Djinn Justice (The Collegium Book 2) (2 page)

BOOK: Djinn Justice (The Collegium Book 2)
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Fay woke to find herself face-to-face with Steve.

He smiled. “Good morning.”

“Good morning.” She ran her thumb along his stubbled jaw. “How late is it?” To judge by the light in the room, it was well past dawn.

“Just after eight.”

“Oh.” Maybe it was a quality of the Mediterranean light or the white walls of the room that made everything so bright.

He kissed her.

By the end of it, she was most definitely awake. Awake enough to remember the djinn and that she was to meet Steve’s grandparents. “About Uncle…?”

Steve groaned and fell back. “We can’t ignore him, as much as I want to.”

She heard the frustration in his voice and shared it. Their romance was so new and they’d so narrowly survived the demonic attack in the Collegium’s New York office two weeks ago, that they deserved time alone. Steve had promised her an idyllic escape in his villa on Cyprus. She hadn’t even known he had a house there—and what a house!

Reminded, she wriggled out of bed. Then hesitated. As much as she wanted to go out onto the balcony to see everything in daylight, she could hardly do so naked. She was blushing just to have Steve watch her.

“We’ll buy you a robe,” he said.

She loved the quiet understanding, the promise, in his deep voice, and that he’d read the shyness in her body language. “I’ll have a shower and dress. I’d like to see all of your house, just quickly, if we have time?”

“We’ll make time, and we’ll return here. I’ll book a plane to fly us to and from Alexandria.”

The Egyptian port city of Alexandria was his grandparents’ home, containing as it did the Suzerain’s house. Fay was only beginning to understand what the Suzerainty meant to weres. It wasn’t something they discussed with non-weres, but with Steve destined to be the next Suzerain, she’d have to learn.

Weres were magic, shifting between their human and animal selves, but they couldn’t be affected by magic. For Fay, having grown up within the Collegium world, it was a big adjustment. She was accustomed to people who fought with magic and could be constrained by it: other mages, weather-workers and demonologists. Weres fought with physical skill and shrugged off magic thrown at them. The trick to magically containing a were was to magic the world around them, rather than attack them directly, and ineffectually, with a spell.

The Collegium and weres seldom mixed. For the Collegium, there was a degree of snobbery. If weres couldn’t work magic, what use were they, was the attitude. Fay suspected that underlying the snobbery was a lingering fear of what the mages couldn’t control.

For the weres…Fay had never asked Steve why so few weres interacted with the Collegium. His path had crisscrossed hers because of the nature of their work. He was a mercenary and she was—had been—a Collegium guardian.

This was some house for a mercenary!

The bathroom was the last word in understated luxury. Terracotta and white, it had a two-person tub, a massive shower, and a large shuttered window that could be opened to let in the view. She showered under a “rainforest” setting of heavy warm drops and wound her long blonde hair in a towel while she dressed.

Her clothes had been bought for practicality and for her old life as a guardian. Up until a couple of weeks ago, she could have been called anywhere with no notice to fight anything from a sewer weasel to a demon king. So she wore a loose cotton shirt and multi-pocketed khaki trousers. They were all she had to hand.

But were they the clothes to meet someone’s grandparents in? She could always magic in something different, but what? “Steve?”

The bedroom was empty, the bed abandoned and the muted sounds of the sea carrying in through the open balcony doors.

Steve entered through the internal bedroom door. “I started coffee. You’ll find it in the kitchen.”

He wore jeans, no shirt, no shoes, and Fay’s brain temporarily stopped. As beautiful as he looked, all lean and powerful muscle, she knew he felt even better.

A slow smile curved his mouth, suggesting he recognized her arousal. He moved in close, curling a hand around the bare nape of her neck. The towel turban holding up her wet hair toppled. He kissed her possessively.

“Tour of the house or back to bed?” he asked against her mouth.

The choice reminded her why they were out of time and what she needed to ask him. “Your grandparents!”

He raised a black eyebrow.

“Will they object to the clothes I’m wearing?”

His gaze skimmed her body. “No. Dealing with Uncle means expecting the unexpected. You look prepared.” He paused, some thought passing behind his light brown eyes. “Tomy will understand. Raha may disapprove. Grand-mère has her own notions of acceptable feminine appearance and behavior. Mum and Liz ignore her.” He squeezed Fay’s shoulder and vanished into the bathroom.

His mother and sister could afford to ignore Raha’s opinion. Fay was less sure that she, an ex-Collegium guardian, powerful mage, and Steve’s lover, could risk alienating his grandmother. On the other hand, these clothes were who she was. She might as well begin as she meant to go on. Collegium guardian or not, she’d never be a girly-girl.

What exactly were Raha’s standards?

In the bathroom, Steve switched the shower on and water thundered.

Fay smiled wryly. She was not so far gone in love to fail to recognize avoidance tactics when she observed them. Steve really didn’t want to discuss his grandparents and their likely reaction to her.

Actually, nor did she.

She went in search of coffee.

Last night they’d flown in to Pafos, arriving in late evening and catching a cab out to Steve’s house as the shadows drew in. She’d seen Cyprus’s crowded tourist spots give way to wilder country and rougher roads before the cab stopped at a white house that stood stark against a dark sky and sea. Inside, Steve had switched on lights and brought the place to life, revealing a thoroughly modern home within old Art Deco walls. But her and Steve’s attention had been for each other, not the house.

Now, Fay descended the black iron spiral staircase down to a living room crowded with books and comfortably outfitted with a leather sofa, a recliner and a huge television. Just beyond it was the kitchen. Fay followed the smell of coffee and poured herself a cup. The window faced a riotous garden, divided from the road by a stone wall low enough to jump over. Plants grew in cracks between the stones.

She perched on a stool at the pale gray counter and studied the kitchen with its light wood cupboards and off-white walls. It was a very large kitchen for a single man. The table behind her could easily sit ten people. It made her uneasy. As much as she loved and trusted Steve, she didn’t know all of him yet.

She’d thought him a solitary mercenary before he revealed himself the heir to the Suzerainty. Now she looked at what was obviously a rich man’s home, built to entertain, and wondered again. Did the solitary man she knew have another, sociable side?

“What would you like to eat?” He bounded into the room, black hair still wet from his shower, a white t-shirt over khaki trousers—matching her. He’d dressed to reassure her.

She smiled at him. “Do we need to go and buy food?”

He stared, as if she’d said something ridiculous, and yanked open the fridge door. “No, Elena’s shopped.”

Leaning sideways on her stool, Fay studied the full shelves in the fridge. Someone had certainly shopped.

“Elena’s my housekeeper. I let her know we were coming.”

“Oh.”

“Her husband, Ivan, does the garden and looks after the boat and cars.”

Fay blinked rapidly. Boat, and cars, plural? “Not to be crass, but how rich are you?”

“Insanely.” He laughed at her. “Do you still love me?”

“But you work as a mercenary!” She’d seen his penthouse apartment in New York, but she’d kidded herself that it was his family’s, not his personally.

“And my sister, Liz, is a doctor. Being rich doesn’t stop you being bored.” He sobered. “Power without responsibility can corrode a person. My whole family works. The money is simply there to help us do what needs doing. Being the Suzerain…” He shook his head. “Full breakfast or toast?”

“Toast.” She got up and took a loaf of bread and butter from him. She ate her crisp sourdough toast while he cooked a full breakfast for himself. Being the Suzerain was evidently complicated and if he wanted to ease her into learning what it meant, she trusted him.

Although having a djinn in their lives was beyond complicated.

Uncle had also said that whatever problem he wanted Steve to learn of from his grandparents, it involved Fay. For an instant, she sank her attention into her center and felt her magic in its tight, spiraling readiness. Reassured, she released that awareness and simply watched Steve eat, while she sipped her coffee.

“More toast?” He was half-way through fried eggs, sausages and tomato.

“No, thanks.” She hesitated. “Would you like some more?”

He grinned at her. “Yeah.”

She laughed and slipped off her stool to slice bread and toast it. The sharp bread knife had a smooth, balanced grip.

“We’re going to be a bit pushed for time,” he said.

“How pushed?”

“Thirty minutes for a whirlwind tour of the house.”

“The tour can wait.”

He shook his head. “I want you to feel at home. Thanks.” He accepted the toast.

“Steve.” She didn’t know what to say. Everything was up in the air. Having broken ties with the Collegium, she had to build a new life outside its orbit. She had to find a job. She picked up her coffee mug, cradling it as she leaned against the counter. They hadn’t discussed where they’d live. “This is a holiday.”

“This is us,
together
.”

His emphasis puzzled her.

He abandoned his food to frown at her. “I’m in deep with you, Fay. Everything I am, everything I have, is yours.”

It took her breath away.

He wasn’t finished. “I get that you’re building a new life. You’re going to have to try things to find out how you want to live outside the Collegium. I wanted to give you that time.” His light brown eyes flickered to the wild topaz of his leopard-were nature. “Uncle’s screwed that. I have to take you to Tomy and Raha, to the fort.”

“The fort?”

“The Suzerain’s home and Court is an ancient fortress in Alexandria.”

She grappled with that, edging her way towards the truth Steve seemed intent on forcing on her. “You’ll have to live there one day?”


We
will. I hope.”

“Oh.”

He uncurled her fingers from their tight grip on the coffee mug, took it from her, and clasped her hand. “You’re deciding what sort of life you want to lead, free of the Collegium. Being with me…you need to know the good and bad of who I am and how I live. What I’ll have to take on one day as Suzerain. I’m in deep with you, but I don’t want to haul you blind into a situation you’re not comfortable with.” Anxiety flickered in his amazing eyes.

Steve was never anxious, never less than confident and in control.

She had chosen not to think of her future. She had savings and she could always find work as a magical mercenary. She’d wanted to concentrate on her personal life, on the sheer sparkling joy of being in love with Steve, rather than worry about her future.

But the future was about being with Steve.

Love flamed through her, powerful and claiming, as she understood that he spoke the absolute truth: he was in deep with her. And she was in just as deep, fathoms drowned, in love with him. Love wasn’t measured in time, but in heartbeats.

She walked around the corner of the kitchen counter and into the V of his legs as he sat on a stool. That brought them to the same height. She kissed him. Then she pulled back enough to look at him steadily. “I don’t care where we live, or how we live, or if we have to juggle a thousand djinni and all the weres in the world. You’re mine and I’ll be with you.”

His fierce kiss answered her flare of love and passion. He lifted her onto the counter and she wrapped her arms and legs around him, binding him to her. His own arms were strong bands around her. “I love you, Fay.”

 

 

Steve had kept his possessive instincts locked down the last two weeks, aware of how new Fay was to life outside the Collegium, and to loving and being loved. But her vow broke his control. “I’m going to love you in the moonlight and the sunlight, in the ocean and in our bed. I’m going to make you purr and scream.”

“You already have. I screamed last night.”

“That little gasp?” He rubbed his face against hers, a cat marking his mate. Her shower-fresh scent spiked with arousal. “If I hadn’t chartered a plane in two hours, I’d show you the difference.” He kissed her carnally, drawing back reluctantly before he lost his mind. She was his, more than she knew. “Come on, I’ll show you the highlights of the house on the way to the garage before I drive us to the airport.”

 

 

The first part of the house tour whirled past Fay unnoticed. Her body hummed with wanting and her brain was awash in hormones. She had a vague impression of light and size in an extensive living space off the kitchen, with a sweeping staircase leading up to guest bedrooms. It wasn’t till she and Steve stood on the balcony that her mind cleared, and then, only because the beauty of the Mediterranean Sea shocked her free of lust.

“It’s beautiful.” Outside stairs led down to a dock and a sparkling white and blue catamaran. Pink-flowering bougainvillea spilled across rocks edging the dock. The sea itself was the incredible blue of a postcard, almost too gorgeous to be real.

Steve pulled her back, into his body. “We’ll return here. Swim, take the boat out. There’s a roof terrace for sun-bathing or star-gazing.”

She remembered his promise of making love outside and shivered.

“I’ve told everyone to stay away,” he added. “We’ll be private.”

“Everyone?” She turned in his embrace. “Who’s everyone? Why do you have such a big house?”

He grimaced. “I bought it because cousins and long-standing family friends, people I grew up with, come and visit, and stay. I’m a leopard. By instinct I prefer solitude. But Mom is from a wolf clan and early exposure to pack living has an impact. People drop in. I’m comfortable with it. But I want this time just with you. Going forward, we can change the open house policy if we need this space just for us.”

“Don’t change it for me. I grew up in the Collegium. Guardian training taught me to live in a crowd.”

“But you rented a one-room apartment,” he pointed out.

“Because I didn’t belong with the guardians.” She didn’t elaborate. He’d seen how her colleagues isolated her. Envy and fear had colored their response to her raw power and the discipline with which she’d trained. Then again, they hadn’t had the President of the Collegium as their father, and a demanding, distant figure, to motivate their training.

Her father, Richard Olwen, had resigned the presidency two weeks ago, after Fay and Steve revealed the stranglehold a demon had gotten on the Collegium and him via his lover and secretary, Nancy Yu. The demon had nearly destroyed the Collegium. That it had grown so powerful undetected sowed suspicion between the Collegium’s mages. Fay pitied Lewis Bennett, the new president, his task. He had to restore the Collegium, searching out remaining tangles of evil, strengthening morale and re-structuring so that a demon couldn’t enter ever again.

Steve’s voice went low and rumbly. “I can’t guarantee that all weres, even in my family, will welcome you. My parents and sister will, but others distrust mages.”

“They’d prefer you to hook up with another were?”

“Yes.”

She refused to ask about his previous lovers and how many of them had shared his were-nature. “I’ll be fine. People will accept me, or not. I’m used to it.”

“I want you to be happy.”

Then she understood at least part of his insistence on showing her his beautiful home. He wanted her to find positives in being with him because he anticipated trouble ahead. She slid her arms around him. “I am happy. More than ever. I’m with you.”

He looked at her steadily before drawing a deep breath. “Okay. But tell me if you have trouble with anyone.”

“Mmm.” No promises there. She fought her own battles.

He grinned, reading her mind. Knowing her. “At least, tell me after you’ve fought. Disrespecting you is disrespecting me. I need to know that sort of thing.”

“Because you’ll be Suzerain one day?”

“I’d like to say yes and leave it at that, but you need to know that weres are constantly if subtly challenging one another. Not all of us, but enough that reputation matters. I don’t rely on the Suzerainty or my family to protect my own. Weres know not to cross me.”

She thought on that, on the complicated world she was entering and knew so little about, as they walked down the stairs and out to a large garage. Inside were two sports cars and a Range Rover, three motorbikes and a jet ski. “Speed junky.”

He opened the door to the Range Rover. “I like cars. I’d show off the vintage Jag, but I noticed the cab jolting along the ruts last night. Winter rains destroy the road. When it’s resurfaced, we’ll travel in style.”

“A Jaguar for a leopard?”

“Smart ass.”

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