Exquisite Captive (16 page)

“Yes. But only after I paid the price my overlord’s son asked. He said if I slept with him, he’d give me enough time to get to the portal before his father could realize I was gone.”

Leilan shrugged, absently running her hands over her wrists—a thin white scar around each one was all that remained of the shackles she’d once worn. A shackle put on a jinni in Arjinna automatically fell off once the jinni arrived on Earth, but the scars would always remain, a daily reminder of the past. “At least he kept his promise.”

“I’m sorry,” Nalia said softly.

All those nights she’d had guard duty at the portal. The serfs she’d turned in for trying to escape. How many Leilans had Nalia condemned to a life of punishing overlords who took what they wanted, whenever they wanted it? The past was a heavy thing to carry on her thin shoulders, unwieldy, with hard edges and sharp teeth. One day, it would break her.

Leilan’s eyes fell on the pendant around Nalia’s neck. “I’m sorry, too. It’s not fair that we have to make these choices. I wish there were another way.”

Before Nalia could respond, the air in the room shifted and she felt the tingling, off-kilter sensation she’d had the night before in her garage—she’d know that wild, roaming
chiaan
anywhere. She peeked around the wooden screen she’d been standing behind.

Raif’s eyes immediately locked on her own, two emeralds that seemed to dim everything else in the room.

Nalia squared her shoulders and stepped out of the shadows. “There might actually be another way.”

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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“WHO’S THAT?” LEILAN BREATHED
.

Nalia wasn’t the only jinni who’d felt the pulse of Raif’s energy. Several stopped their conversations to stare at him as he made his way into the club’s smoky interior. He was wearing the uniform of the resistance—black pants and shirt with a white band around the left arm. White was the color of the revolution, a rejection of the caste colors that so divided the realm. To the resistance, the color meant a blank slate, new beginnings. It reminded Nalia of a death shroud, the end of the world she thought she knew.

Even from her corner, Nalia could see the uncertainty and disbelief written on the faces of the jinn who recognized Raif and the curiosity of those who didn’t. This was the first time the young leader had ventured into Earth’s territory, bringing the revolution into the heart of the expatriate community. The mood in the room shifted. Nalia sensed excitement, fear. Raif raised an eyebrow at Nalia, then turned to his entourage, nodding at whatever the pretty jinni with the short, spiky hair behind him was saying. How could one tiny eyebrow make Nalia want to break every glass in the room, just to hear them shatter?

“Wait. You know him?” Leilan asked, her eyes moving from Raif to Nalia.

“I—”

The music stopped, and a Djan jinni beside Raif clapped his hands to get the club’s attention. Nalia sighed with relief—she didn’t have a lie at the ready and she could hardly tell Leilan the truth.

“My friends!” he said, gesturing toward Raif. “We have the great honor of hosting the brave leader of our revolution,
Tavrai
Raif Djan’Urbi!”

Tavrai—
the jinn equivalent of the human word
comrade.
It’s what all the resistance fighters called one another. Nalia found it obnoxious—they were like little boys playing at war, toy soldiers come to life.

The room erupted with shouts and applause. Raif’s expression remained emotionless, but he gave a short bow with his hand to his heart.

Leilan gasped. “What’s he doing all the way on Earth?” She grabbed Nalia’s arm. “You don’t think he’s in exile, do you?”

Nalia shook her head. “No. He . . .”
Gods, this is going to get complicated.
“He’s probably trying to get new recruits. Or something.”

Leilan pulled her toward the center of the room, where Raif stood, surrounded by admiring jinn.

“Oh, let the man relax,” said a heavyset Marid jinni with a handlebar mustache.

Nalia had never met Jordif Mahar, but she knew he controlled Earth’s side of the portal to Arjinna, dividing his time between Morocco—the portal’s location—and Los Angeles, the city with the highest concentration of expatriate jinn. She often wondered what his part in the dark caravan was. If he controlled the portal, how had so many slave traders gotten through?

Jordif steered Raif toward an empty table in the back of the room. “What he needs is a drink, and a jinni in his bed—not more politics.”

“I’d volunteer,” Leilan murmured under her breath.

Nalia hit her arm. “You haven’t even
met
him! He could be a total ass, for all you know.”

He
is
a total ass,
she thought. Too much had happened since she’d seen Raif and she wasn’t up for another verbal showdown.

Raif betrayed no reaction to Jordif’s comment, or to the adoring jinn—male and female—who all but undressed him with their eyes. His own eyes roamed the room until he saw Nalia again, but this time his gaze did not linger. She wondered if he had news for her and how she was supposed to get it from him. It didn’t seem like a private conversation was going to be easy.

Leilan shook her head. “You’re just saying that because you’re Shaitan.”

Nalia frowned. She and Leilan had never once gotten into the whole race thing—it was as if being on the dark caravan had made up for whatever privilege Nalia had enjoyed in Arjinna. The ability to look beyond eye color was one of the things Nalia admired most about her friend.

“No,” Nalia said carefully. “I’m saying he could be an ass because the guy hasn’t smiled once since he walked in here.” She looked at her friend. “I understand now about how bad it was in Arjinna. I don’t begrudge him his revolution.”

Leilan smiled. “
Our
revolution. You’re one of us now.”

Am I?
Nalia couldn’t help but feel like she didn’t belong anywhere: Earth or Arjinna. After being a slave and befriending jinn from all castes—with the exception of the Ifrit—Nalia thought she might just be on the side of the serfs. But she was the empress. Wasn’t she? And if she ever took the throne, what would Arjinna be without the Ghan Aisouri to maintain order and peace?
But we never had peace,
she thought.
Not really.
None of it made sense anymore.

“Let’s get that drink,” Nalia said.

For the next hour, she stayed at the bar, sipping the spiced wine Leilan put in front of her. It wasn’t quite like
savri
, the wine in Arjinna, but the cardamom and pepper swirling inside it still reminded her of home. When the band began playing a rousing song that got most of the jinn to their feet, Leilan hopped over the bar and took Nalia’s wine glass out of her hand.

“Come on—you need to have a little fun tonight.”

“Go ahead. I’m not up for it.”

Leilan rolled her eyes. “One of these days, you’re going to have to get on that dance floor.”

“Well, today’s not one of them.”

“More sexy jinn for me, then.”

Nalia laughed. Leilan set the wine down, then ran off to the dance floor, where one of her lovesick admirers whisked her away. Nalia leaned against the bar, watching the beautiful patterns the dancing jinn made. She only knew refined, understated court dances, not these spirited folk numbers. Many times over the years she’d longed to join in, have a handsome jinni teach her the steps, but it was safer on the sidelines.

Tonight Nalia wasn’t even tempted—she had to keep her eye on the club’s entrance. If any Ifrit came inside, she wanted the advantage. But when the musicians began a new song, its familiarity pierced her heart, distracting Nalia from the present. The memory came, unbidden:

             
The Three Widows scrape the dome of sky: one full and milky white, the other two moons curled into crescents. Nalia sits upon her gryphon, and the creature, sensing her desire to draw closer, gently pushes ahead.

             
“Thatur, no,” she whispers. She can’t let the other Ghan Aisouri see how badly she wants to join in the dance. She’s in enough trouble as it is for the lovely star magic she’d done the week before.

             
“Just a little closer,” he says. “There’s no shame in being curious.”

             
On the training grounds, Thatur is a strict taskmaster, but outside of their lessons in war, he is her only friend. Nalia could never manage to take pleasure in cleaning her weapons and playing war games as the other Aisouri her age did.

             
“We mustn’t. Mother won’t like it. And you know she’d tell the empress and I’d never hear the end of it.”

             
Nalia can see her mother out of the corner of her eye, mounted on her own gryphon. Mehndal Aisouri’Taifyeh surveys the serf’s harvest celebration with a frown. There is no doubt that she holds the Djan who dance around the fire in contempt. They toil all autumn to till the Shaitan-controlled fields, yet it is only grudgingly that the royal Ghan Aisouri and the Shaitan nobility allow the celebration to happen at all.

             
“You can tell your mother you thought you saw an Ifrit,” Thatur says.

             
It isn’t a bad idea. The Ifrit jinn are always drawn to fire, unable to resist their element whenever it appears. It is why they’ve been able to survive for so long in the volcanic lands beyond the Qaf Mountains, outside the lush beauty of the Arjinnan regions the Aisouri have laid claim to.

             
“Then she’d ask me why I didn’t kill it, and then what would I say?” Nalia says.

             
Her duty as a royal knight is to ensure the peace and security of the realm—not to frolic with commoners.

             
“Nalia-jai,” Thatur says, using the affectionate suffix, “how long will you ignore the music’s call?”

             
She looks at the joy on the serfs’ faces, a temporary euphoria that could be snapped as easily as a twig. She’s been taught to hate them, to mistrust them. She’s been taught she is above them and that the gods have willed it so.

             
Then why does she long to be with them, barefoot in the rich soil of her land, dancing around a fire that whispers her name?

Loud applause filled the air as the song ended and Nalia started, pulled out of her reverie by the din. She shook her head, surprised at how quickly the past had come to haunt her. Someone slipped onto the empty stool beside her and Nalia turned, an attempt at a smile freezing on her lips when she recognized the cocky grin and hard eyes.

Raif gave a small, mocking bow with his hand to his heart. “
Jahal’alund
, My Empress.”

“Stop calling me that,” she growled. The memory lingered, so real. What had happened to Thatur? The last time she’d seen him, he’d been ripping the head off one of the Ifrit who were dragging Nalia to the execution room.

“You have the bottle?” Raif asked.

Nalia shook her head. “No. I’ve had to get . . . creative. I’m not sure if my strategy is working or not.”

Her hand reached up and unconsciously ran over the bump from where Malek had pushed her into the wall. Nalia had already replenished her
chiaan
, but she’d need a healer to take care of her head. She’d have to be careful about who she asked for help. It’d have to be a mage, of course—a jinn trained in alchemy—but one who would agree to give her medicine without an examination. Otherwise, her secret would be out. Nalia’s
chiaan
was far too complex; if another jinni touched her, they’d know right away that she was a Ghan Aisouri. When she wasn’t with Malek, Nalia was one of the most conservatively dressed jinn in the city. She wasn’t modest: she simply couldn’t risk another jinni feeling her
chiaan
.

“Need some help?” he asked.

Getting Malek to want me so badly that he’ll take off the bottle so I don’t evanesce into it? I don’t think so.
If it weren’t such a dismal predicament to be in, Nalia would almost laugh. But there was nothing funny about her master’s bare skin against her own.

“I’ve got it covered,” she said. “I didn’t study military strategy my entire childhood for nothing, you know.”

“Neither did I.” That cocky grin. “Dance with me.”

Raif held out his hand, rough and callused from years of brutal labor. The serfs’ lack of education both ensured their compliance and limited their magical abilities, so despite their earth magic, they still had to work the plow and sickle, breaking their backs under the hot Arjinnan sun.

She ignored his hand. “Are you out of your mind? The last thing I need is to draw attention to myself.”

His mouth turned up. “Do you have a better idea for a private conversation?”

She scowled. “I don’t know this dance.”

But the rapid beat of the tabla thrummed inside her, begging Nalia to answer its call.