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“I was raised by my mother.” His words were low and grimly controlled. “Zena and I shared a lair with her.”
“You were close?”
“I loved her, of course. We were family. But I was much older and I left while she was still a youngling.”
He could feel her gaze searching his profile, no doubt wondering why he was so reluctant to discuss Zena if they barely knew one another.
“Where did you go?”
“I traveled for several centuries.”
Despite his tension, Ryshi smiled at the memory of his carefree existence. He’d bounced from one dimension to another, indulging his every desire without worrying about the future. It had been glorious. Eventually, however, he’d developed the urge to settle down. It wasn’t a nesting instinct, more a desire to build a lair where he could entertain his wide variety of friends. That’s when he’d created the Oasis. He hadn’t expected it to become a raging success. Or that he would have to create a waiting list for demons who were eager to become members of his exclusive club.
At last Sofie broke into his memories. “What about your sister?”
Ryshi’s mood swiftly soured as he forced himself to dredge up the day he’d discovered his world was about to be turned upside down. Although, at the time, he hadn’t realized anything was about to change.
Otherwise he would have fled in horror.
“I didn’t see her again until my mother arrived on my doorstep and asked me to take Zena.”
“She abandoned her?”
He shrugged. “Jinn rarely remain in one location for more than a few centuries. It’s our nature to wander and my mother had decided it was time for her to move along.”
Sofie was silent for several minutes. Finally, she gave a shake of her head. “I’m trying to imagine you being responsible for an impressionable young female.”
He snorted. He’d been shocked out of his mind when his mother had blithely announced she was leaving and that he was now responsible for an adolescent jinn. He wasn’t a nurturer. Most of the time he could barely take care of himself. Then Zena had actually moved in and all hell had broken loose.
The pampered female was exactly like him. Spoiled, impulsive, and headstrong. And like any teenager she also had extreme mood swings that terrified his staff. Honestly, they’d terrified him as well. Worse, she refused to obey his rules.
“It was challenging,” Ryshi admitted, an edge in his voice revealing that he was trying to downplay the infuriating years they spent together. “For both of us.”
“Does your sister still live in your lair?”
Ryshi managed not to stumble as her question pierced his heart. “No.”
He wanted his sharp answer to be the end of the conversation. He’d already forced himself to say more than he wanted. But of course, it wasn’t. For whatever reason, Sofie wanted to know the truth about Zena. And she wasn’t going to be satisfied until she had it.
“Why not?”
“I forced her to leave.”
Something that might have been comprehension flared in her blue eyes, emphasizing the silver rim. Had she sensed that this was the source of his pain? Probably.
“Was there a particular reason you forced her to leave?”
“A thousand reasons. She was at the age where she was insisting on testing her boundaries.”
“How does a jinn test her boundaries?”
“By creating chaos. My Oasis was a place of serenity for the demons who gathered there, but Zena couldn’t bear the tranquility. She demanded loud music so she could dance on the tables. She destroyed priceless treasures I’d collected during my travels. She stole money from the club and harassed my staff until they refused to return. I tried to be patient.”
Her brows arched. “You? Patient?”
“I didn’t throttle her in her sleep,” he said dryly. “Trust me, that took an extraordinary amount of patience. But when I returned one night to discover she’d snuck in a dozen slog demons to party in the Oasis, I was done.”
Sofie made a soft sound of shock. No one with a shred of sense would have anything to do with a slog demon. Not only did they smell like the pits of the underworld, but their thick skin was covered in a toxic slime that destroyed anything it touched. Being around them was like standing in the middle of a pool of acid.
