Borrowed Ember (20 page)

“Why?” she spat in disgust. “You didn’t need to kil him!”

He ignored her reproach and marched towards her with violence in his eyes. Even though her whole body was shuddering with fear and revulsion at what he’d just done, Ari stood her ground. He took hold of her left arm in a bruising grip, puling her body into his. “How is it possible?” he breathed angrily. “How can you withstand the command of the Seal?”

“Maybe the same way you can,” she countered aggressively, hating him in that moment and longing to be far, far away from him. She longed to be near Jai’s

comforting, protective presence. “You had the Seal around your neck for centuries, and I had it inside of me for eighteen years. Go figure.”

His eyes glittered dangerously. “You are not leaving here now.”

“What?” Ari hissed, puling at his grip. “No way!” They were not keeping her.

The crackle of flames was a welcome sound as Red stepped out of the
Peripatos
. His expression darkened at the sight of Asmodeus accosting her.

“Let her go, Asmodeus.”

“The Seal does not work against her. She cannot leave until I know why.”

“Wrong.” Red blurred across the room, his body coming back into focus beside them as he forcefuly pushed Asmodeus away from her, his own hand gentle around

her wrist as he pressed her behind him. “Azazil has already given his word that her promise to stay has been fulfiled. You cannot keep her here unless she is wiling.”

Red shot her a look over his shoulder. “Are you wiling?”

“Hel no,” she growled.

Smiling triumphantly, Red turned back to Asmodeus. “Sucks to be you right now.”

Ari snorted, feeling a smal triumph over Asmodeus and his apparently limitless viciousness.

“This isn’t over,” Asmodeus promised with his eyes pinning her to the wal. She felt a familiar dread in her gut. She’d honestly thought for a minute there that she was free from al this Jinn stuff.

After another warning step from Red, the Marid blazed his way out of the room, the door crashing behind him. Red’s eyes dropped on the dead Shaitan.

“I’m sorry,” Ari whispered. “I couldn’t stop him in time.”

Red flicked a hand and the body just disappeared. He turned to Ari seeming unconcerned. They were al so calous, she thought hopelessly. That Shaitan’s life meant nothing to any of them. “Not your fault.” He studied her a moment. “You can withstand the Seal’s command?”

“Yeah, looks like.”

“Wel.” He frowned in concern. “We’l try to keep that quiet. It might carry its own problems. You ready to leave?”

“Definitely.” She looked back where the Shaitan had been murdered. Is that what this life did to you? Made you so used to violence and death that a body was just that. A shel. Not a life at al?

Red seemed uncomfortable al of sudden, his eyes finding it difficult to focus on hers. “My father hinted that Jai’s tribe might know how to find Jai.”

Relief and hope crashed over her bringing her out of depressed thoughts. “That’s fantastic. Let’s go.”

“Ari, wait.” Red pinched the bridge of his nose, his gaze almost anxious. “I puled Glass out of his assignment to help Charlie find the Labartu. We left him in a motel in Houston knowing he’d very likely not be able to find her on his own in time.”

Stunned by the news, Ari replied softly, “I appreciate it. But it doesn’t mean I forgive you. Or trust you.”

“I’m not…” he heaved an exasperated sigh, “That’s not what I’m trying to tel you. My father isn’t happy I didn’t complete the assignment. He’s arranging for Charlie to meet Akasha.”

The fear was back.

Ari took a shuddering breath. “As payback.”

“It’s how he works.”

“Okay…”

“However… I’m also worried that White, if he finds out you’re no longer the Seal, wil take that news out on Jai in a bloody manner and my father has dropped his protection around him.”

Vile, heart-wrenching understanding dawned. “You’re saying—you’re saying I have to choose who I’m going to rescue first, and that whichever one I choose to

rescue second, might die before I get there?”

He nodded, his blue eyes ful of regret. “I can’t help, Charlie, Ari. My father might do something worse in retaliation.”

“Oh God,” Think. Think. “What about my mom?” she grasped desperately at the idea. “Couldn’t she help Charlie?”

Red shook his head adamantly. “I can’t—I won’t—put her in that kind of danger. White might find her and if he does-”

“Fine,” Ari whispered. “I get it.” She blew out a breath and nodded, coming to a sickening decision. “I need to get word to the Roes. Can you do that at least?

They’re the best bet at the moment.”

Red nodded as if he’d expected this. “You’ve made a choice. You’re sending them after Charlie. You’re going after Jai.”

Ari felt tears of shame clog her throat. “I’m not proud of it. But yeah.”

“I’m sorry, Ari.”

Ari’s eyes blazed at the thought of the possible ramifications of her choice. “Me too.”

25  -
These Continuous Trips to Lost & Found Are Wearing on my Soul

How many days had it been now? Or had it only been hours?

Worse, had it been weeks? Months?

The stifling black was wicked emptiness, for like a blank canvas before an artist, it tempted its prisoner to fil the black with images—images of Ari, of his father, of his faceless mother. Memories taunted Jai. Fears suffocated him as images of Ari’s dead body continued to float across the dark.

At these he’d yel to his captor to let him go until his voice was hoarse. He couldn’t feel Ari in the trace. The bottle extinguished much of Jai’s energy. He hoped that was the cause and not that Ari was…

The not knowing whether she was alive or dead was the worst part of al of this. If he ever got out of the bottle he’d been trapped in only to discover that Ari was gone…

… Jai couldn’t breathe.

How would he ever come back from that?

Her sweet smile filed the dark and Jai rubbed a hand over his chest where it ached. So this was what it was like to love someone this deeply?

Thinking of his captors brought furious tears to his eyes, tears he hadn’t alowed since he was a boy. He was wounded by the knowledge of who they were—the

people that were supposed to protect him. He was gutted by the truth that he should have taken his own advice long before now and kept his distance from Ari. He didn’t want to love anyone this much. Ever.

Now it was too late. There was no going back. He couldn’t walk away from her now even if his survival instincts told him he should.

He had to get out of here. He had to save her….

The black and
white checkered floor of the Bitar home reminded her far too much of a chessboard. White’s thievery—stealing Jai from her—was a taunt like his last, when he’d kiled Ari’s adoptive father, Derek.
“Checkmate.”

Bastard.

Grief rippled over her anew, hitting her like it did when she least expected it. An anger she hadn’t felt towards Sala since meeting her, ate at her. She’d destroyed Derek’s life. She’d put him in danger. And worse, he’d loved Sala and never truly loved Ari because of it.

Throwing aside those unwanted, ugly feelings, Ari listened as footsteps echoed down the halway towards her, a clickety-clack, clickety-clack of heels making her stomach knot with dread. Great. Nicki Bitar. As if Ari realy wanted to ask that psycho for help. She didn’t even have Red at her side to pressure the wicked stepmother. He was off acting as messenger, doing the only thing he could by notifying Michael Roe of Charlie’s whereabouts. She could only hope they were wiling to use their resources to find and stop him.

Nicki came into view, her dark Irish beauty so hateful to Ari she had an absurd urge to rake her nails down the witch’s face. Ari hated her for what she’d done to Jai and she knew she didn’t even know the half of the cruelty she’d committed against him. Nicki came to a stop a few checkers from Ari, her pretty mouth twisted into a smirk. “What do you want?”

“I want to speak with Luca.”

“He’s not home.”

Crap
. Fidgeting, trying not to feel panicky, Ari wondered if she should just refuse to leave until he returned. She knew she could rely on Luca’s sense of honor at least to help her find Jai, but Nicki? She was a heartless cow when it came to her stepson. “Jai’s been taken,” she snapped. “I have reason to believe that Luca can help me find him.”

“Help you how?” Nicki shook her head, her eyes narrowed in bitter hate. “There is no way we’re bringing our tribe into that war for a piece of scum.”

“You watch your mouth,” Ari snarled, taking a menacing step towards her. Satisfaction thrummed through her when Nicki flinched and stepped back. As if she was afraid.

Of course. Ari sneered. She stil believed Ari was the Seal.

Before either of them could say another word, the large double entrance door drew their attention as one of the doors swung open. Luca Bitar entered, his

appearance surprisingly scruffy. He looked tired. He stopped at the sight of Ari before him, his eyes widening with relief it seemed.

“Luca.” Nicki marched past Ari towards him, her voice high with surprise. “What are you doing home so early?”

He shot her a hateful look. “Why didn’t you cal to let me know Ari was here?”

“She just got here. I was going to.”

“Liar,” Ari hissed.

Luca shoved his wife’s hand off his arm and hurried to Ari’s side. “We have him, Ari.”

Her mouth fel open in shock, her stomach flipping. That was not what she’d been expecting him to say. “What?” she breathed in disbelief, horror and hope.

“The White King ordered me to place Jai in a bottle where Teruze could guard over him in the treasure room.”

His words were barely out of his mouth and Ari was spinning around, ready to bolt for the room where Luca kept al manner of precious items. His firm grip

clamped down around her wrist, whirling her back around to face him.

“Ari, Teruze is very old. He wil kil you if you dare try to unleash Jai from his imprisonment.”

“Then you unleash him!” Ari yeled, fury and disgust for him blazing in her eyes. Jai was his son! How could he do this to him? Her hand curled into a fist and she had to physicaly restrain herself from socking him in the mouth.

“I can’t,” he pleaded with her, seeming nothing like the man she had come to know and dislike. He appeared so much older than he used to. “Only I can order

Teruze to back off and only I can unleash Jai, but The White King promised he would destroy my entire Tribe if I, wilingly, freed Jai. I know I have made decisions you don’t agree with regarding Jai. I know my son and I are not close, but Ari I would never wish that kind of hel on him. Trapped in a bottle, it’s like being in the hole in prison. For weeks. I… I’ve been waiting for you or The Red King to show up and order me to let him go. It’s the only way around my oath to The White King. Ari.”

He pinched her arm desperately. “He’s stil my son. You have to believe me when I say I never wanted this. Order me to free him. Command me!”

“I can’t,” she breathed harshly. “Asmodeus ripped the Seal from me. He has it now.”

“WHAT?” White’s below roared around the entire mansion as he stepped out of the
Cloak
, advancing on Ari with dark questions in his eyes. For a moment she was stunned she hadn’t felt him hiding there, and then she realized… she was no longer the Seal. She no longer had the gift of detecting Jinn hiding in the
Cloak
. Shit! “I wondered what this trick was, why you were pretending not to feel me hiding in the
Cloak
. What is going on?”

Luca made a valiant attempt to stand between Ari and White, but the Jinn King barely looked at him as he swept his hand out, sending Luca crashing back with invisible hands against one of Nicki’s ugly portraits. Nicki made a choked sound of distress as she rushed to Luca’s side and Ari barely registered White’s proximity as she waited for signs of life from Jai’s dad. When he groaned, Ari sagged with relief. When she freed Jai, the last thing she wanted to tel him was that his dad was dead.

Assured that Nicki was seeing to him, Ari turned to face White. A sense of relish, of triumph overwhelmed her as she took in her real father’s rage. The cool, carefuly blank expression he’d adopted as a perennial mask had finaly slipped. He was feeling something.

Good.

He’d taken so much from her.

It was nice to have him bested for once.

Feeling as though she were standing under the heavy breaths of a dragon, Ari tried not to flinch when he took another step closer. “They played you al along,” she taunted him softly. “Azazil told Asmodeus to let Sala seduce him because he knew what you planned and he wanted you to do it.”

“Liar,” he growled but something flickered in the back of his eyes, as though he’d heard this al before? Ari narrowed her eyes in suspicion as White took another step toward her. “Why would Azazil want the Seal in human form?”

Tired of his dementedly stubborn blind faith in Lilif, Ari wondered if the truth would finaly knock some sense into White. “Lilif realy does want The After. I should know. The Seal, it’s realy your mother’s essence. The thing you’d been looking for? You had it al along until you used it to impregnate my mother.”

His eyes narrowed and Ari waited a moment to make sure he wasn’t going to lash out at her before she decided to continue.

“Azazil thought putting Lilif’s power into a Jinn through natural birth would perhaps provide him with a Jinn with her power, but lacking her madness. That it would somehow bring the old balance back. Instead it backfired. I started getting al of these visions. They were Lilif’s memories. Her essence, it’s not just her power. It’s actualy her. And she was trying to take control of my body. And these memories… I saw you. She played you. She let-” Ari choked off as his large hand shot out and wrapped around her throat. She clawed at it in panic as he lifted her off the ground, her weight nothing to him as he held her close.

“You lie,” he snarled. “They’ve poisoned you with their lies. Planted seeds, visions, doubts.” He shook her like a rag dol and Ari felt her eyes rol back in her head.

“Command me to do something.”

How could she? She gasped, her nails biting into his hand, her legs kicking out at him.

Abruptly he released her and she colapsed onto her knees coughing and spluttering as she tried to draw breath.

“Command me!”

“I can’t,” she managed hoarsely.

“Command me, Ari!”

“I command you to shut the hel up!” she yeled, her voice cracking on the words.

They were al silent a moment and Ari chanced a glance over at Luca and Nicki. Luca was on his feet now, Nicki standing protectively by his side. Ari caught the turmoil in his expression. He wanted to help, but doing so could harm his Tribe. She gave a tiny shake of her head to let him know she wanted him to stay out of it.

“It didn’t work,” White responded, his voice hushed with disbelief. “It didn’t work.”

As he stood there aghast, Ari considered the quickest way past him to the treasure room. Just as she was gathering her nerves to zoom by him, White turned his gaze on her, his eyes opaque with blank steel.

“Then you are of no more use to me,” he announced softly, but the words were laced with the quietest fury Ari had ever heard.

The threat lanced through her and Ari quickly threw up her hands, summoning her power just in time to block the bolt of magic he shot her way. It bounced off the cushion she’d created and Ari sped back from him at Jinn speed.

He was faster.

As she took corporeal form, the blurry trail of smoke she’d become solidifying back into her, a hand wrapped around her throat again and Ari’s eyes popped wide as White slid her body up the entrance door of the mansion, her body dangling helplessly again. There was nothing in his eyes. Nothing at al.

Ari forced her magic through her fingers as she gripped at the hand that was choking her, sending sharp knife-like pains into his hand, down his arm and into his body—little spiders of virulent energy aiming for his heart. She was sweating from the energy it took to shoot al her defensive magic into him, and yet it had no effect.

She felt her magic flame out as his far more powerful abilities overwhelmed it.

He was an immortal Jinn King after al.

And she was going to die.

Ari begged herself not to cry in panic. She wasn’t going out that way. Not after everything he’d done. He deserved, even if she was the one dying, to feel as if he’d lost.

Checkmate
, she telepathed loud and clear to him, her voice filed with a strange mixture of smug acceptance.

As they gazed into each other’s eyes, as she gazed into the face of her monstrously cruel father, as her breathing began to grow more strained, and black spots started pushing in at the corner of her eyes, Ari could have sworn the emotionless bled from his eyes. They widened a little, as if recognizing her.

His grip began to loosen and Ari felt a rush of air drag down into her windpipe just as an explosion of flames could be heard from beyond them.

White flinched, his body jerking, his hand unclasping Ari as he made a guttural sound of pain. Ari crashed to the ground with a hard thump as White whirled around above her to face his attacker. Coughing, struggling to draw in air down her hurt throat, Ari looked up through the curtain of her hair and froze in absolute dismay.

Sala.

The power of the
Haqeeqah
in Sala’s hands whipped her long dark curls behind her, snapped back the fabric of her blue silk dress dramaticaly. Her eyes were feral on White as he took slow, calculating steps towards her.

“You wil never harm my daughter again,” Sala hissed, enraged, her chest rising and faling rapidly with the emotion.

“Mom,” Ari croaked, stumbling to her feet. “Get out of here,” she pleaded.

“You get out of here,” Sala bit back at her desperately. “He won’t stop until he kils you. I won’t let that happen. Now get Jai and get out of here. Now!”

“No,” Ari breathed, the memory of White’s grip loosening around her neck ripping at her. She was safer with him than Sala was!
RED!
Ari telepathed as powerfuly as she could.
HE HAS SALA!

As if sensing the power she’d just unleashed into her s.o.s. , White shot her a dangerous look over his shoulder. Using that moment of distraction Sala threw the
Haqeeqah
.

White moved.

A blur of smoke, he was across the hal in miliseconds, the
Haqeeqah
blasting into the wal inches from Ari, the magic seeping into the plasterwork. It began to crumble, bricks started to shift.

Ari’s gaze swung back to her mother only to feel her heart vomit up into her throat at the sight of White clutching hold of her. He stood with Sala’s back pressed to his front, his arms clasped around her, his mouth at her ear. They may have looked like two lovers embracing if it hadn’t been for Sala’s terror as she looked up over at Ari.

“Ari, leave,” she whispered pleadingly, flinching as White murmured something in her ear.