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.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Mira drew a deep breath, lifted her hand, and knocked on the office door. Three days had passed since the events on the boat. After being rescued by a passing ship, she’d filed a report with the harbor police about the “electronic malfunction” on board that had caused the sinking, apologized to her boss for wrecking his boat, then cashed in the rest of her vacation time. She needed a couple of weeks to chill out and recover mentally from what had happened, and she had one person she needed to thank in person.
A voice inside the
room called, “Come in,” so Mira turned the handle and stepped into the cramped office on the University of Florida’s campus.
The woman with auburn hair and wire rimmed glasses at the desk near the window looked up from her computer. “Can I help you?”
“I’m Mira Dawson. We chatted via phone and e-mail.”
Claire Sampson’s eyes widened, and she pushed out of her chair with a smile, holding out her hand in greeting. “Oh my gosh, it’s so great to meet you in person.”
Mira shook the other woman’s hand—or hands, as the woman closed both of hers over Mira’s—and felt the first real smile since the accident slide across her face. “You too. I wanted to come and thank you in person.”
“No thanks needed. If anyone should be doing the thanking, it’s me. You provided me with incredible research.” As if realizing she was still holding Mira’s hand, she quickly let go and motioned to a chair next to her desk. “Please, sit.”
“Thanks.” Mira lowered to the seat, set her purse on her lap.
Dr. Sampson was tall, close to five ten, and she had the prettiest blue eyes. As brilliant as polished sapphires. But the glasses, the loose-fitting slacks and white blouse with what looked like a mustard stain on the buttons and the smudge of ink across her cheek screamed nerdy professor to Mira.
She smiled again, more relaxed than she’d expected. The fact Claire seemed as dedicated to her job as Mira had hoped, settled her nerves. If she’d been some stuffy, know-it-all professor, Mira would have felt intimidated.
“I know it must have been extremely overwhelming for you,” Claire said, “but…wow. I can’t wait to hear all the details.”
They’d chatted via phone after the incident, but Mira hadn’t been ready to give away the nitty-gritty then. She’d still needed time to absorb what had happened. But she owed Claire because she’d been the one to help her. And that’s why she’d made the trip all the way to Florida so they could talk in person.
As Claire pulled out a tape recorder, Mira took another deep breath and launched into the entire story. From the moment she’d met Tariq until she’d been pulled from the water. And as Claire listened, those gemlike eyes grew wider and more excited with each juicy detail.
“Amazing. Completely amazing,” the professor said when Mira was done. “I’ve always suspected that djinn are just like us—that there are good and bad ones and that they live by free will—but your story is the first that actually confirms this for me.”
There definitely were good and bad, and just as she’d done every hour since that day, Mira wondered where Tariq was, if he’d found his brothers, if he was happy now that he was finally free.
She shook off the thought because she knew dwelling on where and what and how would only drag her down. And even though she loved him, she knew he’d only been with her because of the curse. She’d hoped and prayed that he’d come to her on his own now that he was free—he’d said all djinn could cross between realms, so she knew he didn’t need the opal to do so—but so far, he hadn’t. And that was the other reason she needed to emotionally recover from everything that had happened—because she missed him more than she’d ever missed anyone in her whole life.
“There’s just one thing I don’t understand,” Mira said. “Why didn’t the sorceress’s energy kill me? It was strong enough to blow a hole in the side of the boat. How come I’m not dead?”
Claire looked at her as if it were totally obvious. “Because you were pure of heart.”
Mira frowned. “I’m not pure of heart. I wished to be desired by a man. That doesn’t make me pure. Heck, that’s about as selfish a wish as anyone can ask.”
Claire smiled as if she were explaining things to a child. “I didn’t say you were pure of heart in the abstract way. I said when you sacrificed your life for Tariq’s, at that moment, you were pure of heart. It doesn’t mean that you were before or even that you are now. It just means you were when it mattered most. The sorceress’s magic couldn’t touch you then because it’s laced with evil. Evil energy can’t destroy something that’s pure.”
Mira considered that for a moment. “So you’re saying I’m not special.”
Claire’s smile widened. “Special in the fact that you stood up to an extremely magical entity and lived? Sure. Special in the fact you could do it again? Probably not. I hate to break this to you, Mira, but you’re just like everyone else on this planet. Normal and very unmagical.”
Mira chuckled. Unmagical was fine with her. She’d had enough magic to last her a lifetime. “I can’t thank you enough. For helping me. For all the research you did. For finding those spells in the Key of Solomon—”
Claire clicked off the tape, glanced toward the door, and lowered her voice. “About that…let’s keep that under wraps. I had to go to great lengths to find that text, and between you and me, I wasn’t even sure it would work. Since it did…well, I don’t have to tell you there are numerous people who would want that kind of power if they knew about it. In fact, I’d appreciate it if you and I never speak of it again.”
Mira nodded slowly, unsure just what Claire was getting at. But she understood that kind of power in the wrong hands could do nothing but harm.
“The only regret I have,” Mira said, “is that I lost the bottle. I’m afraid of what will happen to it.”
Claire sighed and leaned back in her chair. “Unfortunately, I’ve a feeling it’ll eventually turn up. But it could be years before that happens. And the good news is…that’s not your worry. If someone does eventually find it, the sorceress will be more focused on that person than on finding you because the opal will most likely be bound to them. So long as you keep all of this quiet, you’re safe. And speaking of you… How are you doing…really?”
Mira knew Claire was asking how she was doing emotionally. And a host of feeling washed through her, none of which she wanted to linger on too long. But she appreciated the fact the woman had asked. “I’m fine. I lived, right? I won.”
“What about Tariq?” Claire asked quietly.
Mira’s heart pinched. “I’m just glad he’s finally free.”
A knowing smile spread across Claire’s ink-smudged face. “You are a rotten liar, Mira Dawson.”
Smiling herself, Mira pushed out of her chair. She liked Claire. In fact, all this magical stuff aside, Claire was the type of person Mira could see herself being friends with. She held her hand out. “I’ll get out of your hair and let you get back to work. Thank you so much for everything.”
Claire waved off her hand and instead wrapped her arms around Mira in a tight hug. “If you need anything, I’m only an e-mail away.”
Tears stung Mira’s eyes as she nodded. Knowing her emotions were dangerously close to the surface, she said goodbye and let herself out.
When she stepped into the midmorning sunshine, she drew a deep breath of humid Florida air. Claire was right. It could be years before anyone even found that bottle. She couldn’t spend her life worrying what was around the next corner. If her time with Tariq had taught her anything, it was that she was a vibrant woman with a bright future ahead of her. It was far past time she stopped hiding behind her job and started living.
She moved down the steps of the history building and onto the sidewalk. Ahead, a man pushed up from a bench sheltered by a large oak and looked her way.
Her heart jerked, and the air rushed out of her lungs on a wave. One corner of Tariq’s lips tipped up in the most devastatingly handsome smile. One Mira felt all the way to her toes.
“Oh my God. Oh my God,” she breathed, running toward him.
She threw herself against him, hardly able to believe that he was here. His arms closed around her back, his warm, solid chest pressed against her front, and then his face was sliding into the hollow between her neck and shoulder, his breath warming her from the outside in.
“Oh my God,” she said again, still unable to believe he was real. “You’re here.”
He eased back, smiled down at her. “You
are a hard woman to find without magic.”
He leaned down and kissed her before she could ask what he meant. Before she could think to ask. And then his lips were against hers, his tongue sliding into her mouth, his arms tightening around her until he was all she saw and heard and felt…everywhere.
Her head was spinning when he finally broke the kiss. “How did you…? What happened when you…?” Tears burned her eyes. “I was so afraid you were mad at me about what happened and that’s why I haven’t seen you.”
He brushed a tear from her cheek she hadn’t known had fallen. “I wasn’t mad, hayaati. I was afraid. For you.”
Hayaati. She’d finally looked up the word, knew it meant ‘my life’. “I knew you would be. That’s why I didn’t tell you what I had planned.”
“We’ll have to work on your communication skills. But to answer your other questions… After you freed me from my chains, I was sent back to my realm. I was still weak from the iron, so it took me a while to recover. But when I did, I went home. I saw my father. My mother. I cannot tell you what that meant to me.”
That space around her heart warmed when he spoke of family.
“We knew when you trapped Zoraida. The Ghuls fell into a state of disarray. Since then, our army has been able to get an upper hand, and the Ghuls have been driven from our kingdom entirely. We have you to thank for that.”
Her heart warmed even more, but she remembered Claire’s comments in the office and wanted to make sure he understood. “I wasn’t trying to save anyone but you.”
“I know, hayaati, but you saved a kingdom just the same. We—my entire tribe—are forever in your debt.”
A thrill rushed through her. A thrill she wasn’t sure what to do with. “What about your brothers? Are they happy to be home as well?”