Red sensed his wariness over life everlasting and nodded his head at Ari. “You love her? You don’t want to live without her? Ari is the daughter of a Jinn king and an Ifrit, Jai. Even with your mother’s blood, you will not live as long as Ari will. She will outlive you. Perhaps by many a long year.”
Her uncle’s prophecy lodged into a hard, painful ball in her chest as she turned in Jai’s arms to gaze up at him, clearly expressing her fear over having to live without him. It was too close to the bone to think about rationally, to remember that even so, they’d have a long, happy life together. “Jai,” she begged without needing to say the words.
He brushed his fingers tenderly down her cheek. “It’s forever, Ari. Forever is a very long time.”
“But it’s forever with you.”
His eyes flared bright at her words and he leaned down to press his forehead against hers, taking a moment to feel her and breathe her in. She reciprocated, though her muscles were tense with question. Would he accept Red’s offer? For her?
Jai pulled back and looked at the Red King, resolve etched in his features. “Yes. We’ll accept your extremely kind offer, Red.”
Red appeared to relax right along with Ari.
“Brace yourself,” Trey suddenly murmured darkly. “This is going to hurt like a bitch.”
Red grimaced. “He’s not wrong.”
Epilogue
Always
“We spend a lot of time in cemeteries and
graveyards,” Ari observed casually as she and Jai walked side by side, their bodies alert in the dark. “Have you noticed that?”
They passed an impressively large headstone and Jai nodded. “I think it’s just our luck lately. Next month it’ll seem like we spend a lot of time in the desert or in forests or in … shopping malls.”
“Was that a dig at this month’s expenditures?” she asked. A twig cracked to their right, pulling her attention. She peered into the dark but didn’t find what she was looking for.
“Not at all.”
“Caroline is throwing an engagement party for Fallon and Eli. I needed an outfit.”
“One outfit comes in fifteen bags?”
“It wasn’t fifteen—it was five. And I bought three outfits. I don’t know what mood I’ll be in the night of the engagement party.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t need to say anything.
Your tone said everything.”
“You do shop more than you used to.”
Ari wrinkled her nose and stopped to stare at him, hands on her hips. “Dude, I spend my days and often nights,”
she gestured around the moonlit cemetery, “hunting and killing Jinn. That’s just as bloody as it sounds. Shopping makes me feel like a girl again.”
Jai grinned at her, and she tingled all over. God, she hoped that feeling never faded. “Dude?”
“It slipped out.”
He shook his head in amusement and began searching again.
Almost a year had passed since their ordeal with Asmodeus, which meant she and Jai had been dating for over a year. It felt like a lot longer, but in a good way. As for Asmodeus, he’d unwillingly backed off. Permanently. Once Red had placed a piece of himself within Ari and Jai (a procedure so painful, they’d both blacked out), he and Glass had told Azazil exactly what they’d done. Of course, the Sultan was at once impressed and enraged. In the end, however, there was nothing to be done but put his own protection behind Ari, Trey, and Jai to ensure that his sons came to no harm through their deaths. Asmodeus was foiled, and Ari was glad she hadn’t been forced to share a room with him since.
Things had been quiet in the royal Jinn world. Ari no longer had contact with the Sultan or any of the Jinn kings, with the exception of Red and Glass. Red stopped by once in a while to check on them, but Glass was a more permanent feature since he and Trey were as loved up as Jai and Ari. In fact, Trey was thinking of getting his own place so they’d all have more privacy. Ari would definitely miss living with him. Not only did he crack her up but he also acted as a coolheaded mediator in Ari and Jai’s hotheaded disagreements.
And now they had an eternity of head-butting to contend with. Not that it bothered either of them. They each secretly liked the head-butting and where it eventually led.
The last year had not been quiet in other ways, however. Michael kept them busy and they were rapidly growing a legendary reputation as Jinn assassins. According to Red, complaints had been made to Law Makers and Azazil up in Mount Qaf. But since they weren’t technically breaking the law, and Azazil liked their help with maintaining the balance, Jai, Ari, and Trey were allowed to continue working for the Roe Guild.
When Ari wasn’t working or making out with Jai or shopping or training, she found the time (every few months or so) to check in with Derek and Charlie. Derek had separated from his wife and was living in a small apartment closer to town. He had joint custody of his two sons and he actually seemed okay as far as Ari could tell.
Charlie was happy. He was still dating the shy brunette and taking care of Mikey and his mom, who Ari also checked on. They were good too. Mrs. Creagh was dating Charlie’s boss, which clearly pissed off Charlie but Ari found it hilarious. She was just glad they were alive and healthy to have these disagreements and dramas.
As for Fallon, she’d spent the last year giving Eli McEttrick the runaround. She’d confessed to Ari that theirs was a friends-with-benefits relationship, but it had quickly deteriorated as it became clear Eli was interested in more. He pursued her with an impressive determination and persistence. She’d finally given in six months ago, and then he’d proposed, and it had taken him another three months to get her to say yes.
Michael was happy with his daughter’s choice of husband, and even happier that the engagement had started up talks of the possibility of the two Guilds joining together to make the largest Guild on the East Coast. Some were excited at the possibility, others not so much. Ari and Jai didn’t care what happened as long as they could stay with the family they’d built within the Roe Guild, and spend their days hunting and their nights cuddling.
Well, usually their nights.
“Do you think the Utukku is even going to show up?” Ari asked, almost whining. She was missing an episode of her favorite show for this crap.
“Not if you keep talking.”
“Someone is grumpy tonight.”
“I expected to be in bed with my girlfriend right about now, not hunting some creepy little schmuck in a cemetery in Maine.”
“Schmuck? Did you just use the word schmuck?”
Jai shook his head but his lips twitched, giving him away. “That’s all you got out of that sentence?”
“I’m not thinking about the rest of that sentence. It’ll just piss me off even more knowing what we could be doing instead of doing this.”
Jai stopped and reached out to her, his arm wrapping around her waist. He drew her close and pressed a soft kiss to her lips.
Ari snuggled closer to him. “We’re not acting like responsible assassins right now.”
“I know.” He groaned and kissed her forehead before moving away from her. “When this is over, I’m going to make it up to you.”
A delicious shiver rippled over her at the thought. “Will you do that thing I like?”
“The thing-thing, or the thing?”
he asked, scanning the next aisle of headstones.
“The thing.”
“Baby, we get this guy and I’ll do the thing and the thing-thing.”
The Utukku picked that particular moment to appear at the end of the aisle, and with Jai’s sensual promise ringing in her ears, Ari unleashed a far more powerful curse than she needed to on the wicked Jinn.
It exploded.
Jai slowly turned to her, choking on laughter. “Was that necessary?”
Instead of answering, she grabbed the lapels of his jacket and pushed him back against the trunk of a tree. “You just promised to do both thin
gs. It was definitely necessary.”
He grinned and wrapped his arms around her, yanking her willingly against him. “So all I have to do is offer sexual favors and it completely wipes out any hesitation you have over taking a malevolent life?”
Ari leaned up to brush her mouth over his, loving the way his fingers dug into her hips with need. “You make that sound so much worse than it is.”
His kiss quickly turned hot and deep. Finally, Jai pulled back, their breathing heavy. “We should get back.”
“Or find the nearest hotel.”
“Or find the nearest hotel,” he agreed, his eyes heavily lidded with passion.
And then Jai’s cell beeped and he groaned, dropping his head against hers as he pulled the phone from his back pocket. He groaned again. “It’s Michael. He says once we’re done here, he needs us back at his place to discuss our next assignment.”
Ari frowned, took his cell, and began texting.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m telling him we’ll see him in the morning. It’s almost midnight, Jai. We need ‘us time’ and some rest.”
“I know.” He sighed but she could hear the teasing in his voice. “It’s not like we’re immortal or anything.”
She rolled her eyes and shoved his cell suggestively back in his pocket. “That’s the fifth time this month you’ve used that joke. You need to get new material.”
“You need to get your hand out of my pocket unless you want to do this in a cemetery.”
“Mmm, kinky,” Ari laughed.
Jai chuckled. “You’re a nut.”
“I’m your nut.”
“This is true.” His expression grew tender as he dipped his head to kiss her again.
“Ugh, gag me. Could you two be anymore sickening?”
The unfamiliar voice was a splash of ice water that drew them apart. Ari whirled around and her shoulders slumped in annoyance at the sight of the gnarled Jinn sitting atop a nearby headstone.
Another Utukku.
“Another one?” she huffed.
“You know they sometimes travel in pairs,” Jai reminded her.
She cracked her knuckles as she gazed up at her boyfriend. “Let’s make this quick. I do intend to get lucky at some point tonight.”
Lips curled at the corners, Jai nodded and then turned to the Utukku. He took a menacing step toward the Jinn.
“I’ll do the honors this time.”
“I’ve got your back, baby,” Ari answered, following him into the fight.
Always.
THE END
Read on for some bonus content …
“I Don’t Even Know You”
Eli & Fallon’s Introduction
Bonus Scenes from Darkness, Kindled
“Fallon, sweetheart, get rid of that pinched look on your face before our guest arrives, please.” Michael Roe sighed heavily as he sat behind his desk.
Fallon did as her dad asked, smoothing her features clean of expression. Instead she let her body do the talking. She crossed her arms over her chest and cocked her hip, hoping it screamed a defiant “You are not welcome here!”
Michael groaned and sat back in his chair, his mouth curling at the corners. “Why are you upset about this?”
Really? He had to ask? Fallon widened her eyes in mock horror at his question and threw her hands in the air, as if asking the Sultan up high on his mountain to grant her patience. The last few months had been … well, there wasn’t even a word to describe what they’d been like, considering Fallon had been dead for a good part of it. She’d gone from being in love for the first time with an emotionally damaged sorcerer, Charlie Creagh, to floating peacefully in a cocoon of beautiful nothing, to being ripped out of it into a reality that clashed painfully with memories she had of another one. Finally, when she’d actually managed to compartmentalize all the changes in her life, including saying goodbye to Charlie, she’d only just come down from the frightening buzz of watching an apocalypse averted.
The last few weeks, she and her friends and fellow Hunters, Ari, Jai, and Trey, had jumped back into the daily business of tagging and hunting Jinn. Well, she tagged and hunted Jinn—Ari, Jai, and Trey assassinated them. It sucked that because of medieval racial reasons, Fallon wasn’t allowed to finish the job herself. She was stuck as an assistant.
Still, that was her lot in life. She’d been happy with it before and she wasn’t going to start bemoaning her limitations now. Not after everything.
After everything.
And this was why she was pissed off. The Guilds all over the continental United States and probably the world knew that her family had been through the ringer. Everyone knew that after everything that had happened to them, they were just trying to find a little normalcy. So why the hell did Eli McEttrick think it was okay to pay a visit to her father now when everything was so up in air?
“His timing sucks.”
“Fallon, one day you might be this Guild’s leader and you’re going to have to find new adjectives. Preferably ones that ring with maturity.”
She ignored him. “Dad, you know as well as I do that he wants to meet Ari, Jai, and Trey, and he wants to know what the hell is going on in your Guild. Whatever he finds out, he’s going to take back to the other Guilds, and I doubt they’ll be happy you have one up on the rest of them. He couldn’t give us just a few more weeks of peace and quiet before he brought this crap to us?”
Her father stared at her in that patient, serene way of his that she definitely did not inherit. “Eli isn’t coming here to check up on us. Yes, he’ll want to meet Ari, Jai, and Trey, just as I would want to if they belonged to another Guild. But Eli is here because his Guild leader, a man he much admired and, need I remind you, is mourning, passed away. The Guild elected Eli as leader. It’s customary for a new leader to present himself to the Guild leaders in the neighboring territories. We’re the closest Guild and this is his first visit in his new position. I’d like it if you could show him some simple courtesy, respect, and yes, even sympathy.”
Reluctantly, Fallon gave him a sharp nod, but she ended it with a warning. “I’m far more suspicious than you and I think this time I’m right.”
“You welcomed Ari into our fold with no such suspicion when everyone else was wary of her. Why can you not afford Eli the same courtesy?”
Fallon snorted. “If I’d known opening that door to Ari was going to invite the crap it did, I’d have slammed it shut in her face.”
Michael grinned. “Liar.”
She exhaled in exasperation. “Whatever.”
“Uh, merciful Sultan, save me from that dreadful word.”
Laughing, Fallon was not exactly wearing the intimidating countenance she would’ve liked when her mom walked into the office, followed by a tall, good-looking guy in his early twenties.
Michael stood as they entered but the guy was too busy staring curiously at Fallon.
This was Eli McEttrick?
Fallon fidgeted slightly, her eyes locked in his intense regard. He had stunning, pale blue eyes surrounded by thick black lashes, longish, messy black hair, an undeniably rugged, masculine face—chiseled jawline and all—and an attractive scruff. He wore a dark navy thermal Henley that showcased exceptionally broad shoulders and a muscular body, old, faded jeans, and scuffed motorcycle boats. He looked good but in a way that informed everyone he didn’t care about his appearance.
“Eli, I presume?” Michael held out his hand to the young Guild leader, drawing his attention.
Eli gave Michael a sharp nod and gripped his hand. “It’s an honor to meet you, sir.”
“You too. I’ve heard nothing but excellent things.” Michael smiled and nodded to his wife. “You’ve met my wife, Caroline.” He turned, his lips twitching with secret amusement as his eyes fell on his daughter. “This is my daughter, Fallon. She’s one of our most powerful Hunters.”
Eli raised an eyebrow as he perused Fallon from top to bottom. Her skin felt hot under his gaze and she
found herself frowning up at him in annoyance. “I’ll have to see that to believe it.”
Her eyebrows almost hit her hairline.
“And that means what, exactly?”
He grinned and Fallon felt the impact of it low in her belly. “Just that you’re such a little thing.”
Taking the comment as condescension, Fallon looked up at her father. Throwing a hand out in Eli’s direction, she asked belligerently,” Seriously? This guy?”
“Fallon,” Caroline warned.
“It’s fine.” Eli shrugged. “I’ve faced hostiles down before. I have a way of changing their minds.”
Michael laughed, causing Fallon to glare at him in betrayal. “I’ll be in the gym,” she huffed and brushed past them all, feeling the back of her neck prickle as she walked out of the room.
Fallon had probably been punching the dummy in front of her for over an hour. No probably about it if her aching hands and the mushed stuffing on the dummy’s face were anything to go by. She sighed heavily, letting her hands drop to her sides.
“Thank God.” Eli’s deep, rumbling voice caught her ear and Fallon jerked around to find him leaning against the gym’s doorframe. “I thought I was going to have to intervene to save the dummy from your wrath.”
Ignoring his grin, Fallon glowered.
“What are you doing down here? Where are my parents?”
“Upstairs.” He pushed off the jamb and stalked toward her, his eyes devouring her again. “I thought I’d come down here and clear the air.”
“Is that right?” Fallon crossed her arms defiantly.
Stopping inches from her, Fallon could feel the heat of Eli’s body against her own and she adamantly ignored the shiver of awareness that rippled through her as she craned her neck back to meet his gaze.
“Michael explained everything that’s happened to you. You’ve been through more than anyone should ever have to go through, Fallon, and I understand your wariness regarding my visit. But I assure you, I’m only here to introduce myself. I have no qualms with this Guild. In fact, I hope this Guild and mine can become great friends.”
Darkness, Kindled Page 23
