Amalia

I didn’t know what I’d expected to discover in the Abyss: nothing, fog, chaos, floating brains, or conscious thought streaming through until one mind couldn’t be separated from another, but none of that unfolded before me.

Instead, I found myself standing beside Magnus in a meadow with waves of waist-high, violet grass flowing around us. No breeze caressed my cheeks, but the grass bowed and swayed as if currents of air stirred it. Before us, the grass covered a steep hill rising into the air until it seemed to touch the red sky.

When I glanced back through the portal, I spotted Corson and Raphael leaning close together with their eyes narrowed as they watched us. Then, the edges of the portal started closing in on each other until the door-sized hole became nothing but a pinprick before fading completely.

Beyond where the doorway was located lay a large body of reddish water. I couldn’t tell if that was the natural color of the water or if it was reflecting the sky. Pink sand surrounded the shore of the lake stretching as far as the eye could see in that direction. Beyond the twenty feet of shoreline, the meadow started, but unlike the grass, the water was as still as glass.

The second the portal closed, noise returned. I still didn’t feel a breeze, but the sighing sounds of the feathery grass ends filled my ears as they danced. Something about the music they created sounded melancholy, and a twinge of sadness tugged at my heart as I released Magnus’s hand to caress a fluffy tip.

When it slid across my palm, the seed head was as soft as a butterfly’s wings. On Earth, those colorful insects had fascinated me, as almost everything on Earth did, but something about butterflies intrigued me more than anything else.

One day, when they were especially active, I’d lain by a pond watching the creatures flutter and dance around me in the sunlight. The longer I lay there, the more some started settling on me until I was shocked to discover myself covered in them. Their supple wings stroked my skin, and their multi-colored hues captivated me. It had been one of the best days of my life topped only by the day I was set free of the seal.

When I released the grass, it bowed its head as if it were mourning something, but grass couldn’t grieve. That was impossible. But no matter how impossible it was, my empath ability insisted this field was mourning something.

But what?

Unfortunately, the grass couldn’t answer that question, and I had no idea how to figure it out.

“The grass sounds like the ocean,” Magnus murmured as he studied the field.

“The what?” I inquired.

“The ocean. It’s numerous bodies of salty water on Earth located near the shores of the land. Where we are on Earth is pretty far from the closest sea.”

“I’ve never seen it. Does the ocean sound sad too?”

“I suppose it could sound sad to some. You think the grass sounds sad?”

“Yes. Don’t you?”

He listened for a minute before shrugging. “Maybe it does. You don’t know much about the human world, do you?”

“I know what I’ve had the opportunity to learn since being freed, but I haven’t really traveled, and I didn’t have the chance to see much while locked behind a seal,” I retorted.

“No, you didn’t,” he said.

Before I knew what he intended, he lifted his hand to run his fingers over my cheek. I tried to recoil from him but found myself unable to move as his touch sent a thrill through me.

“The ocean is sort of like the River Asharún,” he said. “Except the ocean is bigger and blue instead of red.”

“I don’t know what the River Asharún is either.”

His hand stilled on my face. “You never saw or heard about the Asharún?”

“I was born behind a seal,” I reminded him impatiently.

When he lowered his hand, I almost snatched it back to place it against my face again. For some reason, the loss of contact inexplicably saddened me, but I restrained myself from reaching out to him again. Getting closer to this demon was an even worse idea than bringing him here in the first place.

“And none of the jinn told you about it?” he asked.

“Why would they? I never expected to see it, and why would they torment me with things I could never experience? The jinn told me about the Abyss because I could feel it inside me.” I placed a hand on my chest. “And I had to know what it was I felt, so they explained it to me. Once we were free of the seal, the jinn told me what I needed to know about other demons, the varcolac, craetons, and palitons, but there was no point in learning about Hell when we wouldn’t be returning to it.”

“I’m surprised they didn’t tell you about what you were missing behind the seal for the fun of it; I thought jinn feasted on cruelty.”

“You know nothing about my kind. Some of them can be cruel to those outside our species, but we don’t inflict hurt on each other.”

“Some of them can be cruel to those outside the jinn? Are you saying there are jinn who don’t enjoy torturing others?”

“I already told you there are some who don’t,” I retorted, growing annoyed with the stubborn demon. “But I know you won’t believe me, so what does it matter?”

His eyes ran over me in a leisurely perusal that escalated my pulse and made my breasts feel heavier all while I resisted kicking him for his constant skepticism.

“I suppose it doesn’t,” he finally said.

“Then you’d suppose right.” I couldn’t stop the twinge of disappointment I felt over his continued inability to look past what I was to who I was, but then, I knew how manipulative many jinn could be, so I couldn’t blame him for being a stubborn asshole.

“Where are we?” he asked and turned his attention to the meadow.

“The Abyss.”

“But where in it?”

“I… ah… I’m not sure. I didn’t expect to find anything like this here, but then I’m not sure what I expected to discover here.”

“You’ve really never been here before?”

“Do you have difficulty hearing, or are you purposely being obtuse?” I demanded. “I already told you I haven’t been here. And now you’re going to accuse me of lying, so let’s bypass the bullshit and start walking. If we climb to the top of the hill, we should be able to see more.”

I didn’t look back at him as I started through the soughing grass. The ends tickled my arms, and when I ran my fingers over the tips, some of the seeds spilled free. I caught them and lifted them to examine the tiny, deep purple seeds. When I poked at them, I discovered they were hard to the touch.

The unfelt breeze moving the grass stirred the seeds in my palm but didn’t take them. Stopping, I lifted the seeds close to my lips and blew on them. They danced before me, swirling higher while the currents of air spun them.

When I turned to watch them floating away, I came face-to-face with Magnus. He glowered at me as he folded his arms across his chest. He looked formidable in a way he hadn’t before.

For the first time, a trickle of apprehension ran through me. I was in an unfamiliar place with a demon who was stronger than me. This was my world, but I knew how to use it to my advantage as well as I knew this man.

He didn’t trust me, he feared my kind, and though he’d acted easier going than the other palitons, and I perceived no murderous intentions from him, anyone could change in an instant.

I almost stepped away before rethinking the action. I refused to be intimidated by him.

“Are you creating this?” he asked.

I blinked at him in surprise. “Creating this? How could I possibly do that?”

“Perhaps a jinni’s ability works in much the same way as mine.”

“And how does yours work?” Leaning forward, I inspected his horns a little more closely. They were so shiny, but there were plenty of demons with horns and none of them had captivated me this much. “What type of demon are you, or what types of demon? I know many demons are mixed now.”

Hence, my Fault.

“I’m not a mix,” he said.

Oddly entranced by them, and determined to know what they felt like, I stretched my fingers toward his horns before coming to my senses and snatching them back. I despised the heat creeping into my cheeks when I glanced away from him.

“Then what are you?” I asked.

“I’m a demon.”

He’s not going to tell me.

Not that I blamed him, I wouldn’t trust me either, but it only reinforced the truth I’d learned since arriving on Earth; I didn’t fit in with most of the jinn, I didn’t fit in with other demons, and I didn’t fit in with humans.

At least behind the seal, my differences hadn’t separated me so much from my family, and I’d had no contact with other demons. But my small seal had been blown apart, and now I knew nothing of the world or those in it.

Feeling a lot sadder than when we first entered, I turned away from him and trudged up the hill through the grass.

• • •

Magnus

I couldn’t shake the twinge to my conscience Amalia’s defeated air created. Happiness had exuded from her while she watched the seeds floating in the air; now, she looked dejected.

Is this really her first time here?

She’d insisted it was, but I found it impossible to believe her. If this was where the jinn came to inflict their torment, they would spend as much time here as they spent hunting for their victims on Earth. The jinn would never wait until they fed on and tortured their victims to death in here before returning to Earth to find new prey. No, a hunger like what the jinn possessed would propel them to hunt for more and more targets.

But Amalia had looked so enchanted with the grass that I almost found myself believing she’d never been here and she wasn’t the same as the rest of her ravenous kind.

Maybe there really were jinn who were different. So very little was known about the creatures, it could be possible they weren’t all destructive and malicious.

But then, she was jinn, and one thing I knew about the jinn was they were manipulative. This may all be an excellent act on her part.

Maybe it made me a fool, but I wanted to believe it wasn’t.

My gaze dropped to the curve of her round ass, emphasized by the flow of her dress. I didn’t think she realized it as she hadn’t tried to use her looks to her advantage against me, but she was the most enticing woman I’d ever met.

Watching her, I couldn’t help but visualize my hands cupping her ass as I rubbed my horns over her silken flesh. I’d never considered doing such a thing with my sensitive horns before, but I wanted to stroke every inch of her with them until she begged for more.

I’d gotten a hint of what her arousal would smell like before we stepped into this place and the fiery aroma was seared into my nostrils. If I dipped my head between her thighs to feast on her, she’d grip my horns, and her scent would increase until it engulfed me. I craved that with this woman.

When my growing erection started making walking difficult, I was torn from my fantasies of Amalia.

Idiot! For all I knew, Amalia was somehow feeding such fantasies into my mind, though I doubted it. I was well aware of what was going on around me, and her effect on me, whereas it seemed those in the camp were not. However, this was the world of the jinn, and if I wasn’t careful, I wouldn’t make it out of here alive.

I didn’t look at her again but kept my gaze focused on where the land met the sky as we climbed.

When Amalia reached the top of the hill, she lifted her head, released a small cry, and stumbled back. The revulsion on her face told me I wasn’t going to like what I saw before I reached the apex, but I could never have prepared myself for what lay beyond.