I shook my head. “Nope, this is not fear. This is understanding my enemy. Behind and in front.”
“Yes, you are letting fear rule you,” he repeated; his voice had an edge to it. “You could have died out there. We all could have.”
I turned to him. “Yeah, that’s the thing, Maks. We are going to face death over and over. It’s not going to end for us for a long time if even a small portion of what Shem said is true. Whether the Emperor is dealing in this or not, we have to move and move now. I know what Ishtar showed me whether she meant to or not. The werehyenas won’t wait for light.”
Lila’s claws dug into my shoulder. “Don’t the horses need to rest?”
“We aren’t racing through the night, but we’re moving now. We have close to three weeks before we hit the desert, and now we have dogs on our asses. You want to wait and fight them here, stuck in a cave with limited resources? If the pack is half as big as they can get, we’ll be wishing for a herd of gorcs.” I scooped up my saddle in one hand and my gear in the other. With a flick of my head and cluck of my tongue, I had Balder follow me out of the cave.
Once outside, I quickly tacked up. I was in the saddle before I realized that Maks and Batman had not followed me.
“Maks?”
“No,” he called from inside the cave. “This is a bad idea, Zam, and as your second, I am putting my foot down.”
My jaw dropped. Was he serious? Lila tightened her hold on me. “Zam, why is he doing this? That doesn’t sound like him at all.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know.” Was it possible that the Emperor had dug into his mind, too, in a different way? Was it possible that something had happened and I’d not noticed in my own self-absorbed state as I searched for the rest of my pride? No, he’d seemed totally fine earlier.
I hopped off Balder and ground tied him. “Lila, stay here, please.” I looked up at her sitting on Balder’s neck. She bobbed her head.
“Okay, but if you don’t come out in five minutes, I’m coming in.”
I gave her a thumbs-up and ducked into the cave.
The fire was still going, and it lit Maks from the far side, his back to me. I bit my lower lip and approached him with caution. Just in case. The cave around us glittered with light from the cut walls. The stone held flecks of reflective glass that caught the light and threw it in a wider arc. I’d not noticed them before, but here and there I could see designs etched. The language of the Jinn.
I shivered, pulled myself together and put a hand on his shoulder. Moving with care, I walked around him until I was looking into his face. “Maks, talk to me. What is really going on?”
His eyes were closed and his body shook as though he were indeed fighting something. His throat bobbed up and down as he struggled to speak. “I can’t do it, Zam. I can’t go back to the desert. This cave . . . I should not have brought you here.”
No other words could have rocked me so hard. “What?”
He reached for me, pulling me into his arms and burying his face in the crook of my neck, his lips against my skin. The trembling in his body slid through mine, scaring me in a way I’d never felt before. To know such a strong man, one who’d faced down the biggest and ugliest of our world, was afraid . . . it cut my own strength. I held him tightly while he shuddered.
“Maks, talk to me.”
He did a hell of a lot more than talk to me.
He lifted his head and kissed me, salt on his lips, heat in his mouth as he took the kiss without asking, demanding that I give over to him. I slid my arms around him and hung on while he plundered my lips and mouth with his tongue. His hands clenched me, to the edge of pain but not quite. I bit his lower lip, tugging at it as he moved his mouth away from mine to my jaw, down my neck to the top of my shirt. He pressed his forehead to the top of my chest and rubbed his face side to side . . . marking me as any cat would do to its mate. A flush of warmth spread from my lower regions all the way up to the tips of my ears. “Maks, much as this is hot as hell, I need you to talk to me.”
He kept his head down, his breathing ragged as he rubbed his face against my bare skin. No lips, just that smoothing motion side to side, as if he could make the mark visible. I caught his face in my hands and tipped it up so I could look into his eyes. “Maks. Please. I know the Jinn are going to be tough to get by—”
He shook his head. “It’s not that. I’m fine. I just . . . had a moment of weakness is all.” He smiled, but I saw the strain behind it and that set my alarms off. He kissed me gently once more, then turned away. “I’ll get my stuff.”
I stood there staring at his back as he grabbed his saddle and gear, took Batman by the reins and led him out. He didn’t look at me again.
Moving on autopilot, I put the fire out, kicking dirt over it. The darkness that fell as the flames died was heavy as if eyes were in the shadows the light kept back. I shook my head, knowing my imagination was running wild.
My eyes adjusted to the dark—perk for being a cat shifter. I made myself stand and stare into the void of the cave. “I’m not afraid of you, whoever you are.”
The words echoed and bounced as if the individual letters were rearranged as they moved.
You will fear me. The voice was a whisper, a ghost of a man’s voice as if coming from far away, and I knew without a doubt who it was.
That fucker Marsum. I wanted to say it was all my words jumbled up inside my head that gave me the voice speaking to me, but that was a lie. Son of a bitch, this freaky ass shit was not the way to start the night after losing Shem. After seeing Maks lose his courage.
I stumbled back. I couldn’t help it and reached for the flail before I even thought of grabbing a weapon.
The handle warmed, but I knew there was nothing to fight even though my senses were screaming like crazy that I was in danger. There was nothing in the dark.
I kept my ass moving toward the opening and my eyes on the back of the cave . . . just in case I was wrong and there was something or someone sitting in the depths of the darkness. I slid out, and the second I was free of the cave the words faded from my ears.
As if they had never been. I closed my eyes and swallowed hard. Maks was already on Batman, his face flat of any emotion.
Lila cocked her head to one side. “What happened?”
“Nothing.” I forced my fingers to let go of the flail as I walked to Balder. “Nothing.”
Maks did look at me then and I couldn’t meet his eyes. Maybe he had his own secrets, maybe I had mine.
Long as they didn’t end up getting us killed, did it really matter?
We got the horses moving at an easy trot, following the natural flow of the hills around as we headed straight south. At some point, we’d turn east again, but not for a long while. Not until we had to.
Silence ruled the night air and we made good time. Hours slipped by in complete silence. Maks and I had ridden like that before, on our first trip into the Witch’s Reign. But that had been a comfortable silence of people who didn’t need to talk to each other, but could if they wanted to. I wanted him to talk to me. To tell me what was freaking him out.
Lila slept as we rode, curled in between me and the pommel of the saddle with a chunk of my cloak covering her. I kept one hand on her tiny body, making sure she didn’t fall off.
After four hours, I couldn’t stand it a second longer. “Maks, are you angry with me?”
He shook his head. “No, you are doing the right thing for the pride. I . . . didn’t think about what your next step would be when you named me your second. I should have.”
I frowned and moved Balder beside him. “Why does it matter?”
His shoulders tightened. “We are going into the Jinn’s Dominion. Is that not enough for me to be concerned about both your safety and the others?”
I reached out and grabbed his arm. “I know you, Maks. You don’t run from a fight, but back there you not only wanted to run, you wanted me to run too. Why?”
His jaw ticked, but he didn
’t pull his arm from me. “Because I love you, Zam. And that . . . is a dangerous thing in the world of the Jinn.”
Holy shit, had he just said what I thought he said? “You love me?” Okay, that came out like a needy whisper, but who cared? Lila was asleep.
He looked at me, those blue eyes of his piercing even in the darkness. “I don’t know if I can protect you once we are there, Zam. I don’t know if I can protect you as we travel there. And that guts me like nothing else. I know you have to go. I know your pride is there, but Marsum . . . he has a long memory. Has it not occurred to you once that since you’ve removed the necklace that kept his curse from you, nothing terribly bad has happened?”
His words made me blink. “You don’t think a hurricane that almost sunk me and Shem was something bad?”
“Yes, that’s bad. But nothing little has gone wrong. You’ve not had your saddle strap break, or lost a weapon, or gotten unexpectedly sick. Nothing out of the ordinary for what we are doing. And you are driven to get to the desert as if a madness has taken hold of you. You didn’t for one second think of waiting on Shem to get better. You agreed to leave him. That’s not you.” He shook his head as if he could shake something free. “I can’t put my finger on it, but I think this is Marsum again. He’s changed the curse. We know that. What if it is no longer about making your life miserable? What if he’s done something else? What if he’s drawing you to him?”
I sat deep in the saddle, thinking. “Can he do that? I don’t know Jinn magic.” And to be fair, my mind was still stuck on the fact that he’d so casually thrown out that he loved me. How could he know that? How could he love me?
Did I love him?
Yeah, you do. Say it! My inner voice screamed at me and I kept my mouth shut. Much as I trusted Maks, the last man I’d loved had broken my heart into a million pieces. I wasn’t ready to throw myself at the next man with as much abandon.
“Zam, are you listening to me?” Maks said. “Before we go into the Jinn’s Dominion, you have to know what I know. Okay?”
“Sorry, say it again.” I smiled, but he didn’t smile back. Which made my smile slip off my stupid face. Shit, how bad was it, whatever he had to say?
“When Marsum put his hands on you, as a child, he made a connection with you that can’t be broken until one of you dies. He made you . . . like his familiar, is the best word I can come up with. He’s connected to you, the same way he’s connected to me. And his magic is such that if he takes note of you being alive—which we know he has—he can change his hold on the curse. He could remove it completely if he wanted.” Maks stared hard at me. “Do you understand? He has a hold on you, Zam.”
Lila yawned and stretched. “What am I missing?”
“Marsum can change the curse on me,” I said softly. “But that doesn’t explain why he would suddenly make my life easier.”
Lila crawled up Balder’s neck. “Maybe because he wants something you have? If he knows you would come and rescue your pride, they are perfect bait, aren’t they?”
“He wants the jewels,” I breathed out the words. “He wants the jewels. Maks, do you think that’s it?”
I turned to see Maks staring at me. “Maks?”
“The jewels are secondary, Zam. I think he wants you, and he will do whatever he has to do to get you into his hands.” His eyes tightened and narrowed suddenly, flashing a blue so bright that it seemed they glowed for a moment.
I reached over for him, touching his arm. “Maks?”
He pulled away from me and shook his head. “Sorry, what?”
My eyebrows shot up. “You said he wants me.”
Maks closed his eyes. “No, I want you. Marsum wants to kill you.”
Except . . . I didn’t think that was what he meant at all. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from speaking. Lila looked at me with her eyes scrunched up as if she were trying to figure out what the fuck was going on too.
Maks held his hand out and I took it, weaving our fingers together. Balder and Batman rode happily side by side through the night, content.
But I was not content. Something was wrong with Maks. Something was very wrong.
And I had no idea what it could possibly be.
Chapter Eight
The next few days passed so quietly, it was almost pleasant, and I could almost forget that Maks was acting strange, not letting me far out of his sight, or that Shem had fucked off on us, or that the Emperor was reaching for all of us, or that we had werehyenas on our asses. Lila didn’t stray far, not even to hunt. But I suspected her reasons were the same as mine. Shit was weird. We did not need to be split up. At the same time, I needed to speak to her without worrying about Maks overhearing.
We kept our pace up, steady, never resting for long.
The second day, I managed to get Maks to talk, but he would only speak about things long past. Sort of.
“You didn’t know your mother at all?” I asked, prying as carefully as I could.
He shook his head. “Marsum told me she sold me to him when I was a child. I don’t remember anything about her.” There was something in his voice though that made me think otherwise.
“No siblings?” I tried a different tactic.
He shook his head again. “No. I dreamt once I had a brother.” His eyes slid to me, sadness filling them. “He was an unusual-colored lion. But that was just a dream. I don’t recall my childhood, Zam. I dream sometimes, but that’s all they are. Dreams.”
After that he shut down completely and I got nothing more out of him.
On the third day, near dusk I called an earlier than normal halt, which had me looking over my shoulder more than once. “Maks, do you think you could snag something for dinner? I’m exhausted.” I slumped in the saddle for good measure. Goddess, I was a bad actor.
He nodded and pulled out a small crossbow from his pack. He put it together quickly and then helped me with the two horses, and even got me set up with the fire. As if I were helpless. I let him, closing my eyes as I slid under a blanket he gave me.
His footsteps receded, and I opened my eyes. “Lila!” I hissed her name and she crawled across the saddles.
“Yeah, this is fucking weird, Zam. What’s going on with him?” She craned her neck, watching the foothills for his return. “He’s barely talking to us, and he’s treating you like a freaking glass egg.”
“His eyes, have you seen the flashes of blue?”
She nodded. “I thought it was just me.” She let out a little whimper. “What are we going to do?”
“I tried talking to him. I tried to get him to tell me what was wrong and in the middle of it, his eyes flashed blue and he forgot what he’d said before. Or he changed it to sound less ominous. He said that Marsum wanted me. And I don’t think he meant to kill me.” I realized as we spoke that we were whispering even though Maks was nowhere to be seen. “And now he could have gone hunting as a caracal, far easier than with the bow. Why the bow, Lila?”
Her tiny claws reached up and she put them on my cheeks. “The Jinn are master manipulators, Zam. What if . . . Marsum has his hooks back in Maks? What if it’s not Maks anymore?”
She said exactly what I was terrified of—Maks was being drawn back into being the kind of Jinn I thought were the only kind before I met him. My heart thumped hard because I knew what I had to do.
We had to leave him behind. This was why I hadn’t told him I loved him. Maybe I’d known no matter how we felt, it could never be. He was Jinn. I was a lion. The idea of star-crossed lovers had never been so fucking poignant.
“We have to outrun him,” I whispered. “Balder can do it. But we can increase our odds.” I stood and crept to Batman’s gear. Slowly I pulled my kukri blade from my thigh sheath and cut through the thick leather cinch strap. Maks would have to fix it first and that would slow him down. I couldn’t bring myself to hurt Batman or take a shoe off him, which would have been smart. If Marsum was controlling Maks now, then there was no telling how far he’d go to get what he
wanted. As it was, Batman’s front left leg swelled off and on, an old injury that haunted him.
I took a step back, my eyes on the hills where Maks had disappeared. Lila squawked and I spun, my kukri raised by my head, ready to strike.
Maks stood behind me, the small crossbow raised, his eyes flashing that freaky fucking electric blue. He motioned at me with the bow. “Put the knife down, cat.”
Cat. Not Zam.
“Maks, this is not you.” I didn’t lower my blade and he didn’t lower his bow. “Please listen to my voice. You’ve got to fight whoever has a hold on you.”
“Come on, toad!” Lila yelled. “You have to fight Marsum!”
Maks’s face twisted into a snarl. “How do you know that all along my job wasn’t to take you to Marsum? How do you know that I’m not just a fucking amazing actor, unlike you? How do you know, Zam? You don’t. You don’t know. Do you?”
Horror of the deepest kind flowed through me and I fought it, but I couldn’t help the sensation that I was living my worst pain again. Betrayed . . . this time by my heart and a good act rather than another woman.
Lila snarled. “No, this isn’t you, Maks! Stop this stupid shit! This isn’t you! You stop it right now!”
He spun and pulled the trigger on the crossbow. I screamed and lunged, trying to intercept it with my blade. I missed.
The bolt flew through Lila’s right wing, tearing it open wide. She screamed and I launched at him while his eyes were on her, my blade going handle first. I hit him hard, and tackled him to the ground, barely holding back from driving the blade into his belly.
“You fucking Jinn!”
He slammed hard on his back and I pressed my blade against his neck until blood welled around the razor-sharp edge.
His eyes flashed that bright, strange blue again. “You are weak. Weak enough to think I loved you, that a Jinn could love anyone. We take what we want, and when we need something done, we make it happen. Any way we must. You’re a fool, cat, to have believed a single word that came out of my mouth.”
His words cut into me and all I could do was stare at him. Because it wasn’t Maks. Nothing about his words or what he was saying was him at all. “No, that’s not true. It’s not, Maks. I know you. Lila is right. This is not you.”
Jinn's Dominion (Desert Cursed Series Book 3) Page 8
