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.”
“Who told you about her tribe?”
“My mentor. The slave who trained me. She served the Marid female briefly. They gave her to a Shaitan for her test. Shaitans, as you know, jarriah, do not regard females of any tribe as treasures.”
Kavin swallowed hard as she eyed the Ghul slave marking wrapped around Hana’s left bicep—a serpent emerging from black flames. A marking Kavin would soon bear herself, once her test was complete. No, Shaitans were nearly as debased as the wild Ghuls who roamed the Wastelands. She knew her tribe had a bad reputation amongst other djinn, because those in the Wastelands weren’t policed—they raped and pillaged without remorse—but that didn’t mean all Ghuls were bad.
Unease rippled through her when she thought of Zayd and the other highborns who took whatever they wanted without regard for anyone else’s wants or needs. They dressed better than the Ghuls in the Wastelands, were educated and came from noble lines, but were they really any different? Then she thought about her parents, who’d taken the money Zayd had paid them as if it were a blessing. They’d not once tried to find her since they’d sold her. Finally, her mind drifted to what could have been—and probably was—done to a Marid female enslaved by Ghuls during a time of war.
Unease morphed to illness in the pit of her stomach. She looked away from Hana’s tattoo.
“She lived through her test,” Hana said, dropping Kavin’s arm and running the sponge across Kavin’s collarbone. “But she came back changed. Though she still spoke of her mate with hope, as if he could—someday—rescue her, the light was gone from her eyes. My mentor advised her to let her old life go and accept her new fate, but she couldn’t. She did not survive life as a jarriah.”
Shock rippled through Kavin. “The highborns killed her?”
“No, jarriah. She killed herself.”
Dread pooled in Kavin’s soul as she looked down at the soapy water, the bubbles slowly dissipating around her, much as her own will to live. Would that be her fate? If she survived her test, would she ever be able to accept her new role? Or would she slowly wither and die on the inside until there was nothing but a cold, empty shell of her former self left behind?
For the first time, she thought of the sahad in the dungeon of the arena not as a monster but as djinn. What had he been like before his imprisonment? Before being sent to the fighting pits of Jahannam? Had he always been a monster intent on death and destruction? Or had he been something—someone—more?
“Tip your head back, jarriah.”
Kavin did as Hana said and closed her eyes while questions swam in her mind. Warm water trickled down her hair to dribble along her shoulders. A click resounded as Hana set the pitcher on the edge of the pool, then the water rippled as the servant girl moved behind her. Strong fingers massaged Kavin’s hair into a lather.
Long moments of silence echoed through the vast room. Finally, Kavin said, “You mentioned Marid view females differently. That they don’t employ the test. Surely they have other means of keeping their jarriah in line.”
“They don’t keep jarriah.”
“Not at all?”
“Not at all.”
Kavin pondered that as the girl’s fingers moved down the length of wet hair at her back. “Then they must have many wives.”
“Only one.”
Disbelief rippled through Kavin, and she turned her head to the side, expecting to see humor on the slave girl’s face, indicating she was joking. Only, Hana’s face was stoic as she went about her duties. “You can’t be serious.”
“Completely. I told you before. Marid males mate for a lifetime. With only one female.”
Kavin could barely believe what she was hearing. “And what if the female dies?”
Djinn were known to live for a thousand years, but they weren’t immortal. Though they were generally immune to most illnesses, they could be killed, just like humans.
“That,” Hana said as she reached for the pitcher from the side of the pool and filled it with water, “is the only thing that could turn a Marid from civilized to barbarian.”
Kavin’s chest tightened as Hana rinsed her hair. And images of the sahad raining down death and mutilation in the arena, then later standing hulking and menacing in his cell, flashed in front of her eyes all over again.
Hana wrung the water from Kavin’s hair. “You are lucky your master is sending you to a Marid for your test. Considering their instinctive nature, you’ll most likely be safe, even if he is a sahad.”
She rose from the water and lifted a towel from the edge of the pool, which she held open for Kavin. Slowly, Kavin pushed out of the water and stepped into the bath sheet.
Hana wrapped the soft cotton around her naked body but didn’t move away. Instead, she leaned close. “Though, if he’s already lost his mate…” Her breath sent a shiver of foreboding down Kavin’s spine. “Then, if I were you, I would be afraid. I would be very afraid.”
* * *
Three males tattooed with the Ghul slave markings—just like the one Nasir sported on his left arm—treated his wounds.
They didn’t speak as they went about their duties, and Nasir stood still and unmoving as his cuts were stitched, just as he always did. But something was off. Unlike the normal treatment he received after a match, this time the slaves weren’t bathing the grime of the arena from his skin. In fact, the most cleansing they were doing was wiping the dripping blood, then covering the wounds thin bandages.
He didn’t know what that meant, but since he’d been sent to the pits nearly four months ago, not a whole lot surprised him. He stayed alive by staying alert. And right now, his senses were buzzing that something was up.
His gaze drifted from the wall across the room to the slaves around him. Each wore the traditional slave attire—loose gray pants, no shirt, sandals on their feet—and not a single one was more than half Nasir’s size. He knew he could take them if he wanted, but there was no reason. The threat wasn’t in this bathhouse but outside its rock walls. Where guards waited with weapons and magic Nasir couldn’t touch. Where an army of Ghuls itched for any excuse to execute him.
Rage rippled through his veins, the same bitter anger he felt whenever he thought of his captors, whenever he pictured the sorceress who’d trapped him to begin with, whenever he felt the firebrand opal brush the base of his throat. But he tamped down the urge to annihilate, just as he did every day, knowing succumbing to the rage now, before he’d had time to formulate his plan, would do nothing but get him killed.
His gaze swayed back to the wall, and his thoughts drifted to the Ghuls who’d visited his cell earlier. The highborn and the female he’d dragged in behind him. The female hadn’t been branded with the slave tattoo, so the Ghul couldn’t have been her master. Which meant she’d been there by choice, regardless of the little act she’d put on. Was she his lover? His mate? Nasir didn’t know—nor did he care—but some instinct deep inside said whatever the two had planned for him couldn’t be good.
The slaves finished their treatment of his injuries and turned Nasir for the door. Just as he’d predicted, there would be no bath for him today. Which meant someone wanted him to remain filthy. His newest punishment for remaining alive? To be treated as a rat instead of only caged like one?
They marched him down the long stone corridor back toward his cell. Guards in heavy armor with wicked blades were positioned every twenty feet, preventing any hope for escape this day. Heavy steel doors marked the openings to cells Nasir imagined were just as dank and depressing as his. He had no idea how many others were imprisoned here, but knew there had to be many. Every time they threw him into the arena, there was another djinni ready to gut him, as if they had an endless supply of slaves from all six tribes, just waiting to make their mark.
The slaves pulled him to a stop outside his door. The two guards stationed out front stepped to the side, t
hen the one on the right unlocked the door and pushed it open. Darkness beckoned, as did the ever-present scent of mildew and filth. From the corner of his eye, he saw Malik, his trainer, striding his direction down the corridor, speaking in hushed voices with a highborn—the same highborn who’d visited Nasir earlier.
The guard shoved him into his cell and yanked the door closed. A clank echoed through the room, followed by muffled voices from the hallway, but Nasir couldn’t hear what they were saying. Then footsteps receded until all that remained was silence.
Normally, a mu’allim spoke with his sahad after a match, but Nasir had yet to see Malik since killing that Shaitan. Another oddity.
Nasir pondered what that could possibly mean as he moved toward the dark corner of his cell. He didn’t bother to light the one lone candle he was given, nor did he lie on the dirty mattress. Instead, he eased down to rest his back against the cold, unforgiving stone wall.
Comfort was something he didn’t require anymore. There was only one thing that sustained him these days. Only one goal left to achieve. He drew his legs up, rested his elbows on his knees, and stared into the darkness as three words revolved in his mind.
Three words he repeated to himself over and over, day and night, so he wouldn’t lose focus. Three words he would one day soon turn to reality.
Kill them all.
* * *
Kavin’s stomach was so tight she was sure she was going to throw up.
After Hana’s little warning in the baths, she didn’t know what to expect. Nerves ricocheted through her body as the slave girl dressed her in a light blue gown. The dress was like all the rest she’d been given since coming to Zayd’s harem, the material expensive, the bodice work detailed. But she knew it wouldn’t look as extravagant and pristine when the monster was done with her. And that, she supposed, was the purpose of getting all gussied up. So the sahad could tarnish the dress just as he was going to tarnish her, thereby knocking her off any pedestal she foolishly thought she belonged on.