flash of fear passing across her eyes before they returned to cold portholes of her tarnished soul.

  “You caught me off guard last time, water witch.” My tone came out deeper than normal due to my larger stature. “It won’t happen again.”

  Her gaze darted to her left where a glass of water stood on a wooden desk in the corner. As she dove for it, I tapped into the earthen materials that made up the gyprock in the walls. I swirled my arms about my head. Tiny shards sprang from the walls. I slammed my hand down to the floor hard enough a crater opened in the marble, the force of my energy propelling the projectiles toward her.

  Her speed allowed her to escape all but a few that skewered her calves. She squealed and rolled, crashing into the desk. The impact knocked the glass of water down on top of her.

  Mercy mother of hellfire.

  Pointing to the door, I nudged Amun with my foot, who seemed locked in place. “I told you to get out.”

  He hesitated, straining as if whatever spell she’d cast drew him to her like a bee to nectar. Desperate, I shoved him through the door. His legs gave out, so he lay in the hallway, watching with part awe, part pride, and part hope.

  Fingers curled toward the ceiling, I chanted to the marble beneath her. When it shivered its willingness, I thrust both fists to the ceiling. The floor exploded upward, smashing her into the drop tiles above. Instead of thudding back to the floor, unconscious, as I’d hoped, water squirted out from the point of impact. It formed into a column and came at me like a fist, but barely registered a sting on my face as it broke around me.

  Guttural sounds of fury poured from Celeste as she reformed at my rear in the shape of a woman, her eyes floating where they’d have been in her flesh form. Disturbing, to say the least.

  Offering a warrior’s laugh, I turned for her next assault, which yielded no more damage. If she’d had a few thousand years to wear away at me it might have worked, but as it was, with a low ceiling and not enough water to drown me, she couldn’t cause me any bodily harm.

  I plowed my boulder-sized fist at her, but it went straight through her to the wall. Oh, splendid. I’d forgotten about that aspect of her. As enemies in our jinn forms, we were at an impasse, as she’d said. Isaac could get the job done handily, without a drop of my blood marring her perfect, dainty hands.

  She seemed to accept our stalemate at the same moment, because she dove for an air vent in the floor and vanished. I roared in frustration, threw myself down, and ripped at the vent, the rational part of me shouting that it was too late. She’d be out of the building and gone before I found her. I pounded fists on the marble until the last unbroken bit shattered.

  Huffing, I hung my head and slowed my breathing while the adrenaline abated. Amun approached as I imagined my body flesh and bone. I suffered the sting of it in silence. He draped the shreds of my shirt around my nakedness.

  “I didn’t think she’d even know about the old ways, let alone exercise her rights under jinn law and bespell me.” He sighed and helped me to my feet. “Females fighting to own pods hasn’t been a custom since the last time our numbers dwindled enough territory wars broke out, more than a few centuries ago. I remember my father talking about it.”

  Still lost
in a haze of battle lust and a possessive need to lock Amun away for my own, I pulled him close by his wrist. “You are mine, Amun.”

  “Yes.” His smile sent a flutter across my belly. “Oh, yes. Make me yours, Baylou, and nullify her claim.” He knelt before me as he’d done with Celeste, though his devotion shone true, unclouded by magic. His arms trembled with anticipation.

  I crouched before him, taking in his bare beauty, his strength apparent in the bulk of his arms and chest, the definition of muscles rolling beneath his skin. His manhood lay thick against his thigh.

  My palm rested against his throat. “Maka, alu Taru,” I said in the same language Celeste had used. Crackling energy surged through my palm, not bespelling, but opening, accepting, cherishing.

  “Romka, ilora Taru,” he answered, tilting his head to the side.

  My breasts pressed into his chest, sparking an electric sensation that opened all my pleasure centers at once. I kissed his exposed throat below the ear, tasting saltiness, inhaling his sandalwood scent. A need so great it overrode all reason drove my teeth into his flesh where his throat met his shoulder. Driven by blind, primal instinct, I bit down hard, his cry and flinch sending my arms around his shoulders to keep him still as I made my mark.

  The sweetness of his blood coated my tongue. I moaned, clamping him tighter to me, learning every curve of his body and how it molded against mine. I released him and inspected the oblong ring of needle marks on his shoulder, smiling at my work as I lapped at his wound with gentle strokes.

  Buzzing with the high of what I’d done, I moved back and kissed him gently on the lips. “Mine.”

  He gave a slow nod, his mouth locked in a lazy smile, his jagged teeth showing. “Yes. I’m yours, gladly.”

  I stood, stroking my fingers through his soft curls as he gazed up at me with those starry night eyes. When he tickled his fingers over my waist, I didn’t protest. My body seemed to know what he would do and accepted it, ached for it.

  His kisses feathered along my stomach. I drew in a shuddering breath and let my head fall back as his bite found my side. Sweet, sweet agony laced with pleasure burned through my veins, blasting a cry from my lips.

  Heat filled my belly. Delicious tingles spread out from my core, leaving no part of me untouched by their glorious fingers. Amun, making small, happy sounds, lavished my wound with the same affection I’d given his. Blood trickled down my hip and his shoulder, evidence of our union. His licking ceased, and I moaned my complaint.

  Those dark eyes rolled up to stare at me. I found hunger in them, promises.

  I’ll worship at your temple, they said. I’ll sate thirsts you didn’t know you had. Say yes, and I’ll show you the meaning of passion.

  I lifted a foot and set it down farther away, spreading my legs in invitation. The nub of nerves below throbbed like a tiny heart. I wanted everything his stare promised. Needed it. Might wither and die if he didn’t give it to me soon enough.

  A flicker of heated joy lit up his face. His fingertips fanned out, reached around, and enveloped my rear as he shifted nearer.

  A small sound drew my gaze to the door. I turned, unable to close my mouth as my teeth hadn’t yet retracted. Harper stood there, one hand over her mouth—one still holding her Sig—staring at me.

  I was suddenly aware of my nudity, horrified by the sight my best friend was gaping at. Dammit. “Harper.” The word came out distorted around my mouthful of teeth. I backed away from Amun, covering my breasts with my arms, but she fled without so much as a curse.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “It could have gone worse.” Amun lounged on the sofa with an arm thrown over his eyes.

  I stopped my rapid stride across his living room, the hundredth I’d made since our arrival home. “How on this green earth could this night have possibly gone worse?” Fog inhabited my head, obscuring most of the details of the previous two hours. Neither of us had said a word since Elias and Connor had dropped us off at my car in front of the pet shop.

  Benny squeaked at me from beneath Amun’s sofa. I took it as his agreement with me. Either that, or he was still put out with me for taking him to a strange place.

  Amun sat up, running fingers through his curls. “You could be dead. Connor, Elias, or Harper could be dead. At least we know who Celeste is now, and what she wants.”

  “Not that she’ll return to the aquarium.” Groaning, I slumped down on the arm of the nearest chair. “Celeste knows we’re onto her now, and we have only two days left. How do we catch water with our bare hands, Amun?”

  “I wish I knew.”

  “I don’t understand what she said about not being able to kill me herself. She could have drowned me at the pool.”

  His look suggested I’d overlooked something obvious yet again. “Your instincts and primal fear would have kicked in, no matter how hard you might have tried to control them. She knows that.”

  Anger. Imminent death. Yes, I supposed they would have. “My power would have split the earth in two to protect me and taken the entire building in the process. I take it she couldn’t hold the water around me with her talent?”

  “Not for long enough to drown you. Water depends on a foundation to support it, so although the water jinn are powerful in some ways, they aren’t in that way.”

  I contemplated that in silence for a while, a little more confident with my newfound knowledge.

  Thoughts of my best friend’s expression before she’d left crawled to the forefront. “All these years I’ve been insisting to Harper that I’m human, and now she knows I’ve lied to her. Does anyone outside the jinn know about these strange teeth that pop up whenever I’m…when I’m around you? Does she know what I am?”

  Harper had left the aquarium on her own and didn’t answer at home. I still had her cell phone.

  Amun offered a sympathetic smile, and I blushed as I had every time our eyes met since we arrived at his place. I still felt naked, my nipples pebbling at the memory of his chest flexing against them.

  “Few others know we have them. It’s usually reserved for…” He took great interest in his intertwined fingers.

  “For what? And what did we do back there? Some instinct took over me, driving me around like a bloody robot. I can’t remember all of what happened after I changed myself into a marble giant. What did I say to you? And how can I speak a language I don’t know? It’s different than the one I use to speak to the earth. It’s older, isn’t it? As ancient as the earth itself.”

  At his continued silence, I moved to kneel on the sofa beside him, resisting the urge to shake the details out of him. “In the van on the way from the aquarium to my car, why was Connor looking at me as if I’d done something remarkable? And why did you shush him when I asked why?”

  Scowling, Amun jumped up and strode toward his bedroom, shedding his shirt I’d worn out of the aquarium because my clothes had been destroyed. “We should get to bed if we’re going to be any use at all tomorrow.”

  “Don’t you dare walk away from me!” I followed him and tugged him around by the arm. “Tell me this instant what we did. I bit you, for heaven’s sake. Normal people don’t go around biting one another. And the words had ceremony written all over them.”

  “You won’t like it.” His fist tightened around his balled-up shirt.

  “It’s done, anyway. Tell me.”

  Gaze downcast, he leaned against the wall. “Our marking teeth emerge when two jinn spirits are attracted to one another, and sometimes when we’re afraid, or enraged, or…aroused.”

  I mirrored his pose on the opposite wall. “That’s what you meant the first time you kissed me. You wanted to know if the attraction went both ways, and the appearance of my fangs, or whatever they’re called, let you know that?”

  He nodded. “Exactly right. It’s happened to me a few times when I thought I’d found a match, only to discover the affection was one sided.” He held up his hand at my raised brow. “You don’t have to kiss to know if jinn spirits ap
prove of one another, so please don’t look at me that way. My ten-year-old self did not go around kissing women. Simply being near someone you find worthy can bring out the teeth. Kissing ensures a quick response.”

  “Okay, so we’re attracted to one another. What about the marks?” I rubbed my side, surprised to find it tender but not painful. Touching it sent a pleasant humming sensation along my flesh.

  “When a jinn female chooses a lover she deems worthy and her jinn spirit approves of, she marks him, as you did. It lets other females know a claim is pending.” He stroked fingers over the oval bite on his shoulder as if he found his pleasing, too.

  The lazy smile and sense of peace that fell over him stirred deep joy in my soul and warmth between my thighs. “If the female chooses to bespell him, he has no choice but to bow to her wishes, even if he finds her physically repulsive.” His grimace induced my own.

  I bristled at the memory of Celeste touching him. “Are you saying you’d have no choice but to climb into that witch’s bed if she beckoned? If I hadn’t intervened?”

  “Once she spoke the incantation, I saw and heard nothing but her. She was the sun and the moon, life and death, beginning and ending. I’d have bowed to her will in all things, yes, and I would have enjoyed it.” The foul turn of his lips suggested he didn’t want to be hers. I liked that more than I should have. “But I would have ceased to be who I am.”

  “What kind of Neanderthal organization is this? She bites you and says a few words, and then forces you to sleep with her, and suddenly she can drag you around her cave by the hair and you have no power to stop it? You’d love it? Love her?”

  A scoffing noise spilled from his lips. “Close enough, yes. As I said, they’re old ways, not used in modern times.”

  “That’s the most barbaric thing I’ve ever heard. Why would she want someone with no free will?”

  “She cares nothing for me, Baylou, like her mother before her. She wants my compliance and my seed, and nothing more.”

  I eyed him with suspicion. “Tell me you didn’t bespell me.” Searching my thoughts, I seemed to be myself, though what I’d almost done with a man I hardly knew filled me with dread.