Excerpt of A Tale of Two Djinns by Mina Khan

Patthar had died protecting him, now the water djinns would pay.

Akshay threw back his head and released his anger into the wind. A raw, primal roar ripped out from deep inside, charged from his throat. He called the molewyrms with vengeance.

Thunder roared back in answer. Rain spattered his skin like tears. The ground beneath his feet shook. What started as a faint tremble broke into bone–shuddering quakes. The earth split its seams and spat out mud balls and stone.

The rhaksha lurched in place, eyes wide with fear. Akshay leapt forward, slicing down with his sword.

With an ear–piercing howl, the mountain of ugly fell backward, landed with a wet splat. The air around the creature wavered and reality hiccupped. Instead of an ungainly rhaksha, a most uncommon woman lay in the mud.

A female in the battlefield? What the hell? Breath rushed out of Akshay. He twisted his descending blade at the last second so that it sliced through the fleshy part of her right arm instead of her throat. A muted cry of pain escaped from between her full lips.

Silver armor, like glittering fish scales, covered her head and slim body and, damn, she had legs that just kept going. Double damn, he'd always been a leg man. His gaze jerked back up and met terrified whiskey–colored eyes set in an elfin face of the most delicate blue of a robin's egg.

Tremors wracked the battlefield as more molewyrms tore out of the ground. One appeared so near that a shower of mud covered Akshay from head to toe. When he'd wiped the grime off his face, the woman had vanished.