Bound (Secrets of the Djinn) (2 page)

Grimacing, I say, “I fell and twisted my ankle. So much for being graceful.”

Moving to my side, he nudges Roman away from me and wraps his arm around my waist.  “Can you walk?”

I glance at Roman before saying, “No.  Roman was carrying me back to the house when you called out.”  Despite my desperate plea to Roman a moment ago, I won’t keep secrets from Zane.  I simply thought it best he not actually see it happening.

To my surprise, he gives Roman a grateful look.  “Thanks, man.” 

He gets a terse nod in response.  “I will see you both back at the house.”

“
How lucky you are to have two knights in shining armor to rescue you,” Zane teases as Roman jogs ahead.  He lifts me as easily as Roman had.

I wrap m
y arms around his neck and smile.  “I only have one.”

He kisses me softly then leans back with raised brows.  “You did mean me, right?”

The glint in his eyes tells me he’s still teasing.  I shake my head and give him my best innocent smile.  “No, there’s this really hot guy who lives down the street.  Would you mind taking me to him?”

He growls low in his throat.  “Over my dead body.”

I laugh and lay my head against his shoulder.  “Thank you for coming for me.”

No longer teasing, he says, “I will always find you when you need me.”

“I know.”  We spend the rest of the way to the house in a comfortable silence.

Roman must have talked to Brielle already because we are greeted at the back door
by her and a pair of crutches.  Shaking her head, she says, “You are one high maintenance chick.”

“Thanks for your concern; I’m all warm and fuzzy inside now.”

My sarcasm doesn’t faze her.  “If you didn’t run like a girl you wouldn’t need these.”  She taps the crutches.

“Zane,” my voice is pure saccharine, “will you please move me closer to your sister.  I would like to punch her in the face again.”

Brielle laughs.  “He knows better.”  To her brother, she says, “Bring her to Gram’s sitting room.  The doc’s going to wrap her ankle.”

“She alright?” a deep, gruff voice says from down the hall.  A man the size of a small giant is taking up most of the available width between the
walls.  Hank is a tank of a man despite his fast approaching seventy-third birthday.

“Her ankle’s a little swollen but she’ll probably live.  The rest of us are going to suffer more from her whining,” Brielle tells him.  

“Seriously, move closer to her,” I urge Zane but he just laughs.

“She’s only a bitch to the
ones she loves.”  The hand gesture Brielle does over her shoulder must mean she really loves her brother.

Zane brings me into Mrs. Gregori’s favorite room in the house. 
I’m not sure why it’s her favorite.  The ultra-feminine décor is in direct contrast to the damage a hard life has left on her soul.  Who knows, maybe the room helps her forget the past for a little while.  Or maybe it makes her feel closer to the daughter who decorated the room. 

Her
daughter ran away to escape the life of a djinn hunter, searching for a normal life.  Only to die many years later at their hands anyway.  It was the death of their mother and father which eventually led Zane and Brielle to their grandmother.  They weren’t aware she existed before then.

Zane sets me down on the floral print sofa and grabs a footstool from in front of one of the chairs.  He carefully lifts my leg to it,
trying not to cause me more pain.  His concern over such a slight injury is nice, but I know for a fact he has sustained much worse.  I was forced to watch it.  “It’s only sprained,” I tell him.  “It’ll be fine in a day or two.”  Brielle snorts but doesn’t comment.

Roman comes into the room with an ice pack, a bottle of ibuprofen, a water bottle and an ace wrap.  He shakes out
four pills for me and hands me the water.  While I swallow, he begins wrapping my ankle.  When he’s finished, he lays the ice pack on it.  He does all this without saying a word to me. 

I look up to find Mrs. Gregori’s eyes narrowed in my direction.  I try not to squirm in my seat as she studies me.  Finally, she says, “It’s a good thing Roman was with you when it happened.”  There’s an implication in her words that affects both me and Zane, our bodies tensing in discomfort.  I try not to notice Roman’s smirk.  Or Brielle’s.

“Roman caught up with me on the path,” I say, hating that my voice sounds defensive.

Suspicion running rampant in her words, she asks Zane, “How did you know she was hurt?”

Zane shrugs.  “Female intuition, I guess.  I must be ovulating or something.”

My cheeks fl
ush as his pert words rankle under his grandmother’s skin.  “You aren’t too old to take over my knee,” she threatens.

Zane laughs.  “A sweet old woman like you would never think of harming her grandson.”  Mrs. Gregori snorts but Zane’s right.  She’s all talk.  At least, where he and Brielle are concerned she is.  Roman and me?  She wouldn’t hesitate to shoot us if she felt it necessary.  That thought comes to me a lot in the middle of the night. 

“Lily, where’s my fishing hat?” Hank calls from the foyer.  Grumbling, Mrs. Gregori motors her wheelchair out of the room and a weight lifts from my chest.

“As fun as this has been, I’m out,” Brielle says. 

“Stay off it,” Roman tells me coolly and then follows Brielle out of the room.

“He’s a bucket of charm like usual,” Zane says.

“He’s mad I made him put me down when you called out,” I admit.

“Why did you do that?”

Feeling foolish now, I admit, “I didn’t want you to see us like that.”

Zane shakes his head.  “Skye, you need to give me a little more credit.
  You’re injured.”

I think about the flash of jealousy in his eyes when he saw Roman’s hand on me, but I let it go.  “I didn’t mean to interrupt your work out.  If you grab me a book, I’ll be fine here alone.”

I can tell he’s torn.  He does want to get back to his workout but he doesn’t want me to think he doesn’t care about my injury.  I smile and kiss him softly.  “Go.  I’m fine.”

He dips his head for another kiss and then stands up.  “Any book in particular?”

The room could pass for a library with its rows of books, most of them leather bound and ancient.  “I started reading the book Malik gave to Brielle.  The one about djinn lore.”  Malik hasn’t spoken to either Brielle or me since the incident in the glade when I killed a djinni with my flames.  A pang touches my heart.  Perhaps he can’t bring himself to face what I’ve become.

Zane hands me the book and after a
nother lingering kiss, he goes back to his workout.  I read for an hour or so until my eyelids grow heavy in the warm, dimly lit room.  Wanting to wake up a bit, I decide to ignore Roman’s advice to rest and give my crutches a try.  I’m not the steadiest using them, but I find I can get to where I want to go.  I don’t see myself using them for a week, though.  I think Roman forgot about the superior healing abilities of the djinn.  If I could recover from a major car accident in a couple of weeks, a sprained ankle isn’t going to keep me down long.

I
set my crutches towards the workout room.  No way am I going to waste any training time.  There are plenty of things I can do without using my legs.  Besides, my ankle already feels a lot better.

Zane’s surprised when I open the door.  “What are you doing back?” he asks, his tone a li
ttle too mother hennish for my liking.  “You’re supposed to be resting your ankle.”

“My ankle is fine,” I inform him.  I face my crutches towards the weights but Zane cuts me off.

“Skye, really, you need to rest.  Injuring yourself more isn’t going to help anybody.”

With raised brows and a sharp voice, I ask, “Aren’t you the same guy who was tortured almost to death but was right back down here the next day?”

“Yes, but I’m used to training,” he says, and then realizes his mistake.  “Skye, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply you aren’t.  I know you’ve been working hard.”

Instead of answering him, I turn my crutches in a different direction and go around him.  I do my best impression of stalking away that the crutches will allow.  I probably look stupid, but I don’t care.

Suddenly feeling the need to hit something, I hobble to the corner of the room where a punching bag hangs from the ceiling.  I lean my crutches against the wall and try out several standing positions looking for one that doesn’t cause excruciating pain to shoot up my leg.  After several attempts, it becomes obvious my ankle doesn’t like any position that requires my injured foot to be on the ground.  Screw it.  I’ll deal with the pain.  I start hitting the bag, the sting of my knuckles making impact enough to distract me from the pain in my leg.

I
become so engrossed in what I’m doing, I don’t hear Zane come up behind me.  Startled when he touches me, I whirl around catching him in the ribs with my elbow.  He stumbles back with an audible, “ooph.” 

Guilt stricken, I
cry, “Zane, I’m so sorry.” 

Holding his rib
s as if one might be broken, he says, “That’s okay, I always wondered what a punctured lung would feel like.”  The twinkle in his eye belies his words.

I wrinkle my nose at him
, my sympathy waning.  “I didn’t hit you that hard.”

“Are you sure?” he asks, moving closer,
still holding his ribs.  His hard body is glistening from his workout and all I can think about is running my hands over his sleek, hard muscles.  “Maybe you should check it out.”

I smile but it’s a little forced
as I try not to give in to my desires.  “That won’t help me learn to fight.”

Zane forgets about his ribs and puts his hands on my shoulders.  He pushes me gently until my back is against the wall.  “I don’t want to fight
with you,” he says.  His lips kiss a trail along my jaw until he finds the mark on my neck.  His tongue glides over it causing my knees to buckle but all of my pain is gone in an instant.  Zane presses his body against mine so I don’t fall.  Another movement of his tongue across the sensitive mark sends so much heat to my core, I can’t focus on anything except his mouth and his body pressed against me.  My arms snake around his neck and I moan his name softly in his ear.  He smiles against my skin.  He knows exactly what reactions he’s causing in me.  He feels what I feel.

Zane slides his hand up my bare midriff until he’s cupping my breast
over my sports bra, teasing my nipple with his thumb.  My hips jut forward and I can feel his body’s reaction.  He presses me against the wall harder, his erection teasing me as he moves his lips to mine.  Placing his hands on my thighs, he lifts me until my legs are wrapped around him and he’s exactly where he needs to be.  I gasp as he moves rhythmically, making me squirm against him.  He chuckles softly and moves one of his hands now cupping my ass to the waistband of my exercise shorts, tugging them lower until he can slip his hand in far enough to discover how hot and wet I am.  His thumb finds my clit and swirls around it.  He has to kiss me harder to keep me from crying out in desperation.  I want him.  All of him.  Right now.

“Sorry to interrupt,” a
deep voice says dryly from the door.

My
face turns a hundred different shades of red.  I let my legs go from around Zane and he’s forced to remove his hand from my shorts.  He mutters something under his breath that sounds an awful lot like a death threat.  One I think he’s more than willing to carry out.

“You could
’ve left when you saw we wanted privacy,” Zane says, not turning around yet as he labors to get his heavy breathing and his arousal under control.  I’m hiding my face against his chest.  I can’t believe we almost had sex here, in this room everyone in the house uses.  What if it had been Hank or Zane’s grandmother?  I’m going to die of embarrassment.

Roman’s voice is hard now.  “This is a training room, not a motel room.”

“Zane, he’s right,” I mutter to his chest.

Zane growls deep in his
throat in frustration, but he manages to sound smug when he turns around and says, “You’re right, Roman.  Feel free to exercise to your heart’s content.  We’ll find another room for what we were doing.”

I peek around Zane at the murderous
look on Roman’s face and the betrayal in his eyes when they meet mine.  I shouldn’t feel guilty.  He has a wife, for god’s sake.  Yes, he says he loves me.  I know I loved him at some point, but I’ve made it clear I will not be with him.  I remember a lot more betrayal than I do love.  I remember his wife very clearly.  Hard to forget someone who stabbed me in the side when she found out I was the ‘other woman.’  I had no idea she even existed before that.  Roman never told me.  Remembering this helps me shake off the guilt.  Sort of.  I still hate the pain in Roman’s eyes every time Zane touches me.

Zane’s body tense
s when he senses my internal struggle regarding my feelings for Roman.  He and I still haven’t told anyone our forced binding didn’t go as planned.  He ended up being bound to me instead of the other way around.  Because of this, he is able to sense my emotions, even when I’m behind the veil, or talking to the devil.  Two things I never want to do again.