Oracle's Moon (Elder Races #4)(66)

“Stop,” she said. Then, more sharply as he ignored her, “Khalil, stop!”

He shot her a sparkling look, his jaw tight, but he stopped. “What do you require?”

“I have to put this away,” she said, indicating the mask in its wrapping. “And shut and lock the door.”

After hesitating a moment, he carried her back to the cavern entrance and eased her to her feet. He waited with his arms crossed as she tucked the mask back into a Rubbermaid cabinet, locked the door and put the key in its usual place in the coffee can on the lintel.

When she turned around, he reached to pick her up. She slapped a hand onto his chest and stiffened her arm. He grabbed her wrist, so inhumanly fast, she jumped. But he did not pull her hand away. He just held her forearm in a gentle, unbreakable hold. She felt his Power probe along her skin.

“Where are you bleeding?” he asked.

His face was tight. Staring up at him, she held out her other arm. He stroked his fingers lightly along the cut. She felt a slight flare in his Power, and the trickle of blood stopped. The annoying nag of pain vanished too. She tilted her arm up, squinting in the last of the light. It looked like the cut had scabbed over. “Thank you.”

“I’m not a healer,” he said. “That’s the extent of what I know to do.”

“What you did is great.”

“Sorry,” he had said. And “worried.” She would never have imagined a week ago that he would admit to such things, let alone that he would say them to her. The wild agitation in his energy was calming down. She stroked his hand that still held her other wrist. His hold loosened, and as she turned to walk back to the house, he fell into step beside her.

The scene was so like, and yet unlike, her dream. The night was full of shadows, and the wind caused the trees to whisper secretively. She looked up. There was still the barest sliver of the waning moon. The Oracle’s moon must be to-morrow. It was an especially Powerful time to prophesy, if anyone knew to ask for it.

Khalil might be in his human form, but his immense body still moved with impossible, fluid grace. He watched her with that same diamond gaze as piercing as the emerging stars, but instead of jarring her, she found it comforting.

She thought of how Petra and Niko would face each other, no matter how hard the conversation became. She couldn’t pretend nothing had happened either. She said, “I have some-thing difficult I need to tell you.”

Khalil gave her a frowning glance. “Difficult for whom, you or me?”

“Probably both,” she said, sighing.

“Very well.”

Feeling trapped, she fumbled for words. How could she say it? What would make it better? She was no good at this kind of shit. She stopped walking and said bluntly, “Phaedra came to see me.”

His response was electrifying. After a moment of standing frozen, he whirled and grabbed her by the shoulders. His face was savage, and his eyes blazed. He snarled, “You should have called me.”

She stammered, “I-I’m sorry. I know how badly you want to see her, I just—”

“Did I not warn you pariahs are dangerous?” he hissed. He actually shook her. “What did she do?”

She stared, too shocked to protest his manhandling. He was angry because Phaedra was dangerous? “We talked. She was unpleasant.”

He stopped shaking her. She tried to read his expression. There was ferocity and loss and something else. Something vulnerable. “What did she want?”

“I’m not sure. I don’t think she knew. She sort of…” Grace’s voice trailed away. Struggling to understand one Djinn well enough in order to explain her to another was wreaking havoc on her communication skills. “She’s angry at you,” she said finally. “She’s really angry that it took you so long to come after her. She said it took you five hundred years.”

His chest moved, as if he took a deep breath, even though he had no real need to breathe. He dragged his long fingers through his hair, dislodging the plain tie that held it back. It fell about his pale hard face.

“I couldn’t go after Lethe alone,” he said harshly. “She would have destroyed me, and then there would have been no one to go after Phaedra. By the time I gathered enough allies, Lethe and Phaedra had disappeared. I spent most of that time searching for them. I didn’t rest. I didn’t stop. Not until I found them.”

Moved to compassion, Grace reached up to touch his cheek. “She doesn’t understand that. She couches it in a lot of sneering and anger, but I think at the bottom of all that, she’s hurt.”

He covered her hand with his. “What else did she say? How did she know to come here?”

“I asked her that. She said your attention to us and this place has been noted and remarked upon, and that she has ‘sources,’ whatever that means.” She shook her head. “I think—Khalil, you should weigh what I say carefully, because I’m no kind of expert on Djinn behavior, but I think she’s not only hurt, but she might be jealous of the time you’ve started to spend here.”

“She doesn’t want anything to do with me,” he said bitterly. “How can she be jealous?”

“That’s a rational question,” Grace told him. “She doesn’t want anything to do with you, but then she keeps tabs on what you’re doing? I don’t think ‘rational’ applies here. And she might be damaged and refuse to build associations with others, but I’m not sure she’s a pariah, exactly. At least not the way I understand pariahs from how you described them. I asked if she came to consult the Oracle, and she said she wouldn’t be beholden to me for a favor. From what you’ve said, I don’t think pariahs would care. They would take the consultation and just not fulfill their part of the bargain.”