Jake's Djinn Read online

  Alejandro ignored him. The jackass.

  “That’s very rude, Jake,” Donya said, in that sultry voice of hers. “I’d love to meet Mr. Tall, Dark, and Delicious.”

  “Right. Don’t be rude, Jake,” Alejandro said, moving out of arm’s reach.

  “That’s it. You have to die. I know I have some arsenic around here,” Jake told him.

  “Maybe behind the Fruit Loops,” Donya said dryly.

  Jake shot her a look. “You’re not helping…oh. Oh.”

  She didn’t have purple hair or pink sequins now. Her hair hung in rich dark waves to the middle of her back. Her dress was the color of sunshine and hugged her rounded curves in a way that made him suddenly, desperately jealous--of fabric. He almost swallowed his tongue.

  Then he noticed Alejandro and his dumb grin, and he figured he didn’t have any choice but to introduce them before he kicked his cousin-in-law’s ass.

  “Donya, this is the rotten apple of the family tree, my cousin Rose’s husband, Alejandro, the former vampire hunter and current P-Ops not-so-special agent.”

  “Alejandro Vasquez, and I am delighted to meet you. Are you Jake’s special friend?” He shot a smart-ass glance at Jake, who was suddenly thinking of how easy it would be to stage a fatal fishing boat accident. “I wish you’d tell me --"

  “I am Donya Sherazelle, and wish me no wishes, vampire hunter, for I am free now. I will give you nothing,” she said, and her voice was ice.

  Suddenly, Jake felt a lot happier.

  Alejandro’s mouth fell open. “I didn’t—I wasn’t—I was just going to crack a stupid joke about giving me tips on how to get Jake to act civilized.”

  Donya blushed. Jake didn’t know genies—Djinn—could blush. He also didn’t know that watching a Djinn blush would give him a raging hard-on, so he moved closer to the counter for cover and thought about cold showers.

  “My apologies, Alejandro Vasquez. It is nice to meet you. I might be oversensitive to anything that sounds like wish for a while.” She didn’t offer to shake Alejandro’s hand, though, which cheered Jake up enormously.

  “So, introductions made, get out. And never bring your rot-gut tequila into my life again,” he told Alejandro. “I think my head exploded once or twice last night.”

  Alejandro shrugged. “Not my problem if you’re too weak to handle your liquor,” he said slyly. “Or your women.”

  The door slammed open, and Jake’s favorite cousin Rose, who looked to be about fifteen months pregnant and was all golden hair, glowing skin, and belly, swept the room with her gaze and then focused in on her husband. “Did I hear you say something about ‘your women’ to my cousin? Please tell me you didn’t pull such a B.S. macho line out of your butt and say those words in front of our guest.”

  Jake whistled. “Somebody’s in trou-ble,” he sang out.

  “You shut up,” Rose said, pointing at him. “You kept my husband out until four o’clock this morning, and when he did return, he was singing an Irish drinking song and calling me his sweet macushla.”

  “It’s a fine Irish term of endearment,” Alejandro protested. “I love you, and you are my darling. So--"

  “You’re not Irish. You’re from Guatemala.” Rose rolled her eyes.

  “But--"

  “Shut up, both of you. Our guest will think we have the manners of a great bunch of carnivorous leprechauns.” Rose walked, slowly and heavily, over toward Donya, who rushed to greet her.

  “Please sit and rest. When is the child due?”

  “Two weeks, even though it feels like he or she is coming any minute.”

  “He or she? Would you like to know the baby’s gender?” Donya’s eyes sparkled.

  What was it about women and babies? Even Djinn women, apparently.

  “No, but thank you. With an entire family of witches, it has been harder to keep this surprise than it was to rescue Alejandro’s partner from the basilisks.” Rose smiled at her husband, and the sheer weight of the love in that smile hit Jake in the chest.

  Not that he begrudged Rose her happiness. She deserved it more than anybody he knew, and Alejandro wasn’t a bad guy, after all. The man would protect Rose and their baby with his life; they’d all seen that when their cousin Lily had nearly died.

  It’s just that Jake would have liked to feel that kind of soul-deep happiness for himself. His gaze went, almost involuntarily, to Donya. Maybe if…

  No.

  Time to quit chasing dreams.

  “I’m Rose, by the way, and I apologize for the men in my family. They’re idiots.”

  “Donya, and I think they’re kind of cute, actually.” The Djinn—former Djinn—flashed a smile at Jake, and his heart stuttered in his chest. But, cute?

  Hell, no.

  He scowled. “Panda bears are cute. Kittens are cute. I’d prefer hot. Or sexy, or--"

  “Moronic?” Alejandro interrupted, an evil glint in his eye. “A lightweight? Sad? Lonely?"

  “Stop. Right. Now,” Rose said, glaring at both of them, but then her eyes widened, her mouth rounded to a perfect O, and she looked down.

  Which made everybody else look down.

  At the puddle of water on the floor in the spot directly between her legs.

  Everybody started talking at once. Loudly.

  “Is that--"

  “Do you--"

  “Can I--"

  Rose whistled, also loudly, and the piercing noise silenced the room.

  “Stop babbling and get my bag, right now. We have to go to the hospital. I think,” she said, breathing hard and clutching her belly.

  Donya grabbed Rose’s arm. “Jake, Alejandro, get over here.”

  Alejandro stood there, staring at his wife. “What—what’s happening?”

  “I’m having our baby, macushla,” Rose bit off. Then she arched her back and groaned, long and low; an almost-feral sound.

  Jake, on his way across the room, froze. “Now?”

  “Now, Cupcake,” Donya said, her face lit up with glee. “This being human is a lot more exciting than I’d expected.

  Six hours is a long time…

  * * *

  “How could she change her mind and refuse to go to the hospital? What could possibly be taking so long?”

  Donya watched Jake—with a shirt on now, sadly--pace across the deck of the cabin, and then she sighed.

  “Why can’t they just transport themselves here?”

  “They’re garden witches. Their only magic mode of transport is by mini-van,” he said, rolling his eyes.

  “If I could carry them here, I would, Jake, but my powers don’t extend that far. Still, your family is on the way, and it has only been a few hours--"

  “Six,” he flung at her, eyes wild and hair standing up in every direction from all the times he’d shoved his hands through it. “Six hours. How can it take six hours to get one tiny baby out?”

  “Well, it’s coming out of an opening the size of a--"

  “Gak! No! Don’t talk to me about openings, or dilation or--" Here, he looked around furtively and then lowered his voice. “Or cervixes.”

  She laughed. “I think it might be cervices.”

  “Who cares? I don’t want to hear about either of them!” He flung himself in the deck chair, and then jumped up. “They’re in my bedroom, and I feel helpless out here. I should be boiling water.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. That’s what they do in movies!”

  “Okay…” Donya didn’t even know she was going to do it until she did: she wrapped her arms around his waist from behind and hugged him. “You really love her, don’t you?”

  He stood perfectly still, as if he’d surprised a wild creature coming up to him. If she thought about it, she had to admit that he sort of had. She’d been wild and untamed for so long, nothing to anyone but a conduit to their greedy desires and often dark and depraved wishes. But this man—this foolish man who’d freed her without a thought for himself, who was terrified for the fa
mily he loved—this man made her feel safe.

  And that scared the hell out of her.

  She let him go and stepped away. “I’m going to make some more food.”

  “I think we’re good,” Jake said dryly, glancing in at the table, heaped with all the food she’d conjured up an hour ago. “You’re a great cook, by the way.”

  She laughed. “I tried cooking, once. I don’t see the point of it. Why go to all the trouble when magic is so much easier? I don’t wash dishes, either.”

  Rose suddenly cried out, loudly enough that they both stiffened.

  “Is she in trouble? Do I need to get help?” Jake smashed his fist against the railing. “I feel so damned helpless.”

  “She knows I can get her to the hospital in the space of a thought,” Donya said soothingly. “She wants to do this naturally. She’s a garden witch, Jake. You know that. She would hate to be stuck in an antiseptic hospital.”

  He took a deep breath. “I know. I know. Talk to me. Distract me.”

  Donya closed her eyes and wished herself into a sweater and a pair of jeans. The late afternoon lake air was getting chilly. “Shall I tell you about the wishes?”

  A flicker of interest crossed his face and, for the first time in hours, he quit pacing. “Yes. Tell me about how and why I got a second chance, when that’s against the rules.”

  She pulled her legs up and hugged her knees, thinking of the best way to tell it. A story shaped over millennia wasn’t easy to share.

  “It wasn’t about you,” she finally admitted, because beginning at the beginning was impossible. “It was about Alejandro.”

  “What?” He pulled his chair around to face hers, and dropped into it. Stared at her with those lovely golden eyes. “What are you talking about?”

  “He had the lamp. I’m not sure where he got it, but he was showing it to Rose last night, and he rubbed it in jest, and thus summoned me.” She shrugged. “The same way it always happens. Do you remember the fake ‘genie lamp’ you won that night in Vegas?”

  The astonishment on his face amused her, but it also reassured her that he hadn’t somehow been part of a scheme to seek more wishes, or to subvert her magic to his own purposes. Although, he’d proven that wasn’t the case, hadn’t he?

  He’d set her free.

  Goosebumps shivered up her arms. Free. Why was she still here? She had the whole world to roam, and she never, ever had to answer to anyone ever again. Why in the name of all the gods and goddesses was she still here, in this awful little cabin?

  Jake took her hand, and the shock of connection answered her question. There was something here, something she wanted. Maybe, just maybe, something she needed.

  “But if Alejandro rubbed the lamp, why did you come to me?”

  She looked at their joined hands and wondered why it was suddenly hard to breathe. “The magic wouldn’t work for him; he has perfect PH balance.”

  Jake’s eyes widened. “His alkaline/acidity levels are balanced? What does that have to do with anything?”

  She laughed and took a deep breath of fresh lake air. “No. He is Perfectly Happy. He has no need for wishes; the magic doesn’t work on him.”

  Rose’s voice suddenly rang out through the open window to the bedroom. “If I wanted you to remind me how to breathe, I’d ask you. Go shoot some vampires or something.”

  Alejandro’s quiet response, reassuring and soothing, must have worked, because Rose let him stay in the room. Jake and Donya locked gazes, and then both of them had to fight back the laughter.

  “Anyway,” he finally said, when the danger of a stressed-out garden witch hearing them laugh while she was in labor had passed. “That doesn’t seem fair. Happy people deserve wishes, too, right?”

  Donya’s smile faded. “But they don’t deserve the dark twists of Djinn magic. Have you never heard the expression ‘no good wish goes unpunished’?”

  “Deed.”

  “What?” He was still holding her hand, and it confused her thinking.

  She…liked it.

  “We say, no good deed goes unpunished. For you, it’s wish?”

  Because she liked it so well, she forced herself to pull her hand away from his, and then she stood and walked over to the railing. “For me, it was always about the wish. If a man wished to be surrounded by gold, the magic took him literally and encased his body in molten metal, so he died screaming. If a woman wished to be beloved of all, love turned to obsession and her lovers killed her from jealousy. Alejandro is perfectly happy with his Rose, so he deserved none of that.”

  Jake walked up behind her and put his hands on the railing on either side of her, surrounding her with his strong arms and the tantalizing scent of his body. “But I deserved it? Twice, even?”

  She shuddered at the thought of the magic backlash harming him. “No. Which is why you came to no harm. You weren’t selfish, greedy, or destructive. You were funny, and kind, and you didn’t try to manipulate or capture me.”

  “And this time?”

  “This time the magic bounced to you, as the nearest person to it who wasn’t perfectly happy,” she said quietly, daring to lean back and rest her head against the hardness of his chest. “But you weren’t greedy this time, either. This time, you set me free.”

  He rested his cheek on her head and wrapped his strong arms around her. “It was the right thing to do. You should never be anything but free; wild creature that you are.”

  She turned in his embrace and looked into his golden eyes, feeling her heartbeat speed up and then settle into a matching rhythm with his. “And now I always will be, Jake Cardinal.”

  “May I have a wish after all?” His voice was husky; silken smooth and whiskey rough all at once.

  “Name it first,” she whispered.

  “I wish you would kiss me.”

  She raised her hands to touch the sides of his face. “Oh, Jake. This wish I gladly grant.”

  She kissed him, first gently and then with a hint of the longing he’d ignited in her. She kissed him, and he pulled her into a breath-stealing embrace.

  He kissed her back, and she caught fire.

  Their magic exploded between them and sang out in a symphony of desire, and heat, and passion. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t resist him.

  Never wanted to resist him.

  When they finally had to break apart, just long enough to breathe, she found herself clutching his shoulders so she wouldn’t fall. Her legs were trembling.

  Her entire body was trembling.

  Jake inhaled a deep breath, and then a fierce smile of purely masculine joy lit up his face. “How many wishes did you say I could have? Because I’d like to request that same thing, over and over and over.”

  She wanted the same thing, she tried to tell him, but she couldn’t force the words past the tightness in her throat. She wanted to kiss him, forever. Didn’t she? She did.

  Except…

  She’d never been free. Could she—would she—truly give that up to the first man who’d kissed her as a free woman?

  “Jake, I--"

  The indignant wail of a newborn babe interrupted her. Jake shouted out a wordless cry of happiness and relief, lifted her into his arms, and twirled her around.

  “Rose’s daughter is born, and she’s healthy,” Donya told him, smiling.

  “It’s a baby! I mean, a daughter? A girl? We have to go see her,” Jake said, and his joy was so bright she almost needed to shield her eyes.

  He grabbed her hand. “Let’s go see her. Them. And then we can talk and wish and anything else we want to do, for as long as we want to do it.”

  “You go ahead,” she told him. “I’m right behind you.”

  And then she smiled like her heart wasn’t cracking in two.

  He took a step, then whirled around and kissed her again. “Hurry!”

  Donya laughed. “I’m coming, I’m coming. Get in there already.”

  When Jake turned around, she was gone.

/>   Exactly one year later…

  * * *

  Jake touched a finger to the edge of the lamp that his cousin had given him the year before, at the lake, when all of their lives had changed. Rose and Alejandro had a beautiful baby girl, and the entire family had gotten together today for Bryony’s first birthday.

  He shuddered. Nobody had needed to see Granny making out with the guy she’d met at Senior Yoga, though. There wasn’t enough eyeball bleach in the world for that.

  He opened a beer, the strongest thing he drank these days, and tried not to think about how his life had changed that day. The day he’d fallen in love with a Djinn.

  The day she’d left him.

  His family was trying—hard—to set him up with a nice witch. They’d even brought a pretty and smart woman who taught at the local Magic Munchkins preschool to the party. She’d been sweet and kind and funny.

  But she hadn’t been Donya.

  A cool wind swept through his house, and he knew the windows weren’t open.

  “I see you kept my lamp,” she said, and he forgot how to breathe, all over again.

  He turned around, slowly. Just in case he was dreaming; he didn’t want to move too fast and wake himself up.

  But she was there. Wearing a red dress and a hopeful expression.

  “Hello, Donya. Was freedom everything you’d hoped for?” He could hear his voice trembling, and so could she, because she started toward him before he got all the words out.

  “It was glorious and wonderful. I had many amazing adventures, and I saw the world on my own terms,” she said, her smile tentative but growing as she walked into his open arms.

  He almost didn’t dare to hope, but he asked, anyway, because she was here, and because he could do nothing else. “Are you here to grant my wish?”

  She tilted her face up to look into his eyes. “Actually, Jake, I’m hoping you’ll grant mine.”

  “All of your wishes,” he said, already kissing her. “Always.”

  * * *

  So the wizard fell in love with the Djinn, and they lived happily and magically ever after. But their families? That was, as they say, a whole ’nuther story…