Chapter 27
I pushed the window up as high as it would open. Fresh air smacked me in the face, sobering me. I leaned out the window. Zain looked so handsome, but uncertainty colored his expression. I couldn’t blame him. I’d feel the same if he’d treated me as I had him.
His hair appeared brighter under the full moon. Golden, like the Zal of my dreams. Neither of us spoke, watching each other. He got his phone out and began typing.
My phone buzzed on my bedside table.
Zain
Can I come up?
I glanced around my bedroom, my eyes adjusting to the dark. I braced myself to see the Jinn King, my dad, or possibly both, but I was alone. I nodded, then realized he might not have seen it.
Yes.
I scoured my bedroom for anything that I didn’t want Zain to see—because yes, despite it all, I was still just a girl. I kicked underwear, socks, and items of clothing that I’d strewn across the floor underneath my bed. Then I pushed my half-full suitcase against the door.
I gazed at my bedroom with fresh eyes—it was only slightly lived in, and maybe that was because I didn’t want to commit. This was only meant to be a temporary spot until I left. Once I was certain nothing incriminating was left out, I stuck my head out the window again.
How will you get up?
With a bizarre jolt of both pleasure and horror, I imagined him climbing the gutters like they did in all the TV shows I grew up watching.
Even from this distance, Zain’s smirk was evident as he typed a response.
Is that a serious question?
In an instant, wings sprang from his back, and he fluttered up until he was face to face with me, in the air.
Right, of course.
What remained of his T-shirt lay in pieces on the lawn.
When I stepped aside, he effortlessly entered through the window, simultaneously retracting his wings. I took a few steps back and spread my arms out wide. “Well, this is my room.”
My attempt at lightness was cut short when my gaze dropped to a topless Zain, my eyeline at his chest. His shoulders broad and smooth, abs tight. I noticed a scar that ran down his left pec, about six inches long. It was puckered and fresh.
“What happened?” I asked, horrified.
He shook his head. “It’s nothing.”
“It looks like more than nothing.”
Zain locked eyes with me, irises blazing, jaw tight. “You’ve been avoiding me.”
“I’ve not…” I couldn’t finish my sentence, couldn’t lie to him.
He must have sensed I wasn’t going to add anything more, because he said, “You should see the other guy.” The corner of his mouth tugged up in a half smile.
“Does it hurt?”
“It’s healing quickly, but that doesn’t matter.” He took a step closer. “What’s going on? You’ve been acting strange.”
“I…can’t tell you.”
He leaned against the window frame. “Is it because we kissed? If you’re having second thoughts about this…”
“It’s obviously not that,” I said.
There was a gleam in his eyes. “Obviously?”
“You really think I didn’t like kissing you? When I’m a mess whenever I’m near you?”
One side of his lip turned upward again. A hint of a smile. “Say more.”
I rolled my eyes. “No.”
“So, why exactly can’t you tell me this thing?”
I sighed, looking to the black night sky behind him. If I wasn’t careful, I would blurt out the deadly words I’m a jinn.
“Because it would ruin everything,” I said instead.
“So you think you’re protecting me? Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around?”
“No…can we not speak about it?”
Uncertainty crossed his features, and it threatened to break my heart. Why was this so difficult?
“Do you want me to go?”
“No,” I said quickly. “You saved me from my sleep paralysis just now.”
He crossed the room, placing a gentle hand on my shoulder. Even his lightest touch sent electric currents racing through my body. Instinctively, I leaned closer to him, my body a traitor, moving of its own accord.
“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice barely a whisper.
“Yeah…no…I don’t know. I’m tired.”
“Do you want to go to bed?”
I nodded. We got into my small bed. At over six feet tall and muscled, Zain was too big to fit with me comfortably, and I was sure he was lying on the edge, but it was nice having him next to me.
He wrapped his arms around my waist as I pressed my back against his chest, careful of his scar, but he didn’t seem to care and pulled me tightly to him, his chin above my head.
Our bodies fit neatly together in this position, and with his arms around me, I felt content, despite everything.
I had never been this close to a boy before, and I had always imagined if I ever found myself in this position, I’d feel uncomfortable, guilty, even—of all the things my dad warned me about.
Of going against my religion, even though I barely practiced any of it.
Somehow sex before marriage had become the point most demonized in my household, and it stuck in my head.
Not just sex, but relations of any kind with the opposite sex.
All of that felt ironic now. If I was a jinn, wasn’t I destined for hell anyway?
The thought was humorous for one second, and then immediately terrifying.
“Try to sleep,” Zain murmured into my hair. “They won’t bother you if I’m here.”
I didn’t know if he knew that for sure—considering I was one of the beasts he was referring to—but I decided to believe him.
I shut my eyes, the familiar lull of sleep tantalizingly close. As I was slipping away, I could feel Zain’s arms tighten around me, and knowing he was there, I fully let go.
I was in another place, another time.
I sat alone in a filthy room that was devoid of much other than blankets on the floor. An emotion overcame me. Loss. Over half of me being snatched away, of being limp, incomplete, of having little to live for.
I knew I wasn’t Rabiya but someone else, someone who felt much heavier, darker, and lonelier. She had lost everything, and everyone she had loved.
On the concrete floor was a cobra, raised at eye level with me. Her body was striped, gray, yellow, and cream, scales beautiful and tough. I was calm, and we looked each other in the eye. I spoke to her, the hissing that came out of my mouth fluent, a long-learned melody for my only friend.
The cobra responded, hesitant that I really meant what I had told her to do.
“I need to be with my love,” I uttered. “Please.”
The snake moved quickly, piercing my arm, then my leg, letting the venom settle into my bloodstream. I knew I would die, and I smiled as I felt the poison infect me. I gave the snake its reward: rodents I had gathered in a cardboard box.
While she ate, I lay back on my blankets, whispering the words I hoped would be true: “I’ll be with you soon, Kamran.”
I woke to Zain’s hand on my shoulder, shaking me gently.
“Roxana?” Zain said, his breath warm against my cheek. Turning to face him, I was in a daze. “You were talking in your sleep,” he whispered. “I wasn’t sure if it was the jinn again…”
I shook my head, “No. It was just a dream—a memory, I think.”
Zain rested his head on his hand to better look at me.
Unlike before, when I was so tired I didn’t quite feel the full effect of being in bed with Zain, now my senses were hyperaware of how close he was.
Of how, even though he tried to give me space in the bed, I was overcome with the heat radiating from his body.
I reached my leg out, and my toe rested against his calf.
Even that felt too intimate, my body unable to handle it. I moved my foot away.
“What did you see?” he asked.
“Did you not see it, too?”
“I wasn’t sleeping,” he said softly. “I wanted to be there for you, in case the jinn came again and you needed me to wake you.”
I turned so I was facing him and lightly touched his chest. “Thank you,” I said, though a part of me was still in my dream.
I had thought my past selves foolish for choosing Zain over living, but I’d seen in action how living without him seemed to break me.
I felt the despair in this last version of me so much more than in Rabiya’s.
“What are you thinking?” Zain murmured in my ear.
Shaking my head, I sighed. It was much louder than I had intended.
“Too many things.” My hand was still on his chest, and when I began to move it, he rested his hand on top of mine.
His was warm, his grip firm. He interlaced his fingers with mine and raised our hands to his face.
He kissed the back of my hand, his lips soft and tender.
I wished it was my lips he was kissing—and I knew that wish could be very easily granted if I leaned in.
But was that what a jinn would do? Tempt an angel?
Or was I being a normal person? Who was to say whether my actions had malicious intent?
He rested our joined hands against his cheek. “You can tell me,” he whispered.
“I don’t want to talk right now.”
Zain’s brow furrowed. “You want to go back to sleep?”
I shook my head and unconsciously began biting my bottom lip.
Zain’s eyes moved down to my lips, and he released my hand, shifting so he could use both of his hands to cup my face. “Roxana, do you want me to kiss you?” he asked, his voice smooth. The way he said my name sent my heart rate up.
With his hands caressing my face, and having him this close to me, I couldn’t concentrate on anything. All I really knew was that I needed Zain’s lips on mine.
“You don’t have to ask,” I said in a breath.
“I do,” he countered. “The last time we kissed, you ghosted me for a week.”
His words made me wince. I deserved that. “Yes, please, kiss me now.”
He looked like he wanted to question me again about what was going on but thought better of it.
He closed the inches between us, and our lips found each other.
I wrapped my arms around his neck while his hands moved to my waist. I shivered into him, and he moved his lips from my mouth down to my neck.
The delicate flesh there was sensitive, his supple lips making my nerves go haywire.
His touch, his mouth drove me wild. I needed him, needed more, needed him even closer to me.
Instead, his lips left my neck, and my eyes fluttered open to see his face colored with concern. He pressed his forehead against mine, groaning in frustration.
“What?” I whispered.
“I can’t concentrate on this when I know you’re keeping something from me.”
“We can talk about it tomorrow,” I said quickly.
“I know when you’re lying,” he shot back.
I frowned. “You barely know me.”
Zain’s jaw clenched. “I’ve loved you in endless lifetimes. I’ve seen it, felt it. And you think I don’t know you?”
My throat ran dry at the seriousness of his tone—at his words. My love language was words of affirmation. The things people said to me always cut me deep—good or bad. And what Zain said was both, or neither. Maybe something in between.
“You don’t…” I began. “If you knew me, you wouldn’t be lying here with me.”
He put both his hands on my cheeks again, eyes narrowed, though there was a softness to his gaze that saddened me. He didn’t know. He couldn’t.
A passing thought took hold. I’d seen him kill a jinn with the same tenderness with which he was handling me now. Hands on either side of the jinn’s face, right before he broke its neck.
I scrambled out of his touch and out of the bed. His hands stayed in the air for a moment, like he was confused that I was no longer there.
“Are you here to kill me?” I asked, the words escaping my mouth before I even had a chance to dissect them.
“What?” he spat out. “Why would you ask that?”
“This was a bad idea,” I said, mostly to myself. Why had I let him in? What was I thinking? How could I truly think we could act like everything was normal, even for one night?
Zain got out of bed and crossed the room to me. I backed up until I was at the door, and, remembering I couldn’t make any noise, I avoided pushing too hard up against it.
He towered over me but bent his head so we were at eye level. “Rox,” he began before stepping back, horror written on his face. “You look scared of me.”
“I am scared,” I started. “But not of you…I don’t know.”
“If you don’t want to be a part of any of this, I understand. I told you I did—”
“Stop,” I snapped. “It’s me—it’s what I am that’s the issue.” My vision became blurry, and it was only when I touched my eyes and found them to be wet that I noticed I was crying. “I’m everything you hate.”
History was repeating itself.
“You couldn’t be more wrong,” Zain said with a fire that shattered my heart all over again. “How can you say that?”
I wiped my eyes roughly with the back of my hand, shaking. I just had to say it. No matter the consequences.
“Zain, I’m a jinn.”