The night air in Shiraz was heavy with jasmine and old poems. Elena, an American tourist with a cracked leather journal tucked under her arm, wandered too far from the bustling square. She was tipsy on pomegranate wine and the endless recitations of Hafez's verses.
The alley she stumbled into seemed unreal — too narrow, too dark, too quiet. Lanterns floated in the mist like silent moons. Somewhere behind her, someone laughed — a soft, masculine sound that made her skin tighten.
"Lost?"
The voice slid over her like silk dipped in danger.
She turned. A man leaned against the crumbling wall. No — not a man. His eyes gleamed gold in the shadows, slitted like a cat’s. His smile was wicked, as if he could taste her curiosity.
"I’m not afraid," she lied.
"Good," he murmured. "Fear ruins the flavor."
In a blink he was closer, the scent of him wrapping around her — oud and burnt sugar, ancient and intoxicating. His fingers brushed her wrist, cool and electric, and suddenly she knew what he was: not a man at all, but something older, stitched out of fire and longing.
A djinn.
"You stepped beyond the mortal path," he whispered, his lips a breath from her ear. "Now you owe me a kiss."
Playful. Dangerous. Elena’s pulse rioted against her throat. She could run. She should run. But the night was too thick with magic, and she was tired of being ordinary.
So she tilted her chin up. Bold. Defiant.
Their mouths met — and the kiss was not a kiss but a claiming, a pull into another world. She felt her body float, then anchor, as heat flooded her limbs, spun her senses wild. His hands were everywhere and nowhere, teasing the edges of her dress, ghosting across her thighs, her spine, her lips.
The alley twisted around them. The stones beneath her feet softened into a bed of velvet and dust. Stars swam in the spaces between their joined mouths.
"You taste like mortal dreams," he growled, voice deepening to a growl that made her knees weaken.
"And you taste," she gasped, "like a thousand forbidden nights."
He laughed — a dark, delighted sound that promised endless sins.
By the time the first call to prayer echoed over the old city, Elena was alone again, her dress torn slightly at the hem, her mouth bruised with kisses.
In her journal, where once there had been blank pages, verses bloomed in an ancient, curling script — a love poem she could not remember writing.