Forbidden (The Djinn Wars Book 6) Read online

  As she walked, though, she kept telling herself that she needed to keep things cool between them. Friendly, but nothing more than that. She still couldn’t quite explain her visceral reaction to him, but at least she knew the strange attraction existed, which meant she could work consciously to fight against it. If she’d been the type of person to easily fall into bed with someone, enjoy the physical sensations, and then move on, maybe she’d be looking at Aldair in a whole new light. In a way, that would have made things a whole lot easier. She could give her body the release it needed without having to compromise her heart — or her love for Jack — in any meaningful manner.

  But she wasn’t that person. Never had been. All she could do was find a way to coexist with Aldair until he had determined the best plan to leave her behind while still avoiding the djinn in Santa Fe. Then she could go back to her life in Los Alamos, and he could — well, he could go off and do whatever it was that djinn did. She was still a little hazy on that part. Surely they must do something to fill up all those long, long years, but she had no idea what that something might be. It would be a long walk to Santa Fe, but once there, she knew she could get one of the Chosen in town to drive her to Los Alamos.

  As she approached the Mine Shaft, she saw that little white fairy lights glistened from the porch just outside the bar. Had those always been there? She didn’t know, because the one time she’d driven through town with Jack, it had been daylight.

  She sort of hoped the lights had always been there. That would mean Aldair hadn’t put too much effort into this dinner.

  The ramp that led into the bar creaked slightly underfoot as she made her way inside. Almost as soon as she entered the building, Patches ran up to her, tail wagging. Obviously he didn’t have any particular misgivings about the evening that lay ahead.

  In here, too, were more of the little white Christmas lights, hanging around the edges of the room. Everything looked much shinier and cleaner than the last time she’d been in the tavern, so she guessed Aldair had tidied things up. Even so, there was only so much you could do to shine up a place like the Mine Shaft. It had a patina of age on its furnishings that could never be erased.

  Music played softly in the background. The jukebox, Jillian realized, although the song wasn’t the sort of loudly twangy country-western Aldair had disdained earlier. Still country, but a lot mellower. Not Patsy Cline, but something of a similar vintage.

  Aldair emerged from the door that led into the kitchen, looking completely out of place in his stormy blue and gray robes. These seemed more blue than the garments he’d worn earlier, almost a cobalt color, with shimmering silvery silk pants underneath. The fabrics were very beautiful, but nothing could quite erase the incongruity of a man wearing something that looked straight out of the Thousand and One Nights while he stood in a dive bar in Madrid, New Mexico.

  “Jillian,” he said with a smile, then gestured toward the room around them. “How do you like it?”

  “It looks a thousand percent better,” she replied. “I’m glad you thought of it.”

  “Good. Here — this is where we will sit.”

  He gestured toward a table near the window. For the first time, she realized that he’d cleared the room of all the other tables and chairs. It felt much bigger, although she wasn’t sure she liked the arrangement. Removing most of the furniture and only leaving them the single table and two chairs just seemed to point out how they were the only two people in town.

  But she wouldn’t comment on that. She managed to smile as she sat down at the table. From somewhere he’d located a tablecloth — they weren’t exactly standard issue here — and an old blue-tinted bottle was filled with the sunflowers that grew in every vacant lot and along the roadsides. They added a cheerful note, one that Jillian appreciated.

  “I should do that back at the house,” she said, pointing toward the flowers. “They grow everywhere, so it’s not as if I have to feel guilty about cutting a few.”

  “They are rather ubiquitous,” Aldair agreed. “But I am glad you like them.” From nowhere he produced a bottle of wine, and she blinked. Yes, he was a djinn and could conjure items out of nowhere as he liked, but it was still rather disconcerting to watch.

  But she didn’t make a comment as he poured dark wine into the glasses on the table, then sat down. Patches, who’d been lying down off to one side, came closer as soon as he realized that his chances of begging some table scraps were about to increase exponentially.

  And then plates appeared before both of them, each with a perfectly formed ribeye steak topped with melting bleu cheese, and spears of asparagus off to the side, and a stack of au gratin potatoes to the other. It was the sort of meal Jillian hadn’t had since before the Heat, and not very often then. Maybe something very special, like a birthday or an anniversary.

  “This looks wonderful,” she said.

  “Good. I have tasted many of your people’s dishes, but this was a meal I had several years ago, and wanted to replicate.”

  “So — so you spent time here on Earth…before?”

  He nodded as he picked up his steak knife and fork. “Yes. We djinn could come and go on this plane. We were not barred from that. But we could not make our permanent homes here. It was a place of respite, away from the otherworld.”

  “Is the otherworld all like the outer circles?” If that was the case, then she could begin to understand why the djinn had been so driven to take this world back for themselves.

  “No. But it is not nearly as pleasant as it is here, either. We took most of our resources from your world — there are so many fewer of us, your people never noticed the lack. But it is not all an empty desert like the outer circles. We have palaces, structures with enormous enclosed courtyards planted with trees and flowers, so we might believe ourselves elsewhere.”

  “That sounds beautiful.”

  A frown creased his brow, and he set down his fork after taking only a single bite of his steak. “It is only a counterfeit of beauty. It is not the real thing, for that can only be found here.”

  As he spoke, he watched her, piercing blue eyes seemingly intent on her face, and she couldn’t help glancing away. Surely he was only talking about the natural beauty of this planet, and nothing else.

  But….

  Jillian picked up her wine glass and took a large swallow. This was a darker, heavier red than the merlot they’d had the night before. She wondered where he’d gotten it. From the stores at The Hollar, the restaurant across the street? Or had he reached out much farther than that, to the abandoned wine shops and wine tasting rooms in Albuquerque, only some thirty miles away?

  All she did know was that he couldn’t have gotten it from anywhere in Santa Fe.

  “It is very beautiful here,” she said, her tone as neutral as she could make it. “Or at least certain parts of it. You probably wouldn’t find the Sahara Desert quite as inviting.”

  “No,” he agreed. “And I doubt it will ever be settled again. There is far too much land available in the more hospitable places in the world.”

  Yes, that was sadly true. Because of the information the Santa Fe djinn had shared with the community in Los Alamos, Jillian knew there were approximately twenty thousand djinn altogether in existence. Of them there was the much smaller subset of the One Thousand, the djinn who had protested the extermination of humanity and who had saved precisely one thousand human beings. But the One Thousand were segregated from the others of their kind, kept in small communities consisting of djinn and their Chosen. She didn’t know how many of such communities actually existed, since that particular fact hadn’t made it to Los Alamos. Maybe Zahrias, the leader of the Santa Fe djinn, didn’t know, either. It was enough that he and his people were safe.

  But the other djinn, the ones who had wanted this world for themselves — they’d already begun to spread across the globe, each taking a piece for themselves. It sounded as if the djinn elders had something to do with who got which piece, although the mechan
isms for how all that worked hadn’t been fully explained. All she did know was that a djinn who had a Chosen had to stay with his or her community; they couldn’t set up a homestead someplace and live away from the others with their human partners. The house where Jessica Monroe and her partner Jace lived sounded as if it was somewhat outside Santa Fe, but not so far that it was completely outside the boundary of the land grant the community had been given.

  “Why Taos?” she asked then, and Aldair lifted an eyebrow at her.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, your group was in Taos first before they moved to Santa Fe. So why there?”

  His shoulders lifted, and he reached to pick up his wine glass. “That was Zahrias’ decision. I do not know why. Not a very good choice, as it turns out, since the elders did not ultimately approve of the location. But as to why certain djinn of the One Thousand ended up in one place and not another…it was because of their Chosen. Those partners would have suffered enough shocks, and so every attempt was made to have them settle in the same region where they had lived before the world changed.”

  That did make sense. To lose everyone you’d ever known and loved was an unimaginable blow on its own. But to be taken from the place you were familiar with and brought someplace else entirely to live — that would have been almost too difficult to bear. Yes, she was from Albuquerque and had only visited Los Alamos a few times, but it still didn’t feel completely strange to her. The seasons, the vegetation, the shapes of the mountains — they were close enough that she had been able to adjust fairly well. But if she’d had to go to some other country altogether…Russia or Japan or South Africa…it would have been so much harder.

  Thinking of Taos only made her wonder once again about Aldair’s Chosen. He must have had one, and yet he didn’t seem to miss her very much. Only a single mention of her, and that just in passing. Surely he must have loved her. That was one thing Jillian knew very well. The djinn in Santa Fe were utterly devoted to their human partners. So why was Aldair so different? Because he’d been sent into exile, and thought he would never see her again? Even if that were the case, shouldn’t he be trying to get back to her, now that he had escaped? Yes, he would have to avoid the Santa Fe djinn, but their presence shouldn’t have been enough to keep him away if he truly cared. She knew Jack would have moved heaven and earth to be with her again if he’d been in a similar situation.

  Did she have the courage to ask the question? Then again, how could she not ask? If he had admitted to being one of those in Zahrias’ group, then he must realize she would want to know what had happened to the woman he had saved and brought to sanctuary in Taos.

  To gather her courage, Jillian sipped at her wine again. Across the table from her, Aldair had returned to his steak, but she could sense from a certain tension in his shoulders that he was anticipating what her next words might be.

  “What about your Chosen?” she asked. “What happened to her?”

  “That I do not know for sure,” he replied, although his gaze wouldn’t quite meet hers. He had to be hiding something. Precisely what, Jillian couldn’t guess. “Her name was Katelyn, and she came from Roswell. But — ”

  “Katelyn?” Jillian repeated, wondering if she’d heard him correctly. “Katelyn Fonseca?”

  Those brilliant blue eyes flared with surprise. “You know her? How is that possible?”

  “I don’t know her well, but yes, I’ve met her.” Talk about your coincidences. Watching as Aldair’s brows drew together, Jillian went on, “She came to live in Los Alamos about a year ago. Julia told us she’d lost her djinn partner earlier that winter, but she didn’t go into a lot of detail, only said that everyone had decided she would feel more comfortable being in Los Alamos rather than in Santa Fe, surrounded by djinn who might remind her of her loss. And Katelyn never talks about it. But eventually she bounced back, found her rhythm in the community. She’s with Shawn now.”

  Hardly any alteration of Aldair’s expression. “Shawn?”

  Jillian swallowed. Shouldn’t he have reacted much more to hearing that the woman he’d once chosen was now with another man? But since she’d embarked on this discussion, she knew she had no choice but to continue. “Shawn Gutierrez. He’s been running things ever since Julia left to be with Zahrias. We also have a sort of town council, but he’s the one who casts the deciding vote.”

  “Ah.”

  Just that single syllable, which could have meant anything. Jillian picked up her fork and ate a mouthful of mashed potatoes, since she really was at a loss as to what she should say next. Maybe she should let it go. Was it even possible for a djinn to relinquish his claim on a human woman? She had no idea, because she’d never encountered this particular situation before. For all she knew, Aldair’s exile to the outer circles had also cut his connection to Katelyn, making her a free agent.

  Jillian gazed across the table at Aldair. He still wore that tight, closed-off look, so she was having an even more difficult time than usual trying to read his expression. But since she’d raised the topic already, she figured she might as well plow ahead.

  “So you didn’t know? That is, I’d heard there’s supposed to be some sort of connection between djinn and their Chosen — ”

  “She was no longer my Chosen,” Aldair said abruptly. “I went into exile. Her destiny was her own after that.”

  So Jillian’s guess had been correct. She didn’t feel any particular satisfaction in knowing that, however, not when it was clearly a sore subject with Aldair. “And you’re not — you’re not going to try to get her back?”

  “Why would I do that? She’s decided on the path her life will now take. I will not interfere. Besides,” he added, after he picked up his wine glass and swallowed a large mouthful, “I am beginning to realize I might not have made the wisest of choices when it came to selecting her.”

  As he spoke, his eyes locked on Jillian’s, and a shiver worked its way through her body. Was he saying what she thought he was saying?

  No, she had to be flattering herself. Katelyn Fonseca was five years younger than she, a tawny-haired young woman with striking dark eyes and the perfect bone structure of a fashion model. In no way could Jillian ever think that she might be a more attractive candidate for a djinn’s Chosen than Katelyn. Anyway, she was too old. All Chosen had been twenty-five years old or younger when their djinn selected them, while Jillian was twenty-seven at the time the Dying had swept across the earth. Not that she could have ever gone willingly with a djinn, not when her heart had broken into a million pieces in that moment when she realized Jack was never coming home, that the Heat had taken him, too.

  “Has that happened with anyone else?” she asked. “That is, to have a djinn and their Chosen separate and go on with their lives?”

  “That I do not know.” His voice sounded even enough as he made his reply, although Jillian could tell he really didn’t want to continue this topic of conversation for much longer. “Certainly not in the Santa Fe community. That is, you told me of Lindsay, who is now with Miles Odekirk, but that is different. Her djinn partner died. It is not as if he is still living somewhere, seeing her with a new man.”

  No, that was an entirely different matter. “I suppose not.”

  “And our djinn communities do not communicate with one another. Or at least, mine did not while I still lived among them. It was always intended that they would be their own little islands, surviving separately from the rest of the djinn and their Chosen. The elders did not give their reasoning for this, but I think it was partly that they did not wish for the One Thousand to join together and become a force of their own. At any rate, because of that isolation, I cannot speak to what may or may not have happened in any other communities.”

  Spurred by a sudden impulse, Jillian reached across the table and laid her hand on his. Only for a moment, just to show her sympathy, but almost as soon as she had done so, she wondered if she’d done the right thing. Aldair didn’t move, but the warmth of his s
kin against hers was almost too much to bear. She said, “I’m sorry,” and moved her hand away, going to lift her wine glass as if that was what she had intended all along.

  “Don’t be sorry,” he replied. “There is nothing to be sorry about.”

  And he went back to his plate, gaze dropping from hers so she had to attend to her own meal, even though right then she didn’t feel very hungry, despite the excellence of the food. But she forced down mouthful after mouthful, determined that she would show the meal the respect it deserved. She owed Aldair that much, even if she had developed a clear case of foot-in-mouth disease tonight.

  Eventually, they had both cleared their plates, and only a few inches of wine remained at the bottom of the bottle. Aldair lifted it and poured half into Jillian’s glass, and the remainder into his own. As he set down the bottle, the jukebox, which had been playing quietly in the background the whole time, switched over to an old standard, sung by a woman Jillian didn’t recognize, but who had a husky, whiskey sort of voice.

  Aldair rose from his seat and extended a hand. “Dance with me.”

  He couldn’t be serious. Did djinn even dance, especially to human music?

  But he looked serious. Deadly serious. Jillian wasn’t sure how he would react if she declined. She wanted to. Or at least, part of her wanted to say no. The other part, the one that had shivered at the heat of his touch and couldn’t stop remembering what it had felt like to have his mouth against hers, wanted to very much.

  Almost without thinking, she got up from her chair and took his hand. “I’m not a very good dancer.”

  His mouth twitched in amusement. “I have seen this kind of dancing. It does not require a great deal of skill.”

  Well, she couldn’t really argue with that statement. When it came to slow dancing, about all you had to do was hold on to each other and shuffle around the dance floor a bit.