Page 30 of Releasing the Djinn
"Well, that is it, do you hear me?" she yelled at no one, hoping the djinn could hear her. "I am not staying around here any longer."
Stomping to the beautiful bathroom that would forever haunt her dreams, she showered and dressed. Ignoring the drawer of money in the closet, she grabbed her suitcases and left the room. Downstairs she stopped in the foyer and glared at the imposing rod-iron and glass door. Leaving her suitcases where they stood, she went to the door and pulled the handle. It wouldn't budge.
"Damn you, Idrak," she growled. Striding past her suitcases, she turned to go down the hall to the three-car garage. "I will find a way out," she yelled. "Even if I have to smash a window to do so."
Opening the door to the garage, she was just as disappointed to find that the garage door buttons would not respond to her pressing them. For the next half hour, she went from room to room, trying every ground-floor window she could find, and not one of them worked. By now she was beyond livid, he couldn’t do this to her. He couldn’t just trap her in a house and come see her and toy with her as he pleased like some twisted tale of Psyche and Cupid.
Eyeing one of the dining room chairs as her backup plan to throw through a window, Nadira stepped out into the backyard as one last attempt for a reasonable escape. Outside, she paused. The gate to the side of the house was most likely locked, but if she could drag a chair and climb over it, maybe that would work. Grabbing the outside chair closest to her, Nadira paused with a muttered curse. She forgot about the ten-foot gate at the end of the hill, there was no way she could get over that with a chair.
Taking a deep breath, she mentally counted to ten. Ready to go back inside to try her last resort, she paused at a glimpse of metal sticking out from the hedges. The secret gate! She had forgotten about that. It led down to the beach, which in turn would eventually connect with a major road if she followed the beach east.
Grabbing the outdoor metal chair, she dragged it to the gate and situated it in front of it. The gate was a little taller than herself, and the hedge that surrounded it grew a few feet higher, giving her only about three feet of clearance to get up and through it. Stepping onto the chair, she grabbed the gate's top and began to swing one leg over.
The feeling of hands grabbing her by her waist startled a surprised scream from her lips as she felt herself yanked backward.
With the ground touching her feet again, Idrak grabbed her shoulder and spun her around until the gate was at her back.
"What do you think you are doing?" he roared.
Ignoring her wide eyes of shock, Idrak took a menacing step forward back-handing the metal chair that separated them. He watched as she flinched in shock at the violent action. She stared in horror as the chair went flying over the high hedges that surrounded the backyard and over the cliff's edge.
Fury hotter than the arid sands of Nafud, Idrak stared down at the stubborn girl as her shock slowly transformed into the familiar stubbornness that made his blood sing.
Lifting her chin, she leveled those dark, challenging eyes at him. "I'm leaving, that's what. I won't be your prisoner any longer, so just let me go."
Holding onto the last thread of his patience, he ran his gaze up and down her small form. Compared to the days before, she looked better, her face wasn't as drawn as it was before, and the darkness beneath her eyes was fading. But there was still much to go. Letting his gaze drop to her collarbone and past the rounded curves of her breasts, he settled on her stomach. Last night as she had slept from the exhaustion he induced within her, he had sat cross-legged next to her on the bed, gazing at her naked body. Uncovered by the sheets, he allowed the pervading heat from his body to warm and comfort hers as he examined her. She was still too thin. Running his hand across the smooth skin of her stomach, he ignored the want within him unfurling in his veins and the stiffening of his cock; instead, he focused on the concaved dip in her stomach. Her body needed more time to recover.
Cocking his head to the side, he grinned wickedly as her eyes fearfully darted around on his person, pausing at his claws before glancing at his horns above before nervously glancing back to him waiting for him to speak.
"Where would you go?" he asked, though he already knew the answer. Nowhere, that's where, he had made sure of that.
"It doesn't matter, I will have my freedom just like you and most of all—fromyou," she shot back.
"We've already discussed this," he warned, feeling his patience dwindle and his smile fade.
"So, is this how it will be from now on?" she challenged, crossing her arms beneath her breasts, unknowingly pushing them higher up.
The urge to rip that shirt from her and watch as her eyes widened with fear was becoming intoxicating. For two nights, he had denied himself to her body, relegating himself to only the sounds of his name being called from her exquisite lips or the taste of her on his tongue. The nine realms of hell would have been easier to endure.
Oblivious to his inner battle to contain himself, his obstinate little female continued. "You come and go as you please and play with me at your leisure? How is this any different from your entrapment except my prison is a beautiful house instead of a stone?!"
Her words felt like knives of ice being thrusted into his heart. The control he carefully maintained shattered as he took a step closer. The sudden rage overwhelmed Idrak's senses, drowning his good intentions. Memories ofthat boyspeaking to him as if he was a lowly dog, commanding him to do things that still haunted Idrak, surfaced unbidden to his mind.
"You have no fucking idea what you’re talking about," he boomed, glass from every window behind him shattering with an explosion of force.
Letting out a shriek, Nadira turned away from the eruption of glass and huddled against the gate. But nothing touched her, even with the small loss of control, Idrak did not allow even one shard raining down around them to touch her. Realizing she had yet to feel any of the debris from the explosion, Nadira turned hesitantly looking around and watched with large fearful eyes as the last of the glass settled around the yard and pool like glimmering crystals but stopping in a perfect circle around them.
An airy gasp crashed his thoughts back to the here and now and he watched as Nadira took a hesitant step backward, pressing herself further into the gate as she watched his body transform. A cold fury settled over him, he knew what she was seeing without any need to check. He could feel his claws curving out from the bed of his nails, growing sharper and longer. He could feel the smokeless fire that the Divine creator had forged him from cover his form in wraithlike, black wisps.
Stepping closer to her, Idrak let his will manifest and watched with blatant, almost cruel enjoyment as the hedges took new life around her. Reaching out like vines, they caught her wrists, pulling them back as she fought uselessly against them until they had each of her arms pulled high above her head.
Ignoring the beautiful way she screamed his name in protest of his treatment, Idrak closed the space between them. Grabbing her chin, the tip of his lengthened black claws stopped just below her eyes as he forced her to face him, to face the monstrosity within him that she invoked.
The slight tremor of fear that ran through her pleased him, he realized. She would learn today, here and now that this was not a topic he would entertain again. Each word he spoke brought back another uninvited memory, another torture he had been forced to suffer, another atrocity he had been forced to create.
"What I was forced to endure, the things I was forced to do would shatter you," he growled from deep within his chest. "Do not pretend to compare the years I was enslaved with what I have given you," he said, holding out his free hand towards the mansion behind him.
Shaking now, she glared at him with watery determined eyes. "I'm scared of you," she angrily blurted out. "There? Is that what you wanted? There is no need to prove your dominance with me again and again," the hitch at the end of her words tore at his chest. "I see your teeth," she pressed on, tears rolling down her cheeks now, "and feel your claws perfectly fine, I know you could hurt me easily. I know you hold all the power."
