Tales of the Djinn: The Double
Read Tales of the Djinn: The Double Online
Authors: Emma Holly
Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Paranormal, #Erotica, #General, #Contemporary, #Fantasy, #paranormal romance
Tales of the Djinn: The Double
Emma Holly
Digital edition
Copyright 2014 Emma Holly. All rights reserved. With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission of the author.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to the vendor and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This story is a work of fiction and should be treated as such. It includes sexually explicit content that is only appropriate for adults—and not every adult at that. Those who are offended by more adventurous depictions of sexuality or frank language possibly shouldn’t read it. Literary license has been taken in this book. It is not intended to be a sexual manual. Any resemblance to actual places, events, or persons living or dead is either fictitious or coincidental. That said, the author hopes you enjoy this tale!
Tales of the Djinn: The Double
is an approximately 103,000-word novel.
eISBN-13:
978-0-9888943-8-9
Discover other exciting Emma Holly titles at
http://www.emmaholly.com
Cover photos
: istockphoto.com—Yuri, bigstockphoto.com—greatpapa, mazzur
Table of Contents
The Double . . .
What if the man you loved had a double?
THAT’S
the challenge Elyse faces when a flying carpet lands her and her new djinn lover in the glorious city he calls home. Cade’s people need help recovering from a curse, but this isn’t the only problem they’ll have to fix. Cade’s trip to Elyse’s world created a duplicate of himself, a not-quite carbon copy who firmly believes
he’s
Cade’s superior.
Arcadius has no patience for modern women, much less for males foolish enough to love them. If only Elyse’s aid weren’t necessary to catch a sorcerer who’s abducting his city’s youth! Being forced into her company is making him too aware of her attractions.
Elyse expects “Commander” Arcadius to be easy to resist. He’s arrogant, insensitive, and a chauvinist—making it obvious he doesn’t think much of her. Then, bit by bit, she sees past his prickly exterior. Arcadius is who Cade used to be before they met. If she fell for one man, there’s no guarantee she won’t fall for the other . . .
Book 2
in the
Tales of the Djinn
Chapter One
THE
Guardian of the Glorious City gave up on trying to sleep and stared at the high ceiling. Glinting faintly in the dimness, a diamond chandelier worth a few sultans’ ransoms hung directly above him. Cade was home in the djinn dimension for the first time in weeks. He lay in a luxurious bed, enjoying every comfort a being could wish. The sheets were silk, the huge mattress beneath his back the ideal blend of firm and soft. A beautiful woman slept beside him, breathing quietly and slow. Her cute little butt—of which he was very fond—bumped his hip reassuringly. Elyse was human and not the sort of female he was used to, but he loved her with every drop of his warrior’s blood. Feeling this way seemed a miracle. In all his years as a soldier, he’d never imagined he’d fall in love. Having Elyse welcome his devotion humbled him.
If the city whose safety was in his hands weren’t in danger, he’d have counted himself lucky.
The man who should have been sleeping in this bed, who should have been overseeing the city’s return to order, was Cade’s sultan. Though Iksander hadn’t been aware of it at the time, he’d spurned a powerful sorceress. Fatefully, she was no ordinary mage but an empress with ambitions both romantic and political. In revenge for Iksander thwarting her aspirations, Luna had turned every one of the Glorious City’s residents into stone. Her thirst for vengeance had known no bounds. She’d petrified herself in the process too.
By the skin of their teeth, Cade and the sultan’s small inner circle escaped her curse—the four men the city’s only hope of mounting a rescue. Special interdimensional portals allowed them to send duplicates of themselves to the human realm, where Cade and his servant Joseph met Elyse.
The trio’s voyage back to the city demanded all their courage and cleverness. Compared to overcoming those obstacles, destroying the sorceress’s statue had been a snap.
Unfortunately, it hadn’t been the remedy they hoped. Empress Luna had aces of her own up her sleeve. She’d sent a portion her spirit through a portal, leaving the remainder here to anchor her terrible curse. Half the city had recovered when they smashed her form. The rest remained trapped in stone.
The logistics of getting a populace in that condition back on its feet were headache inducing.
To make matters more difficult, the whereabouts of Sultan Iksander and their artist friend Philip were unknown. Presumably the djinn had made it through the portals into the human world. Wherever they were, they hadn’t contacted Cade or Joseph by their prearranged signal. Cade couldn’t even search for them until the city’s portals were re-charged, a process that might take months. He couldn’t search for Luna either, which meant they couldn’t completely break her curse.
Simply praying things would turn out didn’t suit his compulsion to take action.
His hands were clenched. He was getting too wrought up. Sensing his tension in her sleep, Elyse let out a grumbling noise and rolled over to face him. Her slender arm fell across his abdomen, one smooth leg sliding over his. Her skin was cool, her naked breasts a pleasing softness against his side. Elyse had been through a lot in life. She’d lost her mother when she was a baby. Her father, mysteriously enough, had fallen into a volcano. Her husband, also recently deceased, had married her under false colors—a deception Cade had revealed to her. He couldn’t wonder she didn’t trust easily. She’d recently confessed she loved him . . . with the caveat that she doubted she was
in
love. Though he understood the reasons she might hold back, the distinction stung. Cade was totally gone on her, as the humans said: no ifs, ands, or buts about it.
At least she trusted him enough to turn to him in slumber.
Not wishing to disturb her, he forced his lungs to go in and out evenly. The issues he couldn’t address this minute would have to wait. The issues he could address were more than sufficient to keep him occupied.
First on the list was his double’s continued existence. Cade supposed this wasn’t his worst challenge, but it was frustrating. According to his understanding of the doubling process, Cade and the other him should have recombined as soon as they were face to face in the same dimension. That hadn’t happened. His time with Elyse had changed him—broadened him too much, probably. Despite being animated by a lesser portion of their shared spirit, his original stayed stubbornly separate.
Cade snorted quietly.
Stubborn
might be his former self’s defining trait, followed in close order by
narrow-minded ass.
“You’re thinking too loudly,” Elyse grumbled sleepily.
She didn’t mean she could hear his thoughts. Humans could do magic if they learned the proper formulas and disciplined their minds. Djinn magic was subordinate to that of humans—hence King Solomon’s famous success in wrangling them. Humans were God’s pets, favored above all the races He’d created. Fortunately for djinn, few humans possessed the unswerving faith casting spells required. Djinn, on the other hand, were born with the right mindset.
They believed in God and His wonders whether they wanted to or not.
“Sorry,” Arcadius said, realizing his thoughts had drifted. He stroked Elyse’s thick dark curls—the bane of her existence, to hear her talk, though he adored them. Her hair betrayed her secret wildness like nothing else about her. To others like his double, Elyse seemed plain and a little shy. To him, she was gorgeous inside and out: a quick-witted, warm-hearted beauty with a Samson’s mane. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“S’okay.” She patted his ribcage and yawned. “Anything you want to talk out with me?”
They’d talked and more last night. She’d been comforting and sexy and as sensible about their circumstances as he wanted to be himself. The last thing he wished was for her to think she had to cosset him ceaselessly. He understood human females valued independence. Though it didn’t come naturally to male djinn, he’d try to let her stand on her own two feet. What he wouldn’t do was make it
her
job to bolster him.
He drew her hand from his chest for a gentle kiss. “I suspect the best medicine for my worries is work. There’s a lot to do. I’m going to bathe and dress.”
“It’s not even dawn,” Elyse groaned as he sat up.
“It will be soon.” He gave her bare hip a rub. “You go back to sleep.”
“I want a job too.”
He was striding toward the bathing chamber. Her mumbled words made him stop and look back at her. Though she’d snuggled into the pillow, her soft green eyes were open.
The way her hip curved into her waist brought warmth flooding to his groin. He ground his molars together, ordering his body not to react more than that. He was naked too, every part of him on display. He didn’t want her to feel she had to coddle him with constant sex either.
He wrested his attention back to her request.
“I mean it,” she said, every bit as stubborn as the other him. “I don’t care if the job is sweeping floors. We don’t know how long I’ll be stranded here until the portals come back online. I won’t sit around nibbling dates like a harem girl.”
His lips twitched at that image. He probably shouldn’t admit how appealing he found the idea of her in filmy harem garments, obediently awaiting his pleasure. “You want to sweep floors.”
“Well, I’d rather do something more interesting, but as it happens I’m good at mundane chores. I’m a landlady, if you recall.”
He hadn’t forgotten. While they were in New York, Joseph and he had lived in the basement of her brownstone. “Give me a chance to think of something appropriate.”
“Urgh,” was her response to that.
“You’re in an unfamiliar culture. Being a little cautious isn’t an awful thing.”
She sighed gustily. Despite the reaction, Cade sensed she teetered near surrender. “What happened to the woman who always looked before she leaped?”
Elyse bit a sudden grin. “She ran away with a sexy genie.”
“Then she got what she deserved, didn’t she?”
He turned again toward his goal. She lobbed a throw pillow from the bed, her arm good enough for the little cushion to smack his ass.
“Careful,” he teased over one shoulder. “You wouldn’t want to injure something you’re hoping to use later.”
“You’re just my sex toy,” she said, sounding like she was burrowing deeper into the plush covers.
“Promises, promises,” he tossed back.
She didn’t answer, so maybe she’d dropped off to sleep again. As he stepped into the spacious bath, he told himself that was for the best.
~
Elyse smiled into the pillow she was hugging. Arcadius—or “Cade” as they’d decided to call him to distinguish him from his double—was fun to trade banter with. He was fun to do a lot of things with, actually. Considering how different their backgrounds and natures were, how well they got along was a miracle. She was a born New Yorker: interested in people from other places but in a feet-firmly-on-the-ground kind of way. Until the day Cade turned to smoke before her eyes, she hadn’t believed in genies. She’d been perfectly happy to leave imagining multiverses to physicists. Discovering that a door to the world of the djinn was hiding in her cellar had been an eye opener.
Discovering both her dad and her deceased husband had known about it had pulled the proverbial rug out from under her.
That axis shift was behind her, thankfully. Her father, may he rest in peace, had concealed the truth to protect her. Access to the incredibly rich, incredibly magical djinn dimension was valuable. People would kill to get it, as her cousin Cara and her crazy tattooed gangster boyfriend proved. In the struggle to control the door, Mario had slaughtered Elyse’s husband with an enchanted djinn artifact. He’d also shot Cara’s father—Elyse’s uncle—in front of her. Part of the reason he’d done it was because Cara had cast a spell to make Mario fall in love with her, the same spell David had used to get Elyse to marry him.