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  Ty paused. “A sorcerer. Someone like Solomon, the man who cursed you?”

  “Yes.” She shouldn’t have mentioned the sorcerer. Life would be safer and easier for Ty the less he was drawn into the world of magic. She produced a business card and passed it to Ty.

  He pocketed it absently. “Why did the dragon think I was the sorcerer?”

  “It was the magic released when you broke my imprisonment. The curse was ancient sorcery. The dragon smelled it.”

  “Is that what dragons do, chase sorcerers?”

  Laila froze. She’d never asked Darek why he chased a sorcerer. Dragons were guardians of the land. They seldom interested themselves in human magic.

  Why was Darek hunting a sorcerer, and angry enough to incinerate a mountaintop?

  “Laila?”

  She blinked. “Sorry. No, dragons don’t usually chase sorcerers.”

  “Then he must have an urgent reason.”

  “You would think so,” she said slowly. But she hadn’t thought. She had only indulged her senses and her emotions. The cool scholarship she’d disciplined herself to over endless centuries had failed her.

  She should have asked Darek why he chased a sorcerer. What was the point of studying magic to safeguard against treachery like Solomon’s if she didn’t apply her learning to a real world threat?

  Damn.

  Ty noted her preoccupation and busied himself packing the hiking gear.

  She watched him for a couple of minutes, then put the question of sorcerers aside. Ty’s problems were infinitely simpler. “Do you want to stay here? I can whisk you off to a city or back to America?”

  “You said the dragon isn’t interested in me and I’d guess the same is true of the sorcerer. So I’ll finish my work.” He glanced up. “I like these mountains.”

  “Why?”

  “They’re tall, but not so tall you have to use ropes to climb them. They’re inhabited, but you can walk days without speaking to anyone. I feel free, here, and stronger.” His thickly muscled body hardly looked like he needed extra strength. He rocked back on his heels. “Maybe you’ll understand, being magic and all. You won’t think I’m crazy.”

  “No, I wouldn’t think that.” She smiled wryly and sat on a low rock.

  “The mountains feel old. As if they’ve endured everything, survived it, and more than survived. I look at the harshness of the landscape and yet there is life everywhere. Wild creatures. Plants I can’t even begin to name. Walking here, becoming part of the mountains as I move through them, it’s as if I share in their promise. As difficult as the situation becomes, life will survive and triumph.”

  “I will lift mine eyes to the mountains, from whence shall come salvation,” Laila quoted softly.

  Ty zipped the pack closed with an abrupt movement. “I’m not talking about God.”

  “Perhaps not. But I understand what you’re describing. The mountains are like the desert. The desert is my home, Ty. A harsh country where illusions soon fail. The landscape confronts you. It demands you choose either life or death, creation or destruction…good or evil. You can’t hide from yourself or your choices in the desert.”

  “So as I hike, I’m also on a journey of self-discovery?”

  “No. I think you know who you are. That’s why the mountains don’t frighten you. You share their strength. I’m glad, because your strength gave me my freedom.”

  “Huh.” It was a dismissive sound, ending the conversation. He swung the pack up onto his back.

  “Are you moving on? It’s very dark.”

  “No offence against your dragon, but I don’t want to camp somewhere I was nearly fried.”

  It would be easy to lose your footing in the dark. “I could magic you to further down the trail or provide lighting.”

  “Thanks, but I’ll manage. The dragon provided one light show. I don’t want to send a torchlight wavering along the path, inviting investigation and questions.” He paused. “It was…interesting meeting you, Laila.”

  She smiled, feeling the sting of tears. Good-byes hurt. “Don’t lose my phone number. If you ever need me, call. It’s friendship I’m offering, Ty, not a repayment of debts.”

  With the pack on his back she couldn’t hug him, but she stretched up and kissed his cheek and felt his hand for a moment at her waist.

  “Take care of yourself,” he said.

  “I will.”

  He turned around after five steps. “Do you have somewhere to go? Friends? Family?”

  Djinn weren’t big on family ties and her demon father was no reason to visit hell. Friends were a luxury she’d lost through the cursed isolation of centuries.

  “I have my rooms in the palace where I sent you and my belongings, and I have the freedom of the world to discover.”

  He nodded. “Well, you know, your phone number. It goes both ways. If you need me, just call.”

  “Bless you.” A tear escaped. “I promise, Ty. Be safe and happy.”

  “Bye, Laila.”

  The shadows swallowed him, returning him to his safe world where magic was a children’s story and his military training adequate to protect him.

  Laila sniffed and looked up at the stars.

  “Oh damn.” She blinked and translocated to her rooms in the White Rose Palace.

  She’d installed and hidden the rooms when an early master had wished for the palace’s construction. Her belongings—freed like her from the prison of her bottle—crowded around her, jostling with the secret rooms’ existing furnishings.

  Laila dropped into her favorite chair and curled her feet under her. She reached for a cushion and hugged it.

  The secret rooms were her retreat. She had fashioned them to be a home in the rare time she stole for herself. The conditions of Solomon’s curse had bound her to her bottle, only free of it to hear her masters’ wishes and during the time spent fulfilling those wishes. Guard duty had been a wonderful wish since for the term of her master’s natural life, she was free of her bottle to protect him from danger.

  But in the end she’d found the stolen time more painful than remaining in her bottle. She’d paid for that limited freedom in servitude, repulsed by the greed and hatred of her masters. She had withdrawn into the quiet of her own spirit. A little manipulation of events and human wishes, and her bottle had been tucked away, reduced to a good luck charm in a remote village.

  The bright colors of her secret rooms reminded her that once she’d dreamed of more than quiet, had lived with drama and anticipation. White marble floors scattered with peacock blue and crimson carpets. Furniture inlaid with mother of pearl, shimmering where the light caught it. Wall hangings in every color, tapestries showing festive scenes worked with gold thread to proclaim lines of poetry. Musical instruments, zitars and flutes and drums of every size. Even in the far corner, a medieval tent with silken drapes falling from a hook in the ceiling to drape over a wooden circle and sway in the slight jasmine breeze. A retreat within a retreat.

  Now she felt infinitely older than that youthful, playful self. She had learned contentment in scholarship, measured achievement in intellectual pursuits.

  So why had she danced in dragon fire?

  “Because I was free.” Just for that instant, she’d been greedy for everything Solomon’s curse had denied her. Pleasure, laughter, the possibility of a relationship.

  She flung the tasseled cushion away. It struck a stack of books and they toppled to the floor.

  Darek had hurt her, cutting at her with his accusations. She would never work with a sorcerer. Never.

  The irony choked a laugh from her. She stood and walked to the window.

  The windows were perhaps the best part of her secret rooms. They looked out at whatever scene she desired to see. Desert, ocean, mountainside, the windows were giant scrying glasses, but better than most, because they truly existed at the place they viewed.

  “Ocean,” Laila said. The scene moved smoothly from palace gardens to the dark swish of waves. The ai
r carried the tang of salt. She leaned on the sill, looking out.

  Once she had studied fields far removed from poetry: alchemy and magic, powerlines and plagues. She had studied with a vengeance, determined that no sorcerer would ever wield over the djinn the power Solomon had commanded. But those fierce flames of pride and anger had died in captivity.

  She’d been sidetracked by curiosity into the study of chaos theory. How one tiny action could begin a chain of reactions that moved a mountain into the sea. Human science provided its own fascination. She had tested and stretched the limits of Solomon’s curse, maneuvering in the small room she found to help the villagers. A snowflake moved from here to there, a flash flood avoided.

  But the old knowledge of sorcery was still there. The tomes of magic were locked in an oak chest. Her own notes were stored with them. She recalled the trickery and brutality with which the human sorcerers harnessed magic not their own. They tortured and killed for it, extracting magic from the life force of other beings.

  Solomon had used a leviathan’s heart to fuel the curse that bound the djinn.

  If Darek was chasing a sorcerer…

  “Dragon, you’ll have your partnership after all. But it won’t be personal.”

  The window scene changed from ocean to desert, but Laila was already turning away. She had an oak chest to find, scholarship to dust off and a lie to believe—she was only seeing Darek again out of duty.

  The quickened beat of her heart was mere illusion.

  Chapter Four

  “I’ll show you the bowl, tonight,” Ian Carlisle said. He poured more coffee into his mug and gestured towards Darek’s mug.

  Darek shook his head. He picked up the three quarters full mug and sipped. Around him the discussion of the archaeology team continued. As a group they were argumentative and opinionated even before the sun woke the land. They spoke English, accented with the languages of their birth: British, American, Singaporean, French. They were excited and arguing over the dating of the bowl they’d found yesterday.

  “Unbroken.” Alanna Poirot repeated herself. “Perfect. With a fern leaf pattern. It has to be from the…”

  Darek tuned her out. If he saw the bowl, he’d know which period it was from. Hell, he’d lived through most of them. Human lives vanished fast. Their cities rose and fell and were buried by the desert.

  His castle was the lone remnant of a city that had flourished at the oasis before trade drifted elsewhere. As the desert stretched its boundaries, men had chosen other routes between cities. Now there was only his castle, a few village houses and the land the villagers farmed.

  Strangers to the desert were grateful to find even that much.

  He didn’t invite every adventurer to stay at the castle, although there was room for a regiment. But the archaeologists amused him with their passion to reclaim dead things from the desert. Geologists and security experts also dropped in. They were a link to the wider world, and a reminder that though scarcely inhabited, the desert was not forgotten. There was oil and gas under the sands. Darek could call both forth with a thought, sufficient to ignite the night sky.

  “Well, time to start digging.” Ian drained his coffee mug and stood. It was a signal for the rest of his team. Chairs scraped over the stone floor.

  Boots thudded, doors slammed. There was the roar of car engines starting. Then silence.

  Aida, Fadl and Khatun entered and began methodically clearing the table. They were women he’d rescued. Women with nowhere else to go and too scared to go there anyhow. Hidden in the desert they were healing. Their scars were spiritual, deep hurts of violence and betrayal. Their families had sold them into slavery, had abandoned them to abuse.

  The men who worked here were likewise victims. But unlike the women, with their slow progress to healing, the male victims of abuse didn’t stay. They either retreated further into the desert, withdrawing from everyone, or they fled for the cities, intent on forgetting.

  The men and women so damaged that they wanted to inflict their hurts on others were never invited to the castle. It was a refuge—for everyone except its master.

  “Hell and damn.” He slammed the coffee mug onto the long wooden table and strode out of the dining room. He was haunted by memories of Laila, her pleasure, her anger.

  “I’ll scour your touch from my skin. I’ll wash away the very memory of you. I have to, or I’ll be sick.”

  He growled and slammed the door behind him, running up the stairs of his tower. No one came here. The tower was his retreat. His dragon nature found ease in the heights, riding the freedom of the wind as it wound in through open windows. Here, he didn’t have to guard who he was from the fragile humans.

  The night had been endless. He’d ached with the knowledge of what he’d had so briefly and destroyed with jealous cruelty.

  Watching Laila dance in his fire, unafraid, enjoying the danger and power, had been the most erotic surprise. So few women faced him unafraid or could match his power. To see her reveling in it: his anger hadn’t survived the surge of lust. He’d stroked her with fire and she’d undulated in the caress.

  She had welcomed his touch with an eagerness, a hint of amazement, that suggested the passion between them was as rare for her as for him. They had burned together. It had felt incredible. Right.

  It was natural he’d assumed she’d work with him to defeat the sorcerer, their shared enemy.

  “How could I have guessed she was a freed djinni? That she didn’t serve a sorcerer?” All the other wrong assumptions had cascaded from there.

  It was a wonder his fire rose hadn’t skinned him and left his carcass for the vultures. His suspicions had been worse than the insults he’d offer an enemy. A whore. A sorcerer’s slave.

  Stone crumbled under his fingers. He released the windowsill and a flick of magic restored it. He turned his back on the rising sun, but that just left him staring at his bed—the bed he’d summoned to the mountainside and shared with Laila.

  His muscles tightened in frustration. Everything, everything was going wrong. From the moment he’d lost his eye, it was as if his metaphorical vision had fogged. He knew the sorcerer was out there, somewhere. But even his dragon senses, so closely tuned to the land, couldn’t find him. He’d mentioned his suspicions of a strong sorcerer, growing ever stronger, to a chance-met guardian angel and a wandering scholar-poet. They hadn’t believed him.

  Where the hell had the sorcerer hidden himself?

  The light in the room shifted, dimmed.

  Darek spun around. His heart jolted, then beat strongly.

  Laila stood in the window, framed by the morning sun. It haloed her in gold so bright that it hid her expression. The wind flirted with her skirt, flicking it around her ankles and plastering it against her legs, revealing the sensual curve of her thighs. One hand gripped the window frame, hesitating, then she stepped down from the window, into the room.

  Her expression came into focus. Wary, reserved. Determined. Her eyes were amethyst. Her mouth a soft rose pink. The dress she wore was the silver green of sage and hugged her full, firm breasts.

  He remembered how they filled his hands and her response to the most delicate caress. He touched his tongue to his lower lip, remembering her taste. Heat trembled in the air.

  “No.” Laila stepped back a pace. “This is not a personal visit.”

  He breathed out, trying to control his arousal. “You’re in my bedroom.” It was explanation, not accusation. If he stayed with Laila near the bed, he’d make her visit personal. He had to guard this second chance.

  “My study is downstairs.” He indicated the door with a wave of his hand.

  She held his gaze a moment. She would have to walk past him to the door. It would be a commitment to staying.

  He waited, unmoving, then felt the stir of air as she passed. Her footsteps were muffled by the silk carpet with its hundreds of thousands of threads and knots, its intricate pattern of geometry and magic. The whole room was warded for his safet
y. The stone, the carpet, the very air were worked to protect him.

  Yet Laila had simply walked in—more proof how deeply he wanted her. His wards, his magic, knew her.

  He inhaled deeply. She smelled of lemon and lemon blossom, tart and sweet. He found he could only allow her a few steps distance, before he followed.

  She might want remoteness, her left hand travelled lightly along the bannister as they descended the stairs. He wanted closeness. Instinct clawed at him to bind her with ribbons of fire and pull her into the trap of his body.

  From a couple of steps above her, he studied the prim knot of her glorious hair. It was truly black. His fingers flexed to unravel it and feel it drag over his body, catching and claiming him.

  She paused at the landing. Her hand tightened a moment on the bannister before she faced him. If it bothered her to look up to him, it didn’t show. Her face was as expressionless and beautiful as a mask. “I’m only here because of the sorcerer.”

  He wasn’t sure how to respond and was grateful when she walked on into the study. He used the few seconds to think. Laila was trying to set ground rules and distance between them. Still, his protective instincts betrayed him in the first question.

  “Why, has the sorcerer contacted you, hurt you?”

  “I know nothing of your sorcerer.” She looked around the study, deliberately avoiding him.

  Shelves lined the walls, books climbing to the high ceiling. Maps and scrolls were rolled and stacked in glass-fronted cabinets. Curiosities, rocks, fossils and antiquities that he’d had since new lay scattered among the books. Large, comfortable chairs invited ease and a massive desk occupied the southern corner, bearing evidence of the books he’d consulted and magic he’d worked in his failed quest to find the sorcerer.

  Laila chose a single armchair upholstered in dark brown leather and sank into it. Knees together, ankles crossed, she resisted the chair’s comfort. “I’m here to learn about the sorcerer. Who he is, why you’re chasing him, if I can help.”

  Help. He lingered on the word. It implied working together, ongoing contact. He thought of the partnership he’d assumed he and Laila could share, back when he’d thought her bound to her bottle and serving the sorcerer. She’d fought the assumption of partnership then, so what had changed?