Oracle's Moon (Elder Races #4)(52)

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.”

“I’m so sorry,” Grace said as gently as she could.

“As I said, this happened a long time ago,” he said. “You are so spirited I forget sometimes how recently you suffered your own loss.”

“We all lost,” Grace said. “Me, Chloe and Max, Petra and Niko.”

“Yes,” Khalil said. “But you have to shoulder the burden for all the rest.” He raised her hand to kiss her fingers. “I will come again tomorrow, with your consent.”

She smiled. “That would be terrifi—no wait, that won’t work. I won’t have the children tomorrow. Remember, I mentioned Saturday was a work day? Katherine is taking Chloe and Max tomorrow. They’re spending the night at her house.”

He frowned at her. He was silent for so long, she fell silent too and began to wonder what she might have said.

“Grace,” said Khalil, and her name had never been spoken so purely before in her life. He gave it an unearthly, haunting beauty. Just listening to it made her want to be better, more worthy of being called something so wonderful. If he ever sang, she thought, the song would be so unbearably gorgeous, it would soar over spires of stone and steel, and pierce the hearts of humans and other creatures, and he could rule the world.

If he ever sang to her, she would go anywhere with him, anywhere at all.

He had paused. “Why do you look so stricken?”

“Never mind,” she whispered. “Go on.”

“I no longer come just to see the children, you know,” he said. “When do your people leave tomorrow?”

“I—I don’t know, around five, maybe, or six,” she stammered.

“You will call me when they leave,” he said. His gaze was intent.

The thought of them alone in the house caused a slow, sensuous heat to spread over her body. He knew it, damn him, and the smile that spread over his ivory features was just as slow and sensuous, and unbelievably wicked.

She was sliding dangerously fast down a slippery slope, if she went from “no kissing” and “we’ll see” to him coming over when the children were gone. She cast around in her mind for something, anything, to stop her headlong plunge.

She blurted out, “Do Djinn date?”

He blinked. “That is not something to which I have given much thought,” he said. “Perhaps some Djinn might date some…creatures…some…times. Dating has not previously been a habit of mine.”