Scorched Skies Read Free Page A

he needed you to in order to trigger your heritage as the Seal.”
    “But couldn ’ t you have told me and I would have just conjured stuff I already owned?”
    He shook his head at her impatiently. “You needed to stretch your magical muscles and do things that required an almost full scope of power.”
    The knot was sprinkled with a heavy dose of bitterness and she felt the emotion bleeding into her words. “You should have told me. I thought you were my friend.”
    If she wasn ’ t mistaken she saw his eyes flash with an unnamed emotion before he quickly blinked, vivid but flat, green eyes staring back at her once again. “An assignment from The Red King is a huge deal. I didn ’ t want to mess it up.”
    “You gave me that book when you weren ’ t supposed to,” she argued.
    “That was different. That was to educate you about important things you really needed to know.”
    “This is important! I needed to know this.”
    “All I can say is I ’ m sorry. I had to follow those orders.”
    He did sound sorry but Ari was too mad to care. “Good to know where your priorities lie.”
    “Ari, come on — ”
    “What else are you hiding from me?” she cut him off, her eyes narrowed on him in suspicion. Before he could answer, the sound of her father ’ s heavy footsteps pounding down the stairs shot her off the couch in surprise. She whirled around to see him storming across the hall, grabbing up his car keys. He looked like hell. “Dad?” she rushed toward him, the blood whooshing in her ears.
    “I need to get out,” he muttered without looking at her, not even aware of Jai ’ s presence behind Ari.
    “No, Dad, we need to talk.”
    “Not now, Ari.” And before she could even blink he was outside, the door slamming shut behind him. Utter shock and pent up fury held her immobilized for a second as she listened to his car door open and shut and the engine flare to life. That familiar growl finally knocked her back to reality and she spun around to glare at Jai who didn ’ t have time to mask his soft, sympathetic eyes. “No.” She shook her head, her teeth grinding together. “I don ’ t think so.” She thought of her car keys and the metal dropped heavily into her open palm.

    ~2~
    Even as I Drink My Lips are Dry with Thirst

    The bitter chill in the air pinched at Dalí ’ s skin, little goosebumps rising up all over his arms in the aftermath. He shivered a little in his plain t-shirt, leaning over the balcony in the guest room his father gave him whenever he was lucky enough to be invited to Mount Qaf. He was lucky if that invite came once a year. The balcony hung out over mountains that winked back at him in the winter sun, the dazzling green of inset emeralds making his blood rush with need. It didn ’ t take much anyway for the thirst to attack, that thirst for power, that ever-growing need to be more than what he was, but Mount Qaf emeralds were an entirely different story. The need they inspired… He sighed, scratching his arm unconsciously as he thought about his father ’ s power, his domain over this part of the mountains. Beautiful homes were scattered among the mountains, precarious walkways leading back and forth between homes, the marketplace and the large gated curtains to the entrance of his father ’ s sprawling house that had been carved into the very rock of Mount Qaf, just like all the other royal homes.
    His eyes caught on a burst of moving color and for a moment Dalí ’ s frustrations were forgotten. Moving up towards the billowing silk curtains that draped over his father ’ s enormous gates — ‘ for a more welcoming impression ’ as his father always said — was a small entourage. Men and women dressed in bright colors and light, loose clothing that Dalí would have been freezing in, were walking at the front and back of a magic carpet. Straight out of the Arabian Nights. Dalí smiled softly at the unexpected sight of a beautiful female Jinn kneeling upon the