Hope's Wish

by Lexxie Couper

  Loved the way his breath mingled with hers as their kiss turned to playful nips of each other’s lips.

  Loved the way their slick skin slid together.

  “I want you inside me, James,” she whispered against his lips, capturing his wrists and pinning them to the bed beside his head once again. “I want to come with you. Together. Like we used to.”

  “I want that too.”

  Her heartbeat quickened. “I’m still on the pill. But do you want… need a condom?”

  He let out a low chuckle. “Part of the phenomenal djinn power… no need for one. That kind of thing I can control with a simple thought.”

  “Well then, in that case…” She shifted on his hips and, holding his stare, slowly took his length deep into her body.

  His glowing eyes fluttered closed. His body shuddered. “My Tahlee, my Hope…” He groaned. “My—”

  He groaned again, tossing his head to the side as he slammed his hips upward, driving deeper into her.

  She released his wrists, captured his hands with hers, and threaded their fingers together, palm to palm, as waves of pleasure rolled through her.

  Driving her closer and closer to a release she didn’t want yet.

  It had been too long without him, too many long, lonely nights. Too many empty moments.

  “James,” she rasped. Other words tumbled over each other in her head, words of lust, of confusion. Of longing and love. “James,” she repeated, refusing to allow them out.

  Not yet.

  After.

  Later.

  He squeezed her hands—and suddenly they weren’t in the bed, but in a cloud of purple, the only friction from their bodies moving together in perfect rhythm.

  The exquisite change detonated her orgasm. Or maybe it was the raw desire burning in James’s shimmering white eyes? She cried out, tendrils of purple smoke caressing her naked body as James thrust into her, his hands roaming her ribs, her hips, his mouth doing the same to her breasts and throat and lips.

  A second orgasm shuddered through her, and as she lost control of her body, James threw back his head, his strokes wild and erratic.

  And then the smoke was gone, and they were back on the bed, bare limbs tangled and slicked with sweat, fingers threaded.

  Pleasure crashed over her, unmade her, and she bucked, screaming his name. Begging him not to stop, to keep going, to never stop loving her.

  “Oh God, James!” she cried. “I… I… God, James…”

  He released her hands, hips thrusting faster, and buried his face into the side of her neck, his length driving deeper into her. Deeper. Until all rhythm shattered.

  He filled her. She felt it.

  “I’m yours,” he groaned against her neck. “I’m yours. My Tahlee. My Hope. My Rose.”

  Rose.

  The name whispered through her head.

  And as it echoed, she no longer lay on a bed in a room, but instead stretched on lush grass, the sweeping sky blue and cloudless overhead, the sweet smell of wild daisies and lilies in her breath as she smiled up at James—Barqan—and brushed her fingers over his jaw.

  Barqan. My Barqan. I love you. I love you.

  His green eyes held hers as he thrust inside her. I love you, my Rose. You are my one wish, my one Hope. I love you…

  Tahlee gasped.

  The blue sky evaporated, the grass disappeared, replaced by the bedroom ceiling and mattress once again.

  “Rose…” James whispered, looking down at her. Torment filled his eyes, once again green and human. “Tahlee.”

  Tahlee stared at him, the throbbing pulse of her climax fading, the pounding of her heart like a canon in her throat. “What… what did… did you just…”

  His eyes shut for a second, and then he slowly withdrew from her, retreated from the bed, and clicked his fingers beside his hip.

  His clothes reappeared on his body, at the exact moment hers did as well.

  “What just happened, James?” she whispered as she scrambled into an upright position. “What was that? What… Who is Rose? Am I…”

  She couldn’t say it. It was silly.

  No. It’s real. That was real. You know it. In your soul, you know it. Which means…

  She stared at him. At James.

  Barqan. His name is Barqan. And you are—

  “Rose.” The name fell from her lips on a breath. “I’m Rose. Aren’t I?”

  “Yes.” His expression conveyed nothing. “And no.”

  “What the flipping hell does that mean?” Oh God. Oh God, was the room spinning, or was she?

  He took a step closer to the bed but stopped when she shook her head. “Not a step closer, James, until you explain what the hell is going on.”

  “Okay.” He rubbed at the back of his neck, eyes closed, and then let out a ragged sigh. “Okay.”

  Opening his eyes—still green; phew—he dropped his hand and gave her a wry smile. Not sheepish, but wry. “Fourteen hundred years ago, you were Rose. I met you when Syrin—your father, the sorcerer—summoned me in 618 A.D. to save his village. We fell in love. It’s dangerous for a djinn to fall in love, it makes us weak. Vulnerable. But I didn’t care, because I was more real with you. Not just a creature who could deliver. You didn’t want anything from me, except to be with me. Asked nothing of me, except my smile.

  “When your father discovered us, he was furious. No miscreant, mystical creature would be with his beloved daughter. It mattered not to him that you loved me. He cast a spell. Tried to unmake me. Unfortunately for him, such a spell can never work on a djinn… so it sought out the closest human soul to attack. Yours. And the spell was so dark and malicious, it also attacked him.”

  She swallowed.

  Every word played out in her mind like a faint silent movie of the event. She saw a petite woman with long dark hair. She saw a tall, thin, wild-eyed man with a hooked nose and scraggly gray hair screaming at James.

  James, who looked the exact same as he did now except for his attire.

  She saw the thin man—Father—throw his hands toward James—Barqan. She saw the woman—herself, Rose—scream and fall to the ground.

  She swallowed again, and shook her head. “So if this man, Syrin… if he killed me, how am I here now? Reincarnation? I don’t believe in it. There’s no such thing.”

  For a second, his wry smile turned playful. “Just as there’s no such thing as genies?”

  She blinked.

  He dragged a hand through his hair. “Before Syrin’s spell could end your life, before it could unmake you, I defied djinn law by casting and granting a wish of my own.” Pain etched his face. “When I return to my own realm, I will suffer greatly for that wish. But I don’t care.”

  “What was it?” she whispered. “Your wish?”

  That wry smile returned. “For you to continue to live.”

  Her stomach clenched. She touched the pendant at her neck, but for the first time, its tiny gold shape didn’t ease anything.

  “But as is the way with djinn’s granting wishes,” he went on, eyes growing distant, “sometimes what you get isn’t what you were wanting. I wished for you to live, so we could be together. Instead, you died, as did Syrin.”

  “Then how…”

  His eyes met hers. “You—Rose—were reincarnated. Ten years after you died, I felt your soul return to this realm and found you in Rome. You were born to a happy, loving family, and I made sure you and your family were safe. From a distance. When you died of illness at the age of eleven, I cried alone. And then, twenty years later, you were reincarnated again in what’s now known as Alaska. And again, I did all I could to make your life safe and happy without ever interacting with you or your loved ones.” He paused, an enigmatic shadow falling over his face. “When you died at the age of forty-two, surrounded by your mourning family, I cried again. Alone.”

  He closed his eyes, but not before she saw them shimmer with iridescent light. “I’ve watched you live each new life, I’ve watched you die,
so many times. For centuries. A new life in New Zealand, followed by one in Poland. A new life in India. A new life in Switzerland. So many new lives, so many different places. I’ve never approached you in any of them, I never let you know of my existence. I never interfered in any way—except to make sure your everyday life was good and safe. As much as I wanted to have you look at me, smile at me, I couldn’t allow myself to come to you. You’d loved me once, and it killed you. I couldn’t forgive myself for that.”

  Tahlee struggled against the invisible pressure wrapping around her chest. Her head roared. Her mind flung up ghost images from lives she didn’t remember, even as she knew—knew—those images were from her past lives.

  Mouth dry, eyes burning, she dragged in a deep breath. Or tried to. Her throat didn’t want to work. “How many times—”

  He shook his head. “I’m not going to tell you.”

  “And you stayed away from me every time?”

  “Yes.”

  “Until this life? Until I came back as… as me? Tahlee?”

  His nostril flared.

  “Why this time? Why didn’t you stay…”

  She couldn’t say away. The word refused to form on her lips. Instead, she stared at him.

  “You were never meant to see me in that pub,” he said. The sorrow in his smile tore at her heart. “I’d let you go, you see. From my heart. I had to. For my own sanity. An insane djinn is a threat to all life… so I’d let you go. Somewhere around your eighth reincarnation. I made sure you were safe and happy in every reincarnation, but with every new life, I stepped back further.” A hollow laugh fell from him and he rolled his eyes, rubbing at the back of his neck again. “I’d even convinced myself there would come a day when I’d realize I didn’t know who you’d come back as… didn’t recognize you. That you didn’t mean anything to me anymore.”

  “So what happened?” Hell, how was she even breathing, let alone speaking?

  He looked at her again. “I didn’t move fast enough in the crowded pub. I never planned for you to bump into me. Please believe that, Hope. It was always for the best you never saw me, met me. But that night… I just wanted to watch you smiling and laughing, for as long as I could. And then you bumped into me, and looked at me, and I was lost. And despite knowing what could happen if I stayed with you, despite the consequences that could occur, I couldn’t walk away from you again. I couldn’t.”

  “What consequences?” Had all the air in the room vanished? Was that why it was so difficult to draw breath? “What would happen if you stayed with me, James?”

  His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “Syrin’s curse. The one he placed on me with his last breath. It—”

  He stopped, eyes flaring to white. Tension coiled his muscles as his hands balled to fists. His glowing stare snapped to the bedroom door. “Stay here,” he ordered without looking at her. “Don’t—”

  A man burst into the room, the same man Tahlee had met in the Guarded Souls office, his attention fixed solely on James. “We’ve got a problem, Jimmy Boy. The detective who took Ms. Hope’s statement has disappeared. So has his wife—and Nathanial says their existences have been erased from not only the temporal, but the ethereal plane.”

  Tahlee’s stomach clenched. The what? And the what?

  James’s jaw knotted. “Shite, that’s not good. Seriously not good. But Kitt, Hope’s safe here. This is the safest farking house on the planet, and she’s with me. So why—”

  Kitt shook his head, flicked Tahlee a quick look, and then frowned at James. “Someone using dark magic has started assaulting the Guarded Souls shielding wards. Specifically, the one concealing your existence. Nim thinks it’s a sorcerer. A powerful one. And no matter what she does, she can’t locate him.”

  James sucked in a breath. His eyes flared white again. “Farking bastard,” he whispered.

  And then, with a single click of his fingers, he became transparent.

  Chapter 7

  Heart smashing into his throat, Philips drew a slow breath, tight triumph flowing through his veins as a man materialized in front of him.

  The djinn.

  Finally. After twenty minutes of nothing, he’d begun to think his summoning spell had failed.

  Eyes glowing with white magic, the djinn flashed him a grin. “Ah, you. Gotta say, I thought you’d be taller.”

  Philips blinked. And then sneered. “Enough. You’re mine now.”

  The djinn laughed. Laughed. As if the statement of fact was hilarious. “Oh shite, no. I just thought it was time we met.”

  A cold beat thumped in Philips’s temples. His heart joined in. He cast a quick glance toward the smoldering, blood-soaked goat bones, scattered entrails, and melted wax at his feet before narrowing his eyes at Hastin. “My summoning spell worked. You’re here.”

  Another grin. Another white flash of magic in pupil-less eyes. “Am I?”

  “Yes. You are. Now come to me.” Philips raised his hand, palm up, fingers splayed, and then snapped his fist closed, yanking the djinn’s energy forward,

  Hastin didn’t move.

  Ice flooded Philips’s veins. Fist to his gut, he stared at the djinn.

  “Told you I wasn’t here.”

  “How?” Lowering his hand, Philips rubbed his fingertips together. The residual stench of the summoning spell still hung on the air. The coppery taint of blood still slicked the back of his throat. “I summoned you.”

  Hastin laughed again. “Let’s think this through, shall we? I’ll help you out, given you’re clearly not that bright.” He tapped his chest with his index finger. “Djinn.” Pointed at the floor with the same finger. “Mankind’s realm.” His grin returned, cold and scathing. It sent a shard of trepidation into Philips’s gut. “If I’m already in this realm—and the fact you’ve been trying to discover information about me says you know I am—that means I’ve already been summoned here by another sorcerer, doesn’t it? One smarter than you, it seems. So that means you can’t summon me. Following?”

  The unease in Philips’s gut morphed into dark anger. “I am the most powerful sorcerer on Earth! I’ve destroyed my rivals and absorbed their power—and their memories. I would know if someone else brought you here from your realm.”

  “Blah blah blah.” Hastin flapped his fingers together like a duck’s bill and rolled his eyes. “I see your ego compensates for your height.” He raked a slow gaze over Philips. “I mean, you really are short, aren’t you? I’m talking Danny DeVito short.”

  “Enough!” Philips blasted a hot wall of raw energy at the djinn.

  Hastin raised his eyebrows and looked about himself. “Well, that was… impotent.”

  Hate and rage bleeding together, Philips glared at him. “Why are you here then? How are you here?”

  White eyes shimmered brighter. “You really don’t know much about djinn, do you? I’m surprised I didn’t find you rubbing on a lamp or something. A djinn only has to think about something to either get it or go to it. As for the why?” A dark chuckle filled the space between them. “To let you know that I know what you’ve done. What you’re trying to do. And to tell you to count your days.”

  A heavy rock dropped in Philips’s stomach. What did the djinn know? How much? Did he know how many people Philips had terminated and destroyed guiding Rourke to his current political glory? Did he know how many natural laws he’d broken, how much dark magic he’d wrought, getting Rourke to where he was now—two elections away from being the so-called Leader of the Free World?

  Did the djinn know he’d given the woman currently blackmailing the politician over his illegitimate baby a disease… one that mimicked bone cancer but was so much worse?

  It was doubtful—but not impossible. The power of a djinn was mysterious, especially a djinn with an unknown master.

  He needed to fix this. He’d locate that unknown master later, but for now…

  Smoothing his hand over his head, he stretched his lips into a flattering smile. A cajoling smile. The one
he used to get what he wanted on those rare occasions when he wasn’t able to use sorcery. “I’ll make you a deal. All I really want is the reporter. That’s all. I have no real interest in you. More,” he waved his hand around in a little circle, as if searching for a word, “professional curiosity, is all. Just give me the woman, and I’ll pretend I never knew you existed. I’ll forget all about you. We can forget about each other. From what I’ve seen of the hate-filled articles she writes, I’ll be doing the human world a favor.”

  Hastin’s nostrils flared. For a second, the very blood in Philips’s veins seemed to turn to ice.

  And then Hastin smiled. “You make an interesting argument… but I’m going to go with ‘fuck you’.”

  The ice in Philips’s veins grew colder. Brittle.

  “Forget about me?” Hastin went on, voice relaxed. Jovial. Like an amused adult talking to a child. “Ha. You never knew me. You can’t summon a djinn you don’t know. Maybe you need to brush up on your djinn lore. Tell me, what name did you chant in your ‘summoning’ spell? Was it Hastin?”

  Philips ground his teeth, even as the blood in his veins now flowed hot with humiliation and fresh anger.

  The djinn snorted. “Thought so. And here I was, assuming you were a danger.”

  “I will fucking own you, djinn!” Philips screamed. “And when I do—”

  “There’s no mercy heading your way,” Hastin cut him off, as calm and relaxed as before. “Only punishment and judgement. And I’m not talking about the human kind.”

  Jaw aching, Philips stepped forward. “I will find her. And I will locate the sorcerer who summoned you and gorge on his knowledge, and then you’ll be mine, and I will order you to tear her apart limb from limb! Mark me.”

  Hastin threw back his head, his laugh rising to the ceiling. “Okay, maybe I will let you live. You’re funny.”

  “Enough!” Philips roared. He flung out his hands, hurling anything he could snare with invisible energy at the djinn.

  Each object—bones, candles, iron shackles, Mrs. Taylor’s dismembered head—passed straight through Hastin’s form.

  The djinn’s eyes flared again, and he seemed to grow bigger. Loomed larger. “How the mighty has fallen.” His voice stabbed into Philips’s ears. “A child’s party magician would be more of a threat than you, sorcerer.”