“Who?”
“My side. Te’s side.” He shrugged. “And now, you also have to worry about the wolf’s side. They are a far from selfless species.”
She lowered her brows, studying him as if she’d never seen him before. “Shape me? Mold me—like clay? You’re actually admitting that’s what they’re trying to do? Aren’t you going to get in trouble for telling me this?”
“Probably.” He shrugged. “I might even be recalled. But then, maybe that’s for the best. We should never have been assigned to you, Shev and I. The hu—
Greg
is correct, it was unusual. And I find I am not as equipped for this as my partner.” She could see him gesturing with his hands, reaching for the words that were beyond his grasp. “I can’t—I don’t think clearly around you. If I did, I wouldn’t act as impulsively. I am here to watch over you. Protect you. Not cause you more pain. Not allow my personal feelings or petty jealousy to jeopardize your well-being.”
“I’ll be damned,” Aziza whispered, lifting her hand to his beautiful face. It was still beautiful. Flawless. How could she not be drawn to him, despite his recent behavior? She ran her thumb over his lower lip and his lashes lowered for a moment, as if savoring the touch. “I think that was a genuine apology.”
He covered her hand with his own and gazed into her eyes with an emerald fire that rivaled the flames she’d been creating. “And if it was, precious Aziza, would you accept it? Would you trust me?”
She tugged on her hand gently, until he released her, and lowered it to cover the box in her lap. “I might be able to accept. But trust? I need more time for that, Ram. It’s too much, you know? It’s all happened too fast. Right now I can’t tell where anyone stands. If I can trust them. I’m not even sure I trust myself.”
He looked down, trying and failing to hide his disappointment. “I see.”
She bit her lip. She shouldn’t judge him so harshly. No one in her new entourage was truly innocent, herself included. She’d made so many impulsive decisions in the last few years. Her eyebrow lifted at that, knowing it was more like the last few hours.
What she’d done last night in the stables—secrets and lies, riddles and tricks—that wasn’t her. But it had been. She’d allowed her friend to be “pushed” into leaving her alone in the stables with Ram, and had begged Brandon to take her without letting him know someone was watching, participating. And there was a deviant, perverted part of her that had found that fact more arousing than she wanted to admit.
She might be more like the Jinn Brandon hated than the human side he was actually drawn to. She didn’t have the right to judge anyone. She was no innocent.
Penn was. Her aunt hadn’t asked for her house to be turned into danger central. She hadn’t asked to have her life threatened, her relationship ruined or her family slaughtered. It wasn’t her destiny.
But it was Aziza’s to protect her. As far as she was concerned, that was the only rule she was bound to follow. The only way to save her own soul. The rest of the world be damned, but if anyone tried to harm a hair on Penn’s head, they would die. She just needed to know more if she was really going to protect Penn.
She took Ram’s hand and focused.
Conceal.
She imagined the strange blonde Niyr and the world of the Jinn on the other side of those “windows” disappearing from view. They could no longer see her. No longer watch what she was doing. What Ram was doing. This house was cloaked and protected.
Her hand began to tingle then burn, and she looked over at Ram with a smile. “I’ve decided to give you another chance to earn my trust.”
His head lifted, his expression hopeful but confused. “How?”
She tilted the lockbox and looked down at the small keypad on the side, which she hadn’t noticed when she first picked it up. She had a feeling she knew the code Tarik had chosen.
Her birthday.
“No one can see or hear us for the moment. I’m going to open this box and I want you to promise you won’t try to take anything that’s inside it away from me.”
“I promise you.” His voice was sincere. Intense. “But that can’t be all you want from me.”
“You’re right. I was thinking about this treaty of yours,” she murmured. “After what I learned today, you can hardly blame me. It seems strange that they went to the trouble of creating a Fireborne—something you say is the ultimate law for both Jinn and Niyr—and made it so pivotal to their agreement. Why? There are werewolves dispensing justice all the time, and you obviously have your own system of punishment. The Niyr’s, I’m not as sure about, but their obsession with consensus seems to be a law unto itself.”
She heard the lock release and opened the lid. “So now, here where no one can see us—everyone in the house is asleep—maybe you can explain it to me. Why create something more powerful than yourself—because Shev said I
was
more powerful—as part of the treaty and include an imperative to keep it safe? To continue the line at all costs? Maybe if I understood that, I’d be able to get why someone has gone to so much trouble to kill my family, knowing what the end result would be. And why everyone but my Qarin seems determined to watch from the sidelines without interfering.”
“Don’t ask me that, Aziza.” Ram had gotten to his knees, obviously not concerned about the steep slope of the roof. “The treaty happened a long time ago, and I’m not now, nor have I ever been, in a leadership position. I’m not privy to the reasons for their actions or their current inaction. All I have are opinions, a few of them treasonous if said aloud.”
Aziza saw a small notebook next to the vial of black sand. Old and faded, the leather covering frayed at the edges. She knew it wasn’t Tarik’s, but he obviously thought it was important. Other than that the box was empty.
It called to her, the sand. The way it had before. It wanted her to hold it and she didn’t resist. She wrapped her fingers around it and pulled it to her chest, closing the box to keep the notebook safe for another time, while she responded to Ram. “It’s only treasonous if someone in power can hear you.”
She lifted her other palm, the circle still solidly black. “I suppose I should have frozen time instead, but I love the sounds of this place at night. The feel of the breeze. And I think I’ll be using this ability more than I should if you want to know the truth.” She took a breath. “If you want my trust, Ram, you’ll at least make an educated guess. Just try saying the first thing that comes to your mind. Why end the Fireborne line? Just to nullify the treaty?”
“Yes.” He spoke swiftly, and she knew it was something he’d already thought about. “I can’t imagine another reason. A Fireborne is activated if the treaty and the neutral ground it was sanctified on are in danger due to an unforgivable act or if there’s a true threat of war. Your line was meant to ensure we would never go that far again. Too much is at risk.”
“Sounds serious.” The sand warmed her hand through the glass. “So do you believe
anything
that countermands the treaty would instantly start a war? No renegotiation? No censure?”
“Everyone believes it.” Ram looked down at his own hands. “The Niyr would destroy every last Jinn in existence if they had the opportunity. And if offered a loophole, I know they would take it.”
“I suppose your side is completely innocent?”
“Not completely. In fact, I’d be willing to concede that our actions here, what we did to and with humans, were what initially brought us to their attention. We weren’t always as evolved as we are now.” He sent her his most charming smile, but his gaze was hard. “That doesn’t change the fact that the Niyr don’t just want to win. They want to commit genocide.”
She shuddered, feeling his sincerity. He believed what he said, without question, but how could it be true? Te was lacking a certain emotional component, but genocide? “That’s a big word to throw around.”
“It was a big war.”
And no one truly trusted the peace. But they’d kept it. Why? Just because of her? It didn’t smell right. “Either both your people have way more impulse control than mine—” she tilted her head thoughtfully, “—or we’re still missing something.”
“What do you mean?”
She’d obviously given up her rule to stop thinking. Suddenly it was all she could do. Something was gnawing at her. Twisting her stomach in knots. What wasn’t she seeing? “In my world, threats of force don’t work. The only way to force people to go against their nature that profoundly and for that long is to make sure everyone has something to lose. All sides put skin in the game. And it’s not me. I can feel it. What is in that treaty that they feared enough to create my line in the first place? What did each side stand to lose if the peace failed?”
“I don’t know.” Ram was studying her strangely. “No one but those in the highest positions of power are allowed to view the original document. We learn what we need to know of it as children. Learn that travel here is monitored and at the discretion of the Enforcers. That the Fireborne line is to hold a place of honor in our hearts, along with the spirit of the first mother, and never to be harmed. That, if a Fireborne should die, it would mean our end. If one should awaken, we will be judged for our actions and punished or rewarded accordingly.”
It made her sound terrifying. A horseman of the damn Apocalypse. She heard the front door open below them and held her breath.
Brandon. He walked in swift, long strides toward the woods, no hesitation, no looking back. He was so determined in his movements that he obviously didn’t sense them watching. Where was he going so late at night?
Reporting on her actions to his fellow enforcers?
Not Brandon. He wouldn’t.
But you still aren’t sure. Or is that just your own guilty conscience talking?
“I don’t know what I should do,” she whispered. “I really didn’t want this.”
Ram’s hand reached out to caress her lower back, warm and soothing. Her skin tingled at his touch. “I know you didn’t.” His voice was soft. “And as much as I’ve enjoyed our time together, I wish, for your sake, that you’d been able to make the choice for yourself. That you’d known there was a choice at all.”
She lifted her chin and steeled her spine at his words. She hadn’t known about her family or her father’s legacy. She hadn’t known what to do with her life without her brothers, without guidance. She hadn’t known what was happening to her or why she’d been thrust into the middle of a world she didn’t understand.
She hadn’t known anything.
She looked down at the vial in her hand and watched it shimmer. She could see the life in the dark sand now. The power in it. She still didn’t know everything. Still had so many questions about the part she had to play in the coming events.
But she knew this.
Ram’s emerald gaze went wide with shock when she smiled at him and said, “You get
your
wish, genie. I’m making a choice now.”
She closed her fingers over the glass vial and squeezed until it shattered in her hand. The cuts made her flinch and she watched the blood drip from the side of her fist and relaxed her fingers, ignoring the sting as she pulled out the small slivers of glass, slowly and methodically, knowing what was about to happen.
“Aziza,
why
?” Ram sounded heartbroken. Was he worried? For her? “I knew it would happen. Knew you’d be more. But there’s no way to know what will—why would you do this in front of me? Once my people know…”
She stood, still holding out her hand to watch the black sand coalesce and move into her new wounds. Another oath in blood. This one consciously done. The sand, at least, had accepted her decision. “My choice.”
Her skin burned and she caught the scent of charring flesh. She looked down but there were no marks on her other palm.
“Your forehead.” Ram got to his feet and reached for her. “It’s burning into your forehead.”
She reached up to touch the mark, feeling the coarse brand, the pain. Accepting it. “Thank you, Tarik,” she whispered, lifting her arms up to the sky.
Despite her earlier denial, she knew she needed this. To accept it. Accept what was happening. It was the only way she would understand. The only way she would be able to make a choice. The fiery euphoria pumping through her veins demanded no less.
She turned toward Ram with her arms still in the air. “Maybe now I can fly.”
Aziza allowed herself to fall backwards off of the roof. The world felt as if it were moving in slow motion. She saw the roof rising up higher and higher. The clear night sky full of sparkling stars. Then, just before the world went black, she saw the horror on Ram’s beautiful face as he dove off the roof after her.
He did have the prettiest eyes.
Fuck, she hurt. Every bone in her body ached. The side effect of falling off a second story roof, she thought ruefully. She was lucky she wasn’t dead. “Lucky me, still alive,” she grunted, rolling to her feet.
Lucky to be alive.
When had it happened? When had she stopped being resigned to death and actually decided to fight? When she’d crushed the vial in her hand? Or a second after she’d taken a header off her aunt’s manor home?
A familiar male voice laced with irritation made her gasp. “It’s not luck, Aziza. Ram caught you before you landed. What will be lucky is if he doesn’t end up dying of a heart attack. What kind of stupid, childish stunt was that?”
“Tarik?”
She whirled around on her heels and saw him. Her brother. Tall and handsome, with a strong jaw, golden skin and brilliant blue eyes. He was even wearing the same clothes she’d last seen him in. A blue button-down cotton shirt and a pair of khaki pants. He looked peaceful. Happy. The way he’d sounded in his letter.
She blinked slowly, her eyes widening when he didn’t disappear. How?
Tarik was alive and standing right in front of her in the middle of…the desert path surrounded by dunes and strewn with jewels and ruins from her dream. The last time she’d been here she’d seen Tarik’s dead body. Adam’s.
Greg’s.
Just a dream
, her heart cried. She looked up at him. “You’re not really my brother, are you?”