Chapter 15

Murtagh

Samael deserved a fucking medal.

He’d been scrawling something down shortly after testing Zazie’s blood, but before he left, he cornered me alone and pressed a sheet of paper into my hand.

“Don’t let her get caught,” he told me. He pointed at the sticky note between us. “Put down this rune. Add one drop of blood, and say her name. Djinns can be summoned just like demons can. If she goes beyond your grasp… pull her back.”

I thought that was a creepy idea, not to mention unnecessary. I hadn’t planned to let her leave my sight. If she got kidnapped, it would be over my dead body.

And then she snuck out, made me feel stupid, and after searching for her for a couple of hours when she didn’t return and night outside ran inky black, it was time to pull out necessary measures.

I didn’t know that using the rune would work like it did. I thought it might make her feel dizzy or zap her energy, but she just appeared, still speaking mid-sentence, walking straight through the room as if she had walked through a door.

She looked bewildered, her eyes darting around as if trying to piece together how she had ended up back here. She even looked at the doorframe accusatorily. Caspian stood beside me, his arms crossed, an unreadable expression on his face. I knew he was thinking the same thing—we both hadn’t expected her to be able to escape the mansion, let alone for over two hours. We’d both thought that the rune was more of a safeguard, but now we knew it was likely imperative to keeping her at our side.

I wished she hadn’t run.

I had to admit, though, her ingenuity and strength were impressive. It wasn’t every day that someone managed to give us the slip. I was honestly surprised she’d had the balls to try to escape us.

But there was this gnawing irritation in the back of my mind.

A djinn. My mate was a fucking djinn. A kitten of a djinn, but a djinn all the same…

“Did you enjoy yourself?” I found myself asking. Here we were, making sure that this house could be protected and safeguarded for her benefit, and she was the one who ran away. Ungrateful shit. “Zazie,” I started, my voice betraying a hint of my frustration. “Running off like that wasn’t the wisest decision.”

She met my gaze, her own eyes flashing with a mix of defiance and confusion. “Last time I checked, I didn’t sign up to be whisked away to some mansion against my will.”

I sighed, running a hand through my hair, trying to see this from her point of view, at least a little bit. “I get it, you’re thrown into a world you don’t understand. But you need to realize, this is bigger than just you or me or the three of us. If your father finds you, he’ll kill you. He’ll attempt to take this world. The whole world. There are eight billion people here, last I checked.” My expression was dire, and I hoped it was coming off that way, but her stance was still annoyingly petulant.

“He’s right. You’re in danger, Zazie. And whether you like it or not, we’re your best chance at survival,” Caspian nodded in agreement. “Going straight to your human friends isn’t it.”

She crossed her arms, considering our words. I could see the wheels turning in her head, the struggle to come to terms with her new reality. But underneath it all, I could sense a resilience deep within her, a determination that made me believe she could handle this. She just needed time.

Time, however, was a luxury we might not have.

“You went to visit your brother, didn’t you?” I asked, and she started, looking away from me as she hid her face in the free-flowing expanse of her chestnut hair.

Her shoulders slumped. I could sense the turmoil churning inside her—the confusion, the fear, the desperate longing for some semblance of normalcy in this upended world of hers, and suddenly, I desperately wanted to make it better.

Stepping closer, I reached out, drawing her into my arms. She stiffened initially, the surprise of my touch evident, but then slowly, she relaxed, her body leaning into mine.

Gently, I kissed her forehead. I could feel her breath hitch slightly, a soft sigh escaping her lips.

Then, lifting her chin with my fingers, I gazed into her stormy grey eyes. In that instant, our world narrowed down to just the two of us, and I pressed my lips to hers.

To my surprise and relief, she melted into the embrace, her arms wrapping around me as she pressed into that kiss. The barriers between us, at least for that moment, seemed to dissolve. Her breath became mine. My tongue danced with hers.

My cock was rock hard. It didn’t take much, just putting my nose into her hair and breathing in, and it was very easy to forget my worry. It was easy to forget about the stakes, and the dangers, and what she was, and the changes that had suddenly taken hold of my life.

The warmth of her body pressed against mine made me think that we were the only people in the universe. For a moment, I felt like we were back in my old shop, and I was completely calm.

She fit against me with an ease that felt almost like destiny. The curve of her body against mine felt natural, right, like she was filling a void I hadn’t known existed.

The panic that had gripped me when I discovered she was gone flashed back in vivid detail. I remembered walking into her room, expecting to find her there, only to be met with emptiness. The sense of loss was immediate. I’d seen the boards plucked diligently off the window, just enough for her body to fit through, but I didn’t want to believe that she’d done it. Maybe before she knew about Seraphus, as she’d lived enough years in blissful ignorance, but surely not now. So I had run through the mansion, a growing sense of dread in my heart, calling her name, only to find no trace of her. The realization that she had vanished was as powerful as a punch to the gut.

Caspian, able to see reality more easily than I had, was quick to find her cellphone discarded in a rosebush. “And she thinks we’re the assholes,” was all he’d said, looking at the empty road and tsking his tongue against his teeth.

Now, with her here, safe in my arms, that fear transformed into something else—a fierce protectiveness, an overwhelming desire to keep her close, to shield her from the dangers of our world. She was a djinn, yes, but in her I saw something more, something uniquely her. She was strong, resilient, and despite everything, there was an innocence about her, a purity of spirit that drew me in.

I knew the path ahead would be fraught with challenges, and I would need to handle that, but now was not the time. My mate needed something else. And despite what she was, I knew she was my mate. No other woman could call to me like she did.

“We need to have a discussion about what happens to little girls who run away from their mates when they know very well of the sacrifices they’re making to keep her out of danger,” I began, and she stiffened in my arms. She pulled back and met my eyes. Sure, there was anger there, but I was beginning to see something else in the tumultuous depths of her stormy grey irises.

“What do you mean?” she asked shyly, but there was a hitch of anticipation in her tone, like she knew what to expect but was asking anyway.

“Come here,” I murmured, grabbing her hand and pulling her towards the stairs. In her mind, this would be a punishment, and that’s what I wanted her to think, but I mainly just wanted to take her mind off the world for a little while, even if that meant reddening her bottom and making her shed her pretty little tears before I fucked all her worries right out of her.

Caspian began to ascend as well, and I stopped him with a look. He glanced at me, then at her, and then grinned. “Fine. I’ll leave you to it, then.” He grinned slyly, then stretched the kinks out of his neck and pulled his cellphone from his pocket, leaving the room apparently to make a call.

I realized that he was giving me permission to mete out whatever punishment I saw fit with our mate, and that he was giving me privacy and trust. I appreciated it.

Zazie seemed to dread this because she squeaked as I continued to yank her up to our bedroom.

When I wheeled her inside and shut the door, closing us in together, Zazie stood awkwardly in front of me and crossed her arms over her chest. Her lower lip protruded just a little and created the perfect picture of a naughty girl.

My cock hardened at the sight.

“Your brother is important to you, isn’t he?” I asked her as gently as I could manage.

“Yeah, of course,” she said, her tone a bit sassy and exasperated.

“I understand that you’re worried about him, little one, and we’re trying to protect him, too. Seraphus isn’t stupid; once he finds him, he’ll know he’s found you. Caspian and I were already going to make sure to bring him and his husband here for protection when we were ready. And we’re working as fast as we can, as hard as we can,” I scolded her lightly, and her shoulders slumped a little inwards as the weight of my words hit her.

“I didn’t think that you cared,” she murmured.

“You didn’t think, did you? Instead of coming to us with your worries, you put yourself in danger needlessly and as soon as you could,” I continued a bit more firmly, and she huddled a little bit more, making herself appear smaller.

“No, sir,” she whispered, her eyelashes fluttering against her cheek as she shifted from one foot to the other.

“You could have been killed. Did you think about how that would make Caspian and I feel, little girl? How lost we’d be now that we’ve found you? You don’t get it—you don’t get who you are. You don’t know what sort of disaster it would be to everyone if he kills you.”

“I didn’t think,” she shrank back, but she didn’t move away. Instead, it seemed like she leaned into me.

In every other instance, she’d fought her spanking, but right now, even she seemed to recognize that she needed one.

“What do you think needs to happen then, my sweet mate?” I pressed. I was leading her directly into this. I wanted her surrender. I wanted every bit of it before I made her unravel on top of my cock.

She fidgeted a bit in front of me, wringing her hands and shifting her weight from one foot to the other.

“Answer me, little one,” I demanded gently. “Do I need to take off my belt?”

“No, you don’t need to do that…” she answered, her exasperation clear from her tone.

“Tell me,” I coaxed. I wasn’t going to push her into this. I wanted her willing. I wanted her to bend to me, to offer me everything. I would take it all away from her, for at least a little while.

“Do you understand why you can’t leave?” I asked her. I’d been down this line of questioning with her before. So had Caspian… So had Miles. Every time in the past, she had stomped her feet around angrily. And we understood that she was a girl who liked her freedom. We figured she was just feeling shut-in, some cabin fever. But she hadn’t talked to us much about her brother except that she made an effort to call him once a day.

“Yes.”

“If you understood it, why did you think it was worth the risk?”

She took a deep breath and sighed. “I don’t know. I just thought I needed a conversation with my brother face-to-face. We had a lot to discuss.”

That made me quite nervous. “What did you discuss?”

She looked up at me, also looking nervous, her eyes darting over my face. “Kinda… Everything…?”

“What we are?”

“Yeah.”

“Where we live?”

“Yeah.”

“What you are?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you make sure that nobody could hear that conversation?” I asked.

“…why?”

Fate of the fucking world, she just wasn’t getting it.

Couldn’t, wouldn’t. I didn’t know. She wasn’t stupid—I’d had too many conversations with her four years ago, and fresh out of high school, to know that she was quick, clever, and canny. Yet this seemed to be having trouble sinking in for her.

“Strip,” I growled, pointing to the carpet. “I want you fully bare before I take you over my knee,” I instructed, and she almost sighed in relief at my words. Underneath all of that defiance and resistance, she needed this as much as I did. “Hopefully, when we’re done, you’ll be a little bit more fucking careful.” I went to pace the room for a moment, trying to loosen my shoulders.

She opened her mouth to argue, and I turned my head and looked at her.

The look made her close her mouth and start stripping without further complaint.

Slowly, she pulled her shirt over her head, revealing a cute cotton bra that cupped her breasts perfectly. I ran my eyes down the taut line of her torso as she kicked off her shoes and unbuttoned her jeans, pushing them down and over her hips. She was wearing a matching pair of panties, and for a moment, she looked torn as to which to take off first. Her chest rose and fell with measured breaths before she finally sighed and reached behind her back to undo the clasp of her bra first. The cups fell away from her body, revealing her perfect breasts and cute pink nipples to my view. Finally, her hands dropped to her waist, and she pushed them down to her knees in a quick flash and kicked them off.

Her resulting blush as she stood there in front of me naked, knowing she was about to get spanked, was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. That pink, rosy glow painted her cheeks, drifting all the way down to her chest, where her nipples were fully erect. I glanced down between her thighs.

She was wet.

The kind of wet where her arousal was glistening between her pretty legs. It was breathtaking.

I held out my hand, and she hesitantly took it. Slowly, I guided her over my knee and looked down at her round, exceedingly bitable ass. It was all too pale since she hadn’t been chastised now in weeks. If I had been using my eyes, ears, and my brain, then I would have been disciplining her every day. Maybe then she wouldn’t have been pouting around the house all this time like we were her jailers and not her protectors.

I cupped one round globe, and she flinched at first, but then she settled over my lap and curled in against me. She could probably feel my hard cock beneath her, but I didn’t care.

A part of me liked that.

I lifted my hand and gently slapped the left side of her ass and then the right, more to make her get used to the feeling and the sound than to really sting. With my free hand on her hip, I pinned her in place, not that I really needed to. I just wanted her to know I had her right where I wanted her and right where she needed to be.

I took a deep breath, and then I started to spank her.

Truly spank her, the way she needed to be spanked. Not to punish her—well, maybe to punish her a little bit, she had been pretty fucking naughty—but mostly just to take care of her every need.

With every strike of my hand, her pale flesh turned a lovely white, then bloomed with a pale pink, which turned redder and redder with the sheer number of times I slapped her ass. She kicked and squirmed, but nothing about her told me that she was actively trying to get out of this. Instead, her free hand reached back, not to block her backside from my palm, but to hold my hand.

I wouldn’t admit it to anyone, but it made my heart skip a beat and I knew one thing for certain.

I would give her everything. I would stop at nothing to keep her safe.

I’d burn the world for her if I needed to.