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His laugh was dark, possessive. “Never. But I will free you to look at your new home.”
She chilled as soft feathers fell away and he stepped back, leaving her standing in cool air and elegant splendor, in a room housing treasures older than any she’d seen in the Tucci estate.
Floor-to-ceiling windows defied the elements, daring them to rail against a structure that shouldn’t exist. Allowing for a view that drew her forward with its majesty, its harsh testament to the power of nature, snow-covered mountains and the near desert at their feet.
The sight made her breath catch, not just at the beauty but at how far they must be from San Francisco. “Where are we?”
“In the Sierras.”
Panic seized her. It was a fist around her heart that squeezed mercilessly, spearing pain through her chest and making her breathing erratic. “Take me back.”
“No.”
He prowled forward, a sensual menace reflected in the windows. She pulled her knives then, whirling to meet him.
“Why?” she asked, the question meant to encompass the entirety of his actions.
“Because you belong to me.”
It was said with complete belief. And though it galled her to consider herself property that could be passed on to another, she denied his claim. “The Master didn’t give me to you. He wouldn’t as long as Corinne is missing.”
Addai’s smile held the promise of death. “Think of any other male as your master and I will slay him.”
He lifted his hand and it was as if a tear appeared in reality, a sheath of air and light from which he drew a sword.
Cold menace radiated from both man and blade. In reaction her fists tightened around the hilts of her knives as she prepared to duck and lunge.
His smile became a snarl. “Do not fear that I will use my sword on you, Sajia. I would die before I let any harm come to you.”
His voice rang with truth, stunning her. Confusing her even as an insidious warmth spiraled through her. Desire reawakened. Awe that he could want her, care about her to such an extreme.
With the flick of his wrist the sword disappeared. He stepped forward, uncaring and unafraid of the blades she held. She stepped back, unwilling and unable to attack until he answered her.
His wings spread out behind him, bars of a feather-soft cage. His hands reached, but rather than try to disarm her, they settled against the glass behind her, trapping her at the expense of leaving himself vulnerable.
A dare? No. The arrogant curve of his lips spoke of utter confidence.
For a split second she was tempted to draw blood as she had in the occult shop. “Why me?” Sajia repeated.
Addai wanted to dismiss the question as easily as he’d dismissed the fate of the Tucci scion. Desire rode him and restraint threatened to fall away now that he had Sajia alone.
His earlier pragmatism and willingness to linger in Oakland were gone, washed away by hot lust and insatiable craving. Thousands of years of waiting had him nearly shaking with the need to ha
ve her lying beneath him, her bare skin and curves pressed to him, her legs open and her body welcoming his.
His gaze flicked to the scorpion-shaped pendant and he decided to answer the question, to tell her the truth, though not all of it. There would be time to tell her she wasn’t human. To unravel the angelic spell glowing in ice blue script on her flesh, to free her from it so she would be fully Djinn.
Once she’d been mardazma, able to change into another shape, though without a non-corporeal form. The need to bind her to a human form suggested that reborn she could shapeshift, though she might well have a higher caste’s ability to become little more than unseen particles.
Until he had her heart, her loyalty, her love, he couldn’t risk her knowing she had the ability to leave him, perhaps escape his reach altogether by discovering how to cross from this world to the Djinn kingdom deep in the ghostlands.
He dropped his hand from the window to cup her cheek, marveling at the heat of her skin, the features so perfectly re-created, so well loved and so often dreamed of. He stroked his thumb over soft, trembling lips. “I would die before I let any harm come to you because once you were my lover, my wife. I failed you in that life, and because of it you were killed, slain by my kind. I won’t fail you in this life, Sajia.”
Denial screamed through Sajia. What he claimed was impossible.
Yet on the heels of that came doubt. Before mankind had nearly destroyed the world, vampires and Weres were a thing of fiction and dark fantasy, and the ghostlands called Purgatory or Sheol, or something else depending on culture and belief. From the moment she’d first encountered Addai his name had resonated through her in a way that made no sense, as if some part of her recognized him and was determined to have him, regardless of the urgent need to find Corinne.
Corinne’s name was like a knife paring away everything unimportant. The past had no relevance, not now or in the immediate future.
