CHAPTER 23
C HAPTER 23
S ETH WOKE SLOWLY. He was aware only of being comfortable—and very aroused. How could he not be with that familiar body pressed against his and that familiar scent in his nose? He turned his face into it, breathing in the scent of Raider’s hair. Under the sheets, Seth’s hands roamed over bare skin. Chest, abdomen, hip.
Raider stirred, murmuring something, and wedged himself more firmly against Seth, one leg slipping between his.
Seth opened his eyes. At first, all he saw was Raider’s gorgeous dark hair and striking face. His eyes were closed. He was breathing easily. Comfortably.
Seth wasn’t. His breathing was shallow. His hips were rocking to grind his erection against Raider’s hip. Seth extracted a hand from under the clean white sheets and stroked Raider’s hair. Then he started to think about where he was.
Legs still entwined with Raider’s, Seth pushed himself partway up and looked around the room.
What in Hasa’s hell? Or … paradise?
Was he dead?
He and Raider were in something like a solarium. Breaking up the curved walls of pale stone, huge arched windows with intricate edging framed a view of a magnificent rambling garden. An open doorway gave access to stone steps leading down into it.
The garden spilled into the solarium by way of climbing roses and potted plants. Dwarf lemon and orange trees stood at intervals, their natural beauty perfectly balanced against the artistry of twisting columns and ornate molding. Birds chirped and twittered both outside the room and within as they flitted in to perch on stone platforms sprinkled with nuts and seeds.
Seth and Raider were lying in a plush, ground level bed with clean white sheets. Seth felt fingers tracing up and down his back.
“We’re in Jannat,” Raider said.
“The djinn?” Seth asked incredulously.
“They saved your life. Or Tarjan did. Do you remember?”
Seth thought back. The events were dreamlike—or nightmarish. The fight against the Hammer. Fleeing in the palanquin. The accident.
“I got hurt,” Seth said, remembering. He threw the sheets aside and looked down the length of his own body to his leg. There was no wound. There wasn’t even a scar. “What the …”
“Tarjan healed you. You would’ve died, Seth.” Raider sat up beside him. “Do you understand that? Do you understand what you almost did to me?”
Seth twisted to look at Raider. He was angry. He’d been afraid—and that fear hadn’t quite left him.
“I didn’t mean to get hurt.”
Raider’s right eye flashed gold. “No one ever means to get hurt. But you took so many risks. And you didn’t tell me what you planned!”
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry isn’t enough! I’m so fucking angry with you! You almost died , Seth!”
When tears spilled from Raider’s eyes, Seth took his face in his hands. He bore Raider down to the mattress and stroked the tears away from his cheekbones.
“Baby, it’s okay.”
“It’s not okay!” Raider grabbed hold of Seth and flipped him onto his back. Straddling Seth’s hips, Raider planted his hands on Seth’s chest and held him down.
It flipped a switch in Seth. He twisted out from under Raider, throwing him face down on the bed and pinning him in turn. Seth ground his hard cock against Raider’s ass, gratified when that perfect ass lifted to meet him.
There was a decorative stone balustrade at the head of the bed. Gods, did that give Seth ideas.
Then Raider got angry again. He threw Seth off—all the way off the bed.
Seth clamped down on his instinctive, angry reaction as Raider got up from the bed. He stood there staring down at Seth, gorgeous, visibly aroused, and furious.
“We are not fucking,” Raider informed him, his right eye brightening again. “Not until you explain yourself.”
Raider turned and stormed across the room to the open doors. He went out and sat on the steps, his back to Seth.
Seth gathered himself up from the floor and tried to think. Raider was right. On so many levels. Seth needed to get himself under control.
Doing his best to ignore the way his body was screaming for sex, he went to join Raider on the steps. Planting his bare ass on stone, clamping his hands onto his knees, he looked out at the most incredible landscape he’d ever seen.
In the imperial library, Seth had read as much as he could about the garden-cities of the djinn. According to the accounts, Jannat was the largest and most spectacular. Seth had been skeptical. He was used to overblown tales, especially when they came from poets and nameless wanderers. But in this case, the stories didn’t do the place justice. He’d never seen anything like what lay before him now.
The endless garden was too perfect to be wild, too wild to be planted. It was a staggered landscape with a hundred levels, where buildings and greenery mixed in unexpected synchronicity. Waterfalls spilled from steep crags into sparkling pools. It flowed through channels and even, in places, through the buildings.
It didn’t look real. Oases never did after the harsh emptiness of the desert, but this was a different level of the surreal. The desert was nowhere to be seen.
Seth had a thousand questions, but he owed Raider answers first. Where to even start?
Raider helped him with that. “You never intended to seek Ulam,” he accused.
“No. I intended for us to escape. But we couldn’t escape directly from Kastari. Zarina was watching us. All avenues were closed. While researching Ulam and the Alchemist’s Stone, I was also looking for escape routes. That canyon …” A vague memory filtered up. “What happened there?”
“It’s not your turn to ask questions,” Raider snapped. “What about the canyon?”
“The river flowed south. I had planned for us to follow it out of the gorge, then to keep going south to the sea. To find a town. To find a ship.”
“And go where ? The whole point of finding the Stone for Zarina was so you could return to Masir.”
Seth’s temper rose. “First of all, stop talking about me returning to Masir. Wherever we go, it is us .”
“I didn’t mean without me, for fuck’s sake. Now finish your goddamn story. To go where?”
Relief swept dizzyingly through Seth. “Anywhere, Raider. That’s the end of the story. You and I, together, go anywhere.”
Raider shook his head, clearly annoyed. “You would hate it. Being a fugitive.”
“I’d deal with it.”
“Do you not recall your scorn of me when we first met? Because I was rootless. Drifting. Not doing anything.”
Seth’s hands clenched on his knees. “You’re not being fair. I didn’t understand then.”
“That doesn’t make your reaction any less meaningful. You need purpose, Seth. I won’t take that from you.”
Seth’s heart warmed. Gods, he loved this man. But he couldn’t agree with him on this. “I need you .”
Now Raider looked at him. Finally. “You already had me.”
“But how could I trust Zarina to let you go?”
“I trust her. I know her, Seth.”
“She drugged you. She had you bound to a table—”
“Be reasonable. Of course she did. She had to determine whether we posed a threat. She didn’t hurt either of us.”
“I can’t dismiss it that easily. And why are you defending her? Everything she’s doing is to get the Alchemist’s Stone. For what? Eternal life? So she can rule forever? You don’t find that concerning? Or does she want it to create life? What kind of life could the Stone make? And out of what? The balance, Raider, is always death.”
“I know that, Seth. I said as much to Nasrin. But Zarina doesn’t want the Stone for any of those things. Seth, she’s pregnant.”
“ What? ”
“She’s hiding it because her first child, according to Nasrin, was murdered. She wants the Stone to protect her baby.”
Seth frowned and stared out across the verdant landscape. After a moment, he said, “Even so, the Stone is too dangerous. My choice would have been the same. To escape and not hunt the Stone for her.”
“You also chose to lie to me.”
Seth’s stomach turned. “I did. I knew I was right, but I was afraid you would fight me on it.”
“I should have been allowed to fight you on it. Choice is important to me, Seth.”
Shit. Seth hadn’t thought about it that way. As taking Raider’s choices from him. Like Kahzir had done.
Before Seth could figure out how to respond to that point, Raider asked, “And why are you so sure I would have fought you?”
“Because I knew you would try to protect me from being a fugitive.”
“But don’t you see how angry it makes me when you think you get to protect me but I don’t get to protect you? You almost died today, Seth. Maybe because Tarjan healed you and you aren’t in pain, you’re losing sight of that, but that is what almost happened. Get this through your goddamn head: I can’t lose you.”
It would have been easiest to just say, You’re right, I’m sorry , but that wasn’t what Seth was feeling right now, even if Raider was right. This conversation wasn’t about right or wrong so much as it was about honesty.
Stuck, not sure how to explain himself, Seth watched a peacock strut through the grass at the bottom of the steps, trailing its long, colorful tail.
Raider cut to the heart of the problem, asking, “Why is it so hard for you to let me protect you? Is it pride? Or you think I’m weak?”
“No, Raider, gods, no. It’s nothing like that. It’s really nothing that logical.”
“Then what is it?” Raider asked impatiently.
The answer that spilled out surprised Seth. He hadn’t realized, until Raider drew it out of him, exactly what had been motivating him.
“My mother died protecting me. Raider, I couldn’t bear if the same thing happened to you. I couldn’t bear to feel your blood splatter my face. I couldn’t bear to watch you fall in front of me, dead in some dirty alley—because of me .”
Seth’s throat constricted as the old shame washed through him. The guilt. The landscape blurred. He closed his eyes.
Raider’s hand settled on his thigh. He said, “We need to get better at trusting each other. We need to get better at talking about things. Especially me—I know that. But you too.”
Seth threaded his fingers together with Raider’s. “Yeah. You’re right. I’m sorry, Raider. I don’t know why this is so hard.”
“Because there’s been a lot going on other than you and me wanting to fuck. That’s all this was supposed to be, you know.”
Seth laughed and looked at Raider, who was giving him a warm, playful smile that he probably didn’t deserve right now but was really damn glad to see.
Seth said, “This hasn’t been just fucking for a long, long time.”
“I don’t think it ever was. Not with the way I wanted you from the minute I first saw you. I think I knew, deep down, that I needed you. I just wish …”
“You wish what?”
“You’ll get mad if I say it.”
“What did you just say about trusting each other and talking about things?”
“Fine. I wish I deserved you.”
“Goddamn it, Raider.”
“I knew you’d be mad.”
“I’m not mad. I just hate that you feel that way. I don’t understand it. You deserve better than me, and guess what? I don’t give a shit. You’re mine.”
Raider huffed, sounding amused, and leaned into Seth. Seth wrapped his arm around him. They barely had a chance to relax against each other before a knock sounded from within the room.
It startled Seth. It reminded him that he didn’t understand where they were or how they’d gotten here or what their status was. Among the djinn .
Fuck.
***
It was a summons. It was delivered by a blue-skinned, dark-haired female clothed only in a yellow skirt and ropes of pearls. (Raider, ignoring Seth’s protest, had answered the door clothed in even less. In fact, he’d been stark naked because he and Seth had no clothes.)
Fortunately, the female djinn delivered their clothes along with the summons. Seth’s Curator garb had been cleaned and repaired as perfectly as his leg had been. It was a reminder that the djinn were powerful. And that he and Raider were very much at their mercy.
Dressed in his usual black clothes, Seth walked beside Raider along a covered walkway. Gardens sprawled on either side.
Bare chested, Raider was wearing only his short green sarong. Seth couldn’t help that the sight turned him on. He shouldn’t be thinking like that. He should be focused. Alert. Even wary. But ever since he’d woken up in that white bed, arousal had been humming in his blood.
He needed to be with Raider. Intimately. Intensely. They’d made a start at reconnecting, but it wasn’t enough. Seth needed Raider to let him in all the way.
When their guide suddenly vanished, Seth jumped … then realized that she hadn’t actually vanished. She had shapeshifted into a large, tawny desert cat.
The djinn in her graceful cat form stood aside at an open doorway at the end of the walkway, clearly signaling that Seth and Raider should walk through.
The doorway led not into a building but into a garden. Or another part of the endless garden that was Jannat. Seth and Raider shared a look before following a grassy path to a magnificent stone pergola. As with every structure in Jannat, the stone was a mere canvas for the greenery. White flowering vines twined around the stone columns to the pointed roof.
Seth and Raider climbed the short set of steps into the interior. There was no one there. Only a low table laden with covered dishes.
“What the hell is this?” Seth asked. He’d expected a king or a council. An interrogation.
“I think it’s dinner,” Raider answered. “Or breakfast? I have no idea what time it is.”
“I thought someone would ask us questions.”
Raider raised an eyebrow. “You’d prefer that?”
“Yes, actually. Then I’d known how things stood.”
“I think they prefer to observe. The figure I kept seeing? It was real. He was real. It was Tarjan.”
An unpleasant feeling wormed its way into Seth. “Who’s this Tarjan you keep mentioning?”
“He saved your life, Seth. Not just your leg. Earlier, when we fell off the wire? The roc that caught us, that saved both our lives, did it for him.”
“The giant bird? I thought I dreamed that.”
Raider looked around. “I don’t think they mean any harm.”
“Hm.”
“Would you relax? Can’t you tell how good this place feels?”
Seth took a deep breath. He could not tell that actually, but he said, “Yeah. Okay. I’ll try.”
Raider went to sit on one of the cushions before the laden table. He removed a wooden cover from a platter, revealing an artful arrangement of seared fish and poached eggs garnished with dill and pickled capers, and dusted with paprika. Steam billowed out, filling the air with mouthwatering scents. Another platter held buttered toast. A glass bowl held creamy yogurt.
“Somehow I’m surprised to think that the djinn eat food like this,” Seth commented.
From beyond the pergola, someone chuckled. Seth spun as a blue-skinned male djinn mounted the steps. He was tall and handsome and wearing only a white sarong with a belt of emeralds. Sapphires hung from his pointed ears, but he wore no other adornment, no necklace or bracelets. His dark hair was clubbed at his nape, and his eyes glowed faintly gold.
The djinn spoke to Raider in the trade tongue. “He is very suspicious.”
“Tarjan,” Raider greeted him and started to get up. Tarjan waved him down.
“The djinn do not eat such food,” Tarjan said in response to Seth’s comment. “But we can acquire it. Someone’s dinner may be missing a plate or two.”
“Ah. Thieves.” Seth looked at Raider. “You should fit right in here.”
Raider patted the cushion beside him. “Come sit down and eat, so you can stop being so cranky.” To Tarjan he said, “Seth is always cranky when he’s hungry.”
Seth scowled, not liking the familiarity between Raider and Tarjan. Who was this male anyway?
“Are you the authority here?” Seth asked as he went sit beside Raider.
Tarjan sat on the other side of the table. Not exactly sat . Cross legged, he hovered several inches above the ground.
“There is no authority in Jannat. The djinn do not accept that concept.”
“Then how is conflict resolved? How are decisions made?”
Tarjan looked at Raider. “He is so human.”
“And Raider isn’t?” The words were automatic, but as soon as Seth said them, he froze.
Tarjan held Seth’s gaze with his golden eyes. Golden. Like Raider’s right eye when it flashed. Raider didn’t seem to notice the look that passed between Seth and Tarjan. Like he’d missed the significance of Seth’s question entirely.
Seth had assumed that Raider knew about Kahzir’s speculation. But … did Raider not know that he might not be human? That he might be … djinn?
Seth stared right into those glowing eyes. “So why were you watching Raider? Earlier. He saw you.”
Seth jumped when Raider pinched his hip. “I think what Seth meant to say was thank you. For saving his life.”
A wide grin split Tarjan’s lips, revealing sharp canines. “I don’t think that’s what Seth meant to say at all.”
“I’ll thank him when he answers my question.”
Tarjan’s eyes stayed locked on Seth. That was good. Seth preferred that to having Tarjan looking at Raider.
Tarjan said, “Raider interests me.”
“I bet he fucking does.”
“ Seth , I swear , I’m about three seconds from jabbing my elbow into your ribs so damn hard—”
Tarjan laughed. “He is staking his claim.”
“He’s being an asshole.” Raider glared at Seth to emphasize his point. “And he knows it.”
Tarjan unfolded from his floating seated position to stand. “He is anxious and covers it with anger. I will leave you now so you may eat in your human way. You will see the path of return to your room. We will speak again when there is more trust.”
Tarjan vanished. Literally vanished. Into thin air.
Seth blinked.
“You were such a dick,” Raider said irritably. “I can’t believe how you talked to him.”
“Why are you so concerned about him?”
“Because he saved your life, Seth! Why do you not understand that, without him, I wouldn’t have you right now? Why can’t you understand what that would’ve done—”
Raider broke off like he couldn’t go on. Like the words were too hard. He looked away.
“You’re right,” Seth said. “I’m sorry.”
Raider looked at him, anger in his eyes. “Admit you’re being an asshole.”
“I’m being an asshole.”
Slowly, Raider’s expression softened. He took a breath. He held out a hand to Seth.
Seth took it. Instantly. He drew Raider’s fingers to his lips and kissed them. “I mean it, Raider. I’m sorry.”
Raider’s lips tugged at one side. “Okay.”
“You’re too forgiving, you know.”
“I know. But you’re going to make it up to me.”
“How?”
Raider’s grin turned wicked. “Take a wild guess.”