BOUND TO SEDUCTION
Firebrand - 1
ELISABETH NAUGHTON
CHAPTER ONE
The clank of the cell door opening echoed like a thousand cannons exploding across the night sky.
Tariq lifted his head and gazed through the strands of hair covering his eyes, only to experience the rush of blood boiling in his veins when he saw the condescending face peering down at him through the bars.
“Sleep has not done you well, Tariq,” Zoraida mocked, the opulent blue silk of her gown swishing as she moved into his dingy cell. Behind her, three guards, armed to the hilt, remained outside the bars, ready to strike at a moment’s notice. “I fear your will to live hangs in the balance.”
His arms ached from being held above his head as he’d leaned against the stone wall and tried to sleep, and he was weak from lack of food, but he pushed to his bare feet, the chains cuffed to his wrists rattling against the bar embedded waist high in the cold stone at his back. With some unseen force of will, he contained the fury whipping through him at the sight of the sorceress who’d imprisoned him in this hellhole. But smiled to himself at the knowledge his misery would soon be over. And with it, her reign.
“The only life that hangs in the balance is yours, sayyeda. I’m willing to die for my cause. And when I do, yours goes with it.”
Her superior grin faded. Those emerald eyes, as dangerous as chipped glass, narrowed with a hatred he felt burn all the way to the depths of his soul. “You will continue to do my will. As you have for ages. That is the command of your sayyeda.”
“Fuck your command,” he growled. “I’m done being your slave.”
She moved closer, until the sweet, powdery scent of her assailed his nostrils. Close but not close enough for him to reach. Even with his powers bound in this dungeon, she knew better. “Such aggression and hostility from a fierce Marid warrior is not unexpected. But I wonder this. How long will your resolve last when the lives of all you love are on the line?”
“You hold no power over my tribe. My kingdom will persist. Your immortality dies with me.”
Her gaze traveled the length of his bare chest, hovered on the amulet against his throat, then dropped to the scrap of dirty cloth tied across his hips. She looked down his bare legs at the food he refused to eat, still sitting on the tray on the hard, stone floor at his feet, then back to his face. A malicious grin spread across her bloodred lips. “No, djinni. My immortality will continue to thrive. And you will continue to fuel it.” Without looking away, she called, “Guards?”
Shuffling echoed behind her. Tariq’s attention slid from her to the dark corridor outside his cell and the two men being dragged across the dungeon floor. Both wore nothing but scraps of cloth, like him, and both were bloodied and bruised as if they’d been beaten to within an inch of their lives. Long, dark hair fell across their faces, shielding their eyes, but on each, a fire opal—similar to the one he wore around his neck—reflected light into the dank room.
“Bring them closer so he gets a good look,” Zoraida said, still focused only on him.
Both men grunted as they were shoved face-first up against the bars. Then the guards grasped their hair and lifted their heads so Tariq could see his brothers’ bloody, dirt-streaked and swollen faces.
The fury born into his tribe from the beginning of time erupted inside him. He lurched forward, ready to tear Zoraida’s throat out with his bare hands, but the chains clanked again, stopping his momentum. “Release them, you bitch!”
Zoraida stepped so close he could see every tiny pore on her disgustingly perfect face. “You will not stop me, Tariq. And you will do as I command, or I will slit their throats and end their meager existences. The Kingdom of Gannah now rests in my hands, not yours. Continue down this road of so-called honor and everything you hold dear will fall to ruin.”
Blond hair fell over her bare shoulder, the soft curls brushing her milky cleavage as she lifted a finely manicured finger and ran it down the length of his cheek. She was beautiful—blindingly so. But her beauty was a farce. Underneath, she was aged and decrepit. As aged and decrepit as Tariq felt from the years of his imprisonment.
Her expression shifted from enraged to amused. “Of course, if you were to cooperate, I might be amenable to releasing…one.” She shot a look over her shoulder toward his brothers. “Even if he is now…stained.”
The need for revenge enflamed Tariq from the inside out, but he let his gaze drift past her to his brothers. Both were strong djinn warriors, princes of their kingdom, as was he, but they weren’t ruled by fate. They exercised free will. And as such were open to corruption, as he had been. If he—the eldest and strongest of the brotherhood—had fallen prey to the seductive sorceress, then he’d been a fool to think his brothers were safe.
Nasir’s chest rose and fell with his labored breaths, but in his eyes, Tariq saw determination. And the unspoken words: Do not break, brother. His gaze shifted to Ashur, who could barely keep his eyes open. He would not last through another beating by Zoraida’s guards.
Tariq ground his teeth and looked back toward the sorceress. And though it took every ounce of strength he had left, he forced the words past his teeth when he said, “What would you have me do, sayyeda?”
Nasir opened his mouth to protest, but the guard kneed him in the kidneys. Nasir groaned and slid to his knees.
“Eat,” Zoraida said, watching Nasir writhe on the ground as if it pleased her. “Regain your strength. And when you are called upon, service your mistress’s wishes in the manner in which she is accustomed.” She threw a victorious grin over her shoulder toward Tariq. “Without hesitation.”
Bile churned in Tariq’s stomach as he looked toward Nasir’s pain, unable to help or even avenge his brother. And every muscle in his body screamed No! to what Zoraida was offering. But if this were the only way to ensure his brothers did not die—for at least one to be free—for them he would agree. He would once again become the pleasure slave Zoraida had condemned him to be. And every soul she sent him into the human realm to corrupt would fuel her immortality that much longer.
But by all that was holy, he would never stop looking for a path to his own freedom. He would find it. And one day soon, he would see her blood stain the ground at his feet.
“As you will it, sayyeda,” he said through clenched teeth.
She stepped to the bars, ran her fingers down Ashur’s cheek, and harrumphed. To the guard holding him upright, she said, “See to it he does not die. At least not yet.” As she moved through the cell door, she added, “You will have your new assignment tomorrow, Tariq. And this time, use all within your power to make sure the woman is satisfied. My immortality and your brothers’ lives depend on it.”
Mira Dawson drew in a deep breath in the hopes it would settle the nerves bouncing in her stomach.
It didn’t.
Stop being so nervous. You’re just shopping.
Shopping. Yeah, that was it. Just an ordinary, everyday shopping trip.
The lie swirled easily in her mind, and though her subconscious screamed turn the hell around, something more primal urged her on. Running her sweaty hands down the front of her T-shirt, she steeled her nerves, then pushed the shop’s doors open.
The bell above jangled. Vintage clothing hung on the wall to her left. Racks of capes and corsets and short, flirty skirts filled the small central space. Hats decorated with feathery plumes hung on hooks all along the left, rows and rows of stiletto-style boots lined the floor, and ahead, a glass counter filled with antique jewelry finished off the cramped room.