“Then if it’s all the same to you”—John knelt—“I’ll stand here and watch.”
Chugging the warm contents down his parched throat, Robin shrugged. “Call the men over too—I think they deserve to see what all the smoke and mirrors was about, don’t you?”
Brown eyes finally gleamed with excitement. “Aye. I do. Maurice. Thrane,” John barked and motioned with a flick of his wrist. “Come.”
Licking his wet lips, Robin nodded and handed John the empty canteen.
With a final deep breath, he attacked the ditch with vigor and less than ten minutes later hit pay dirt.
The sharp clang of metal striking metal reverberated.
No one made a sound as Robin set the shovel aside and knelt, digging the dirt out from around the lamp with his fingers. Only when the bronze-etched item revealed itself did anyone say a word.
“Sweet Mother of the Gods.” Thrane’s voice rolled with awe. “Is that what I think it is?”
Robin grabbed hold of the handle and gave it a delicate tug. The item was cold in his palm. Dirt stained. And worn looking. And yet there could be no doubt that this was what he’d been searching for. The waves of potent energy roiling off it caused all the fine hairs on his body—even the ones on the back of his neck—to stand at attention.
“Give it here,” John said.
And Robin almost handed it over, until he caught the wild look of undisguised lust in his man’s eyes.
“No.” He hugged it tight to his body. “Give me your hand.”
Clenching his jaw loud enough that Robin could hear John’s molars grind, the big man swallowed his words and gave Robin his hand instead. Taking it, Robin kept a death grip on his prize once he exited the deep hole.
All three men kept their eyes glued to the lamp.
Robin had always trusted his men, but he was no fool either. Great wealth and power made fools of even the most kind-hearted. Lifting his chin, he rubbed his fingers just once across the length of his prize.
A hiss of glittering purple fog curled out from the narrow opening. The wind kicked up then, knocking dirt and debris into all four of them. Causing them to shield themselves to protect against the tiny cuts and nicks to their faces and necks.
An image formed within the smoke.
A woman. A beautiful, dark-skinned woman with eyes that gleamed like cut obsidian, lips—full and plump and a rich coral hue—and hair a vibrant, inky black that trailed to her slim waist.
Dressed in silks of indigo and turquoise threaded through with veins of gold. This was the dark genie in all her glorious splendor.
She opened her mouth and he smiled, ready to claim her as his, when the genie had the most unexpected of reactions.
She screamed.
Chapter 5
Chaos rolled. The winds shook the heavens. The land trembled beneath them.
Bodies were blasted up into the air, rolling and tumbling, and all of it—all of the anarchy—it was caused by her.
Nixie’s spine bowed as a surge of fearsome power poured out of her, making her bones feel as though they might snap. Her blood might boil. She didn’t know what she was doing. Didn’t know how to stop it. All she knew was that she had to get it out.
She screamed, not just in fear, but for help. To be put out of her misery. To be released of the agony she now felt.
Then something hard and powerful rocked into her temple, blacking her out, and she fell to the ground.
It took two buckets of water to the face before she could finally rouse herself enough to sit up.
Bleary-eyed, she rubbed her aching head and asked, “What’s going on? Who are you?”
This was a dream.
It had to be a dream.
She would wake up soon.
She would blink and they would be gone.
And there would be no sky above her.
No ground beneath her.
But the grizzled men did not vanish and they did not move. Like mannequins they gazed at her without blinking and she was so terrified to even twitch, afraid they might disappear on her if she did, that all she could do was sit there in stunned silence.
Then the one who’d rubbed her lamp smiled and her mind went blank. Again the winds took her, but not just her, it took him too.
Lifted them high into the air, and this time she knew she wasn’t causing it. She screamed, reaching out for him, terrified at the loss of ground beneath her.
His eyes were wide and the most electric blue that it suddenly felt as though she’d been pierced, not just through her body, but her soul.
The winds lifted them even higher then, above the clouds, and she could no longer see or hear the men below.
The blond-haired man reached for her. “Give me your hands,” he commanded.
And somehow she managed to grab hold of him. But the moment their hands touched, it was like a rope had suddenly settled between them, wrapping around her and him.
She looked at him with mouth gone wide and he did too.
And they were falling, at a dizzying speed back toward land. They’d never make it. But she couldn’t release him.