She tried to concentrate on what he was saying instead of on her desire to rub up against him like a cat. “I don’t know. It’s never happened to me before.”
“I can’t take the chance. I’m not done with you yet.” Without another word he released her wrists and bent down to grip her hips, lifting her over his shoulder.
Aziza shrieked. “Wait. Where are you taking me? Put me down right now.”
She lifted her head and saw Ram, still frozen in place, the crushed yellow rose at his feet. “Damn it, you don’t know what you’re doing. I can’t leave. My friend is—”
“You won’t be harmed,” he assured her. “I promise you will be returned once I am satisfied.”
“You don’t know what I can do,” she bluffed. Not even she knew what she could do. Greg. She had to get back to Greg. “Seriously, my friend isn’t safe. You can’t just take me away without my consent.”
He never slowed his stride. “Among other things, I smell Jinn on you, Aziza Stewart.
In you.
And unlike your
friend
, you haven’t been processed. I can do whatever I want with you.”
Chapter Six
“And this is what happens when you get flirty with a stalker.”
Aziza was talking to herself. She knew no one could hear her. Not Ram or Shev, not even creepy little Te. And no amount of mental commands could make her hands fire up again. Why? Now would be the perfect time, she was certainly emotional enough. If she could melt glass, surely she could melt this wall. But she wasn’t secure enough to take out the earring and find out yet, damn it.
Once she got out of this,
if
she did, she’d get back to Greg and
never
come on to anyone again. At least, no one outside of North America. Based on her last two experiences, England just wasn’t working out for her.
“Understatement. And ridiculous. You get locked in a metal torture chamber and left to ponder your own insanely overactive hormones, and you think promising celibacy will get you out of the situation. Stupid, Aziza.” She could almost hear Greg’s chuckle of agreement.
Greg. She hoped Shev would take care of him. Hoped he would forgive her for getting into trouble the instant she left his sight.
She looked around her prison again. No one would ever believe she was just a fifteen-minute walk from the bakery. In a room above a pub, no less. A room within a room. No windows. No bed. Just four bare walls, a bench and a set of shackles hanging from the ceiling, all seemingly made from the same material.
“Let me guess.” She sighed, recalling the way Brandon had responded to Ram. “Iron.”
The door opened, revealing the large figure of the man she wanted to kick directly in the face. “Yes. Iron.”
He closed the door behind him and pulled out the key, slipping it in his pocket. “Were you aware that iron is one of the most abundant elements on Earth? It’s everywhere, even in our blood.”
Blood? Aziza paled. “I think I’m deficient. Anemic. I wouldn’t have enough for…anything you could think of, really.”
He sent her a bemused sideways glance before he continued. “When I was young I asked my father why, if the devils were affected by something as prevalent as this simple metal, they kept returning to plague us. Why they could still possess humans and cause mayhem if iron truly was their Achilles heel.”
He laid his hand on the wall, as if taking comfort from the cool, smooth surface. “He told me then that the iron must be forged. Fashioned. For some reason, shaping it with our hands, with intent, added an element that, while undetectable by us, changed the material and transformed it into the perfect weapon. The same is true for the Shiners with gold, you know. Which is why this room is lined with that as well.”
Shiners? She thought about Te’s platinum hair. His glowing hands. He must mean the Niyr. He knew about them too? She was currently too ticked to indulge her curiosity. “This is fascinating, and I’d love to find out more about blacksmithing. And I can’t imagine anything better than getting into a deep conversation about who the hell you think you are, other than a kidnapping criminal, but I really need to go now.”
“What are you, Aziza Stewart?” His words were subdued, as if he’d been upset by her words. Felt guilty.
“Fine.” She placed her hands on her hips, impatience thrumming through her veins. “Last week I would have said free spirited, but this week they’re calling me a Fireborne. And don’t ask me what that is because I don’t know. Can I go now?”
His amber eyes widened. “I may know that word. At least, it sounds familiar.”
“Great. You’re already a few steps ahead of me.” Her tone was snide. “Can I go now?”
“Are you worried about the Jinn? You saw it for yourself before we entered this room. When that thing on your hand disappeared everyone started moving again. His kind can take care of themselves. That and inflicting damage is all they know how to do, anyway.”
She liked him better when he wasn’t talking. “Do you remember that man? That normal, ordinary
human
man I was with on the Ferris wheel?” Brandon nodded and she clenched her fists, feeling helpless. Careless. She didn’t care if Ram hadn’t wanted him to know. He seemed to know about nearly everything else already.
She just needed to find out if Greg was okay.
“Last night he got zapped with enough information to fry every computer on the planet. I went to get him breakfast this morning, hoping when I got back he’d start making sense again, and I would know that I hadn’t destroyed my best friend’s life because of—” she motioned to herself, “—because of whatever I am. Now he’s either alone or at the mercy of a female Jinn with sexual energy to burn, and I don’t know what’s going on. I can’t protect him, can’t help him, because
you
decided to pick me up off the street with some lame excuse about my smell, stick me in this room and give me a lecture on
iron
.”
He stared at her for long, tense moments. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking. Feeling. She was just about to scream at him to elicit some response when he reached in his back pocket and removed her phone, handing it to her without a word.
Was this a trick? She wasn’t sure how he wanted her to respond. “Thank you?”
“I’ve made another mistake.” He was looking at her so strangely. She could see what he was feeling now. A combination of yearning, regret and desire so profound it almost buckled her knees. “I shouldn’t have brought you here. Call your friend to check on him, and then I’ll take you home.”
She dialed Penn’s landline and, after only one and a half rings, Greg picked up. “Aziza?”
“It’s me.”
His shout of relief was so loud she had to hold the phone away from her ear. She saw Brandon’s lip twitch. “Are you all right, Greg? Are you safe?”
“Am
I
safe? Yes, my time in the land of the shiny bright lights is in my rearview and fading fast. I’ll tell you all about it another time. Right after you forgive me for letting you go out on your own and tell me where you disappeared to that none of your Qarins can find.” Greg lowered his voice. “Ram is so pissed off he’s literally climbing the walls. It’s freaking me out.”
Aziza was laughing and crying at the same time. Tears of relief this time. Greg was back.
Her
Greg. He was okay. “Well, we don’t want to freak you out any more than we already have. I’m okay. I’ll be back—” she snared Brandon with her gaze, studying his expression, “—really soon. I’m fine, I promise, I just need to do a little more investigating.”
“Investigating? What are you investigating? Wait, Aziza, Ram wants to talk to you.”
She ended the call with a flick of her finger. “Brandon what?”
“Excuse me?”
She turned the phone off. “Your name. You know where I live, where I go,
my
name and God knows what else about me…so Brandon what?”
“Nash.” He lifted his eyebrow as if in question. “Brandon Lovell Nash.”
She smirked. “Lovell? That’s very British. Is there a ‘the third’ or a long drawn out title after that name?”
“Sorry to disappoint you. Are you asking so you know who to press charges against for abducting you before your ability wore off?” He didn’t seem worried.
“No one would believe me if I tried.” She shrugged. “Next question. What, other than Jinn and a woman who hasn’t showered since yesterday, do I smell like?”
The skin on his cheekbones darkened above his facial hair. “It’s difficult to explain.”
“You owe me.” She gave him a look that she hoped told him she meant business. “Try.”
“Everything. Jinn. Shiner. Human. All of them and none of them.” He paused, lowering his voice. “I’ve never run across anything like it.”
All of them and none of them.
Greg had said that. She still wasn’t entirely sure what that meant. Or at least, not sure she really wanted to know. Aziza shivered. God, his voice was so damn sexy. Distracting.
She liked that about him.
Aziza held out her hand. “Give me the key to the door.”
He didn’t need to be asked twice. The rough texture of his fingertips scraped her skin when he placed the key in the palm of her outstretched hand. She slipped it into the small, hidden pocket near the bottom of her corset.
He crossed his arms, still studying her as if she were going to sprout wings or disappear. “You aren’t going to use it?”
“Not yet. First, Mr. Brandon Lovell Nash, you are going to apologize for bringing me here against my will.”
His expression sobered. “Of course. I apologize.”
“So quickly?” Since when did sincerity turn her on? “Even though you said it’s within your rights?”
“Even though.”
She took a breath. “You’re also going to apologize for pretending to be interested in me with all that tasting and growling you did to distract me from your nefarious kidnapping plot.”
His lip quirked upward, drawing her attention to the beard she wanted to feel scraping across her skin. “Now I should apologize for something I didn’t do?”
She turned the length of the room, her hands behind her back, trying to act unaffected. Cool. “But you did. I think having your hand down a woman’s pants definitely implies interest, don’t you?”
“Without doubt. I meant there was no pretense.”
There it was. That golden light in his eyes that she’d seen in the alley.
Remember what you just promised yourself, Aziza.
She did. But he hadn’t hurt her. Hadn’t touched her. And when he’d realized how worried she was about Greg, he’d agreed to let her go.
She had to know more.
“So, I get that you’re some kind of hunter of the supernatural. You obviously know about them and Ram had to show you his traveling papers or bracelet or whatever.” She bit her lip. “Are you the police? I mean, for them? Are you the
them
police?”
A short bark of laughter that looked like it had surprised him as much as it had her escaped from between his lips. “I suppose that is precisely what I am. Though the preferred term is
Enforcer
. And technically
they
are not supernatural. Their existence here is entirely
un
natural. It breaks laws put in place long before we existed, and it has consequences. Which is why they must have permission when they come through. Why their numbers are monitored. Why we watch them to ensure they don’t break our rules while they are here. If they do, we have the ability to keep them from using their powers to escape while we investigate. Then they get out. Or they die.”
We? Die?
She swallowed past the lump in her throat. “That’s a harsh penal system you have there. But what do you mean ‘come through’? Come through where?”
She’d surprised him again. “You don’t know? But you were talking to one of them. You smell—”
“Like one of them, I remember us just covering that. Right before you mentioned them being unnatural.” She stopped him, not wanting to think about what she was anymore. Not wanting
him
to think about it. She wanted to focus on him.
She needed more information. Maybe it would help her discover why she found him so irresistible. “So you have gifts too, then? The Enforcers? You can smell Jinn when they arrive from wherever it is they come through?”
He inhaled deeply, his lashes concealing the golden flecks in his eyes. “We covered it but I don’t think you understand. You don’t just smell like them. That would be too easy. That’s just a small piece of it. Your scent, the part that‘s human? Just you? It’s different… And now you’re uncomfortable.”
“You can smell that?” She stepped back self-consciously. “Stop it right now. I’m not sure if you know this, but the last thing a woman wants to hear from a man she’s recently thrown herself at is that she smells. Especially when she’s slept in her clothes.”
A single long stride brought him halfway across the small room. “What if the smell is addictive? What if it smells like hunger and sex and the air after the rain? Would she want to know then?”
Yes, please.
“Maybe. But maybe before the flattery goes to her head she wants to find out why the supersniffing-police-of-all-things-magical kidnapped her in the first place. And why you’re so willing to let me go without a fight.”
He hesitated. “You’re unique and you were in my territory. I needed to know what you were. Who you were. It seemed simple enough, but I didn’t think it through. An issue that’s been occurring with more and more frequency these past few days.”
Because of you
, his look implied. She distracted him. Well, in that case, they were even. She sensed it as he spoke. The now-familiar feeling that told her she was about to do something without thinking it through. About to act impulsively on the desire she’d had since she’d first laid eyes on him.
“So if I
were
dangerous…” she lowered her voice and moved close enough to run her cell phone teasingly over his chest, “…and you wanted to know more about me, you’d—what? Clap me in irons?”
“Yes.” The rough texture of his voice scraped deliciously up her spine.
“Those irons? The ones above my head?”
“Yes.” He took her phone out of her hand. “What are you doing?”