Bound to Seduction (15 page)

She eased back. Smiled up at him in the
early afternoon light. And knew the wish she’d made weeks ago was
the best wish of her life. “You want me to teach you something?
Wish for it, djinni.”

His grin warmed the last cold space inside
her. “My only wish is for you.”

“Your wish, my command,” she whispered as
his lips lowered to hers once more.

Don’t miss the next book in the Firebrand
series
…

Coming August 2012

Pain rippled through every inch of Nasir’s
body.

Muscles in his arms and legs quivering, he
pushed up on his hands. Gravel and sand embedded in his palms,
stabbed into his bare knees. Through bloody and sweat-dripping
hair, he looked toward the Shaitan across the arena, breathing
heavily, lifting his axe, ready to hurl the killing blow.

Roars
from the crowd dragged Nasir’s attention. His gaze shifted to the
stands, to the Ghuls waving their fists, chanting
kill
!,
kill
!,
kill
!as if he
were nothing more than an animal.

He ground his teeth, pushed up on his knee.
Refused to groan at the blinding pain in his shoulder. He wouldn’t
go down like this. Not on all fours in the fighting pits of
Jahannam, as entertainment for the most base and depraved djinn
tribe. He wasn’t afraid to die, but he wouldn’t do it as a coward.
And if he was going out, he planned to take the Shaitan out along
with him.

Fire cut across his ribs. His muscles ached
as he pushed to his feet, swayed but somehow managed to steady
himself. Blood dripped from the gash in his side, ran down his
torso to turn the cloth tied at his hips red. His vision
swayed.

He tried to focus on the djinn ahead. At the
looming hand of death. As a slave, the Shaitan’s powers were bound
in the arena, just as Nasir’s were, but the bastard didn’t seem to
mind. He had size and brute strength on his side. A smile cut
across his face. He knew Nasir was fading fast.

“
Kill
!
Kill
!
Kill
!”

The roars grew louder. The Shaitan growled
and charged. Gathering what was left of his energy, Nasir ducked
beneath the swinging axe, thrust out his sword and caught the
Shaitan across the back.

Blood spurted across Nasir and the ground.
The Shaitan arched his back and howled. Nasir’s adrenaline surged,
giving him the strength he’d lost. Whipping around before the djinn
could strike again, he stabbed his sword into the Shaitan’s
back.

The Shaitan’s eyes flew wide. The axe fell
from his hand as he dropped to his knees. Blood gushed over the
ground beneath his body, staining the sand of the arena. Breathing
heavy, Nasir yanked his blade from the dying djinn’s body, whipped
around and beheaded him in one clean move.

The Shaitan’s head hit the ground with a
thud, followed by his body. Gasps echoed through the arena, then
the chants fell silent.

Nasir’s chest rose and fell in an uneven
rhythm as he looked up into the stands. Disgust rolled through him.
They were savages. Every single one of them. Ghuls held no
allegiance to any other race of djinn. They didn’t care if the
winner of this battle was Marid or Shaitan. All they wanted was to
be entertained by a gruesome death.

He’d given them that these last few weeks.
And though it sickened him, he knew he’d give them more. Staying
alive was the greatest act of rebellion Nasir could thrust upon
those who had imprisoned him in this hell.

His arms shot to the ceiling, and he
roared.

The crowd exploded in excitement. Females
jumped up and down, clapping, waving vibrant colored scarves his
direction. Males cheered at the bloodbath at his feet.

Adrenaline pumped through Nasir’s veins. He
turned a slow circle, clenched his empty hand into a fist, stabbed
his sword higher into the air as he drank in their ovations. He was
a Marid warrior, son of the great king, and he’d decimated
every-fucking-thing those barbarian Ghuls had thrown at him.

This is not who you are
.

The voice hit him out of nowhere. Soft.
Feminine. Sweet. So familiar it stole his breath.

He dropped his arms to his side. Turned to
look behind him. Only there was no one close. He was alone on the
sand. In the deafening noise, he looked up into the stands, his
gaze skipping from one exuberant face to the next, searching for
her. But she wasn’t there. All he saw were hundreds of Guhls,
features of his enemy blending together in a wash of color until he
couldn’t focus on a single one. Until the arena spun around
him.

Something in his chest cinched down tight,
followed by the memory of Talah’s face. Her smile. Her gentle
spirit. The way she’d brushed her hand against his jaw and looked
at him with longing and love that last day, when he’d left her to
fight his father’s war.

When he’d left her to die.

This is not who you are, Nasir
.

She would not support this. She wouldn’t be
awed by his victory. She’d hated death as much as he had.

The adrenaline waned, leaving him empty and
cold inside. Leaving him feeling as dead as the Shaitan on the sand
at his feet.

His gaze drifted down to the mutilated body,
and for the first time since he’d been imprisoned—for the first
time since he’d lost Talah, really—he didn’t recognize himself. All
he saw was the monster he’d become.

* * *

Kavin pulled back on the hand gripping her
upper arm. “There has to be someone else.”

Zayd turned to face her, stopping in the
dank hallway of the dungeon beneath the arena. Cries of agony
echoed through the stone walls around them, making Kavin’s stomach
churn at the torture she could only imagine. The scent of death was
ever present, but Zayd didn’t seem to notice. His features were as
focused as she’d ever seen them, and his fingers pressing tightly
into her bare skin were a stark reminder that he was in control,
not her. “I choose who, female, not you.”

Kavin swallowed hard as she looked up at the
Ghul who would soon become her master. He was born of the
aristocracy and could have chosen any female as his latest
mistress, but he’d picked her. The fact her family had offered her
up without protest still burned in the pit of her stomach. “I…I
just think there must be one of better breeding. The Marid is an
animal. He—”

Zayd stepped close, tightening his grip
around her arm until pain shot up from the spot, cutting off her
words mid-sentence. “Which is exactly why he must be the one. To
appreciate all that I have to offer, you must first experience the
dreck at the bottom of society.”

Horror washed through Kavin. He really was
going to hand her over to that…that thing. “But he could kill
me!”

Something dark sparked in Zayd’s eyes, as if he enjoyed the
thought of that thing touching her. “He won’t. The Marid has a
strong will to live. And he knows if he brings harm to you, he’ll
be executed. This is the test of all
jarriah
, my dear. This is
your
test.”

Bile
rose in Kavin’s throat.
Jarriah
was just another word for concubine. A female sex slave.
One of many Zayd kept within his walls.

This is not my life
.

The words revolved in her head as he pulled
her down the dingy corridor. Her peach gown, the one she’d worn to
the arena today in the hopes of pleasing him, was now dirty and wet
all along the hem from the water that seeped through cracks in the
stones. How had this happened? How had she come to be in this
wretched place?

When her family had first released her to
Zayd, part of her had been excited. It was customary for
high-ranking males to pick and take the females they wanted. The
fact he’d chosen her? A commoner? It was practically unheard of.
She’d been blinded by his status and wealth and handsome good
looks. Had dreamt of marriage, even knowing most Ghul males took
multiple wives. But that had been okay with her, so long as her
master was kind. And if one day he grew to love her…then nothing
else would matter.

But there would be no love between them, she
knew that now, even before he’d officially made her his. He looked
upon her as nothing more than the slaves who battled to the death
in the pit of the arena. As entertainment to meet his depraved
needs. And he was now handing her over to the worst of those slaves
as a test. To be broken in by a monster, so that when she went back
to him, he would look like a shining knight.

He tugged her to a stop in front of a heavy
steel door. Two guards stood outside, looked from him to Kavin and
back again. The one on the right said, “He has not been
prepared.”

“
This
will not take long,” Zayd answered. “My
jarriah
is not here for a sample, but to simply meet the
mighty champion and congratulate him on his latest victory.” A
wicked grin curled Zayd’s lips. “Sampling will come
later.”

A sickening chuckle echoed from both guards,
and Kavin’s skin crawled as they both leered her direction. She
brushed her hair over her shoulder, tried not to let her fear
show.

The guards stepped aside. The one on the
left unlocked the door and pushed it open. “Scream if you need
us.”

Scream
?

Kavin’s pulse raced as Zayd pulled her into
the cell behind him. She felt the guard’s licentious gazes follow
as she stepped past them, but was more concerned with the monster
that lurked in the dark to worry about them. Zayd’s footsteps
echoed across the stone floor. A chill slid down her spine. As her
eyes tried to adjust to the darkness, she squinted, unable to see
anything but Zayd. For the first time since the arena, he released
his hold on her arm. The cell door clanged shut behind her, causing
her to jump and take a step closer to him.

A scraping sound echoed at her back,
ratcheting Kavin’s anxiety up even more, pushing her that much
closer to a male she despised for bringing her here. Then a shaft
of light speared into the room from a rectangular hole in the door
the guards had obviously opened, illuminating the space enough so
she could look around.

There were no windows. No pictures hanging
on the walls. Nothing but a single, unmade bed that looked stained
with blood and sweat, and a small, wooden table, holding an unlit,
dripping candle.

It was a hole. That bile rose higher. Worse
than that, it was a dungeon where hopes and dreams were ground into
dust.

“Rise, Marid,” Zayd said into the
silence.

Kavin’s heart pounded against her ribs. She
stepped behind Zayd as she looked around wildly for the monster she
sensed lurking in the shadows. Silence echoed through the darkness
like a vast cavern of nothingness, and just when she was sure there
was no one there, metal clanged, and a shuffling sounded in the
shadows to her left.

Kavin whipped that way, her eyes wide, her
muscles tight and ready to flee. She tried to move further behind
Zayd but he blocked her, pushing her forward instead. She stumbled.
Tried to grab Zayd at her back. But he moved out of her reach.

“
Come
into the light, Marid, so that my
jarriah
may get a good look at what waits for
her.”

Kavin froze. She didn’t know where the
monster was. How close. What he would do to her. She didn’t know
anything except fear and bitter hatred for the male at her
back.

The shuffling echoed again, followed by the
clink of chains. And then his big body moved into the light
directly in front of her.

Kavin sucked in a breath. Eased back a step
until she hit Zayd. He grunted his disgust and moved away once
more, making it more than clear she wasn’t finding any safety with
him.

But Kavin didn’t try to move again. Terror
kept her feet firmly locked in place. The Marid was bigger than
he’d seemed in the arena. Still covered in grime, there was a scent
about him—sweat, blood, death—one that rolled through her stomach
until the desire to gag overwhelmed her.

She held it back, knowing doing so would
only enrage him—and Zayd—and stared at the hulking beast mere feet
away.

Chains were cuffed to his wrists. Chains
Kavin hoped were locked tight to a wall or bar or something strong
enough to restrain him. Dark, stringy hair hung down over his face,
brushed his bare shoulders. His arms were massive, his naked chest
and stomach so hard it looked as if he were carved from stone. His
thighs like tree trunks. He wore nothing but a stained scrap of
cloth across his hips and an opal. A fire opal, strung from a chain
around his neck, the stone resting at the hollow of his throat.