Home > Jinn's Dominion (Desert Cursed #3)(10)

Jinn's Dominion (Desert Cursed #3)(10)
Author: Shannon Mayer

The new horse for Shem was taller than both Batman and Balder by a few inches and his coat was a deep red auburn that made me do a double check under his belly. “What are you looking for?” Shem asked.

“Making sure it isn’t a mare. You do not want to be riding a red-headed mare around,” I said.

“Oh, I don’t know about that.” He winked and waggled his eyebrows, and I rolled my eyes.

The chestnut gelding was lovely, his dark brown eyes soft, and he seemed calm as could be. I checked him over quickly for any injuries before I put his saddle on. It fit well and in a matter of minutes we were off again.

“Why exactly did you need to switch out horses?” Shem asked as we rode away from the caravan.

I looked at Maks. “You want to tell him or should I?”

Maks laughed. “Have at it.”

Lila landed on Balder’s neck. “I’ll tell him. Here’s the deal.” She lifted her head and paused for dramatic effect. “We’ve had to run for our lives more times than we can count now. That big mare, sweet as she is, would be left in the dust, which means you’d be left in the dust. Consider it a compliment that Zam wants to keep you around.”

Shem looked from Lila to me as if confirming. “You mean you run away when a fight comes?”

My eyebrows shot up. “You want to go back and stand your ground with the dragons?”

He frowned. “You did stand your ground.”

I waved a hand at him, dismissing his words. “Never mind, bad example. We ran from the gorcs. We run from the Jinn.”

“Not this last time,” Shem pointed out again.

I gritted my teeth until the grinding sensation forced me to relax. “You are missing the point. More often than not, we have no choice but to bolt, okay?”

“I don’t think I am missing the point. I think you are. You are learning to stand your ground.”

Maks brought Batman between us. “The reality is that big mare would overheat in the desert. And when, not if, we need speed, she would have been a liability.”

Shem backed down and my hackles rose. I pressed my heel into Balder’s side, moving him sideways and forcing Maks and Batman to drop back. I kept him moving until my legs were pressed against Shem’s and then I kept pressing forward.

My uncle looked down at me and I reached up for his face. He was dumb enough not to realize what I was doing until it was too late.

I grabbed his ear and yanked his face toward mine, my words low and hot as they bubbled out of me. “Do not undermine me again. I am your alpha. I gave you reasons why we switched horses but you didn’t back down until Maks said something. You think because he’s got a pair of balls and I don’t that you don’t have to listen to me?”

I twisted his ear harder until I got his eyes to lock on mine. “You got that, or do I need to remove you from the pride already?”

His eyes widened. “You . . . would do that?”

“My father obviously thought you were too much trouble. If you gave him shit like this, I can see why he did it.” I let him go and he sat up straight in the saddle again. “I shouldn’t have to have one of my seconds back me up when what I’m saying is perfectly reasonable. Bad enough I’ll have to deal with Steve’s shit when we find them. I don’t need yours too.”

I moved Balder away from him and rolled my shoulders, loosening the tension that had settled there.

Lila hopped along Balder’s neck until she was on the pommel of the saddle. “Good catch.”

I nodded to her but said nothing because I didn’t need to rub it in. My father had always made one statement to the member of the pride he’d been correcting and nothing more.

Anything more and he removed them. There was not a three strikes rule, but two. Two strikes, and you were out.

The desert and the Jinn were too dangerous to allow for anything else.

I looked at Shem to see him . . . shaking? I frowned. “Are you fucking laughing at me, you dumb shit?”

“Yes.” He tipped back in his saddle, his mouth wide enough to catch a damn eagle. I frowned harder.

“You want me to kick your ass out now? Is that what you’re trying to—”

“No, no!” He raised both hands in mock surrender. “No, I wanted to make sure you would pick up on what I did. You are the first alpha female of a lion pride, Zamira. You are going to be pushed more than anyone else, tested at every turn.” He looked at me, smiling and rubbing a hand over the ear I’d grabbed. “You caught it quickly and dealt with me. That’s good.”

I snorted and pointed a finger at him. “You almost got kicked out. Again. And I am not believing that you did that on purpose, not for one fucking second.”

He smiled. “You remind me of both your parents, you know.”

His words stole the wind from me as did the change of direction. “You knew my mom?”

“I did. She was a spitfire like no other. Which is, of course, what drew your father to her even though she wasn’t a lion shifter.” He settled into his saddle a little deeper. “She was young, barely twenty years old, when he met her, and though he was a fair bit older, she didn’t care. They were pulled to each other like magnets. And they did try to stay away from one another, they really did. They knew it would be hard on them to have a cross-species relationship,” he stared into the distance, “and they knew it would be hard on any children they had. There was no guarantee that a child would take after Dirk. A child could end up just like her. Small.”

I found my eyes sliding to my left, to Maks. He was staring back at me. I knew exactly what Shem was talking about. That magnetism between Maks and me was too much to deny even though we knew it could end up hurting us in the end. We’d pretty much given up fighting it. For good or ill, we were in this together for as long as we could be.

He winked at me and I winked back before I turned to see Shem watching us, a soft smile on his lips. “I see you do understand at least part of that. Well, your mom won the other lions over. She was fierce, and she taught them to fight dirty when they were up against a superior force like the Jinn. Being smaller, she knew how to fight something that out-powered you, something the lions struggled with. She taught them how to take the Jinn’s heads.”

A chill swept through me from the crown of my head all the way down my torso and legs. I flexed my hands but said nothing. Shem was in storytelling mode, and from my childhood, I knew that the longer I stayed quiet, the longer he’d keep talking.

He sighed. “It was a sore loss not only to you and your family, but to the entire pride when she was killed.”

I blinked a few times. “Wait, what?”

Shem looked over at me. “She didn’t die of natural causes. I thought you knew that.”

“My father told me she died after giving birth to me,” I said softly. That guilt had been part of my life as long as I could remember. They’d never said when exactly she’d died, only that it had been after I was born. Maybe it wasn’t my fault?

“The Jinn knew she was part of the pride’s spine,” Maks said quietly. “I remember Marsum talking about it.”

I couldn’t stop my head from whipping around to look at him. “You . . . were there?”

He shook his head. “No, I was a child, only ten years old when, well, I snuck close to one of the few meetings that Marsum held with the other Jinn. It’s one of the few things I remember from my childhood.” He frowned. “I haven’t thought about it for years, but it just came to me in a flash. It was your mother he was talking about. How they took her down.” His eyes were full of sadness when he looked at me. “I’m sorry. Do you want to know?”

I nodded. “Yes, the more I understand, the better.” Even if it cracked open an old wound I’d rather have stayed shut.

Maks rubbed a hand over his mouth and then went on. “Marsum said if they could take down Dirk’s mate, that it would only be a matter of time before the rest of the lions fell. He knew how important your mother was to the pride, and that she was training them to fight better, cleaner, and harder. Your father might have been the marine, but it was your mother who led the charge, I think.” Maks smiled. “So maybe you take after her more than your dad in more ways than you realized.”

   
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