Your Wish Is His Command (4 page)

Demi-genie.

The categorization bugged the
kharah
out of him.

Kal swiped the cold bottle across his forehead
to cool both his body temperature and his temper. It wasn’t his
fault he was a demi-genie. Well, all right—the demotion was a
by-product of removing the gold cuffs that had bound him into The
Service, but he’d only done it because of Faruq.

Bile churning in his gut, Kal uncapped the
bottle and drank half. Faruq. The most vile
ibn
el-kalb
who’d ever flown a magic carpet.

Dirham bounced over. “So, you need anything,
Kal? Can I get you something? What about a body pillow? I hear
they’re comfortable. Or water wings? Some taffy? How about a jar of
foot cream?”

Where did the fox come up with this
stuff?

“
The combination to the safe would
be nice.” Or Faruq’s head on a silver platter.

Kal shook his head and finished off the drink,
restraining himself from flipping the bottle into the air. In
centuries past—two millennia actually—the bottle would have simply
disappeared into the spectrasphere. Now, it’d shatter all over the
floor.

He sighed and set the bottle on top of the
fridge.

“
The combination?” One of the fox’s
bat-like ears ticked forward as he leapt onto the recliner in front
of the high-def. “Gee, Kal, that might be kind of hard.”

“
I was just kidding, Dirt—Dirham.”
Kal shooed him out of the chair and sank onto the cool leather.
He’d have to wipe it down afterwards, but the beauty of not living
with anyone was that no one would care if he didn’t.

That was also the curse of not living with
anyone.

“
So what are we going to do today,
Kal?” Dirham hopped up and down like a rabbit. He was the size of a
rabbit actually.

“
Today? Let’s see.” Kal pretended
to contemplate the vast opportunities available to him. Trouble
was, there weren’t any. He was stuck in this lantern until a master
summoned him. Bad enough he wasn’t able to move forward with his
life, having to hang out until Fate passed him around to one
thousand and one masters, but to be stuck waiting
while
he
was waiting… Kal hated being an alpha male in a beta role. Hated
treading water and this sentence the High Master had imposed on him
was the ultimate deep end.

“
Want to paint rainbows in the
air?” Dirham asked, swiping his tongue over his lips. Mist-paint
was like catnip to fennecs.

Kal shook his head. “I’m not in the mood, but
don’t let me stop you.” He pointed to the pull-down table on the
wall that he stored the supplies behind. Without altering the outer
lantern dimensions, the interior could expand to house whatever he
wanted to order through the Genie Supply System—a race track,
football field, the island of Crete, a
camel
—but Kal was
into minimalism. Give him his fridge, workout equipment, the
recliner, and a high-def TV, and he was good. Oh, and the remote.
Definitely needed the remote. It was the only magic he could do
these days.

Thanks to Faruq.

Kal gripped the leather arm rests. The prick
had stolen not only his High Master’s thesis and his magic, but
also his reputation. Instead of the promotion Kal had expected all
those centuries ago, his name had been dragged through endless
jeribs
of worthless desert sand and buried so deep that even
Mudd was a better name than his.

Well, Karma could be a bitch and she’d finally
bitten Faruq on the ass. The High Master’s vizier was currently
under lantern arrest for exactly what he’d framed Kal for, trying
to double-cross the High Master in an effort to gain the title
sooner rather than later, so the job was back up for grabs. As soon
as Kal was finished serving his next master, he fully intended the
position to be his. He hadn’t really wanted to leave the djinn
world because of its practices, but he also hadn’t want to be a
part of any world where Faruq was in charge.

But if he could be… Gods knew, he’d worked
hard enough for it, but then that prick had come along and stolen
it so he’d wanted out.

He should probably feel some pride in being
the only djinni who’d ever figured out how to remove the bracelets,
but if there was one thing these last two millennia had taught him,
it was that pride was a lonely bedfellow and a poor substitute for
losing his magic.

“
You know what, Dirham? I would
like something.”

The fox turned around with seven paintbrushes
sticking out of his snout. “Wwaah is ih?”

Kal stood up, then stripped off his gym
shorts. He finally had a shot at getting the job; he might as well
look the part. Dress for the job you wanted, not the one you had.
“My uniform. The orange one. And don’t forget the
scimitar.”

Dirham dropped the brushes. “Scimitar?” His
tongue snaked around his snout and not with the same enthusiasm as
it had for mist-paint. “Have I displeased you?”

Kal shook his head and forced a smile to his
face. Dirham was the one being who still believed in him. Probably
because the fennec didn’t have a suspicious bone in his tiny body,
but Kal would take every supporter he could get. Which, as of now,
consisted of only one. “It’s been a while and I don’t want to lose
my edge.”

“
Phew!” Dirham’s tail twitched
upright, a sure sign the little guy was happy. Some days he was so
happy he looked like a show dog determined to win Best in Breed.
“Okay, I’ll be right back.”

Kal took a quick shower while Dirham was gone.
One more master; that’s all he had left. After two thousand years
of having his hands tied, with pewter cuffs instead of gold, an end
was in sight—

An end that might come sooner rather than
later thanks to the orange smoke that began to fill his lantern.
Smoke heralded his transmission to the outside world, and that
particular shade of orange meant only one thing.

He was about to get his last
master.

###

Want to find out what happens when Kal
manifests himself back into the mortal realm?

Check out
Genie Knows Best
today!

Read on for excerpts from all of the Bottled
Magic series and a few bonus ones as well!

Excerpts

I Dream of Genies

Matt Ewing was having a shitty day in a month
of shitty days—several months of them, actually—so when a
half-naked harem girl knocked him onto the sidewalk and ended up
facedown in his lap, Matt figured one of the shittier days of his
life had just gotten better.

Especially when, raising himself up on his
elbows, he got the best view of curvy female ass this side of a
strip club: one covered in see-through pink gauze and sequins, with
tassels caressing cheeks that were tight and firm and just the
right size for his hands.

Matt’s breath took a hiatus and, despite the
rain, his mouth dried up like a desert.

Or was that
dessert
?

Matt shook his head. No, dessert was in the
bakery behind him, not the woman lying across him. He sat up just
as the trash truck by the curb pulled away with a groaning yawn,
something metallic bouncing out and clipping his ankle.

“
Son of a bitch.” Well, at least
his wind had come back. He kicked the thing away and got a good
look at the woman sprawled with her face in his lap.

Now there was an image.

Okay, he was a sick bastard to even go there
when she had yet to move.

“
Hello?” He wiggled his legs, but
she didn’t budge.

A blue, no, purple butterfly flitted onto the
slice of midnight black ponytail that slid sideways from under a
veil clipped to the crown of her head. The rest of her hair fanned
an expanse of tanned skin below the half-shirt plastered to her
body.

He looked around. The storm left few people on
the street, and those who were held their umbrellas so low they
appeared to be dueling the weather. No one was paying any attention
to the woman. Looked like it was up to him.

“
Miss.” He tried jiggling her
shoulder. The butterfly moved, but she, sadly, didn’t. Christ, he
hoped she wasn’t seriously injured, although it’d be just his luck
if she was—mainly because
bad
was the only kind of luck he’d
been having lately. The Riverview project was a no-go, Jerry hadn’t
called with an update on the Baker roof, and now, thanks to the
weather, he’d have to reschedule a job that would’ve covered the
cost of the damaged materials some moron had backed over and hadn’t
ponied up the cash for yet. Yeah, definitely a shitty
day.

Matt eased out from under the woman and
something slid off his thigh onto the sidewalk. Faceted yellow
crystal, or maybe a hunk of glass, with enough weight to do some
damage—an ornament or paperweight about the size of a walnut on
steroids. That would explain why she was out cold.

He shoved the crystal into his pocket and
turned her face to the side. Dark lashes swept tan cheeks. Her lips
were pursed, and the rain was channeling into her mouth. Not
good.

He put his hand on her back. She was
breathing, but her outfit was hardly appropriate for the weather.
The gauzy pants were soaked, plastering them to a pair of legs that
showed her ass wasn’t the only toned part of her and revealing
those boy-cut shorts women were into these days. Why they thought
guys liked clothing called
boy-cuts
on women he didn’t get,
but at least she had something on. Otherwise she’d be naked and wet
in front of him.

He was definitely an ass for that
thought.

Every wish comes with
complications…

November 17, approximately 10
p.m.

Samantha Blaine held her breath and rubbed the
copper lantern on the desk in her father’s office one more time. A
little harder. A little longer.

But still… nothing.

No smoke, no genie, not even a dust bunny. She
was being ridiculous; the thing was as much a genie lantern as
Albert, her double-crossing, soon-to-be-fiancé—make that, her
double-crossing, soon-to-be-
ex
-soon-to-be-fiancé—was Prince
Charming.

Useless
. Albert thought she, like this
lantern, was useless.

“
Trust me, Henley,” he’d said
during the phone conversation she’d inadvertently overheard not ten
minutes earlier. “Daddy’s little girl is clueless. Useless. On all
fronts. Run the company? Her old man must have had another stroke
back when he had that will drawn up. She’s incapable. Inept. Hell,
she doesn’t even have a clue what I’m up to. She doesn’t have a
clue about
any
thing, so as soon as this memorial thing is
over, I’ll get my ring on her finger and my hands on the contents
of that safe. Then you’ll get your money.”

Samantha flicked the edge of the letter with
the combination to the safe. Dad’s attorney had given it to her
earlier. He’d said Dad had wanted her to have it tonight during the
funeral—no, during Dad’s
life celebration
. That was her
father, always looking for the good in everything, but what good
had there been in opening it now, in the middle of this party, just
to retrieve a souvenir from her parents’ honeymoon? She didn’t
really want a reminder of the happily-ever-after she apparently
wasn’t going to have with Albert. Without him. Whatever.