Stuck With You

Part 17

Chapter 17

Aidirian smiled down at the disbelieving look on her face.  Her profile was towards him, and he liked having the view, liked seeing the way her face changed with each emotion she was feeling.  Glancing around, he admitted it was a little dark.  His fingers snapped together, emitting a light glow to the place he had spent the last fifty years of his life.  That was before Celeste showed up in his life and changed it forever. 

“The cave,” she mumbled before turning towards him with narrowed eyes.  He wasn’t fooled though, he could see the laughter in her eyes; he knew that the way she settled her hands on her hips that she was more than annoyed.

He shrugged at her, playing along by putting a sheepish smile on his face.  “I didn’t trust you before.”

Her hands dropped, the glare fell off her face, leaving her looking more serious than she had been in a long while.  “Do you trust me now?”

“I wouldn’t have let you know that I could transport you in the first place if I didn’t trust you.”  He was being honest with her.  Nowhere in the rules did it say anything about Jinn having to tell their master what they could do.  If he were acting as another Jinn would, he would have tried his hardest trick her, do anything he could do in order to make her life miserable.  He couldn’t do that though, not to Celeste.

Taking a step toward him, she smiled.  It lit up her entire face, making her look like what she truly was, an angel, which brought him back to the problem at hand.  “Why didn’t you tell me about Lucifer?”

“Uncle Luc,” she mumbled, glancing away from him.  “You don’t understand it.  Uncle Luc made a mistake, did one thing wrong, and now, he has to pay the rest of his life for it.  I thought He was all forgiving.”

Aidirian’s hand snapped over her mouth, not letting her say another word.  “You know better than to say things like that.  He won’t think anything of it, but there are others who listen, Celeste, others who wouldn’t like an angel saying the things you are saying.”

She grabbed his hand, a real glare on her face as she jerked it away from her mouth.  “I don’t care who hears.”

“This explains it,” he mumbled with a nod.  The fact that she still saw her uncle, let alone talked to him explained a lot of things.

“Explains what?” she asked, the glare slipping from her face to show pure curiousness.

He waved a hand around dismissively while shifting her grip to entwine their hands.  “Why you accept all sorts of supernatural beings, even the ones thought of as bad.  It must have to do with the fact that you never stopped meeting with your uncle, you always had him there for you to understand what others thought of as bad.”

“He’s never been bad to me,” she started.  “Every birthday I’ve ever had, and let me tell you there was a lot, he visited me.  Even if it was late at night when my parents were away, he always came, bringing me some type of gift.  One year,” she said, her eyes watering, “he brought me a flower.  It was the year that I told mother I wanted spring to come early.  I set that flower in a vase, and as soon as he left, my entire room was covered in them.  Grass sprouted from the ground, there was even a tree growing next to my bed.”  Aidirian swiped at the tear flowing down her cheek.  Never would he think that a man like Lucifer would ever do something so…nice.

“He loves you.”

She nodded.  “Ever since he found out I could see him as a baby, he’s been there for me.  Even when no one else could reach me, he would find a way.”

“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

This time, a harsh laugh escaped her mouth.  “And let everyone know that the ruler of all things evil has a weakness?  That even though he was cursed to have no daughter of his own that he found one in me?  No, I couldn’t do that to him, I couldn’t let anyone take away the only family he had left.”

“You’re nicer than you let people see,” he said, a large smile on his face.  Pulling her closer to him, he wrapped his arms around her.  “You want to know why I brought you here?”

Her face rubbed across the material of his shirt.  “Yeah, I really want to know.”

“Don’t get mad.  Do you promise you won’t get mad?” She nodded against his chest again.  “The first day that you met me, you didn’t really grab my bottle.”  Feeling her freeze against his chest, he continued in a hurry.  “I was curious.  You stepped out, complete confidence on your face, and it was the first time I felt anything other than indifference in such a long time.  I had to find out what it was about you that made me want to help you.  You had no hold over me, you weren’t a friend, and you were nothing to me.”  Or she should have been.

“Did you find out what it was?”

He did, but she wasn’t ready to hear that.  Instead, he shook his head.  “No, I’m still trying to find out what it is.”

“Aidirian,” she started, “why didn’t the ring merge with the others.”

There was two possible answers to her question, but he would give her the one she wanted to hear, the one she wouldn’t run away from.  “I didn’t give it to you,” he said.  “I set it down with the purpose of letting you know that you were wrong, not offering you protection.  If you give it back, I can hand it to you.  Maybe, that way, it will merge.”  He held his breath, hoping that she would deny the offer.

“No,” she said too quickly, but he ignored that and let out a breath of relief.  “I like it where it is.”

“Good,” he mumbled, pulling away from her.  “Now, I have something else I want to give you.”

Turning his back on her, he walked to the corner of the cave.  He adjusted the rock and watched as it opened a secret compartment.  His hand curled over the bottle, chuckling at the irony.  As he turned back towards her, he sighed as she shook her head at him. 

“I don’t want it,” she mumbled.  “I don’t want to be your master.”

He pulled her hand away from her body and uncurled her fist.  Pressing his bottle into her hand, he smiled at her.  “I want you to have it.  It means something to me, to actually give it to someone this time.”

She glanced down at it, and he waited for the laugh.  It didn’t take long.  Soon, she was doubled over, clutching the bottle in her hand so tightly, he knew that if it were a normal bottle, it would have broken by now.  “A perfume bottle, your Jinn bottle is a perfume bottle?”

“Ironic, isn’t it?  The one who trapped me in there long ago had a sense of humor.  If I didn’t like the man, I would have killed him.”

“I would have liked to meet him,” she admitted, rising to her feet to look into his eyes. 

He shook his head at her.  “That was a different time. You wouldn’t have liked him, wouldn’t have liked me.”

“Nah,” she mumbled, grabbing his hand.  “I have a feeling I would like you no matter how you are.  Deep down, you’re the same person as you were then.  You just fixed a few things over the years.  I know; the same happened to me.”

Nodding, he let out a sigh.  “You ready to go back?”

“Yeah.  I don’t want Uncle Luc to kill my mother, and whether she realizes it, he had power over her now that she is part of the fallen.  All he would have to do is really command her.  Once he did that, she wouldn’t have a chance.”

He didn’t let her continue talking as he brought them back to the house.  When they reached their destination, he wanted to bring her somewhere else.  Around him, holes filled the walls and debris coated the ground.  It looked like a battle had just taken place.

“Damn,” she mumbled, “it looks like Uncle Luc had fun.”

“Where are they?” he asked, glancing around.

“Don’t look up,” she warned, but it was too late, he had already looked up.