“Zam, we need to talk about the Emperor. I was . . . wrong . . . take his offer. Bring me back. Please. I’ll beg if I have to.” He crouched, and his body shimmered and moved as though he were made of mist and clouds.
I stared hard at him. “Bryce, I . . . I don’t know. He’s like Ish, only a thousand times worse.”
He grimaced, his white teeth not as clear as they’d been.
“I don’t know if I’ll be able to come to you again. Please, consider . . . I love Darcy, Zam, and I want a chance to be with her. Please. I wasn’t meant to die on the Dragon’s Ground, you know it too.” He reached for me, his hand cold as it passed through my arm. I rubbed the spot.
I wanted to say yes. I wanted to tell him I would do it. “I’ll find a way to bring you back, Bryce. If . . . he can bring you back, then so can others.”
He lowered his head and his shoulders shook. “He’s the Emperor, Zam. He has power that Ish and Merlin could never have. I’ve seen it. His power is unmatched in this world. And I don’t think he’s the evil we’ve been led to believe he is.” He lifted his head, sadness and fatigue curling through them. “But I understand, Zam. I do. I will always love you. Take care of those who are left. Take care of them better than I took care of you.”
I reached for him, guilt and shame heaped upon my shoulders. “Bryce . . . you always took care of me.” Which wasn’t entirely true, but when we were younger it was. He’d been my protector, my friend and teacher even.
“Go. Save them.” He put a hand to the ground and his body shifted from two legs to four until he was a full-sized male lion. He shook his mane and his whole body slowly dissolved along with his words. “You’ve got work to do, so do it. Get our family away from the Jinn. Be careful of Marsum. I think the Emperor was right about that, you aren’t strong enough. Not for Marsum. Do what you do best, slip in and steal them away.”
The sun rose, and its rays shot through where he’d stood only a moment before, the last of the mist that had created him evaporating with the day’s warmth. I reached out and put my hand where he’d been, and despite the sun’s heat, the air was cold as ice from a frozen river. I wasn’t sure it was the cold from his spirit or the cold from his words.
I wasn’t strong enough. Again. Would I ever see the end of those words? Would there ever be a time when someone believed I was strong enough? Hell. I’d be fine with them not believing, as long as they kept their fucking mouths shut.
I sat there with my hand waving through the air and stared at the place where he’d been only a moment before. Neither Lila or Maks spoke. I turned back to them. “Either of you see him? Or is this just me losing my mind?”
Lila spread her tiny wingspan and dropped to the ground beside me, her blue and silver scales catching the light like shimmering jewels. She squinted her big violet eyes at me. “See who, exactly? I mean, I heard you talking to someone, heard you promise to bring Bryce back. But . . .”
I grimaced and rubbed a hand over my face. That was what I thought—Bryce wasn’t visible to anyone else. And damn it if he hadn’t done exactly what I needed to get moving. My lips tightened. Between him and that fucking Emperor, whatever grief I had was put onto the back burner with ease.
If there was even a slight chance I could bring Bryce back, I was doing it.
I swiped my eyes with the heels of my hands, knocking the last of the salty liquid away, my resolve hardening.
“Yeah, Bryce paid me a visit,” I said. “And . . .” I pushed to my feet with a low, drawn-out groan. I let the words the Emperor visited me too die inside my mouth. I wasn’t sure I was ready to discuss that with anyone. Stupid maybe, but I couldn’t seem to make them flow from my mouth.
“And?” Lila prompted.
I shook my head. “Nothing.” I stretched again, groaning.
Sleeping on the cold ground was not my idea of a good time, even if there was a nice warm body behind me. Every joint and muscle in me ached even though it had been days since we’d done anything more strenuous than walk or ride at a slow pace.
Bryce had been the only one to die, but we’d all battled for our lives and it had taken its toll on us. Maks, as muscled as he was, stood up with difficulty, a twist of pain on his lips. “Damn, what I wouldn’t give for even a bit of moss.”
I smiled at him. “I’ll put it on the list for the next campsite.”
His blue eyes caught mine and he winked as he ran his hands through his hair, mussing it further. “You do that. Add on a pillow, chef, and hot bath and I might be your slave for life.”
Lila snorted. “Aren’t you already? Isn’t that what being in love does?”
“You would know,” I said. “Are you forgetting about Trick?”
Maks chuckled. “I bet she’d like you to forget how he made her blush in front of him.”
Lila huffed and flew straight into the air, but not before I saw the skin around her eyes flush a deeper blue.
“Lila,” I called after her. She tipped her wings so I could see her claw and flipped me off. I laughed. “Don’t be like that!”
She barrel rolled and flipped me off with the other claw. Maks moved up beside me. “You were talking in your sleep last night.”
“Did I say anything interesting?” I turned my chin up and narrowed my eyes. “Anything incriminating?”
He reached for me, and I let him tug me into his arms. Maks held me close and put his chin against the top of my head. “Something about Ish. And you called out for your father once.”
I took a step back, not sure if he was reprimanding me.
He pulled me back into his arms. “I’m not upset, Zam. I’m just . . . worried about you. We’re going into the Jinn’s Dominion and it’s going to get ugly before it gets better. For both of us.”
I laid my head on his chest, letting him be the one to hold me up for at least right then. “Uglier than losing Bryce?”
He didn’t answer, and that worried me.
“You two lovebirds,” a gravelly voice grumbled, “it’s too early to be awake. Lions are meant to sleep until noon.”
I looked around Maks to where my crazy uncle Shem yawned. Even though he was on two legs, he looked like nothing more than an old male lion waking up in the morning, showing off his teeth and shaking his mane out. Literally. Shem shook his head, his tangle of blond hair flicking about his face. I snorted and Maks stifled a laugh.
“Yeah, well maybe the males sleep until noon while the females do the hunting,” I said. “That shit is going to change with me in charge.”
Shem rolled his eyes. “Promises, promises. But I can’t hunt worth shit. My skills lie in other directions.”
Maks turned with me, his arm still around my back. Since we’d decided that whatever we had going on was worth fighting for, he’d been all about the public displays of affection.
I hated to say it out loud, but I didn’t mind. Especially with what Bryce had added to my plate. For a moment, I wanted—no, needed—to pretend there was nothing more than a rescue mission.
I looked back at the lion shifter who was both new to our pride and very old.
Crazy Uncle Shem . . . I’d named him my seer, but I wasn’t a hundred percent sure that had been wise. Let’s call it a heat of the moment thing when all the adrenaline was running high and I’d been running on empty and I’d just lost Bryce and Shem was the closest thing to blood family left in my life. I’d wanted nothing more than to keep him close.
He smacked his lips and scratched his rib cage. “Your brother won’t wander far. Not with all you’ve got going on.” He yawned again. “And for the record, I saw him, too, though likely not as clear as you did.”
Maks stretched an arm up over his head and rolled his head from side to side. “Gods, I’m sore.” He brushed a hand across my shoulders and then down my back. As if checking for wounds without looking like he was checking for wounds.
I arched an eyebrow at him. “You think I’m wounded?”
He swatted me on the ass. “Maybe
I’m just copping a feel.”
“Not subtle either way,” I said and shoved his arms away from me.
He might have been a Jinn—part Jinn, to be exact— but that didn’t bother me as it once had. He fit in my life, just like Lila did even though she was a dragon and I was a shifter. We were family and that was all to that conversation no matter what anyone else might’ve thought.
“I’ll always look out for you,” Maks said softly. I wasn’t sure he had even meant to say that by the look on his face. I gave him a return swat on the ass when he turned from me.
Shem shook his head. “Feeling better then? Bryce showing up did the trick?” I nodded, but before I could say anything, he steamrolled on. “You need to pin down the rest of them. You got your dad’s gift for finding your pride?”
I nodded again and opened my mouth. He made a waving motion at me. “Then get to it.”
He wasn’t wrong, but I didn’t like the feeling of him bossing me. Not so soon after my taking the alpha position. “Don’t push me, Shem. I’d as soon boot you out as put up with your chauvinistic shit. Got it?”
He held up both hands in surrender, though I wasn’t entirely sure he wasn’t mocking me. “Oh. Pardon me, mighty leader. Seeing as I am your seer, I thought you would be needing some direction from me. You go ahead. I’ll just make you breakfast.”
Yeah, definitely mocking. I stood tall and smiled at him. “I like my eggs scrambled. Don’t dry them out.”
His jaw dropped.
That’s right, old man. There was a new sheriff in town, and she was done taking shit from the men in her life.
I turned and headed toward the horses hobbled on the far side of camp.
As soon as I was close enough, Balder shoved his nose into my belly. “Yeah, yeah, breakfast is coming.”
I moved on autopilot as I fed the three horses and made sure they had enough water. From the corner of my eye, I watched as Maks and Shem pushed together the coals of the fire from the night before. Maks added fuel to it, and Shem got a pan and the few wild bird eggs we’d gathered. They worked with an ease that came from fighting side by side. That had produced an unexpected bond between the two men. They’d handle breakfast, and Shem would not dry my eggs out or I’d kick his ass just because. He glanced at me and I pointed at my eyes with two fingers, then back to him.
He barked a laugh. “Go, find your pride.”
Damn it, I had been planning on trying that anyway, and with the added strain of Bryce showing up, I needed a few minutes to think. But now me heading off to try to find my connection to the pride would look like it was his idea. Bryce’s appearance had made me think of it, and if I was going to save those left to my pack, I needed to make what few abilities I had work for me.
Even if Shem thought he was the one who’d suggested it.
“I’d already decided to do that.” I took a step back. “Don’t think this was your idea, old man.”
He gave me another mocking bow, his hands in a prayer position. I rolled my eyes and caught Maks looking at me.
Unspoken words rolled between us. Not mind reading in any way, just knowing each other. We’d been on the road together off and on for nearly three months and there had been times where words just didn’t work.
You okay?
I nodded. Good. I’m good. Well, that was a bit of a stretch. Between Bryce’s appearance and the Emperor’s, I was being pushed in a direction I wasn’t sure I wanted.
I’d already been going into the Jinn’s Dominion. So, what was the point of the Emperor’s midnight visit to me? Between that and the not-so-subtle guilt trip from Bryce, I struggled to make heads or tails of what the fuck was going on.
I rubbed my hands over my face. No matter how I looked at things, there were others that were still in trouble, others that needed me at my best.
And that meant I couldn’t be distracted by the Emperor, or even Bryce. My heart twanged uncomfortably inside my chest. Bryce was not in immediate danger. Dead was dead. The Emperor . . . well, he’d done nothing but offer me things I wasn’t willing to pay the price for.
As I started away from the campsite, Shem’s voice tugged at my ears. “She might be okay, but what about you, boy?”
Maks muttered something too low even for my ears, though I strained to hear. More than the words I couldn’t hear, his tone was off. Like he was brushing Shem’s worries aside even while there was legitimacy to them. I made a mental note to talk to him when I got back, to see if he was okay. He’d had to kill two of his own kind, Jinn that had been coming for us while we’d been dealing with the dragons. I’d not thought until now how that might have affected him. What if he’d known them? What if they’d been his friends?
“Well, shit, I’m a bad friend,” I said.
Lila dropped out of the sky and flew along beside me, bringing with her a rush of wind off her scaled wings.
“Why would you say that?” she asked.
“I’m not the only one who’s been hurting, who went through shit the last few days. I haven’t even asked Maks about the fight with the Jinn. What if he knew them? What if they were his companions at one point?”
She lowered herself to my right shoulder and settled onto what I now thought of as her spot. She wrapped a blue-and-silver-scaled tail around my neck to help herself balance and put one claw-tipped hand into my hair, kind of scratching against my scalp. “Well, I kind of doubt he had any friends within the Jinn. I mean, they tried to kill him at least once. For all we know, he could have been sent out of the Jinn’s Dominion for the simple fact that he was expendable.”
Lila had a point. But still . . . as soon as I’d seen Shem lean toward Maks while they worked to build a fire and breakfast, I knew in my gut something was wrong, and I didn’t know what to make of it. I’d been so wrapped up in my own pain, I’d barely taken in anyone else’s issues they might be dealing with.
For just a moment, I thought I heard my father’s voice whisper to me.
You’re the alpha now. You don’t get to wallow.
My dad, whether I was hearing him or not, was right.
“I think Maks is holding back something,” I said, acknowledging to myself that there was irony in what I’d just said considering all I was holding back. “Maybe he’s worried about going back into the desert?” I tried to think of the last few days, of Maks’s face as he spoke, of his actions, and through the fog of my own distractions, a slow pattern began to emerge. The way his eyes never stayed on mine, the way he looked to the south and then away, the way his body tensed when there was a sudden sound that didn’t come from someone in our camp.
He was . . . nervous.
“I should have noticed.” I shook my head.
Lila swayed side to side, throwing my balance off and making me stumble. “He’s off, yes, but you’re right. He could be worried about going south. I wasn’t happy about going into the Dragon’s Ground, you know. I knew that I could make you a target.”
She was right. There was that possibility, but I didn’t think it was all that bothered him. We were headed south into the Jinn’s Dominion. The place where he’d been born and raised and tried to escape, and was now going back. That was different than Lila who’d been cast out.
That fear had to weigh on him. Fuck, it weighed on me going back to the desert. We’d have to go past the Oasis where my father was killed, my pride slaughtered, and the remaining members scattered to the wind. Yet as bad as that was, I suspected that whatever Maks was experiencing might be worse in its own way.
“I feel like we’re on the edge of a sandstorm,” I said. “One we can’t see but that waits for us over the next dune.” I grimaced, hating how those words sounded. Melodramatic much? Normally that wasn’t me. But I couldn’t help the way my gut twisted up and around itself. Seeing Bryce had only tightened that sensation. He might be dead, but he still needed me.
Lila grunted. “Well, you are nothing but trouble. For all we know, we could take a few more steps and fall into a deep hol
e. Or maybe something will explode.”
“Ha!” I barked the word. “Please, I’m not that bad.”
She drew a breath and raised one wing tip up as she spoke. “This above all: to thine own self be true. And it must follow, as the night the day.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Polonius in Hamlet. But what has that got to do with me falling in a hole or blowing shit up, exactly?”
She grinned, flashing her sparkling white dagger teeth that could cut through me if she ever wanted to. “Trouble is attracted to you, whether you like it or not. Might as well own it. Use it for your benefit if you can.”
I laughed again. “I am not trouble. I’m a house cat.” I grinned and she snorted.
“Well, trouble likes you, which makes me think that perhaps cats are trouble in general. Maybe that should be your middle name instead of Reckless.” She bobbed her head. “Yes. Zamira ‘Trouble’ Wilson. That’s much better.”
I dropped to my knees and spun out from underneath her, laughing as she screeched, reaching for my hair. I bolted forward, forcing her to fly hard if she would catch me. I pumped my arms and legs and let myself stretch out. Not because I had a great deal of excess energy, but I had to remember what it was to live for the moment.
To play for the sake of play, to laugh for the sake of the way the sound lifted my spirits.
Losing Bryce . . . I’d lost something vital to who I was, and I could feel the truth of that inside me. And I feared that without that vital spark, I’d be in trouble. Worse trouble than I normally dealt with.
I glanced behind me.
No Lila, so I slowed.
The whoosh of wings was the only warning I had—she was in a dive bomb. I did a limbo backward, not quite touching my ass to the ground, as she swept through where I’d been only a moment before. The balance was tough considering my momentum had been forward only a split second before, but I could pull it off. All my muscles tightened as I found that sweet spot of balance and held it just long enough to watch her swoop by.
Lila reached for me with open talons but missed by inches.
Jinn's Dominion (Desert Cursed Series Book 3) Page 2
