Chapter Twenty-Three
We moved slowly northward, pacing ourselves so the cub could walk, and even Kiara who struggled was not pushed too hard.
I shifted to two legs, and nearly fell over. How many times had I gone back and forth now? I put a hand on Ford, letting him take my weight for just a moment before I got my legs under me fully.
“I’m impressed,” Flora said. She’d introduced herself, and said she knew Merlin. Other than that little tidbit, she’d given no indication that she was going to talk much.
“About what?” I looked up at her.
“That you got them all out. Marsum puts too much faith in his dead ones. Where he was during all that, though, I’d truly like to know.” She shook her head, a grimace on her face.
I shrugged, wishing I could throw the sensation that we weren’t out of the frying pan yet. “A lot of luck.”
Her hands were easy on the reins and she was careful with her horse, which made me like her almost as much as what she said next. “Luck is a crock of shit. The harder you work, the luckier you get, girl. But I think you already know that. Don’t you?”
I grinned. “Maybe you are my fairy godmother. If that’s the case, what are we doing next?”
She rolled her eyes. “Fairy godmother does not a psychic make me.”
“You mean telekinetic?” Lila said and winked at me as she landed on my shoulder. I laughed, recalling Ford had thought they were the same thing. He grumbled something that sounded like “show off” under his breath.
Flora looked past me to the bigger lion, then back to me. “What happened to your male caracal?”
Her question caught me off guard and it struck far too sharp a chord. “Nope, not going there,” I said.
She shrugged, rolling her shoulders. I stared up at her, and the white flowing dress with slits up to her hips, and I realized I’d seen others wearing similar attire. “Were you a slave?”
“For only a moment,” she said, and there was a sound of thunder in the distance. “I am a priestess of the thunder god himself. So, while I can’t call on his power regularly, in times of great need I am able to make a rather lovely showing of the weather.”
“Do you need time to recharge?” Lila asked. “I do. The sapphire draws from me in order to work.”
I lifted a hand to her. “You didn’t mention that before.”
“I barely used it before. But I can feel it now. I think if I tried to use it again I’d pass out.”
That tingling sensation of the ax above us grew and I was sure the blade was pressed against the back of my neck. I turned and looked to the south. Even with the sun up, I couldn’t see the Jinn’s Dominion, the towers, or the deadshits. And still no Jinn.
Had they been waiting inside the tower where Benji said they’d all been called? Were they there still, thinking that we were coming to them? How had they not heard the fight with the deadshits?
I chewed on the inside of my cheeks, thinking about that possibility. “We rest for one hour when we get to the Oasis,” I called out. Eyes turned toward me. “One hour, then we’re going to have to double up here and there to make sure everyone who is struggling is being carried.”
Ford bobbed his head first, then the others slowly followed. I noticed he hadn’t taken his chance to cozy up with Darcy on the walk. Then again, Darcy was all but glued to Steve’s side. Kiara . . . I found her on the edge of the group, walking with her head down.
Before I could go over to her, the cheetah gave a chirp.
“Water ahead,” she called back.
I really needed to get names so I didn’t offend them by calling out species. I sighed to myself. Once we were resting at the Oasis, I’d do a roll call and see who everyone was. Maybe they didn’t all want to be part of this suddenly mixed-up pride.
We went in as a straggling group, right to the water. Everyone dropped to drink, including Flora and her horse. Lila winged off my shoulder. “Zam, you going to get a drink?”
I held back, nose flared. “Give me a second.” I turned slowly, looking through the sparse trees to the more eastern side of the water. Once more, the ghost of my father rose through the sand, his massive jaws open in a silent roar, a single word I knew as well as I knew my own name.
Run.
Jinn . . . the Jinn were here even if I couldn’t smell them. “It’s a trap, get the fuck out of here now!” I spun back to my pride as I yelled.
Most were face down in the water, unconscious. I bolted forward, grabbing at them and yanking them back, so that at least they wouldn’t drown. Lila, I lifted and cradled her with one arm.
The slow clap of hands turned me around. From the edges of the Oasis, emerging from the sand like mist, were the Jinn.
The ax against my neck fell.
My hand went to the flail on my back and I yanked it out. Marsum, tall, blond and smirking, strolled toward me. “Really? With my own weapon, you’d attack me? That seems rather foolish.”
“It was my mother’s, you piece of shit,” I snarled and settled into a defensive crouch.
“Well, perhaps, but I made it for her, did you know that? Before she let herself be seduced by your father. I really thought she’d stay with me.” He shook his head and made a tsking sound.
He snapped his fingers and from behind him stepped Maks. His eyes were the hard, violent blue that told me he was not the man I loved.
“Maks, would you die to secure our place as rulers of this world?” Marsum asked softly.
“Yes,” he answered without even a moment’s hesitation.
Marsum held his hand out and curled it as if Maks’s neck were within his grasp. Maks gasped and his hands went to his throat.
I laid Lila on the ground. “Let him go. Now!” I roared the last word and Marsum lifted his eyebrows.
“No. You see, I want you at my side. Your family line is far too dangerous to have you floating around out there on your own.”
Maks struggled, but only in the sense that he fought to breathe. With a scream, I ran at Marsum and swung the flail as hard as I could. He didn’t move. He didn’t so much as flinch.
The flail froze an inch from Marsum’s chest. He smiled at me. “The flail knows its master, Zamira. And it will not harm me.”
The handle under my fingers was warm and I clutched it harder. “No, you are not its master,” I growled. “I am.”
He laughed at me and Maks slumped, forgotten. “You are the flail’s master? You think so, do you? Then why did it stop before hitting me? That was no magic of mine, pussy cat.” He licked his lips. “Your mother was a cagey one. I won’t make the same mistake with you that I did with her. Your leash will be as short as I can make it.”
“Challenge him,” Maks whispered. Marsum snarled and I didn’t hesitate.
“I challenge you.” I snapped the words, trusting Maks as I yanked the flail back to my side.
“Boy,” Marsum snarled and flicked his fingers at Maks, flipping him end over end until he slammed into a tree trunk with a thick, sickening thud.
He slid down and I couldn’t take my eyes from him. The other Jinn didn’t move, except for one I recognized. Vic.
“You can’t challenge Marsum. You have to be Jinn to do it,” he growled.
Marsum tensed and then slowly turned to face me while he addressed his cohorts. “That’s just it, Vic. She is part Jinn. To be exact, she is one quarter Jinn. And only half lion. The Jinn blood,” he strolled in front of me, “is from her grandmother. A fucking half-breed slave of no importance.”
The half-breeds we’d helped escape had the same ability I did to take their clothes with them, and the truth hit me square between the eyes. They were just like me. Or really, I was just like them.
But there was no time to process the thought that I was part Jinn, or what it meant for me, or how it happened. Marsum held out his hand and a weapon materialized, solidifying in only seconds.
A spear with a wicked curved end he spun lazily in a circle. “Challenge accepted. If I win, you will be mine in every way.”
“And when I win,” I circled with him, sweating already, “you will be dead as a fucking doornail.”