Slave to Passion Read Free Page B

edge of the rectangular pool that could easily accommodate ten and, knowing her lecherous master, probably did, routinely. There was no such thing as easy anymore.
    Hana moved around the corner of the pool so she could reach Kavin’s right arm and gentled her touch as she trailed the soapy sponge between Kavin’s fingers. “You also overlook the fact the sahad is Marid.”
    Kavin glared at the dark-haired girl, her despair angling right back to anger. “What does his being Marid have to do with anything?”
    “Do you not know?” Hana’s fingers stilled against Kavin’s, and an amused expression lit her dark eyes. “Marid view females quite differently from Ghuls.”
    “I find that hard to believe.”
    Hana refocused on her task. “They do not treat females as property but as treasures. The jarriah test is Ghul alone.”
    “How do you know this?” Kavin asked skeptically.
    Hana stepped over the side of the pool and eased into the water, the thin fabric of her simple servant’s dress soaking up the aromatic liquid as she lifted Kavin’s other arm. “When I first came here, I was told of a jarriah who was Marid. She’d been captured during raids on the Kingdom of Gannah.”
    “Who told you about her tribe?”
    “My mentor. The slave who trained me. She served the Marid female briefly. They gave her to a Shaitan for her test. Shaitans, as you know, jarriah , do not regard females of any tribe as treasures.”
    Kavin swallowed hard as she eyed the Ghul slave marking wrapped around Hana’s left bicep—a serpent emerging from black flames. A marking Kavin would soon bear herself, once her test was complete. No, Shaitans were nearly as debased as the wild Ghuls who roamed the Wastelands. She knew her tribe had a bad reputation amongst other djinn, because those in the Wastelands weren’t policed—they raped and pillaged without remorse—but that didn’t mean all Ghuls were bad.
    Unease rippled through her when she thought of Zayd and the other highborns who took whatever they wanted without regard for anyone else’s wants or needs. They dressed better than the Ghuls in the Wastelands, were educated and came from noble lines, but were they really any different? Then she thought about her parents, who’d taken the money Zayd had paid them as if it were a blessing. They’d not once tried to find her since they’d sold her. Finally, her mind drifted to what could have been—and probably was—done to a Marid female enslaved by Ghuls during a time of war.
    Unease morphed to illness in the pit of her stomach. She looked away from Hana’s tattoo.
    “She lived through her test,” Hana said, dropping Kavin’s arm and running the sponge across Kavin’s collarbone. “But she came back changed. Though she still spoke of her mate with hope, as if he could—someday—rescue her, the light was gone from her eyes. My mentor advised her to let her old life go and accept her new fate, but she couldn’t. She did not survive life as a jarriah .”
    Shock rippled through Kavin. “The highborns killed her?”
    “No, jarriah . She killed herself.”
    Dread pooled in Kavin’s soul as she looked down at the soapy water, the bubbles slowly dissipating around her, much as her own will to live. Would that be her fate? If she survived her test, would she ever be able to accept her new role? Or would she slowly wither and die on the inside until there was nothing but a cold, empty shell of her former self left behind?
    For the first time, she thought of the sahad in the dungeon of the arena not as a monster but as djinn. What had he been like before his imprisonment? Before being sent to the fighting pits of Jahannam? Had he always been a monster intent on death and destruction? Or had he been something—some one —more?
    “Tip your head back, jarriah .”
    Kavin did as Hana said and closed her eyes while questions swam in her mind. Warm water trickled down her hair to dribble along her shoulders. A click resounded as