He had a warrior’s body.
So hot.
Taking hold of his hand, Ari started to rise and Jai’s fingers automatically tightened around hers as he helped her up. Standing now, Ari still had to tilt her chin to meet his gaze.
“Now what?” his voice was hoarse.
“I just want to touch you.”
His eyes flashed and he grew still, as if considering whether or not it was a bad idea. Finally he nodded. “Okay.”
Excitement pulsed through Ari as she tentatively let her fingers fall against his stomach. It rippled under the lightest of touch and Ari felt her lower belly tingle at the affect she had on him. That she had that much power over him. It made her insecurities over his sexual experience and her inexperience melt away. Feeling bolder, she ran her hand up the center of his six-pack, tracing the ridges of the muscle. His olive skin was silky beneath her touch, silk over pure steel. She’d read that somewhere in a cheesy romance novel Rachel had given her, but God, did it fit. She was finding it a little harder to breathe evenly as her touch reached his hard pecs. When her fingers brushed his nipple Jai moaned and Ari’s eyes flew to his. They were blazing down at her and Ari felt that look like an explosion in her lower belly. Encouraged, breathing completely ragged now, Ari leaned closer and pressed her lips to his chest, whispering butterfly kisses across his skin and reveling in the way his chest had begun to rise and fall more rapidly.
Some devil crawled inside of her and her hand backtracked, sliding slowly downwards, slipping over his abs until she hit the waistline of his jeans. At the same time as she tickled her fingers along his lower abdomen, Ari pressed a kiss over his nipple, her tongue tentatively flicking over it.
Jai cursed, his voice low and guttural. He grabbed her by the elbows and pulled her into him but before he could retaliate the sound of footsteps echoing down the staircase towards them stopped them. They froze for a second, and then Jai was pushing her away from him, turning his back and letting his magic crackle around him. A t-shirt covered his upper body but he refused to turn around.
“Almost done?” Caroline’s voice called out to them, and then she was there, peering around the doorframe. “Dinner’s almost ready.”
Jai looked like he was still brooding, staring out of the French windows. Ari was flushed, trembling, but somehow she managed to throw Caroline a tight
smile. “Yeah. We’re just finishing up.”
“Great.” Caroline smiled back at her and left after shooting Jai a curious look.
Ari listened to her footsteps fade and then turned to Jai. He shot her an unreadable look over his shoulder and she wished she understood what the hell it meant. “Are you mad?”
“No. I’m not mad. I… want you. Now.”
Ari grinned, relishing the possessive look in his eye. “Well, that’s good, right?”
“No, Ari,” he laughed despite himself as he brushed past her, careful to barely touch her. “Time and a place. Okay? There’s a time and a place.”
Hurrying to catch up to him, Ari disagreed. “Well, I thought it was incredibly hot. Maybe the time and the place was a factor in that.”
“Maybe you’re right. But if we’re going to keep a lid on this, then no more strip teasing.”
So unlike her, Ari found herself pouting. “I don’t like the sound of that.”
He caught her look and laughed, shaking his head.
“I love that sound though,” she admitted, the words just slipping out before she could stop them.
Jai stopped on the stairwell, a quizzical frown appearing between his eyebrows. They were getting closer to the rest of the house and its occupants where unwanted ears might be in listening distance, so Ari understood why Jai’s voice suddenly popped into her head.
What sound?
Your laugh. It does crazy things to me.
His eyes widened. Ari, he breathed as if winded, No one’s ever…
No one’s ever, what?
No one has ever looked at me the way you do. It’s humbling… to have someone like you look at someone like me that way.
Someone like me?
You’re everything, he admitted, his voice catching, You know that right?
Then tell me you love me, she wanted to say. Instead she nodded. You’re everything to me too. I look at you and I forget that I’m in the middle of the
deepest shit anyone’s ever been in.
Jai snorted, shaking his head. And you say I’m the unromantic one.
They playfully grimaced at one another and Ari impulsively stood on her tiptoes to press a quick kiss to his lips. She drew back, stroking his cheek. You
need to shave.
In response, he leaned down to kiss her forehead. I will never get tired of hearing you say that.
Pain shot through her chest as Ari drew in a breath. Jeez, it felt like she’d been shot. What had happened? Where was Jai? Why was it dark? Hadn’t they just been on the staircase heading up to dinner? “Jai?” she mumbled, reaching a hand out in the dark for him.
“No, Ari, it’s me.”
The familiar rumble of her uncle’s voice was like a key unlocking the memories from the point in the gym with Jai onwards. The forest where he had finaly told her he loved her, the high school, the Jinn attack, her mother saving her, The White King stealing Jai, her bargain with Azazil…
The image of Asmodeus smashed its way through al the rest, his fist ripping out of her chest with the ember inside his closed hand.
Ari’s eyes flew open with a gasp.
Hovering above her was the familiar face of The Red King and the healer with silvery hair that brushed his chin. He’d saved her before. After the Haqeeqah and then again after Dalí had drained the blood from her. “Red?” she croaked out, her mouth feeling dusty, her throat dry. As she tried to move, sharp aches and burning pain shot through her body. Her limbs didn’t feel so light anymore… they felt… real? It was almost as if for years she’d had help carrying the weight of them and now she was left to carry them alone.
The Seal.
Lilif’s essence…
It was gone.
“I’m alive,” she managed, trying to sit up. Red reached to help her, his features a little strained as he puled her up into a sitting position. She had been lying on a mattress scattered with silk blankets and a mountain of cushions. The room Azazil had given her.
She was stil at the palace.
“I survived?”
“Yes.” The Red King gave her a gentle smile and she swore she saw relief in his startling blue gaze. Maybe she did. But was it real? “You’re you. No longer the Seal. Just Jinn.” He frowned suddenly. “Yes, just Jinn. I had wondered if, without the Seal within you, you would be like your mother, an Ifrit. But I don’t know what you are yet. Or how powerful your father’s blood has made you.” His face clouded over at the thought of White.
Ari barely registered Red’s diagnosis of her Jinn heritage. She was too busy being distracted by the splintering pain in her chest. Ari winced, pressing gentle hands to it. It was a little tender, but when she glanced down, there was no ugly scarring, only bruised flesh. Asmodeus had punched through her chest.
Gross and so disturbing.
She was definitely going to need therapy after this.
Rubbing the spot, Ari glanced back up at Red and his companion. Azazil had told her she may or may not live… her eyes flicked to the healer. “Because of you? I survived because of you?”
“You needed a helping hand. I don’t believe you would have died, but when the Lieutenant tore the Seal from you, the trauma caused your conscience and your
physical body to separate. They were struggling to reconnect and it’s likely you may have ended up in a coma if his highness hadn’t had the forethought to bring me with him.”
Filed with such turmoil, Ari turned to her uncle. “You helped save my life again, Red. What am I to realy think of you, huh?” she asked in a shaky voice.
“For now, let’s just assume I don’t want you dead,” he retorted in an amused voice.
“And Azazil just let you fix me?”
“I don’t think he cared what happened either way. He left your fate to play out itself…”
“So, can I leave now?” she was exhausted knowing the Seal was no longer within her, that there was no reason for the Jinn to want anything to do with her anymore and she was… wel, it would be an understatement to say she was relieved. “Can we find Jai and Charlie, and get word out that the Seal is most definitely back around Asmodeus’ neck?”
“You made a promise to my father that you’d stay here indefinitely, Ari. We need to know if he intends to hold you to that. Let me speak with him while Kit here checks you over and gives you something to eat. You’l need your strength if my father alows you to leave.”
Oh, he would alow her to leave, Ari growled inwardly. She’d extracted an oath from him that he would grant her a favor. But she’d let Red speak to him first. No point using up her golden ticket just yet. “Okay.”
After he left, Ari turned to the healer. “So…Kit? That’s an unusual name—for here anyway.”
He smiled at her, looking no more older than Ari. “My mother is a diehard Christopher Marlowe fan, but she thought the name Christopher was plebian, so she gave me his nickname instead.”
She smiled gratefuly at him. “Thank you, Kit. Again.”
“You’re very welcome.”
“So, you’re from England?”
“Was it the accent that gave me away?” he teased.
“Oh, just a little bit.”
“Yes. I’m from England. I come from a long line of Jinn who have particular abilities when it comes to healing. When my mother realized the ful extent of my gifts, she asked for an audience with The Red King and offered me to his service.”
“Your mother deliberately put you in the middle of al this crap?” Ari snapped.
It was the wrong thing to say. Kit’s face closed down. “It is considered a great honor to be chosen as a Jinn King’s personal healer. No one from my family has worked for a royal court for centuries.”
Ari groaned, brushing his clipped defensiveness off. “I don’t get you people.”
Deciding to ignore that, Kit reached for her. “Enough about me. Up on your feet. Let’s see if you’re alright.”
He made her move her limbs around, searching for any signs of injury he couldn’t see or feel. But, other than feeling incredibly tired, Ari was okay. In fact, she thought, touching the place on her chest where she used to feel that coiled darkness, maybe she was more than okay. Experimenting, Ari concentrated on the fact that Jai was stil missing, and that Charlie was closing in on the Labartu. Ari felt angry, frustrated and a little desperate…. However, the dark rage was no longer there. That immediate need to punish and overpower had disappeared.
Ari sagged with relief, tears prickling her eyes. Not only was it a relief to know that Lilif was gone from her, and that Ari no longer had the kind of power that people would kil for, Ari was also relieved because in amongst it al, she’d begun to doubt which feelings were truly her own. It was good to know she was a little more together than Lilif was.