Lila giggled and said something to him, and his low answering chuckle was all self-satisfied male. Again, he pulled on my body as if he’d thrown a rope around my middle he could tug at will.
I made myself ignore them as I sat well behind the horses. I folded my legs under me and tucked the blanket tightly around my body. My father had been able to reach all the members of his pride as the alpha. Or at least, that’s what he’d told Bryce and me when we were younger. That he could find us anywhere, and that he would know if we were alive or dead. It was his connection as the alpha that allowed him this gift. He’d trained us as best he could, and I’d been able to use that training to find Bryce within Dragon’s Ground. But would I be able to find the rest of them?
“Please let me have the same gift as my father,” I whispered to . . . the desert goddess? No, never to Ishtar. Maybe to someone, or something that might hear my plea. I don’t even know who I was praying to anymore, only that I needed to say something, that I needed help from a power far higher than myself.
I’d found Bryce with this technique, but he was my brother. My blood. And I was afraid I would fail my pride before they ever even knew I was their alpha.
I tightened my arms around my middle and kept the blanket snug around me as I slowed my breath. I focused on the intake and exhale of air in my lungs, the slowing of my heart as I let my senses open to the world. Minutes blended as the meditation tugged me deeper and deeper, as the cold left me and I found myself in a space of quiet.
The changes around me were subtle at first, barely there if I hadn’t been in such an aware state. The ground below me embraced my legs and ass, drawing me into the stone the same as the forest in Dragon’s Ground had done, but this was far more disturbing. This was stone melding around me, not moss and loose soil.
I pushed the fear back and kept at the meditation, sending my senses out farther and farther, deeper into the south as I fought to find those I was charged with protecting.
I focused on their names first. Kiara, Darcy, Steve . . . fuck, I really didn’t want to find Steve, and the process hiccupped. Hatred was not something that would help me find them.
I snorted softly to myself and refocused on the girls. Kiara and Darcy. They might not be the friends I once thought, but they were mine to protect and they needed me to be strong enough to find them and bring them home. Wherever home would end up being after this was done.
That thought settled deeply into my bones, and as I accepted it, the light around me shifted behind my closed eyes. The threads of energy were different than Bryce’s. His had been a deep gold like his lion’s fur. Darcy’s thread was a lighter gold, almost pale yellow and twisted, and Kiara’s two threads wrapped around each other. A coppery thread woven with the palest of yellows that was feminine, for lack of a better word. She was carrying a girl.
Funny, I knew Kiara was pregnant, but feeling it was strange . . . like the unborn cub was already part of our pride. Even stranger, there was no gut twist on my part.
I opened my eyes and turned my head to the south, feeling them there, seeing their threads as surely as if they had attached skeins of yarn between us.
A slow grin crept over my mouth and I leapt up, blinking the vision away for now. “I can find them!” I ran from the back of the cave, past the horses and slid to a stop by the fire to see Maks staring up at me. I looked down. “Shit, I dropped the blanket.”
“Yeah, you don’t need it,” he said.
I turned, blushing furiously yet again, went back to the blanket and scooped it up, wrapping it around my shoulders. I plopped myself down next to him, and my stomach rumbled, reminding me it was empty.
“How long was I . . . gone?” There was no other word for it. When I’d searched for Bryce, Lila told me later that I’d been out for an hour.
“A little over two hours,” Maks said. He adjusted his seat. “Shem hasn’t moved an inch either. He’s alive, but so silent, I’m not sure he’ll come out of this.”
Lila and Maks shared a look. “What?”
Lila touched my leg. “We might have to leave him, Zam. If he won’t snap out of this, that is.”
Outside the storm still raged, battering and whistling through the crack that led into the cave. “We’ll give him until the storm eases then.”
I dug through my saddlebags and found dry clothes while my mind ticked over this problem. Ish had taken me in spirit to speak to her. Who knew what she had said to Shem.
Then there was the Emperor’s booming voice . . . there was a chance he had snagged my uncle.
“Damn,” I muttered. I was no closer to an answer.
I pulled my clothes on, then went to where my uncle lay. Dropping to my knees, I reached inside the blankets. “He’s warm, that’s better than the alternative.”
“Yes, but out cold.” Lila landed next to his head. “So now what?”
I frowned. None of us were healers, and far as I knew, there weren’t many who could help him. If Ish hadn’t lost her mind, I would suggest taking him to her. I rubbed a hand over my face. “If he doesn’t wake up, I’ll have to leave him here. There is no other choice I can see. We can’t pack him like this into the desert.”
Neither Maks nor Lila argued. Because they knew the same thing I did. There was only one option, as shitty as it was.
I didn’t want to leave Shem behind. But Kiara, Darcy, and even Steve were in far more immediate danger than Shem, who had no apparent wounds other than whatever that voice in the storm had done inside his head. That was triage in a pride. Those who were most critical were saved first.
I sighed. “We’ll stay the night and hope the storm and this spell on him drop at the same time.”
Under his eyelids, his eyes moved back and forth at a rapid pace. Nothing short of disturbing.
I cringed and brushed a hand over his forehead in an attempt to soothe whatever demons clawed at him.
His eyes popped wide, pupils dilated, mouth open in a silent scream as he shot both fists straight up into the air, barely missing me.
“Shitfuckdamn!” I yelled as I scooted back, fell on my ass and rolled to my belly. “Not funny, Shem!”
My heart was in the back of my throat. I was sure of it, and I struggled to swallow or breathe around the heavy beating.
Maks grinned at me from the other side of Shem. “How do you like that? Being scared for no apparent reason?”
I tipped my head and narrowed my eyes as I pointed a finger at him. “I was saving us from walking into another trap, if you’ll recall.” We’d been underground, making an attempt to steal the Dragon’s emerald gem, and a weird fog had started to come over me. I’d broken it by leaping into the air and screaming. Mind you, I’d also just about died laughing after I scared Maks so badly, I thought his heart would stop.
Shem let out a low groan and rolled to his side. I went to him, helped him sit up.
“Shem, back with the land of the living,” I said. “Welcome. We were just discussing leaving you behind.”
His hand wobbled as he lifted it to his mouth. “Goddess save us. Zamira, that was not Ishtar chasing us.”
I looked at Maks and he shook his head and shrugged.
“Yeah, it was, Shem. Ishtar has completely lost it. I . . . saw her in a vision. She threatened me and has taken the hyenas as hunters.” I moved closer to him and held out a hand. He took it and gripped it tightly. I tried to catch his eye, but he kept them closed, so I kept on talking. “She tried to kill me before, on our way to Dragon’s Ground. I should have known, even without your warning that she was going to try for us again. For me.” I patted his hand, albeit awkwardly. I didn’t really know how to comfort a man who’d been my crazy uncle and tried to kidnap me when I’d been a little girl.
He put a hand to his head and tapped the side of it with his fingers. “Did you hear the voice, though?”
“The other voice? The one in the storm?”
Lila crawled onto my shoulder and leaned over to look at him. “Shem, if it
wasn’t Ishtar, who do you think it was?”
The Emperor. His eyes met mine and I looked away. My secrets dug at me. But I still couldn’t speak them. The Emperor hadn’t been trying to kill me.
He’d been trying to kill Shem.
“The Emperor. He is seeking out those who know of him, those who might know how to kill him.” I turned back to him and his eyes slowly lifted to mine. Maks crouched behind me.
“Shem, you don’t know that,” he said.
Shem glared at him. “You, half-Jinn that you are, should be able to feel the Emperor wake. Do you not?”
Maks slowly shook his head. “As best I could, I cut myself off from the Jinn and their head games when I left the Dominion. It’s the only way to escape them.”
He said the words, but the tone was off. Like maybe he wasn’t entirely sure that he’d severed the tie. “Then how can they find you? Wait, that’s why you don’t use your magic or whatever, right?”
Maks nodded. “Marsum can find me if I use my magic, yes. Which is why I don’t use it because the second I do, it puts the rest of you in danger.”
Shem snorted. “You could block him, you know.”
“That’s not possible.” Maks shook his head and his eyes sparked. “So, don’t speak about things you don’t understand, old man.”
There was more than a thread of heat in Maks’s response. Shem didn’t react but instead looked to me. “The Emperor knows I have the package, Zamira. I was able to keep him from seeing the memory where I gave it to you.”
The package . . . “You mean his daughter’s letters?”
He nodded. “Yes, he will try to kill me again. Something about your touch snapped me out of it, but . . . I think he will be back for me. I won’t be able to hold him at bay again.”
I sat beside him, thinking. “You are the seer for this pride. You gave my father advice on all manner of things from the running of the pride, to dealing with the Jinn until you took a ride on the crazy train and lost your marbles.”
Shem’s lips curled up. “Crazy train?”
“Kidnapping me. Remember?” I sat flat on my ass beside him.
“I was trying to protect you and . . . I thought you would be the one to stop the Emperor. I still do.” He put two fingers under my chin and tipped my face up. “Kitten, you have it in you. Don’t doubt it. This is only the opening gambit.”
“Don’t call me kitten.” I jerked my face from his fingers. “It’s fucking patronizing.”
Lila lifted a wing, drawing our eyes to her. “If you are a danger to Zam, if the Emperor can find her through you, then you can’t come with us. What will you do?”
Lila was right. And she was wrong. I opened my mouth to tell them the Emperor had found me already, that he’d gotten into my mind somehow.
“Ishtar was inside that storm too,” I said. Why the hell hadn’t I said the rest?
Shem pushed off the blankets and slowly stood. “She used it to hide herself, but that was the Emperor’s power pushing it. He was talented with the weather and she was always good at riding others’ coattails.”
He closed his eyes a moment and a low humming starting in the back of his throat. As a child, I’d seen him do this more than once, try to scry the future so as to warn my father.
Shem stopped humming and looked at me, his eyes dilated. “Do not scorn your enemy. They will be the key to your survival.”
I shook my head, confusion flickering through me. “You mean the Jinn?”
“All of them, not just Maks,” he said softly. He stumbled to where his horse stood dozing. “I’m leaving now. It’s the best thing I can do to help you survive. Lila is right about that. The Emperor will follow me.”
“Where?” I stood and followed him. “Shem, we need to stick together, not spread out across the fucking continent.” Still, I held my tongue about already knowing the Emperor could find me.
He grabbed his small pack of gear and led his horse past the fire. “Listen to me. I know what I’m talking about. I will head north and east, toward the far wall.”
I stared hard at him. “The far wall is over three thousand miles away.”
Shem quirked his lips into a smile. “Give or take. Be warned though, stopping the Emperor does not mean killing him. We cannot risk what would come from that.”
I put my hand out and pushed it into his chest. “I can’t let you just walk away now. Not when we just found you.”
He put a hand over mine. “You don’t really need me, other than the package I’ve already given you. And now that the Emperor knows I am alive, and the knowledge I have . . . he won’t stop looking for me.”
Lila flicked her tail back and forth. “How did he even know we were there? How did he know where to find you?”
Shem’s eyes locked on mine and a shiver of fear started deep in my belly. “Because I belonged to him once, many, many years ago. It was through his power I became a seer. And I was trained for one reason only, to kill his bastard daughter.”
Well, that was not the answer I expected.
Chapter Seven
Shem put a hand on my shoulder and it felt as though he’d put a literal weight on me, pushing me to the ground. Which was not what I wanted when he’d just admitted to being someone he’d hidden from all of us. I shoved away from him, stepping back far enough that the fire didn’t warm me any longer. “You were a hired killer?”
He shrugged. “I sought power when I was young and stupid, and the Emperor used it against me.”
“You killed the Emperor’s daughter and took her papers?” I didn’t know why that upset me so, but the idea that he’d killed a person who’d stood against a monster that had been a total tyrant bothered me greatly. Even if that monster looked like nothing more than a kind old grandfather.
He dropped his hand. “We all do stupid things when we are young, Zam. Save the others, but don’t take the last stone from the Jinn. Whatever happens, the only thing I will tell you is to not take the stone. That will remove the last of the power imbued in the wall which is tied to his cage. Take the stone and the Emperor will be free in this world once more. As it is now, he can touch the world, but cannot be free. At least one stone needs to stay where it is.” He tugged his horse forward. “And I will do what I can to draw his attention away from you, for as long as I can.”
This was not happening. None of it. The whole fucking shit story had to be just a bad dream, one I couldn’t wake from.
Shem stepped around me. “I’ll ride hard and fast. Ishtar won’t bother with me, I don’t think, so I will go through the Stockyards, that will speed my passage.”
“That’s stupid even for you,” I snapped. “She’ll see you and draw you to her! She’ll set her new pets on you.”
He shrugged. “If she does, I’ll chat with her and offer my services until she no longer sees me. I can play the chameleon if I must.”
Shem walked out of the cave and into the suddenly still night. I followed him, my feet bare on the hard, cold, rocky ground. The stars glittered like chips of cut glass in the sky. The storm had passed. We all needed to get moving.
“Shem. You are supposed to be helping me! Not fucking off!” I said.
He turned to face me. “I am helping you. I’m buying you time, Zamira. You have the papers. Use them to guide you. I think you would have liked his daughter. She . . . was special.” His eyes drifted shut and in a flash of insight I realized he’d cared for her. Maybe he hadn’t killed her then? Or he’d killed her even though he did care for her. That was worse.
I swallowed hard. “I will get the rest of the pride, and then we are crossing the wall and getting the fuck out of here.”
His smile was tired and sad. “I doubt that. Your life is here, Zamira. You are a protector of this world,” he pointed to the ground at our feet, “no matter what else you might think, you know that is true. If the Emperor is freed, chaos will reign. And then . . . well, I don’t want to think about what would have to happen then.” He reached out and
tugged me into his arms for a brief hug before he tossed his horse’s saddle on and quickly cinched him up. I watched as he spun the leggy gelding and took off back the way we’d come.
There was no goodbye or good luck. Just gone with the night, not unlike the last time he’d left the pride. A hand circled around my waist. “You can’t make him see sense,” Maks said. “He believes in the stories of the Emperor.”
“You don’t?” I turned to him.
He shrugged. “Stories meant to keep us in line, meant to keep us from overthrowing those who have a hold on them. A falak is waiting if the Emperor is killed? The Emperor is free if we take the stones from those who make our lives miserable? It smacks of manipulating our fears as if we were children.”
“I know.” Except part of me believed Shem. Because I’d seen the Emperor. I’d felt his power against my skin, and he’d nearly killed Shem even though he was far from him.
And if he was right, then we were in more trouble than just dealing with a few Jinn. Not unlike Maks’s reasoning, if the Emperor was real and I faced him, then there might be something worse out there he was holding back.
Fuck my life and give me a shot of whiskey. I needed a drink.
The sound of Shem and his horse racing into the night faded and a sudden spurt of energy flowed through me. “We go now. Those fucking dogs will be on us in no time.” Like their counterparts, werehyenas had noses that outstripped just about any other animal.
Lila squeaked. “We barely survived that storm! And I want to stay warm for a little while.”
“And if whoever it is that sent that storm thought they hurt us, they won’t expect us to move.” Damn the Emperor and his games. He was almost as bad as Ishtar. I could see why they’d been a couple. I strode into the cave, found my boots and yanked them on, along with a cloak that I cinched around my waist with a thick leather corset belt. That would keep it from flapping and give Lila a place to hang onto if she needed it.
“You’re letting fear rule you. We need to be smart about this,” Maks said.
Jinn's Dominion (Desert Cursed Series Book 3) Page 7
