Bound (Secrets of the Djinn) (10 page)

“Then yes, I
brought scissors.  If I promise not to peek, do you want me to do it?”

I’m tempted to say no but he is a doctor, he can keep things professional when he wants to.  Hopefully, this will be one of th
ose times.  “Okay.”

Roman gets out of bed and moves to the bag he set near the door when we came in last night. 
Once again, I try to ignore how good he looks in just his boxers.  I’m not as immune to the pull of his mark as I was last night.  Especially after our dream.  Sitting up, I scoot to the end of the bed and stand up, relieved to find no pain in my ankle even with all my weight on it.  Roman follows me to the bathroom with the scissors in hand.  He also has a change of clothes for me.  I’ve never been so happy to see jeans and a t-shirt in my life.

“Are you sure you don’t want to try taking it off first?” he asks, standing behind me.

I shake my head.  “It’s not worth the pain.”

Pulling the
spandex away from my skin, Roman cuts through the fabric.  I hold the front of the bra to keep it from falling down and exposing my breasts to him.  Over my shoulder, I say, “Thanks.  I’m going to jump in the shower now.”

“Let me take the splint off your arm
first,” he says, studiously trying not to look at my barely covered breasts.  I hold my arm out and he makes short work of taking the bandages and splint off my arm.  Examining the exposed joint, he shakes his head.  “It has already started to set.  Is there still numbness or tingling in your hand?”

I shake my head.  “No, it still hurts, though.”

“It may for another day or two, but the way it’s healing I don’t think it will be much longer.”

“At least there’s some benefit to being a djinni,” I grumble.

He chuckles.  “As you remember more, you may find you don’t mind being who you are.”

My eyes rise to meet his.  “
You don’t?”

He shrugs, oddly embarrassed
now.  “I don’t remember everything, but I had a good life.  I had family, friends…you.”

He had to go there.  “I’m ready
to shower now.”  My words are terse and taking the hint, Roman leaves the cramped bathroom and closes the door behind him.

It doesn’t take as long as it did yesterday to remove my exercise shorts.  Once they’re peeled off, I turn the water on and wait for it to get hot.  Stepping into the tub, I simply stand under the stream for several minutes, enjoying the warmth on my sore muscles. 

“Planning to stay in there all day, my dear?”

The sound of Beelzebub’s voice startles me so much, I nearly slip and fall.  I catch myself just in time, wrenching my wrist in the process.  “What are you doing here?” I snap, “You
already got what you wanted.”

I reach around the shower curtain to grab a towel off the rack and wrap it around myself before pulling the curtain back.  The devil is leaning against the sink picking at his nails. 
“You are not nearly as upset about it as you like to pretend,” he says.

“I am not going to argue with you about my feelings,” I say, afraid there’s more truth in his words than I’d like to admit.  My dream did affect how I view certain things
now.  “Why are you here?” I repeat.

Beelzebub finally looks up at me.  “Is this how you treat someone kind enough to warn you of danger?”

I shake my head.  “You don’t do anything out of the kindness of your heart.  Cut the bullshit.  What. Do. You. Want?”

“Your soul
mate is not the stealthiest lad,” he says.

Irritated even more, I say, “Roman is not my soul mate.”

Beelzebub chuckles.  “Interesting how your mind associated him with that phrase, but you missed the most important part of the sentence.”

Thinking about what he said, it sinks in.  “Someone recognized him
from the news reports.”

“I knew you were smart enough to figure it out
all by yourself.”

I cock my head and glare at him.  “Quit being so damn condescending.  Who recognized him, djinn or humans?”

There’s a knock on the door.  “Skye, are you okay?” Roman asks.

I look at the devil
, deciding how to answer.  Finally, I say, “Yes.”

“Are you talking to yourself?” Roman pushes, sounding more like a doctor than a soul mate.
  He’s worried about my mental health.  Well, so am I.

I sigh.  “No, the devil dropped by to say hi.”  A couple of months ago, that sentence would have terrified me.  Now, I’m just annoyed.  “He’s
just leaving.”

Beelzebub raises a brow.  “Kicking me out, are you?”

Yes.  “Just tell me what you came to say and then leave.”

He pushes away from the sink and stands straight, losing the ‘old guy’ demeanor he likes to present.  “
In approximately fifteen minutes the human police arrive.”  He glances at his watch.  “Oops, you’ve kept me talking so long it’s ten minutes now.”

“You’re a bastard,” I say, pushing past him and opening the door.

Roman is on the other side, ready to knock the door down if I didn’t come out.  “Are you okay?”  He peers past me to where the devil stands.

“I’m fine, but the devil’s a dick,” I mutter.  “We
need to go.  The police are on their way.”

Roman looks from me to Beelzebub.  “How do you know?”

“I keep a very close eye on Skye.  I don’t want anything to happen to her before we have our time together.”  The leer on the devil’s face makes me want to puke.  With a wink, he’s gone.

“Will you help me get dressed?” I ask, dropping the towel to the floor.  There’s no time for modesty.

Roman’s stunned by my action but his brain kicks in after a few seconds.  He retrieves my clothes from the bathroom and helps me into them.  I forego a bra.  Putting the shirt on is enough of a challenge.  There isn’t time for Roman to rewrap my arm and my wrist is killing me, but we are ready to leave the room in three minutes flat.

Hurrying to the Jeep, Roman throws the bag in the back.  I climb into the passenger seat and barely have time to buckle before he’s behind the wheel and squealing out of the parking lot.  Not a very subtle departure.

I expect to face a stream of cop cars swarming toward the hotel, but there are no sirens and no flashing lights amongst the few cars we pass.  Roman chose the way that doesn’t lead us to the cops.  Good thing he’s driving, I would’ve gone the other way.

We drive for about fifteen minutes before Roman finds a factory parking lot.  He pulls in and goes to the back of the Jeep.  He opens a hidden storage area and takes out a new license plate and a screwdriver. 
In two minutes flat, he’s back in the driver’s seat and we’re off again. 

“That’s handy,” I say as he pulls out of the parking lot.

He shrugs.  “Brielle is a planner.”

“How did you know about th
e compartment?”  I ask.

“From the first time Brielle took us on the road.  You were pretty out of it at the time.”

I was recuperating from a major motor vehicle accident and had only been out of my coma for a few hours.  It’s not unreasonable that I was ‘out of it’.  “It seems like it’s been ages since then.”

Roman nods.  “Agreed.”

“Well, that was fun,” a voice drawls from the back seat.  Roman nearly runs us off the road. 

Chapter 12

I turn to find the devil sitting in the backseat.  Roman is glancing at him nervously through the rear view mirror which isn’t doing much for his driving.  “Why are you here?” I demand.

“You two are fretfully bad at this.  You stroll about looking like yourselves as if you don’t have a care in the world.  Being caught is a given at this point.”

Dryly, I ask, “What do you suggest?  Plastic surgery?”

The corners of
Beelzebub’s mouth quirk up.  “Mar that beautiful face or yours?  I think not.”

Somehow, being called beautiful by the devil doesn’t feel like a compliment.  “So, you have no suggestions then.” 

“On the contrary,” Beelzebub says and he snaps his fingers.  “Much better.”

It takes me a second to realize what he’s done, then a few strands of hair fall over my eyes. 
They are no longer blonde.  “You changed my hair?” I squeak, wondering if the red is permanent.

“I
prefer redheads,” Beelzebub says with a distinct leer in his old man’s voice.  Roman’s muscles tense.  Is he seriously jealous of the devil, or is he going to defend my honor?  Neither is appropriate at the moment. 

Rolling my eyes, I ask, “Why would I care what a shriveled old man thinks of my hair?”

Why didn’t I keep my mouth shut?  In the blink of an eye, Beelzebub has transformed himself.  He is now a clone of Zane.  “Better?” he asks.  He’s enjoying this.  “Or perhaps you would like the best of both worlds.”  Bile crawls up my throat as I stare at him, unable to pull my eyes from the grotesque sight.  Half of Beelzebub still looks like Zane.  The other half looks like Roman.  It’s as if someone cut the two of them down the middle and then used half of each to make one whole.  Roman swerves off the road again when he looks through the rearview mirror.

This time, Roman brings the Jeep to a stop on the shoulder
.  I appreciate his forethought because any more surprises and we’d probably end up in a ditch.  Fortunately, the road we are on is deserted.  We haven’t seen another car since Roman turned onto it.  “What the fuck?” he demands. He’s a lot more shocked than I am since I’ve already experienced Beelzebub’s talent for apery.

“Proposing an orgy, are you?” Beelzebub asks.

Roman’s face
flushes with anger.  I’d better step in before the devil kills him for acting on his anger.  For some reason, Beelzebub doesn’t mind me being pissy with him.  “Are you trying to make me throw up?  If so, you’re on the right track.”

Beelzebub chuckles.  “Quite the sharp tongue
you have.”  He ponders something for a moment.  Finally, he says, “I do not think either man is who you truly want.  You find men like this attractive.”  Losing the two faced persona, he now has black hair that’s just a little too long.  His body is lean and muscular, but not overdone.  He’s tall, his features are along classical lines, and his eyes sparkle like emeralds.  He’s dressed in eighteenth century garb, and the only word to describe his dashing.  Beelzebub has become the image I have in my brain of Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice.

I refuse to play his game.  “Are you going to continue with the parlor tricks or let us get on our way?”

“A car is stopping behind us,” Roman says. 

“A good Samaritan, no doubt,” Beelzebub
drawls.  “I hate good Samaritans.”  The devil disappears just as a man approaches Roman’s window.

Roman lets the window down enough to say, “We’re fine, just getting our bearings.”  His voice is remarkably
calm for having spent the last few minutes in the company of the devil.

The man nods and grins in response.  He doesn’t leave
, though.  Distracted by him, neither Roman nor I see the man approaching my side.  Not until my window is shattered and I’m being pulled from the Jeep.  Roman reacts to my scream, turning and reaching for me, giving the man on his side of the Jeep the opportunity to smash out his window and bash him in the head with a gun, leaving him unconscious on the seat.

I struggle against my attacker but his grip on me is pure steel.  He half drags me across the gravel shoulder, my
bare heels try to dig into the sharp stones for leverage, but this only causes them to bleed as my skin is torn open.  I frantically search my brain trying to remember anything from my self-defense training over the last month.  Unfortunately, we didn’t cover being dragged.  If I survive, Roman and I will be coming up with a new practice regiment.

I dig into the man’s arms with my fingernails. 
The bone in my injured wrist protests, sending shards of pain throughout my arm and hand.  Any healing it has accomplished is now lost and the man still has an iron grip on me.  My only defense left is one I don’t know how to control.  Now I must prepare myself for a new type of pain.

Fire rushes out of me, flowing from my heart, to my arms and out through my hands.
  The man drops me to the ground, trying to get away.  I land on my back, knocking the air from my lungs with a loud gasp.  Sharp stones dig into my back and head tearing at my stitches.  But the man is too late.  My fire already has him. 

I try to cry out when images begin to assault my brain
, but there’s no air in my lungs.  My screams are silent, but my mind is anything but.  Images flash behind my closed lids.  I’m seeing through the man’s eyes as his sins are judged by my flames.  Every atrocity he committed, every animal he tortured, every woman he abused, every man he killed, I see all of it.  I see his mother bruised and battered in her own kitchen, begging her son to stop.  He leaves her for dead moments later, taking the bloody knife he used to kill her with him.  The man who dragged me cries out as each stab wound he inflicted is rendered on him.