He wouldn’t kill her? How could he not? His sheer size, his obvious strength, and his bitter hatred made her impending death so obvious it shook her to her core.
She turned her head away, slammed her eyes shut. Tried to curl into Zayd at her back.
This is not my life!
A menacing chuckle echoed through Zayd’s chest. Then his hands softened at her arms, and he took a step back, tugging her gently with him until, finally, there was space between her and the monster. “Guard!”
Metal clanked metal, followed by a whoosh of air spilling into the room as the door opened. A burst of light rushed into the dark space, blinding Kavin. But all she could focus on was the blessed air and the fact she was safe.
For now.
Zayd gripped her hand and pulled her toward the light. Relief spiraled through her veins. To the guard, he said, “Contact me when the slave has been prepared.”
And just that fast, with one simple sentence, the relief she’d felt fled like a thief in the night. Until all that was left was a rolling sickness in her belly over what horror she’d find waiting when her master forced her to return.
Chapter Two
Kavin stared at the layer of bubbles floating on the surface of the water, feeling as if she were floating right along with them. Warmth enveloped her limbs as she lay in the marble pool, but she was cold to her very core. And the memories of the monster in that cell…
A shudder ran through her.
“Jarriah is cold?” Hana, the servant girl tending to Kavin, moved around a column that soared to the intricately carved ceiling and poured more steaming water from the large bronze pitcher in her hand into the bath. The aromatic scents of roses and orange blossoms wafted in the warm air, but Kavin still shivered.
Hana’s sandals clicked along the polished stone floor as she moved up the wide steps and knelt at Kavin’s back. She reached for a sponge from the side of the pool, dipped it in the water, then dragged it across Kavin’s shoulders and upper back. “Jarriah is tense, too. I take it your meeting with the sahad did not go well.”
“The word sahad makes him sound like some romantic gladiator.” Kavin sat upright, the water sloshing against her bare breasts, the girl’s voice cutting through her frenzied thoughts for the first time since she’d been sent to the baths to prepare herself. “He’s not. He’s a repulsive monster. He’s…”
Bile rose in her throat, but she forced it down, just as she’d done before. This was what was expected of her—to go willingly to meet her fate and complete her test—but every muscle in her body screamed Run! Escape! Disappear before it’s too late! Only she couldn’t. Her djinn powers were bound, and even if they weren’t, she’d never developed them. If she fled Zayd, he’d find her before she even reached the city wall. She’d be captured and executed. And even though something in the back of her mind whispered death might be better, she didn’t want to die. She wanted to live.
Tears burned her eyes. Tears of injustice and rage and disbelief. When she’d been with her family, she’d been free. Now she was nothing but property. A slave. Soon to be a jarriah. Her stomach rolled over at the thought. Soon her only worth would be in fulfilling the lascivious needs of her master.
If, that was, she survived her test.
Anger threatened to run over in a hot wave of tears she just barely held back. She covered her face with her hands, hating that she couldn’t just scream out her frustrations alone. That this servant was here to witness the last moments of her freedom.
“Shh, jarriah,” Hana said as she ran the sponge down Kavin’s bare back and smoothed her wet hair from her face. “It could be worse. He could be Shaitan. Or Infrit. Or one of the Ghuls from the Wastelands. He is Marid. This is a benefit to you.”
“A benefit?” Kavin shot over her shoulder. “I don’t see how any monster raping me for the sick pleasure of some highborn is a benefit, regardless of his tribe.”
Hana harrumphed, then scrubbed the sponge down Kavin’s arm rougher than necessary. “You only focus on the negative. Not the positive. You must accept the fact you are a slave now, jarriah. No different from me or even that djinni you call a monster. Choice is no longer yours. The sooner you accept your fate, the easier your life will be.”
Her life? Easy? Despair washed through Kavin as she stared at the marble along the far edge of the rectangular pool that could easily accommodate ten and, knowing her lecherous master, probably did, routinely. There was no such thing as easy anymore.
Hana moved around the corner of the pool so she could reach Kavin’s right arm and gentled her touch as she trailed the soapy sponge between Kavin’s fingers. “You also overlook the fact the sahad is Marid.”
Kavin glared at the dark-haired girl, her despair angling right back to anger. “What does his being Marid have to do with anything?”
“Do you not know?” Hana’s fingers stilled against Kavin’s, and an amused expression lit her dark eyes. “Marid view females quite differently from Ghuls.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
Hana refocused on her task. “They do not treat females as property but as treasures. The jarriah test is Ghul alone.”
“How do you know this?” Kavin asked skeptically.
Hana stepped over the side of the pool and eased into the water, the thin fabric of her simple servant’s dress soaking up the aromatic liquid as she lifted Kavin’s other arm. “When I first came here, I was told of a jarriah who was Marid. She’d been captured during raids on the Kingdom of Gannah.”
“Who told you about her tribe?”
“My mentor. The slave who trained me. She served the Marid female briefly. They gave her to a Shaitan for her test. Shaitans, as you know, jarriah, do not regard females of any tribe as treasures.”
Kavin swallowed hard as she eyed the Ghul slave marking wrapped around Hana’s left bicep—a serpent emerging from black flames. A marking Kavin would soon bear herself, once her test was complete. No, Shaitans were nearly as debased as the wild Ghuls who roamed the Wastelands. She knew her tribe had a bad reputation amongst other djinn, because those in the Wastelands weren’t policed—they raped and pillaged without remorse—but that didn’t mean all Ghuls were bad.
Unease rippled through her when she thought of Zayd and the other highborns who took whatever they wanted without regard for anyone else’s wants or needs. They dressed better than the Ghuls in the Wastelands, were educated and came from noble lines, but were they really any different? Then she thought about her parents, who’d taken the money Zayd had paid them as if it were a blessing. They’d not once tried to find her since they’d sold her. Finally, her mind drifted to what could have been—and probably was—done to a Marid female enslaved by Ghuls during a time of war.
Unease morphed to illness in the pit of her stomach. She looked away from Hana’s tattoo.
“She lived through her test,” Hana said, dropping Kavin’s arm and running the sponge across Kavin’s collarbone. “But she came back changed. Though she still spoke of her mate with hope, as if he could—someday—rescue her, the light was gone from her eyes. My mentor advised her to let her old life go and accept her new fate, but she couldn’t. She did not survive life as a jarriah.”