Exquisite Captive Read online

  “You’ve come a long way to hide in a corner, Ifrit pig,” she snarled.

  The jinni’s tone was withering. “You confuse hiding with being entertained, salfit.”

  Nalia bristled at the slur. It was what Arjinna’s lower castes called her race, a snide nod to the Ghan Aisouri’s palace high up in the Qaf Mountains, so steep that only goats could manage the climb. Salfit: goat fucker.

  “I’ve always found that term of endearment so evocative of our beautiful mountain territory,” she said.

  She’d heard the slur before, many times—the lower castes were serfs, forced to obey Shaitan overlords and the royal Ghan Aisouri who controlled the serfs’ lives, owning them in much the same way Malek owned Nalia.

  But it hadn’t always been that way.

  In ancient days—thousands of summers ago—Arjinna had been nothing more than a wild land upon which tribes of jinn roamed, fighting for control of the realm’s resources. After a time, one race proved to be the most powerful—the all-female Ghan Aisouri, the only jinn who could control all four elements. So great were their powers, many considered the Aisouri to be daughters of the gods—and indeed the violet-eyed females were born randomly into the families of other castes, like blessings scattered from above. Jealous, the fiery-tempered Ifrit tried to wrest control of the realm from the Aisouri. But with the help of the Shaitan, known throughout the realm for their wisdom and innate magical ability, the Aisouri pushed the Ifrit into Ithkar, a barren, volcanic region cut off from the rest of Arjinna by the Qaf Mountain range. Fearful of future uprisings, the Aisouri chose an empress from among their ranks and then divided Arjinna into regions assigned to the jinn races: the Djan in the valley, best for their earth element; the Marid near the sea, ideal for their water magic; and the Shaitan in the mountains, where they could draw upon their element: air. As a reward for aligning themselves with the Aisouri against the Ifrit, the Shaitan were given control over the Djan and Marid—a control they quickly began to abuse. Until recently, the Ifrit had remained on their side of the mountains, happily keeping the realm in chaos by providing serf rebels with dark magic and weapons to fight their Shaitan overlords. Little did anyone know that the Ifrit were planning a bloody revolution of their own.

  It had taken Nalia’s own enslavement for her to truly understand the misery of the serfs’ existence. But it was too late for apologies.

  There was a low, diabolic chuckle near the Maserati and she threw her fingers toward it, filling the garage with bright golden light. The chiaan skimmed across the gleaming surfaces of the cars, missing the invisible jinni.

  “You’re rusty—I would have expected more from a Ghan Aisouri,” he called, from the other end of the garage. “Maybe it was just smoke and mirrors with you royal knights all along.”

  Nalia took a breath. “Say that again, swine.”

  The jinni just laughed.

  Dark green smoke rolled toward her and Nalia pummeled it with scorching bursts of magic, shots in the dark. The jinni, hidden within the shapeless cloud, spun her into disordered confusion until all she saw was thick, chiaan-infused air. She hurled her body out of the funnel of smoke, then aimed a blistering surge of magic toward its center. The smoke dispersed, but instantly rematerialized a few feet away, this time behind Malek’s orange Lamborghini.

  Damn, he’s good, she thought. It was a rare jinni who could give a Ghan Aisouri a run for her money in a fight. She stared at the tendrils of the assassin’s smoke that licked the air: green, not red. Nalia didn’t know what it meant: red was the color of the Ifrit, the butchers who had taken over her country after the coup. The ones who wanted her dead. But green was the color of the Djan, the lower caste that occupied central Arjinna. She’d expected the Ifritian red of an assassin, but a Djan? Things were worse in Arjinna than she imagined if a Djan was now killing for the Ifrit.

  In the dim lighting that filtered through the haze of smoke, she could see the outline of a body. She sprang toward the limbs concealed in the emerald cloud, connecting with hard flesh as she tackled the jinni. He grunted and elbowed her in the stomach before sliding out from under her.

  Nalia barely felt the pain of the blow as she thrust her hand toward the jinni’s chest. The force of her chiaan flipped him in the air and launched him into the side of Malek’s Lotus, denting it. Nalia sprinted toward the car.

  The jinni threw up a thick wall of green smoke to block Nalia from coming closer. She still hadn’t seen his face. She raised her hands to brush it aside, but doubled over as Malek’s summons became a sharp knot in her abdomen that pulled tighter and tighter.

  When she looked up, her opponent had disappeared again. The chiaan at her fingertips dimmed, like a dying light bulb. There was no way she’d win this fight, not with Malek’s insistent pull. Nalia took one last look around the garage, then willed herself to evanesce. Immediately, gold smoke curled around her body.

  “We’ll have to do this some other time, serfling,” she said into the darkness.

  Another low chuckle, this time near the pristine vintage Rolls-Royce. “Ah, but who’s the serf now? Run to your master, little slave. We’ll see each other soon.”

  Little slave. She prayed that wherever her mother’s spirit rested, she couldn’t see what had become of her daughter, once a proud knight—now nothing more than a human’s plaything who couldn’t even get one Djan jinni to yield before her.

  Nalia felt the slight twinge of vertigo that always came with evanescing. As the smoke bore her body up, she closed her eyes and envisioned her feet standing on the thick white carpet on her bedroom floor, then let the smoke take her away.

  Nalia landed in the center of her bedroom and immediately fell to her knees as Malek’s summons dug into her, vicious knifelike stabs that wounded her deep in her stomach. She had to find a way to kill the assassin before he called for reinforcements. Even a Ghan Aisouri had her limits, especially one who’d been on Earth for so long. The iron scattered throughout the human realm had poisoned her chiaan, and she wasn’t sure how much her training would hold up against a group of jinn intent on her demise. Hopefully, there was just this one assassin.

  She bit off a groan as the pain deepened.

  Why was a Djan trying to kill her? There was no love lost between Nalia’s caste and that of her assassin’s, but him being here didn’t make sense.

  The Djan were the heart of the serf rebellion, which for centuries had fought against Aisouri and Shaitan rule. In recent years, the rebellion’s leaders had somehow discovered a way to break the magical bond of servitude between the serfs and their Shaitan overlords. It was a magic that had never been seen before. The wisest mages in the land claimed it impossible and yet droves of serfs were running away to join the resistance, their shackles disappearing into thin air. This marked the beginning of the Discords, Arjinna’s civil war. With the Ifrit increasing their presence on the Qaf range and the serfs’ targeted acts of sabotage throughout the realm, the Aisouri had been forced to enact strict measures to maintain order. Nalia’s face reddened with shame as she remembered the endless raids and the wide, fearful eyes of serf children.

  There had been two major uprisings. The first came as a surprise to the Ghan Aisouri: several overlords’ estates had been destroyed and a resistance headquarters set up deep in the Forest of Sighs. In the second, the revolutionary leader, Dthar Djan’Urbi, had been killed by the Ghan Aisouri. Yet the revolution lived on in his son, Raif, and in the growing ranks of freed serfs. The last Nalia heard, the revolutionaries were now fighting the Ifrit, who enacted a brutal martial law as soon as they took control of the Amethyst Crown. Subversive jinn were sent to work camps in the northern territories or murdered in public as a lesson for all to see. And still, the revolution grew. Nalia knew that the Djan and Marid would never bow to the Ifrit after centuries of fighting for their freedom.

  Still, the only way the jinni in the garage could know Nalia was a Ghan Aisouri was if the Ifrit usurpers had sent him. After coming to Earth, Nali
a had hidden the violet eyes and smoke that marked her as a Ghan Aisouri, opting instead for the safer gold hue of the Shaitan. The jinni in the garage was the first jinni on Earth who had seen through her illusion.

  An explosion of pain in her stomach—she had to get down to the party.

  Nalia forced herself into a standing position. Malek would murder her if she came down in jeans and a T-shirt. As expected, he’d had a couture dress sent up to her room. She fingered the gown’s intricate beadwork: delicate peacock feathers spilling onto black velvet. The thought of wearing what he’d chosen for her after everything that had happened tonight made her sick. She wasn’t going to give him that.

  Nalia limped to her closet and pulled out a dress at random—even if Malek had bought that one too, it made her feel a little better to be wearing it on a night he hadn’t chosen. She pulled off her clothes, then slid the dress over her head. It fit like a second skin, hugging her curves. She slipped on a pair of delicate silk heels, biting her lip in a silent groan as the line between her and Malek went taut. She had seconds before her master pulled her away.

  Nalia rested her forehead against the cool glass of the window, her breath coming out in fevered pants. If Malek put her in the bottle as punishment, she might not have a chance to see the sky for days and she’d be damned if she’d go to him before she had one last look. Los Angeles glimmered below the perfectly manicured lawn of the mansion, like a handful of jewels thrown carelessly into a black pit. The sky above smoldered, and bright spotlights crisscrossed its surface, signaling an important premiere or concert near Hollywood Boulevard. She pushed open the window, hoping to gather energy from the breeze that danced with the palms outside her room, but it was too late.

  She cried out as the pain became a hot, bright thing that radiated throughout her body. There was nothing else, only this intense demand.

  It was time to see her master.

  3

  MALEK STOOD NEAR THE GRAND PIANO, DEEP IN conversation with two men. He glanced at the stairs as soon as Nalia appeared at the top, his body attuned to her presence. A small smile played on his chiseled face and his eyes clung to her in a hungry, proprietary way. She clutched at the banister, her knuckles white. She gave him a slight nod, then descended the stairs, focusing on the sea of unfamiliar faces below that floated on waves of silk and champagne. Anything to ignore the embers in his eyes.

  She was grateful that Malek’s summons had sent her to the staircase—it bought her a few more moments to search for the jinni who had been sent to kill her. Nalia’s eyes swept over the guests, her body listening for jinn energy. Nothing. Just the usual assortment of Hollywood elite, suave criminals, and political power brokers. White-jacketed waiters flitted about the room with silver trays bearing delicacies while men in black suits stood near the room’s exits, scanning the crowd. Malek’s security. He never had an event or traveled without them. As she reached the last step, a small man dressed in the simple tux of a servant touched her elbow, then stepped back in deference.

  “Miss Nalia, Mr. Malek bade me tell you to join him in the study,” he said. His slight British inflection had always been soothing to Nalia’s ears. “He will be there momentarily.”

  She glanced toward Malek, but his back was now to her. She sighed and nodded at his assistant. “Thank you, Delson.”

  Nalia grabbed a glass of champagne from a tray as she made her way to the study, a prop to give her hands something to do. She ignored the appreciative stares of the men she passed, barely noticing them. She was thinking about the dagger hidden underneath her dress and how it would have to meet its mark on the first attempt. Whoever he was, the jinni nearly outmatched her in strength. She wanted the fight over with as few injuries as possible.

  Where are you?

  It wasn’t like she could kill him in the middle of the party. Even if she wanted to, it’d be a challenge. Her body ached with the aftereffects of the summons—simply walking was draining. Every few seconds the room would buckle as a wave of nausea passed over her. She needed to replenish her chiaan as soon as possible. Drawing from the energy of the elements was the only cure for the punishing magic of her master’s summons. Then she’d deal with this assassin.

  Nalia pretended to take a sip of the champagne as she passed the string quartet Malek had hired. Just as she was nearing the farthest edge of the room, she felt the jinni. Nalia turned, searching the faces around her.

  There.

  The eyes—two glittering emeralds focused on her with a hunter’s intensity. It was just a flash and then he was gone. She hadn’t gotten a good look at his face and she couldn’t risk walking through the party a second time. Malek would be furious enough as it was.

  She nodded to the guard in front of the study’s heavy wooden door. He stepped aside so that she could enter. The room was dim; instead of the ornate chandelier that hung from the ceiling, only a small rose-colored lamp had been lit. The windows looked out onto the garden, a riot of color year round and her favorite place to hide when Malek was in one of his moods. But it was dark, and all Nalia saw was her reflection in the panes. Bookshelves lined the walls, stuffed with tomes on history and the supernatural. Though it wasn’t cold, a fire blazed in the fireplace—she suspected Malek had had Delson start one. It didn’t matter the season, any room Malek spent time in had to have heat, lots of it, and fire. She’d never counted, of course, but she was sure he went through thousands of candles a year. It was one of the strange things that made Malek Malek. She’d given up trying to understand his mood swings, his agelessness, and the way he always got what he wanted—without exception. All she needed to know was that he controlled her life and probably always would.

  Nalia stood before the stone mantel, letting her eyes glaze over as she pushed every thought from her mind and focused her awareness on the fire. She waited until she felt herself reflected in the still center of the dancing flames, then thrust both hands into the fireplace. The fire licked hungrily at her skin, but it did not burn. Instead, its heat tore through her, wiping out the pain of the summons and replenishing the chiaan she’d accessed to fight the Djan assassin. Nalia became the inferno: she was a scorching river of flame, destroyer and creator, refined into something pure and bright and deadly. Then she removed her hands and took a shuddering breath. They glistened with golden chiaan before they resumed their usual appearance. These were hands that could fight.

  These were hands that could kill. Had killed.

  Nalia’s fingers grazed the dagger strapped to her thigh. If she killed the assassin, the Ifrit would just send more. They’d obviously found her and she knew they wouldn’t stop until she was dead. She was a threat to their regime; her very existence undermined the power they’d so violently wrested from Nalia’s royal caste. She needed to go somewhere to think things through, to come up with a plan. She’d give almost anything to have someone to talk to, someone who knew her secrets and could advise her on how to keep herself alive until she could be free of Malek. Being the only survivor was a curse—if it weren’t for her little brother, toiling away in an Ifritian labor camp, she’d accept death, and gladly. But she was his only hope, the one jinni strong enough to break into an Ifrit prison and get him out. Thank the gods her mother hadn’t borne a second girl. Instead, Bashil had the natural golden eyes of their Shaitan father and had been spared the execution room.

  Even if Nalia escaped Earth and her shameful status as a slave, there was nothing she could do to avenge the deaths of the other Ghan Aisouri, no high court to appeal to. Nobody could bring the Ghan Aisouri back or make it so that the Ifrit coup had never happened. Most of all, nobody could undo the choice Nalia had made three years ago that led to the coup. The death—the blood and screams and stench of it—was her fault. Maybe that was why she’d survived: Malek was her punishment from the gods.

  Loneliness flowed over her, familiar and aching. She held up her palm and a wisp of smoke encircled an image of her brother, one from happier times, when he still had his b
aby fat and first teeth. Better than a photograph, the image of Bashil’s face was painfully real, down to the sunlight that glinted in his curly brown hair. But the picture was wrought from memory—he looked far worse now. Too often, in recent images of him, she’d seen dark circles under his eyes; cheekbones that were too pronounced. The last time she’d shared the same air with him, Bashil was being torn out of her arms and thrown into the line of slaves bound for Ithkar, the Ifrit territory.

  He’s just a child, she thought. Only eight summers old.

  For a moment she was back in the palace gardens, teaching Bashil about the stars.

  “What’s that one, Nalia-jai?”

  Bashil points to a collection of stars in the shape of a flat-topped mountain, his eyes wide with wonder. Nalia hugs him closer to her and fills her nose with his sweet baby scent. He is only four summers old, so curious. It hurts her heart that their mother cares nothing for him. To Mehndal Aisouri’Taifyeh, Bashil is only a keftuhm—a blood waste. He was not born a girl with purple eyes and chiaan kissed by the gods.

  “That,” she says, “is B’alai Om—the great cauldron. It is a kind of mountain that cries fire. It is where the first jinn were created by the gods.”

  “From fire?”

  Nalia laughs at the horrified expression on his face. “Yes, gharoof,” she says—little rabbit. “From smokeless fire.”

  “Did it burn them?”

  “Faqua celique,” she says. Only the stars know.

  Now as she stared at his image, Nalia whispered Bashil’s true name—the one only she knew—filling each syllable with searching intent. Several long moments later, her brother answered. Not with words; that wasn’t how the magic of hahm’alah worked. Instead, he sent her an image—his thin face staring into dirty water at the edge of a harsh volcanic desert. He was still in the work camps, but alive. Alive. She sent him her love, hoping he would gain courage from its strength, her heart breaking that she could send him little else.