Page 73 of Heavensent & Hellbent

“I didn’t even know I was a jinn until a week ago,” I said.

At this, he let out a low laugh. “How does a jinn not know they’re a jinn? I could tell just by your scent.”

My mouth parted in horror at that.My scent.

“You didn’t know I was a jinn,” I said in a low voice to Zain.

He shook his head.

“Yes, well, Zain is a new angel. I’ve been at this game a long time now, and where there is jinn, there is smoke. It fills the room. Once you get a sense for it, you cannot ignore it.”

I couldn’t help but bow my head to the hem of my T-shirt and sniff. “Youwill not smell it,” Castiel added. “And perhaps Zain associated your scent with his past self’s foolish love for you, and maybe that blinded him from the truth.”

Zain stiffened in his seat next to me. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, whether he would be swayed by his mentor’s words, his obvious distaste for me and my kind.

“I will concede, though, this one’s scent is more subtle,” Castiel added, like that was any consolation. “Like she’s attempting to mask it.”

The accusation was left in the air.

“We took a potion,” Zain admitted. “To stop jinn from tracking her.”

“Interesting,” Castiel said. “But she’s not a purebred jinn, is she?”

“No,” Zain confirmed.

“Still, a jinn is a jinn,” Castiel continued.

“What do you know about them—Zal and Rabiya?” Zain pressed again.

Castiel looked to his mentee for a moment before sighing, like he was disappointed. “Zal and Rabiya’s story is not one of love but of manipulation and deceit. Rabiya was a jinn princessliving in Persia who was bored and wanted any opportunity to piss off her family. She pushed the boundaries of what a jinn princess was allowed to do, mingling with humans, taking and discarding lovers, leaving a trail of men who were desperate to wed her. And then she met Zal, one of the best angel warriors we had. He was noble born but abandoned by his father at birth due to a superficial birth defect. He had extraordinary powers.

“Zal fought battles gallantly, was the best warrior ever known, led armies. But he fell, foolishly, for Rabiya, believing her to be human. She seduced him using her powers, and when he fell in love with her, only then did she tell him the truth. He was too entangled in her magic, her lies, to leave her. The problem was that she allegedly fell in love with him, too, despite hating his kind. They wouldn’t leave each other, and her father disowned her, encouraged by her grandfather, who hated nothing more than our kind. They lived a life on the outskirts of Persia, in poverty.”

I had to bite my lip, dig my fingernails into my thighs to stop from contradicting his words. It was as though Rabiya was dormant within me, but upon hearing the rendition of our story as something out of a horror novel, rather than what it was, a love story, she wanted to break free to correct him.

I felt Zain shake his head, but rather than correct his mentor, he said, “And they had a child, right?”

Castiel’s mouth raised in a cruel smile; then he sighed. “Evil incarnate, yes.”

My hands were slick, and I pressed them against my skirt.Evil incarnate.I was unable to speak and kept my gaze on the beige rug that lay on the floor between us. Dust particles decorated the top layer of the fabric, and I had to focus on that or else I felt like I would scream.

“Zal and Rabiya were too wrapped up in each other, too blinded by infatuation that they didn’t end his life when they should have. He was born with a black soul, eviler than any jinn before him, with the powers of both jinn and angel. A force to be reckoned with. He matured much faster than any normal child, and by eight years old he was leading armies to rebel against order in Persia and beyond. He caused devastation, genocides, war, famines. Events that took great pains to erase from history books.”

I shook my head. “No,” I said quietly, raising my head to be met with Castiel’s raised eyebrows.

“It would seem you’re not so dissimilar to Rabiya after all. Incapable of hearing the truth.”

“What happened then?” Zain asked, an edge to his voice. He put a strong hand on my waist and pulled me to him.

“Unnaturally, both sides came together. Even jinn were unhappy with this thing’s powers, the work it was doing. There’s a balance between good and evil. Both, to an extent, must exist for the world to function as God intended. You cannot have a world that is purely good, with no evil. Humans need tests, need the bad to appreciate the good, and vice versa.

“The jinn, though, were more pissed that they were being rendered obsolete. Lower jinn who enact smaller acts of evil were not being noticed, and the balance of the world wastipped too firmly in one direction. That, and jinn royalty does not like competition. This boy was unstoppable, unpredictable. He could have easily overthrown the Jinn King. And so, both light and dark exterminated him.”

“What was his name?” I asked, without even commanding my mouth to speak.

“Armeen.”

My heart swelled, and I had to shut my eyes.