Ghostland by Jory Strong Page A

exposed skin, the tightly fitted pants, the tattooed serpent coiled around his arm. Her gaze darted upward when he shifted position. Her eyes met his, but he didn’t reach for her or speak as she slipped past him.
     
     
    ZURAEL was finding it harder and harder to remain aloof. She’d caught him off-guard with her offer to share her meager food supplies.
    He’d known life was hard for the humans without wealth or privilege. He’d assumed a female with the ability to summon a Djinn would reek of arrogance and hold a position of power. Instead he found Aisling vulnerable and strangely innocent.
    It was an intoxicating combination.
    From the moment she’d returned home, he’d been unwillingly aroused. He’d been assaulted by darkly erotic fantasies and the scent of sweet surrender.
    Her fear had lessened. Her gaze had strayed to linger over his flesh. Her mind had filled with images that left her lowering her eyelashes and blushing.
    He could have her if he wished it. The Djinn weren’t promiscuous, but they weren’t afraid of the carnal side of their nature either.
    Zurael’s hands curled into fists. He forced his thoughts to veer from the direction they were taking. He reminded himself that once he’d honored his debt to the House of the Spider then he was free to finish what he’d come here to do—not only for himself, but for his people. Aisling couldn’t be allowed to live, not if she was able to summon any of them at will and might one day bind them.
    Misgiving slithered through him. He’d thought it would be simple to kill her, but now there was no rush of rage to catapult him into action. There was no satisfaction to be found in bloody images of retribution.
    He couldn’t pinpoint the moment his resolve had weakened. Was it her offer to share her food? Was it the instant she’d bravely faced him and their eyes met as his talons danced over her jugular and her terror beat against his palm?
    He was no longer sure he could kill her, and yet he knew with certainty an assassin from the House of the Scorpion would be sent if he returned to the Kingdom of the Djinn and she remained alive. A human who could summon a Djinn was a threat to all of them.
    Zurael rolled his shoulders and shrugged the thoughts aside. There was little point in thinking of the future and his part in it. For the moment Aisling was bait for a more dangerous prey.
    His eyes followed her when she gracefully sat on a bed of packed earth at the center of the room. When she folded her legs and ducked her head, he couldn’t look away from the delicate curve of her neck.
    She pulled on a thin leather string until a small pouch emerged from underneath her shirt. Zurael stepped farther into the fetish-guarded room when she opened the pouch and dumped a dozen tiny carvings into her hand before scattering them onto the dirt.
    Bone fetishes gleamed against clay-red soil. The ferret scampered to her side. He dropped the hawk he carried in his mouth a short distance away from the collection of figures on the packed dirt.
    Zurael drew closer. Uneasiness settled in his chest as he realized the ferret had been with her when she’d summoned him in her astral state.
    He hadn’t remembered before. In his mind’s eye he hadn’t seen the creature, and yet as it picked up the carving of a serpent and placed it in Aisling’s hand, Zurael’s earlier memories were overlaid with fresh ones, images with Aziel draped over her shoulders as he’d been in the kitchen. He could sense nothing otherworldly about the animal, but now its presence worried him. It raised questions he couldn’t answer.
    A raven fetish followed the serpent, a spider came next. Zurael’s thoughts flashed to his visit with Malahel, where a spider, a raven and a serpent had gathered around a crystalline altar as the stones were cast.
    Aziel hesitated. He cocked his head as if he were listening to a voice only he could hear. When his attention returned to the scattered fetishes, he picked