Ari’s jaw dropped as she turned to her friend. “Trey, you’re immortal?”
No longer smiling, Trey nodded. “I want to be with him,” he replied simply.
Red took control of the conversation again. “With your permission, I am going to place a piece of myself inside each of you.”
The floor might as well have disappeared beneath Ari’s feet, and as if sensing that, Jai held her tighter. “What?” she croaked.
The Red King studied her carefully, softly. “You remind me so much of your mother. I miss her, Ari. Every day. The only thing that makes her loss bearable is a promise I made to her. I promised to protect you. There have been moments when I didn’t know if I could keep that promise, but when you threw yourself on the proverbial blade for me, I no longer had any doubts. If I can use my brother’s words, it is a matter of honor. If you have a piece of me inside you, Azazil will command Asmodeus to leave you alone.”
“For eternity,” Jai replied, his tone suggesting uncertainty. “Because we’ll be immortal too.”
Red sensed his wariness over life everlasting and nodded his head at Ari. “You love her? You don’t want to live without her? Ari is the daughter of a jinn king and an ifrit, Jai. Even with your mother’s blood, you will not live as long as Ari will. She will outlive you. Perhaps by many a long year.”
Her uncle’s prophecy lodged into a hard, painful ball in her chest as she turned in Jai’s arms to gaze up at him, clearly expressing her fear over having to live without him. It was too close to the bone to think about rationally, to remember that even so, they’d have a long, happy life together. “Jai,” she begged without needing to say the words.
He brushed his fingers tenderly down her cheek. “It’s forever, Ari. Forever is a very long time.”
“But it’s forever with you.”
His eyes flared bright at her words and he leaned down to press his forehead against hers, taking a moment to feel her and breathe her in. She reciprocated, though her muscles were tense with question. Would he accept Red’s offer? For her?
Jai pulled back and looked at the Red King, resolve etched in his features. “Yes. We’ll accept your extremely kind offer, Red.”
Red appeared to relax right along with Ari.
“Brace yourself,” Trey suddenly murmured darkly. “This is going to hurt like a bitch.”
Red grimaced. “He’s not wrong.”
Epilogue
Always
“We spend a lot of time in cemeteries and graveyards,” Ari observed casually as she and Jai walked side by side, their bodies alert in the dark. “Have you noticed that?”
They passed an impressively large headstone and Jai nodded. “I think it’s just our luck lately. Next month it’ll seem like we spend a lot of time in the desert or in forests or in … shopping malls.”
“Was that a dig at this month’s expenditures?” she asked. A twig cracked to their right, pulling her attention. She peered into the dark but didn’t find what she was looking for.
“Not at all.”
“Caroline is throwing an engagement party for Fallon and Eli. I needed an outfit.”
“One outfit comes in fifteen bags?”
“It wasn’t fifteen—it was five. And I bought three outfits. I don’t know what mood I’ll be in the night of the engagement party.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t need to say anything. Your tone said everything.”
“You do shop more than you used to.”
Ari wrinkled her nose and stopped to stare at him, hands on her hips. “Dude, I spend my days and often nights,” she gestured around the moonlit cemetery, “hunting and killing jinn. That’s just as bloody as it sounds. Shopping makes me feel like a girl again.”
Jai grinned at her, and she tingled all over. God, she hoped that feeling never faded. “Dude?”
“It slipped out.”
He shook his head in amusement and began searching again.
Almost a year had passed since their ordeal with Asmodeus, which meant she and Jai had been dating for over a year. It felt like a lot longer, but in a good way. As for Asmodeus, he’d unwillingly backed off. Permanently. Once Red had placed a piece of himself within Ari and Jai (a procedure so painful, they’d both blacked out), he and Glass had told Azazil exactly what they’d done. Of course, the sultan was at once impressed and enraged. In the end, however, there was nothing to be done but put his own protection behind Ari, Trey, and Jai to ensure that his sons came to no harm through their deaths. Asmodeus was foiled, and Ari was glad she hadn’t been forced to share a room with him since.
Things had been quiet in the royal jinn world. Ari no longer had contact with the sultan or any of the jinn kings, with the exception of Red and Glass. Red stopped by once in a while to check on them, but Glass was a more permanent feature since he and Trey were as loved up as Jai and Ari. In fact, Trey was thinking of getting his own place so they’d all have more privacy. Ari would definitely miss living with him. Not only did he crack her up but he also acted as a coolheaded mediator in Ari and Jai’s hotheaded disagreements.