her wrist as he pressed her behind him. “Azazil has already given his word that her promise to stay has been fulfiled. You cannot keep her here unless she is wiling.”
Red shot her a look over his shoulder. “Are you wiling?”
“Hel no,” she growled.
Smiling triumphantly, Red turned back to Asmodeus. “Sucks to be you right now.”
Ari snorted, feeling a smal triumph over Asmodeus and his apparently limitless viciousness.
“This isn’t over,” Asmodeus promised with his eyes pinning her to the wal. She felt a familiar dread in her gut. She’d honestly thought for a minute there that she was free from al this Jinn stuff.
After another warning step from Red, the Marid blazed his way out of the room, the door crashing behind him. Red’s eyes dropped on the dead Shaitan.
“I’m sorry,” Ari whispered. “I couldn’t stop him in time.”
Red flicked a hand and the body just disappeared. He turned to Ari seeming unconcerned. They were al so calous, she thought hopelessly. That Shaitan’s life meant nothing to any of them. “Not your fault.” He studied her a moment. “You can withstand the Seal’s command?”
“Yeah, looks like.”
“Wel.” He frowned in concern. “We’l try to keep that quiet. It might carry its own problems. You ready to leave?”
“Definitely.” She looked back where the Shaitan had been murdered. Is that what this life did to you? Made you so used to violence and death that a body was just that. A shel. Not a life at al?
Red seemed uncomfortable al of sudden, his eyes finding it difficult to focus on hers. “My father hinted that Jai’s tribe might know how to find Jai.”
Relief and hope crashed over her bringing her out of depressed thoughts. “That’s fantastic. Let’s go.”
“Ari, wait.” Red pinched the bridge of his nose, his gaze almost anxious. “I puled Glass out of his assignment to help Charlie find the Labartu. We left him in a motel in Houston knowing he’d very likely not be able to find her on his own in time.”
Stunned by the news, Ari replied softly, “I appreciate it. But it doesn’t mean I forgive you. Or trust you.”
“I’m not…” he heaved an exasperated sigh, “That’s not what I’m trying to tel you. My father isn’t happy I didn’t complete the assignment. He’s arranging for Charlie to meet Akasha.”
The fear was back.
Ari took a shuddering breath. “As payback.”
“It’s how he works.”
“Okay…”
“However… I’m also worried that White, if he finds out you’re no longer the Seal, wil take that news out on Jai in a bloody manner and my father has dropped his protection around him.”
Vile, heart-wrenching understanding dawned. “You’re saying—you’re saying I have to choose who I’m going to rescue first, and that whichever one I choose to
rescue second, might die before I get there?”
He nodded, his blue eyes ful of regret. “I can’t help, Charlie, Ari. My father might do something worse in retaliation.”
“Oh God,” Think. Think. “What about my mom?” she grasped desperately at the idea. “Couldn’t she help Charlie?”
Red shook his head adamantly. “I can’t—I won’t—put her in that kind of danger. White might find her and if he does-”
“Fine,” Ari whispered. “I get it.” She blew out a breath and nodded, coming to a sickening decision. “I need to get word to the Roes. Can you do that at least?
They’re the best bet at the moment.”
Red nodded as if he’d expected this. “You’ve made a choice. You’re sending them after Charlie. You’re going after Jai.”
Ari felt tears of shame clog her throat. “I’m not proud of it. But yeah.”
“I’m sorry, Ari.”
Ari’s eyes blazed at the thought of the possible ramifications of her choice. “Me too.”
25 - These Continuous Trips to Lost & Found Are Wearing on my Soul
How many days had it been now? Or had it only been hours?
Worse, had it been weeks? Months?
The stifling black was wicked emptiness, for like a blank canvas before an artist, it tempted its prisoner to fil the black with images—images of Ari, of his father, of his faceless mother. Memories taunted Jai. Fears suffocated him as images of Ari’s dead body continued to float across the dark.
At these he’d yel to his captor to let him go until his voice was hoarse. He couldn’t feel Ari in the trace. The bottle extinguished much of Jai’s energy. He hoped that was the cause and not that Ari was…
The not knowing whether she was alive or dead was the worst part of al of this. If he ever got out of the bottle he’d been trapped in only to discover that Ari was gone…
… Jai couldn’t breathe.
How would he ever come back from that?
Her sweet smile filed the dark and Jai rubbed a hand over his chest where it ached. So this was what it was like to love someone this deeply?
Thinking of his captors brought furious tears to his eyes, tears he hadn’t alowed since he was a boy. He was wounded by the knowledge of who they were—the
people that were supposed to protect him. He was gutted by the truth that he should have taken his own advice long before now and kept his distance from Ari. He didn’t want to love anyone this much. Ever.
Now it was too late. There was no going back. He couldn’t walk away from her now even if his survival instincts told him he should.
He had to get out of here. He had to save her….
The black and white checkered floor of the Bitar home reminded her far too much of a chessboard. White’s thievery—stealing Jai from her—was a taunt like his last, when he’d kiled Ari’s adoptive father, Derek. “Checkmate.”
Bastard.
Grief rippled over her anew, hitting her like it did when she least expected it. An anger she hadn’t felt towards Sala since meeting her, ate at her. She’d destroyed Derek’s life. She’d put him in danger. And worse, he’d loved Sala and never truly loved Ari because of it.
Throwing aside those unwanted, ugly feelings, Ari listened as footsteps echoed down the halway towards her, a clickety-clack, clickety-clack of heels making her stomach knot with dread. Great. Nicki Bitar. As if Ari realy wanted to ask that psycho for help. She didn’t even have Red at her side to pressure the wicked stepmother. He was off acting as messenger, doing the only thing he could by notifying Michael Roe of Charlie’s whereabouts. She could only hope they were wiling to use their resources to find and stop him.
Nicki came into view, her dark Irish beauty so hateful to Ari she had an absurd urge to rake her nails down the witch’s face. Ari hated her for what she’d done to Jai and she knew she didn’t even know the half of the cruelty she’d committed against him. Nicki came to a stop a few checkers from Ari, her pretty mouth twisted into a smirk. “What do you want?”
“I want to speak with Luca.”
“He’s not home.”
Crap. Fidgeting, trying not to feel panicky, Ari wondered if she should just refuse to leave until he returned. She knew she could rely on Luca’s sense of honor at least to help her find Jai, but Nicki? She was a heartless cow when it came to her stepson. “Jai’s been taken,” she snapped. “I have reason to believe that Luca can help me find him.”
“Help you how?” Nicki shook her head, her eyes narrowed in bitter hate. “There is no way we’re bringing our tribe into that war for a piece of scum.”
“You watch your mouth,” Ari snarled, taking a menacing step towards her. Satisfaction thrummed through her when Nicki flinched and stepped back. As if she was afraid.
Of course. Ari sneered. She stil believed Ari was the Seal.
Before either of them could say another word, the large double entrance door drew their attention as one of the doors swung open. Luca Bitar entered, his
appearance surprisingly scruffy. He looked tired. He stopped at the sight of Ari before him, his eyes widening with relief it seemed.
“Luca.” Nicki marched past Ari towards him, her voice high with surprise. “What are you doing home so early?”
He shot her a hateful look. “Why didn’t you cal to let me know Ari was here?”
“She just got here. I was going to.”
“Liar,” Ari hissed.
Luca shoved his wife’s hand off his arm and hurried to Ari’s side. “We have him, Ari.”
Her mouth fel open in shock, her stomach flipping. That was not what she’d been expecting him to say. “What?” she breathed in disbelief, horror and hope.
“The White King ordered me to place Jai in a bottle where Teruze could guard over him in the treasure room.”
His words were barely out of his mouth and Ari was spinning around, ready to bolt for the room where Luca kept al manner of precious items. His firm grip
clamped down around her wrist, whirling her back around to face him.
“Ari, Teruze is very old. He wil kil you if you dare try to unleash Jai from his imprisonment.”
“Then you unleash him!” Ari yeled, fury and disgust for him blazing in her eyes. Jai was his son! How could he do this to him? Her hand curled into a fist and she had to physicaly restrain herself from socking him in the mouth.
“I can’t,” he pleaded with her, seeming nothing like the man she had come to know and dislike. He appeared so much older than he used to. “Only I can order
Teruze to back off and only I can unleash Jai, but The White King promised he would destroy my entire Tribe if I, wilingly, freed Jai. I know I have made decisions you don’t agree with regarding Jai. I know my son and I are not close, but Ari I would never wish that kind of hel on him. Trapped in a bottle, it’s like being in the hole in prison. For weeks. I… I’ve been waiting for you or The Red King to show up and order me to let him go. It’s the only way around my oath to The White King. Ari.”
He pinched her arm desperately. “He’s stil my son. You have to believe me when I say I never wanted this. Order me to free him. Command me!”
“I can’t,” she breathed harshly. “Asmodeus ripped the Seal from me. He has it now.”
“WHAT?” White’s below roared around the entire mansion as he stepped out of the Cloak, advancing on Ari with dark questions in his eyes. For a moment she was stunned she hadn’t felt him hiding there, and then she realized… she was no longer the Seal. She no longer had the gift of detecting Jinn hiding in the Cloak. Shit! “I wondered what this trick was, why you were pretending not to feel me hiding in the Cloak. What is going on?”
Luca made a valiant attempt to stand between Ari and White, but the Jinn King barely looked at him as he swept his hand out, sending Luca crashing back with invisible hands against one of Nicki’s ugly portraits. Nicki made a choked sound of distress as she rushed to Luca’s side and Ari barely registered White’s proximity as she waited for signs of life from Jai’s dad. When he groaned, Ari sagged with relief. When she freed Jai, the last thing she wanted to tel him was that his dad was dead.