Djinn Justice (The Collegium Book 2) (9 page)

She stared at Lewis, finding solid ground amid her confusion. “You know he’s heir to the Suzerainty.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t have the backing of the weres.”

“Are you sure?”

The question stopped her short. It had been used in her guardian training as a rebuke and order to reassess a situation. She thought of Mrs. Jekyll’s hostility, Steve’s uncertainty and Uncle’s unpredictability. In all of that, no one had kicked her out or attacked her. She’d walked into the heart of the Suzerain’s fort. What did that mean to the weres?

Through the window, the golden light of sunset faded into shadows. The artificial lighting in the room seemed starker.

“I’m here because of the weres.” She observed Lewis narrowly. People in command tended to underestimate just how closely they were studied. She recognized in his stillness his interest, but there was no tic of suspicions confirmed, no minor compression of the corners of his mouth that she’d learned to watch for through the years. “A rogue mage is draining their dream essences.”

“Dream essences?”

“The term was new to me, too.” She decided against revealing a djinn’s involvement. “The mage is stealing weres’ ability to process the day’s events during sleep. It’s reducing their capacity to function. I’m here as a courtesy, one Steve agreed. I’m going after the rogue mage, but I don’t want to screw up a guardian mission if you’re already on it.”

“I’ve not heard of an attack against the weres.” Lewis frowned. “How is it even possible? Weres can’t be affected by magic.”

Fay shrugged. “Evidently dream energy is different to magic.” A non-answer, and all she was prepared to give. She didn’t know if the Ancient Egyptian spell had a unique ability to direct magic against the weres, but even if it didn’t, she’d already decided not to share its existence with the Collegium mages. It was a spell she intended to destroy. There was no rumor or hint within the Collegium of effective enslavement spells for humans and she intended to keep it that way.

“How many weres are affected?”

“A limited number.”

“And your answers will be just as limited? Fair enough. The weres aren’t the Collegium’s responsibility.” He paused. “They’re not our enemy, either.”

“It’s only guardians who accept them as equals, though. It’s because we’ve fought beside them. The other Collegium mages treat weres as lesser.”

“There’s not much respect for non-magic users,” Lewis said evenly.

Fay flinched. “Sorry. I didn’t think.”

He ignored her apology for forgetting his eroded magic status. “It’s prejudice and stupidity, as if magic alone solves problems or defines a person. It’s an attitude I intend to change.”

“I expect you’re already doing so,” Fay said, ironically respectful.

He stared at her for a long moment. “I’d like you to stay connected to the Collegium.”

“Gilda suggested I hire on as a consultant.”

“That would work.”

Fay smiled without humor. “She wants to use my demon-wrangling skills. What’s your reason?”

“Two parts. The Collegium needs your skill set and power. Also, you’re going to be building a life outside the Collegium’s net. As you do, you can link us into that wider community that ducks and dives out of our view.”

“Are you sure they won’t duck and dive out of my view, too?”

“Which portal did you travel here by?”

She was silenced. Cynthia had given her access to the non-Collegium-registered network.

“My second reason is personal.” Lewis stood. He was a large figure against the backdrop of the darkening window. “You don’t think less of me for not having magic.”

“None of the guardians do. We understand that…”

He shook his head. “Kora replaced me as commander of the guardians. She insisted that three of her people rotate duty as my personal assistant and bodyguard.”

Hence, Haskell’s presence at the desk.

Fay sighed. “Stupid.”

Advertising weakness only prompted people to test it. Lewis would have his own private defenses, like the silencing spell he’d activated. But he had to trust others to provide them. A hard ask for such a strong and self-sufficient personality. It was more than the burden of the presidency that added those lines to his face. “If you want a ward or some other spell keyed to you, just call me.” She magicked her new non-Collegium phone number onto a card and materialized it on the table in front of Lewis. If he picked up the card and thought hard about it, she’d know, and
she
would call him.

He picked it up with a curious smile. “You came here for help, and instead, you’re giving it.”

“I came here as a courtesy,” Fay corrected. “I’ll tackle the rogue mage, myself.”

Between them was the knowledge that it wouldn’t be the first time. Most guardians worked in pairs or teams. She’d always worked alone, or sometimes with allies, such as Steve had been, before he became so much more.

“Thanks for agreeing to see me.” She stood. The interview was over.

“I’ll see you down to the foyer.” Lewis placed her card in a pocket. “You’re welcome here, any time.”

And his presence beside her in the foyer would make that clear.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” she said. Those who disapproved of her and her disgraced father, as well as the current restructuring of the Collegium, would have a new stick to beat Lewis with.

He shrugged broad shoulders. “I always know what I’m doing.”

The comeback silenced her and made her think.

The outer office was empty, its lights dimmed. Haskell had obeyed Lewis’s order and gone.

With a shock, Fay realized she’d forgotten to view the space as Nancy’s old territory. In the same way, Lewis had already erased her father’s possession of the president’s office. So much had changed in a fortnight. While she and Steve had been recovering from their fight with the demon, and then, visiting her mom to reassure Yolanthe as to her continuing survival, the Collegium had undergone fundamental change.

In life, you had to keep moving or get run over. If you had wounds to lick, you did so in private. In public…the Collegium’s mages were just as focused on reputation as Steve said the weres were. In the restructure, there’d be jockeying for power and position.

Lewis walked beside Fay, not with Steve’s dangerous prowling stride, but with a fighter’s readiness nonetheless.

Oh yeah, anyone who thought that missing his magic made Lewis weak, deserved everything their stupidity earned them.

Standing in the elevator, aware of his bulk beside her, she kept her gaze fastened ahead.

Being with Steve, making love with him, had connected her with her own sensual nature. Previously, she’d flinched away from examining the sudden wariness she’d felt around Lewis. She’d always trusted him, respected him, and obeyed him, but inexplicably at times she’d avoided him. Now, she suspected the reason for that. Part of her had responded sexually to his strength. He’d said some men found her a challenge. Well, he challenged her. She’d been too naïve and uncertain to acknowledge her attraction to him. Now, she could see his appeal, even as it left her unmoved.

She didn’t want massive strength and rigid discipline when she could have Steve. But she had to ask, “Did I pass the test?”

Lewis shifted minutely.

“You had to ask if I had ties or if I was a free agent. Now, you know. I’m not with Steve out of loneliness or desperation.” If she had been, Lewis had offered her the temptation of himself, her ex-commander, a man she’d been trained to trust. “I love Steve. He has my loyalty.”

“Good. Those feelings will anchor you. You’ll have a reason to survive and come home.”

It was a moment of shattering insight, one in which she forgave Lewis his testing of her. Every day, he struggled to stay in his life. The demands of the presidential role were a burden and a cage, but they kept him functioning. His temptation was to walk off into a final battle. In the end, though, the Collegium wouldn’t be enough to hold him.

The elevator doors opened. Fay didn’t even look to see who was waiting or watching. She touched Lewis’s hand briefly. “I hope you find someone to love.”

“Just not my woman,” Steve said.

Steve reached into the elevator and grasped Fay’s hand. He pulled her out and positioned himself between her and the block of granite that masqueraded as the Collegium’s new president.

Lewis Bennett represented everything Fay was familiar with and trained to respect. Lewis didn’t have grandparents dripping disapproval, trickster djinni messing about, and competitive, political weres waiting to pounce.

On the other hand, he had a whole Collegium of mages scrutinizing and criticizing his every move.

Steve whipped his head around, viewing the crowd that had collected in the foyer as he waited for Fay to emerge from the President’s office. He snarled. He put volume behind it, too. He was frustrated, annoyed and hyper-aware of the threats to his and Fay’s relationship.

About fifty percent of those watching flinched. Almost the entirety of the other half had to be guardians because they started forward at his challenge.

Lewis held up his hand.
Stop
.

The guardians halted.

“What’s happened?” Fay whispered under her breath.

“Nothing.”

She cast him a disbelieving look.

“I wanted to be here for you,” he growled.

Her gaze slid sideways for the tiniest moment to Lewis.

Steve dropped her hand and put his arm around her shoulders, pressing her to his side. Claiming her.

“Steve.” Her whisper held embarrassment.

“I told her a good man would be here with her,” Lewis said calmly.

“And here I am.” Now, the snarl was in his voice, a challenge.

“And I told him I fought my own battles,” Fay snapped. However, she allowed his possessive hold. She surveyed their audience, chin up, face flushed.

“The Collegium will be honored to fight beside you,” Lewis said.

The sharp gasps of seventy two shocked mages underscored the importance of what he’d just said. A commitment. Fay mightn’t be bound to the Collegium, but its president had just declared that her links to it would be respected.

Steve wound in his temper. He met the other man’s gaze, aware that Lewis had made Fay safer. In the world of magic, Fay wasn’t a vulnerable, lone mage. She had the Collegium’s backing. An attack on her would be answered with force.

Lewis nodded to Steve, smiled faintly at Fay, and stepped back into the elevator. He pushed a button and the doors closed.

Unexpectedly, Fay wrapped an arm around Steve’s waist.

He glanced down at her, unsure of her mood or intent.

“I don’t need the Collegium to have my back. I’ll take it and I’ll work with them when it’s needed, but I have you.” Her words were for him and their audience. “My future isn’t here.”

He kissed her, putting all his passion, need and yes, gratitude, into it.

She kissed him back with sweet, startled fervor, as if she was only just grasping that she wasn’t simply important to him, she was central to his life and happiness.

When he raised his head, he saw the stillness of shock in their audience. For them, it didn’t compute. This wasn’t how Fay Olwen, kick-ass mage, behaved. By reputation she was as coldly disciplined as Lewis Bennett.

Not with me, she’s not
, he thought smugly. He had the real woman, so much more marvelous than her magic.

Her pace was firm and determined as they headed for the exit.

He grinned, aware that his stride had the obnoxious, in-your-face saunter of his leopard self. He ducked his head to hers. “I’m so glad I did meet you, here.”

The automatic doors swished opened. The traffic noise and night time smog greeted them.

She smiled. “Me, too.”

They picked up Thai takeaway on their way to Steve’s apartment. Fay was familiar with the penthouse and, at Steve’s suggestion, had even left some clothes there. They ate by the big window, looking out across the city, and well-warded behind spells she’d strengthened.

She described her discussion with Lewis, relaying everything, including his testing of her commitment to Steve. “That seemed to matter more to him than the activity of the rogue mage.”

Steve shrugged. “There’s an endless supply of over-ambitious idiots, so there’ll always be rogue mages. But there’s only one you.”

“I’m not that important.”

“Who did Uncle call ‘warrior-princess’?” He pointed his chopsticks at her.

“So I fight. It’s what guardians do. I’m trained for it.”

“And the princess part?”

She blinked and stared at the shrimp she’d nabbed. “I’m the ex-president’s daughter, bred for my magic.” Magic tended to decline and renew over the generations. Given her great-grandparents’ strength, her father had married her mother on the calculation that her offspring would have a lot of magic; far more than either Richard or Yolanthe commanded. They’d had Fay, and Yolanthe had fled when she discovered how her first husband had used her to attain powerful offspring.

“That doesn’t make you a princess.”

“So what does?” She ate the shrimp, enjoying the burst of fresh ginger and pepper from the sauce.

“Sometimes Uncle’s statements are prophecies as much as anything.”

“I won’t wear a tiara,” Fay said. “If the Suzerain’s partner is meant to, I’m just putting that out there. No tiara.”

He snorted. “There’s no crown. We’re judges, not royalty.”

Reluctantly, Fay considered the question. Why, then, had the djinn called her a warrior-princess? Princesses tended to be fairy-tale creatures, even the real life ones. They were media creations, fantasies. But a
warrior
-princess wouldn’t wear pretty dresses and pose for cameras. She wouldn’t be a silent, smiling asset for her husband.

“What do you think Uncle meant?” she asked Steve.

He finished his beef stir-fry. “It could mean anything, but I hope it was simple recognition of your strength. You’re a princess in the sense that no one rules you. You broke your oath ties to the Collegium, and now, you’re bound only by the loyalties you choose. You decide when to fight and for what.”

“But then he’d have called me queen or empress of the world or something.” Her joke failed to disguise her seriousness.

“There’s one other connotation of princess,” Steve said slowly. “A queen or empress rules, alone. A princess is part of a family.”

She stared at him. “Yours?”

“I’d like to say that’s up to you, but the truth is…I come with a whole load of relationships. There’s Mom’s wolf clan, family and friends, and not to forget the Suzerainty. Your introduction wasn’t the best, with Grand-mère being difficult. But families are challenging. We fight among ourselves, but touch one of us and we all attack. You’re one of us.”

“Unless they decide to protect you from me.” As his grandmother wanted to do.

He shook his head. “You’re my choice. The only reason the family hasn’t already descended on you
en masse
to recruit you for their various causes and games is because I made it clear that you and I needed time alone. Only Uncle broke that ban.”

“I guess getting a djinn to listen isn’t easy.”

“You have no idea. Finished?” He indicated the decimated contents of the takeaway containers. She nodded. He cleaned up while she made cups of green tea.

They returned to their chairs by the window, and she expected Steve would discuss next steps in finding the rogue mage and if there’d been any progress in identifying the weres Uncle had shown them.

Steve surprised her. “About my performance at the Collegium…”

“I liked your snarl.” She smiled.

He stayed somber. “Claiming you so publicly is a sign of my insecurity.”

She put her cup of tea aside, worried. “You’re the least insecure person I know.”

“How well do you know me?” His expression was bleak. He gazed at her with darkness lurking in his light brown eyes. “I planned to let you learn about me gradually.”

“So you keep telling me. The Suzerainty, your family, a meddling djinn. How many surprises can remain?” Giving the lie to her sharp words, she slipped onto his lap. Touch and the truth of it was important to his were-nature. Just this simply, she reminded him that she was with him. She was his.

He unbraided her hair, combing his fingers through the length of it, stroking her back as he did so. He was petting her and gaining comfort himself. “You fell in love with me in my role as a mercenary. I was independent, like you. I chose my own jobs, lived with the consequences of my actions. We related on that level of dangerous loners.”

His hand settled at her waist. “I’m not that man. Or, not only that man.”

“You have a family, commitments.” She struggled to understand the bleak resolve in him. She’d accepted that his life was complicated, filled with far more people than her own; and she’d made her statement in the Collegium and kissed him there.

Apparently for Steve, it wasn’t enough.

“One of the things I love about you, Fay, is your directness. You don’t play games. The person you present to the world is you. You are your own truth, incorruptible.” He stared into her eyes, his own flaring to the topaz-gold of his aroused leopard nature. “I’m scared that you won’t understand that I’m different.”

“Different, how? You won’t convince me you’re any less honest. I know you, Steve. I’ve fought with you, loved you. I trust you.”

A low, frustrated growl resounded in the back of his throat.

She put her hand over his heart. “Trust
me
. Tell me what you think the problem is.”

“All right.” His chest moved with a deep inhale, exhale. “Leopards are camouflage hunters. Wherever we go, we fit in.”

She nodded. “I saw that your grandfather is a diplomat. Everyone thinks that he sees their side of a story. He fits.”

Steve grimaced. “Yes, that’s how Granddad’s leopard is. Mine’s more violent, more…combative.”

“Uncle suggested that’s a good thing. That you’ll fight.”

“Hmm. But first I like to get close to my prey. I like to learn all there is to know about them. I feel safe when I’m observing, unobserved.”

“Steve, all of that is just common sense. It’s why I use cloaking spells.”

“You use a spell, but I change who I am.” He rubbed his palm up and down her arm, agitated. “In England, at school, I was the essence of upper class privilege, rude and discriminatory and hiding it behind impeccable manners.”

“Like your school friends,” she said slowly. “You said your other grandfather is an earl?”

He nodded. “And a wolf-were. In the holidays, I was the gregarious daredevil to match my wolf cousins. Then at university, I was a flirt, then an extreme sports junkie, and finally, a scholar.”

“I’m not seeing the problem. People try on identities as they grow.”

“Did you?”

“You’ve met my dad. Do you think I had a chance?”

He shook his head. “You wouldn’t have anyway. You’re always Fay.”

Suddenly, she was angry, bracing a hand against his chest and pushing away. “What do you mean by that? Who do you think ‘Fay’ is? Some girl who can’t cope with life outside the Collegium and in a relationship? Because maybe you’re right. No, I know you’re right! I know I’m going to make mistakes and we’re going to fight.”

“It’s not you who I think won’t cope!”

Her anger died, her resistance vanishing. “Your grandmother said that you’re risking more than I know. I thought she was talking rubbish.”

“She was.”

“No, she hates the idea of Uncle taking away her husband’s, and hence, her power, but her concern for you was genuine. Steve, the hardest thing I’ve ever done is to trust you, totally and irrevocably. My whole life, I was taught to stand alone, and now, I don’t. I believe you’ll be there for me.”

“I will be. I am.”

“But your whole life was about hiding, fitting in. You hide your were-nature from mundanes and you hide your power from other weres.”

“I don’t.”

“You do. You just told me. You reveal aspects of yourself and make others believe, according to context, that the aspect on show is the totality of you.”

He stared at her, eyes blazing, poised for a leap into hiding or deeper into their relationship.

She wriggled around, kneeling up with a knee on either side of his thighs. She put her hands on his shoulders, drew courage from his strength, and kissed him lightly on the mouth. Then she drew back and looked him in the eye. “We should have had the time alone together that you wanted. We’ll have that time, but I don’t need it to see all of you, to see
you
.”

His hands flexed on her waist, large hands, powerful and gentle.

“I love you, Steve, and I love that I’m the person you trust to see all of you. I won’t flinch and I won’t get confused. My heart knows you.”

His hands tightened. “Stop talking.”

“Make me.”