Dark Oasis Read online

  “Did he beat you up?” Her horrified glance darted between the man on the floor and the older man gloating on the far side of the bars.

  “No, I did this in a car accident.”

  “Her name is Mandy Lorne,” Abbas interposed. “Twenty seven years old, unmarried, an archaeologist. If you let her die, she won’t be a nameless sacrifice to your cowardice.”

  She swung around, temper flaring. “What the hell do you want to kill me for, anyway?”

  “Power,” Theron said.

  Abbas stepped back from the cell bars as if they’d become red hot.

  The false smoke-djinni Theron used in his conjuring act swirled up from the floor, stretching to touch the roof. It loomed over the two prisoners.

  Sadiq raised an eyebrow. “Theron?”

  “You can’t leave the bottle without my permission,” Abbas screeched.

  “I am the djinni, little man,” Theron boomed. “Three wishes are all you command.”

  Emmott snaked some of his power out of the ring the dark mage wore. It looked like a serpent, forked tongue flicking to taste the air.

  “Get away in, demon.” Abbas slapped at the ring. “You are bound to protect me.”

  “A geas,” Emmott said. “And one I’m already breaking.”

  Abbas hissed in sudden pain and wrenched off the ring. He flung it across the room. The forked tongue of Emmott’s power had burned him.

  “A wise man knows the limits of his power,” Theron said. “But you’re not a wise man, Abbas. You are cruel and stupid. And now, you shall learn.”

  The smoke djinni and Emmott’s serpent both vanished.

  Abbas spun in a circle, muttering charms and wards, searching for invisible enemies.

  “This is insane,” Mandy said, but her voice wobbled.

  “There are more things under heaven and earth, Horatio.” Sadiq held out his hand in silent invitation.

  She hesitated, then sat beside him, accepting the casual embrace. “I came here searching for Umu, the Lost City. I didn’t expect to encounter other legends. Er, was there really a djinni in the cell with us?”

  Sadiq leaned his head back against the wall, but he watched his father’s antics through narrowed eyes. “Yes. His name is Theron. And somewhere there should be my angel.”

  “I’m here,” Alexa said.

  Mandy looked around, searching for the source of the voice and not finding it.

  “Can you get us out of here?” Sadiq asked.

  Abbas stopped turning in circles and squinted at the cell.

  “Theron has to destroy your father, first,” Alexa said.

  “He can’t do that,” Abbas shouted. “No djinni can destroy its master.”

  “That’s not quite true.” She strolled the length of the cell and studied Abbas’s distorted face. “Theron can’t attack you directly, but he can let you destroy yourself.”

  She vanished a split second before Abbas blasted dark power at the air in front of him. One of the cell bars disintegrated.

  Mandy cringed against Sadiq, who winced at the pain to his ribs. “She’s gone, Dad.”

  “You can see her?”

  “Of course. She’s my angel.”

  Abbas and Mandy both stared at him. Then Abbas appeared to reach a decision. He pulled out the gun. “If she cares about you so much, she’ll want to stop me killing you.”

  “I thought you intended to sacrifice me, tomorrow.”

  Abbas lowered the gun. “Will you give me your free sacrifice?”

  Sadiq tightened his arm around Mandy. “No.”

  “Then I can kill you here and now. You betrayed me, anyway. Bringing an angel, here. Breaking my wards.” He raised the gun.

  Alexa stole the djinni bottle from the pocket of Abbas’s robe.

  He dropped the gun as he recognized the sudden lightness. He snatched for the djinni bottle that—to him—seemed to float on the air.

  Dark words of power and violence slammed into Alexa.

  “God damn you.” Theron’s impotent rage shook the underground chamber. “Release her.”

  Abbas laughed. “So much power. I’ve never killed anything so powerful.” He was drunk on the angelic energy. “My trap succeeded.”

  “Alexa?” Sadiq crawled forward.

  A casual flick of his father’s finger cracked him back against the wall. He cried out at the pain.

  “Sadiq, please.” Alexa managed a painful whisper. The killing spell Abbas had laid on her was tearing her energy body to pieces. It was all she could do to hold onto her physical form for one last, vital effort.

  She threw Theron’s bottle to Sadiq.

  Mandy caught it.

  Chapter Six

  With Mandy holding his bottle, Theron wasted no time. Solomon’s curse prevented djinn hurting their masters, but ‘masters’ was defined as whoever held their bottle. Abbas was now fair game—and Theron was inside his wards. But at what price?

  Alexa’s death screams sounded in his ears.

  “I hope Sadiq and Mandy are in the mood for violent entertainment,” he said between his teeth. Because entertaining humans was how he stretched the constraints of the curse.

  All the blazing power he refused to surrender to human control struck at Abbas’s personal wards, brushed them aside like tissue paper and set him on fire.

  “The flames of hell. Nice touch,” Emmott said.

  Abbas screamed in frustrated fury, fear and pain. His power and spells shattered.

  Theron knelt and gathered up Alexa. He’d pushed the loopholes in Solomon’s curse to their limits. Now they tightened like an iron noose. He’d never hated his captivity more.

  “Is she dying?” Sadiq asked. He ignored his father’s screams.

  “I won’t let her.” Theron vanished into his bottle.

  He’d put the pressure on Abbas, judging the dark mage was near snapping point, but he hadn’t expected the power of the man’s greed. He’d dared to try and sacrifice an angel.

  “God, I’m sorry. I thought I knew what Abbas would do. In my pride, I thought—”

  “I’ll live,” Alexa whispered as he laid her on his bed.

  “I can feel your pain. I thought I could keep you safe. You’re so damn impulsive.”

  “Emotionally involved.” Wry words.

  “You care too much. It’s an angel failing.”

  She smiled, but the small action clearly hurt.

  “Let me heal you.” He leant close. “Please.”

  The level of hurt she’d suffered, made it the most intimate of requests. She had to trust him, open her energy to him, so soon after Abbas had violated the integrity of that energy.

  “Please.” He couldn’t live with seeing, feeling her agony.

  Her blue eyes were glazed with pain as she searched his face. “Yes.” She let go of her corporeal form.

  Deadly rage threatened to overwhelm Theron again as he saw the extent of damage to her energy body. He controlled it. First, Alexa needed him.

  He shifted into his own energy body and eased himself into alignment with her. Very gently he pulsed power through the pattern of their entwined bodies. He felt the moment when pain ceased in her and healing began. He continued the feed of power carefully.

  “Too much,” she said softly. “You’ll exhaust yourself.”

  She stroked her own energy through the pattern, reassuring him of her wholeness. But it had an additional effect.

  He wasn’t quite sure when the healing drifted into loving, but suddenly he wasn’t simply giving. He was receiving the sweetest energy. It flowed through him with intoxicating warmth and delight.

  The lonely, aching scars of centuries of slavery vanished, vanquished by his angel’s passion—and the tenderness she’d woken in him.

  Sparkles of delight kissed along the paths of their shared energy.

  “You are beautiful, so beautiful.” He praised her as the intensity of their desire deepened, strengthening the pulse of energy.

  “Ahem, Theron?�
�� Emmott’s voice. “You’d better get out here.”

  A split second later, Alexa tore out of their incorporeal union, jolting into her physical form. “Sadiq!” She flashed out of the bottle into the cell.

  Theron swore as he caught her shoulders and hauled her back against him. The hellfire he’d left dancing over Abbas now covered his son, Sadiq. Theron cancelled it in a heartbeat and the horrid screams ceased.

  In the furthest corner, Mandy huddled with his bottle, not wishing. He wondered absently if she was too traumatized to realize what she held.

  Abbas knew, though. The old man was already running towards it, halting in impotent fury at the sight of Alexa and Theron. “I killed you,” he shouted at her.

  “You bastard,” Theron said low and deadly. “You used the blood link to Sadiq to shift the hellfire.”

  “I am stronger than you think, djinni,” the dark mage said.

  “I doubt it. But I did underestimate your cruelty, greed and stupidity.”

  Abbas howled in outrage.

  “Got it.” Emmott shattered the ring that had held him, a physical sign of the broken geas. He strode forward, a younger, brasher mirror of Theron. “And now…”

  Abbas cringed with the realization he stood between an enraged djinni and a demon hell-bent on revenge. He began muttering desperate, dark magic enchantments.

  Emmott threw back his head and laughed.

  “He’s mine,” Theron warned. In his peripheral vision, he saw Sadiq move. The young man moved freely. In freeing him of the hellfire, Theron had carelessly used enough power to mend his broken ribs and other injuries. “Shit.”

  Sadiq had plucked the djinni bottle from Mandy’s unresisting hands. “Djinni, I don’t want you killing Dad or hurting him. I’ll wish it if I have to.”

  Alexa covered Theron’s right hand as it tightened on her shoulder.

  Of course his angel wouldn’t want him to torture and kill in front of her, but he had a killing rage inside him.

  “Looks like the fun’s all mine,” Emmott said.

  “No. Djinni, stop the demon from hurting Dad. I wish it.”

  The wish bound him in iron. He wrenched his hands from Alexa and vaporized the cell bars, striding to meet his half-brother.

  Abbas’s face split into an evil, triumphant grin. “My son.” He straightened.

  It twisted Theron’s guts to protect such a man.

  “I forgave the geas,” Emmott said. “But not this. I won’t let you stop my revenge. This man thought to command me.”

  “Welcome to my life, brother.”

  “No. You’re bound by the curse and your conscience. I have neither.” Emmott hurled raw power at Theron, enough to kill him.

  Theron deflected it into the ground. The earth shook.

  Alexa strengthened the structure of the underground chamber to survive the awesome forces released in this clash between brothers. She had a responsibility to Sadiq and to Mandy. Abbas, well, he lay dazed, caught by the edge of the first blast of power. He could be dealt with later.

  Mandy huddled in a corner. She couldn’t see Theron and Emmott, but she could hear the latter’s snarls and feel the chamber shudder to their blows.

  Sadiq watched the fight with a blank face. Only when his gaze caught Alexa’s did an expression shiver over it. His shoulders relaxed and he walked to her, holding Theron’s bottle. “I’m sorry I used your friend. I couldn’t let Dad die…I’d always wonder if I did have his blood in me. If I’d wished his suffering and death.”

  “He hurt you a lot,” Alexa said.

  “And he hurt others.” Sadiq looked away from the raw fight in front of them, to Mandy. “He said he bought people from slave traffickers. He must have killed them to fuel his dark magic. I know he deserves to die.”

  “But if we kill him in a passion, we perpetuate his violence and darkness.” She watched Theron blocking Emmott’s every move. The angry set of his jaw said how much he hated protecting Abbas. “Denying anyone their free will is wrong, but I’m glad Theron won’t have your father’s blood on his hands.”

  “You’re a fool.” Abbas had crawled up to them.

  Alexa kicked the gun out of his hand.

  Sadiq looked down at the broken shell of a man, eaten out by his own evil, beaten and still trying to hurt, to control.

  Theron slammed Emmott onto the ground and put a foot on his throat. “Enough. Leave be, Emmott.”

  For answer, Emmott grabbed Theron’s leg, twisted and flung him. In the moment’s advantage he gained, Emmott launched forward, intent on Alexa.

  She smiled.

  Theron had healed her. She had all her energy and she’d been compelled to stand here, a mere spectator. All her guardian nature and training surged to the challenge. She closed her hands in a sharp clap and her energy rang out either side of Emmott.

  He stumbled and dropped to one knee.

  Her kick carried him to the other side of the chamber where he hit the wall and landed in an uncoordinated sprawl.

  Theron looked down at him and grinned. “You should choose your targets more carefully. Alexa is not my weak spot.” He picked up his groaning brother. “She’s a guardian, you idiot.” He threw Emmott back to hell, then hands on hips regarded Abbas. “Now, what do we do with you?”

  Chapter Seven

  Alexa stepped around Abba’s prone figure and clasped Theron’s hand.

  He smiled down at her with casual intimacy and gently swung their joined hands. “It’s all right, angel, I’ve recovered my temper. I won’t skin Abbas alive and leave his carcass for the jackals.”

  “Sadiq?” The dark mage’s arrogant command was half plea.

  Theron nudged him with a boot. “What a terrible old hypocrite. You plead for mercy after showing none yourself.”

  “Sadiq, give me the bottle,” Abbas said from the floor. “I have two wishes left.”

  “Don’t!” Mandy scrambled up and ran across the cell to grasp Sadiq’s arm. “I don’t understand everything that is happening here.” She glanced at Theron who, like Alexa, was now visible to humans, then looked down at Abbas. “But he’s the wrong man to trust with anything—and I don’t care if he is your father.”

  “Believe me, I’m even less inclined to trust him than you are.” Sadiq drew a deep breath. “Alexa is compelled by nature to be merciful, but Theron, what would you do with him?”

  Abbas yelped a protest and was ignored.

  “He can’t be left to cause more trouble.” Theron wrapped both arms around Alexa, holding her protectively against him. “I have the medical knowledge to cause him a stroke, one which will cripple his hands and confuse his speech so he can’t perform dark magic. He’ll be dependent on your kindness and the kindness of strangers.”

  “No!” Abbas rose to his knees. “Sadiq, I am your father. You can’t let him do this to me.”

  “You were willing to kill me,” Mandy interjected. “And your own son. You’re a monster.”

  “And I am his son.” Sadiq looked down at the djinni bottle, then up at Theron. He threw the bottle to him. “I wish you free.”

  The bottle exploded, lighting the underground chamber with brilliant topaz dust. Amid the glitter, Theron bowed his gratitude.

  Alexa flew across the room and hugged Sadiq. “Thank you.”

  Sadiq looked over her shoulder to meet Theron’s dark gaze. “You and Alexa decide Dad’s punishment.”

  “Viper. Snake in the bosom.” Abbas drew his gun. “I will not be reduced to ridicule.” He pulled the gun from his pocket.

  “Wait, Alexa,” Theron said.

  Abbas put the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

  In the echo of violence and the stink of blood, Theron nodded, grimly satisfied.

  As he must be, Alexa thought. His mission had been Abbas’s self-destruction. Only her intervention had added Sadiq to the unholy mess.

  “I’m sorry, Sadiq.” She kissed his cheek, offering comfort.

  “It was his choice. It was a
ll his choice.” But his voice broke. He ducked away, footsteps fading through the chamber.

  “I’ll go after him,” Mandy said uncertainly. She edged away, skirting the blood splatter, then ran.

  “They’ll find daylight,” Theron said.

  “Metaphorically and truly.” Alexa sighed as she studied Abbas’s corpse. “Some people refuse it.” She shivered. “I need to get out of here, too.”

  “Wherever my angel wants.”

  “Where would you like to go?” She embraced him loosely, comforted by his hold.

  “I’d like to make love to you in a garden under the stars.” He translocated them as he spoke.

  Alexa glanced around, recognized her surroundings and sighed with pleasure. “The Alhambra.” The perfect place to celebrate his freedom.

  The moonlight was so bright that the flowers glimmered with ghostly color in their frame of soft greens and silvers, while the fountains tumbled gently in the background.

  Theron scattered thick cushions in a decadent outdoor boudoir. He dropped down on them and brought Alexa over him.

  She spared a half-second to blank human technological surveillance, then surrendered to the moment and the man.

  Kisses like fire.

  They were both so hungry.

  He tore the buttons from her shirt and pushed aside the lace cups of her bra, filling his hands with her sensitive breasts and caressing them with urgent anticipation. He lifted her higher and took a tight nipple into his mouth. Desire spiraled near to pain. She cried out at the pleasure, but needed so much more.

  She vanished her clothes.

  Theron pushed her down onto the cushions. His own clothes vanished as he thrust his thigh between her legs in rough claiming. She rubbed upwards, dampening against him.

  “Wanton angel.” He drew back long enough to admire her nakedness, his hand skimming her curves and sliding up to push back her head and drink her kisses.

  “Only with you.” She clutched his shoulders as his hand travelled lower, to trespass intimately. “Theron.” Pleasure pulsed under her skin, surrendering her to his touch and guidance.

  “If I wasn’t about to explode, I could tease you like this all night.” His finger tantalized, dipping near, but never quite entering her no matter how she squirmed and panted, ached and threatened, pleaded and promised. “I’ll take all you offer, angel mine.” He stopped teasing, placing himself between her thighs and thrust into her, freezing as she orgasmed.