Forsaken: The World of Nightwalkers by Jacquelyn Frank Page B

script, beautiful in its maleness and vivacity. The type of script she saw told her almost as much as the word itself did. Her own was a graceful Asian-styled calligraphy.
    The human would be surprised, she knew, to learn just how similar his script was to the Bodywalker he loathed, the one standing on her opposite side. Although one was a little more patient and paid more attention to detail, both men’s emotions were volatile, especially with regards to their feelings toward themselves.
    She couldn’t imagine what it must be like to live with emotions that fell away like so many shedding hairs; the next discarded before the first had even hit the ground. It had to be simply exhausting. God knows she was worn out just watching them do it.
    Faith drew her attention away from everyone else and focused on the nik in her hands. It was a very powerful nik. She could sense it, feel it in the weight of the metal fused to the silken threads that made it glint and shine in the light. Since it was so clearly owned by the Djynn in question, she would very easily be able to track her using it. The trick was whether she could do it without tipping her off. If a Djynn thought it was being hunted it would run and hide and use magic to keep others as far away as it deemed necessary. As it stood right now, the Djynn’s defenses were not up and Faith could very strongly feel the direction she needed to go in.
    “Sunlight weakens us,” she explained to the human patiently. “In some cases it can kill us.”
    “Us?” he echoed, hissing hard on the “s.” “I am not an ‘us.’ Daylight does nothing more to me than give me a nice tan. So tell me how to find this thing and I’ll have it here by nightfall.”
    Docia gasped, her eyes widening before they went wet with hurt and shocked pain. She had felt his derision and prejudice to her core, had known instinctively that he lumped her in with the “its” of his world. A dehumanized thing that he wanted no part of.
    Leo realized his blunder a second or two too late. By the time he thought to apologize she had turned away from him, and buried her face into the chest of her mate. Ram’s big hands engulfed her with a comforting hug, rubbing her back gently as she began to weep. It had been one hurt too many in too short a period of time, and she dissolved into tears under the stress of it all. Ram’s touches and soothing words were all sweetness and comfort, but the blazing look he leveled at Leo should have set the mortal man on fire. At least he had the decency to look and feel regretful. But he didn’t try to verbally apologize. He made himself listen to Docia’s pain and flagellated himself with the sound of it.
    “I doubt you could ever find a Djynn on your own,” Faith said to him, drawing his attention. “They cannot be tracked by mortal means.”
    “Anything can be tracked.”
    “True,” she acquiesced. “But unless you know of a way to track smoke and energy, your problem remains the same. You will need my help to find her. Hunting for her in daylight presents its own problems, but since time is of the essence we have little choice. Perhaps the nearness of her nik will entice her into using her magic to make it possible for her to contact us in spite of the sun. I know there are Templar spells that can create this possibility, perhaps there are Djynn abilities as well.”
    He stewed in those thoughts for a moment.
    “So what is it with sunlight and you Night Angels anyway?” he asked. “Does it paralyze you like it does these people?”
    The way he said “these people” was yet another nail of pain driven into Docia’s light. He had to know how much he was hurting her, so why did he persist? His scroll read of a deep love of Docia, one that was a lifetime written into his heart. How was it possible for him to keep hurting her even though it hurt him to know he was doing so? To
feel
he was doing so. Everything about him was a wash of contradictory emotions and