Carling turned to stare at Rune. Her expression was incredulous. She said, “Are you growling again?”
Rune glared at her. Her adorable goddamn hair was standing up all over the place, and she was wrapped in that goddamn hotel bathrobe like she might have just gotten out of bed after having sex. Somehow the modern setting—the hotel, the skyline, the fluffy robe—made her makeup-free face look naked. He snarled, “Why didn’t you wait to call him until we had gotten some goddamn clothes?”
Her mouth dropped open. “But you said—”
Seeing Carling flummoxed was a rare sight. It made her look even more adorable. He might have enjoyed the sight, if he hadn’t been possessed by a trumpeting, untrained stallion. He put his hands on his hips and roared, “forGet what I saId.”
The Djinn crossed his arms and raised a sleek black brow, looking so supercilious Rune started across the room toward him.
Suddenly Carling was there in front of him, impeding his path. She slapped her hands against his chest. He kept plowing forward, pushing against her strength, and her bare feet slid across the carpet. She said between her teeth, “I do not know why we are indulging in a fit of psychosis right now, but so help me, I will throw your crackbrained ass out the window if you don’t stop right there.”
The Djinn stared at them both. He smiled. He said, “I have seen this behavior in Wyr before.”
Glaring at him over Carling’s head, Rune spat words like they were bullets. “I want to know why you gave away three favors. And what Carling did for you.”
“Do you?” said the Djinn in a languorous drawl as he opened his diamond eyes wide. “Or you’ll do what?”
FOURTEEN
Rune hissed like a cat. He looked so feral and malevolent, Carling was jolted. She didn’t understand what was going on with him, but the aggression had flared in him again so hot it seemed to drive him with as much ruthlessness as a slave master’s whip. It finally sank in. He was really dangerous in that moment.
Even though his hands had changed, the fingers lengthening and tipped with killing claws, he gripped her shoulders with the same exquisite care as he always did. She was not at all concerned for herself. She knew she was quite safe with him, but she got a searing mental image of Rune and Khalil engaged in battle. If that happened, they would both sustain serious damage.
She cast around for ways to derail the situation. She didn’t see many options. She leaned her forehead against Rune’s chest and muttered to him in a low voice, “Rune, listen to me. This is not okay, and you’re beginning to alarm me. Don’t make me put a spell on you.”
His chest moved. He had taken a deep breath. His arms came around her. You can put any spell on me you want, he whispered in her head.
Aaaaagh, the idiot. She nearly did throw him out the window at that. She didn’t know how, in one moment, she could feel such a strong sense of connection with him, and then in the next feel like she was looking at some alien creature from one of those monster movies he said he loved. If there was ever a time he should not be flirting, it would be now.
What had he called himself? A stupid, crazy, illogical, senseless, rampantly jealous ass. Damn right, he was a stupid ass. . . .
Wait, that wasn’t the relevant part she should remember.
Rampantly jealous. That was the relevant part.
If she had decided to stay in love with him, she might have felt a little pleased about that. She folded her lips tight and drop-kicked the ridiculous pleasure out of her head.
She said, “Khalil?”
“Yes, my dear Carling,” purred the Djinn in a velvet voice that positively oozed sex and sin. “You know I’ll do anything I can for you. Anywhere. Anytime.”
Rune erupted into growling again.
She threw her arms around Rune’s lean waist and locked on to him by gripping her wrists with both hands. He tried to pry her away, but short of hurting her, he couldn’t break her hold. They engaged in a careful, wholly undignified struggle. Carling hissed in the Djinn’s head, Have you gone insane too?
Wyr are so fun to tease when they get like this, said Khalil.
If you tease him any more, I will hurt you. She said aloud, “I’m done with this nonsense. Khalil, tell him what he wants to know or I will.”
Khalil’s bright, malicious smile faded into a scowl. Then something darker came into the Djinn’s crystalline gaze, a raw haunt of memory. Khalil said, “Many years ago, my daughter Phaedra was kidnapped and tortured. Carling agreed to help me rescue her. It was not easy. Carling earned those three favors.”
Rune stilled as the Djinn’s words sank in, and Carling’s tight-locked grip cautiously loosened. “Your daughter,” he said. Children were rare in the Elder Races, and both prized and protected. The crazed, bucking stallion in Rune’s head calmed enough to let in a sliver of rationality. “Did she survive?”