Bound to Seduction

CHAPTER TEN

Tariq was pretty sure he’d never been so satisfied.

Mira lay draped over him, her chest rising and falling with her labored breaths, her hair a wild tangle of silk all across his sweaty skin. He ran his fingers through the thick blond mass, loving the feel of it—and her—against him as she tried to slow her breath, as they both came down from another rocking climax.

His heart pinched when he thought of what would happen next. They were safe out here on the water, but as soon as they went back to shore, Zoraida would expect results. And when he refused, the sorceress would become enraged. He didn’t want to lose his brothers, but he couldn’t damn Mira. She was as innocent as they were. And he could no longer sacrifice one for the good of others.

“Where are we?” he asked as he stared up at the ceiling.

“On a boat,” she said, her voice vibrating against his chest, sending tendrils of pleasure all through his skin. “I already told you that.”

He smiled, even knowing all the danger that loomed ahead for both of them. With her, he felt light, alive, loved. And that’s what he’d hold on to. Even when his brothers were gone and Zoraida took her fury out on him. He’d remember this moment with her and everything she’d given him and know his choice was worth it. “That’s not what I meant, smartass. I meant, where is the boat?”

She pushed up on one arm and looked down at him. Her eyes sparkled in the low light, and his heart cinched down even tighter as he looked into her beautiful face. “You need to be more specific, djinni. I’m not a mind reader, you know.” She grinned again. “On the Columbia. Off Sauvie Island. Don’t worry, we aren’t drifting. I dropped anchor.”

He wasn’t worrying about that. He was worrying because they didn’t have much time. They needed to get out of this bed and strategize. He needed to teach her to recognize the influence of Ghuls so she could defend herself when he was gone. But he didn’t want to do that yet. He just wanted to stay here and be close to her, even though doing so was only prolonging the inevitable.

He brushed a lock of hair back from her face. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been on the water. I miss it. Thank you for this.”

“Your kingdom is near the coast, isn’t it?” When he nodded, she said, “You sail a lot?”

“I used to. Not much lately.”

“I guessed,” she said, pushing up to sit on his legs.

He loved that she wasn’t self-conscious about being naked with him anymore. Loved the way she trailed her hands down his chest. “Let me guess? Your research?”

That Cheshire-cat grin returned once more. “Something like that. But I didn’t bring you on this boat just because I thought you might be missing the water.”

“You didn’t?” She shook her head, and his brow lowered as he tried to read her expression. “Then why?”

Resting her hands on his chest, she leaned down and kissed him. “Because I love you.”

His heart turned over, and he opened to her, drawing her tongue into his mouth one more time, hoping it would be enough. Knowing it wouldn’t.

She ran her hands over his shoulders as she kissed him. Down his arms and back up again. He lost himself in her kiss. In the sheer perfection of her. In all the love he’d never had before. Her fingers trailed down to his wrists. She grasped his arms, tugged them above his head. He smiled as she kissed him. As his desire built all over again.

Okay, one more time. Then he’d get serious. So long as they were out on the water and she still needed him, he’d let her do whatever she wanted. For however long it took. When she was finally sated, then he’d refocus.

“I love when you touch me like this, Mira.”

She pushed his hands together over his head. “Good. Because I have a feeling in a minute, you’re going to be really mad.”

His brow dropped as she pulled away from his mouth. And then something cold and metal snapped over both his wrists.

He jerked his head back, looked up. But before he even saw the cuffs, he knew they were iron. Knew because it zapped his energy and made him weaker than he’d been in years.

His gaze shot back to Mira. She quickly climbed off him. A guilty look ran across her face. “What are you doing? Mira, uncuff me right now. Iron—”

She winced. “I know. Iron makes you weak. But trust me, Tariq, there’s no other way.”

He watched in shock and disbelief as she tugged on her clothes. Of course, she knew. She’d researched his tribe extensively. He jerked on the iron cuffs with what little strength he had. But they were secured to a hook in the wall, and all his efforts did was jangle metal against metal. “Mira. What…? Why…?” He pulled hard again. Knew he was growing weaker with each second. “You have to let me go.”

She tugged the comforter over his naked body. Then leaned down so she was close to his face. “I know she can’t see us on the water. Or hear us. But I also know you’d never let me do what I’m about to do, so I had to cuff you.”

She ran her fingers over his jaw, and instinctively, he leaned into her touch, even as anger pushed up his chest. “Mira, listen to me—”

His words cut off when her fingers moved down his throat; then both hands spread across his collarbones as if she were feeling for something.

Panic spread through his entire body as she began uttering words in an old language he’d only heard once. Words Zoraida had spoken when she’d bound him to the opal. And his eyes grew wide when the opal he wore in his realm—the one that was just like Mira’s but invisible here—materialized against his chest.

Her fingers closed around the opal, and she muttered more magical words that broke the clasp.

“Mira,” he gasped, eyes wide with disbelief. “How did you—?”

“Find your brothers, Tariq,” she whispered against his lips, just before kissing him one last time. “My wish has been fulfilled.”

No. No! “Mira!”

A vortex of black smoke materialized in the room. Horror enveloped Tariq as the smoke cleared and Zoraida stood in the center of the salon. Tariq jerked on the cuffs, but he was so weak now, he could barely move. “Mira, run. Get out of here!”

She had no idea what she’d just done. By voicing her wish was fulfilled, she’d brought Zoraida’s wrath down on her. He couldn’t protect her cuffed to this wall. Panic made him yank and pull and do anything to break free.

“Water,” Zoraida announced, glaring toward Tariq. “Clever, djinni. Remind me to punish you for that.”

She turned her icy gaze on Mira. “Your wish is fulfilled, human. That means your soul belongs to me.”

Mira didn’t even flinch as a wicked grin spread across Zoraida’s face. Did she know Zoraida was a sorceress? That she could torture Mira, enslave her, kill her at any moment? That panic morphed to a full-blown terror that whipped through Tariq like a hurricane. “Mira, run!”

“Maybe,” Mira said in a calm voice, ignoring him. “Maybe not.”

Zoraida’s eyes narrowed. “What do you have behind your back?”

Slowly, Mira pulled her right hand forward and opened her palm. Tariq’s opal glimmered in the low salon light.

Fury flashed in Zoraida’s eyes, shot from the opal to Mira’s face. “How did you get that?”

Without answering, Mira tugged a curved bottle made of yellow glass from behind her back with her other hand. One Tariq had seen sitting on the shelf near the bed when he’d first come onto the boat. Gaze locked on Zoraida, Mira held Tariq’s opal over the bottle, then said, “Your hold on him ends here. By the magic in the Key of Solomon, I free him from his chains.”

No. He wouldn’t be able to protect her. Zoraida would kill her for sure for this. No! “Mira!”

Zoraida’s eyes grew wide as saucers. Before she could lunge forward, Mira dropped the opal into the bottle.

Zoraida screamed. The liquid in the bottle fizzled and popped, and then the opal disintegrated. Fire erupted all through Tariq’s body, exploded out his fingertips. His body lurched off the bed as if he’d been shocked with a ten-thousand-volt electrical current. Voices echoed in his ears. Mira’s. Zoraida’s. But the black smoke was already circling in. Already pulling him back. The cuffs broke free of his wrists. His vision blurred. Through a haze, he reached out for Mira, but the roar of the vortex swirling around him was too strong, the force too great. And then, before he could stop it, he was flying across time and space, heading…he didn’t know where.

Mira swallowed hard as she stared into the face of the enraged sorceress. Power radiated from her body, churned in the air. But the hatred in her eyes… It was like nothing Mira had ever seen before.

She couldn’t wonder where Tariq had gone. Couldn’t focus on the hurt she’d seen on his face when she’d cuffed him. He was safe now. He was free. That was all that mattered.

“You,” the sorceress growled. “I will make you pay for what you’ve done.”

Mira took a step back. Braced herself for the sorceress’s fury. She didn’t have a weapon, nothing to protect herself. What little magic Claire’s research had garnered had already been used to free Tariq. She’d known it would come down to this. That she’d be left alone with an irate magical being when all was said and done, but she hadn’t realized just how frightening that would be.

“It was worth it,” Mira managed in a shaky voice, trying to stay tough. Trying not to let this…thing…see her fear. “To get him away from you, it was worth it.”

The sorceress’s eyes turned red. She lifted her hands and threw them forward. A burst of electrical energy sizzled from her fingertips, flew through the air. Mira screamed. She knew she did. But the blast never hit. It went right through her and slammed into the wall of the boat, opening a hole in the side that rocked the boat from side to side.

Mira stumbled, hit the wall of the boat. Frigid water poured into the cabin, seeped around her feet. But she was too focused on the sorceress’s eyes, growing wider with disbelief and fury, as she glanced from her hands to Mira’s face.

There was nowhere for Mira to go. Panic spread through her chest, threatened to overwhelm her. And then she thought of the Firebrand opal.

Her wish was fulfilled. It wasn’t bound to her anymore.

She quickly reached up and flipped the clasp on the chain around her neck. Excitement speared through her when it opened and the opal fell into her hand.

Across the cabin, the sorceress yelled, “No!”

But Mira didn’t hesitate. She dropped the opal into the bottle, just as she’d done with Tariq’s stone. Only this one didn’t sizzle and pop. It bobbed in the liquid she’d enchanted with magical words Claire had given her, then seemed to hover, suspended inside.

The sorceress screamed, and Mira looked up just as another vortex of light and smoke and energy spun through the room. But this one didn’t disintegrate. In a roar so loud it shook the boat, the sorceress, her magic, every bit of her twirling tornado was sucked into the bottle.

Barely able to believe what had just happened, Mira slapped the top down on the bottle, securing the clasp. Inside the yellow-tinged glass, the Firebrand necklace still floated, but there was no sign of the sorceress. Just a crackle and sparkle of magic that told Mira she and her power were in there somewhere.

“Holy shit,” she breathed. She’d done it. She’d saved Tariq, she’d managed to save herself, and she’d trapped the sorceress.

Her hands shook. Her heart raced. Slowly, sound returned. And a shiver racked her body. She looked around the salon, half filled with water from the gaping hole in the side, and realized the boat was sinking.

She scrambled for the stairs. The boat groaned and jerked to the side, knocking her off balance. The bottle slipped from her fingertips. She went under the steadily rising water, kicked hard to come back up. Sputtering, she looked around for the bottle. It was floating on the steadily rising surface of the water. Heading for the hole in the side of the boat.

She had to get to it. She couldn’t lose it!

She swam hard for it. Her fingertips grazed the glass, but she couldn’t reach it. Before she could get her hand around the neck, it was sucked out of the boat and disappeared into the river.

Mira’s head went under. Water swirled around her. Lungs burning, she kicked hard to get air. When her head popped up, she gasped, so close to the ceiling. Oh God, she wasn’t going to get out. She was going to drown down here.

She swam as hard as she could. Finally reached the stairs, now at an angle as the boat filled. Water poured over the deck, into the salon, but she fought against the current and pushed through until she was on the drastically sloped deck. She didn’t bother looking for a lifejacket, knew there wasn’t time. Hands on the grab rail, she struggled to the edge and pushed off, sailing into the river, hoping she’d jumped far enough out so the boat didn’t suck her down with it. Praying she’d live.

Because as much as she’d been willing to sacrifice herself for Tariq, she didn’t want to die this way. Not when they were both finally free.