Genie Knows Best (16 page)

“What word, Sam?”

She took a deep breath, not wanting to say it, but she had to own up to what she’d done to him. And then apologize like hell. “The word, ‘wis—’”

He kissed her.

Somewhere in the back of her brain, the fact that she hadn’t wished him to kiss her registered, but it was eclipsed by the sheer beauty of the kiss itself. The desire behind it and the fact that she’d like to wish it would never end but couldn’t because his tongue was doing toe-curling things to her lips—which explained the slippers.

When he finally stopped, she needed a few seconds to find her breath. “What was that for?”

“Your wish, Sam. I granted it.”

“What wi—”

He kissed her again.

She could get used to this because, oh, God, it felt so good.
He
felt so good.

But no—this was exactly what she couldn’t get used to because she wasn’t going to wish it ever again.

Out loud, at least.

Then again, she didn’t have to. Kal caught her head in his hands and tilted it back, raining kisses along her lips, deepening them whenever she tried to speak, until finally, she just gave up. This would probably be the last time he’d kiss her after she apologized for making him do this.

His tongue traced the seam of her lips, and when it slipped inside, one of them moaned. She didn’t think it was her. Then her breasts brushed his chest and she did moan. But so did he. Again.

Maybe she was wrong. Maybe she didn’t have anything to apologize for… She put her hand on his chest—fighting with her fingers the entire time not to trace over his pecs, and it was such a fight. But she finally succeeded, wrenching her mouth from his. “Kal, about that wi—um, the thing I said.”

“What about it, Sam?”

She exhaled. “I want to—no, I need to apol—” Her apology got cut short when not one, but two, fennecs dropped out of the sky—through the skylight—and landed on Kal’s shoulders, scrambling all over him, little fox claws leaving tiny white streaks as they leapt onto the furniture.

Dirham—presumably, since he was the one bouncing—skittered off the side table, managed a quick bounce off the floor, and landed on the dresser with a double two-step, as if a dragon had given him a hotfoot, but it was the sentence he kept repeating that upstaged her apology like nothing else could.

“Izaaz, we have a problem!”

Goddamned lizard had some nasty claws on him, and those baby teeth were like razor blades. Obviously, dragons didn’t nurse their young. Didn’t watch them all that closely, either.

Albert jostled the treacherous little thing in his coat, the lining of which was now in shreds. So were the pockets, and the trinkets had dribbled out like bread crumbs all the way from the dragons’ house. He’d had to spend far too much time trying to hunt them down when they’d rolled away, until, ultimately, he’d just made sure no one could track him back to his hideout. It’d killed him to lose the treasures, but if he got the genie out of this, it’d all be worth it.

He
would
get the genie out of this. And damned soon, hopefully. The dragon might be a baby, but it was a handful.

He set the thing in the circle of bricks he’d hastily built when he’d arrived back at his hideout after snatching it. In a city full of magical beings, many of which were birds, there hadn’t been one birdcage anywhere around, so he’s had to make do with what he found.

Hopefully, he’d find the genie soon and could give this little Ginsu knife back to its parents.

The thing started chirping. Great. Just what he needed.

Albert tossed what was left of his jacket over the top of the pen he’d made. Birds quieted down when covered; hopefully the same principle would apply to dragons. Thankfully, it worked.

Albert leaned against the wall, shifting when his spine bumped the edge of a brick where he’d pried another one loose. He checked his pants for the thousandth time, making sure he hadn’t lost the coin or the crystal he’d put in those pockets when the dragon had made mincemeat of his jacket. They were the two treasures he couldn’t afford to lose.

Except… The obelisk was gone.

Albert yanked the coin out and shoved his hand back into the pocket so hard he ripped the fabric. He stood up, jumping in case the crystal was stuck in his pant leg.

No.

He felt around in the other pocket. Nothing.

Son of a bitch! How was he supposed to find the genie if he didn’t have the damn crystal?

Albert dropped to the ground, running his hands through the rubble and mortar he’d created when building the makeshift pen. Maybe he’d dropped it here and not along any of the hundreds of streets he’d traversed to cover his tracks all fucking night long.

Ten minutes later, all he had to show for his trouble was a pair of bloody hands, an aching back, destroyed knees, and a whiny dragon.

Albert slumped against the wall, one leg stretched out in front of him, the other bent. He rested his elbow on the bent knee, running the gold coin through his fingers. Worthless. It was worthless to him now. That damn thing didn’t work to get him where he needed to go and it couldn’t locate the genie like the crystal. What good was it?

He contemplated chucking it across the room, but besides the noise it would make, it was still gold. At the very least, he could trade it to the leprechauns for something. Like dragon food. The thing hadn’t shut up for the last ten minutes of the walk home and was starting again with the noises.

What did dragons eat? There hadn’t been anything by the nest when he’d lifted this one out. He’d been tempted to go for all fifteen, but the minute he’d picked this one up, he’d seen the inadvisability of that idea. One was a handful, and he didn’t want to jeopardize his whole plan for greed. That could come later.

But he needed to make sure this one lived. His bargaining power lay in that.

He peeked beneath the jacket. It saw him and sneezed. Or maybe it was trying to blow fire because that looked like smoke rising from its nostrils.

God, he was tired and this was turning into a nightmare.

Albert sighed and tucked the coin into the breast pocket of his shirt, patting it to make sure it stayed put. He wished he could catch a power nap. Preferably in his own bed.

As the gold smoke started billowing around him again, the dragon leapt up, bit his finger, and held on.

“Breathe, Dir, breathe!”

Kal finally caught the fox and sat him on the bed—as near to sitting as Dirham got. Samantha carried water in her cupped hands from the bathroom, the sheet wrapped around her in a sorry imitation of a sari to keep the evidence of what they’d been doing from Dirham and his friend, but the fox had such a wild look in his eyes that Kal had a feeling their state of undress was the last thing the fennec was registering.

Dirham started to hyperventilate so Kal yanked the pillowcase from a pillow and wrapped it around the fennec’s snout. “Take deep breaths, Dir. You need to calm down.”

“But… problem…” Dirham mumbled inside the pillowcase, his gasps segueing into choking when Kal sat on the corner of the bed.

It took two whacks between the shoulder blades for Dirham’s breathing to get in sync, but his eyes were still the size of his ears and his tail was ramrod straight, every strand of fur sticking out as if he’d shoved all four paws into electrical sockets.

And it wasn’t because he was looking at a naked djinni. The fennec had seen Kal naked many times and was too innocent in the carnal ways of the world for that to cause this reaction. No, while Dirham was inclined to get overly happy about a lot of things, he tended to keep his composure when things went bad, so the gasping, choking, “we have a problem” worried Kal. A lot.

“It’s big. Really big. Huge.” Dirham gulped, then leaned toward Samantha to lap up the water. He shook himself when he was finished, his haunches half-raised off the bed. “Right after Berosus made his big speech about changing destiny, I realized that, to change yours, we needed to report in about your change of master and hadn’t. I figured I’d get the crystal while you guys were sleeping. You know, to help out and all.”

Because that’s what Dirham did. “And?”

Dirham’s breathing kicked up, and Kal was afraid the fox was going to start hyperventilating again.

He put a hand on Dirham’s back and the fox calmed down—becoming so calm that his words and tone went flat. “It’s gone, Kal. The crystal’s gone. And so is the amulet.”

Kal didn’t get hyper about bad things either, and this time was no different. Well, it was no different in that he didn’t get hyper, but it definitely was different in being bad. Losing the crystal
and
the amulet put this situation so far beyond
bad
that, if he did get hyper, no one in the cosmos would condemn him for it.

He took a shaky breath and tried to keep his composure. If he lost it, Dir would, too. “Did you look around, Dir? Under the furniture? Behind it?”

Dirham stood on all fours and nodded, bits of fur flying off. “Yes. Everywhere. I looked and I looked and I searched and I sniffed. I even came back and asked Lexy to help me. She’s the smartest fox I know, and even she couldn’t find them. The leather bags were there, but the rest? Gone.”

“Leather bags?” Samantha gripped Kal’s shoulder which, under any other circumstances, would be welcome, but right now, he needed to focus on figuring out what had happened to the missing items. “You mean the ones that were in the safe?”

He and Dir blew out breaths together. “Did you do something with them, Sam?” If he could grant his own wishes, this would be the granddaddy of them all.

Unfortunately, the shake of her head shot that theory to
Al-Jaheem
. “They were in the back of the safe behind the lantern. I didn’t have time to do anything with them before you whisked me out of there. What’s the problem?”

“What’s the
problem
?” Dirham cursed—in Mycenaean, his voice going positively basso profundo. Kal hadn’t known the fennec knew that language, and he certainly hadn’t known the fox knew
that
word. It was a good thing Samantha didn’t understand Mycenaean. From the look on Lexy’s face, she obviously did—and the fact that Dirham had overcome his shyness enough to ask the vixen for help only emphasized how dire this was. “The problem could be cataclysmic if they fall into the wrong hands.”

Kal patted him on the head in hopes of calming him down again, but he came away with a handful of fur. “Don’t panic, Dirham. We don’t know whose hands they’re in. For all we know, you just didn’t see them.”

“I didn’t see them because they’re not there!” The fox obviously didn’t know the meaning of the words,
don’t panic
. “They’re gone. Someone took them. And I know the carnelian obelisk only affects you, but the Cleopatra amulet… Can you imagine what’ll happen to that? Oh gods, oh gods, oh gods. This is awful. What do we do? What do we do? Who could have taken them?”

Samantha got stuck on the Cleopatra part. Her father had had an Egyptian treasure in the safe, too? No wonder Albert had been so insistent on opening the safe.

Albert.

“Is the amulet gold?” She knew the answer even before Kal nodded.

“Shiny, too,” Dirham added.

And that explained where it was. After hearing the desperation in Albert’s voice during that phone call, she knew he wouldn’t have been able to resist the open safe, nor anything gold he found inside. And if he didn’t know how to use it to do whatever it did for Kal and Dirham, she’d bet he’d know how to use it to earn himself a hefty paycheck—by auctioning it off to the highest bidder.

“How important are these pieces? What can they do in the wrong hands?”

Dirham’s eyes widened and he shivered. “They’re priceless. Beyond priceless. Too many people would kill to get their hands, paws, talons, hooves, whatever on them.” He buried his snout in his paws and the other fox patted his shoulder.

“Who has them, Samantha?” Kal’s voice was controlled. Even. The intensity of his gaze, however, was anything but. And that, more than Dirham’s tone, worried her because she knew the passion behind that intensity.

“Albert.”

“Albert?” Dirham squeaked, looking up.

“Not Albert Viehl?” Kal said something low and biting in some language. Samantha would almost feel sorry for Albert if Kal got his hands on him.

Almost.

She nodded.

“You’re still with him?” Kal’s eyebrow arched. “Monty never thought it would last.”

“I am not with him anymore.
Obviously.
” She glanced at the bed. He couldn’t really think she’d sleep with him if she was seeing someone else. Not if Dad had really talked to him about her. Which she found more than a little disconcerting, especially since he’d kept her in the dark about Kal.

Samantha shook her head. That wasn’t important right now. Not with the two fennecs here and the missing items. But they’d talk later. About a couple of things. “So, what do these things do? What can Albert do with them—other than make himself a fortune if he sells them?”

“Sells them?” Dirham rolled off the bed and splatted onto the floor.

“Oh, Dirham!” The other fox leapt down after him and helped him to his feet.

Kal stood up, pulling the sheet off the bed and wrapping it around himself. “If Albert sells them, he’s as big a fool for that as he is for letting you get away.”

Okay, maybe there was no need for that talk.

But Albert was no fool. Foolish, perhaps, but definitely not a fool. And as for letting her go, her father had been right; she should have dumped him months ago.

Unfortunately—and contrary to the Oracle’s proclamation—the past couldn’t be changed, so they had to deal with the fallout. “So what do these things do?”

Kal swiped his hair off his forehead and kneaded the back of his neck. Dirham did the same thing with his paw, and the other fox sighed, none of which reassured her.

“The amulet will transport him wherever he wants to go in the world—yours and mine,” explained Kal. “And as soon as he figures out how the crystal works, he’ll show up wherever I am.”

“Works? What does it do?”

“The crystal acts like mortals’ GPS,” piped up the other fox. She leapt onto the bed and daintily curled her tail around her front paws when she sat. “It’s even called that, but in the magical realm, the acronym stands for Genie Placement System. The principle’s the same, although Albert would have to know about you
and
what he has before he can come after you, Kal.”

And Albert would come after Kal. Samantha knew that as sure as she was standing here. In a bedspread. From the bed.

She glanced at the aforementioned piece of furniture. The lantern was there, leaning against the side table. When Kal had dragged the sheet away, he’d pulled the lantern from where it’d been wedged after they’d—

No. She couldn’t think about that now. She couldn’t deal with the knot of jumbling emotions that were trying to beat out each other for control of her churning stomach.

Mortification and Guilt were neck and neck for the lead.

“Did Albert know about the safe, Samantha?” asked Kal.

Oh, yeah. Albert knew. He was shrewd. He paid attention and was an opportunist—and she’d provided the biggest opportunity of all.

She explained about Albert’s determination to open her father’s safe, and they all arrived at the same conclusion: Albert not only knew about the safe and its contents, but he had to have a good idea of what the items were. Which meant he could know about Kal. And that upped the stakes.

Albert was going for the big prize. That’s what he’d had his eye on all along. Her money was nothing compared to what a genie could give him. And she’d thought she couldn’t feel any worse than when she’d overheard him on the phone? Boy, today was just full of surprises—and it’d barely begun.

She grabbed the lantern. “But you can’t be his genie without the lantern, right?”

“Exactly.” Kal tied a knot in the sheet he’d wrapped around his waist. “Which means that if he knows what he’s got, he’ll come after it and me. And you, too, Samantha.”

“So what do we do? Should I wish—”

Kal leaned over and kissed her. Short and sweet—and definitely to the point. There would be no more wishing.

Semantics. Right.

Somehow she had to figure out another way to get Kal to grant her wishes so she could stop Albert. If only she hadn’t wished to stop saying “I wish” in the first place.

She braced herself for another kiss, but, apparently, he really couldn’t read her mind. Pity. Right now that would be a welcome trait. Maybe if she phrased it a different way… “Kal, I want you—”

“I want you, too, Sam.”

“Yes, but I desire you—”

“I desire you, too.”

She puffed out a breath. “Kal. I’m trying to get you to bring Albert here.”

“You need to wish it, Sam.”

“I was trying to.”

“Oh.” He touched her cheek, his gaze intense but inscrutable, and Mortification and Guilt started being eclipsed by the always capricious, never logical Lust.

Well, the Oracle did say the mistakes of the past were destined to be repeated unless one learned from them. Samantha might have been slow on the uptake when it came to Albert, but those days were behind her—and so was last night.

She took a step back.

Kal looked at her a moment longer, then tugged on the knot he’d tied in the sheet and tossed the excess over his shoulder like a kilt. “Actually, we don’t want you wishing him here. If he has the amulet, he’ll bring it with him and it has properties above and beyond genie magic.”

“Yeah, I heard of a guy once who wanted to go to the moon,” said Dirham, taking a seat next to Lexy on the bed. “Unfortunately, he didn’t specify which moon, and let me tell you, he did
not
end up on a rock in outer space.” Both foxes shuddered. “It wasn’t pretty, and that’s all I’m going to say about that.”

“Yes, that was a lesson to all regarding the use of a goddess’s power,” said Lexy.

But to Samantha, the idea of Albert with his face pressed against someone’s
moon
was extremely satisfying. “So what do we do? Should I wish—”

Kal kissed her again. Half as short, and still as sweet.

But not productive.

“Kal, I think you might want to hold off on all the kissing. We have more important things to do now,” said Dirham. “No offense, Samantha. I mean, you’re pretty and all, but this is Kal’s future we’re talking about. His career. His reputation. He’s worked too hard to re—”

“Dirham.” Kal tapped the fox in the snout. “Let’s keep the focus on what’s important right now. We have to figure out some way to get the amulet from Albert.”

“We could always take it from him,” said Samantha. Nothing would give her greater pleasure. “After all, it is rightfully mine.”

“That’s true.” Lexy said, tapping the side of her mouth. “The Djinn Code states that whatever the djinni owns is yours as well, so that includes his crystal. I’m not certain about the amulet because, technically, it belongs to the goddess Mayat, but since it was among your father’s possessions, I believe you do have the right to use it. But Kal cannot steal anything. Genies and their magical-assistance assistants don’t steal.”

Mortals, however, did. Samantha straightened. Albert had taken enough from her.

“I’ll get the amulet back, Kal.” It was the least she could do.

“And the crystal,” Dirham added. “You can’t forget the crystal, right, Kal? We need that, or you won’t be able to let the High Master know that—”

“That Samantha’s my new master. Yes, Dir, I’m aware of that.” Kal scratched his chest and Samantha fought to keep from staring. “
Kharah
. This is not what we need.”

No, what Samantha needed was to take back control from Albert. Take back her pride. Her ego. Her autonomy.

Yet she’d taken Kal’s from him.

The apology was on her lips, but she didn’t want to slash his dignity by apologizing in front of everyone for something so personal. But when they were alone again… “So what should we do?”

Kal swiped a hand over his jaw. “If Albert knows what was in that safe, he’s going to make the connection between magic and the amulet. He’ll be here eventually because, for all the amulet’s mystical powers, the travel charm is easy to figure out. All he has to do is place it next to his heart and wish to go somewhere—and he doesn’t need specifics. Wishing to find us is about all it will take to get him in the general vicinity. We need to stay on our toes.”