CHAPTER 27
C HAPTER 27
S ETH DIDN’T BLAME RAIDER for what he’d said about humans yesterday at the pool. Few had suffered at the hands of their fellow humans quite like Raider had. But Raider’s words had still scared him. Because Raider had suffered at the hands of his fellow humans only in part. There was another part of Raider, half of Raider, that wasn’t human at all.
The other half was djinn—and seemed to be feeling right at home here.
What the hell was that going to mean for Seth? For them ?
The fact that Seth couldn’t find Raider right now wasn’t helping his paranoia.
Seth only had himself to blame. After breakfast this morning, another elegant meal that had appeared in their room between one blink and the next, Seth had wanted to investigate more of the city. Actually, he’d wanted to show Raider his findings, but Raider had refused.
Prefer your head in the sand, huh? Seth had said, like an idiot.
Better than where yours is, up your own ass , Raider had replied.
Seth had managed to hold in his retort only by not speaking at all. He’d smashed his feet into his boots, left the room, and had stalked through Jannat hunting for evidence.
He needed to find something that Raider couldn’t ignore, some sign of … what, exactly?
Seth wasn’t sure.
He only found more of what he’d seen yesterday. Fragments of ancient writing, arcane symbols, broken buildings.
He crossed a bridge, gaining a view of several waterfalls. With Jannat’s staggered landscape, Seth couldn’t get a clear sense of its layout, and he could see nothing of what lay beyond the rocky, green-studded slopes that hemmed it in. He needed a better view.
Searching the skyline, Seth’s eyes caught on a tower-like building that rose above the rest. Arched windows spiraled their way up the tower to the roof. A waterfall spilled from a cliff above it, seeming to fall into the building itself. Raider had described such a building in his account of their arrival in Jannat.
Something gold flashed atop the cliff. Seth squinted. Gods, what he wouldn’t give for his arcane scope right now. (It really, really upset him that his things had been taken. It was a constant itch in the back of his mind.)
Working his way through the city, Seth spotted a number of animals that he suspected were djinn. A lioness lounging on a section of wall. A glistening snake sunning itself on a stone step. Others he was less sure about. The deer grazing in a low meadow. The birds flashing through the sunlight. Occasionally, a wisp of blue smoke caught his eye.
Seth reached a short flight of steps that rose to the tower entrance. If there had ever been doors in the arched opening, they were long gone. As Seth climbed the steps, an engraved image of the sun above the doorway caught his eye.
It made sense that elemental beings like the djinn would revere the sun, but this particular symbol depicted the sun atop a scepter—and that was a symbol of Roth. God of light. God of knowledge. Gods of kings.
A similar symbol graced the lintel above the entrance to Kastari’s imperial library. Such a symbol marked the face of the administration building of Masir University as well.
What had this been, a library? A university? A royal hall?
Whatever the building’s original purpose, the djinn had transformed it into a spectacular indoor garden surrounding a crystal-clear pool. The waterfall that spilled through the roof cascaded through multiple levels of the building, each with a partial floor. The water tumbled from one floor to the next, catching briefly in basins, fountains, and small pools, before ultimately spilling into the large pool on the lowest level.
Greenery climbed through the interior, weaving around balustrades and other stonework. By the pool, cushiony grass softened the stretches between smooth stones. Flowers grew everywhere, including a fringe of lotus blossoms in the clear pool. Trees hung heavy with fruit. Birds flew in and out through the countless windows.
But all of that was background, at the edge of Seth’s awareness. What had his attention was the djinn. A few of them puffed into blue smoke upon his arrival, others transformed into animals and darted into hiding, but several remained in their corporeal forms. They were more concerned with their own activities, it seemed, than with him. And no wonder.
Bodies rocked together in the grass, or hovered above it, blue limbs twining together in intricate displays of the erotic arts. Soft cries mingled with the twittering of birds and the gentle pouring sound of water. Where three were tangled together, Seth watched, transfixed, as a large cock glided into an eager hole.
Arousal simmering, Seth looked around, hunting automatically for Raider, not actually expecting to find him here.
But he was.
Near the waterfall, bare from the waist up, Raider was sitting in the grass. With Tarjan.
Raider broke off mid-sentence and looked Seth’s way as he approached. Raider looked briefly startled, then his eyes hardened with challenge. The right one flared gold—so damn similar to the glow of Tarjan’s eyes beside him.
“ Seth ,” Raider hissed in warning, clearly noticing that Seth’s eyes had locked on Tarjan. The djinn, wearing only his white sarong (yep, Seth saw the parallel to Raider), was floating cross legged above the grass. He unfolded at Seth’s approach—and transformed into a peacock. He flew up into a plum tree and settled into the branches, his flashy tail dangling.
Seth halted beside Raider, who hadn’t gotten up. “He’s the one who’s been watching us.”
“So?”
“You like that, do you?”
“Stop being an asshole.”
“Do you want to fuck him?” Seth’s own words, bursting out, surprised him.
“Did you want to fuck Prince Rahim’s arcanist, who spent so much time showing you around Aqarat?”
Seth narrowed his eyes at the evasive answer. “So this is payback?”
“I’m just making a point, Seth. Would you sit the hell down? I know you’re spoiling for a fight, but there’s nothing and no one to fight here.”
“You’ve been hanging out with another man at an orgy,” Seth pointed out.
“That’s not …” Raider trailed off, looking around.
“That’s exactly what you’ve been doing.”
“I was talking to him, Seth. Yes, people are having sex here. But the only person I’m going to have sex with here is you .”
“Here?”
There was still challenge in Raider’s eyes, but a darkening too, at least in the real one, as Raider got onto his knees in front of Seth and reached for his belt.
Seth’s breath caught. His mind buzzed with the awareness of other people nearby. Tarjan, in peacock form, remained in the plum tree. But Seth didn’t stop Raider from unclipping his belt. His cock, already half-hard, stiffened further as Raider’s fingers worked at the lacing of his pants. Taking his time, Raider teased him through the material, dragging his fingers across the bulge of Seth’s balls and the covered ridge of his cock. Then he tugged Seth’s pants open. When Seth’s cock sprang out fully erect, Raider swallowed him.
“ Fuck ,” Seth breathed as lust crashed through him. He pumped shallowly into Raider’s mouth, so turned on by the sight of those sensual lips stretched around his dick that he barely held himself in check. Then Raider opened his throat and took him deeper. Tears streamed from his eyes as he struggled to swallow more of Seth’s length.
Seth let himself enjoy the erotic sight and the pleasurable sensations for a while, then he pulled back, popping free of Raider’s mouth. He dropped to his knees, facing Raider, whose eyes were still streaming.
“I love you,” Seth said, aware that there was frustration in his tone.
“I love you too,” Raider replied, his voice just as frustrated.
Letting all that frustration drift into the background, Seth hauled Raider against him and kissed him with rough, greedy possession. More than once, Seth had entertained fantasies of fucking Raider in front of others. Partly for the thrill of the forbidden. More for the public demonstration of his claim.
But when Raider kissed him back just as hard before pushing him down into the grass and straddling his hips, Seth found himself yielding instead of aggressing. Because this was even better. Having Raider claim him .
“We don’t have oil,” Seth gasped, scrambling to think.
Raider tugged his sarong out of the way, baring his cock against Seth’s. He took them both in his hand. “I can make do,” he said and started to work himself against Seth.
Seth groaned and laid his head back as Raider rocked against him. Seth’s eyes rolled back at the feel of Raider’s cock thrusting against his within the tight grip of Raider’s fist. Precum leaked from them both, slicking them, creating the most deliciously erotic sounds.
Then Raider lifted over Seth and plunged down onto his cock. Seth bowed up, shouting at the sudden, rough sheathing. It hurt him, so it must have hurt Raider a lot more, but Raider only gritted his teeth and rode Seth hard until the pain passed and there was nothing but the harsh rocking and the pleasure crashing through Seth’s body.
Seth reached for Raider’s leaking cock. When he took the stiff, hot length in hand, Raider rocked harder against him, fucking himself so fiercely on Seth’s cock that Seth’s hand clenched on that stiff shaft as he tried not to come. At that tight grip, Raider cried out. His cock throbbed in Seth’s hand as cum spurted from it. His ass seized on Seth’s cock.
At that tight fisting, at the sight of those creamy strands shooting high to land on Seth’s vest, Seth punched up into Raider, crying out as he came in hard waves. Pulse after pulse wrenched through him. His mind whited out so fully that he felt himself drifting, like he might have lost consciousness for a second.
When Seth came back to himself, he sat up and closed his arms around Raider. They both cried out at the way Seth’s cock shifted inside him.
Both quaking with aftershocks, they clung to each other, careless of the mess between them. Blissed out, soothed by the way Raider had publicly claimed him, Seth was tempted to believe that Raider was right, that the djinn were peaceful and everything was fine and that the history of Jannat didn’t really matter.
But then his scalp prickled and he looked across the pool to the other bank. An indigo-skinned djinn male was watching them with coal-bright eyes. This male was nothing like Tarjan with his casual flirtation. This one stared intently.
Bare chested, he wore a blood-red sarong and was draped with a heavy weight of polished shells. Like Tarjan, he wore no necklace or bracelets, but glittering diamonds dangled from his ears. Something like a turban crowned his head, but the wrappings were of thick blue smoke.
The djinn’s eyes flashed, then he faded from sight.