djinn wars 03 - fallen Read Online Free PDF Page A

he said, “There’s a question burning in your mind, isn’t there?”
    “Yes,” I replied simply.
    “Then ask it.”
    Well, he had once told me that I could ask him anything. And he’d always been truthful with me, once his djinn heritage had been revealed and he no longer felt he had a terrible secret to hide. It was something, knowing I could trust him in that.
    “Would you really still have chosen me if you had the whole world to pick from, instead of only a few Immune?”
    At once he let go of the shopping cart and came to me, taking my hands in his and pulling me close. His fingers felt cool against mine, but at least they weren’t cold, and his grip was firm enough. I could almost convince myself that nothing was wrong, that Miles Odekirk’s device was having very little effect on him after all.
    “Beloved, there never would have been anyone but you. I felt the resonance of your soul with mine from the time you came of age, and I mourned, because even then I knew what humanity’s fate was to be, that the time of reckoning was only a few scant years off. But then I learned from the creators of the disease that you would be one of the fortunate few who would be immune, and I laid claim to you as soon as I knew.”
    My heart leapt at those words, and something in me relaxed a little. He had always wanted me, had feared I wouldn’t survive the Heat. “How would that have even worked?” I asked. “I mean, it’s not as if we’re exactly from the same backgrounds. My parents had issues just the few times I dated guys who didn’t go to college.”
    He didn’t smile, even though I’d tried to keep my tone light as I asked the question. “Not so very differently from the way we met. That is, I would have approached you as one of your own, made sure you were comfortable with me before I told you the truth.”
    “And then?”
    Bringing one hand to his lips, he kissed my fingers gently before releasing them. “That would have depended on you. Whether you would have accepted what I was telling you, whether you would have made that very great leap.”
    Would I have? Of course I wanted to think so. I wanted to believe that what he said wouldn’t have changed the way I felt about him, that I could have accepted the truth of his heritage, but it’s easy to imagine the best of yourself when you’re considering a hypothetical situation. “So…would I have gone to your world, if I had made that leap?”
    He shook his head. “Such a thing isn’t possible. We djinn can live there, but we much prefer it here. And a human being, even one under our protection, granted advanced life and powers of healing, couldn’t survive for more than a few hours on the plane where the djinn made their home, once the earth was taken from them. No, we would have lived our lives here, moving on when it began to become obvious to those around us that we weren’t aging normally. It isn’t the easiest of lives, but there are a few who’ve managed to do it successfully.” Something flickered in his dark eyes, a shadow that I could barely catch because of the bad lighting in the hardware store. But because I knew Jace, I did see it.
    “What’s wrong?” I asked. It was the first question that popped into my mind, although I couldn’t stop myself from also wondering about that reference to having this world taken from them. “Did you — were you with someone like that?”
    Another head shake, this one even more emphatic than the last. “No. I wasn’t with anyone before you. That is, there were brief…liaisons…from time to time, but that’s all. Nothing lasting, nothing important. No, I was thinking of Zahrias.”
    I could actually feel my eyebrows shooting up. “Zahrias? He was with a…mortal?”
    “Yes. For quite a few years. But in the end, she was unable to live with the reality of her existence, that she would go on, and on, and that everyone she knew and loved would die around her, save her djinn lover. So she took