Bile rose in Kavin’s throat.
Jarriah
was just another word for concubine. A female sex slave. One of many Zayd kept within his walls.
This is not my life
.
The words revolved in her head as he pulled her down the dingy corridor. Her peach gown, the one she’d worn to the arena today in the hopes of pleasing him, was now dirty and wet all along the hem from the water that seeped through cracks in the stones. How had this happened? How had she come to be in this wretched place?
After the initial shock of her family releasing her to Zayd, part of her had been excited. It was customary for highborn males to pick and take the females they wanted. The fact he’d chosen her? A commoner? It was practically unheard of. She’d been blinded by his status and wealth and handsome good looks. Had dreamt of marriage, even knowing most Ghul males took multiple wives. But that had been okay with her, so long as he was kind. And if one day he grew to love her…then nothing else would matter.
But that was before he brought her to his harem and she realized he didn’t want her for his wife. There would be no love between them now, no home or family or future. He looked upon her as nothing more than the slaves who battled to the death in the pit of the arena. As entertainment to meet his depraved needs. And he was now handing her over to the worst of those slaves as a test. To be broken in by a monster, so that when she went back to him, he would look like a shining knight.
He tugged her to a stop in front of a heavy steel door. Two guards stood outside, looked from him to Kavin and back again. The one on the right tightened his grip around the spear he held braced against the floor and said, “The
sahad
has been chained, my lord, per your instructions, but not prepared.”
“This will not take long,” Zayd answered. “My
jarriah
is not here for a sample but to simply meet the mighty champion and congratulate him on his latest victory.” A wicked grin curled Zayd’s lips. “Sampling will come later.”
A sickening chuckle echoed from both guards, and Kavin’s skin crawled as they both leered in her direction. She brushed her hair over her shoulder and tried not to let her fear show.
The guards stepped aside. The one on the left unlocked the door and pushed it open. “Scream if you need us.”
Scream
?
Kavin’s pulse raced as Zayd pulled her into the cell behind him. She felt the guard’s licentious gazes follow as she stepped past them but was more concerned with the monster that lurked in the dark. Zayd’s footsteps echoed across the stone floor, his fingers pressing deeply into her arm as he jerked her along. A chill slid down her spine, and as her eyes tried to adjust to the darkness, she squinted, unable to see anything but Zayd.
For the first time since they’d left the arena, Zayd released his hold on her arm. Silence echoed through the dark chamber, ratcheting Kavin’s anxiety up all over again. Then the heavy cell door clanged shut, causing her to jump and take a step closer to her master.
“Light!” Zayd called.
A scraping sound echoed, then a shaft of light speared into the room from a rectangular hole in the door, illuminating the space enough so she could look around.
There were no windows. Nothing hanging on the walls. Just a single, unmade bed that looked stained with blood and sweat, and a small, wooden table, holding an unlit, dripping candle.
It was a hole. Worse than that, it was a dungeon where hopes and dreams were ground into dust.
“Rise, Marid,” Zayd barked.
Kavin’s heart pounded against her ribs. She stepped behind Zayd as she looked around wildly for the monster she sensed lurking in the shadows. Silence echoed through the darkness like a vast cavern of nothingness, and just when she was sure there was no one there, metal clanged, and a shuffling sounded to her left.
Kavin whipped that way, her eyes wide, her muscles tight and ready to flee. She tried to move farther behind Zayd, but he blocked her, pushing her forward instead. She stumbled. Reached out for Zayd at her back. But he moved out of her reach.
“Come into the light, Marid, so that my
jarriah
may get a good look at what waits for her.”
Kavin froze. She didn’t know where he was. How close. What he would do to her. She didn’t know anything except terror for the male hidden before her and bitter hatred for the one at her back.
The shuffling echoed again, followed by the clink of chains. And then his big body moved into the light directly in front of her.
Kavin sucked in a breath. Eased back a step until she hit Zayd. He grunted his disgust and moved away once more, making it more than clear she wasn’t finding any safety with him.
But Kavin didn’t try to move again. Fear kept her feet firmly locked in place. The Marid was bigger than he’d seemed in the arena. Still covered in grime, there was a scent about him—sweat, blood, death—one that rolled through her stomach until the desire to gag overwhelmed her.
She held it back, knowing doing so would only enrage him—and her master—and stared at the hulking beast mere feet away.
Chains were cuffed to his wrists. Chains Kavin hoped were locked tight to a wall or bar or something strong enough to restrain him. Dark, stringy hair brushed his bare shoulders. His arms were massive, his naked chest and stomach so hard it looked as if he were carved from stone; his thighs like tree trunks. He wore nothing but filthy, thin black pants that were frayed at the hem, and an opal. A fire opal, strung from a chain around his neck, the stone resting at the hollow of his throat.
It was the fire opal that drew her attention, reflecting an orange-red glow into the room, like flames from a blazing inferno. She’d seen it in the arena. It was all the talk amongst the females who followed the fights. Why did he wear it? Where had it come from? And why had his master not yet removed it?
Questions swirled in her mind as she looked from the opal to the wounds on his flesh, still oozing with blood. Then, finally, to his face.
A square jaw covered in dark stubble, lips set in a hard line, a nose slightly crooked as if it had been broken more than once. With the jagged red scar across his right cheek and the bruises marring his forehead, he looked hulking, feral, menacing. And his eyes… His eyes were dead pools of obsidian staring straight at her.
She stumbled backward, hit Zayd’s chest. But instead of shoving her forward as he’d done before, both of his hands closed around her upper arms, steadying her against him.
“My
jarriah
does not like what she sees?” A smile wound through Zayd’s words. “That pleases me. Greatly.”
This is not my life. This is not my life
! Tremors raced down her spine.
Zayd pushed her forward, this time moving with her. Her shoes scuffed along the floor as he forced her closer to the monster. “Take a good, long look,
jarriah
. See and smell what will soon be touching you.”
Tears burned Kavin’s eyes. A sob caught in her throat. Though she leaned hard against Zayd, she knew not to fight him or turn her head away. Knew if she did, he’d only lengthen the time she’d be sent to this hell with the monster.
The scent of death wafted in the air around her. That and the bitter bite of blood and sweat. She kept her focus on the opal, tried to breathe through her mouth and not her nose so she wouldn’t get sick, but knew Zayd was waiting. He wanted to feel her fear. Wanted to make her writhe because he was a sick son of a bitch who got off on that kind of thing. Her skin grew tighter, her legs weaker as she fought from giving him what he wanted. But he wasn’t letting go. And knowing it was the only way he’d release her, she finally chanced a look up.
The monster’s gaze was fixed on the wall over her shoulder, not on her. But this close, she could feel the heat rolling off him in waves, see the muscles flex beneath his skin with coiled restraint. He wanted to hurt her. She saw it in the way his jaw clenched, in the way his hands curled into fists at his sides. He hated her simply because she was Ghul and he was Marid. Because her race had enslaved him here in these pits. Before she could stop it, the way he’d beheaded the Shaitan in the arena flashed in her mind. How he’d so easily decapitated the djinni with such violent ferocity.
He wouldn’t kill her? How could he not? His sheer size, his obvious strength, and his bitter hatred made her impending death so obvious it shook her to her core.
She turned her head away, slammed her eyes shut. Tried to curl into Zayd at her back.
This is not my life
!
A menacing chuckle echoed through Zayd’s chest. Then his hands softened at her arms, and he took a step back, tugging her gently with him until, finally, there was space between her and the monster. “Guard!”
Metal clanked metal, followed by a whoosh of air spilling into the room as the door opened. A burst of light rushed into the dark space, blinding Kavin. But all she could focus on was the blessed air and the fact she was safe.
For now.
Zayd gripped her hand and pulled her toward the light. Relief spiraled through her veins. To the guard, he said, “Contact me when the slave has been prepared.”
And just that fast, with one simple sentence, the relief she’d felt fled like a thief in the night. Until all that was left was a rolling sickness in her belly over what horror she’d find waiting when her master forced her to return.
Chapter Two
Kavin stared at the layer of bubbles floating on the surface of the water, feeling as if she were floating right along with them. Warmth enveloped her limbs as she lay in the marble pool, but she was cold to her very core. And the memories of the monster in that cell…
A shudder ran through her.
“
Jarriah
is cold?” Hana, the servant girl tending to Kavin, moved around a column that soared to the intricately carved ceiling and poured more steaming water from the large bronze pitcher in her hand into the bath. The aromatic scents of roses and orange blossoms wafted in the warm air, but Kavin still shivered.
Hana’s sandals clicked along the polished stone floor as she moved up the wide steps and knelt at Kavin’s back. She reached for a sponge from the side of the pool, dipped it in the water, then dragged it across Kavin’s shoulders and upper back. “
Jarriah
is tense, too. I take it your meeting with the
sahad
did not go well.”
“The word
sahad
makes him sound like some romantic gladiator.” Kavin sat upright, the water sloshing against her bare breasts, the girl’s voice cutting through her frenzied thoughts for the first time since she’d been sent to the baths to prepare herself. “He’s not. He’s a repulsive monster. He’s…”
Bile rose in her throat, but she forced it down, just as she’d done before. This was what was expected of her—to go willingly to meet her fate and complete her test—but every muscle in her body screamed
Run
!
Escape
!
Disappear before it’s too late
! Only she couldn’t. Her djinn powers were bound, and even if they weren’t, she’d never developed them. If she fled Zayd, he’d find her before she even reached the city wall. She’d be captured and executed. And even though something in the back of her mind whispered death might be better, she didn’t want to die. She wanted to live.
Tears burned her eyes. Tears of injustice and rage and disbelief. When she’d been with her family, she’d been free. Now she was nothing but property. A slave. Soon to be a
jarriah
. Her stomach rolled over at the thought. Soon her only worth would be in fulfilling the lascivious needs of her master.
If, that was, she survived her test.
Anger threatened to run over in a hot wave of tears she just barely held back. She covered her face with her hands, hating that she couldn’t just scream out her frustrations alone. That this servant was here to witness the last moments of her freedom.
“Shh,
jarriah
,” Hana said as she ran the sponge down Kavin’s bare back and smoothed her wet hair from her face. “It could be worse. He could be Shaitan. Or Infrit. Or one of the Ghuls from the Wastelands. He is Marid. This is a benefit to you.”
“A benefit?” Kavin shot over her shoulder. “I don’t see how any monster raping me for the sick pleasure of some highborn is a benefit, regardless of his tribe.”
Hana harrumphed, then scrubbed the sponge down Kavin’s arm rougher than necessary. “You only focus on the negative. Not the positive. You must accept the fact you are a slave now,
jarriah
. No different from me or even that djinni you call a monster. Choice is no longer yours. The sooner you accept your fate, the easier your life will be.”
Her life? Easy? Despair washed through Kavin as she stared at the marble along the far edge of the rectangular pool that could easily accommodate ten and, knowing her lecherous master, probably did, routinely. There was no such thing as easy anymore.
Hana moved around the corner of the pool so she could reach Kavin’s right arm and gentled her touch as she trailed the soapy sponge between Kavin’s fingers. “You also overlook the fact the
sahad
is Marid.”
Kavin glared at the dark-haired girl, her despair angling right back to anger. “What does his being Marid have to do with anything?”
“Do you not know?” Hana’s fingers stilled against Kavin’s, and an amused expression lit her dark eyes. “Marid view females quite differently from Ghuls.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
Hana refocused on her task. “They do not treat females as property but as treasures. The
jarriah
test is Ghul alone.”
“How do you know this?” Kavin asked skeptically.
Hana stepped over the side of the pool and eased into the water, the thin fabric of her simple servant’s dress soaking up the aromatic liquid as she lifted Kavin’s other arm. “When I first came here, I was told of a
jarriah
who was Marid. She’d been captured during raids on the Kingdom of Gannah.”