Djinn Justice (The Collegium Book 2) Page 2

  Fay smiled wryly. She was not so far gone in love to fail to recognize avoidance tactics when she observed them. Steve really didn’t want to discuss his grandparents and their likely reaction to her.

  Actually, nor did she.

  She went in search of coffee.

  Last night they’d flown in to Pafos, arriving in late evening and catching a cab out to Steve’s house as the shadows drew in. She’d seen Cyprus’s crowded tourist spots give way to wilder country and rougher roads before the cab stopped at a white house that stood stark against a dark sky and sea. Inside, Steve had switched on lights and brought the place to life, revealing a thoroughly modern home within old Art Deco walls. But her and Steve’s attention had been for each other, not the house.

  Now, Fay descended the black iron spiral staircase down to a living room crowded with books and comfortably outfitted with a leather sofa, a recliner and a huge television. Just beyond it was the kitchen. Fay followed the smell of coffee and poured herself a cup. The window faced a riotous garden, divided from the road by a stone wall low enough to jump over. Plants grew in cracks between the stones.

  She perched on a stool at the pale gray counter and studied the kitchen with its light wood cupboards and off-white walls. It was a very large kitchen for a single man. The table behind her could easily sit ten people. It made her uneasy. As much as she loved and trusted Steve, she didn’t know all of him yet.

  She’d thought him a solitary mercenary before he revealed himself the heir to the Suzerainty. Now she looked at what was obviously a rich man’s home, built to entertain, and wondered again. Did the solitary man she knew have another, sociable side?

  “What would you like to eat?” He bounded into the room, black hair still wet from his shower, a white t-shirt over khaki trousers—matching her. He’d dressed to reassure her.

  She smiled at him. “Do we need to go and buy food?”

  He stared, as if she’d said something ridiculous, and yanked open the fridge door. “No, Elena’s shopped.”

  Leaning sideways on her stool, Fay studied the full shelves in the fridge. Someone had certainly shopped.

  “Elena’s my housekeeper. I let her know we were coming.”

  “Oh.”

  “Her husband, Ivan, does the garden and looks after the boat and cars.”

  Fay blinked rapidly. Boat, and cars, plural? “Not to be crass, but how rich are you?”

  “Insanely.” He laughed at her. “Do you still love me?”

  “But you work as a mercenary!” She’d seen his penthouse apartment in New York, but she’d kidded herself that it was his family’s, not his personally.

  “And my sister, Liz, is a doctor. Being rich doesn’t stop you being bored.” He sobered. “Power without responsibility can corrode a person. My whole family works. The money is simply there to help us do what needs doing. Being the Suzerain…” He shook his head. “Full breakfast or toast?”

  “Toast.” She got up and took a loaf of bread and butter from him. She ate her crisp sourdough toast while he cooked a full breakfast for himself. Being the Suzerain was evidently complicated and if he wanted to ease her into learning what it meant, she trusted him.

  Although having a djinn in their lives was beyond complicated.

  Uncle had also said that whatever problem he wanted Steve to learn of from his grandparents, it involved Fay. For an instant, she sank her attention into her center and felt her magic in its tight, spiraling readiness. Reassured, she released that awareness and simply watched Steve eat, while she sipped her coffee.

  “More toast?” He was half-way through fried eggs, sausages and tomato.

  “No, thanks.” She hesitated. “Would you like some more?”

  He grinned at her. “Yeah.”

  She laughed and slipped off her stool to slice bread and toast it. The sharp bread knife had a smooth, balanced grip.

  “We’re going to be a bit pushed for time,” he said.

  “How pushed?”

  “Thirty minutes for a whirlwind tour of the house.”

  “The tour can wait.”

  He shook his head. “I want you to feel at home. Thanks.” He accepted the toast.

  “Steve.” She didn’t know what to say. Everything was up in the air. Having broken ties with the Collegium, she had to build a new life outside its orbit. She had to find a job. She picked up her coffee mug, cradling it as she leaned against the counter. They hadn’t discussed where they’d live. “This is a holiday.”

  “This is us, together.”

  His emphasis puzzled her.

  He abandoned his food to frown at her. “I’m in deep with you, Fay. Everything I am, everything I have, is yours.”

  It took her breath away.

  He wasn’t finished. “I get that you’re building a new life. You’re going to have to try things to find out how you want to live outside the Collegium. I wanted to give you that time.” His light brown eyes flickered to the wild topaz of his leopard-were nature. “Uncle’s screwed that. I have to take you to Tomy and Raha, to the fort.”

  “The fort?”

  “The Suzerain’s home and Court is an ancient fortress in Alexandria.”

  She grappled with that, edging her way towards the truth Steve seemed intent on forcing on her. “You’ll have to live there one day?”

  “We will. I hope.”

  “Oh.”

  He uncurled her fingers from their tight grip on the coffee mug, took it from her, and clasped her hand. “You’re deciding what sort of life you want to lead, free of the Collegium. Being with me…you need to know the good and bad of who I am and how I live. What I’ll have to take on one day as Suzerain. I’m in deep with you, but I don’t want to haul you blind into a situation you’re not comfortable with.” Anxiety flickered in his amazing eyes.

  Steve was never anxious, never less than confident and in control.

  She had chosen not to think of her future. She had savings and she could always find work as a magical mercenary. She’d wanted to concentrate on her personal life, on the sheer sparkling joy of being in love with Steve, rather than worry about her future.

  But the future was about being with Steve.

  Love flamed through her, powerful and claiming, as she understood that he spoke the absolute truth: he was in deep with her. And she was in just as deep, fathoms drowned, in love with him. Love wasn’t measured in time, but in heartbeats.

  She walked around the corner of the kitchen counter and into the V of his legs as he sat on a stool. That brought them to the same height. She kissed him. Then she pulled back enough to look at him steadily. “I don’t care where we live, or how we live, or if we have to juggle a thousand djinni and all the weres in the world. You’re mine and I’ll be with you.”

  His fierce kiss answered her flare of love and passion. He lifted her onto the counter and she wrapped her arms and legs around him, binding him to her. His own arms were strong bands around her. “I love you, Fay.”

  Steve had kept his possessive instincts locked down the last two weeks, aware of how new Fay was to life outside the Collegium, and to loving and being loved. But her vow broke his control. “I’m going to love you in the moonlight and the sunlight, in the ocean and in our bed. I’m going to make you purr and scream.”

  “You already have. I screamed last night.”

  “That little gasp?” He rubbed his face against hers, a cat marking his mate. Her shower-fresh scent spiked with arousal. “If I hadn’t chartered a plane in two hours, I’d show you the difference.” He kissed her carnally, drawing back reluctantly before he lost his mind. She was his, more than she knew. “Come on, I’ll show you the highlights of the house on the way to the garage before I drive us to the airport.”

  The first part of the house tour whirled past Fay unnoticed. Her body hummed with wanting and her brain was awash in hormones. She had a vague impression of light and size in an extensive living space off the kitchen, with a sweeping staircase leading up to guest
bedrooms. It wasn’t till she and Steve stood on the balcony that her mind cleared, and then, only because the beauty of the Mediterranean Sea shocked her free of lust.

  “It’s beautiful.” Outside stairs led down to a dock and a sparkling white and blue catamaran. Pink-flowering bougainvillea spilled across rocks edging the dock. The sea itself was the incredible blue of a postcard, almost too gorgeous to be real.

  Steve pulled her back, into his body. “We’ll return here. Swim, take the boat out. There’s a roof terrace for sun-bathing or star-gazing.”

  She remembered his promise of making love outside and shivered.

  “I’ve told everyone to stay away,” he added. “We’ll be private.”

  “Everyone?” She turned in his embrace. “Who’s everyone? Why do you have such a big house?”

  He grimaced. “I bought it because cousins and long-standing family friends, people I grew up with, come and visit, and stay. I’m a leopard. By instinct I prefer solitude. But Mom is from a wolf clan and early exposure to pack living has an impact. People drop in. I’m comfortable with it. But I want this time just with you. Going forward, we can change the open house policy if we need this space just for us.”

  “Don’t change it for me. I grew up in the Collegium. Guardian training taught me to live in a crowd.”

  “But you rented a one-room apartment,” he pointed out.

  “Because I didn’t belong with the guardians.” She didn’t elaborate. He’d seen how her colleagues isolated her. Envy and fear had colored their response to her raw power and the discipline with which she’d trained. Then again, they hadn’t had the President of the Collegium as their father, and a demanding, distant figure, to motivate their training.

  Her father, Richard Olwen, had resigned the presidency two weeks ago, after Fay and Steve revealed the stranglehold a demon had gotten on the Collegium and him via his lover and secretary, Nancy Yu. The demon had nearly destroyed the Collegium. That it had grown so powerful undetected sowed suspicion between the Collegium’s mages. Fay pitied Lewis Bennett, the new president, his task. He had to restore the Collegium, searching out remaining tangles of evil, strengthening morale and re-structuring so that a demon couldn’t enter ever again.

  Steve’s voice went low and rumbly. “I can’t guarantee that all weres, even in my family, will welcome you. My parents and sister will, but others distrust mages.”

  “They’d prefer you to hook up with another were?”

  “Yes.”

  She refused to ask about his previous lovers and how many of them had shared his were-nature. “I’ll be fine. People will accept me, or not. I’m used to it.”

  “I want you to be happy.”

  Then she understood at least part of his insistence on showing her his beautiful home. He wanted her to find positives in being with him because he anticipated trouble ahead. She slid her arms around him. “I am happy. More than ever. I’m with you.”

  He looked at her steadily before drawing a deep breath. “Okay. But tell me if you have trouble with anyone.”

  “Mmm.” No promises there. She fought her own battles.

  He grinned, reading her mind. Knowing her. “At least, tell me after you’ve fought. Disrespecting you is disrespecting me. I need to know that sort of thing.”

  “Because you’ll be Suzerain one day?”

  “I’d like to say yes and leave it at that, but you need to know that weres are constantly if subtly challenging one another. Not all of us, but enough that reputation matters. I don’t rely on the Suzerainty or my family to protect my own. Weres know not to cross me.”

  She thought on that, on the complicated world she was entering and knew so little about, as they walked down the stairs and out to a large garage. Inside were two sports cars and a Range Rover, three motorbikes and a jet ski. “Speed junky.”

  He opened the door to the Range Rover. “I like cars. I’d show off the vintage Jag, but I noticed the cab jolting along the ruts last night. Winter rains destroy the road. When it’s resurfaced, we’ll travel in style.”

  “A Jaguar for a leopard?”

  “Smart ass.”

  The plane Steve had chartered was a luxury jet.

  “I thought you might fly yourself,” Fay said as they buckled in. The cloud-soft seats made Business Class in commercial travel resemble Cattle Class.

  “It’s easier to hire a jet with a pilot than without. And I prefer flying helicopters.”

  He’d done so in the jungles of the Congo and Laos.

  They’d worked in some remote places together. Back then, she’d refused to acknowledge her attraction to him. She’d been a Collegium guardian down to her bones. Her life hadn’t held space for a relationship. Now, she had the relationship, but no job. She figured she was ahead of the game.

  Even if she was flying off to meet a not-to-be-trusted djinn and Steve’s potentially hostile family.

  In the seat beside her, he bent forward to re-tie his bootlace as the plane gained height. The muscles of his neck showed strong where the collar of his shirt gaped. He was lethal in a fight, devastating as a lover, and the one person in the world that she trusted utterly.

  She leaned forward and tugged at his bootlace.

  He looked at her quizzically.

  “I have a question.” They stayed leaning forward, peering into one another’s faces. “With Uncle being a djinn, why aren’t we flying magic carpet?”

  An instant of shock—Steve had clearly expected a serious inquisition on what they’d encounter at the fort—and then, she was laughing, he was tickling her, and it all ended in kisses.

  Chapter 2

  Defensive walls rose up, built of limestone the color of faded sepia prints; an abrupt intrusion in the crowded, narrow streets of Alexandria’s Souq district. The calls of sellers’ promoting their wares blurred with a hundred haggling transactions and the flow of gossip through the market. Tourists wandered, bemused and detached from the scene, bumped impatiently by busy locals, and bumped purposely by busy thieves.

  Beyond a colorful spice stall, a ten foot door studded with iron nails and darkened by age, broke the repelling blankness of the tower wall. To Fay, the massive door shimmered with magic. Any who entered through this doorway carrying a magical weapon would find its magic de-spelled. She put a hand to the cool limestone wall and felt an ancient pulse of power.

  The weres mightn’t use or be affected by magic, but someone had wrapped their Suzerain’s fort in its protection. People wouldn’t find the fort, let alone the doorway, unless they knew to look for it. A turn-away spell had gained potency through the centuries since it was cast, and now, the tower was probably all but unnoticeable, even by modern technology.

  Only weres, unaffected by magic, would see the walls and the fort within—and mages as powerful as Fay.

  “Rafe.”

  “Steve.” The spice seller returned Steve’s greeting and stared at Fay with the noncommittal, speculative gaze of a security guard. He was Steve’s age, around thirty.

  An older, much older, man sat in the shadows at the side of the stall. He’d be there to serve customers, while his young companion dealt with trouble. They were gatekeepers.

  Steve pushed open the door to the fort, holding it for Fay.

  She walked through. The spell to de-activate magical weapons touched her personal wards and recoiled, stung. The magic here was strong. She was stronger. But that mattered little when a djinn was involved. She lacked knowledge of djinni magic. Her specialty had been demons and evil. The djinni weren’t evil, as such. More like amoral.

  Once through the door, a flagstone path led to the true fort, the central keep tucked safe within defensive walls. Its double doors stood open. Narrow windows on the first floor gave way to barred windows higher up. Encircling the keep was a wide strip of raked sand. Surveillance equipment added a high tech element to the defenses.

  Steve made no sound as he crossed the flagstones.

  Fay’s boots scuffed faintly as sh
e walked beside him. She could feel they were being watched. Did they look like a couple to the watchers? They didn’t touch as they walked, no hand-holding or brush of shoulders. They’d walked like this into other situations before they were lovers. Even before she loved him, she’d trusted him.

  She recalled the demon-haunted camp in a Congolese jungle. Then, she’d taken lead and Steve had backed her up. She’d been the demon expert, the stronger fighter against that evil. It had been the same in the Collegium’s New York headquarters. He’d trusted her judgement.

  Now, he was the expert on his grandparents, the djinn and whatever else they faced. It was up to her to fill the alert, responsive support role. She wouldn’t initiate anything, but she’d be ready to act.

  They walked through the double doors and stopped. She blinked and squinted, trying to adjust her eyes quickly from the bright sunlight outside to the relative dimness within the fort’s walls. She had an impression of shadows and height, of tables and people, a smell of food and the clink of cutlery and china.

  It shocked her. She’d expected a reception area, or perhaps, an old-fashioned great hall to suit the fort’s age. Instead, they’d entered into a café. People of every age sat eating, drinking and chatting.

  Curiosity had one or two of the customers turn at her and Steve’s entrance. They stiffened, shocked at something, and like a wave, that tension pushed through the crowd. Everyone stared at Fay and Steve.

  She stared back, guarded and uncertain. Was it so unusual for a non-were to enter the Suzerain’s fort, or was it that she entered with Steve?

  He waited for the shockwave to crest. “Good afternoon.”

  Seventy faces looked back at him with varying degrees of consternation and calculation.

  Fay recalled what he’d said about weres and reputation. Bringing her here clearly risked some aspect of his power. Given the lack of communication between weres and the Collegium, likely no one here recognized her. And as non-magic users, they couldn’t sense her power, either. Perhaps they wondered if Steve had lost his mind, bringing a non-were to the fort? Did they think she diminished him?