Still, if I’d been in my human form, I’d have been sweating. As it was, my tongue hung out and I couldn’t help myself. I was panting like crazy as the fear cut through me. Jinn were not to be trifled with, they were not to be engaged, they were to be feared.
They killed lions, cutting them down with no thought.
A hundred feet away, I crouched beside a series of crappy little scrub brushes. The darkness was my friend, especially with my black fur. Even if the Jinn were looking my way, they would not see me.
I crept forward, flat on my belly now, my eyes narrowed so their gleam didn’t catch in the firelight. The camp was not new by the looks of the shit everywhere. I mean that in a most literal sense. There was horse shit everywhere.
It looked like the Jinn had set up camp before the rain had come and just hunkered down. I swiveled my ears toward them. Their conversation froze me.
“How much longer, Orlow?”
“Tomorrow, we move tomorrow. We’ll see if we can pick up one of the lion shifters Maks told us about. Didn’t he say there was a female?”
Laughter followed, and my blood seemed to freeze. Maks had given us up after all. I turned to leave, and actually took a few steps before their words stopped me.
“Not much of him left. Why don’t we just kill him? Tell Marsum that he fought us too hard and we had to. Bastard did put up a good fight, and we have the scars to prove it.”
If I thought my blood had run cold before, the ice now in my veins made the previous chill feel like a blisteringly hot summer’s day. I made myself creep closer again, my eyes searching the ground around the camp. Lila had said Maks was pinned to the ground, face in the mud.
But there was no movement, not even the exhalation of breath that should have given a body away. I tipped my head sideways to give my nose better access to the scents. The Jinn came through loud and clear, the smell of desert and death. A faint whiff of a man I knew, of the smell of someone I cared for, was there too.
Barely.
Maks was on the far side, of course. I worked my way slowly around the camp, moving only when I thought the Jinn were preoccupied with each other. Their conversation flowed over me as they discussed killing Maks.
“He was never really one of us, so what loss is it?”
“Marsum wants to make an example of him. Show what happens to traitors. Besides, he’ll power the Emperor.”
“Hmm. Marsum will be pissed if we don’t come back with a lion too. The female, the one that’s pregnant. We need her. That will soften the blow of losing Maks. A two for one deal.” Laughter followed that last bit.
Oh, fuck, they were talking about Kiara now. Gods and goddess of the desert, none of this was going to help me get to my brother any sooner. How the hell did they even know about her though?
Bryce would understand why I had to go back for Kiara first before going to him. Protect the children first, and Kiara carried the first child in twenty years.
The strongest lions of the Bright Pride stood between danger and the member that could not protect themselves. That was our creed, our family, and I would not fail it.
So I thought.
I got all the way around the camp and the Jinn had settled in to play cards of some sort, betting on them and throwing things into the fire as they lost. I split my attention between them and the man who was on his belly at my feet. He had his face turned to the side, but even so, the mud had climbed over everything but one nostril. The air fluttered in and out slowly against the mud as if he were peacefully sleeping.
Or out cold.
I could smell the blood on him, the injuries that weren’t healing.
I wanted to rip his bonds from him but knew our survival depended on doing this right, and that meant doing it quietly with all the stealth I had. I slowed my breathing and went to his left wrist. I cut through the rope tying him down with my claws, the strength in them buoyed by my weapons. I quickly went to his other wrist and legs. One eye on the Jinn, one eye on what I was doing.
Maks didn’t move an inch. I needed him to shift into his caracal form so we could run, so we could get away. I nudged his head with my nose.
A burble of air bubbled out of the mud and his face sunk under the thick sticky mass. I grabbed his hair with my mouth and yanked his head up. It was then I realized he was bound by the neck too.
You’re lucky I don’t hate you, toad, I thought as I stuck my face under the mud, my mouth searching for the rope that held him down.
The mud was foul, tasting like horse piss and vomit making me gag, but I worked my way through it until I found the rope on his neck. A single bite and I was through it.
But none of that mattered as a hand settled onto the scruff of my neck and yanked me upward.
I was spun around to face the one thing I feared above all others.
A Jinn.
He held me tightly by the scruff of my neck, immobilizing me. I stared at him and a hiss slid out of me. He frowned. “What the fuck is this, a cat?”
I hissed again because I realized he didn’t know me. He didn’t know what I was, and that was about the only thing that was saving my furry ass. I stopped myself from shifting and just twisted around, hissing and spitting as any normal, ordinary run-of-the-mill house cat would.
Goddess save me. I was in deep shit.
“Put it down, Bart,” one of the others said. “They are all hair, not worth eating at all, and that one is fucking scrawny. Couldn’t be more than five pounds!”
The Jinn threw me down and I scrambled backward, out of the firelight while my heart pounded out of control. Part of me said I should have fought, should have tried to kill him while I was so close, but the truth of it was, I wasn’t strong enough. I couldn’t have killed him. Jinn made the Ice Witch’s pets look like stuffed animals.
I scuttled to the edges of the flickering firelight but. . . Maks was still face down in the mud. Fuuuuuk. I let out a tiny snarl of frustration that made the Jinn laugh, but then they all turned their backs on me.
I scooted forward the second time and grabbed at Maks’s hair with my teeth, yanking his head up.
He wasn’t breathing.
There was no more choice, I had to shift. I didn’t let myself think about it, but instead let the shift take me. I lay on my belly, breathing hard as I grabbed Maks by the shoulders and yanked him partway out of the mud.
I didn’t look at him but kept my eyes on the Jinn. They were totally ignoring this side of the camp. I pulled Maks a little farther, the wet ground making little sound under his sliding body.
When we were ten feet away, I twisted around, flipped him onto his back and turned his head sideways, sliding my fingers into his mouth and clearing it of mud. I tried not to think about anything but getting him breathing.
I put my mouth to his and blew into him. Filling his chest with my air. I paused and listened to his heart.
Nothing. Again, I pushed air into him, again I listened. I used my elbow and drove it once into his chest, then breathed into his mouth again. Not exactly what I’d call expert CPR, but it was the best I could do. If he didn’t start breathing soon, I would have to leave him here.
Panic like I’d never known caught hold of me with that thought. Of Maks dying.
Breathe, damn you, breathe! Inside my head I screamed at him, demanded that he take a breath. I chose not to notice how wet my face was. It had to be raining again.
I put my ear to his chest just as he took a slow, labored breath. I spun around so my face was by his and my body in line with his so I could watch the camp.
“Do not move,” I whispered as quietly as I could into his ear. “Breathe, catch your wind. Then we shift and run.”
I had my cheek pressed to his, and he lifted a hand to touch my face but said nothing. His breathing came stronger with each lift of his chest. At least he was going to bounce back fast.
That was the only good thing about him being a Jinn: they healed like a speed demon.
The seconds ticked by as I lay on my belly in the mud with Maks with his hand on my face and my cheek pressed to his. A weird sense of calm flowed over my body and through my limbs.
This was what he did to me. Good or bad, my heart had decided that Maks was good for me. Fucking traitorous chest drum.
The calm fled as the Jinn began to move around, restless. As if they knew something was up but couldn’t quite pin it down. They didn’t look toward where Maks had been pinned. Likely they wouldn’t have cared if he’d died in the mud right there.