The Brothers Djinn Read online

  The Brothers Djinn

  A Fantasy

  Cate Rowan

  Contents

  About this Book

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Cate Rowan

  About this Book

  The Brothers Djinn: A Fantasy

  Three sexy brothers, two warring goddesses, and a literal trip to Hell.

  What could possibly go wrong?

  Long ago in the bygone Middle East, a storm forces three mercenary brothers — charming scoundrels Darius, Jasper, and Valerian — to seek shelter in the castle of the sorceress Ina.

  Ina’s eyes promise heaven in her bed, but the brothers soon discover she knows their deepest secrets and will use them to get what she wants most: revenge against her ancient nemesis, her goddess sister.

  Ina will offer each brother all he desires in this life or the next, but will the price for her magic be one simple night, or an eternity of thralldom in service of her wicked plans?

  Turn the pages to discover magic, treachery, and three sexy brothers getting into immortal trouble!

  Praise for Cate Rowan

  Definitely an author to watch!

  Alyssa Day, New York Times Bestseller

  A dream-weaver of paranormal fiction.

  Susan Frances, Goodreads Reviewer

  Utterly delicious fantasy . . . Better than chocolate!

  Kendra Leigh Castle, RITA Award Nominee

  Want magic and passion in fantasy realms?

  Get FREE STORIES plus reader goodies, book news, and giveaways when you subscribe to the VIP list of USA Today bestselling author Cate Rowan:

  https://CateRowan.com/djinn-VIP

  Prologue

  When the world was young, I, Inanna — the very Queen of Heaven! — stood in the dark court of my sister, Queen of the Underworld, and spoke these words:

  “I am here, Ereshkigal. I am naked before you and everyone else in your kingdom of the dead. Is my humiliation not delicious enough for you?” In the cold, still air of the Underworld, I spread my hands, palms up toward her as if showing my submission.

  But the truth is that I would never yield.

  “Humiliation,” my sister Ereshkigal drawled from atop her obsidian throne, “is the least of what you deserve. You sent my husband to his death to soothe your own ego, Inanna. Now you claim you’ve come to my realm to attend his funeral?”

  “Ah, but Gilgamesh killed him, not I.” Only a tiny thorn of remorse had pricked me, yet I shook my head as if truly doleful. “I was . . . sorry for that. You would not hear me.”

  The flames in Ereshkigal’s gaze did not falter. “Nothing you could say would take away my pain.”

  The flagstones before her throne chilled my bare feet. I straightened, hoping my demeanor might convince. “I came here to honor your husband and your love for him.”

  “No more lies, Inanna. And do not speak to me about love, because you know it not. The Seven Judges have named you guilty. For that, and for so much else that you’ve done” — her gaze burned with the hate she and I both felt — “I sentence you to death.”

  And kill me she did.

  My own sister killed me, there in the dark Underworld.

  After I hung on a hook like meat for three days, my servants were allowed to take my body home and revive me with the Food and Water of Life.

  But my sister was wrong. I knew love.

  To my own shame, I’d fallen in love with a mortal: Gilgamesh, King of Uruk.

  I could not make him love me, the way some lying tales say goddesses and gods can do. If I’d had that power, I would have used it on him.

  Unrequited love is a terrible thing, the harshest of masters. Torture wrapped in grief.

  I could not make him love me. Rejection is all I’ve known.

  Is it any wonder that I am restless? Or that I, of all the gods and goddesses, seek vengeance and power?

  I am Inanna, Queen of Heaven, goddess of sex and war.

  Even death cannot quench my thirst.

  1

  Many lifetimes later in the ancient Middle East . . .

  Problems come in threes, Darius mused as his younger brothers began the tavern fight that would change their lives forever.

  Unfortunately, both for him and for the world, he was one of three brothers.

  He sighed and rose from the pillow stained with old mutton and beer in the ramshackle roadside tavern. Gripping his drinking bowl of beer in one hand, he dropped his other to his dagger hilt. Being an only child would have been lonely; he could admit that to himself. Perhaps having just one brother would have been perfect. He still would have had to share what few possessions his family had owned, but two brothers could have had each other’s backs against the world and been calmer about it.

  But being one of three brothers — especially three who’d grown up fighting and whoring — brought unending chaos.

  With a deft glance Darius scanned the room, assessing its occupants. In his more forgiving moments, like now, he wondered if the chaos was why their father had left them. Maybe the man had sensed what was to come. And perhaps it was why their mother had then slid into insanity while they were still children, even before the worst of it had begun; in the same way that birds of the north flew south for the winter, their parents had escaped before the real difficulties arose.

  Though he believed that only when he was feeling magnanimous. Much of the time, he was aggrieved about becoming — at the tender age of eight — both an orphan and the protector of two unmanageable brats.

  With impeccable timing, Darius took a half-step back and hurled the drinking bowl across the low-ceilinged room toward the head of a burly tavern patron about to hit his baby brother. The man dropped instantly to the filthy floor, out cold and drenched with Darius’s beer. Darius regretted that waste of beer and wondered what his father might have said of it.

  Perhaps he shouldn’t blame his parents for the three brothers’ current lot in life: increasingly desperate out-of-work mercenaries and occasional thieves.

  But his father and mother had left their eldest son to clean up the endless messes of their younger offspring. And so Darius sometimes fantasized about having one less brother.

  Yet even when, in his rare moments of leisure, Darius had daydreamed about being one of two instead of one of three, he wasn’t sure which of his younger brothers he’d remove.

  Take Jasper there, the middle brother, who was dispatching an opponent with an impressive chokehold. Jas was dark and brooding, inside and out. Always ready for a fight . . . and he’d likely picked this one. He had a knack for finding trouble and inflaming it, then blaming the trouble for getting in his surly way.

  Valerian, the youngest, took out the next foe with a throat-punch. Despite his sunny demeanor and superb fighting skills, he was no more of a prize than Jasper, except perhaps to women. Without effort, his green eyes and chiseled face turned their heads, but his eager womanizing and enthusiasm for brawling brought worlds of turbulence. Which Darius was then called upon to quell.

  One of these days Jas or Val would drag all three of them into a situation Darius would not be able to fix.

  Despite that, he loved them both.

  Thankfully, the unfixable situation would not be today. The tavern was quickly clearing o
f patrons — it seemed most of the inhabitants of this crumbling town along a dusty minor trade route were a sensible lot overall — and Jas and Val were doing a skillful job of vanquishing the rest. The tavern-master himself had fled through the keyhole doorway into the kitchen, and only half his face was poking out from that shelter.

  Darius was tempted to make Jas and Val clean up their own mess this time, but it wasn’t easy to sit back and let someone throw a punch at your younger brother. No matter how much that brother, or even both brothers, might deserve it.

  Deciding that making use of his dagger would be overmuch, he leisurely picked up another drinking bowl, took aim, and knocked out another combatant.

  “Thanks, Dar!” Val called out cheerfully as he threw a roundhouse kick that sent a man flying backwards into the kitchen. The tavern-master’s sole visible eye grew wide, and he disappeared into safety with a high-pitched oath.

  “Finish it off, you two. This is getting old,” Darius growled.

  “Spoilsport,” Val said. “We’ve just gotten started.”

  “Besides,” Jas added, after an uppercut that spun his adversary around before the limp body sank to the dirt, “this village hasn’t enough men to fill five minutes of our time.”

  “Then don’t waste any more of it,” Darius said. “I wanted beer and a quiet lunch, and instead you’ve wrought havoc, shortening our drinking time.”

  “True, true.” Val said. “We’ll make it up to you.”

  “You never do.”

  Jas kicked backward with his booted heel and sent the final attacker to the floor gripping his crotch and groaning. Then Jas picked up a drinking bowl — whether it was his or another’s didn’t much matter anymore — and downed what was left of it. Val did the same and gave a loud and satisfied belch.

  “Out, then,” Darius said. “We’ll clearly not be welcome to stay here tonight, thanks to you two.” He pulled several coins from the pouch at his belt and tossed them through the kitchen doorway. “My apologies. We’ll be on our way.” There was no answer from the kitchen.

  A man on the floor — the one who’d been heeled in the balls — moaned.

  “Let’s go,” Darius said. “Before this pile wakes up.”

  They grabbed their leather travel packs and crossed toward the door, Darius in the rear. As they passed into the sunshine, Val looked back over his shoulder and gave the room a chipper once-over and a nod. Clearly he felt their work here was done.

  Darius rolled his eyes.

  2

  As the three brothers headed up the road, Darius thought about the coins he had left the tavern-master. They’d be more than enough to satisfy the ledger of broken bowls, crockery, and general chaos. Unfortunately, most of the coins were counterfeits. Darius regretted that, since the tavern master had seemed a good man, if rather cautious. But real money had been scarce since Jasper’s ill temper had gotten them thrown out of the infantry of their previous warlord.

  Which hadn’t been Jasper’s fault. Well, not completely.

  Perhaps the tavern master wouldn’t notice the false coins, Darius mused, and would pass them on to someone less deserving. He was heartened by that thought. He disliked using fakes or relying on the pickpocket skills they’d once honed by necessity as orphans. But life was harsh. Keeping his brothers together and safe was his responsibility. He pulled a faded leather map from the small pouch hanging from his belt.

  “How far to the next stop?” Val strode ahead through the dust with bright-eyed joviality and began to hum.

  “Until we’re sick of your noise,” Jasper muttered.

  Val smirked. “I haven’t even begun to sing yet, brother.”

  “Praise to the gods, shall we be spared this day?”

  “Unlikely,” Val said. “Though I promise not to sing if you promise not to brood.”

  “That puts the chance at zero,” Darius cut in. “Shut it, both of you, or I’ll beat you senseless with the flat of my blade.”

  “You could try,” Jasper said, “but you’d find your dagger arm permanently useless.”

  Val laughed. “Only because it would break on the mountain of scowling granite that is Jasper.”

  “Keep that up,” Jasper growled, “and I will break off the minuscule twig of yours that loves the ladies.”

  “You’d ruin their nights by harming my massive branch? Now that would be a shame all around.”

  “Only,” Jasper said, “for the misguided women who find your lump of a face attractive in the first place.”

  Val merely chuckled. “Another day of Jasper’s bad moods, another turn of the sun. Each is unchangeable.”

  Darius was well used to his brothers’ needling and squabbling and now opted to ignore it. “I’d planned on going south tomorrow to Azmar, but thanks to the tavern fight you started — ” and he skewered them both with a glare — “we’re back on the road now instead getting an early start in the morning. Azmar is too far for the daylight we have left. Let’s go east to Kahat instead and hope we find a lord in a hiring mood.”

  “That’s a hard afternoon’s march if the weather cooperates.” Jasper nodded at the gray horizon above the low hills ahead. “I’m thinking it won’t.”

  Darius grunted. “It’s a strange time of the year for rain. We’ll see.” Though he privately thought Jasper might be right.

  Indeed he was. Jas always saw the bleak side of things, but sometimes the bleak side was reality. Just three miles up the dust-blown road, the breeze turned to spitting gusts. Another mile and they were getting soaked and mud-spattered, despite the cloaks they’d splurged on after their compensation from a successful raid on outlaws a year earlier.

  Rain was a welcome thing for farmers in a dry realm, but it was one thing to watch it come down while under a solid roof and swallowing a good brew, and another thing to feel its pelting sting across your face while miles from the nearest house of comfort, or of sin. Even the few squat trees were thin and weary this time of the year, offering no more than the illusion of cover. Mud squelched under Darius’s feet, soaking through the leather of his boots.

  If no one needed extra guards in Kahat — and it was always difficult to find work for three at once — tomorrow they’d cross to the cavelands beyond, which might offer more shelter.

  That did not help today, however.

  “Eh, how about that place?” Val nodded at a tawny keep at the top of a hill in the distance.

  Darius squinted through the rain. Something about the keep’s walls gave him an uneasy feeling. “It doesn’t show up on the map. Nothing does, before Kahat.”

  “A fortunate find, then.” Val cracked his knuckles. “We can march there double-time and maybe get shelter in the stable. Or if we’re lucky, the main house. And beg a meal from a pretty servant.” He gave a knowing smile.

  “Maybe,” Darius said, still doubtful. But perhaps it was the cold rivulet sliding down his spine that was responsible for his shiver. He wasn’t much for omens, generally. And yet . . .

  “A meal?” Jasper said, almost perking up. “That would be better than the dates and figs we packed. A warrior needs his fuel, you know.”

  “We’ve no guarantee of shelter or a meal,” Darius snapped out, more sharply than he’d intended. The wet and the day must be getting to him.

  Jasper grunted, but Val beamed. “If there’s any woman there with a foot out of the grave, I’ll get us what we need. It’ll be better than mud and sodden cloaks. Come on.” He turned and headed toward the hill, with Jasper only a few steps behind.

  Darius stood for a moment, watching them. He glanced up again at the keep and shook his head. He didn’t like this, and it was his responsibility to keep Jas and Val safe. But he couldn’t think of a logical reason to say no.

  He trudged after them, muttering under his breath.

  The tower disappeared above the crest of the hill as they climbed a steep and ill-maintained path. In the rain, the path could easily become treacherous. “Watch your footing. If you break an
ankle, either of you, don’t look to me to carry you.”

  Irked, Jasper turned and mimicked the voice of a young boy. “Yes, Mother.”

  Darius kicked out, intentionally missing Jas’s knee by an inch. But Jas and Val slowed down, which was the important thing.

  The rainstorm intensified, water pounding down and slickening the path. Thunder crashed and lightning drew closer. Darius cursed under his breath again for them all being on a hillside with lightning nearing. He just hoped they would find what they needed ahead.

  Val, who was still in the lead, pulled up short as they crested the hill. “By all the gods.” Right behind him, Jasper stopped and swore softly.

  Darius reached the crest seconds after, and was just as astonished.

  The tawny keep — more of a small castle, really — jutted into the sky with slender turrets and oddly curving walls, a combination of arrogance and very feminine appeal. Beyond the open gates, the hill on which it rested unfolded gently for miles. Stables and other buildings dotted the landscape, and between and beyond them all lay pastureland of an astonishing green hue, far different than the crabbed bushes around the three brothers and the sparse landscape down the hill from whence they’d come.

  It was as if they were seeing an entirely different realm than the one in which they stood.

  “Do you think it’s even raining there?” Jasper said quietly.