Page 15 of Mistaken
That task done, he blinked her backpack away into the hall closet and pondered what he should do for supper. He would have to feed the woman, of course, but should he compel her to come out and sit down at the table with him, or would it be better to have a tray appear in her room?
A tray, he decided. While he guessed that making her share a meal with him in the dining room would be far more uncomfortable for her, bad enough that she’d trespassed in the way she had. Why on earth would he discommode himself further by inflicting any more of her company on him than he absolutely had to?
But if you ate together, you could ask her why she sang,passed through his mind then, even as he tried to brush the thought away.
There was no reason for him to know anything more about her. True, she had the voice of an angel, but still, she needed to suffer the consequences of her actions.
And that meant a solitary existence…for as long as it pleased him.
Chapter6
The landscape was utterlydark now, and Sarah pondered whether she should pull the drapes closed or whether she should continue to sit here until the moon rose. Whenever that might be; she had to admit she didn’t pay a lot of attention to such things, especially since the townhouse she’d been given to live in was located in a complex with lots of tall pine trees and she couldn’t even see the moon day to day unless she had a late shift at Pajarito’s and spied it as she was walking home.
Probably better to close the drapes. She didn’t think the djinn would lurk outside and spy on her through the windows, but still, why take the chance?
She’d just risen from her chair when a knock came at the door.
What the hell did he want now? Wasn’t the whole point of this little exercise to leave her to rot in this admittedly very nice bedroom suite?
“Yes?” she called out.
His voice came to her, slightly muffled by the thick pine door. “I wanted to know if you had any restrictions on your diet.”
How…accommodating of him. She really didn’t, mostly because survivors in this post-Dying world couldn’t afford to be picky about what they ate. There were a couple of people in Los Alamos who were vegetarian, although their food wasn’t varied enough to support a true vegan lifestyle.
Sarah, on the other hand, had always been an omnivore, although back before the world changed, she hadn’t eaten a lot of red meat. Now, though, she consumed what was available, whether rabbit or venison or elk or the rare chicken. They’d just recently begun to have enough of a spare poultry population that chicken had started to show up on the menu at Pajarito’s from time to time, but it wasn’t anything she could count on.
“No restrictions,” she said. Then she couldn’t help smiling as a certain thought occurred to her. “But I’d kill for some pepperoni pizza.”
Because, while there were several decent pizza makers in Los Alamos, no one had come up with a way to make pepperoni yet. It had been years and years since she’d had such an indulgence.
“I am sure killing will not be necessary,” the djinn replied.
Before she could even blink, a freshly baked personal-size pizza appeared on the small table in the sitting area, along with what she thought might be a glass of chianti. Not that it mattered. It was red wine, and she knew she could use a drink after the day she’d had.
“Um…thanks,” she told the door.
“It is nothing.”
That seemed to be that, because he didn’t say anything else. Which was fine by her, since trying to carry on a conversation through a door was just a wee bit awkward.
She went over to the table and sat down on the chair she’d occupied only a few minutes earlier. The scent of the pizza rose to her nostrils, warm and rich and spicy, and her stomach growled.
Even as she began to reach for a piece, however, she hesitated.
What if he’d drugged the food or something?
Don’t be ridiculous,she told herself.He already has the upper hand here. Why would he need to drug you when he’s already got you locked up right where he wants you?
Good question. But maybe he had other, darker designs on her, even though so far he hadn’t shown a single hint that he even recognized she was female.
No, that was also ridiculous. Sarah knew she was pretty enough, in a kind of girl-next-door way that had allowed her to land those local commercials back in the day, but she didn’t have the model-perfect looks of a woman who would have attracted a djinn, like Julia Innes, who’d once been the main administrator in Los Alamos, or even Lindsay Odekirk, who’d been with one of the elementals before he was murdered by a bunch of rogue djinn.
Obviously, she hadn’t been pretty enough to be Chosen, which meant there was no reason in the world for her captor to have any designs on her person. He had her locked up because she’d trespassed, and that was it.
Satisfied with her logic, she went ahead and pulled a piece loose from the pizza, trailing wonderfully gooey mozzarella along with it. That first bite was amazing, rich and tangy at the same time, while the crust had wonderful char and crunched as she bit into it.
Who knew a djinn could be so good at making pizza?