Burn With Me (21 page)

She had. Oddly, that explanation made a crazy sort of sense. Aziza took another long drink from her bottle and mumbled, “Hope they’re all enjoying the show. I may never go to the bathroom again.”

“What did you say?” Greg sounded startled.

“Nothing.” She hadn’t told him. Hadn’t told Penn. They had enough on their plates already without learning there was a whole world of voyeurs they couldn’t see. “You should go inside, Greg. I’m fine.”

Greg crossed his arms and leaned against a wooden post. “So you’re not going to tell me? You always tell me everything, Aziza Jane. Since we were thirteen, even when I don’t want to know, you tell me. What happened between you and Nash?”

She started laughing again, her words sounding slurred, even to her ears. “With Brandon? What happened between me and Brandon?” she repeated. “The same thing that happened between me and Ram. Sex and lies, but sadly, no videotape.”

Greg winced and Aziza sobered enough to apologize. “I’m drunk, Greg. Ignore me. I just wish other men could be like you, you know? And I know that’s a shitty thing to say out loud and totally unfair to you, but it’s true. You are the good guy. Straightforward and honorable. You would say something like, ‘Hey, I’m not actually a dream, I’m literally your mother’s worst nightmare. Just thought you should know before I seduce you to get all your Fireborne juices flowing’. Or, ‘Hey, Aziza, guess what? Did I tell you that I was really a werewolf before I saw you in your altogether?’”

She slid down the wall to the dirt floor, picking at random strands of hay. “I give up.”

“Fuck you, Aziza Jane Stewart.”

She blinked slowly, bringing Greg’s towering image into focus as he leaned down and wrenched the bottle away from her hand. “’Scuse me?”

“You heard me.” He took a large gulp and made a face. “Ugh. Why don’t you get drunk on whiskey like an ordinary person? But back to my fuck-you. Don’t hold me up on a pedestal while you work your way through every magical bad boy in the vicinity. I’m not judging.” He paused. “That’s a lie, I’m judging a little. I mean, everyone makes bad choices, right? Makes mistakes? It’s normal. You can’t choose who you want. Who you fall for. It isn’t that easy. Look at your years’ worth of rejected proposals. Look at Penn.”

Aziza closed her eyes. Penn. Hillary was just like Brandon. A wolf wrapped in sexy human skin. She grimaced. That sounded disgusting. 

“That was different. Worse.” She stomped one booted foot for emphasis. “Penn was in love. They were together for almost a decade and she never knew what Hillary was.”

Until Aziza came to England. “Mom was right about one thing. I should never have come here. Never hopped over that pond. Why did you convince me to come? Look at what’s happened in less than a week.”

When time had resumed and her body stopped shaking, she discovered that Penn and Hillary had taken their conversation to the study, forgetting about the rest of them for the next few painful hours.

Aziza and Greg served the dinner Hillary had made to Ram, Shev and Brandon—all of them eating in uneasy silence and in different rooms, but none of them able to ignore the raised voices of their hosts.

“
You knew. You knew it was real and you didn’t tell me. My sister’s children and you didn’t think I had a right to know—”

“You’re human. I didn’t want this to touch you.”

“You’re not, though? Not human? And I’ve been touched repeatedly, in case you hadn’t noticed. How could you do this to me? And Devil is the same? Did you both have a laugh at my expense? All this time, every day you bloody lied to me. Is that why we never moved in together? Was it really because of your sickly father or because you were afraid I’d find out? Was anything between us true?”

Aziza pushed herself to her feet, shaking her head as if to throw that memory away. “Fuck me,” she repeated Greg’s words to herself, moving closer to him. “I’m not cursed. I
am
the damn curse.”

Greg reached for her hand and pulled her into his arms, and she let him, because he had the wine. “No, you’re not. You’re Aziza Jane. You’re a survivor. Special. You just have bad taste in men lately. And by lately, I mean all the time.”

She looked up at him, her throat closing as a feeling close to desperation hammered in her chest. It
should
be him. She knew it had crossed both their minds.

He was the only man she’d ever trusted. He’d never given her a reason to doubt him. He loved her. But it was a line she was determined never to cross. She couldn’t. He was too important. “But not friends. I have the best taste in friends, babe. I don’t know what I’d do if you weren’t my best friend. I don’t think I could take it if I screwed us up.”

The soft expression in his gaze hardened. Just enough for her to know he got her message. He forced a smile. “I hear you. You don’t have to keep repeating it, and you don’t have to worry about it either. We’re good. I told you that I’m here for me now. Because
I
need to be. As for the other…I was considering taking Shev up on her offer for crazy magical monkey love. She’s very convincing, and I’m a good enough friend to want to help out by making sure you aren’t the only one making bad decisions about sex.”

She lowered her head to his chest with a snort of laughter. “Saint King Greg strikes again.”

“Damn straight.”

“Little English is requesting I leave her sight and send in the ‘big American’.” Ram’s sardonic voice made her step away, remembering to grab her bottle back from Greg’s loose grip as she did. “Your aunt has gone through the expensive liquor and has moved on to the bargain basement beverages. Soon, we’ll need to hide the rubbing alcohol.”

“Ha-ha.” She wrinkled her nose in his direction. “She’ll have to beat me to it.”

“Who’ll have to beat you to what?” Greg looked at her with an expression that was becoming familiar.
Aziza is crazy.

“Penn. Didn’t you hear what he said?”

“Who?”

Ram smiled. “I’m trying to be helpful. Doing as I’m told and staying out of sight. Currently you are the only one who can see me.”

Aziza rolled her eyes and wobbled on her feet. “Perfect.”

“Aziza, honey?” Greg got up and came over to her. “What’s going on? What are you seeing? What can I do?”

Ram walked directly up to Greg and spoke loudly into his ear. “You can go back into the house now and check on Penn. Aziza will be fine. She’s safe here.”

Greg shook his head and reached up to touch his temple. “I feel like I need to check on Penn, but I don’t want to leave you alone. Why don’t you come with me?”

Ram rolled his eyes and spoke again. “She’s safe. She needs her space. Penn is the one in danger. She’s alone and drunk in the house…with Shev.”

“You go on,” Aziza told Greg, eyes wide at the interaction. “I don’t want to leave Penn in the house with Shev. You can distract them both.”

“I was just thinking that too,” Greg murmured. “I guess you’re right. I’ll come back to look in on you later, okay? I’ll bring coffee.”

Aziza nodded as she watched Greg turn on his heel and leave her alone. She saw Ram’s satisfied smirk and corrected herself. Practically alone. “Any reason why you did that, or are you just getting your jollies by playing puppet master again? And how
did
you do that anyway? He’s wearing the necklace I gave him.”

“You’ll notice it didn’t work as well as it should have. I can push, but there’s no guarantee I can control him, more’s the pity.”

“Poor Jinn,” she crooned. “Who are you without your party tricks?”

Ram’s smirk faded. “Mean drunk, are we? That’s not how I remember it. I seem to recall coming close to convincing you to join me in the back of a pub full of people to play Find the Snake.”

“I
knew
that was you.”

He moved to stand in front of her, his expression almost accusing. “And I know you and that dog had sex in the dining room.”

She snorted. “He’s a werewolf, not a dog. And join the Jinn club. Apparently my powers to stop time don’t work on your friends.”

“Shev told me about that. I knew you’d find out sooner or later. What you can do—it only works here. What you saw was the same location in a different… Forget it. You’re too drunk to appreciate the information.” 

He grabbed her arm. “You can’t be with him, Aziza. The Enforcer? It can’t happen. Even if he didn’t loathe what’s inside you—the Jinn and Niyr you’re made of—it would never last.”

She pulled away. “He already knows what I am. And now I know what he is.” And she wished everyone would stop reminding her.

“Then you both know that your bloodline is the only one of its kind. Special. And that man is a different species, one that views us as intruders. That hates us with a fanaticism that is willfully ignorant and dangerous.”

Aziza looked around playfully. “Uh-oh. Simon didn’t say you could tell me that. How do Jinn punish each other anyway? Since you’re telling me actual truths tonight, fill me in—are there lamps involved? Wishes?”

“He will never survive you. You are the fire, Aziza. And as Fireborne, you have an obligation to stay away from him. Besides, werewolves stick to their own kind. He might fuck you, but he’d never claim you. I told you, they are fanatics.”

She sobered after she heard his first sentence. He wouldn’t survive her? Hadn’t she been afraid she would hurt him, before the world had tilted yet again and she’d discovered that she still had no idea what was going on? Before she destroyed her aunt’s happiness.

“Do you think they knew?” She walked over to the stallion that’d been shuffling its hooves in restless agitation, and stroked his snout. “He or she, whoever is doing this—did they know Brandon would see Shev, follow her here? That we would find out about Hillary?”

Ram had moved closer. “Why would you think that?”

She lifted one shoulder, refusing to look at him. “It’s cruel. And it’s the only way to hurt Penn that we can’t physically protect her from. Sounds like something one of your kind would do.”

“My kind?” He blew out a frustrated breath. “I see. Not only have you decided one of my kind, instead of the Niyr, is responsible for these murders, but you still blame me for ‘switching
you on’.”

She lifted her wine bottle, frowning when she realized it was empty. “You
did
trick me into sex to start all this. You
did
terrify my aunt by possessing her, which is why she ended up out here with Hillary. You
are
a Jinn, something straight out of
Arabian Nights
sent to England, of all places, to follow me around and continuously remind me of how fucked I am.”

“But it was a
kalbu
, a lying dog, that truly hurt her,” he argued, walking slowly in a circle around her. A charming, coiling and sensual snake. “That stole into her heart, pretending to be so good. So honest while she drowned her in lies.”

He was right in front of her, staring at her wine-stained lips.
“
I
took advantage of an opportunity, yes. I’d been watching you, wanting you, and you wanted what I gave you. Needed it to keep you safe. And you enjoyed your moment of control—don’t deny it.
I
did what none of your brother’s Qarins had the will to do to keep their charges alive.
I
took the risk. For you. Does that make me cruel? Make me anything like the monster that torments you? Like the wolf who doesn’t trust you
or
your good-hearted friend, who we all know will never give you what you need?”

There was a strange vulnerability in his tone that made her turn around. “No. No, it doesn’t. But you only have the will when it suits you. When it gives you something you want. Can you promise me you’ll keep Penn safe? That you’ll do whatever it takes to keep the last of my family alive, no matter the cost? Even if the thing following me turns out to be one of your people?”

“If you have to ask, you’ve already made up your mind.”

“And that isn’t an answer.”

She heard the roar of Brandon’s motorcycle outside the stables and took a gasping breath. She didn’t want to think about Ram’s words. Didn’t want to think about anything, but that didn’t stop her from walking to the door and watching Brandon get off his bike and head directly for her.

“He smells you,” Ram whispered. “Knows you’re here. Some part of him will sense me, but when I’m like this, hidden from view to all but you, he’ll never be sure. Do you hate this party trick as well? Should I show myself, here with you? Should we lie and pretend we’ve come here for a lover’s tryst? That will surely send the wolf away. They are possessive and jealous creatures. So narrow-minded. Most Jinn would simply share.”

Aziza sent him a negative shake of her head, lifting her chin and wishing she had another bottle of wine. She wasn’t drunk enough for this. “Hey, Copper.” She tried to affect an air on nonchalance. “Did Hillary forget something?”

After the fight, Hillary had asked Brandon to take her to his uncle’s. He’d been gone for hours. She honestly hadn’t been sure he was coming back. Or even if she wanted him to. But she couldn’t deny that her heart still reacted to the sight of him. That her body wanted a repeat of their earlier encounter.

Werewolf
, she reminded herself. She snorted, thinking how ridiculous it sounded in her head. How unbelievable all of this still was, and covered her mouth as it turned into a drunken giggle. She couldn’t seem to stop.

“Aziza?” Brandon moved closer with cautious strides, as if unsure of her reaction to his presence. “I came back because we need to talk. I don’t like how we left it. I can’t let it stand like this…not with you. There are things you should know.”

“There are?” She pretended shock. “Are you saying there’s something else? There aren’t just Jinn and Niyr and werewolves and sadistic killers following me around? You didn’t stalk me and lie to me and make sure you sated your sexual curiosity before I found out what you are?”

His head jerked as if she’d slapped him. “That’s not what—”

She threw her bottle on the ground and strode up to him, pounding her fist against his chest in a sudden wave of anger that she couldn’t ignore. “That’s
exactly
what happened.” She hit him again. “As if I didn’t have enough insanity in my life. As if I hadn’t made enough mistakes.”