Alaskan Fury (13 page)

While he, the humble,
non-murderous
sand-singer of the Scorpion clan, a creature who loved to sing and dance and
twine his legs in union, suffered the constant threat of her misplaced wrath. 
Someday, he would seek out the god responsible and wish a pox upon his balls.

Until then, ‘Aqrab thought,
peering down at the sleeping Fury, he would have to make do.

Swimming from the haze of sleep,
Kaashifah eventually became conscious of a near-uncomfortable warmth seeping
into her from below.  Groaning, she opened her eyes.

“Now before you do anything
rash,” a voice from
beneath
her said, “I was only trying to warm you,
mon Dhi’b.”

She felt him move, then, as if to
gently lever her away, and realized in horror that their
skin
had
contacted,
down there
.

Kaashifah screamed and scrabbled
away from the djinni, slamming into the wall of what looked like Hell with her
hips and back.  Roots clawed at her like fingers from the underworld, scraping
at her spine and shoulders, and a rain of earth sprinkled down her neck and
shoulders.  “‘Aqrab,” she cried, her heart hammering, “
what have you done?!
”

His violet eyes anxious in the
darkness, ‘Aqrab said, “Calm yourself, mon Dhi’b.  I only warmed your flesh. 
Nothing more.”

He had ‘warmed her flesh.’  She
felt her stomach churn.  For a djinni who wove his words like thread, there
were a thousand meanings for such a phrase.  “Did you…” she began, but couldn’t
finish.  She looked away, feeling bile biting at the back of her throat.

He started to sit up, reaching
for her.  “Probably not the most brilliant—or
comfortable
—thing I’ve
ever done—”

“
Stay down
,” she snarled,
and she could have sworn she felt her Fury uncoiling within.

‘Aqrab must have seen that she
was about to loose the wolf, for the djinni hesitated.  Slowly, he lowered
himself on an elbow, not disobeying, but not quite following her commands,
either.  Looking wary, he said, “You were on the verge of—”

“Silence!”  She was so angry she
couldn’t breathe.  Her whole body was shaking with the feel of his filth,
touching her in her
sleep
.  “Speak again,” she whispered, “and I will
find out what djinni tastes like.”

Instead of making a lewd retort,
‘Aqrab went silent, watching her with the wariness of a leopard facing a lion.

When she could find words again,
Kaashifah managed, “Did you…”  Her throat, however, clenched before she could
finish her question, and she looked away before he saw her tears.  She tried
again, forcing the words from her lips, only to be stopped before she could
make her meaning clear.  “Did you…” 
Spear.
  Such a simple word, yet so
impossible to force from her tongue.  It took three more times before she gave
up, beating a fist into the dirt wall beside her in wretched misery.

“I did not pierce you, mon
Dhi’b.”  The djinni’s voice was gentle.

She swiveled to face him,
startled.

He had risen to a cross-legged
position, looking as if he wanted to reach for her again.  A certain agony was
playing across his face, one which Kaashifah did not understand.

“You…didn’t?” she whispered.

“I did not spear you while you
slept,” ‘Aqrab said softly, “Or any other time.  You simply slept your wounds
away in my arms, mon Dhi’b.”

Djinn could not lie.  Kaashifah let
out a relieved breath that came out as a wretched, nervous laugh.  Wiping tears
from her face, she quickly looked away, so that the djinni could not see the
remnants of her fear.  After all, a Fury feared no man.

…and was frightened of
all
men.  For, on his person, every man carried that which could unmake a Fury, a
tool that could cast her from the Sisterhood forever.  An act that ‘Aqrab liked
to taunt her with at every waking opportunity, gloating over the hardness of
his flesh, the ways it could be put to use, the ‘pleasures’ gained from it,
and, on his more vulgar days, describing the act itself in every repugnant
detail, as if his tiny brain could think of nothing else.

…And he hadn’t done it. 
Why
hadn’t he done it?  It made no sense to her.  After three thousand years,
surely he had come to realize that the moment she gained her wings would be the
same moment he finally lost his head.  He’d had her at his mercy.  Utterly
helpless to stop him.  He could have taken her wings forever, and irrevocably saved
his neck from her sword.  What kind of
fool
wouldn’t have snatched that
opportunity when it was given?

Then she remembered the
conversation before the blood-pact and she saw the djinni in a whole new
light.  “You
couldn’t
bed me,” she stammered, stunned.  “Your curse.”

The djinni’s face twisted.  “I am
incapable of bedding women,” he muttered in reluctant agreement.  “You were
safe in my arms.”

“Safe?!” she blurted, looking
down at herself in disgust.  “I was
naked
.  You
defiled
me, you
monster.”

The djinni snorted and yanked her
sweater from a root above his head.  He tossed it to her.  “Defiled, then.”  He
cocked his head at her and grinned with an impish intent that she recognized as
his lecherous nature once more crawling to the surface.  “Would you like for me
to sing you a song about another such defilement, to ease your mind?”  He
yanked her undergarments and jeans from their similar hangers and threw them at
her.

“As I’ve told you before,”
Kaashifah snapped, tugging the bloodstained garments gratefully over her
nakedness.  “I hear you sing one more of those bawdy disgraces and I’ll douse
you so deep in shadow you won’t feel your tongue for a week.”

The djinni cocked his head and
gave her a long, hard look.

Too late, Kaashifah realized she
didn’t
have
the shadows to use against him anymore.  Her breath caught,
and she suddenly felt her face heating.

“I am a bard amongst my people,”
‘Aqrab said, conversationally.  “Actually, a rather famous sand-singer.  I’ve
memorized thousands of songs in my lifetime, can recount for you hundreds of
ballads of heroes, love, and folklore.  How many of those have you heard me
sing, mon Dhi’b?”

“Too many,” she growled,
bristling.

“You’ve let me
begin
four,
that I can remember,” ‘Aqrab replied.  “I never got more than halfway before
you stopped me, threatening your poisons.”

Four was actually more than she
would have guessed.  She could only remember two.  And both times, the djinni
had looked shattered when she’d stopped him.  Shaking herself of a sudden pang
of guilt, she demanded, “When did this become a conversation about
my
wrongdoings to
you
?  You just had me spread out
naked
upon your
body
,
you despicable ogre.”

“True,” the djinni said, “and
you’ve forced me to spend every night alone, singing myself to sleep amidst the
dunes for the last three thousand years.”

Kaashifah glared.  “Because I
kept catching you
spying
on me in my
sleep
.”

“Because you aren’t a hot-headed,
ill-tempered
qybah
when you’re asleep,” he bellowed back.  “It’s a
pleasant change to see you sleeping. 
Forgive
me for
alarming
you.  If you weren’t so damned agitated all the time—hells, if maybe you’d let
me
sing
you to
sleep
—I wouldn’t have needed that reassurance. 
You’re like one of those small Northlander dogs, mon Dhi’b.  Small and restless
and ready to piss on everything under the sun.  Learn to relax, and Life will
treat you better.”

She narrowed her eyes at him,
still stunned by his original insult.  “I am not a
qybah
.”

“Mon Dhi’b,” ‘Aqrab chuckled,
“after three millennia, I beg to differ.”

The casual way he said it stunned
her.  “You actually think of me as such?” she blurted, utterly disbelieving the
sincerity in his face.

He peered at her, his violet eyes
curious.  “After three thousand years of you dousing me in shadow for the most
minor infractions, of you telling me I’m impure, that I’m filthy on merit of my
birth, that I’m corrupting you with my touch, my eyes, my voice, my
smell
…” 
He cocked his head at her.  “Did you really think I thought any
differently
?”

The knowledge dismayed her.  In
three thousand years, for better or worse, ‘Aqrab had been her constant
companion.  He knew her better than even her Sisters, before her Fall.  He knew
every little aspect of her, from how much she needed to eat, to how long she
slept, to when her yearly menses would start, even going so far as to bring her
teas to ease the pain…

…and he thought she was a bitch.

“I am
not
a qybah,” she
growled.  “And put on your sirwal.  You disgust me with the sight of your
flesh.”  Too late, she realized what she had said, so automatic was her
response to the sight of his filth.

Still naked, ‘Aqrab raised a
brow.  Making no movement to reach for his wad of silk, he said, “Perhaps I was
wrong.  Perhaps you could remind me of one moment, excluding the last two days,
when you have given me a single kind word, a single boon or benevolence that
was unasked for, a single gesture of gentleness towards me.”

She stared at him for so long she
felt her jaw slide open.  “Since when is it
my
job to be kind to a
criminal
?”
she blurted.

He shrugged.  “We were debating
whether or not you were a qybah, not the veracity of my alleged criminality.” 
He cocked his head at her.  “So, little wolf. 
Can
you think of
anything?”  And then, still refusing to put on his sirwal, he folded his arms over
his chest and waited, cross-legged in that regal pose that the Djinn had
perfected, eyes flat with challenge.

Spurred by the arrogant look he
was giving her, Kaashifah thought back to the last three thousand years of her
existence, scrabbling to find some fact to wrench from history and throw in his
smug face, to prove him wrong.

…And kept thinking.  She
scrambled to come up with some kind thing she had done for him, some
benevolence to counter the outright surety in his face. 

At the increasing smugness of his
visage, she blurted, “I offered you a share of my meal, outside the Ajanta
Caves.”  She cocked her head at him in triumph.  “As I recall, you refused.”

He gave her a long look.  “As
I
recall, mon Dhi’b, the offering came with the words, ‘perhaps
this
will silence that twisted loom you call a tongue.’  And you threw it at me.  To
eat it, I would have had to swallow sand.”

Kaashifah felt her face
flushing.  She scrambled to think of something else.  Everything she could come
up with had been tainted with her frustration, her despair.  Yet, ever since
her fateful meeting with the djinni at Tafilat, her life had been a living hell
of anxiety and hopelessness.  She, in fact, could not think of a time when she
had been kind to him.  For centuries, all she had wanted, at times more than
life itself, was for him to disappear, to twist back to the firelands, never to
return.  She could remember no gift, no concession, no sympathetic words that
she had ever given to him, under the constant threat of his goading words, his
mocking jibes, his verbal abuse.

“You were
taunting
me!”
she finally snapped.  “You spent three thousand
years
taunting me.  Of
course
I was not kind to you.”

For a long moment, he said
nothing, only watched her over his massive, crossed arms.  “I taunted you,
little wolf, because you refused to see me as anything other than a beast to
whom you had the misfortune of being chained.”

“Then as now!” Kaashifah snapped.

Utterly placid, he said, “You sit
there, call me a beast to my face after I have twice rescued you from the brink
of death these last two days, as well as countless times before that, and you
somehow find it incomprehensible that I, in turn, find you to be a qybah?”

She felt her face heating.  “The
only reason you ‘saved’ me is because you don’t want to be tied to a bag of
bones
. 
You’ve said as much a thousand times already.”

The djinni scanned her face
impassively for several minutes.  “I saved you, mon Dhi’b, because I still
harbor the hope—miniscule that it has become, considering its wretched and
chronic failure in the past—that I may one day teach you how to love.”

Kaashifah’s heart shuddered and
she reflexively reached for her Lord’s pendant.  When her fingers came back
empty, she froze.

“It was missing when I undressed
you,” ‘Aqrab said.  “I suspect the Inquisitors had a chance to take it.  They’d
shot you and disturbed the debris I piled around you.”

Kaashifah felt a wretched moan
escape her lips.  The thought of an
Inquisitor
holding her Lord’s
talisman was too much to bear.  “No,” she whispered, through a throat that
suddenly no longer wanted to work.  “I must have it back.”

“Is that your wish?” the djinni
said, giving her a sharp look.

“No, damn you!” Kaashifah
snapped, though her insides were screaming ‘yes.’  Her conduit to her Lord, a
connection she had maintained from the moment she’d been accepted by her
Sisters, lost.  She lowered her head to compose herself before her gut could
wrench control of her tongue and give the djinni his final wish, and in doing
so, his freedom.