Thea Harrison - Oracle's Moon

Khalil’s arm tightened on her. He distracted Max by talking to him while Grace pulled herself together.

Clearly ready for the next good thing that involved her, Chloe started shouting as she ran around the room. “It’s story time! It’s story time!”

Grace straightened and pulled away from Khalil’s hold. After one searching glance, Khalil let her go. He smoothly took Max away from her. “Get your books,” he said to Chloe.

She stopped running laps. “Would you help me read as a horsie?”

“No,” Khalil said.

“A doggie or a cat?”

“No,” he said again.

Chloe’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t see why not,” she said, turning truculent.

Uh-oh, thought Grace as she wiped her eyes. Chloe and Khalil assessed each other like two gunfighters in a Western movie. Grace could almost see the dirt street they stood on, with the white steeple of a church in the background. The classic theme music from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly whistled in her head. She could have sworn a tumbleweed blew by. There was going to be a shootout at the O.K. Corral, and it wasn’t going to be pretty.

But Khalil proved to be more than a match for their contest of wills. He turned away from Chloe with a casual shrug. He said, “It is quite all right if you’re not interested in me helping you to read this evening. I can always read to Max.”

Outrage dropped Chloe’s mouth open. The tiny gunslinger drew her gun and started firing. “ No! That’s not fair! He’s just a baby!”

“Suit yourself,” said Khalil calmly. He sat in the armchair and settled Max on one side of his lap. He raised his eyebrows at Chloe. “Are you bringing your books or not?”

Chloe clenched her fists. She appeared to be conducting a mighty internal battle that lasted all of three seconds under the cool challenge in Khalil’s gaze. Then she broke down and ran for her books.

It was perfect, thought Grace. He took Chloe out with one, well-timed shot.

Laughter threatened to take Grace over as she watched Chloe fold herself into the other side of Khalil’s lap. Khalil made no further comment. He merely chose a book from the pile, opened it to the first page and began to read.

Grace wandered into her office/bedroom and sat at her desk. Her amusement faded.

Shocked arousal. Surprise and euphoria. A surge of grief and then laughter, and all of that occurred within—she checked the time on her computer—a fifteen-minute span of time. No wonder she felt punch-drunk.

She had found a few job postings throughout the week that she ought to apply for. Clicking on the electronic folder that contained her employment documents, she opened a draft of a cover letter, but trying to concentrate on the details proved to be a waste of time. In the end, she sat quietly in the shadowed room, hands in her lap as she looked out at the evening twilight and listened to Khalil’s perfect voice as he read to the children.

Then he fell silent. He said to her telepathically, The children are asleep.

Okay. Thank you. She stirred.

Do not trouble yourself , he told her. I am capable of putting them in their beds.

The springs in the armchair squeaked, then his footsteps sounded as he carried the children to their room.

She should move or do something, but for the life of her, she couldn’t think of what she should do.

She could feel when Khalil’s attention turned her way. This time he did not enter the room as a formless presence. He walked down the hall toward her. She listened to his footsteps as he approached. There, he rounded the corner to the living room. Now he stepped into the office. He was just fifteen feet away, then ten. Then five. She pushed her bangs off her forehead. Her fingers were shaking.

His presence enveloped her even as he turned her office chair so that she faced him. He glanced over her shoulder at the cover letter document open on her computer screen. He paused and frowned. His gaze darted to the stack of red-inked bills at one corner of the desk. She felt the impulse to squirm and squashed it. She had already told him times were hard, and she was not ashamed of or embarrassed by anything on her desk.

He knelt on one knee in front of her, which brought them face-to-face again. Leaning one elbow on the arm of her chair, he braced his other hand on the edge of the desk and looked deeply into her eyes. His ivory features were somber, those crystalline eyes grave.

“I would very much regret,” he said quietly, “if somehow I managed to make your day harder again today.”

Surprise took her over. Did he think he was somehow responsible for how close she came to tears earlier? She smiled at him. “You didn’t make my day harder today, Khalil,” she said. “You made my day better. It was really wonderful to see Max take his first steps today. It was even sweeter to see how excited he was to see you. Both Max and Chloe enjoy your visits so much. I just wish—I wish Petra and Niko…” Her throat stopped up. She made an inadequate gesture with one hand.

He studied her. His proximity was unsettling, but she didn’t want him to move away. After a moment, he said, “Lethe was Phaedra’s mother—Phaedra is my daughter. Lethe was a first-generation Djinn who was born when the world was born. I am a second-generation Djinn, so I am old and Powerful, but I was not as Powerful as Lethe. We were both from House Marid. I discovered that she had broken her oath to someone who was Powerless to call her to account. I exposed her lack of honor and had her driven from our House, and so she became a pariah. In retaliation, Lethe captured and tortured Phaedra.”

Grace tensed as she listened. Khalil spoke quietly and simply. Somehow it underscored the unfolding horror in his tale. “How could she do that, torture her own child?”

“I do not know,” Khalil said. “To me it is an insane thing. But when Djinn turn bad, we are very bad.”

“Humans are too,” Grace whispered.

He continued. “I was not strong enough to fight Lethe on my own, so I gathered as many Powerful allies as I could. Carling was one of them. This happened a long time ago, when pharaohs still ruled Egypt.” His gaze was stern and distant as he focused on that ancient battle. “I finally paid the last of my debt to Carling when I brought her and Rune here the other night.”

“That’s why you were with them,” Grace said.

“Yes,” he replied.

“And you stayed that night because there could have been danger,” she said, finally linking it all together in her head. “You stayed because of the children.”

He gave her a small smile. “Yes.”

The lump was back in Grace’s throat. She couldn’t have known any of it, of course, and Khalil had been arrogant and abrasive. It was fruitless and stupid to feel regret about how they had clashed that night. She asked, “What happened next?”

“We went to war against Lethe.” His expression turned savage. “Our last battle tore down a mountain range and destroyed a crossover passageway. The last was unintentional. It is the one thing I regret. Whoever or whatever lived in that Other land is now cut off from the rest of Earth forever.”

She put a hand on his arm. It seemed like a useless gesture, when everything had happened so long ago, probably as useless as her hug had been, but she couldn’t help herself. “You said your daughter survived?”

He looked down at her hand as if it were a strange phenomenon he didn’t understand. Then he covered it with his own. “She did,” he said. “We trapped Lethe and destroyed her, and we freed Phaedra, but she was damaged. Now she is the pariah. She will not make associations with any Djinn House, and she attacks if I—if any of us—come too close. So far we have had no evidence that she has caused harm to others.” When he spoke next, it was so quietly she had to lean closer and strain to hear his words. “I very much hope I never have to hunt her down and destroy her too.”