Heat Stroke Page 0,89

framed a moving shadow. Light silhouetted a tall male figure, and for a frozen, relieved second I thought David!, but then he moved into the warm glow of the table lamp and it was Jonathan. He had his hands thrust into the pockets of his jeans, looking casual in pose but not in body language. His dark eyes were too bright and too focused.

He didn't so much as glance at the Ifrit. I found that interesting. The Ifrit raised its head and sniffed at him, climbed to its feet and stalked around him in a circle.

Jonathan kept watching me, though he reached over and patted the Ifrit on the head. It flopped down, elegance etched in darkness, and I felt it watching him with something like adoration.

"So?" he asked me. I rubbed one bare arm and found gooseflesh popping up, courtesy of a slight chill in the air, or maybe his presence.

"Well, I'm not coming apart," I said. "Gotta be an improvement."

He nodded. "Came close, though."

"I figured." I cleared my throat. "Um . . . how many others made it here?" He just looked at me for a long few seconds, and I asked the question I dreaded. "Rahel? Did she make it?"

He dropped into a crouch next to the bed. I held the sheet up as a modesty cover, but didn't particularly worry about it if he decided to check the side view. He didn't. Quite. "No. How much do you know?"

"Not too damn much."

"Okay." He put his bare hand on my bare shoulder, drawing a fresh shiver out of me, but once again I got the therapeutic touch, nothing personal. "You're clear. You can get up now."

He turned his back, not as if he was intent on giving me some kind of personal space, more as if he deeply didn't care whether or not I was naked; I formed clothes as I got up, anyway. Blue denim jeans, work shirt, sturdy boots. They seemed appropriate, here.

"What about David?" I asked.

"You tell me." His back was still turned; he was pulling things out of the bookcase, restlessly flipping pages. Something to do with his hands. There was so much repressed energy in him, I wondered how he survived here, stuck in this house, unable to leave. He didn't seem to be someone with a peaceful interior life. "He enjoying himself? Having a good old time with the Widder Prentiss?"

Sarcasm thick enough to spread like manure. I heard the pain underneath, though. And remembered the dream. "I didn't want him to do that. I would have stopped it if I could have."

"Yeah, well, not always about what you want. Or any of us, for that matter." He shoved the book back in place with unnecessary violence and turned to face me, arms folded across his chest. Forbidding, that was the word for the expression on his face. Flint-hard eyes. Lips in a straight, unsympathetic line. Anything I said would sound whiny and self-pitying, so I said nothing. Just looked at him. He finally transferred the stare down to his black Doc Martens. "I notice you managed to get away. Maybe you'll be of some use. We can always use some good solid cannon fodder."

"No wonder humans don't become Djinn very often," I replied. "What with your incredible recruitment efforts."

Jonathan's lips twitched. It might have been a smile, but he didn't let me see it to be sure. "Yeah, well, you get set in your ways after the first couple of millennia or so. Sorry if we haven't made you feel like one of the boys."

I elected not to get into the gender-specific arguments. "Does she still have him?"

"Madame de Sade? Oh yeah." He rocked back and forth on his heels, arms still folded.

"And . . ."

He looked up. "You want details?" The tone could have frozen mercury. "Should've stuck around. Could've been part of the whole experience. I'm sure he would've loved for you to see it."

Oh, he was so angry . . . showing none of it in his blank expression, but the raw cutting edges of it came through.

"Rahel is on her way," he said. "She went to run an errand for me."

"But you know how dangerous-"

He held up a cautioning finger. "Don't. Don't do that. You want to stay on my good side, Jo, let's get something straight. Never remind me of the