Today would be her fresh start, a new day. She would make this work and make her parents proud of her. Danika was no doubt reporting back to them as she was reporting to Nix. She’d decided sometime around midnight that she would give her parents no further cause for concern.
Nodding her head, she called out to the council.
“Rivet, Genie of Order, I claim my one day of freedom.”
Though she did not hear back from them, a tingling surge of power rushed through her body, from the crown of her head to the soles of her feet. The golden cuffs at her wrist turned a burnished shade of bronze and Nixie smiled.
She was free.
With a cry of jubilation she sped from her lamp. She could simply will herself to Josiah’s tent, it would save time and effort, but to fly freely through the air. To be servant to no man, she closed her eyes and laughed hysterically as the rolling winds of Kingdom propelled her toward Josiah.
The clouds were blue, the trees lush and green, the flowers radiant in the sunshine. This was a day where nothing wrong could happen.
The type of day that was meant for fairytales. Though her lamp had been tossed hundreds of miles from Josiah’s tent, Nixie had learned that once she’d been paired with a master, her internal compass would always be attuned to them; no matter time or distance, she could always find them. She merely needed to think of them, and then it was like she could “see” where they were.
Traveling at the speed of thought, she moved like lightning through the air, nothing but a blur to those traveling below her. But this was Kingdom, so no one looked bothered by a streak of color dancing through the clouds.
Spying the top of his indigo colored tent in the distance, Nixie finally began to slow down. Wanting just a few extra moments to herself, she dropped to the ground, dusted off her pants, and took her time walking to him.
Josiah had been a royal pain in her ass. Nixie had stayed up late into the wee hours of the night last week studying the laws and rules of genie, trying to figure out if revoking the rights to wishes was allowed her. And what she’d determined was that so long as he was no longer her master and she belonged to no man but herself, she was free to do with her wishes as she willed.
And she willed to take it all away, the smarmy bastard.
Lost in her thoughts, it took a second for the gasping sound to register in her brain. Pausing, she cocked her head, now barely twenty yards away from the entrance of the tent.
There were moaning sounds that did not at all sound like the breathless noises of the harem. Had Luminesa and Josiah made up?
Another moan. And another one.
As much as she’d liked the girl, this would change things. It was one thing to revoke wishes from a man who did not deserve them, but quite another to take away a chance for happiness if he were truly determined to turn over a new leaf.
The moan sounded louder, this time with shivery, stuttered undertones.
Nixie knew what sex sounded like; she’d heard it happen often enough between the walls of her home. Not to mention her encounters with Eric. Her skin rose up with goosebumps as the moan came again, long and low and pained sounding.
But this…this did not sound like sex.
Frowning, warring with herself as to whether to give them their privacy or investigate it further, she decided to heed her worried inner voice screaming at her that all was not well.
Tiptoeing closer, she got to the side of the tent. She’d pull open the flap just a little and take a quick peek, and if all were well she’d leave and go back to her lamp.
Nibbling the corner of her lip, she slid the flap aside and then froze as horror locked her limbs in place.
Josiah’s flabby, pasty white ass was shoving forcefully into Luminesa’s body. They lay on his bed of furs that was now covered in her blood. The grunts and moans were spilling from her bloody throat. Sickness heaved and roiled through Nixie’s gut, unable to believe the carnage and brutality of the picture presented before her.
Her mouth and neck were coated in blood, and that coupled with the strange moaning noises and the fact that her hands and ankles were tied down led Nixie to one horrifying conclusion.
He’d cut out her tongue.
“You sick bastard,” she seethed, unable to bear the silence a moment longer.
Josiah jerked to his feet, his engorged member jutted out red and swollen from between his legs when he turned to her with eyes gone wide. “What are you doing here?” he shrieked a second later, his fear morphing to fury in an instant.
“I’ll kill you,” she said and then glanced at Luminesa, who was now looking back at her with tears streaming from her swollen eyes. “I’ll kill you,” Nixie said it again, never taking her eyes off Luminesa’s devastated face.
Josiah sneered, and the memory of all the times he’d done that to her, the memory of his hands touching Nixie, just that alone had made her hate him. But now, now she wanted him dead.
“You can’t touch me, even if you don’t belong to me anymore, you are bound by genie law to—”