We Hunt the Flame (Sands of Arawiya 1)

CHAPTER 28

Nasir’s arrow had gone straight through the skull of the ifrit. He knew it was an ifrit only because its human form had shifted into something dark before Altair fell with a sickening rasp.

A sound that made something in Nasir rear its head.

Altair was dying.

An arrow had reciprocated from the Hunter, too. It had zoomed into a dark window, but it would have struck Nasir’s heart had he not turned at the last moment. The fact was not lost on him that the Hunter had aimed true in the midst of the fray.

The general stared up at him from the shadows of the cramped archway.

Nasir forced words from clenched teeth. “Are you out of your mind? You nearly killed the Hunter.”

Altair stretched a horrid smile across his face. “But I didn’t, did I?”

They had been this close to losing the Hunter, their one ticket to finding the Jawarat—and the bastard was smug?

Nasir grabbed the arrow protruding below the general’s shoulder and twisted. Altair heaved upward, teeth gritted in pain, hands trembling.

“Fight,” Nasir said, and cursed. He wanted pain. He needed pain to help him remember and forget. Had the other Demenhune not intervened, the Hunter would have died. The entire mission compromised.

Altair didn’t move.

Nasir growled, reaching for the arrow again. Altair’s eyes flashed in the dark, and Nasir felt a spike of satisfaction when the general shoved him to the stone, dust clouding from the impact. The exertion sent blood spurting from Altair’s wound, and Nasir jerked his head from the dripping red.

“Don’t touch me,” Altair snarled, breath warm on Nasir’s skin. Flecks of darkness swam in the blue of his eyes.

“Go on,” Nasir taunted softly. “Inflict pain the way your heart begs to.”

Altair’s massive hands closed around Nasir’s neck, fingers pulsing against his slick skin, tightening until Nasir felt a prickle of … fear.

It was a welcome rush, a spike that heightened his senses. He nearly smiled.

But then Altair blinked, remembering something, and fell back onto the stone as if nothing had happened. “I wasn’t trying to kill him.”

Nasir sat up slowly, confusion dulling his senses again. He eyed the general warily. “That’s what happens when you unleash an arrow. Something will die. It’s no one’s fault you’re a terrible shot.”

“Kill me,” Altair grunted suddenly, pressing the skin around his shoulder with a grimace.

Of everything Nasir had expected from Altair—

Altair breathed a mirthless laugh. “Did you really think I would come here oblivious to your father’s plans? I know about the Hunter and what Ghameq thinks he is. I know what he told you to do. Get it over with, Sultani.”

He spat the title with vehemence.

“You know nothing,” Nasir said, voice low. “You only assume.”

Altair pulled the arrow from his shoulder with a hiss, and blood flowed freely. The shaft and fletching were crudely built, as nondescript as the ifrit had been. But why had the creature aimed at Altair and not Nasir? It wasn’t as though Ghameq had any control over Sharr.

Altair’s mouth twisted into a snarl before he contained himself. “I … have eyes … everywhere.”

He tossed the arrow among the debris and heaved to his side, pulling his satchel closer with his tongue between his teeth. The perspiration on his skin glistened with the light filtering through the small archway.

“You mean to tell me you have a spy,” Nasir said.

“Many,” the general huffed as he dug through his bag.

Nasir thought back to that morning two days ago, when the sultan had summoned him. When he had knelt on the hard ground of Ghameq’s chambers, listening to orders about this trek. When a servant had swept into the room, a fruit tray in her hands. When she had lingered, lighting bakhour and filling the room with its sensuous scent.