Jinni's Wish, Book 4 Kingdom Series (6 page)

“A mortal ghost is like a delicate bloom.
They need a tether, a reason for being, or else they vanish. I
cannot bring her back if she does, your only hope for salvation and
for meaning in this life is through her.”

“A woman cannot give me meaning.” The words
were hollow and bitter, dripping with scorn.

He’d believed like Danika once. Believed he’d
found his purpose within the arms of a doe-eyed temptress whose
seductive ways had blinded him to her ruthless thirst for power and
greedy ambition. He’d betrayed all he’d ever been, all he’d known
for passion, only to discover in the end that her honeyed tongue
had spun nothing but a silken web of lies.

Though his words spoke scorn, in his head he
chanted for Danika to save him. To show him truth, purpose, life,
to give him hope. He bit his lip, ache filling his throat with
quiet despair.

She sighed. “She is your soul mate, of that I
have no doubt. She will bring you back, but the choice is yours.
She fades quickly, Jinni. Time is short, so you must choose.”

“Why is that golem there?” he asked before
she could fade.

Danika’s face was solemn as she stared at
him. Finally she said, “You know why. You worked that magic once
before.”

Jinni stayed where he stood long after Danika
faded into the ether. Staring out of the cave, at the darkness that
engulfed like a shroud beyond. The violent whistle of the wind
mingling with the jaggedness of his thoughts made him feel more
alone than ever before. Slowly the fire died, until all that
remained was the blackness.

In a corner of the cave rested the two
necklaces Danika had given him. If he took them, if he acknowledged
them, then he knew he’d never look back.

Could he do this?

Dare he trust her?

Not only Danika, but Paz?

The spot in his soul where his heart used to
be bled raw imagining a world without Paz in it. Closing his eyes,
he sealed his fate as he forced the energy to roll down and gather
in his limbs. Floating to the necklaces, he picked them up and
using a small bit of the magic still left to him, sealed it within
his person.

The stones flared bright and hot, seeming
sentient and joyful, as if a friend saying hello.

Before he could rethink this madness, he
cracked open one of a million dream stones hidden within Kingdom--
a stone to give him the ability to travel swiftly through
dimensions-- and opened a portal to her.

***

Paz huddled on the floor next to the corner
of her bed, shivering and next to tears. He was gone again. She
didn’t know why.

Why would he leave again?

Was she a bad person?

Terrible to talk to?

Boring?

“
Is she going to be okay?”
Richard
asked the nurse standing next to him.

His voice was raw, rough, as if he’d been
crying for hours. Which he had. Her brother had looked better. His
skin was waxy, his eyes bloodshot and purple. His hair
disheveled.

Paz rocked methodically back and forth,
hugging her knees to her chest as the cold, cold floor seeped into
her cold, cold soul.

“
We’ve done all we can
,” the nurse
said softly.

But it didn’t hurt to hear it. She was dying.
Which should have probably made her sad, but all she felt was
relief. She was tired of existing in this weird place where nobody
knew her, heard her, or touched her.

No, it didn’t hurt her at all. But it was
killing her brother. Richard hiccupped, trying hard to stay
composed, but Paz knew him. Knew he was seconds from completely
losing it and if the nurse had any kindness left in her, she’d walk
away before he bawled like a baby.

Paz should feel terrible for him. A part of
her recognized that things that’d once mattered so much in life,
the love of her family and her artwork, meant very little here. A
restless desire to go was blooming in her heart.

She stared at the body that had once been
her. The swelling looked better.

Maybe.

The hair was matted, greasy, probably smelled
gross.

Paz touched her still silky hair and then
frowned as it dawned on her that her sense of touch was further
diminished. She didn’t know how long she’d been here already. A
week? A year? Richard was losing weight, his sweater hung on him
funny. So probably a week. He was drinking a lot of coffee too.

She knew that because she’d started counting
the cups piling up in the trash bin of the body’s room. First time
he’d started drinking there’d been three. Then there’d been six.
Now, he was on cup fifteen and the day was only half over.

She stared out the window, startled to note
the sun was already down.

It’d stopped freaking her out how time spun
out of control here. What she thought she knew, she didn’t know,
and what she hadn’t known, she now knew.

Like the fact that she kept seeing a lit
tunnel glow at the end of the corridor, and that tunnel waited for
her. And that now she could go further down the corridor than ever
before, that at the end of the hallway waited a tunnel that smelled
of a million different flowers and that warmth emanated from
inside. That inside that place was joy and she desperately wanted
to go.

“I want to go,” she muttered, shocked for a
second to hear the scratchy tenor of her unused voice. “I want to
go,” she said again, this time a bit more forcefully.

Paz stopped rocking and blinked.

“I want to go.” She stood up, phasing through
the bed, through Richard who shook and shivered as she passed. The
discordant claxon of the monitor’s beeping lit the room, startling
Richard. His eyes were wide as he stared at the screen and with
shaking hands he began to screech.

“
Help. Help please
!” he cried.
Footsteps thudded quickly toward the room.

“I’m sorry, Richard.” She gazed at him with
tear-filled eyes before leaving him and the room behind. “But I
have to go,” she continued to mutter, over and over, until she came
to the room with her Todd. What had he called himself on the
plane?

Tristan was it?

Paz stopped, waiting for the quiet tug in her
soul she always experienced when she got close to his room.

He really was beautiful. And so tall. She’d
never have had to worry about wearing heels around him.

“Stop hanging on,” she told him. “It’s time
to go, Todd, it’s time to go…”

“Go where?”

That dark decadent voice rolled over her body
like sun warmed honey. Tingles of heat shot through a soul she
thought might never feel warmth again.

Prickling force pressed against her back. She
remembered that sensation. It was the hard penetrating gaze of a
man liking what he saw. And for a moment she remembered how it felt
to be alive, to feel empowered, sexy…

“Go where, little dove?”

Her lashes fluttered and all thought
scattered. There’d been a tunnel, and light, a hot, hard desire to
go… but now there was this. Him.

She turned. “Jinni?”

Her reflection glinted in the depths of his
dark eyes. Soulful eyes. The kind of eyes that mesmerized, made her
forget the cold, the soul sucking loneliness that shredded any
resolve to stay.

“You left me,” she said, the words sprung
from the depths of her pain.

Long, sooty lashes shaded his eyes. His full
bottom lip turned down in a small frown. “It is hard to be around
you.”

“I’m so cold when you leave. And the light,”
she glanced out the door, knowing the light waited just down the
hall, “it’s so warm. I need warm.”

Ripples of static buzzed along her jawline as
his nearly translucent finger traced the curve of her jaw.

“I am here now, and I promise I will not
leave again.”

She smiled as a lone tear slipped out the
corner of her eye.

“Would you like to hear a story?” he
asked.

“What kind of story?”

“One filled with romance, intrigue, and
betrayal. My story.”

He sounded so sad, so unsure, and all she
knew was she had to stay for him. She couldn’t leave. He needed her
and somehow, deep down, she knew she needed him too.

Maybe they could save each other.

She smiled and nodded her head, feeling his
tug of energy move against her wrist as he magnetically seemed to
pull her close to his pale side.

“You told me once you like to paint.”

Colors filled her head, a miasma of differing
shades-- bold blues and vivid reds. Her heart quickened and she
nodded as joy trembled in her throat. “Yes. I do.”

He turned his hands over in silent entreaty.
She understood and rested hers on top of his. His power buzzed
along her arms, and for a moment, a split second in time she swore
she could almost feel them-- strong, and firm, and slightly cool.
They thrilled her, made her burn and ache, but then the sensation
of touch was gone and all she felt again was the delicious hum of
him ripple through her.

Something intoxicating and exciting filled
the space between them, it shimmered like pale golds and glinting
silvers.

“This is my magic,” he leaned in so close,
his lips hovered by her ear, and she shivered as heat streaked from
her fingertips. “Paint my story, and see who I really am. Then you
can decide.”

He didn’t make sense to her, but it didn’t
matter, because in front of them a white canvas stretched out and
colors coalesced into exotic and lovely shapes.

“A long, long time ago,” his deep honeyed
voice began, “a genie wondered what it would feel like to live as
man…”

Several hundred years ago in Eastern
Kingdom

Look at the beetles, marching here and
there. Filling the King’s halls with their colorful frocks and
titillating laughter
,
Jinni could barely conceal the
disdain, even within his own head.

He rolled kohl-rimmed eyes, sneering at the
humans marching passed. They offered him furtive glances. Some were
boldly inquisitive, but most trembled with fear.

He quirked his brow and lifted his turbaned
head, jutting his chin out proudly. He was djinn, and they should
fear him. The King’s newest and most powerful acquisition, a show
of strength to all of Eastern realm.

Jinni guarded King Abdullah’s door, standing
with his feet spread and his arms crossing his chest. A djinn
didn’t need sleep, didn’t need rest, a djinn was power, might,
god-like in every way.

“
Who are you?”

Jinni turned at the sound of her voice, soft
and sweet, hesitant, but sure. Her skin was firm and brown, her
eyes seeming dipped in kohl. She was a child, barely more than five
years of age. But there was a sort of maturity to her features, a
twinkle in her dark eyes that said she saw more than the world
thought she did. Tight braids circled her head, causing her ears to
turn outwards just slightly. The effect was oddly endearing and
made him grin.

“
I am King Abdullah’s royal vizier,” he
said, quirking a brow, asking without words what she
wanted.

She inhaled sharply, glancing over her
shoulder. “I do not know you. I have not seen you around
before.”

High-pitched girlish giggling drew his
attention. Gathered deep within the shadows, several
jasmine-scented barefoot maidens hid their smiles behind their
hands, gawking openly at him.

Her maids in waiting, which meant this girl
draped in lush pink silk could be none other than the princess.
“What is it you desire, princess? Hmm? A pony? A rabbit?
Sweets?”

Her dark eyes widened as she swallowed
nervously. “Indeed, Djinn, I want nothing from you. My father has
given me all that I need.”

Of that, Jinni had no doubt. The tiny maiden
was covered in silk and draped in gold. She’d even strung gold
threads through the length of her black hair, the gentle tinkling
of anklets sounded as she moved. Even the silk looked as if it’d
been woven, not by mortal hands, but by the gods themselves. There
was a luminescent quality to the fabric, as if morning dew
sparkling upon fine moth silk thread.

“
Then why are you here, girl?”

She puffed out her bird chest. “My name is,
Aria. And I came to you because you look lonely.”

The twittering continued behind them
unabated. Jinni could hardly refrain from rolling his eyes. “I am
not lonely. I am master of all, I’ve no time for loneliness. Now
get along, child, before I decide to turn you into a toad.”

The laughter stopped, and the maidens hissed
and trembled at the perceived threat they’d heard their tiny
mistress receive. But Aria did not shake, she quirked a brow. So
adult like in her response that for a split second, a ghost of a
smile graced his lips.

“
Sometimes,” she continued in that small
child-like voice, “when I’m lonely, I sit and look at the stars. I
try to count them all, but I can’t,” she scrunched her nose, “I get
muddled up around number one hundred fifty-seven and then lose
track.”

“
One hundred and fifty-seven?” He snorted.
“That is an arbitrary number, is it not? Does it hold meaning for
you?”

She shrugged. “Too hard to concentrate after
that.”

“
How could you possibly get bored, child?”
his voice drawled, beginning to get bored himself. “You are
surrounded by maidens to heed your beck and call, I’m sure there
are children aplenty to play with.”

She nodded solemnly. “Yes, but they only
wish to play with me because of who my father is.”

“
Aria,” the tallest maiden in the back
called, her skin was honey rich and smooth, the fine strands of her
hair plaited high upon her head. “Come now, leave the King’s Djinn
alone.” She clapped her hands and Aria winced.

But then the smoothness was back. Only five,
and already the girl had mastered the façade of royalty. Gathering
up the edges of her pink silk, she curtseyed gracefully. “I live in
the tower, if you’re ever bored.”