Tales of the Djinn: The Double (15 page)

When she did, all her limbs trembled.

“Elyse,” Cade said, his hands stroking her down her sides.

“I’m good.”

He clasped her face.

“I am,” she insisted. Body humming with repletion, she let her breath sigh out. Arcadius sat down behind her and she did too. His cock was still erect enough to stay inside her. He wrapped his arms in a sort of hug around her waist. She became aware how copiously she was sweating. Being made love to by two men was a workout. “God, I’d kill for a shower.”

The djinn didn’t have them; they were bath-obsessed. Since Cade had spent time in her world, he knew what she was missing. He smiled indulgently. “Would you settle for me soaping you down?”

“I’ll help,” Arcadius said, raising her up so he could pull out of her.

She guessed their truce was over, because Cade bristled. “Your help isn’t necessary.”

“Yeesh,” Elyse said. “If you’re going to fight, I’ll wash up by myself.”

“We’re
not
fighting,” Arcadius said. “I helped you overheat. Therefore, I’ll help you wash.”

He had a knack for making her laugh, though he probably didn’t intend to.

“All right,” she said. “Both of you can help me.”

~

Cade was reasonably skilled at hiding when he was knocked off balance. He’d instigated their threesome in the heat of the moment. Seized by the psychic link, he’d been focused on getting off before he went insane. He hadn’t guessed he’d enjoy the experience so intensely.
Earthshaking
was a good word for his orgasm. He hadn’t even been inside Elyse.

He’d given that honor—voluntarily—to his original.

Watching Arcadius fuck her had done incredible things to his excitement.

He kept his disconcertion to himself as he and Arcadius soaped their now mutual lover. Elyse lay face down on the special alabaster bench in the tiled bath nook. This was the women’s niche, and the bench was sized for a female’s form. Arcadius’s manner was similarly evasive to Cade’s, though Cade couldn’t mistake the way his hands roamed Elyse for anything businesslike. He reveled in touching her with the soaping towel, in exploring her slender muscles and smooth warm skin. His motions were tender even if his face was a mask.

Did he want to repeat the experience? Was he, like Cade, feeling certain warning signs in his groin? The link between them had broken with the climax. Cade could have used it back, at least for a few seconds. He was damned if he wanted to
ask
what the other him was thinking.

“Mm,” Elyse hummed, wriggling happily as Arcadius lifted her foot and rubbed its sole. “I could get used to this.”

Arcadius jerked. That made one of them, Cade guessed.

~

Arcadius knew he shouldn’t enjoy having his hands on his double’s lover quite as much as he did. Elyse belonged to Cade. He was only borrowing her—who knew how temporarily? To wish to repeat the experience was reckless.

All the same, he couldn’t deny making love to her had been earthshaking.

He also couldn’t deny Cade’s presence had driven his excitement higher.

When Elyse implied she could get used to having both of them, one corner of his psyche wondered if that also held true for him.

Too soon Cade was rinsing her down and drying her with a towel. She sat sleepily on the bench while he worked it vigorously over her wet curls.

“I’m going to look a fright tomorrow,” she said, yawning.

Arcadius had been standing back, trying to mentally disengage himself from the intimate couple. Her comment ruined his intent. “I like your hair,” he blurted.

She looked at him and smiled. “You look better. Not so shaky anymore.”

He was better. He hadn’t thought about the crutches since they’d finished having sex.

Cade considered him thoughtfully. “I wonder if you’re up to changing into your smoke form now.”

Was he trying to get rid of him? “I don’t know,” Arcadius said.

“Tomorrow should be soon enough to try,” Cade said with breathtaking casualness, immediately shooting down his suspicion. “Probably we could all use a good night’s sleep.”

“And how.” Elyse pushed onto her feet. “Come on, you,” she said to him. “No more hiding out in the dressing room.”

Though he felt like he should have argued, he trailed after her.

~

Elyse flopped onto her back. Arcadius was on the divan again, so deeply under he was snoring.

“Okay,” she said. “Why is he the only one sleeping? We have to get up and work tomorrow too.”

Cade rolled toward her on his side. His finger stroked around her temple and down her cheek. “Are you worried about what we did?”

“Aren’t you?”

“Maybe not the same way you are.”

His answer was cautious. She guessed she had to go first. “Why is he suddenly better? Not that I don’t want him to be, but did he take some of your energy?”

“Take it?”

“When you two joined up spirits or whatever the heck that was.”

“You felt that?”

“It was hard to miss.”

Cade thought a moment. “I don’t think he took anything from me. I don’t feel any less than I was before. When we . . . when we all came together, it seemed to break the link.”

“So you don’t know what he’s dreaming now.”

“No.”

She could tell he wasn’t trying to listen in. She didn’t push. If she’d been in his shoes, she might not have wanted to either. “Was that weird for you? You know, both of you having me.”

“Yes.”

She laughed softly. “Ask a silly question.”

“You liked it,” he said.

She rolled to face him and touched his chest. It seemed important to be honest. “It was exciting.”

“For me too. Just awkward after.” He rubbed her shoulder. “I’m not sure I want to explain to Joseph what happened, though I can’t imagine who else we’d consult on what it means.”

“I don’t think he’ll judge.”

Cade’s nod was vague. “This feels okay,” he said. “Him sleeping in the same room with us.”

“Like something was missing before and we didn’t know what it was?”

“Yes,” he agreed, not entirely happy to acknowledge it. “That’s exactly what it’s like.”

Chapter Six

ONCE
again, Yasmin the concubine had been forgotten. She’d waited and waited for Elyse to return with an update on the search for her missing brother. She knew the commander’s consort must have other priorities, but she could have sent a note. Didn’t the human know how frustrating being stuck in a harem was?

“Phooey,” she cursed, tossing aside the novel she couldn’t convince herself she was reading.

Though she probably ought to give the habit a rest, she transformed into her cat.

A number of the harem’s residents were awake. Iksander’s mother was a night owl. Any concubine wishing to suck up could do so by keeping her company. Yasmin pattered silently on her paws to the main salon, pausing inside a concealing shadow by the entry. Seated on a tuffet above the others, the sultana was embroidering fancy patterns onto slippers. Her usual coterie surrounded her, their artificially graceful poses designed to impress a man who was even less likely to show up than previously. Hope sprang eternal, Yasmin guessed. With languid motions, they combed each other’s hair and sipped tea, which a female servant was preparing over a small burner.

Yasmin had already heard about the sultana’s venture into establishing soup kitchens. She hadn’t been invited on the charitable expedition, but sometimes it was just as well not to be a favorite. Out of sight, out of mind had advantages.

“You say they’re
all
staying in Iksander’s rooms?” Iksander’s mother was asking.

“Yes,” replied the servant, the gossip she carried from the palace as welcome as the refreshments. “The kitchen staff served all three of them dinner. Apparently, both commanders are infatuated with the human.”

“Extraordinary,” mused the sultana. “I wonder if being doubled damaged their minds. Let us pray not. We need sound leaders until my son returns.”

The other women murmured appropriately in agreement, though whether they disapproved or were simply jealous of the human’s romantic fortunes Yasmin wouldn’t have bet on. Yasmin herself was a bit annoyed. With two men to occupy her, no wonder Elyse was neglecting her.

What about my brother?
Yasmin thought, wishing she could will the servant to mention that.

“I hear they went to a bathhouse,” the servant continued. “The old one on Thirty-Fourth Street, where you can buy ‘extras’ with your massage.”

The sultana’s eyebrows rose. “They all went?”

“Just the female and one commander. The double who went to the human world, I believe. They’re hard to tell apart. My friend on the guards said they interrogated a bath girl
and
a bath boy.”

“Interrogated them? What on earth about?”

“Someone went missing is what I hear.”

The sultana let the slippers she was embroidering fall into her lap. “From a third rate bathhouse? Why would my son’s commander trouble himself with that?”

“I don’t know, your highness. The guards go where they’re told. Whichever commander went, some rogue sorcerer attacked him as they were leaving.”

Now
that
was interesting. Eager to catch every word, Yasmin pricked her ears forward. As she did, her crooked tail began twitching.

The motion caught one of the harem women’s attention.

“There’s that cat again!” she exclaimed.

“Throw a pillow at it,” urged another. “That ugly thing makes me sneeze.”

Yasmin darted away before the suggestion could be followed. She wasn’t afraid of being hit, but the sultana had a good nose for enchantments. The last thing Yasmin wanted was for her very handy disguise to be exposed.

Since she had an address—even a lead, one might say—she directed her running cat feet to the Thirty-Fourth Street bathhouse. One of the young people on her list had come to her attention while eavesdropping at a tavern around the corner. She hadn’t known where the missing girl was employed, but it could have been the establishment the commander visited.

Finding the place was easy. With all her roaming, she’d developed a sense for where things were in the city.

A bathhouse like this was busier at night. She could slip in the front door with clientele but once there, she was likely to be noticed . . . and unlikely to be welcomed. No one wanted cat hairs mixed in with their massage oil. Reluctant to be cornered somewhere unfamiliar, she trotted to the long building’s back. An open basement window would make a good entry point.

Leaping to the top of a thick brick wall provided her a vantage for studying the terrain. Employee apartments took up the rear of the bathhouse. On the second floor in one of the lit windows, she spied a familiar face. It was the striking yellow-haired boy she’d overheard at the tavern wondering why his female colleague hadn’t shown up for work. Another man was in the room with him, fully dressed and reading a newspaper. He didn’t seem the right age to be a friend, but he wasn’t acting like a client.

Guard?
she wondered. If he were, it suggested the commander agreed with her assessment that young people weren’t disappearing randomly. In one way, that was satisfying. In another, it was cause for concern. If there really were a pattern, Balu had been taken for a reason.

Security was tighter than she expected. She found no open windows to sneak into. She would have tried smoking in, but the spells against it had been refreshed.

All right,
she thought.
Where should I nose off to instead?

A howl of laughter split the night, spooking her. She took off on all four legs down the narrow portage road between Thirty-Fourth and Fifth. Rough weeds grew up between the cobbles, sharp pebbles threatening to cut her paws. The strange laugh rose and fell again, like it was following her. Was the rogue sorcerer who attacked the commander hanging around somewhere? Maybe it wasn’t safe to be here in any shape. She thought a prayer for strength and sped faster.

Stop panicking,
she ordered. The laugh had been farther behind her the second time, nothing to do with her. You’d think she was a real cat, as skittish as she was being.

As she slowed, a man stepped onto the throughway in front of her. She darted around him, trotting now but short of breath.

“Yasmin,” he called after her. “Don’t you recognize your brother?”

For a second, she thought . . . Hope tightened her throat as she turned back to face the djinni. It wasn’t Balu standing tall and graceful in the road. It was her older brother, who’d murdered his friend in a jealous rage and become ifrit.

She hadn’t seen Ramis in five years, not since her parents disowned him.

Her heart thudded so hard with shock she couldn’t move.

Ramis came closer. His strides were calm, unhurried, his three-piece black suit an admittedly pleasing human style. His shoes were human too, their soles echoing slightly on the cobbles. Was that where he’d been all this time? Hiding out on the human plane? He came to a halt before her. She craned her feline head to see him.

“Won’t you change?” he asked gently, his tone a blend of amusement and wistfulness. “We can’t talk when you’re in that form.”

She took a moment to shift; she was practiced at it by now, enough that her harem robes weren’t disarranged when she and they materialized. She glanced around to make sure no one was watching. It was late. A woman dressed as fancily as her wasn’t a common sight in this neighborhood.

“You always were good at those kind of tricks,” Ramis observed.

Now that she was her regular height, she examined him more closely. He looked like a normal djinn—like her, in fact. His hair was the same dark glossy brown as hers, his eyes the same luminous gray. His mouth had the same full shape that made people want to see him smile. Then he did smile, and he was breathtaking.

“Checking me for devil horns?” he teased.

“How did you know it was me?” she asked, not admitting it.

Ramis’s eyes crinkled. “Do you think I wouldn’t know my sister? What are you doing out here anyway? I thought you’d been selected for the royal harem.”