Lora Leigh - Primal

Addai’s hand tightened around his hardened cock with thoughts of covering Sajia’s body with his own. Desire burned through him, fire in veins of ice, scorching heat in a being capable of delivering merciless punishment and eternal agony.

There would be no physical release until Sajia was returned to him. Not with a woman and not by his own hand. Only she would satisfy him. No other.

He let himself imagine their first meeting. It was a favorite fantasy of his.

There’d be fear when she saw him, as there had been before. Instinctual on her part, especially if she’d been raised in this world instead of the Djinn kingdom and hadn’t been told she was his reward, the price for his doing the things he’d done on behalf of her kind.

Some part of her would recognize him as her natural enemy even with his wings hidden and his essence wrapped in the flesh of a mortal. But that fear would soon become an erotic one. And the desire to flee would yield to an addiction to the forbidden, to a craving for carnal punishment and complete surrender.

She would soon hasten into his presence, growing wet and ready as she went to her knees before him, hands clasped behind her back, long black hair caressing smooth buttocks as she looked up at him, offering a silent pleading for him to allow her to worship him with her mouth.

A shudder of need went through Addai, a measure of control was lost. The fingers wrapped around his cock moved up and down, delivering pleasure until the psychic touch of the creation bond announced the imminent arrival of one of his brothers.

With a thought Addai clothed himself in black pants, leaving his feet and torso bare. He leapt from the precipice, wings slicing through the wind as though it didn’t exist, allowing the cold air to do what his will could not, subdue the hard evidence of desire and hide the nature of his contemplations.

He landed on a snow-covered balcony. An instant later Tir appeared and the reason for his presence became obvious when the Djinn, Irial, materialized next to him. Though they were allied, without Tir to serve as guide, Irial wouldn’t easily have found the chalet.

Addai’s heart pounded in anticipation at seeing the eldest son and favored messenger of Iyar en Batrael. Every muscle tightened as pride warred with the desperate desire to ask the question never far from his mind. Where is she?

Irial wore the mark of the Raven House on his cheek like a stylized tattoo. Wings and talons outstretched, the bird was a symbol of what Irial and those like him were capable of—guiding a Djinn soul back for rebirth.

The snow melted beneath Irial’s feet in a slowly widening circle, a showy reminder that the Djinn were creatures of fire. Wicked amusement danced in the Raven prince’s eyes like a wild flame set in the midst of a green forest, setting Addai’s teeth on edge and making him struggle against lifting his hand and calling his sword from its sheath of air and hidden reality.

Irial’s teeth flashed white in his deeply tanned face, goading Addai, daring him to break the silence and ask what message he’d brought.

“Tell me,” Addai said, willing to cede that much of a victory to Irial, satisfied in knowing the prince of the Raven House would one day be brought to his knees by a match arranged for him to serve the purpose of seeing the Djinn returned to Earth.

“My father sends word. He wants you to know the reward promised is now yours to claim. He says you will recognize it when you see it, but cautions you to remember all things are part of the weave, including this.”

“Where?” Addai asked, refusing to name Sajia it or to reveal her existence to either Irial or Tir.

“Your prize is in San Francisco. Or will be shortly. In the occult shop protected by the Tassone sigil.”

Sajia girded herself to approach the threshold of the occult shop. No other description of the effort fit as well.

It’d been like this from the very first visit she’d made with Corinne. Not just a sensitivity to magic, but a deep aversion to it.

Sweat ran down her back. And already her stomach roiled, leaving her fighting to suppress a violent spew of vomit, as if her soul would flee any way it could.

She smoothed slick palms over her pants and forced herself forward.

A step.

Two.

Her lungs constricted, as if squeezed by a giant fist to force the air out. She barely stifled a gasp. Another step and the Tassone mark was clearly visible, etched in the glass next to the door: a serpent with an apple in its mouth, the three segments of its S-shaped body impaled by an arrow that ran from a point behind the head to just before the tip of its tail.

Unlike in Oakland, the city across the bay, there were no bars covering the glass, no shutters of solid wood or steel to keep someone from breaking in during the day, or guard against the things that roamed the night. The Tassone symbol alone was enough protection.

Sajia resisted the urge to touch the knives she wore at her hips. Except in practice she’d never had to pull them since becoming bajaran . The recently carved symbols on her arm served as a deterrent to trouble.

She wondered if that would remain true when she crossed to Oakland. Unlike San Francisco, that city was controlled by humans, many of whom would gladly rid the world of anything touched by the supernatural.

Those humans with gifts were required to live in a certain area of town, outside of the one patrolled by guardsmen and police. Their houses were marked, identifying the nature of their talents.

Beyond the area set aside for them lay the red zone, a place where vice thrived and the lords who controlled it enforced their own set of laws. Brothels lined the streets, human as well as the ones housing shapeshifters not welcome in the lands controlled by the Were. Gambling clubs and opium dens were common, as were private gathering places where humans could indulge in whatever amused them.

Oakland was a port city. But even without the visiting sailors and merchants, there was plenty of business for the red zone. And that’s where Sajia feared she’d find Corinne. She couldn’t imagine one of the gifted sheltering a vampire scion, or one of the law-abiding.

Given the fisherman’s corpse, she didn’t think she’d find Corinne’s trail by going to the docks. Which left the occult shop as a starting point.

Forcing air into lungs that fought against expanding sent a spasm of pain through Sajia’s chest as she opened the door and stepped into the shop. It smelled of books and incense, scents she usually found pleasing, relaxing.

Not today. And never here.

She made her way to the counter. The man behind it looked up at her approach.

He was a stranger to her, gray-skinned and balding, cadaverous in appearance. His fingertips and lips blackened from ink.

Choice stood in front of her. Honor played a role in vampire society, and with it came the concept of saving face.

She could ask about Corinne directly, inquiring as to what, if anything, he might have seen while her charge was in the shop. The scarring on her arm gave her the right to those answers. Or she could ask about the token, hoping that finding its source might lead to where Corinne was hiding. She couldn’t do both.

If she survived this and found Corinne unharmed from her adventure, she’d prefer not to suffer additional punishment because she’d confirmed, by use of a name, that a scion had slipped away from the Tucci estate, in all likelihood because of a betrothal.

Sajia chose the latter, and though she’d been raised in a vampire-controlled city, the word master still tasted vile on her tongue. She forced herself to use it anyway, to evoke what courtesy might be extended to the Tucci family.