Thea Harrison - Oracle's Moon

“You have succeeded,” Khalil informed her. “I am en-tirely comfortable. And now that we are here, we might as well go in.”

Up ahead, she spotted a car pulling out of a space. The timing seemed like kismet. And it was really too late to go anywhere else and still try to stick to her timetable. She pulled into the spot.

Khalil said, “Piloting a vehicle is more complicated than I would have expected. You appear to handle yours with proficiency.”

She burst out laughing. “You drive a car; you don’t pilot it. You pilot boats and planes.”

“Then I must learn to drive.” Khalil gave her a wicked smile that was highlighted in the yellow glow of nearby streetlamps. “I lied,” he said. “I do not have a present for you. I do, however, have something for you from Carling and Rune.” He dug into the back pocket of his jeans and handed her a folded envelope.

“What’s this?” she asked, unfolding it.

“I reminded them of their obligation to you as Oracle,” Khalil said. His smile had disappeared, and something edged and dangerous took its place. “And that they had been derelict in fulfilling their part of the bargain.”

“You did?” She blinked at him, astonished. “I didn’t think they were derelict. Carling healed Max’s ear infection and saved us a trip to the doctor.”

He shook his head. “No, Gracie. She did not do that as an offering to the Oracle. She did that because he was a baby and he was sick.”

She wasn’t sure what moved her more, Carling’s act of healing, or Khalil acting on her behalf. Or how he called her Gracie.

“Open it,” he said. “See what she sent for you.”

She tore the envelope open and pulled out a note and a check. She looked at the check first.

And started counting zeroes. Her hands began to shake.

No. This couldn’t be right. She started counting all over again, and then again. Her mind refused to move beyond an incoherent stutter. She said, choked, “Oh, my God. Oh. My. God.”

“Is that good?” he said, watching her sharply.

She looked at him. “This check is for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”

He reached up and wiped under her eyes carefully with his thumb. That was when she realized tears were pouring down her cheeks. “She said it was all they could do for now, but you are to let them know if you need more.”

Property taxes. A roof. A better car. Her student loans and medical bills paid off. She could focus on the children, her own healing, and finishing her incompletes. If she was very careful and frugal, she wouldn’t have to worry about getting an outside job for several years. She could get the children things they needed and things she wanted them to have. Maybe she could hire a babysitter occasionally and get out of the house. Maybe she could see a movie now and then.

“This is incomprehensible.” Her lips were shaking too. “It changes everything.”

“For the better, yes?”

“Holy shit, yes.” It took her several tries to tuck the check back into the envelope, but she managed it at last. “I can’t believe they gave so much.”

“It is fitting,” Khalil said in a quiet voice. “Carling and Rune remember the old days, when emperors and kings would lay treasure at the Oracle’s feet. As Rune said, they owe you everything. I was very angry with them when I pieced all of it together and realized that they had not fulfilled their end of the contract.”

She remembered the tense scene in the clearing, as Rune and Carling faced off against the Elder tribunal. She felt compelled to point out, “They were fighting for their lives.”

His face hardened. He said in a cold voice, “That is no excuse.”

“Well,” she said, rather inadequately. Khalil was Djinn, after all.

She looked at the note, written in a bold, feminine hand. It was a simple missive. Carling offered an apology and said she would be in touch soon. Overcome again, Grace slipped the note back in the envelope, along with that precious, mind-numbing check, and tucked the whole thing securely into the bottom of her purse.

“I don’t know how to thank you,” she said from the back of her throat. “I just don’t know what to say. This is one of the most important things anyone has ever done for me. For the kids.”

“Hush,” he said gently in that renegade angel’s voice, and he leaned forward and kissed her.

She didn’t even think to hesitate or pull away; that’s how much things had changed between them. Instead she wrapped an arm around his neck and kissed him back. His lips were warm and firm yet moved on hers with exquisite sensitivity. She felt again that ache of arousal, only this time it was a gentle blossoming, like a garden coming to life after the long, bitter season of a killing winter.

He brushed her lips lightly, back and forth, as if learning their softness and contours for the first time, and he groaned. He sounded shaken. Then he pulled back and stared at her as he stroked her face. His hands were shaking too, and his regal, elegant features were stricken and marveling.

It was such a beautiful expression she had the impulse to look around to make sure it was meant for her. “It was good?” she asked.

He whispered, “Holy shit, yes.”

A nearby raucous laugh jolted her. Khalil put a hand on her shoulder protectively as he looked around. She looked too. Six young men, around twenty or twenty-one years old, were walking leisurely in their direction, talking and joking. Khalil’s eyes narrowed. He said between his teeth, “I want them to go away.”

She started to laugh. “It’s a public street. They’re not doing anything wrong.”

“I have no interest in that,” he said.

She took an unsteady breath. She had been worried about going from friends, to kissing, to possibly other things with Khalil, but somehow she had slid headfirst into a foreign landscape she couldn’t have foreseen. That slippery slope was a treacherous thing.

“We’re here,” she managed to say. “And as you said, we might as well go in.”

He gave her a glowering look. He said, “I have no interest in doing that, either.”

The problem was, neither did she.

Which was all the more reason, she thought, why they should.

…

Djinn didn’t get drunk. Alcohol had no effect on them.

But other things could, and Khalil was reeling from a bombardment of physical sensations. Djinn were highly sensitive, but in their original state, what they were most sensitive to was the ebb and flow of Power and energy.

The full range of physical sensation was an entirely different spectrum of experience from anything he had ever known.

The slight friction of the aged denim jeans on his thighs. The stretchy give of the cotton T-shirt across his chest and shoulders. The insubstantial lick of the summer breeze against his cheek.

He was euphoric, disturbed. He thought this must be what intoxication felt like. He wasn’t altogether sure he liked it.

And then Grace came carefully down the stairs, and she was such a feast of color, all he could do was stare. Her skin looked burnished, and her outfit made him think of a bouquet of flowers. Her short, damp hair glinted with red-gold highlights, and when she neared him, her multicolored eyes rounded with wonder. Then her scent wafted over him, a clean, light fragrance that he thought must be unique in all the world.

And then she touched him.

Just that one thing, just that simple touch on his arm, and he went into shock. Her flesh, touching his. When she did it again, her gentle hand slid along the contours of his arm to his palm, and he felt all of it.

Intensely. Ecstatically. Intimately.

Hungrily.

He followed her out of the house in a daze, where he encountered so many more new sensations: the texture of the screen door’s wooden frame, the scents of a summer night, the rough rhythm of chirruping insects. He climbed into her car. His fingertips learned the smooth, hard metal of the car doors, and the soft, worn passenger seat. When he turned to look at Grace, he caught the shadowed gleam of her smile.