Stolen

Chapter 2-1

Two

Malik al-Mazin had expected Leila to struggle. How could she not, when she’d spent the last few weeks watching as everyone around her was killed one by one? Clearly, she hadn’t believed him when he told her he meant her no harm, and he could not blame her for that. They needed to talk, but there were far better places for such a discussion than a dingy alley, one that stank of the garbage that had been rotting there ever since the world ended.

They reappeared in the house he had taken for his own, the one that overlooked the wide sweep of the Pacific Ocean. The sound of the surf far below echoed in the house, soothing to him, for he was an elemental of the water, and its presence gave him strength.

However, Leila appeared far from soothed. As soon as solid ground rested beneath their feet once more, she pulled herself from his grasp and took a few steps away from him, looking around at her new surroundings with a mixture of shock and consternation.

“What — ?” she began, then shook her head. A few dirty strands of hair, come loose from the ponytail she wore at the back of her neck, fell around her face. “What is this place?”

“My home,” he said easily. His home for now, at any rate. He knew he would not be allowed to stay here indefinitely, not when the others of his kind had already made the area the humans called “Bel-Air” their home here on earth. But he’d requested that he have some time alone with Leila while she came to terms with her new life, and the elders had agreed. Only until the turn of the year, though, which meant he had little more than a month to make her understand that her survival depended on becoming his partner in eternity.

He had thought a month would be more than sufficient. Looking at Leila now, however, and recalling how she had managed to resist the glamour he’d tried to cast on her, Malik wondered if a month would be enough after all.

“Your home,” she repeated, looking around once again, still with that wary expression in her dark blue eyes, that same tension in all her limbs, making her appear as a wild animal ready to bolt.

Unfortunately for her, there was no place she could go and manage to evade him.

“Yes,” he said.

“This looks like a regular human house,” she returned. “Or at least, a regular human house from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. But you’re a djinn.”

Malik didn’t know who these “real housewives” might be, although he assumed they must be characters from a book or a magazine or a television program. “It is a human house,” he admitted. “I believe it was built for someone who was on your people’s television, although I do not recall his name. But it is mine now.”

Her chin went up, challenging. “Did you kill him?”

“Oh, no,” Malik replied. “He was dead long before the sickness swept through your population. Those who lived here after him — the fever claimed them, although they were not here when they perished. Besides, as I told you earlier, I have killed no one.”

She seemed to ponder this statement for a moment, as though deciding whether to argue with him further. To his relief, she did not challenge his words, but instead was silent as she threaded her way through the living room’s furniture and stood in front of the wall of windows that made up one side of the room. Below the bluff where the house was situated, the Pacific thundered, breaking on a beach that was empty as far as the eye could see, pale sand uninterrupted by a single soul, human or djinn.

One hand pressed against the glass, not looking at him, she uttered a single word. “Why?”

He should have known she would ask him this, and he intended to tell her the truth, or at least as much of it as he deemed necessary. However, he also knew that she needed a bit of time to recover from the life she’d been living these past few months. They would have plenty of time to talk.

“That is…a long story,” he replied. “We will speak, and share some food, but first, perhaps you would like to bathe?”

At once she turned from the window, all tension once again. He could practically smell the adrenaline coursing through her veins. Or perhaps what he smelled was something else entirely; for all her beauty, she was quite unkempt, smudges of dirt on her face, her hair and body badly in need of washing. Malik would not fault her for her current condition, since she had been living an existence which did not allow for the niceties of hot baths and regular changes of clothes, but now that she was here, there was no excuse for her dirty, bedraggled appearance.

“You needn’t fear me,” he said easily. “I will stay far away while you bathe and change.”

“Change into what?” Mouth twisting, she went on, “I must have left my luggage at the Ritz-Carlton.”

He assumed she was making a joke. Voice calm, he replied, “Things will be provided for you.”

“And I’m supposed to trust you?” she asked with a short, bitter laugh.

“Yes. Believe me,” he added, as her delicate jaw set in a hard line, “if I had wanted to cause you any kind of harm, there is nothing you could have done to stop me.” Her eyes flared with sudden alarm, and he said in his most soothing tones, “Please…let me show you to your room.”

For a moment, she lingered by the window, clearly loath to believe anything he had to say, not wanting to go someplace where he might corner her. But it seemed that her need to cleanse herself overrode her caution, for after that initial hesitation, she seemed to shrug and then came toward him, although he noted how she stayed just out of arm’s reach.

He didn’t speak, but only turned and went toward the graceful spiral staircase that led to the home’s second floor. Leila followed a few paces behind, still silent, although he’d noted the way her eyes darted this way and that, taking in the home’s details, the indoor atrium with the trees that reached twenty feet and more to almost touch the ceiling, the quiet murmur of the fountain nearly hidden by the luxuriant foliage that surrounded it. Indeed, he’d chosen this house because it had water both inside and out, making the space more welcoming to him than any of the other homes he had inspected.

With any luck, Leila would come to love it, too…at least for the time they’d be allowed to stay here.

The spiral staircase brought them to a large landing, one decorated with more plants, along with vases of Ming ware that were almost as old as he was. On the other side of the landing was a sort of study area, with a priceless desk of inlaid wood and several welcoming chairs. A set of double doors opened onto that area, revealing the master suite. Malik had determined that it should be Leila’s — at least until such time as she accepted him, and they were able to share one room.

She stepped inside, eyes wide and almost fearful, although this time it seemed as if that fear was a sort of awe at her surroundings, rather than unease due to his presence. The room was beautiful and large, with a fireplace on one wall, topped by a flat-screen television. All the other walls, except the one behind the bed, had windows of plate glass like the ones downstairs, affording an unhindered view of the ocean.

“I — ” She turned toward him. “You can’t expect me to stay here.”

“Is there something wrong with this room?” he asked, giving their surroundings a quick glance. As far as he could tell, everything seemed to be in order. The house had been very clean when he took it over — he didn’t know where its current owners had been when the Dying struck, but they apparently had not been home — and it had been a simple matter to use his djinn abilities to flick away any stray dust that might settle over the course of time.

“No, there’s nothing wrong with it, but — ” Once again she broke off, then crossed her arms and looked away from him. Voice barely above a mutter, she said, “This whole situation is impossible.”

“I see nothing impossible about it,” he returned calmly. “This is your room now. You are safe, even though you appear disinclined to believe me. In the bathroom you will find all the toiletries you need, and in the closet there is a variety of clothing to choose from. You may meet me downstairs when you are done.”

Having delivered this information, he gave her a slight bow, then retreated and closed the bedroom doors behind him.

As he descended the staircase, he wondered how long it would take for her to overcome her shock before she began to explore her new suite.

Was she dreaming? This had to be a dream. How else could she explain her surroundings? This home was so opulent, Leila knew she hadn’t seen anything like it outside the pages of one of the lifestyle magazines her mother tended to leave lying around her house.

But when she walked over to the bed and gently touched the silk damask duvet that covered it, the smooth fabric felt real enough against her fingertips. The same for the burled maple nightstand, and the remote for the television she found in the top drawer.

This was real. She didn’t know what Malik wanted from her, but —

Oh, you know exactly what he wants, she told herself as she headed into the bathroom. Why else would he have kissed you back there?

Good question. Maybe he had every intention of raping her, but he was too fastidious to touch her in her current filthy condition. She’d hated to live like that, but her options for bathing had been pretty limited. Much as she hated to even let the thought cross her mind, she couldn’t really blame Malik for wanting her to wash up; she wouldn’t have wanted to touch her, either, if their roles had somehow been reversed.

A shiver went through her. Once she was presentable, would Malik try to force himself on her? Maybe it would be better to remain a filthy wreck.

No, Leila couldn’t quite allow herself to do that. No matter how strange the situation, the idea of getting clean, really clean, for the first time in almost two months was one she couldn’t ignore.

The bathroom was just as elegant as the bedroom, with marble counters and floor, and an enormous walk-in shower, and a whirlpool tub in a little plant-filled grotto off to one side, again with windows all around that afforded more of those jaw-dropping views of the Pacific Ocean. Leila wasn’t sure she liked the idea of getting undressed in such a fishbowl, but she tried to reassure herself that there wasn’t anyone left to see in.

No one except Malik, that is. She’d seen the way he could hover in the air and supposed he could do the same thing here so he could get a peep at her naked body. For some reason, though, that didn’t seem like the kind of maneuver he would pull. His manner toward her had been gracious, almost courtly, but she supposed that could have all been an act to get her to let down her guard.

There had been many times during the last few weeks when she’d thought she would cheerfully kill for a hot shower. Was she really going to let the possibility of a djinn Peeping Tom keep her from getting clean for the first time since the Heat had swept over the world?

Well, when she put it that way….

A door in one wall opened onto a closet roughly the size of her bedroom in the small pre-Depression bungalow she’d shared with Tracey. The racks in the closet weren’t full, but they still held an impressive collection of clothing. More importantly, there was a fluffy white robe hanging from a hook on one side. Leila quickly peeled herself out of her dirty clothes and looked around for a hamper, but saw none. Oh, well, she’d leave the clothes on the floor for now. A quick inspection of the built-in drawers in the closet revealed a variety of undergarments, all silky and brand-new. At least Malik wasn’t expecting her to go commando. She didn’t quite want to contemplate how he knew her size, because that would seem to indicate he’d been watching her for some time. That realization only made a creepy-crawly sensation move down her back, even as she wondered why he’d singled her out among the others who’d managed to survive the heat.