Sara had regained her form. At least for the moment. She was breathing hard, eyes wide and a little wild, and the dull flush in her cheeks could have been exhilaration or post-traumatic stress. Her claws were still sunk deep into my chest, and I could see the pale steady fire of my lifeforce running up through them, into her.
“Get off!” I managed to say, and batted at her weakly. She pulled the claws out, looking stunned and still maniacally excited, and stood up as I rolled over on my side. Oh God. I felt a wave of pure nausea and spat out blue sparks. They were sparkling all over Sara, too, but she didn’t seem to feel any ill effects from them. In fact, the sparks were going intoher, not being rejected.
I’d never felt so frail and sick in my life—human or Djinn. I lay full length on the cool, silky wood floor, struggling to keep myself together, and heard footsteps from the other room.
Ah, perfect. Jonathan. She’d brought me to Jonathan.
He looked down at me with those cool, dark, judging eyes, then bent over and picked me up. Paused when he saw Sara standing there, looking unearthly and beautiful and unhealthily stuffed with energy.
“You,” he said. Not welcoming, not unwelcoming, and not surprised. “Stay here.”
I liked being held in a man’s arms again, feeling the strength against me. It made me feel safe, for the first time in what seemed like an eternity. I tried to pay attention, but it was all just flashes and impressions—a hallway, a glimpse of a kitchen, what looked like photos on the wall, an open darkened doorway. Lights flipped on as he carried me in. The softness of a bed sucked me down.
Jonathan looked down at me, and I was surprised to see something in his eyes that might have been respect. “You made it,” he said. “How’d you know where to go?”
“Didn’t,” I murmured. “Ifrit.”
He nodded. “Yeah, she would.” He took hold of my arm and ran both hands down it, like a coach giving a therapeutic massage; warmth cascaded back into me, silent and luminous. Life, coursing through me.
His hands moved on to my left arm, squeezed in energy. Then my legs, right, then left. The steady warm pressure of his hands lulled me into a half-dream.
Over on my back. Somehow my clothes were gone. Hands on my back, working down the muscles, healing.
“What are you?” I whispered. I felt Jonathan’s presence like the sun behind me. His fingers were no longer pressing my skin, then were inside of me, touching deep.
He never answered.
I woke up warm and comfortable, with a soft feather pillow under my head and no memory at all of going to sleep. No dreams, either. The sheets smelled faintly of sandalwood, and they were crisp and cool on my bare skin. The room didn’t look familiar. It featured a honey-warm wooden chest of drawers, massively carved, and a couple of paintings of space and the stars that looked vivid enough to be windows into infinity. A bookcase, loaded with hardbacks of all shapes, sizes, and colors. A bedside table with another lamp, currently off.
Lying on the rug next to the side of the bed, like a dog curled up for the night, was an Ifrit. It gleamed black in the shadows, and as I stared down at it, it raised its head and grinned at me with black needle teeth. I felt a wave of horror, a flash of dream come to life. Sara?
If it was, what I’d given her hadn’t been enough to keep her in Djinn form for long. And I’d given her so much—almost everything I had. The Ifrit put its head back down again, curled its long, vaguely human form into a tighter coil, and relaxed. Guard dog? If so, I had no idea how to call her off. Or even if I should.
“Hello?” I tried a tentative whisper, and slid up to a sitting position in the bed. The Ifrit didn’t twitch. I kept an eye on it and cranked the volume up a notch. “Anybody?”
The bedroom door framed a moving shadow. Light silhouetted a tall male figure, and for a frozen, relieved second I thought David! but then he moved into the warm glow of the table lamp and it was Jonathan. He had his hands thrust into the pockets of his jeans, looking casual in pose but not in body language. His dark eyes were too bright and too focused.
He didn’t so much as glance at the Ifrit. I found that interesting. The Ifrit raised its head and sniffed at him, climbed to its feet and stalked around him in a circle.
Jonathan kept watching me, though he reached over and patted the Ifrit on the head. It flopped down, elegance etched in darkness, and I felt it watching him with something like adoration.
“So?” he asked me. I rubbed one bare arm and found gooseflesh popping up, courtesy of a slight chill in the air, or maybe his presence.
“Well, I’m not coming apart,” I said. “Gotta be an improvement.”
He nodded. “Came close, though.”
“I figured.” I cleared my throat. “Um… how many others made it here?” He just looked at me for a long few seconds, and I asked the question I dreaded. “Rahel? Did she make it?”
He dropped into a crouch next to the bed. I held the sheet up as a modesty cover, but didn’t particularly worry about it if he decided to check the side view. He didn’t. Quite. “No. How much do you know?”
“Not too damn much.”
“Okay.” He put his bare hand on my bare shoulder, drawing a fresh shiver out of me, but once again I got the therapeutic touch, nothing personal. “You’re clear. You can get up now.”
He turned his back, not as if he was intent on giving me some kind of personal space, more as if he deeply didn’t care whether or not I was naked; I formed clothes as I got up, anyway. Blue denim jeans, work shirt, sturdy boots. They seemed appropriate, here.
“What about David?” I asked.
“You tell me.” His back was still turned; he was pulling things out of the bookcase, restlessly flipping pages. Something to do with his hands. There was so much repressed energy in him, I wondered how he survived here, stuck in this house, unable to leave. He didn’t seem to be someone with a peaceful interior life. “He enjoying himself? Having a good old time with the Widder Prentiss?”
Sarcasm thick enough to spread like manure. I heard the pain underneath, though. And remembered the dream. “I didn’t want him to do that. I would have stoppedit if I could have.”
“Yeah, well, not always about what youwant. Or any of us, for that matter.” He shoved the book back in place with unnecessary violence and turned to face me, arms folded across his chest. Forbidding, that was the word for the expression on his face. Flint-hard eyes. Lips in a straight, unsympathetic line. Anything I said would sound whiny and self-pitying, so I said nothing. Just looked at him. He finally transferred the stare down to his black Doc Martens. “I notice you managed to get away. Maybe you’ll be of some use. We can always use some good solid cannon fodder.”
“No wonder humans don’t become Djinn very often,” I replied. “What with your incredible recruitment efforts.”
Jonathan’s lips twitched. It might have been a smile, but he didn’t let me see it to be sure. “Yeah, well, you get set in your ways after the first couple of millennia or so. Sorry if we haven’t made you feel like one of the boys.”
I elected not to get into the gender-specific arguments. “Does she still have him?”
“Madame de Sade? Oh yeah.” He rocked back and forth on his heels, arms still folded.
“And…”
He looked up. “You want details?” The tone could have frozen mercury. “Should’ve stuck around. Could’ve been part of the whole experience. I’m sure he would’ve lovedfor you to see it.”
Oh, he was so angry… showing none of it in his blank expression, but the raw cutting edges of it came through.
“Rahel is on her way,” he said. “She went to run an errand for me.”
“But you know how dangerous—”
He held up a cautioning finger. “Don’t. Don’t do that. You want to stay on my good side, Jo, let’s get something straight. Neverremind me of the obvious. And neverassume I didn’t notice it.”