Bound (Secrets of the Djinn) (6 page)

“Jesus, Skye, I should punch
you
in the face,” Brielle snaps.

“It’s not what you think,” Zane says.  “Roman had her pinned to the ground.”

This news flash moves Mrs. Gregori’s gun in Roman’s direction.  “That true?” she asks.

I
’ve never seen Roman at such a loss for words.  He opens his mouth several times, but nothing comes out.  Finally, on his fourth attempt, he manages to say, “I don’t remember.” 

“Do I look like a fool?” Mrs. Gregori asks. 

Roman is smart enough to ignore her question.  “I thought I was dreaming until I heard Skye’s scream and then Zane’s voice.”

He’s not as smart as I thought. 
He might as well have said, ‘yes, I do think you’re a fool’ considering the reaction he gets.  Mrs. Gregori releases the safety switch on her gun again.  “Quite a vivid dream you were having.”

Roman struggles for words again.  “I…I was remembering things.  I was remembering my relationship with Skye on the other side of the veil.  It felt like we were there, together.”

“You held her down a lot and forced her to kiss you?” Zane snipes.

“How do you know she was being forced into it?” Brielle asks.

Zane’s face flushes redder than it was due to the fight, enhancing the bruises starting to develop.  “I just know.”

Mrs. Gregori studies her grandson, suspicion oozing from her.  “Tell us how you know.”

After a sidelong glance in my direction, Zane finally confesses what we’ve kept from them this past month.  “When Skye and I were bound, it got turned around.  She’s not bound to me, I’m bound to her.  For some reason, I can feel everything she’s feeling.”

Mrs. Gregori is so shocked, she drops her gun into her lap with the safety still off.  She is not one to mess around with firearms so she must be completely blown away.  “You…are bound to her?”

Brielle shakes her head adamantly.  “No way, not possible.  The djinn cannot bind humans.”

Even more miserable than I was while the guys were fighting, I fess up as well.  “My kind can.  We can’t be bound but we can bind humans to us.  I didn’t know
anything about this until afterwards.  Malik told me.”

“How do you unbind him?” Mrs. Gregori demands.

I shrug.  “I don’t know.  Malik didn’t tell me.”  We haven’t been able to reach Malik to talk to him about anything this past month.

“Grams, it’s fine.  Skye’s not making me do anything I don’t want to do,” Zane assures her.

His grandmother turns her scrutinizing eyes to him.  “How do you know?  If your emotions are all tied up with hers, how do you know what you’re really feeling?”

Oh god.  I hadn’t thought about that.  Are my emotions washing
away his?  Is that why he’s stood by me the way he has, because he doesn’t have a choice?  The blood seeps from my head along with the oxygen it carries.  I’m dangerously close to passing out again.

“
Because I feel the same way I did the day I met her.  I’m in love with her.”

Brielle snorts.  “Love at first sight, Zane? 
What bullshit.”

“That’s how I fell in love with your grandmother,” Hank’s baritone says from behind his wife.  It’s his eyes assessing Zane now and the room is filled with a silence so deafening I wish I would pass out
before my ear drums shatter.

It’s Roman who breaks the silence.  “That’s how I felt when I first met her.”  My eyes shift to him but he avoids my gaze.

“Is this some djinn thing?  Guys fall for you at first sight?” Brielle sneers. 

“Brielle, help Roman get cleaned up,” Mrs. Gregori orders.

Brielle groans.  “Again, I am not the house nurse.”

“Do what your grandmother says,” Hank tells her in a softer voice than his wife’s.

“Fine,” Brielle growls.  She spins on her heels and stalks away.  Without another word to any of us, Roman follows after her.

When they’re both gone, Mrs. Gregori says, “You two are going to stay away from each other.”

I’m too shocked and intimidated by the gun in her lap to say anything.  Zane is not.  In a tone sharper than what he used with Brielle earlier, he says, “Look, I’m glad you and Hank came into our lives, but you don’t have a say in this.  Skye and I are together and it’s going to stay that way, regardless of what you think about it.”

“You’re a fool.”

Zane shrugs.  “Maybe, but it’s a gamble I’m willing to take.”

Putting a firm hand on his wife’s shoulder, Hank says, “Lily, let’s go see about dinner.”

Turning her wheelchair around, Mrs. Gregori says, “I need to get out of this god forsaken house.  We’re going out for dinner.”  Hank closes the door behind them.

I’m so exhausted, I could sleep for three days
, but first, Zane and I need to talk.  I am not looking forward to this conversation.  I have the distinct feeling he wasn’t being completely honest with his grandmother.  Things are not as okay between us as he led her to believe.

Stony faced, Zane asks, “What the hell is going on with you?”

Chapter
5

“Zane, I didn’t want Roman to kiss me.”

“I don’t give a fuck about that, what is going on with
you
?” he demands.

“I…I don’t know.
”  Wanting to be completely honest with him, I say, “I think something is weird about my accidents today.  It felt like something pushed me off the bed and I fell on top of Roman.  When I was jogging, it felt like someone pushed me but there was no one around other than Roman and me.  The same thing happened in the library but I was alone.  I felt like I was pushed and before my hand hit the ground to help break my fall, it felt like an outside force twisted my hand around so I landed on the wrong side.”

He doesn’t believe me.  The way he stands with his arms crossed tightly over his smooth, hard chest and stares at me like I’m bat shit crazy proves that.  “You’re saying some invisible force
is causing you to hurt yourself today?”

At least he didn’t say gremlins. 
After three times, I
know
something pushed me.  “Yes, I am.”

Zane runs
a hand through his dark brown hair and winces when his bleeding knuckles get snagged in a snarl.  Gazing down at himself, he says, “I need a shower.”  Going to the dresser, he pulls out a clean pair of jeans, some boxers and a dark red t-shirt.  Striding to the private bathroom attached to his room, he closes the door behind him.

Lying back on the bed, I wish for the millionth time Malik would answer my calls.  I’ve made regular trips to the veil searching for him, wanting answers.  It’s been weeks and he’s still avoiding me.  Is something wrong or doesn’t he want to talk to me?

Curling up the best I can with my injured shoulder and wrist, a wrist that needs to be stabilized very soon to keep the bones in place, I close my eyes.  Despite my anxiety over Zane and everything else that happened today, I’m asleep in no time.  When I open my eyes again, moonlight is shining in through the window.  Checking the other pillow, I’m disheartened to find myself alone.  Considering it was the middle of the day when I fell asleep, it’s unreasonable to think Zane went to bed when I did.  It still leaves me with a sense of foreboding.  Especially when I look at the clock and see it’s almost midnight.  Where is he?  Did he decide to sleep in another room?

The bathroom door opens and I’m so startled, I let out a little yelp of surprise.  “
Sorry, did I wake you?” Zane asks, his voice neutral.

I shake my head.  “No.” 
The light from the bathroom shows me he’s dressed only in boxers, my favorite ones with the little smiley faces on them. 

He walks to the bed and pulls back the covers on his side.  Crawling into bed with his back to me, he pulls the covers over himself.  “Good night,” he says quietly.

That’s it?  All he has to say to me is good night?  “Zane…”

He sighs.  “Skye, not now, okay?
  It’s been a long day.”

What does that mean?  “You don’t even know what I was going to say.”

Rolling onto his back and staring up at the ceiling, he says, “You want to know why I didn’t say ‘I love you’ in response to you when I told Grams and everyone else I love you.”

Okay, he did know what I was going to say.  “Do you?”

“Skye, I’m exhausted.  Can we please just go to sleep?”  When I don’t say anything, he rolls over onto his side again, his back facing me.  I don’t say any more.  I lie here staring up at the dark ceiling as his breaths even out and he falls asleep.

“This is what comes of dating outside your species.”

How fucked up is my life when I’m not surprised by the appearance of the devil in my bedroom.  Zane’s bedroom.  “I’m not killing anyone for you.”

A dusty sound breaks free
from his old, old throat.  I believe it was a chuckle.  “Don’t be droll, my dear.  I only needed you to kill the one for me.  The rest I can do on my own.”

“How comforting,” I drawl.  I struggle to a sitting position. 
Zane stirs next to me but he doesn’t wake up.

“Tsk, tsk, you are quite the sight.  Hasn’t that doctor of yours, the Defiler, been taking care of you?”
  It’s my fate to be the Protector and Roman the Defiler.  Of me.

A creeping suspicion sli
thers its way into my mind.  “It’s dark in here, you can’t see my injuries.”

The sound
coming from his throat this time is more like a hack than a chuckle.  “A maestro cannot see the music he brings forth yet he knows it’s there.”

I should
’ve known he had something to do with this.  “Don’t you have anyone else to pick on?” I ask.  “I’m sure there are many people more interesting than me.”

Beelzebub sits in the chair Roman used earlier while waiting for me to get drunk.  “Don’t worry, my dear, I have all the time in the universe for you.  You’re special, you see.”

I shake my head.  “Lucky me.”  Narrowing my eyes at him even though he probably can’t see me well in the dark, I ask, “Why would you orchestrate my injuries?  Is hurting me physically supposed to weaken my abilities or something?”  This is probably not information I should be asking him for since he is apt to lie to me, but without Malik to answer my questions, there is no one else.

“Why, my dear, I am simply playing matchmaker.”

“You’re trying to set me up with Roman by breaking my bones?” 

“What better way to get him to lay his hands on you.  The closer he is to you and your mark, the harder it is for you to resist him.
  The closer he is, the weaker you are.”

“You really are an evil son of a bitch.” 

I can see his grayish teeth in the moonlight as he gives me a simpering grin.  “Your compliments only excite me, my dear.”

“I’m not your dear.  I’m also not getting together with Roman.  I don’t care how many bones of mine you break.”

“Because of the human?  Or is it because of the wife you think is awaiting the Defiler back home?”

I wish he’d stop calling Roman the Defiler.  “It’s none of your business.”

The devil is off the chair and sitting on the bed next to me before I can even blink.  Lifting my hair off my shoulder, he says, “Everything about you is my business.”  He leans forward and while he does, his body morphs into Roman’s.  Too terrified to move, I sit frozen as he brings Roman’s lips to my neck.  He blows softly on my mark and instant heat saturates my core.  Whispering in my ear, Beelzebub says, “I can make it so his touch feels like this.”  He slides his tongue over my mark and goose bumps rise on my arms.

My voice trembling more than I’d like, I say, “Get away from me.”

“I didn’t hear any conviction in those words,” the devil says.  He runs his tongue along my mark again and I swear, despite how scared and horrified I am I just may come if he does it again.

I refuse to let the devil give me an orgasm.  I push hard against his chest, surprising him so much, he tumbles off the bed.  “If I don’t want the real thing, why would I want a cheap copy?”

I can see his face clearly now.  It’s contorted in rage and it has morphed back into his normal old man facade.  I don’t know what pisses him off more, the fact I pushed him or that I didn’t fall for his lame ass trick. 

“Skye, what’s going on?” Zane asks
, rolling towards me.  The sight of the devil makes him sit up and bark out, “Jesus Christ, what are you doing here?”

“I’m afraid you have mistaken me for someone else,” Beelzebub sneers.  He is on his feet now, but he’s not the decrepit old man with a cane.  His back has straightened and his body is muscular and strong.  If he can choose to look like anyone, why the old man disguise?  “Since you are awake, did the love of your life here happen to mention that Roman,” not the Defiler this time, “does not, in fact, have a wife?”

Zane’s eyes cloud with anger but his voice is even.  “Is that supposed to make a difference one way or the other to me?”