Djinn and Tonic Read online

  Her final statement sinks in. “Are you threatening me?” I can feel the coil of magic tightening within me as I speak.

  Nadira lifts her hands to show innocence. “No! That’s not…that came out wrong. I’m just saying, you seem like a nice girl, okay? I know who you are, and I know who your father is, and I know who Hassan is. I don’t want to see you get caught on the wrong side when things go down, okay? I really don’t.”

  “How do you know all this?” I ask.

  She doesn’t quite meet my eyes when she says, “That’s complicated. Just call it…part of my job.”

  “Part of your job as a cocktail waitress?”

  She rolls her eyes. “People do work more than one job, you know.” Nadira waves her hand to dismiss that subject.

  She moves so she’s sitting next to me, suddenly coming across as girly, as if we’re best friends, taking my hands in hers. I try to withdraw, but she’s stronger than she looks.

  “Listen, Leila,” she says. “I’ve been where you are, okay? I know what you’re going through. I was betrothed to a real asshole too, once upon a time, and I also was in love with a human.”

  “I’m not in love with him,” I protest. It’s a lie, a last-ditch attempt to convince myself.

  “Don’t bullshit a bullshitter, sweetheart,” Nadira says. “I know what you’re trying to do, and it won’t work. Your father got himself into this mess, okay? You don’t owe it to him to get him out of it. Especially not when it means marriage to a slimy little fuck like Hassan al-Jabiri.”

  “You don’t understand,” I tell her. “You don’t know the situation. You don’t know what he’ll do if don’t—”

  She interrupts me. “The hell I don’t. I know exactly what Hassan is capable of. Probably better than you do.”

  “So then you know why I have to do what he says. I’m not doing it to get my father out of his mess. If it was just business, if it meant Father lost money, that’d be one thing. I wouldn’t give it half a thought. But Hassan said he’d—”

  “I’m sure he did. He said he’d do all sorts of nasty things to everyone you care about. But remember what I said about a war brewing? Hassan is at the forefront of that. Things are happening, and when shit gets messy, Hassan will be the first target my people go after. Your father will be next in line, too, but we’re more inclined to give him a chance to fix things. He’s always tried to follow the rules.”

  “Your people?”

  “I can’t tell you much more than that, and you’ll find out soon enough anyway.” She releases my hands. “My advice to you is to come clean to Carson. Tell him everything. Everything. He can handle it. You guys need each other, and you know it.”

  “This is all crazy,” I say. “You can’t just…just barge into my house…a perfect stranger…and try to feed me this kind of craziness.”

  The idea of telling Carson everything is so very tempting. I want to. I want to let everything work itself out. I want to believe this djinni woman. And…the idea of a war between djinn and ifrits is more believable than I’d like to admit, which scares me senseless. A war like that has the potential to get really ugly, really fast. The last time that happened, we had the Moors and their quest to build an empire to hide behind: so many people were dying already, a few thousand more didn’t get noticed. But nowadays? The idea is terrifying.

  “I know,” Nadira says, clearly reading my thoughts from my expression. “It’s a scary thought, but it’s already happening. You don’t belong on the ifrit side, Leila. You know that. You have to believe me. This isn’t just about organized crime, either. It’s about the feud between our people. Tensions have been building for hundreds of years, and it’s all coming to a head.”

  She’s right. God help me, she’s right. I’ve seen it, sensed it, heard about it.

  “Please don’t make the same mistake I did,” Nadira urges. “Don’t let Carson get away. You’ll regret it the rest of your life. I know you don’t know me, and I know this has to be the craziest conversation you’ve ever had, but please, try to believe me. You know I’m right.” She hands me a business card with only her name and a phone number on it.

  “Call me, any time, okay? You have a friend, as unlikely as it seems.” Nadira finishes her beer and goes to the door. “Don’t wait till it’s too late, Leila.” Then she’s gone and I’m alone with my thoughts, which are buzzing in my head, angry and stinging like a hive of hornets.

  I try to calm myself, but everything Nadira told me is howling through me, and I can’t take it anymore. I put on a pair of spandex running shorts, a sports bra and my Nikes, strapping my iPod Nano to my arm. I slip my house key into my bra and set out, not bothering to stretch out first. I know I’ll regret that later, but right now all I care about is motion.

  My pace is hellish, driving.

  It’s a cloudy, windy morning, and I’m too lost in my thoughts, the wind is pushing me along at a frantic pace. I’m flying, almost, running as if chased, fleeing the pursuit of my father, Hassan, even Carson. They all want me for different reasons, and they’re all pulling me in different directions. I want so badly to listen to Nadira’s advice, because it just seems so logical, it all fits so perfectly.

  The other ifrit clans I’ve encountered are just like Hassan’s: they’ve been letting their powers show openly in recent years, chasing power and money and influence, brutally using their powers to get whatever they want, whenever they want it. Displays like Hassan’s at The Old Shillelagh are becoming more frequent, and I know the humans are starting to ask questions. I’ve faced that already with Carson’s investigation into Miriam, and the questions about what happened at both the MGM and at The Old Shillelagh. There will come a time when the investigations won’t just be abandoned, when the truth will be hunted down until it comes out, and when that does…

  The djinn have threatened for centuries to crack down on ifrit recklessness in order to protect the safety of our species as a whole; my father often complained that the djinn saw themselves as some kind of enforcers, as if they were in charge of making sure our secret didn’t get outed. If Father is right and the djinn were to get fed up with ifrit carelessness, they might very well go on the offensive, and people like Hassan would be the first to be targeted in an attempt to make an example of the worst offender.

  In which case, being Hassan’s wife—however unwillingly—would be a rather precarious position for me to be in.

  If I was with Carson, however, and I kept my powers hidden, I might be able to stay out of it. Let them fight it out, I don’t want any part in a djinni-ifrit war. I just want to be left alone to live my life my way.

  That won’t happen, though, no matter how much I may want it; if a war is brewing, I’ll end up being involved.

  Which leads me back to Nadira’s question: which side do I want to be on?

  Not Hassan’s, that’s for damn sure. Father’s? That answer is slower in coming, but it comes, nonetheless. I feel like a traitor for the answer that emerges from within: my people are wrong, and the djinn are right. If I was forced to choose, I wouldn’t side with the ifrits; yet at the same time, I couldn’t ever face off against my father. It’s untenable.

  The thought of having to choose, of being forced into marriage to Hassan, brings the rage boiling back to the surface. My legs burn with renewed energy, pushing me along the concrete of the sidewalk, past people strolling in groups, and homeless people with shopping carts, ignoring the whistles and leers and the stares of awe as the winds push me and magic blazes through me until I’m running faster than a normal human ever could.

  They think they can just decide what I’m going to do, and with whom? They think they can drag me into their stupid business deals and use me like some kind of pawn in their idiotic games of chess?

  I don’t think so. I want no part of their drug deals and their stolen cars and their laundered money and their crates of guns. I’m done with them and their archaic, outmoded, chauvinistic, patriarchal way of ruling everything. The
y won’t control me. I will not allow it. I won’t be dragged into a war, either.

  The wind is carrying me away and my rage is clouding my sight, so I don’t see him emerging from a doorway. I slam into him and we go rolling along the ground in a tangle of sweaty limbs.

  Carson ends up beneath me, and his eyes are wide and glittering with emotion as they bore into me. I can feel his heart beating, and I can smell him. He’s as sweaty as I am, and I realize he’s emerged from a gym. His hair is mussed and wet and sticking up in all directions, his limbs are slick, and his muscles are hot and swollen. He’s shirtless, and his muscular torso is hard beneath me; I can’t seem to stop my hands from running along the lines of his abs to his chest, and I feel his heat radiating into me, the smell of male sweat hot in my nostrils.

  His hands are on my lower back and edging downward, his lips inches from mine. I can feel the effect I’m having on him. He’s hardening and lengthening beneath me, pressing into my belly, and before I can shut it away the thought is blowing through me: I want him inside me. My body is a traitor, my desire for him howling inside me, turning me liquid, leaving me helpless in a puddle on top of him. His hands are cupping my ass hungrily now, squeezing and kneading and pushing and pulling, grinding me into him. My thighs are shaking, and my breath is coming in ragged gasps against his mouth.

  We still haven’t said a word. Our eyes are locked on each other, his ocean eyes swallowing me and subsuming me in their emotive depths.

  I haven’t seen this man in over a week, and it’s like I never left him. All my thoughts of duty and family, djinni and ifrit, all of it is blown away by the way he’s looking at me in this moment. My decision whether or not to return home no longer exists. Hassan, my father, Nadira, none of them exist. There’s nothing but Carson, his hard body, his lips on mine, his hands on my flesh.

  I force myself to slide off him, but arousal makes even that into a sensual slither of skin against skin. He shudders as my hands run along his belly to his thighs and rest there, longer than they should. Finally I manage to get to my feet, but my legs won’t hold me up.

  Carson rises to his feet, much more gracefully than I did, and he’s careful to leave a gap of several inches between us. I’m grateful for that space, as I don’t trust myself not to attack him just yet, but I hate the distance separating us. I want so badly to push myself against him, tell him to take me home, take me to bed.

  The silence continues, awkward, full of a million unspoken sentiments.

  God, I want you.

  He’s thinking it, I’m thinking it. His fingers are curling into fists, clenching and unclenching in a constant rhythm as if willing his heart to slow to a normal pace. I’m still breathing hard, panting and heaving, but it’s not entirely from the run. I can feel my breasts swelling in my sports bra with each breath, and I don’t mind Carson’s wandering gaze. I’d strip the bra off and show him all of me, if we weren’t in the middle of a sidewalk in downtown Detroit.

  “Hi.” He breaks the silence, finally.

  “Hi.” The weeklong avoidance looms between us, and I sense his questions trying to break free from him, but he contains them.

  “I missed you,” he blurts, and then shuts his eyes briefly, embarrassed.

  “I missed you, too,” I tell him, as much to relieve his embarrassment as anything else; although god knows it’s the truth.

  “You did?” The hope in his voice is palpable, and it sets my heart to thudding again.

  “More than I should’ve. I mean, it’s only been a week.” A bead of sweat rolls down my neck to disappear between my breasts, and Carson’s eyes follow its path before jumping back up to meet mine, searching.

  “Felt like a year,” he says. “It’s been rough.”

  “It wasn’t easy for me either, Carson. You have to know that. I didn’t want to…” I trail off.

  “Didn’t want to what? Walk away? Leave me with more questions than answers? Leave me wondering if I’d ever see you again?” Carson’s voice is thick and tense.

  He’s upset, and I don’t blame him. I’m glad he’s at least showing me what he’s feeling.

  “Yeah, that too—” I start, but he cuts me off.

  “You did, though. The way you said goodbye, it sounded like you meant forever. Like you weren’t intending to see me again.” It sounds almost like an accusation.

  “Yeah, that was the idea. I didn’t…I mean—” The explanations stick in my throat, acidic and rotten. They’d be lies, or half-truths, and I can’t feed him those anymore. All I have left is either the truth, or more evasions. Or running away.

  “Don’t fucking lie to me anymore, Leila!” His eyes blaze anger, the words hissed, so vitriolic I flinch at their force. “Tell me the truth. Please. Or just…just go and stay gone! No more evasions, no half-truths. Either tell me the goddamned truth—and all of the truth—or stay away from me. I love—” The word is out before he can choke it back down, and my heart is pounding in my chest, exploding with a hurricane of emotions: love, fear, sadness, excitement, disbelief. “Shit,” he whispers, more to himself than to me.

  He looks up at me, eyes suddenly intense with something akin to fury. It’s the look I imagine is in his eyes when he breaks a door down to chase a fugitive.

  “Fuck it,” he growls. “I said it, I may as well own it. I’m in love with you. It’s crazy, it’s stupid, it’s way too soon, and it’s bound to get my heart broken because you obviously can’t and won’t trust me with the truth, but there it is.”

  He’s suddenly wavering in my vision, blurring and splintering, and I realize I’m crying. Adrenaline, anger, and desire have been propping me up thus far, but now all that is knocked aside by his admission. Thumbs wipe away my tears, strong, gentle, and callused, brushing the loose tendrils of hair back behind my ear. Sobs are stuck in my throat, collecting and damming and overflowing.

  I will not break down. Not here. Not in front of him, not now. I breathe deeply, close my eyes, force the shuddering breaths to steady. But then his arms pull me close, and his wet, sweat-slick chest is against my cheek, and his tender strength and man-smell and heat all gang up on me and break down the dam to let the flood of tears out. A sob escapes, and my legs give out. He catches me, scoops me up into his brawny arms. His car must be nearby because he helps me into the passenger seat. I slump into the seat, kicking aside Mountain Dew bottles and empty Styrofoam coffee cups.

  I’m wracked with sobs, unable to stop or slow them, and I’m not even sure why I’m like this, but it doesn’t matter because I just can’t get hold of my raging emotions. His hand is wrapped around mine, and he’s not saying anything, not telling me it’s okay, not telling me not to cry. He’s just holding my hand and letting me sob. I’m distantly aware that he’s driving, and I don’t care where he’s taking me. Minutes pass, and the storm of tears isn’t subsiding. It’s not just him, not just his sudden and horribly timed declaration of love—it’s everything. Father, Hassan, the threats against my family, being alone here for so many months…it seems like everything is conspiring to make me completely lose it. I’ve pushed all my problems and emotions down into a tiny, fragile bottle, and now it’s all pressurized and exploding out of me.

  Wind batters at the windows, leaking out of me to lift bottles and cups and wrappers up off the floor of the vehicle, sending it all swirling in mini-tornadoes at my feet, bottles racketing off the windows and the ceiling, smacking me in the face, knocking against my calves. I can’t stop the leak of power right now…all I can do is try to contain it, keep it manageable, keep it from spiraling out of control.

  Eventually Carson stops the car and helps me out, and I see my apartment building through my tears. The fact that he knows where I live is not a surprise. I try to fish my key out of my bra, but fumble and drop it back down between my cleavage. His fingers are hot against the skin of my breast, and he’s gentle and careful in the way he finds the key, not erotic at all, which only makes me cry harder. He more than half-carries me into t
he living room, sits on the couch with me on his lap as if I were a child. He reaches for the box of Kleenex and presses a handful to me. I dab at my nose and collapse against him.

  I hate myself for doing this. I have to get a grip on myself. I try to wiggle free, but he holds me in place.

  “Don’t,” he says. “It’s okay. To cry, I mean. I don’t know what’s going on with you, and you don’t have to tell me. We’ll get to that. I’m here, okay? I’m here for you. Don’t fight it. You don’t have to be strong all the time.”

  I make a sound in protest, trying to speak, trying to tell him…I don’t know what. He shushes me, rubbing my back and kissing my temple. Which really helps my attempts to stop crying, of course. Right. His tender affection is making it even worse.

  He loves me. I speak the words in my mind: Carson Hale loves me. They echo in my head, reverberate through my heart. He shouldn’t, he doesn’t even know me. But then…he does, though, doesn’t he? He’s seen my powers, felt them, experienced them, and he’s still here, comforting me. He’s suspected at least some of the truth regarding Father being a criminal, and he’s put up with my constant lies and evasions.

  Yet here he is in my living room, holding me as I bawl like baby when he doesn’t even know why, and he isn’t asking, just holding me and kissing my cheek and my jaw and my forehead and shushing me and caressing my arms and somehow making it all seem bearable.

  At some point my sobbing slows and I’m able to wipe the tears away and clean my dripping nose. My breathing evens out, and I sit up straighter on his lap. I’m a tall girl, and I’m in shape, but he makes me feel small, his muscular presence surrounding me like a blanket.

  I can finally look at him, meet his eyes. Yes, they burn with questions, curiosity, the drive to know, but they also burn with passion, desire, and love. Seeing love in his eyes as he looks at me, that makes my breath hitch again, makes hope well up inside me, and I’m quick to stomp it down. He reaches up and pulls the band from my hair, carefully, slowly, brushing through my thick black tresses with his fingers.