Zarina and the Djinn Read online

  Zarina and the Djinn

  A Rumpelstiltskin Story

  Vivienne Savage

  Contents

  Zarina and the Djinn

  Connect With Vivienne Savage

  A Note From The Author

  Once Upon a Time…

  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

  …Happily Ever After

  Other Books by Vivienne

  Other Books by Payne & Taylor

  About the Author

  Zarina and the Djinn

  A Rumpelstiltskin Story

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  By Vivienne Savage

  All material contained herein is Copyrighted © Vivienne Savage 2017. All rights reserved.

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  This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your preferred e-book retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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  Get the latest news from Vivienne Savage

  Vivienne’s Facebook Page

  http://www.viviennesavage.com

  Edited by Hot Tree Editing

  Zarina has sacrificed years caring for her alcoholic father. While she works, he pawns her deceased mother’s belongings and gambles away the family income. Her greatest dream is to leave the city behind, but loyalty keeps her at home. Then one night, she meets a kind stranger, a mysterious traveler whose eyes burn golden beneath the moonlight.

  For the crimes of cruelty and narcissism, the Queen of the Djinn sentenced Joaidane to spend his immortal life in the body of a leper. Wearing an ugliness on the outside to match his vile soul, he travels the deserts seeking redemption. The full moon is his only reprieve, a time to be himself once more. Too bad no one can see him… until a young woman with a thirst for adventure crosses his path.

  As the first person to see Joaidane’s true appearance in three centuries, Zarina may be the key to unraveling his curse, but a pervasive evil festers in the city. Girls frequently disappear from their homes to sate the endless appetite of the corrupt royal family, and if Zarina isn’t careful, she might be the next to join the sultan’s growing harem.

  Zarina and the Djinn is a twisted version of Rumpelstiltskin where the villain is now the hero of the story. You may have read the novella in Twisted: flipped fairy tales, but you can now buy the full-length novel with twice the drama, twists, and turns today!

  Connect With Vivienne Savage

  You can connect with Vivienne Savage online via her website, on Facebook, or if you are interested in receiving updates about her releases and books join her newsletter.

  * * *

  Don’t be a stranger!

  A Note From The Author

  Most of the novels found in my fairy-tale series take place in chronological order but Zarina and the Djinn is the exception. Prior to its inclusion in Twisted box set this summer of 2017, I had planned to release this book after writing Goldilocks and the Bear, originally completing it before work on Belle and the Pirate even began.

  If you read Belle and the Pirate, Joaidane will be familiar to you. Consider this novel to be his origin story, a piece of the puzzle needed to understand how he came to be the man he is today, a man you will meet again in the next installment of Once Upon a Spell.

  Since this story’s prior release as a novella, I’ve written additional content and really tightened the storyline. I hope you enjoy it as much this time as you did before, with new plots, twists, and turns. Zarina is the second of my princesses who is not a born warrior—her greatest strength is her compassion and cunning. As this series continue, I will do my best to represent every kind of woman.

  Rapunzel and the Griffin Prince comes this upcoming spring, and boy, are there some surprises for you.

  As there have been comments regarding the theme in my novels, I wanted to also address those right now with an update to my series blurb.

  Undertake a magical journey in Vivienne Savage's new romantic fantasy series loosely based on the lore of multiple fairy tales. Meet strong heroines supported by a cast of sexy heroes, intriguing friends, and devious villains. As always, the story is predominant with a sensual scene or two—or even an innocence-claiming reformed manwhore ;) If you're adverse to any of the above, this series may not be for you!

  Once Upon a Time…

  Over 300 Years Ago

  After many years of enjoying the freedom of unwedded life, Joaidane had decided to search for a bride. Of course, only the most beautiful women in the desert could apply for the honored role as his mate. And while he didn’t expect any of them to surpass him in good looks, he was willing to settle for a humble wife of reasonably attractive features if she had a good heart.

  He’d already made a list to be distributed in the village too. In that list, he’d specified his ideal woman would have no scars or physical imperfections. His future wife’s legs needed to be long, her figure lean, and her face unblemished. Her hair would have to be full and reach the middle of her back like an ebony cascade.

  And she’d have to be tall. Perfect like him with a good sense of humor.

  Of all the other young men in the village of Ankirith, none were as handsome as Joaidane, and while he knew vanity to be his second greatest flaw, his love for troublemaking surpassed it.

  He couldn’t help himself, and if idiotic villagers lacked the common sense to avoid his pranks, they deserved whatever misfortune fell upon them.

  Born the only son of the region’s ruling enchantress, he lived in luxury, spoiled and pampered by his sorceress mother. There wasn’t a single thing he could ask for that she would deny him, and of course, no one dared to challenge the way she raised her strange, half-ifrit child.

  And no one questioned her about the father’s whereabouts. After all, ifrit were magical creatures of smokeless fire and as capricious as the desert winds. They traveled with the breezes and remained loyal to no one, unlike lowly, lesser jinn often trapped into servitude as the slaves of noble families one generation after the next until they were granted freedom.

  Villagers whispered behind Joaidane’s back, fearing the power he possessed. What if he turned against them? What if his mischief and merrymaking, while otherwise harmless, should ever cause them harm? Could they trust Enchantress Safiyya to protect them from her own child?

  While they fretted, he laughed at them and enjoyed the wealth of the tower overlooking the village. Everything in view of the Opal Spire, from the emerald oasis to the wild horses roaming the coast, was theirs to command. And one day, it would all belong to him.

  But he loved pranks more than he loved Ankirith, and because of it, none of the villagers trusted him, making it more difficult to play his childish games.

  “Perhaps today I’ll taunt the shepherd to create work for him,” Joaidane murmured. He leaned out the window. In the distance, the inattentive sheepherder rested beneath the shade while his flock grazed, a white-clothed body laying amidst the swaying flora of their best pasture. “Virak is always sleeping on the job when he should be tending to the animals.”

  When Joaidane stepped outside, the humid wind tousled his hair. He breathed in the sea salt smell
of the air, then shielded his eyes from the sun. Perfect. Virak hadn’t moved. He crept toward the pasture and transformed with a shape-changing spell, shedding his human appearance and taking the guise of a black coyote.

  Keeping low to the ground, he prowled closer.

  Excitement buzzed through Joaidane’s body as he poised for the attack. Before he could spring into the thick of the group, an alarmed sheep raised its head. The bleat of warning came too late.

  As anxious adrenaline pounded through his veins, Joaidane jumped forward, landing amidst the dull creatures. A few nips and growl scattered the group, working them into a terrified frenzy.

  “My sheep!” the shepherd cried. He rushed after the panicked animals, too slow on two legs to close the distance and cut off the flock. They moved as one, petrified by the predator in their midst, and rushed into the river to escape doom.

  More than a dozen gray heads dipped beneath the water, and while others bobbled on the surface, countless disappeared beyond Joaidane’s sight and the reach of his magic.

  “My sheep are drowning! They’re drowning, someone help!”

  No, no, no! Aghast, Joaidane shifted back into his natural form and stared at the struggling animals. Drowning them hadn’t been his intention, and the village—the entire village—needed the sheep herd for their survival.

  As Virak went into the water and grabbed a bleating lamb under one arm, his wife rushed to the edge of the pasture.

  “Are you going to stand there and do nothing?” Alurie demanded. “Help him, you fool!”

  When Joaidane tapped into his magic, a desperate hand gesture levitated a single sheep from the choppy waves. After setting the animal on the dry ground, he repeated the spell and plucked a second from the rapid current. Despite all his effort, it was a futile fight. The rest were downriver already or under the water.

  “No!” Alurie screamed. “Someone help him! Someone do something! Those sheep belong to all of us. What will we do without them? Can’t you do anything?”

  “Silence, woman, and let me try!” Joaidane manipulated the water and parted it, but he lacked his mother’s control. Its weight pressed in against his mind, straining his consciousness with the mental equivalent of lifting a heavy burden. As he doubled over from the strain and raised one hand to his temples, the waves crashed down again, sweeping the shepherd back to dry land and the floating sheep further down river. Alurie cried out and ran down the riverbank, screaming for help.

  “Lost! All the sheep are lost!” Virak pulled at his graying hair.

  “I saved two of them,” Joaidane said.

  Alurie returned with a small gathering, onlookers collecting on the riverbank to stare at the sodden bodies of the rescued livestock. “And washed the others away to the ocean goddess! You did this on purpose,” she accused.

  The shepherd sank to his knees on the silt-covered bank. “You did this. Your evil brought this misfortune upon us. My flock is destroyed, and you have nothing to say for yourself. Not even an apology for the pain and misery you’ve caused on this day!”

  “Trouble. He’s been nothing but trouble since the day she had him,” Alurie said.

  A farmer stepped forward and pointed toward Joaidane. “He’s a curse upon us all!” Anger twisted the deep lines of his craggy face into a hideous mask.

  An older village woman stared at him, eyes burning with fury. Her lips pressed into a thin, disapproving line. “An ungrateful, spoiled child has become an awful and arrogant man. There will be no new clothing for the children, no meat during winter. You’ve doomed us. Doomed our children. But why should you care when you live in comfort?”

  Each word from them churned nausea through Joaidane’s stomach. An unflinching crowd stared him down until he looked away first and cast his gaze at the river “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

  Virak spit upon the ground in disgust. “Save your excuses for your mother. She’s the only one who cares to hear them.”

  “To the void with all of you then. I said I was sorry.”

  Joaidane stalked away. He hadn’t quite reached home when the desert siren appeared, shimmering into existence atop the nearest dune like a desert mirage. Sheer silks in layers of black, red, and gold fluttered around her voluptuous form, and the wind tossed her dark red hair.

  His heart slammed inside his chest with the force of a blacksmith’s hammer, quickened by fear, rather than lust for the beautiful spirit of fire hovering before him.

  “It’s her,” a passing villager said in awe. “It’s Yasmina, Queen of the Ifrit. Mother of all Djinn.”

  Their local folklore claimed she only appeared when needed the most by humans, her arrivals always born on heartfelt wishes and pleas of mercy. Joaidane had never met her before, nor had he cared to. As far as he was concerned, all ifrit and even lesser jinn were the same, like the father who abandoned him and his mother at birth.

  Before he could continue to the spire, the resentful crowd clustered behind him, and their embittered voices filled the air with dissatisfaction.

  “Pig.”

  “Traitor to all of us.”

  “We would be better without him.”

  As Yasmina floated down the dune, the toes of her slippered feet created a glass trail behind her on the sand. “Joaidane of Ankirith,” she said, voice resonating with power. “For too long you have abused the gifts of your birth, but today you have crossed a line.”

  Joaidane stiffened. “It was only a little bit of fun.”

  “Fun? You have weakened your community and harmed the mortals you were meant to guide and protect. Do you not realize you are to be the shepherd of their flock one day?” Her vibrant eyes burned brighter than a flame within her mahogany face. “Were to be their shepherd. No longer.”

  “Wait, it was only a mistake. I was playing a game with Virak, just a game—”

  “As you are a child of the djinn and born of ifrit blood, it is within my right to pass judgment.”

  “Judgment? I—”

  “Rumpelstiltskin I name you, for you are without remorse. Your greatest regret is that you were loathed and disdained, not that you have irreparably harmed others with your pranks. Nothing but mischief resides in your heart.”

  “I’m sorry, I only meant—”

  “Your magic I bind, never to be used for personal amusement. Your magic I bind, only to be used for another in a selfless gesture. Thrice I bind you, your power crippled, hindered, and restrained to the light of the full moon, a mere shadow of what you’ve known.”

  “You can’t!”

  “It has been done!” Her voice boomed, louder than thunder exploding across the sky. “Rumpelstiltskin, this name is both your curse and your salvation, though you may never share it, and one day, it will be forgotten. Until you learn to love others more than yourself and until you earn kindness and love in return, you will be bound to this fate.”

  “But—”

  Yasmina continued, “For the crime of excessive vanity, your wickedness will be worn for all to see, your face as diseased as your putrid little soul.”

  “No! Please, of all the things to take from me, don’t do this. Don’t do this to me. I’m one of you!”

  Smokeless fire blazed beneath her and arose toward her outstretched hands in shades of cerulean and crimson. “Very well. I grant you a single reprieve! By the light of the full moon, you shall wear your true face. But I warn you, use those three nights wisely, Rumpelstiltskin. Should you attempt to cheat this curse as you have cheated through all other things in your life, you will die.”

  Yasmina disappeared in a plume of fire. The heat scorched his face, and then agony spiraled down his body, beginning at his neck and resonating throughout his spine. He hunched over, unable to straighten again, and his knees buckled as clumps of his ebony hair fell to the ground at his feet.

  “Come back! Yasmina, come back!”

  Led by a pair of villagers, Enchantress Safiyya rushed from the direction of her tower. “What is all this noise?” U
pon seeing her only child, she came up short and raised both hands to her mouth.

  Little remained of his hair but a few strands of dull gray against a bald, misshapen curve. He ran his fingers over his wrinkled face and stumbled to his mother despite the indescribable pain pulsing through his crooked spine. “Mother, help me.”

  “What has happened?”

  “Yasmina cast a spell upon me,” he cried. “Mother! Tell me you can undo this. Tell me you know of a way to break her curse and restore me to how I once was!”

  His mother hesitated. “I… know of no such spell able to overturn a grand ifrit’s decree, Joaidane. Their magic is all-powerful and greater than even mine.”

  “But you haven’t tried,” he pointed out.

  “I know a waste of my power when I see it, and to reverse such a spell would consume all of it. No. I… this village would be defenseless against the Ridaeron Dynasty if I exhausted all of my strength to restore your looks.”

  “My looks? This is about more than my looks! She took my powers. My magic is gone.”

  “Then you must beseech the queen and plead with her.”

  “You will do nothing?” His heart sank and created an iron lump in the pit of his stomach. It wasn’t that she couldn’t do it, but that she wouldn’t. Wouldn’t dare dispense enough of her magic to become powerless.

  “This face is yours, your trial to bear. And I… I can’t bear to look at you. I think it would be for the best if you were to leave.”