Alaskan Fury (33 page)

And there it was again.  He
wanted to touch her.  If she wanted to eat, she was going to let him.  She
dropped her head and cleared her throat.  “How long will you take?”

He watched her with all the
acuity of a wolf.  “As long as it pleases me.”

She took a shuddering breath and
peered at her hands.  They didn’t
feel
any different, after having
profaned themselves on a male’s delicate flesh.  Besides, they were here
alone.  Just her and the djinni.  Who was to know?  As far as she knew, there
weren’t
any direct written texts from her Lord, forbidding the male touch.  It had just
been understood amongst her sisters.  That the djinni couldn’t lie, and had
outright said that there had been male Furies, at one time, left her wondering…

She glanced at him nervously. 
And she had always been…curious.

“Do it,” she whispered.  “Bind it
in Law.”

With a momentary look of shock,
the djinni did so.  Amidst a whirlpool of violet energy, he boomed, “I, Yad
al-‘Aqrab, sand-singer of the Scorpion clan, firstborn son of Bakr al-Shihab,
eleventh djinni Lord of the Fourth Lands, hereby offer a bargain to you,
Kaashifah the Fury, Handmaiden to Ares, Warrior-Priestess of Horus, Angel of
Vengeance, and Justice of the Battlefields:  Allow me to explore your naked
body, to my satisfaction, and I will bring you a meal fit for a king, and
everything necessary to eat in comfort.  Do you accept?” 

“I will not lie on the frozen
ground,” she growled.  “You will bring blankets.”

The djinni gave a slight incline
of his head.  “Allow me to spread your naked body out before me on a layer of
blankets and explore it to my satisfaction, and I will bring you a meal fit for
a king, and everything necessary to eat in comfort.  Do you accept?”

For long, heart-pounding minutes,
Kaashifah could only stare down at her hands.  On his side of the enclosure,
the djinni waited in absolute silence, the violet magic of Fourthlander Law
still swirling about him.

Outside, the wind began to pick
up.  She thought she heard trees snapping, and the soft chant of,
Take him,
sister…

I must be going mad,
she
thought, as she considered her alternatives.  Starvation, two months ago, had
seemed a small price to pay to avoid a single male finger upon her skin.  Now,
she didn’t even notice it…

On the other side of the shelter,
the djinni continued to say nothing.  It was her turn to either accept his
terms, decline—and thereby strike the bargain from Law forever—or revise.

Well, Hell.  If a man was going
to touch her, down there, then she might as well use the opportunity to its
greatest benefit.  And for years, her priestesses had always told her she was
the most likely Sister to fall within the next century.  After thousands of
years of devout service to her Lord, proving them wrong, and now with all of
them long dead and Kaashifah still unsure exactly what all the fuss was about, Kaashifah
thought she finally deserved to know what it felt like.  And, from the rumors
she had heard from his one-time lovers, ‘Aqrab knew very well the ins and outs
of showing a woman such delights.  Lifting her chin, she said, “You will
pleasure me.”

‘Aqrab’s eyes widened and he
choked.  “
Pleasure
you?”

“As a man does a woman,” she said
quickly, then hesitated, losing confidence.  “Unless it
requires
a man
to spear a woman…?”  She was nearing the peak of her yearly cycle, and she did
not
want that kind of trouble.

The djinni just stared at her. 
“I want to be clear, mon Dhi’b, so both of us understands exactly what to
expect.  Did you just say you want me to ‘pleasure’ you?  Your body with mine?”

“Never mind!” Kaashifah cried, at
the humiliating shock in his face.  “Just forget—”

But the djinni quickly
interrupted her with, “Allow me to spread your naked body out before me on a
layer of blankets and
pleasure
it to my satisfaction, and I will bring
you a meal fit for a king, and everything necessary to eat in comfort.  Do you
accept?”

Kaashifah frowned at him.  If she
finished her sentence, the bargain would be nullified.  If she agreed, she was
about to willingly subject herself to the hands—and mouth?—of a man, for which
the only punishment her sisters would have given her was death.

Screw them
, a rebellious
part of her snapped. 
They abandoned you to the djinni, once they realized
you’d let him touch you.
  Her Sisters already
considered
her fallen,
and only her fulfilling her Lord’s command of taking his heart was going to
make her worthy of their number again, in their eyes.

So what the Hell did she have to
lose?  She certainly wasn’t getting any younger…

Lifting her head proudly,
Kaashifah said, “I accept.”

The djinni grunted as the power
of the Fourth Lands overtook him in a wash of violet.  In the triple-tone boom
of Fourthlander Law, he straightened and rumbled, “As agreed, so decreed, the
bargain has been made.”  Then, with a gasp, he slid forward onto his hands and
knees.

Heart thundering at the
sacrilegious bargain she’d made with a
djinni
, Kaashifah began backing
away from him, suddenly wishing she could take it back.  “Uh,” she said, as he
panted on his hands and knees across the cavern from her, “On second thought, I
think we should renegotiate.”

‘Aqrab looked up at her with a
wolfish grin.  “Not on your
life
, Fury.”  He got to his feet then—a
towering mountain of ebony looming like a titan on the other side of the
shelter—and began weaving Fourthlander magics into vast and quilted blankets.

“Uh,” Kaashifah said, as the
djinni shook out the bedding and laid it down upon the ice.  “I suddenly don’t
feel so well.  Perhaps I’m not hungry, after all.”

‘Aqrab just paused in his efforts
and shrugged.  “Whenever you’re ready, the bargain will remain.”

In other words, she wasn’t going
to be fed by him again, ever, until she fulfilled her end of their agreement.

“Curse you, ‘Aqrab,” she growled,
watching him spread out lazily on the blankets, arms cradled beneath his head. 
Her shame was making her face feel superheated, her pulse loud in her ears. 
“Neek hallak.  Dakhlah killah.”

The djinni raised an innocent
brow at her.  “Mon Dhi’b, it was
you
who insisted upon amending the
bargain.  I simply wanted to explore your body.”  Then he sighed with
wistfulness.  “But if you find our bargain too repulsive, I suppose I can amend
it.  It could be
you
who pleasures
me
.”  He grinned at her.

Kaashifah choked, and from the
sudden thundering in her ears, knew her face had taken on a shade of purple. 
“Never, you letch.”

“You have reset your seven
days—Oh well.  Your loss.”  The djinni just settled back into the thick bedding
and closed his eyes, to all appearances preparing for sleep.

Fisting her hands over and over
again, fuming inside, Kaashifah gritted, “Get off my blankets.”

“Why?” he asked, without opening
his eyes.  “
You’re
not using them.” 

Kaashifah considered a void-walk,
just to relieve the bastard of his smug grin.  Then, thinking about the added
trouble of having to craft another dwelling for them, she growled, “Get up.” 
She might as well get this over with.

Seeming to recognize the change
in her tone, ‘Aqrab sat up and scooted to one side of the bedding, watching her
with all the sharp intelligence of a caracal. 

Damn him.  Just…damn him.  Biting
her lip, Kaashifah said, “Turn around while I undress.”

The djinni laughed at her. 
“Why?  You asked me to
pleasure
you, mon Dhi’b.”  Then ‘Aqrab cocked his
head at her thoughtfully.  “You
do
realize that means I must
become…intimately…familiar with your person, correct?”

He had, she realized with growing
dismay, a point.  Then her face began to burn when ‘Aqrab simply crossed his
massive arms over his chest and waited, a single brow lifted in that perfect
djinni challenge.  “Unless you’re too afraid of me to continue?”

An instant of Fury flashed
through her.  She was afraid of
no
man.  Kaashifah lifted her chin,
meeting the djinni’s challenge with her own.  “And
you
realize that, to
pleasure me, I would have you remove my clothes.”

Having a
man
remove her
clothes
. 
This was getting way out of hand.

As expected, ‘Aqrab’s eyes
widened slightly and his arms had dropped from his chest in shock.  For the
first time in
much
too long, he seemed at a loss for words.  “Uh,” he
said.  “I suppose I could manage that.”  After a moment of staring at her, as
if waiting for her to recant her words, he slowly got to his feet.

Watching him rise until he
towered over her like a rippling black mountain, Kaashifah suddenly had trouble
breathing.  Yes, this had gotten way out of hand.  She flinched as he reached
out with a big hand, caught the hem of her shirt…

She quickly slapped the sweater
to her stomach and, to hide her nerves—and because like Hell she was going to
be the only one naked in this—said, “Remove yours first.  It would pleasure me
to watch.”

Both of the djinni’s brows soared
with surprise.  “Oh.”  He glanced down at his sirwal.  “Would you like to do
the honors?”

“No,” she gritted.  “I will be
watching you dance.”  Truth be told, she didn’t really want to see him dance,
but that strange new part of her had blurted it out before she could stop it.

The djinni’s eyes widened in
surprise as he cried, “
Dance
, mon Dhi’b?”

She shrugged.  “If you don’t feel
like pleasuring me in the Fury fashion, I suppose you can’t fulfill your end of
the bargain, after all.”

 He gave her a flat look.  “The
Furies made their victims dance?”

Glaring, she said, “It was my
sisters who were the victims.  They were merely doing the task set to them by
their Lor—”  Too late, she realized what she’d said.

A slow grin formed over the
djinni’s face.  “So, the Lord of War
does
tell his Furies to propagate
themselves.”  All-too-sure of himself, he said, “So tell me, mon Dhi’b, what
kind of wording did he use?”

Narrowing her eyes at him, she
said, “He would tell them to pair off with a suitable match, claim them wholly,
and replenish his temples with the blood of their loins.”

The djinni’s violet eyes watched
her closely.  “And how, may I ask, did you and your Sisters interpret that?”

Kaashifah shrugged.  “They would
choose a man—forcefully taking him from his phalanx or farm if necessary—mark
him by breaking his skin, and make him breed her.  Afterwards, they would
remove his parts and burn it as an offering in the temple fires.”

‘Aqrab winced.  “That’s
an…interesting…interpretation.”

“Oh,” Kaashifah said, her face
heating, “and they made the men dance.”

The djinni gave her an even
stare, bringing his arms back up and crossing them over his chest once more. 
Tapping his fingers along one bicep, he peered at her and said, “They didn’t
dance.”

“They did,” she lied.  “All the
time.”

He continued to scowl at her. 
“From what you told me, the poor boys were probably pissing themselves with
terror.  They
didn’t
dance.”

“
You
will dance,”
Kaashifah snapped.  Then, finishing the argument abruptly, she sat down on the
blankets and crossed her legs and arms in the djinni way that had so infuriated
her in the past, watching
him
.

‘Aqrab eyed her for a long,
considering minute, his big fingers tapping his bicep.  Then he shrugged. 
“Very well.”  And, grinning, he seemed to reach into thin air and dragged a
long, colorful scarf into existence beside him.  Then, whirling, he spun away
from her in a blindingly fast,
beautiful
dance that took her breath
away.  The djinni, as light as he was, was able to spin and maneuver in ways
that a human form of that size shouldn’t have been able to accomplish, and he
seemed to take great pleasure in the act.  She was still staring at him, her
jaw agape, when he tossed the scarf across the room in a twisting, whirling
finale, and yanked his sirwal from his body.  Tossing the garment aside, he
lowered himself naked to his knees before her.  Huskily, breathing hard, he
said, “That a suitable enough dance for you, mon Dhi’b?”

“Uh,” she whispered, realizing
both her arms and jaw had gone slack.

Not waiting for her to respond,
he started moving forward on his hands and knees, grinning.  “They didn’t
dance, did they?”

“I wouldn’t know,” she squeaked,
seeing the djinni’s member hanging hard beneath his belly, his heavy scrotum
dangling between his thighs.

“So you
are
a virgin.” 
Damn him and his quick mind.  He seemed pleased with the fact.  …And was
advancing at an alarming rate.

With a cry of startlement,
Kaashifah fumbled to get her legs uncrossed and out of his path fast enough,
but a moment later, he was over her, beaming down at her on all fours, still
panting.  “That was fun,” he said, as she tried to meld her spine into the
blankets to avoid him.  In a deep rumble by her ear, he said, “You will ask me
to dance for you again.”

“I could do that,” she whispered.

He lifted his face and kissed her
forehead.  And then, to her horror, she felt his big, hot hand sliding up her
stomach, under the shirt.  “Wait!” she shrieked.

‘Aqrab paused, giving her a
quizzical look.  “You
are
afraid, then.”

“Um,” she babbled, “Your hand
is…warm….  I was…unprepared.”

He grinned down at her.  “Then
prepare yourself.  You’re about to get what you asked for, Fury.”  And then, in
slow, sensuous movement, he pushed her shirt up her chest to cover her face,
followed—unexpectedly—by her bra.  Just as Kaashifah was adjusting to darkness
and the cold air on her nipples, she felt him take one in his mouth.