“The giants’ hatred of thieves is nearly as strong as a dragon’s,” Shem said softly. “If she is feeling that, then the satyr is right, you should not go near her again.”
I shrugged as if it didn’t bother me, but . . . “We’d already decided to go to the west of the sea. This only reinforces that idea. Away from Ish. That’s what we need.”
Marcel grimaced. I frowned as I took my water flask back from him. “What else?”
“Merlin, he went to the desert. He said that the Jinn took someone, a woman named Flora. I never met her, but I think she’s important to him.” He shrugged. “The things people do for love, am I right?”
I didn’t know what Merlin was up to, but I doubted it was as helpful as he would try to make it seem. Drowning me in a freezing stream in order to help me came to mind as his idea of helpful.
“Marcel, we are headed to the desert. I’m thinking . . .” I said, but he was already shaking his head.
“Yeah, that’s a no from me.” He rubbed his face. “I’m headed to cross the wall. I’ve seen a few satyrs headed that way. Long as I can avoid Stella, I’ll be good.” He grimaced.
Shem leaned forward in his saddle. “Wait, cross the wall?”
Marcel grinned up at him. “I know, right? Think of all the human women who need flouncing on the other side!” He ran his hands down his lightly furred chest and tweaked his own nipple.
“The wall . . . what do you mean you’re going to cross it?” I asked. “We saw it, and while it’s far from too tall to climb, it’s got magic all wrapped up in it that electrifies you.” Or something like that anyway. I wasn’t dumb enough to try it to know for sure.
Marcel tipped his head. “I only know that there are places you can cross now. The wall is crumbling, along with the magic, and . . . well, there is a story already spinning around it. About a young female lion who is bringing down the wall. With a dragon at her side.” His eyes flicked between me and Lila. “I mean, maybe they got the sizing wrong, but I . . .” He shook his head again, his nubby horns catching my eye. He reached up and took my hand, and brought it to his lips, drawing my eyes back to his face. He kissed it gently and then let it go. “Thank you, Wall Breaker. You are saving us all, you know that, right?”
My heart did a funny thump and my throat tightened. I managed a quiet “You’re welcome.” Maks and Lila wished him well and I was sad he was leaving us so quickly. Pain in the ass he might be, but it looked like he had completed his part in my story.
He trotted away, his tail flashing side to side as he hopped along, kicking his heels up here and there. Maks urged Batman closer to us. “What do you think? Is the wall down?”
“I have no idea. But if it is in places, it has to do with the jewels,” I said.
We didn’t watch Marcel for long before the three of us turned our horses to the southeast without another word between us. We needed to drop far enough to the south that the Stockyards was well out of range. And we needed a horse trader.
Riding for less than an hour, we came upon a small group traveling to the west. A few satyrs, a couple shifters, and behind them a wagon with several horses tied to it. I flagged them down and made a deal in no time. Ali would be traded for one of the finer boned riding horses along with other supplies that would see us through the next leg of our journey. I traded out my heavier winter coat as well.
Call it a hunch, but I did not see myself coming back to the cold ever again. Maks saw what I was doing and followed my lead, haggling for a better price on his coat. Of course, those headed to try and get past the Dragon’s Ground would need heavier coats. Winter still held a grip on the land there.
The new horse for Shem was taller than both Batman and Balder by a few inches and his coat was a deep red auburn that made me do a double check under his belly. “What are you looking for?” Shem asked.
“Making sure it isn’t a mare. You do not want to be riding a red-headed mare around,” I said.
“Oh, I don’t know about that.” He winked and waggled his eyebrows, and I rolled my eyes.
The chestnut gelding was lovely, his dark brown eyes soft, and he seemed calm as could be. I checked him over quickly for any injuries before I put his saddle on. It fit well and in a matter of minutes we were off again.
“Why exactly did you need to switch out horses?” Shem asked as we rode away from the caravan.
I looked at Maks. “You want to tell him or should I?”
Maks laughed. “Have at it.”
Lila landed on Balder’s neck. “I’ll tell him. Here’s the deal.” She lifted her head and paused for dramatic effect. “We’ve had to run for our lives more times than we can count now. That big mare, sweet as she is, would be left in the dust, which means you’d be left in the dust. Consider it a compliment that Zam wants to keep you around.”
Shem looked from Lila to me as if confirming. “You mean you run away when a fight comes?”
My eyebrows shot up. “You want to go back and stand your ground with the dragons?”
He frowned. “You did stand your ground.”
I waved a hand at him, dismissing his words. “Never mind, bad example. We ran from the gorcs. We run from the Jinn.”
“Not this last time,” Shem pointed out again.
I gritted my teeth until the grinding sensation forced me to relax. “You are missing the point. More often than not, we have no choice but to bolt, okay?”
“I don’t think I am missing the point. I think you are. You are learning to stand your ground.”
Maks brought Batman between us. “The reality is that big mare would overheat in the desert. And when, not if, we need speed, she would have been a liability.”
Shem backed down and my hackles rose. I pressed my heel into Balder’s side, moving him sideways and forcing Maks and Batman to drop back. I kept him moving until my legs were pressed against Shem’s and then I kept pressing forward.
My uncle looked down at me and I reached up for his face. He was dumb enough not to realize what I was doing until it was too late.
I grabbed his ear and yanked his face toward mine, my words low and hot as they bubbled out of me. “Do not undermine me again. I am your alpha. I gave you reasons why we switched horses but you didn’t back down until Maks said something. You think because he’s got a pair of balls and I don’t that you don’t have to listen to me?”
I twisted his ear harder until I got his eyes to lock on mine. “You got that, or do I need to remove you from the pride already?”
His eyes widened. “You . . . would do that?”
“My father obviously thought you were too much trouble. If you gave him shit like this, I can see why he did it.” I let him go and he sat up straight in the saddle again. “I shouldn’t have to have one of my seconds back me up when what I’m saying is perfectly reasonable. Bad enough I’ll have to deal with Steve’s shit when we find them. I don’t need yours too.”
I moved Balder away from him and rolled my shoulders, loosening the tension that had settled there.
Lila hopped along Balder’s neck until she was on the pommel of the saddle. “Good catch.”
I nodded to her but said nothing because I didn’t need to rub it in. My father had always made one statement to the member of the pride he’d been correcting and nothing more.
Anything more and he removed them. There was not a three strikes rule, but two. Two strikes, and you were out.
The desert and the Jinn were too dangerous to allow for anything else.
I looked at Shem to see him . . . shaking? I frowned. “Are you fucking laughing at me, you dumb shit?”
“Yes.” He tipped back in his saddle, his mouth wide enough to catch a damn eagle. I frowned harder.
“You want me to kick your ass out now? Is that what you’re trying to—”
“No, no!” He raised both hands in mock surrender. “No, I wanted to make sure you would pick up on what I did. You are the first alpha female of a lion pride, Zamira. You are going to be
pushed more than anyone else, tested at every turn.” He looked at me, smiling and rubbing a hand over the ear I’d grabbed. “You caught it quickly and dealt with me. That’s good.”
I snorted and pointed a finger at him. “You almost got kicked out. Again. And I am not believing that you did that on purpose, not for one fucking second.”
He smiled. “You remind me of both your parents, you know.”
His words stole the wind from me as did the change of direction. “You knew my mom?”
“I did. She was a spitfire like no other. Which is, of course, what drew your father to her even though she wasn’t a lion shifter.” He settled into his saddle a little deeper. “She was young, barely twenty years old, when he met her, and though he was a fair bit older, she didn’t care. They were pulled to each other like magnets. And they did try to stay away from one another, they really did. They knew it would be hard on them to have a cross-species relationship,” he stared into the distance, “and they knew it would be hard on any children they had. There was no guarantee that a child would take after Dirk. A child could end up just like her. Small.”
I found my eyes sliding to my left, to Maks. He was staring back at me. I knew exactly what Shem was talking about. That magnetism between Maks and me was too much to deny even though we knew it could end up hurting us in the end. We’d pretty much given up fighting it. For good or ill, we were in this together for as long as we could be.
He winked at me and I winked back before I turned to see Shem watching us, a soft smile on his lips. “I see you do understand at least part of that. Well, your mom won the other lions over. She was fierce, and she taught them to fight dirty when they were up against a superior force like the Jinn. Being smaller, she knew how to fight something that out-powered you, something the lions struggled with. She taught them how to take the Jinn’s heads.”
A chill swept through me from the crown of my head all the way down my torso and legs. I flexed my hands but said nothing. Shem was in storytelling mode, and from my childhood, I knew that the longer I stayed quiet, the longer he’d keep talking.
He sighed. “It was a sore loss not only to you and your family, but to the entire pride when she was killed.”
I blinked a few times. “Wait, what?”
Shem looked over at me. “She didn’t die of natural causes. I thought you knew that.”
“My father told me she died after giving birth to me,” I said softly. That guilt had been part of my life as long as I could remember. They’d never said when exactly she’d died, only that it had been after I was born. Maybe it wasn’t my fault?
“The Jinn knew she was part of the pride’s spine,” Maks said quietly. “I remember Marsum talking about it.”
I couldn’t stop my head from whipping around to look at him. “You . . . were there?”
He shook his head. “No, I was a child, only ten years old when, well, I snuck close to one of the few meetings that Marsum held with the other Jinn. It’s one of the few things I remember from my childhood.” He frowned. “I haven’t thought about it for years, but it just came to me in a flash. It was your mother he was talking about. How they took her down.” His eyes were full of sadness when he looked at me. “I’m sorry. Do you want to know?”
I nodded. “Yes, the more I understand, the better.” Even if it cracked open an old wound I’d rather have stayed shut.
Maks rubbed a hand over his mouth and then went on. “Marsum said if they could take down Dirk’s mate, that it would only be a matter of time before the rest of the lions fell. He knew how important your mother was to the pride, and that she was training them to fight better, cleaner, and harder. Your father might have been the marine, but it was your mother who led the charge, I think.” Maks smiled. “So maybe you take after her more than your dad in more ways than you realized.”
My heart was doing weird things. I’d never known my mom, but I’d seen her twice now when I’d been hurt, close to dying. And she did look like me. But she wasn’t a lion shifter, and neither was I, and my thoughts were all tangled in what I was learning.
The sound of water lapping against the shore caught my ears, a welcome distraction. I stared out between Balder’s ears and caught the glimmer of the Caspian Sea winking at us. “Thank you, both of you,” I said. “I don’t remember her so it’s nice to know her better.”
Shem reached over and patted my back. “She was strong and wise despite her years. And her gender.”
I whipped around to punch him, but he was already racing his horse away from us, laughing. Asshole.
I grinned and urged Balder after him. I was going to knock that smartass right out of the saddle.
What was family for if not for keeping you humble?
Chapter Five
The edge of the Caspian Sea whispered across the sand. The horses danced sideways, tipping their heads at the water as if it were a monster reaching for their hooves. I sat quiet on Balder’s back, letting him get used to the sound of the water. He actually liked to play in the waves, but it had been a long time since we’d been down this coastline and it was very different than the eastern side.
Shem let out a yelp as his horse gave a buck, the water scaring him most likely—very few horses were good with moving water right off the bat. A second buck and the horse sent Shem flying. He turned head over heels and landed on the wet sand on the back of his neck, legs in the air with a wet squelch. Lila screamed with laughter as she flew around us. “I thought cats were supposed to land on their feet! Oh, goddess, I could watch that a thousand times and not get tired of it!”
I laughed and reached for the reins of Shem’s horse, catching him before he could run back to the caravan. “I have to agree, that was a piss-poor landing.”
Shem groaned and rolled to his feet. “I’m an old man now, nothing works like it used to.” He knocked the worst of the sand off his clothing and took the reins from me. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Zamira, but do you think Ish is going to let you just slip past her without making at least a token effort to snag you?”
I twisted in my saddle so I could look up the coastline that led back to Ish and the Stockyards. I stared as if I could see her pacing in her room, as if I could sense her watching for me on the horizon. For a moment, it was real, and I locked eyes with her, but it was gone in a flash. My imagination acting up again. My heart twisted and I shook my head. “No, I don’t think she will. She thinks I’m weak, and she wants the stones more than she wants to protect me.”
Maks brought Batman beside me. “You sure about that?”
I looked at him and a slow frown curled my lips downward. “Yeah, pretty sure.”
Shem grunted. “I dreamed about her last night. She is not done with you.”
My jaw dropped and I fought to snap it shut.
Maks let out a snarl. “You didn’t think to mention this before we cut even this close to the bitch?”
‘This close’ was still a solid fifty miles south, and we were hidden by a number of hills, but still, I had to agree with Maks. I would have banked farther south if I’d known.
Shem shrugged. “Look, I only just remembered. Being a seer isn’t what I’d call an exact measure of life. It comes and goes, usually when it’s seemingly the least helpful.”
A hard wind snapped into my back and I slowly turned again to the north. A massive boil of pitch-black storm clouds crawled over the hills behind us as they formed a shape of a creature with clawed hands that dug into the soil to pull itself faster toward us, and an open, silently roaring mouth.
“Or like when you might be too late to give adequate warning?” I muttered. “Get on your damn horse, Shem. We’re about to make a run for it. Unless you think we should stand our ground against that?”
He scrambled onto his horse and Lila shot down to my arms. “Under my shirt, Lila. That wind will rip you away.”
She didn’t question me, just shoved herself down the front of my shirt and then peeked her head out. “Nice bra. Maks
seen it yet?”
Maks barked a laugh and I couldn’t help but smile. “Not really the time, Lila.”
“Just saying,” she muttered as she settled herself.
The horses didn’t need any urging to get them going as the wind smashed into our backs like a fist, bringing with it sand and stones, and even good-sized sticks. Balder grunted as a stick smacked him in the shoulder. He flicked both ears back as if asking me “what the fuck was that for?”
“Not me!” I yelled over the wind as I leaned closer to his neck. The roar of the wind picked up speed as we galloped along the edge of the water. Waves that had been small and lapping moments before, now washed over the horses’ hooves. “Stay to the right, away from the water!” I yelled over the wind.
Maks and Batman stuck close to us as we urged the horses farther to the right, keeping them on solid ground.
Shem, on the other hand, either didn’t hear me or didn’t listen. Nope, the dummy went in the opposite direction, his horse’s legs splashing through the waves, deeper and deeper. The horse rolled his eyes and fought to get back to us. Shem gave a hard yank on the reins to the left and the horse had no choice but to follow.
The roar of the wind caught up around us, and in the cacophony, there was a voice lilting and booming at the same time, chanting words I didn’t know but which made my skin crawl. The words were rhythmic and they tugged at a part of me I didn’t understand. My eyes fluttered closed as the words called me home, as they whispered they would protect me. I only needed to let go. My hands trembled as I loosened my grip on the reins.
“Zamiraaaaaaa.” Ish called to me across the miles and I swayed.
Blink.
I stood in her chambers. She was naked in front of a round, coal-filled brazier, flames coursing along them, her skin glowing with sweat. Under the skin of her arms and belly glowed the jewels I’d returned to her over the years. I knew without asking that the last four were meant for her body too. She gripped the edge of the brazier. “Zamira, bring me the jewels you have now and all will be forgiven.”
Jinn's Dominion (Desert Cursed Series Book 3) Page 5
