Jinni's Wish (Kingdom, #4)

Jinni didn’t know who Todd was, but he did not like the sound of it. Irritated, he flicked his wrist. “It is as I say, Paz. That thing is little more than animated clay. Without a soul to breathe life into it, there it will remain. Never rotting, never living, never moving.”


She hugged her arms to her chest and instantly Jinni wanted to apologize. He hadn’t meant to sound so curt, but to see her looking at that thing that way, it made his form buzz with anger.

He clamped down hard on his teeth as he watched her slowly turn aside and make her way out the room. Sadness clung to her like a parasite, filling the walls, the room with a soul sucking void of loneliness.

Her negative energy was gaining strength. She seemed to be happy when he was around, which helped to keep her grounded to this world and this reality.

“Wait, Paz, wait!” He chased after her, his fingers brushing through her shoulder blades.

She shuddered and stopped. “Go away, Jinni. That’s what you want to do anyway, right?”

He floated in front of her, soul clenching at the sight of her perfect teardrop tears tracking down either side of her face.

“I am sorry,” he admitted. “I do not know how to befriend others well. I did once. Or so I thought, but I am mindless and cruel at times. Please forgive me.”

She nibbled on the corner of her blue lips and his heart clenched.

Though Jinni wasn’t much more than molecules of vapor, he felt her. Being around her, seeing her smiles, she made him feel alive. He needed her as much as she needed him.

“Don’t go to the light, peace.”

Her lashes fluttered and a soft chuckle dropped from her lips. “My mother used to call me that.”

He smiled. “Then maybe it’s your turn to tell me a story.”

Paz flicked at her thumbnail with her finger and nodded shyly. “I will. But only if you promise to finish yours.”

“I will tell you everything. But some of it is hard. Give me a moment to smile.”

“And how is telling my story going to make you smile?”

“Because it is about you.”

She inhaled sharply.

“But first,” he held up finger, “are you hungry?”

“Hungry?” She laughed and the sound reminded him of the silvery twinkles of starlight. “But we’re ghosts. I don’t get hungry. I don’t think.” She frowned. “Should I?”

Her innocence and naiveté amused him. The smile on his face would become permanent around her, of that he was certain. He’d never felt like this with Nala. With the Queen it had always been passion and sparks, fire and fury.

But with Paz, it was a gentle brook burbling through a quiet meadow. And he was hungry for more.

“No, little dove,” the endearment slipped easily from his tongue, “we do not get hungry. But we do get abysmally bored. So,” he gestured with his hand, “lead me to the food area, I’ll teach you how to eat, while you tell me all about Paz.”

“My life was pretty boring.”

He placed a hand on her back, shoving what little bit of energy he had left to him into it and for a split second he felt the cool shivers of her energy roll along his. He trembled and she purred.

Jinni couldn’t sustain the power long, but it’d been enough. He stared at his hand as she walked toward the dining area, sure he’d see a mark upon it. Something tangible to mark the beauty of the moment.

But there was only a faint blue hand staring back at him, curling his hand into a fist he pressed it against his chest. She stopped and turned to look at him, all innocence and sweetness.

“Are you coming?”

Forever. Endlessly. Eternally. “Always.”





Chapter 8





Paz glanced shyly from out the corner of her eye as he laughed at her. His laugh was rich, like dark chocolate cocoa. It warmed her and made her feel like she glowed.

Maybe she did glow. She stared at her arms.

“Shove it out, Paz,” he instructed again. “Push all that energy you feel rolling deep, deep below the surface, shove it up to the surface. Force it into your hand, your feet. You’re a fresh ghost, you can probably maintain it for a while.”

“I keep trying, but it’s not easy. You’ve had how many years of practice?” She huffed, and narrowed her eyes, concentrating on that stiff ball of crackling energy he’d talked about. She felt it like a witch’s brew bubbling and fizzing just beneath the surface of her chest bone.

There was no one else in the cafeteria, which really didn’t surprise her. It was past four in the morning last time she checked, not that it mattered.

It was one thing to flick aside a sheet, quite another to try and lift a cup of coffee, let alone drink said cup of coffee.

Visualizing the energy like a hard steel ball, she mentally imagined herself pushing it up to her collarbone and then rolling it one hard turn at a time down her arm. Her entire frame shook and rattled, silverware at the end of the long white table began to make a buzzing noise as it softly bounced upon the hard top.

“Seven hundred years,” he said, and she snapped her eyes wide, losing the ball and her concentration.

“What?! You’re seven hundred years old?”