Jinn's Dominion (Desert Cursed Series Book 3)

by Shannon Mayer

  “I choose neither,” I snarled.

  My hand reached up to the flail on my back.

  “Damn it!” roared Ford, snapping me out of the trance as surely as a bucket of ice water doused over my head. I jerked upright, breathing hard as if I’d been running flat out.

  I stared across at Ford who clutched his left hand. A new wound there, one that looked self-inflicted. I couldn’t help the exasperated snort that escaped me. “How exactly did you survive on your own?”

  He shrugged, and I approached him with the hacka paste while I struggled to put together the vision I’d had.

  I took his hand and turned it over, getting a good look at it. “It’s not deep. We need to save the paste for those we’re bringing out. There’s a good chance they’ll need it.”

  Ford nodded. “Right, of course.” He took my hand in his good one, holding onto me. “I really am sorry about the things I said before. About you and Lila.”

  I arched a single eyebrow, not sure if I believed him. Color me cautious when it came to men suddenly reversing their positions, but it smacked of him being up to something. “Sure. Thanks for the apology.”

  He smiled and winked at me, then arched both brows high. “You think Darcy will like me?”

  The question shouldn’t have surprised me. I took a step back, looking at him through the lens of a woman who sought a mate. He was tall, strong, well put together with a smart-ass attitude. And he was a black lion, which made him unique if you could deal with the cheek.

  “Possibly. I honestly don’t know what her type is.” Which was true. My brother had loved her, and she had fucked Steve believing she should because he was the alpha apparent. I wasn’t sure that either had her heart.

  He sagged a little. “Well, I’ll just have to convince her then, right? Any suggestions on how to show her I’m a good guy?”

  “How about we get her the fuck out of the Jinn’s Dominion first before you start the courtship?” I walked over to my bag and dug around in the pack. “I’m going to get a pack ready for you. Then you’re going to shift to four legs, then you’re going to carry me all the way to your hold position at the edge of the Jinn’s Dominion so I don’t burn energy I don’t have to. Got that?” I dug through the gear, making sure there were a few clothes the girls could wear. “I need a pair of pants from you, besides those you’ll need.”

  He threw a pair at me and I stuffed them into the bag. Extra weapons, a blanket, the last of the hacka paste, three water bags. On my own body, I tied the bag of magic dust to my belt, made sure the kukri blades and the flail were firmly attached and adjusted the straps over my chest and shoulders. The diamond was wrapped in a leather bag and I hefted its weight. On a whim, I looped it through the middle of my bra so the stone hung against my belly. Less noticeable than if I’d hung it from around my neck. I put a hand on the emerald stone, and at the last second tucked it into the bag.

  The green stone was meant for Maks. I wasn’t sure I should give it to him, but I took it anyway.

  From there, I got the five horses ready, and that took up the last of the daylight. I stroked Balder’s nose as I finished tacking him last. “You wait for me, buddy, but if I’m not back by tomorrow night, run back to the Stockyards.”

  He snorted and pushed his head into my chest. I repeated the instructions to Batman. Both horses watched me with dark, serious eyes, as if they completely understood. I hoped they did.

  “Lila, you ready?” I turned to find her buried in the ashes of Ford’s campfire. She popped her head up so only her violet eyes peered at me surrounded by painted black scales. I stared at her, my heart racing. “Shit, you look like your dad.”

  She grinned and snarled. “Good, ’cause he’s a major fucker, don’t you think? Maybe they’ll fear me.”

  I laughed and she flew to my shoulder. The coal ash clung to her scales. I waved a hand at Ford. “Strip and shift.”

  He pulled off his clothes and threw them to me one at a time. I stuffed them into the bag and then he shifted into his lion form. He stretched and yawned, showing off his teeth.

  “We’re like the eastern wall’s ninjas.” Lila giggled. “Scourges of the night!”

  I laughed and went to Ford. I put a hand under his belly and he squirmed. “Stop that, I need to get the straps on you, fool.”

  “Sorry, ticklish,” he grumbled.

  Lila leapt from my shoulder to his, then up to his head. I quickly looped the wraps between his front legs and back up over his shoulders and tied them to the bag. “Feel good?” I asked him.

  “Not bad. I can run with it on.” He turned his big head to me and I reflexively scratched under his chin the way I had with my brother how many times? Too many to count.

  For just a moment, I felt him there with us. I looked to my left, the image of a ghostly golden lion pacing the Oasis. Only I wasn’t sure it was Bryce.

  Blue eyes stared up at me from the golden lion.

  My father’s ghost stared back at me.

  I hoped to hell it wasn’t the bad omen it felt like.

  But I had a feeling things were not going to go as planned.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Merlin did not like it in the box. He did not like it with these rocks. He would not care to have his ears boxed, or be forced to eat dirty socks. He grimaced at the foolish rhyme, but the reality was he needed something to keep his mind busy.

  A box like he was jammed into was meant to drive the occupant mad. It was meant to break your heart and soul, to strip you of your humanity so you could be used by your captors. To be fair, Marsum didn’t understand he was dealing with a man who’d survived several such torture techniques over the years, and as such, he’d prepared himself so if ever he faced it again, he would come out in better shape than before.

  After all, he’d been the one to create the infinity box, just like the one he’d stuffed his father into, though that one was much larger. Marsum wasn’t strong enough to make anything larger than the box Merlin had been jammed into.

  From where he sat with his head resting on his knees, he could see Flora next to Marsum at the high table. Their voices were foggy, but the words were clear enough.

  “What do you mean he’s back without her?” Marsum slammed a hand on the table as a messenger, a low-level Jinn, bent into a full bow.

  “He said she escaped. She used her own magic and they killed Bart with acid and escaped.” The Jinn dared to lift his head.

  Marsum swung around to glare at Merlin. “You think Zamira could have unlocked the binds on her bloodlines on her own? I opened her to her grandfather’s magic so I can train her, and use it for my own. But not the rest.”

  Merlin tried to shrug, but otherwise said nothing. There was nothing Marsum could do to make him speak, or at least nothing worse than this stupid box.

  Marsum glared at him. “Tell me, Merlin!”

  Merlin yawned and closed his eyes to mere slits. Marsum grabbed Flora by the neck and held her up. “It bothers me not one whit to kill a priestess of Zeus if it means I will find your obedience with her death.”

  Merlin opened his eyes. “And then when she is dead, you’ll have nothing to threaten me with, you fool.”

  Marsum snarled and then a slow smile wrapped across his face. “And how would you like a first-hand view of your woman enjoying my pleasures, then?” He let Flora go and Merlin’s eyes shot to hers.

  The flicker of anger in them was all he needed to know that she would not back down either. “I’m sorry, Flora.”

  “Not as sorry as this one will be,” she snapped, and a roll of thunder crashed through the room. Marsum turned as a bolt of lightning danced from her fingertips and blasted him across the hall, slamming him into the stone.

  Merlin stared. “Why didn’t you do that sooner?”

  Flora ran to him and a second blast of lightning hit the box, shattering it. He all but fell out, his limbs crying from the length of time he’d been forced into the unnatural position. Flora helped him up an
d then they ran through the main tower.

  “To the Oasis,” Flora said. “Can you take us there?”

  “I can, but my father—”

  She snapped him around. “He’s awake, Merlin, and he knows you are here. There is no hiding now.”

  He gave a single nod, still shocked that she could break the infinity box, then wrapped his arm around her and stepped through the ether, leaving the Jinn’s Dominion behind.

  The boom and ruckus of the scrambling Jinn was gone in an instant.

  He went to his knees in the sand around the water of the Oasis, breathing hard. “Sweet baby goddess, Flora. Marsum is stronger than the last time I met him.”

  “So I gathered.” She dropped to her knees beside him. “But that was no infinity box, or I would not have been able to smash it. More to the question, why didn’t you stay with Zam? You were supposed to be helping her.”

  He closed his eyes, unable to look her in the eye. “I couldn’t leave you. Not when I convinced you to come to this hellhole and help me. Not when it was my fault you were captured because I didn’t trust you with all the information. This was . . .”

  “Not all your fault,” she said. “Merlin, thank you for trying to save me. Even if I had to save you in the end.”

  He looked up to find her smiling at him, a distinct twinkle in her green eyes. “Are you sassing me already?”

  Before he could understand what was happening, she leaned in and kissed him. Soft and sweet, spicy and full of fire, the kiss didn’t last nearly long enough.

  She pulled back first. “We need to find Zamira. We know she is the key. We know she needs to take the Jinn’s stone, but there is so much at odds here, so much contradiction. Did you see Maks?”

  “What?” He looked into her face, still more than a little stunned from her kiss. How long since a kiss had set him back on his heels? A hundred years? More?

  She patted his cheek. “Pay attention. Maks stepped in the room right after the messenger. He was back with the Jinn. Though I doubted he wanted to be.”

  “What did his eyes look like?” Merlin forced himself to pull it together.

  “Like he was stoned on poppy juice.” Flora stood and walked to the water, knelt and rinsed her hands off and patted her face.

  “Then he isn’t himself. Marsum has him in his control again.” He frowned. “That does not bode well for Zamira. She might go in to save him rather than take the stone, and she needs that stone to deal with my father.”

  “All well and good, but if you’ll recall the last two stones were not on her radar either. She seems to find them whether she wants to or not.” Flora glanced back at him and her eyes widened.

  A breath of warm air ghosted across the back of his neck, right before a pair of hairy lips nibbled at the base. He let out a yell and rolled forward, coming up with hands glowing, magic suffusing his skin.

  The gray horse stared at him and bobbed his head once. Merlin frowned and stood. “You couldn’t have said there was a horse behind me?”

  “Funnier to watch your reaction.” Flora chuckled.

  He grimaced and drew his magic back into himself. “Wait,” he leaned over to see two horses tied in a long line behind the gray. Next to him was a black horse with a horse tied behind him. Five horses.

  “That’s Zamira’s horse,” Flora whispered. “But she’s not here.”

  He looked the horses over. They were ready to go, to bolt from danger. He turned slowly and faced the south. Searching the ground, he found what he was looking for.

  Big lion paw prints sunk into the sand, and there beside them, a tiny set of paw prints far harder to see in the dark.

  “She’s here all right, just farther south. Her pride is in there, Flora.” A chill whispered down his spine. “She’s walking right into a trap.”

  “Then we have to help her!” Flora said.

  “We can’t. You know that.” He turned to look at her. “Or at least, I can’t.” He moved to untie one of the horses, a chestnut with flaxen mane and tail. “Ride, you can get there. You can help her.”

  “Aren’t you afraid of me being caught again?”

  He shook his head. “No. I think you are done playing nice. And I . . . I have someone else I must face.”

  She reached out for him. “Your father.”

  He nodded. “I will do all I can to slow him down. Stay with Zamira, help her. Once the magic is unlocked, she will need the guidance of someone she can trust.”

  “She won’t trust me.”

  He grinned. “Not right away, but she will. She has to—she needs you to be the mentor she has never truly had.”

  He dared to reach over and pull her into his arms, locking his mouth over hers for a brief moment before he pulled back. “I’ve waited my whole life to find a woman who matched me not only in strength, but in meddling.”

  She burst out laughing. “Damn you, Merlin. Go, see if you can subdue your father. And I will save you once you get caught again.”

  Flora swung onto the horse’s back and gave it her heels, sending it into a flat-out gallop. The other horses watched them go, as did Merlin.

  “Be safe, Flora,” he whispered as he opened the ether and stepped through to a dark and dead land. Ahead of him was a temple, a pyramid made of bones and rock.

  He drew himself up. This was about to get interesting.

  Chapter Twenty

  Before we’d left the safety of the Oasis, I’d lifted a hand to my father’s ghost, but otherwise didn’t acknowledge him. This was not the time. The Oasis had been the place of his death, where he’d defended his family and his pride, but it would not be my reckoning ground.

  I’d shifted, dropping to all fours. Next to Ford, I was the size of a cub at best. I leapt up and onto his back, hanging on to the bag of clothing and emergency supplies.

  “Let’s go,” I said, and Ford jumped forward, racing straight south. Around the eastern side of the water he went, and as the sand kicked up from his huge paws, the flicker of sandblasted bones winked up at me. A glimmer of steel. A chunk of leather.

  It was a graveyard that had gone untended for many years. I drew a deep breath, holding the smell of my home in my lungs. The water, the sand, the heat of the day, it all was an imprint that would never leave me.

  I hunched down, clinging to the bag as Ford ran, bursting out of the Oasis. He was strong, and obviously used to running in this form because he never slowed or even broke stride. There was no moment where I thought he was going to give up and tell me he needed to walk.

  “Ford, how long have you been roaming the desert on your own?” I asked.

  “Since Maks was killed. My mother . . . she said I had to leave because I was too much to feed, but I was already moving, already wanting to go,” he said. “I’d stayed because I felt responsible for her.”

  Classic alpha lion, and rather interesting. There was more to him than I’d thought. “Looking for him even though you believed he was dead.”

  He nodded. “Maybe a part of me knew he was still out there.”

  I lifted my head into the wind, breathing in the scent of the desert. Partly because I looked to pick up on any Jinn that might be coming our way, but also because I’d missed this place I had been born. It called to my soul in a way I couldn’t explain even to myself. Like I belonged here.

  I wrinkled my nose at my attempt at prose.

  Ford began to slow, and I realized we’d covered a lot of ground and were nearing the drop-off point for him. He dropped to his belly, panting. “Here we are, ladies.”

  I hopped off and Lila grabbed at a water skin for him, managing to get it open and pour it into his mouth. Really, it was quite the scene, and another time I would have been snickering with the way his head was tipped and how her tiny claws gripped the water skin so carefully.

  When he was done drinking, I stepped out in front. Though we couldn’t see them from here, there were two towers waiting for us in the dark.

  “You ever been this close to
them before?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Nope.”

  I shook my body as if I could shake out the nerves. “Lila, fly low.”

  I put a paw on Ford’s nose. “If we aren’t back by morning, go to the Oasis and get the fuck out of here.”

  “And where am I supposed to go?” He didn’t pull away from my paw. “Maks is in there too. If you aren’t back by morning, I’m coming in after all of you. Maybe they’ll make me alpha for being the hero.”

  I laughed. “Nope, you’d need balls as big as mine for that.”

  He snorted a laugh and I spun, and sprinted away from him, headed straight south.

  The sand gave under my feet, but because I was so light, I didn’t struggle with it like the bigger cats. Then again, Ford had moved in it at a decent clip, far faster than I would have thought.

  “Zam, do you think we’ll be able to do this?” Lila asked softly.

  I glanced up at her. “Do you want my honest thoughts, or some sort of made up, make you feel better about the stupid thing we are doing kind of shit?”

  She snorted and then laughed. “I think that answers my question.”

  I sighed. “I think we have a chance. I’d say we have the best chance at getting in undetected. I’m almost sure of that part. They won’t be looking for us. It’ll be getting out where I’m not sure we’ll be able to move without being caught.” That was the only part of the plan I didn’t have a set idea of how to make it happen.

  She winged beside me, our pace next to one another easy. “What about moving them one at a time?”

  I frowned. “More chances to be caught.”

  “But easier to hide one rather than three,” she said.

  Lila had a point. “I don’t know, Lila. Let’s see what we see when we get there.” There was not much more I could plan for at this point. We were going in. It was going to get ugly. And hopefully I could get everyone out. That was my only goal.

  Lila landed ahead of me and I slowed my own pace. Ahead, lights glowed in the distance, lights that ran into the sky to the far left and the far right.