“You don’t know,” he growled. “If you knew me, if you understood who I was, you’d kill me now without hesitation. Do it! Kill me!”
I couldn’t move. I’d thought I was done with indecision, but I could feel nothing but uncertainty rocketing through me. Lila cried out from my right. Maks bled under my blade.
My two closest allies were injured, the two I loved the most, and I couldn’t help either. Maks glared up at me, his lips twisted in a cruel snarl . . . and a tear slipped from the corner of one bright blue eye.
The decision became easy with that single tear. This was not Maks talking to me. Whatever was going on, it wasn’t him.
I turned the handle of the blade fast and slammed it into the side of his head with a thick thud. His eyes rolled back and he slumped into the ground, a groan sliding from him.
“Lila, hang on, I’ve got to immobilize him first,” I said.
“He shot me! That piece of shit Jinn shot me!” Her whimpers tore at my heart, because they were heavy with more than physical pain. She sucked a shaky breath and cried out, a sob slipping from her.
I flipped Maks over and grabbed some of the leather binding from my gear, then wrapped it around his wrists with a slip knot that would only tighten more if he struggled, then did another set around his ankles.
For good measure, I covered his eyes with a blindfold and stuffed his mouth with a gag before I turned to Lila. Every movement to bind him broke another piece of my heart and I pushed it away. I had to—Lila needed me.
Her wing bled in tiny little drips across the hard ground. I picked her up. “I can stitch it, then we can use the hacka paste. It’ll heal if you don’t use it for a few days.”
She nodded, but her jeweled eyes were full of pain and hurt of a different kind. “He said he wanted me as a sister. He’s just like my other siblings. He tried to kill me, Zam.” She buried her face against my belly, her tiny body shaking with her sobs.
I bit my tongue while I worked on her wing. Steady hands were what I needed here, and Lila’s pain kept my own right at the surface.
I blew out a slow breath and threaded a needle, focusing only on the task in front of me. Using the thinnest line I had, I stitched the hole in her wing together, keeping each stitch as small as I could.
“There,” I snipped the end of the line. “Just the paste and you’ll be good as new.”
I reached for my bag and dragged it across the ground to me. It bumped into Maks and he groaned.
I flipped open my bag, my eyes on his body as he woke and realized he was bound and gagged. He grunted and thrashed, and I recalled all too easily how he’d been bound by the Jinn before. How they’d pinned him face down in the mud and left him to die and Lila and I had saved him. But how the fuck did I save him now?
I dug around, blindly found the hacka paste and opened it before I turned to Lila. Her eyes were on me. “You can’t save him. Not this time. If they have his mind . . . there is nothing you can do.”
I gritted my teeth as I smeared the red sparkling paste over the stitches, then grabbed a match from my bag and lit it with the flick of my thumbnail. “Hang on, Lila. This will sting a little.”
She closed her eyes and clamped her mouth shut as I put the match first to one side of the wound, then to the other. Bright sparkling puffs of smoke rose into the air that smelled like cinnamon. Lila twitched only once, then she slumped, her legs wobbling. I caught her up into my arms and held her tightly.
“We have to try to save him, Lila. This isn’t Maks. I’m sure of it.” I had to be sure. There was no other way for me to move forward. Even when I’d caught Steve with Kiara, I’d not been totally broken—I could look back and with perfect hindsight see that I’d always known Steve was not really for me. He’d been my first crush, my first love, my first heartbreak. But he had never been a part of my soul. He’d never understood me, never fought at my side. Instead, he had always fought me.
Maks . . . he was the other half of my heart and soul, and this pain was beyond deep. It ran all the way to the center of my bones, making me ache in a way I’d not felt since I’d been a child, since the Oasis and the loss of so much life, since my father’s death, since Bryce’s injury.
I turned to where Maks lay on the ground. He’d yanked the leather bands tight and his hands were going red with the constriction over his wrists. “You’ll end up with no hands if you keep that thrashing up,” I said.
He muffled something through the gag and slowly relaxed. Lila climbed to my shoulder and I carefully made my way to Maks’s side. I took the gag out and lifted the blindfold.
Maks raised both eyebrows. “What the fuck is going on?”
Lila glared down at him. “You shot me through the wing! Is your brain as dry as the remainder biscuit after a voyage?”
Maks looked to me. “I’m lost.”
“That’s from As You Like It,” I said. “That help?”
“No! I know what play the line is from,” he growled as he shifted onto his back. “Why am I tied up? Wait, I shot Lila?”
I shared a look with her. “This is what I was talking about. He doesn’t even know what he’s doing.”
She frowned and snapped her teeth at him. “You’re lucky I want cubs to play with, or I’d rip your balls off and eat them with my breakfast. Wrecking wings is only like the worst thing you could do to a dragon, you know.”
Maks stared up at me as sweat rose all over his face. “Zam. I would never hurt you. Either of you.”
“Except that you shot Lila and threatened me,” I said softly. “And you said everything was a manipulation, that you were sent to take me back to the desert. That was the goal all along.”
He closed his eyes, but not before I saw what crossed them. Pain and embarrassment.
I scrambled back. “You were sent to find me?”
“I was sent to find the last lions,” he said softly. “The children of Dirk in particular, though I wasn’t told why.”
“Witch’s Reign?”
His throat bobbed. “Initially, yes, I was to take you back to the desert, but that changed! I realized that the farther I was from the Jinn, the less hold Marsum had on me. The more I could block him.” He opened his eyes. “Zam, it wasn’t all a manipulation. I stayed because . . . I’d never loved anyone before. I didn’t know . . .”
His back arched suddenly and the leather bands creaked.
I scrambled away. “Lila. Back up.”
But it wasn’t Lila who answered me. Maks did. “Oh, little cat. You love him, don’t you?”
“Marsum.” I snarled his name and my skin crawled.
“You can’t kill him, can you? This is too rich. You make this too easy.” He laughed, only it wasn’t Maks’s laugh. It was deeper, uglier, and I knew it even though I hadn’t heard it in years.
Marsum had full control of Maks.
He rolled to his belly, his hands and feet lifted behind him as he pulled on the leather. “The cave, if he hadn’t taken you to shelter in the cave, I would never have found his mind. But it is one of my places. Now, the more important question. Do you know why he is so connected to me? Have you guessed yet?”
I took a step back, bent and grabbed my bag of gear and gave a low whistle for Balder. Engaging Marsum was not smart. I’d seen how that played out for my family before.
The barking howl of hyenas lit the air.
Well, wasn’t that just fucking peachy. I cocked my head and counted the beats between the howls. At best we had fifteen minutes before they showed up.
“He’s not just a Jinn,” I said. Damn it, I couldn’t help myself.
“No, he is not. I found his mother fetching and couldn’t help myself despite the fact she was a mere shifter,” he said.
Lila gasped and I froze in place. His mother . . . was a shifter. I chose to focus on that instead of the rest of what he’d said. Marsum’s son. Maks was Marsum’s son.
“He’ll never truly escape me. His blood is mine.”
I made mys
elf turn to face Maks as one of the leather wraps on his wrists snapped. He quickly untied himself and stood. He tipped his head to one side. “Why aren’t you running?”
I dropped my bag of gear while Lila tugged at me. “You have Kiara, Darcy, and dumb ass. You want me to come to the desert, and you have the bait. Why the fuck are you doing this to him? You don’t need to do this to make me show up on your doorstep.”
He smiled slowly and took a step toward me. I refused to back down. “Lila, on Balder,” I half threw her toward my horse as Maks stopped right in front of me. Not Maks. It wasn’t, yet I couldn’t stop seeing him as the man I loved. Damn my heart.
“I do this to remind him who his master is,” he said. “He was away too long and has a sense of freedom that is false. You are not for him, Zamira of the Bright Lions. He is a mutt.” He lifted a hand and brushed it across my cheek. The same hand had touched me before, but this time was different.
A ripple of unease followed it, but I refused to back down. I would not run. I would not.
“Let him have his mind back. I’m coming to the desert, you dumb fuck. You don’t need Maks like this.”
He grinned. “No. This is my insurance policy. You would come for your friends, but . . . For Maks? To see if you can save him . . . I believe you would go to the ends of this world and back. That is what love does to you mortals; it makes you foolish and stupid.”
Anger flared brightly within me and it took all I had not to punch him in the balls. Because it wasn’t Marsum who would be hurt, but Maks.
He grinned and a low laugh rolled from his mouth. “Oh, the look on your face is precious. You want to kill me but can’t because that would hurt your precious Maks. I should have done this years ago.” He grabbed either side of my face and yanked me to him, kissing me hard enough that our teeth clinked together. Skilled, he was not.
I pushed hard against his chest as he plundered my mouth. This was not Maks, and I was not about to let it happen. Heat snaked from his mouth into mine—not desire, but the heat of the desert sands lighting within me, setting off something in my blood I didn’t understand.
Power.
Magic.
Fire.
I screamed and he swallowed the noise down as I pushed at his chest, finally snapping a fist up between us, slamming into his jaw despite knowing I was going to feel it too.
He bit my lip as his teeth snapped together and I stumbled backward, free of his hands and mouth, the coppery tang of blood on my lips. My mind whirled with that heat he’d shoved into me as it coursed through my limbs with a tingling not unlike bugs crawling over my skin.
“What did you do to me?” I flinched and twitched like a horse covered in flies.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I lit a fire in you, cat. You are not only a shifter any more than Maks is only a Jinn. For now, I will give part of him back to you—not the part you want, likely. But at least you will know it’s him and not me.”
He grinned and his body sagged where he stood as if something left him, and then he shook his head and looked at me. Blue eyes, just blue eyes. But they were hard, and there wasn’t an ounce of laughter in them.
The heat in my limbs wasn’t slowing and I didn’t know what to do with it. I clenched my hands into tight fists. “Maks?” I wasn’t really hoping it was him. Not really.
“I am your escort to the desert, cat,” he growled and turned his back to me. “Nothing more.”
The hyenas cackled again.
Lila launched from Balder to me, a whoosh of air across my face, drying tears I’d not even noticed.
“What do we do?” she whispered as Maks sat with his back to us, his face turned to the south.
My body felt as though it were on fire and my heart was breaking into a million little pieces of glass that cut me from the inside out.
I didn’t have it in me to be brave in that moment.
“We run.”
Chapter Nine
Merlin stood next to Marsum while the Jinn came back to his own body. “Goddess, that was the most fun I’ve had in a long time, old man. You were right! Taking Maks away from her will drive her right to me.”
“That’s not what I suggested doing at all,” Merlin said, fighting not to snap at the powerful Jinn. They were on par with one another in strength, which was the only reason Merlin hadn’t just barged his way in to rescue Flora. That, and Marsum had a gaggle of Jinn following him.
There was not a day that went by that Merlin didn’t regret giving the Jinn the sunstone, the strongest of the gems. It had made the Jinn’s leader sadistic in a way he could never have known possible.
“No,” Marsum opened his eyes and grinned wide, wild lights flickering in his eyes. “No, you said that I should try and gain her trust. Do you see what I did? I told her the truth about him. He didn’t really love her.” He snorted and turned to Flora who sat on the floor at his feet. “What say you, priestess of Zeus? Did the cat love my wayward son?”
Flora was dressed in a long white slave gown split up both sides, her hair twisted into intricate braids on either side of her face. Beautiful, if not for the look she was giving Marsum that said she’d like to put his balls in a stew pot.
Electricity danced in her eyes. “Unchain me, and I’ll show you exactly what I think.”
Merlin shook his head ever so slightly.
She pointed a finger at him. “Don’t you shake your head at me! This is all your fault!”
“That’s not true—” Merlin said but she cut him off.
“It is! You told Marsum there were lions left in this world! He thought they were all dead! You basically sent Maks right into this and now look at all of us! I thought you’d changed, but you’re just the meddling bastard of the Emperor you’ve always been, hidden in better fitting clothes!” She drew a breath and Marsum waved a hand at her. Her mouth clamped shut; Marsum’s magic doing the trick.
If she’d been angry before, it was nothing to the fury that lit up her face when she realized she’d been forced to shut her mouth. The sky above them rolled with an unseen storm. If Marsum pushed her much further, she would break her bonds and then they’d all be in for a shock.
Literally.
Marsum rubbed his fingers over his brow. “Gods, that could give even me a headache if I let her go on. You don’t mind, do you, Merle?” He tipped his head and smiled at Merlin. Merlin did not smile back.
“You are testing my patience, Marsum. I am only here to make sure the Emperor is dealt with. You are his pawns and he is drawing power again through the stones and the blood vines—” Again, he was cut off.
Marsum growled, his features twisting into something less than human. “I am not his pawn.”
Merlin snorted. “Your Jinn are going missing, are they not? The standing stones are calling them, drawing their lives to feed his. I believe that makes you pawns.”
The other Jinn around the room shifted on their feet, a soft shuffling that had Marsum’s head whipping around to glare at them. “We are not his pawns. He sleeps, and he will remain sleeping. The cat will bring me the last jewels and I will make sure she is kept very safe.” He grinned. “She will not bring down the remainder of the wall.”
Merlin wanted to bang his head on the wall. “That is not how this works, Marsum. You are simplifying things far too much. I know you struggle with complex ideas that are above your pay grade. But let me spell it out to you. The Emperor is waking. With or without the wall coming down, he will rise again.”
“Then why does it matter if I let her live?” Marsum tipped his head again. “You told me my best bet was to keep the cat alive. To keep her safe from the Emperor.”
Merlin pinched the bridge of his nose. “Gods save me from fools. Yes, because she is the only one able to kill him should the need arise.” That, and of course, he, Merlin, was playing all sides of the field, working his own manipulations as fast and as cleanly as he dared.
Marsum was right up in his face in a flash, so c
lose that Merlin could smell the grains the Jinn had eaten for breakfast.
“I don’t think I like your tone.” Marsum breathed the words across him. The Jinn around the edges of the room slid closer. Merlin shot a look to Flora. Her eyes gave him nothing but the anger of a woman he adored.
Damn his life and all it brought. It was time to leave, no matter that he wanted to stay with Flora. That he wanted to be her hero.
He held up a finger. “Pull my finger, would you?”
Marsum looked down at the finger and then back at Merlin. “Have you lost your mind?”
Merlin grinned, grabbed at his own finger, deep red sparks flying from his skin as he snapped his fingers. He closed his eyes, knowing Flora would hate him for this, but he had to go. Zamira needed him, and the world needed her.
Except that as his body dissolved, something took hold of him. He fought the sensation as he writhed and worked to flee to Zam.
He blinked and found himself in a small glass box. An infinity box, just like the one he’d placed his father in. Un-escapable unless someone who knew what they were doing freed you.
He was good and royally screwed and it was his own fault. But the sorrow he felt was not for his own dilemma, but for those who’d followed him into this. For Flora, Zamira, Maks, and even Lila. They would pay the price for his efforts.
On his hands and knees, he stared out at Marsum as he grinned down at Flora.
“What do you think? Should we kill him now?”
She turned her face away from Marsum to look at him. Merlin put his hands on the glass and lowered his head.
Their voices were muffled, and it didn’t matter anyway. Marsum was an idiot when it came to other magics—Merlin was, for all intents and purposes, trapped for eternity. What that meant was he couldn’t be killed. There was no threat to his body. Just his mind as he slowly went mad.
What a way to go.
“You see,” Marsum strolled in front of him, “the blood vines are not working for the Emperor. I’ve attached them to my own strength.” He grinned. “I am the recipient of all that power as it is absorbed from supernaturals too stupid to live. I am the one who controls them now. I almost had Zamira a few days ago. But . . .she slipped my grasp.”
Jinn's Dominion (Desert Cursed Series Book 3) Page 9
