Aisling placed the falcon upright on the dirt and retrieved the small ceremonial athame from its hidden sheath sewn into the back of her pants. With a quick slicing motion she made a shallow cut across her lifeline.
Her blood welled, beaded. When there was enough of it pooled in her palm, she cleared her mind of everything but a single word, a single name. She held her hand over the falcon so her blood fed it, and called the one she needed as the spirit winds swept in, cold and fierce, to claim her.
CHAPTER 9
ZURAEL wasn’t surprised to look through the window of the occult shop and see a bare spot on the shelf where the figurine had been. “It’s gone,” he said, wondering if the shop assistant removed it or if the unknown Javier returned and did so after learning the crystal had flared to life.
Next to him Irial shrugged and said, “Which only increases my interest in it. Given the protections around the shop, I suspect it’s still inside, hidden away. Perhaps you can convince the shamaness to steal into the shop and retrieve it for you.”
“No. She’s too important to risk.”
“For the moment.”
Zurael stiffened but held his words. He sensed Irial was baiting him, poking at him with a verbal stick as the truly foolish might do to a snake with a wooden one. But he didn’t make the mistake of labeling the eldest Raven prince a fool.
In the darkness between them, Irial’s teeth flashed white. “I’ll return to my father’s house and leave you to return to the child of mud. The shamaness is beautiful, Zurael, but she’s dangerous. I only had to look once to know she affects you physically. Don’t let her be your downfall. Stop coupling with her before you’re lost to the Kingdom of the Djinn.”
Irial’s form gave way to a swirling breeze. An instant later Zurael’s did the same, and he gained some relief from a cock hardened by the mention of coupling.
He felt the urgent need to return to Aisling, but he pressed forward in the opposite direction, toward the wealthiest area of town so he could provide the promised meal. With no flesh to slow him down, he moved quickly, though not as quickly as if he had simply moved through time and space between two places, leaving and arriving within a fraction of a second, regardless of the distance between the two points.
All Djinn had the ability to travel in such a manner. But doing so anywhere other than their kingdom prison resulted in the equivalent of a sonic boom on the metaphysical plane and left a trail for angels to follow.
He took form again a safe distance beyond where streetlights blazed defiantly against the darkness in an expensive, wasteful use of resources. The rich and powerful flirted with danger here. They walked the street, moved from bars to restaurants to chauffeured limousines, flaunting their wealth and their ability to pay armed bodyguards to insulate them from attack, to die in their place if necessary.
In his search for Aisling, he’d come here first, expecting to find her among the privileged. Now he could never picture her here. She belonged with-
Zurael cut the thought off, but unbidden came the image of her lying naked among pillows on his bed as a desert breeze made the thin curtains enclosing it flutter and part to reveal her waiting for him. Even if he wished it, she couldn’t enter his father’s kingdom. But that didn’t stop liquid hunger from spreading to his cock and testicles so he fought the urge to take himself in hand, to lose himself in the fantasy of coupling with her on silken sheets.
Aisling. She’d made him come to crave her body, the feel of her skin against his and the tight fist of her sheath around his cock. He should burn with the need to destroy her for how thoroughly she’d ensnared him. Instead he felt only the burning desire to get back to her and take her repeatedly, to hear her whimpered cries of pleasure and submission.
A shudder went through him as he once again imagined Aisling on her knees before him, her eyes dark with need, her lips slightly parted, glistening and ready to take him into her mouth. His cock urged him to hurry and his mind echoed the thought, forced him from the night and into the bright lights.
He realized his mistake immediately. The absence of bodyguards drew unwanted attention and aroused suspicion. Guns slid from openly worn holsters. Knives glinted underneath street and restaurant lights.
Zurael continued toward the closest restaurant-one offering Italian food-as if unaware of the alarm his presence caused. There were wards in place; sigils painted on the building warned of their existence. He doubted he’d be allowed inside and was relieved when a pale, frightened waiter was forced through heavy front doors to stand shaking between two armed guards.
The human offered a menu, his eyes never lifting to meet Zurael’s, for fear of being mesmerized. Vampire. It made Zurael chuckle when he realized that’s what they thought he was, and the reason they refrained from attacking. Even the wealthiest and most powerful of the children of mud would be cautious about raising a hand against a vampire who approached them without threat in such a public setting.
A quick glance at the menu and Zurael made his choice. He pulled a small gemstone from his pocket and handed it to the waiter to pay for the meal.
The red stone was a bauble of little value to the Djinn, but the waiter’s eyes widened and he hurried back inside with it. The restaurant owner himself brought out the food when it was ready. He rushed to assure Zurael that no offense was meant and babbled about his inability to change the wards preventing vampires from entering the building.
Zurael took the meal and retreated to the shadows. Once again he let his form fade into a swirling mass of unseen particles.
He was anxious to return to Aisling, and it showed in the force of the breeze he traveled in. By human standards it didn’t take long. By his own it seemed to take forever.
Fear gripped him when he re-formed in darkness and found Aisling’s pet scratching frantically at the metal door. The scrape of Aziel’s claws was a scream in the stillness of the night.
THE cold, gray fog of the ghostlands settled at Aisling’s feet. It twined around her ankles in greeting like Aziel had once done as a cat.
From the white-gray nothingness, a welcome figure emerged, a beautiful woman wearing a silken, flowing robe made of woven feathers. “The soul you seek has already been claimed. He resides now in a place you can’t visit, or I for that matter.”
Aisling thought of the blood-fed fetish and wondered if the payment already made would gain an answer to another question. She couldn’t quiet the doubts and fears that had plagued her earlier, or dismiss her curiosity. “Does my father reside here? Is he demon?”
The spirit guide lifted her arm and the material gave the illusion of a wing unfolding. She offered a hand and Aisling took it without hesitation.
Warmth flowed into Aisling, as if in this land of gray, the sun still found its way in. With a gentle tug, she was pulled forward. The woman leaned in, pressed a kiss to her forehead. “You will know in time. For now I give you something of greater value. Return to your body and find it healed.”
Aisling returned as her front door crashed open. Before she could react, Aziel was there, followed immediately by Zurael.
She hurriedly slipped the bloodred falcon into her fetish pouch. Zurael’s eyes flashed with fury and the same promise of retribution she’d seen when she returned from the ghostlands in the witch’s garden.
“You followed him into the spiritlands,” he hissed, sparing a quick glance at her assailant’s body.
Aisling’s chin lifted though a shiver of erotic fear slid down her spine to stroke between her thighs in response to his expression. Phantom talons scraped across her neck as real ones had done earlier in the day. And in that instant the healing she’d been given by her spirit guide was far more important than answers about her father.