The Price of Freedom Read online

“I dream of the people hurt by the wishes I serve.” His shrug didn’t make the admission casual.

  Mischa’s heart jolted. Such nightmares could tear a person apart. Although bound, Rafe’s conscience tortured him. However, if she expressed her pity, her anger, she’d lose him. He had his pride and he wasn’t accustomed to letting anyone close.

  “Sometimes I dream of the people my guardianship can’t save, the people who choose to do wrong. I wake crying.” She saw the guarded suspicion in his eyes, the fear of pity.

  Time for a distraction, if she dared.

  “Comfort me, Rafe.” She traced the pattern of comfort she wanted on her own body, her hands curling over her stomach, shaping her breasts, plunging from her waist to the swell of her hips. She quivered, struck by painful darts of arousal, speared by her own touch. Her eyes widened, appealing to Rafe as to how she could feel this way.

  “It’s because I’m watching, because I want you, because you remember my touch.”

  “Touch me,” she pleaded.

  “Show me where again.”

  “Here.” She widened her stance, trying not to fall as her legs trembled. “And here.”

  Her breasts were swollen, tender from last night, the nipples erect. She watched Rafe’s hot gaze and touched her nipples. An agony of desire flooded her. She needed his mouth on her, soothing the ache.

  She abandoned the game and reached for him, dragging his head to her breast. He suckled with the urgency she felt, tipping her back over his arm, then tumbling them to the floor. She tore at his robe till it opened and fell to enclose them both. He was hard and full, and she was more than ready for him. She guided him home, arching up to take him deeply

  He pushed a cushion under her hips, withdrew and thrust again.

  The deeper penetration drove her wild. It was as if he could never be deep enough, never close enough. She held him with arms and legs and called him on. He caught her wildness, surging and matching her writhing body. They strained against one another and together in joint pursuit of union, completion.

  “Heaven.” She lay exhausted beneath him, arms and legs around him, unwilling to let him go. Their chests heaved. In the frantic moments, they’d forgotten to breathe.

  “You were right,” Rafe said. “I’m too tired to show you the oasis.”

  A puff of laughter escaped her. She smoothed the sweat-dampened hair from his face. “Lie with me and recover. We’ll go later.”

  Rafe began the tour at the pool. They discarded their robes and walked into the water to bathe. Standing on the pebbled beach, he soaped Mischa’s glorious body as she tilted her face to the sun and rested one hand lightly against his chest for balance.

  “I am happy,” she said.

  His own happiness swelled. It was such a rare feeling, he’d have feared to trust it, except he knew he could trust Mischa. The truth of her statement glowed in her eyes. It reassured and pleased him, and made him oddly humble. He who guarded his pride felt awe that Mischa could shatter in his arms or smile at him as she smiled now.

  “Are you happy?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  Her smile widened. “My turn to soap you.”

  It wasn’t seduction or prelude to loving. Their enjoyment of each other’s bodies was a pleasure in itself.

  Rafe closed his eyes on a shudder of feeling as Mischa’s hands smoothed over his body.

  “All done.” She kissed his mouth briefly. “Time to duck.” She led him deeper into the pool and pushed him backward.

  He splashed hugely, caught by surprise, and surfaced to her laughter. He wiped water from his lashes and lunged. She darted sideways but he caught an ankle and unchivalrously tugged.

  Laughing and mock fighting, they played in the pool. Rafe had never frolicked, but he discovered it came naturally, spilling out of happiness. They wrestled, chased and teased.

  “Pax,” Mischa gasped, and rested against him.

  He stopped tickling her and let his hands settle on her waist.

  “I know it’s not long since breakfast,” Mischa said. “But I’m starved.”

  “Tormenting me is serious work.” The comment earned him a friendly shove. He kept his balance and they walked out of the pool hand in hand. He summoned towels and a tunic such as Mischa usually wore, as well as a clean robe for himself. Sandals were essential wear for walking over the hot sand and sharp-edged grasses.

  “May I have a comb?” Mischa asked.

  He glanced at her but saw no resentment at having to make the request.

  “Thank you.” She accepted the comb and hummed as she untangled her hair and braided it.

  Observing a woman’s beauty routine was a new, pleasant intimacy. He handed Mischa a ribbon and watched her tie it.

  She clasped his hand. “Let’s eat.”

  Eating together was another revelation. He’d given hospitality before, but this was for Mischa. It added a new dimension to the sharing of food. He wanted to give her the world and was unprepared for the piercing satisfaction of placing spiced meats and pastries against her lips and having her accept them.

  She savored his food, while he ate without tasting. His own being was a bewilderment to him. Emotion thundered under his skin, energized rather than appeased by his care for Mischa. Empty words gained meaning. To love and to cherish…

  “You’re spoiling me.” Mischa smiled.

  “Cherishing,” he corrected seriously. He wanted her happy here, not resenting that his stolen time was also hers.

  Her open smile changed, fading from her mouth to glow in her eyes. “I feel cherished.”

  Simple words, but something in him eased. He had her acceptance of his right to care for her.

  “Mint tea?” he offered, letting the mundane guard his emotions. As one of the djinn, he wasn’t accustomed to vulnerability.

  Her smile acknowledged his retreat from emotion. She shook her head and lay back among the scatter of cushions.

  He studied her relaxed pose and the length of leg exposed. She had given him the right to touch her. He could lean over, cup her breast, kiss her. She’d respond.

  “Would you like a siesta?”

  She opened her eyes. “You promised to show me your home.”

  “It’s hot now.”

  “Ah.” She read his desire and sat up straight. “I’d like to see your home.”

  “Come then.” In truth, he wanted to share it with her. The desire between them would not die for being denied a few hours.

  “It’s beautiful.” For all the luxuriant coolness of the palms and fruit trees, Mischa preferred the grass fading into the sand dunes. It rooted the oasis in the desert, making paradise part of life. She wanted that promise that joy could last.

  She looked at Rafe. He was an integral part of the desert. He had its harshness, its strength and its habit of hiding its sweetness.

  He had trusted her with his tenderness.

  In a rush of emotion, she brought his hand to her lips and kissed it.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “Just because.”

  She remembered their last wild loving. For all their tumultuous desire, they hadn’t been close enough. She wanted annihilation in him. Angel loving. Not all angel lovers achieved it. Not all wanted it. Total surrender and openness was too much for them.

  “Rafe, do I scare you?”

  He didn’t laugh at the question. He rubbed the back of his hand against her face, eyes narrowing in thought. “You are strong, courageous, joyous. You have fierce emotions. But no, you don’t scare me.” He smiled. “I don’t scare easily.”

  His smile captivated Mischa as much as his words. He shared her feeling of connection and well-being. All was right with the world in their particular heaven.

  “I hope you don’t scare easily,” she said. “Because I’m going to love you as an angel.”

  She changed without waiting for his answer. One moment she had a body with senses attuned to Rafe’s every move. The next moment she was pure energy. As eff
ervescent as champagne, she sparkled and surrounded Rafe in a halo of light.

  When he’d captured her in heaven and brought her down to the oasis, he had followed her in energy form, wrapping tight against her, atom against atom. But the intimacy hadn’t been sexual.

  This time her energy form would be completely sexual. She would merge with Rafe’s body, learning the essence of him and giving a vibrating pleasure he’d feel in his bones. An angel could choose her form, choose how she gave herself. She would surrender her whole self to delighting Rafe. She would be her own outpouring of joy.

  If she’d had a throat, she’d have groaned with bliss as her energy stroked along Rafe’s skin, stroked and shimmered and sank below to nerves and muscles, deeper to ligaments and bones, deeper yet to heart, lungs, soul.

  He was beautiful, terrifyingly strong, pulsing with emotion. She felt her last secrets flower into openness, embrace him with all the love she’d been denying.

  He exploded.

  She hadn’t dared to hope. But he was spirit too. Like an angel, he changed his body form. As pure energy he met her.

  They twined in open patterns of light and sound, color and harmony. They merged.

  In their bodies, orgasm ended, but this went on forever. Pleasure crested, only to rise higher. Higher until they screamed, reaching the limits of existence. Anything more and they would break their natures and shatter into the auroras as dancing, mindless energy, their personalities consumed by the blaze of sensation.

  They fell back to earth, bodies rematerializing, tangled and limp with consummation.

  Rafe lay on the sand in the shade of a palm with Mischa cradled in his arms. He had never dreamed such power and union existed. His heart slammed in his chest. He now knew her with every atom of his being, and she knew him. She had opened to him with a generosity so astounding, she’d drawn his soul from his keeping and returned it to him with her own.

  Love. He had thought it wasn’t for him. He’d walked alone like the leopard. But even leopards mated.

  He tightened his arms around Mischa. He would never let her go. He’d brought her here as his captive, but now he was the one enchained. Despite his conscience, he would hold her forever because she was his heart.

  “I love you,” she mumbled against his throat.

  The exultation that swept through him felt as strong as their recent loving. It shook the foundations of his life.

  “I love you,” he answered. “I love you, Mischa.”

  Chapter Six

  Someone always pays a price for happiness. Mischa had been a guardian long enough to know this truth in her bones.

  Being with Rafe was a joy so deep she could never tire of it, never be completely satisfied by their joining. She’d surrendered herself to him and their love, and yet…She sighed and trickled sand through her fingers.

  The price of her and Rafe’s happiness was the suffering of the people she wasn’t free to guard, people like Ilias. Rafe had stolen time for them to love, but at the cost of her duty. Before Rafe, being a guardian had defined her. Now that identity had been taken from her. Love changed everything.

  Love. Mischa sat watching the uncertain nest-building of a young pair of turtledoves. The scent of orange blossom wove around her as the desert wind stirred the orange grove. Cicadas chirruped in the trees. She was alone. Rafe had called a hawk from the air and was hunting with it at the edge of the desert, enjoying the age-old art of falconry.

  They had learned to give one another space. Rafe showed an unexpected passion for entomology, studying the insects of the oasis and desert fringe. At other times he would summon a swift horse and ride, reveling in freedom and the rush of air.

  For herself, she studied the refinements of the martial art she followed and practiced her guitar playing. Sometimes she sang along. In the evenings Rafe would lounge near her, rarely joining her singing but receptive to her serenade. Those nights they would make love with haunting, strumming tension, as if the music woke awareness of the pain that could accompany love.

  They knew one another intimately, yet there were secret thoughts, fears and memories that separated them. This paradox of love surprised Mischa. She’d thought that after the energetic experience of angel loving, there would be no secrets. But it seemed the more open you were to someone, the higher the walls that protected your final secrets. Perhaps those walls were even a product of love? You hid what would hurt the other.

  Like the aching void of her guardian duty. Protecting people was her life calling. Without it, she drifted like a rudderless boat. The current of loving Rafe was powerful and true, and she regretted nothing of their union, but part of her was missing.

  She wanted to know that Ilias, Salwa and little Yusef were safe. And there were other charges she worried about: Rebecca, Tania, Allen and so many others. There were crises coming in their lives, and she wouldn’t be there to help.

  Part of her time at the oasis she spent practicing her form changes. Her default shape was human, but there were other worlds and other sentient species that required guardianship.

  It fascinated Rafe to watch her grow tentacles or elongate into centipede form. He laughed at her efforts to control all those feet.

  Laughter. They laughed a lot, their happiness welling up as irresistibly as spring water. They were happy despite their secrets.

  Mischa suspected that what Rafe hid from her was the sadness of his life, the isolation, the horror of wishes commanded from him. The more she learned of his desert-honed pride and honor, the more she grieved for the hurt done to him. If Solomon had been within reach, she’d have struck him.

  The wisdom of Solomon. Huh. He’d bound the djinn because he feared them and resented that their power was greater than his. He had taken from them the free will to choose between good and evil.

  “A guardian should have stopped him.” Mischa threw away the tangle of grass she’d been weaving absently. The tiny net floated earthward. She frowned as the net settled over a shy peeping blue wildflower. A flick of her finger rescued the flower. How much of her unsettled anger came from the fact that no guardian had rescued her love?

  Rafe suffered alone. Like the other djinn, he’d been condemned by the nature of the parents—Lilith and the unnamed demon—who had abandoned him. The natural mischievousness and rebellion of unhappy youth had been harshly tried. There had been no understanding, no gentleness. That Rafe was capable of love after his experience was testament to the greatness of his soul.

  Not that he saw it that way. He had the conscience lacking in the men who controlled his wishes. He bled for the pain the wishes inflicted. Loving Rafe was not a gentle journey of pleasure. Pleasure was there, but so much more. He held her with soul hunger, gave himself with long-suppressed generosity.

  She loved him. All her musings, her stirred emotions, everything came down to this. Love.

  “Like Ilias and Salwa,” Mischa said, recalling her envy of their closeness. Now she understood the greatness of Salwa’s courage in loving a man pursued by the hatred of persons such as Umar Haya. She loved her husband knowing that her love could tear apart with grief.

  “Ilias lives,” Rafe said.

  “I didn’t hear you.” She looked up.

  He stared down at her. “You were thinking of your guardian duty.”

  “No. I was thinking of love.”

  The tense set of his shoulders relaxed. He sat beside her.

  She leaned against him. “I envied Ilias and Salwa. Now I understand the strength of their love. They love despite fear.”

  “Are you afraid?”

  “I feel the secrets between us.”

  His arm tightened around her. “You are regretting your guardian duty.”

  “I love you.”

  “I know.” He traced the curve of her jaw line, the shape of her mouth. “And I love you. But a guardian is who you are. Just as I am djinn.”

  “You are Rafe, my love.”

  He kissed her for that strong answer, hungry, d
esperate, stealing her breath. She fell backward onto grass dappled by the shade of the orange trees. He came with her, easing aside clothes, finding her breasts and stroking lower, readying her for his possession.

  “I love you.” He held her gaze as he entered her.

  “I love you,” she answered, moving with him.

  He was so controlled, so intent. He made her come first, and only then let himself break. He shouted her name, shuddering. Even as he collapsed, he rolled, bringing her on top of him, holding her close.

  “I watched the hawk as I hunted her. She was beautiful, flying like an extension of me. But when I released her, she was truly herself. I have fettered you like that hawk.”

  “You haven’t.” She sat up, pulling on her tunic. “You have given me love, shared your home.”

  He shook his head, reaching for his robes. “I took your work from you, the guarding which gives your life purpose. I told you once, but you forgot and I didn’t remind you—you can dissolve the barrier that holds you here. It is only Ilias you cannot guard. Give me your promise not to act for his protection, and you can guard your other charges. I have been selfish.”

  Free to take up her guardianship once more. Free to be completely herself, without secret regrets hidden from Rafe. He had read her longing anyway. Guarding was more than her work. It was her life.

  “Oh, Rafe.” She grasped his hand. “I promise not to guard Ilias.”

  Her hand closed on empty space. Rafe had vanished. The desert wind blew desolately through the oasis. A wild hawk’s hunting cry echoed eerily.

  “Rafe? Rafe!”

  She ran back to the tent, to the forge. Her heart beat chokingly fast.

  “Oh God.” She dropped down by the pool, realization stabbing her.

  When she promised not to guard Ilias, Umar Haya’s third wish was complete, and with it, Rafe was bound again to his djinni bottle.

  “Rafe, you idiot.” He had given her freedom at the price of his own. But when would he be free again? “I’d rather have had you.”

  Chapter Seven