Exquisite Captive by Demetrios Heather

Author:Demetrios,Heather
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Balzer + Bray

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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BARCELONA, SPAIN

LAS RAMBLAS TEEMS WITH LIFE. THOUSANDS OF partiers jam the pedestrian street, dancing to the infectious beats of the bands that march by. It’s three in the morning, but festivities are in full swing. Dancers hold aloft plastic cups filled with sangria; street artists grin at their jars and guitar cases and caps that overflow with euros. The few patrons left at outdoor cafés watch the crowds as they eat their tapas and gazpacho, their fingers ripe with the scent of Manchego cheese. The Spanish night is alive, electric in the sensual Mediterranean air. These are the hours for stolen kisses and limbs tangled in sweat-soaked sheets, sighs and whispers and broken promises.

The Shaitan jinni takes down the PALM READER sign, then stands up from her small card table and stretches. She rubs the goose bumps on her arms—there were signs in the water, in the lines on her customers’ hands, in her dreams. Something is coming. She hasn’t been able to see beyond the darkness this something brings with it, but whenever she’s felt its presence in the folds of time, she’s filled with an unshakeable sense of dread. She looks at the large mood ring on her finger. Its amber color hints at what the Shaitan already knows: she is unsettled, anxious about the whatever-it-is that pinches the night. Her rich golden eyes scan the crowd, but she knows it’s pointless. The evil coming to the city—coming for her—will not be in plain sight. She folds up her table and puts the sign in the battered leather purse she carries with her, then starts toward her cramped apartment. The streets are teeming with life, and she longs to dance with the humans, pretend to be one of them for a while. But the jeweled shackles on her wrists aren’t pretty bracelets, and she’d see them, if she raised her arms to the sky to pump her fists along with the music. She’d see them and her merriment would be exposed for what it is: a pretense. She is a slave, with no way home.

The Shaitan isn’t paying attention, and walks straight into someone. “Oh! Lo siento,” she says, apologizing.

“It is no problem,” says the girl in front of her. The green eyes give her away: a Djan.

They stand there for a moment, eyeing one another. Then the Shaitan smiles.

“Would you believe it? I’m a fortune teller, but I can’t see someone right in front of me,” says the Shaitan.

“Does the jinni need help with that?” The Djan points to the card table in the Shaitan’s arms.

“Oh, I’ve got it, thanks.” The hairs at the back of her neck prickle. The Shaitan takes another look at the Djan, but there’s a shout to her left as two drunken men begin fighting one another.

The Shaitan shakes her head, dismissing her nonsensical fear. Just because something dark is coming doesn’t mean it’s right around the corner.

“Does the Shaitan mind if the Djan walks with her?”

“No, of course not.

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