Staring at her questions, she’d drafted the article several times, but still couldn’t get it to work. She had all the information she needed, but it wasn’t clicking.
Her phone rang, and she saw it was Kaelee.
“Hey, Kaelee.”
“You busy?”
Nina could tell from Kaelee’s tone that her friend was near tears.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s stupid. I just went to meet Chuck, that guy I told you about, at the bar, and he dumped me,” Kaelee said flatly. “I don’t know why it’s getting to me, I don’t even know him that well, it’s not like—”
“Where are you?”
“Outside your house, in my car.”
Nina smiled. “Well, come inside, you nut.” She got up to go open the door and found Kaelee halfway up the walk, holding a paper bag.
“What’s in the bag?”
“Brownies.”
“Perfect.”
The two women made their way to the living room, and Nina slung her arm around her pal.
“So what did this jerk give as an excuse for dumping you?”
“He said he wanted someone who was more available. That I worked too much,” Kaelee said dispiritedly.
“Ass.”
“Well, maybe he has a point. I’ve been happy focusing on work, and playing the field, but I really liked this guy.”
“You shouldn’t have to rearrange your life for a man, Kae,” Nina said comfortingly.
“I know, but—Hey, what is this?” Kaelee swerved off topic as she picked up the men’s jeans that Alec had left hanging over the back of the chair.
Nina had nearly forgotten, leaving them there, liking to look at them. They were a reminder that he had actually been there with her, that he wasn’t just a figment of her imagination.
Still, with Kaelee staring, waiting, she balked, opening her mouth, then closing it again, unable to find a good answer. She didn’t want to lie, but—
“Don’t you dare tell me you had Peter the Rat over here…” Kaelee’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.
“Oh, no, that’s over and done with.”
Her friend couldn’t hide her surprise or her skepticism. “Really? Just like that? Last I knew, you were pining away, and now you’re over him completely?” She cast a glance at the jeans. “These must belong to some rebound stud then, I suppose? Nothing to be ashamed of there, hon. Good for him that he could get you over the hump, so to speak.”
Nina bit her lip. “Well…yes and no.”
“Tell me about it. It will help me get my mind off Chuck. I want all of the details,” she said lustily, plopping down on the sofa and grabbing a brownie from the bag.
“I don’t think you’ll believe me, Kae.”
“You can tell me anything, Nina, no matter how nuts. I’m your best bud. Shoot.”
Nina leaped, needing to talk it out, leaving nothing out from the moment she found the ring in the alley, with the exception of some of the more intimate details.
“And so now, here I am, just completely confused. He’s the best man I’ve ever met, I can’t imagine anyone being better for me. He makes Peter look like…a flea.”
“He was a flea. Lower than a flea.”
“I know, but Alec…he’s special. But there’s no way we can be together. I seem to have a real talent for falling for the wrong guys.”
Understandably, Kaelee did look concerned as Nina explained the many reasons why she and Alec couldn’t be together.
“Nina, this isn’t like you, and I’m worried.”
Nina started to object, reading the clear disbelief on her friend’s face—who could blame her?—but Kaelee put up her hand in a silencing gesture.
“I’m not judging, I’m concerned. You’re obviously in a bad place right now, and he’s just taking advantage of you. Did you give him money? Anything else suspicious? I can have a background check done.”
Nina smiled at Kaelee’s “lawyer voice.” She appreciated her friend’s protective instincts, and thought it would be funny to see a background check on a genie who’d been around for over a thousand years.
“I know this all sounds nuts, but no one is taking advantage of me, Kaelee, believe me. It’s all real, but I can understand why you’d think I was batty. I could hardly believe it myself for a while. But believe me, Alec is very, very real.”
“Ah, Nina, I just don’t know what to say to this,” Kaelee said, taking a big bite of her brownie.
“I know, it was hard for me to believe, too—that jinn aren’t just a fairy tale. Love isn’t a fairy tale, either. It’s magic, but it’s also something you have to protect and cherish, and that takes work, and sacrifice…” Nina drifted off, her thoughts circling.
“I don’t think I can write this. It puts Alec, and all jinn, at too much risk.”
“Nina, you have to hand in your story—you said this is a cover—that’s important!”
“Not as important as protecting what I know now. Protecting Alec and those like him. There’s too much at stake here.”
“Nina, you have to think more clearly. You’re scaring me. Obviously meeting Peter really hurt you, and—”
Nina smiled as she saw Alec appear behind Kaelee. “Kaelee, you need to meet someone.”
Kaelee stared at Nina, and then whipped around, jumping up from her seat. She stared at Alec, then Nina.
“You said you were alone here.”
“I was. He does that…just blips in,” Nina said, watching Kaelee closely. “Alec, this is Kaelee. I hope you don’t mind that I told her about you.”
“Not at all.” Alec smiled at Nina in a way that made her heart tumble.
She had two wishes left, and she could only think of one thing she even wanted to wish for: Alec. But he assured her it didn’t work that way. No human could wish a jinn to be other than he is.
“After all, it’s coming out in the article, anyway,” he said.
“About that…after what has happened to your friend, and what could happen to you, I’ve decided not to write the article. I’ll just work something else out with Lindsay. She won’t be happy, but I can make it up to her somehow. I hope.”
Alec walked up close, cupping his large hand around her cheek, and Nina forgot they were alone until Kaelee cleared her throat.
“Okay, Alec,” Kaelee interrupted in a cool voice, setting her hands on her hips.
Nina smiled. It was her warrior pose.
“Just how many women have you pulled this genie scam on? What do you get? Money? Sex?” Kaelee rolled her eyes, and Nina blushed when she said, “Well, that much is obvious. How can you take advantage of women this way? There are laws, you know.”
“I am not a fraud, Kaelee. I would never hurt Nina, and I am a jinn.”
Kaelee’s lips thinned, which told Nina her friend was getting really pissed.
“Can you show her?” Nina asked. It was important to her that Kaelee understand.
“Nina, please—” Kaelee started to object, and shut up the minute she was lifted from the floor and floating in space.
“Hey! Put me down! How are you doing this?”
Then, Kaelee’s clothes changed, and she was dressed first like some exotic princess, and then like a simple farm maiden.
“These are some of your fantasies, yes?” Alec asked, and Kaelee went pale in midair. It made Nina panic slightly at first, but then she just grinned at Kaelee.
“See?”
Kaelee couldn’t answer, her eyes wide and her mouth open in wordless shock as she demanded to be put down, still looking down at her clothes.
“Where are my clothes? What did you put in my drink?” she asked Nina.
“You didn’t have anything to drink, hon. Unless there is something a little extra in those brownies, you’re as sober as you were when you walked in the door.”
“Oh. Oh, my,” Kaelee said, sitting again, and looking down to find her regular clothes restored. “How did you do that?”
“It’s ma
gic,” Alec said with a wicked grin, and changed his clothes, his appearance, and finally returned to standing at Nina’s side.
“This is just a little difficult to get comfortable with.”
“I understand. For some, it’s difficult to realize that our kind are real. That magic is real.”
“I guess so. Don’t you worry about people knowing?” Kaelee asked.
“I could make you forget,” he said casually, “but I think Nina needs you to know that she wasn’t making me up. Besides, many, many people in the world know of us, believe in our presence. It has been so since the beginning.”
“And I needed you to know I wasn’t crazy, and he wasn’t trying to take advantage of me,” Nina added.
“Oh, there are ways I love taking advantage of you, sweet,” Alec said with a wicked smile, and Nina felt her cheeks warm as Kaelee looked on in amazement.
“You lucky duck,” Kaelee said with a sudden, matching grin. “If he can do that any time, then you could have—”
“Uh, let’s not go there right now,” Nina said, interrupting the direction of Kaelee’s comments with a laugh.
“Yeah, well, we definitely have some talking to do later,” Kaelee promised. Nina was glad that if nothing else, finding out about Alec had certainly distracted her from her gloom about being dumped. Any guy who dumped Kaelee was a loser, as far as Nina was concerned, and her friend deserved better.
“I have to talk to Lindsay, and I’d better do it in person.” Nina sighed. “Better to get it over with. She’s going to be pissed.”
“I think you’re doing the right thing, though,” Kaelee said. “I can see how people would want to find a jinn, and use them for their own purposes. Wars could be started, for crying out loud.”
Alec’s eyes darkened, clouded over. “We have been employed in such tragedies, it’s true. Our history is a history of slavery, our will and power often bent to the uses of the human thirst for power. Unfortunately, our will is never truly our own.”
“That’s just not right,” Kaelee protested. “All men and women have the right to—”
“I’m not a man, Kaelee. Not really. I am a spirit of fire.”
Kaelee stopped cold. “Oh, right. You sure look like a man,” she said appreciatively, and Nina rolled her eyes.
“So, I have to go,” she said, sharing a long look with Alec. She didn’t want to leave him. “You’ll be here when I get back?”
He nodded, his gaze fixed on her in a way that made her warm from tip to toe, and Nina heard Kaelee call her a “lucky duck” again under her breath. Nina wasn’t sure if she was lucky or not. The whole “better to have loved and lost” bit was wearing a bit thin, to her mind.
“I’ll probably have to use my next wish to find a better job,” she said gustily, chasing away her morose thoughts. She had to get ready to face Lindsay, and the prospect of being only one wish away from never seeing Alec again.
LINDSAY’S STARE WAS stone-cold, but Nina held it. She knew she was doing the right thing.
“I’m sorry, Lindsay, but I can’t do it. You know what happened to me in my old job, that my source was exposed, and it ruined his life. How can I risk that again? Whether anyone believes it or not, some people will know it’s real, and it puts these…creatures…at too much risk. I can’t live with that on my conscience.”
“Listen, Nina, I think you have thrown yourself a little too far into your work. I mean, I go along with a lot of make-believe, too, because if we believe it, we can write it, but you don’t expect me to really believe you met a real genie? I mean, I thought you had just found some joker who was pulling one over on these vulnerable women?”
Nina quirked an eyebrow. “And who has made their wishes—their actual wishes—come true? He’s real, Lindsay, and I’m not going to sell him out. I just can’t. The jinn…too much of their history is defined by slavery and abuse of their power. I don’t want to add to that.”
Lindsay leaned in over her desk, staring hard. “You expect me to believe you have really found some magical being who grants wishes, and who can grant wishes, change his appearance to whatever he wants, who is poisoned by iron? What game are you playing? Do you have an offer on the story from someone else?”
Nina shook her head and sighed. “No. It’s nothing like that.”
“So, if jinn are real, Nina, why are you still here? Why aren’t you back in your old job, with your former lover? Isn’t that what you really wanted anyway?”
“Yes, actually. It was all I wanted, and he made it come true, that Peter wanted to be with me again. However, now I saw the truth about Peter. That he never really wanted me for more than sex. And I saw the truth about this work, too. Lindsay, you know I thought everything we write is crap. I hated it. Then I found Alec, and I realized that there are magical, unexplainable things in the world. And besides, I’ve also been using Mabel’s mud, and it really does work,” she said with a small grin. “I guess I found that my past wasn’t as great as I thought, and my present wasn’t as horrible as I imagined.”
Lindsay snorted. “Right, fine,” she said, throwing up her hands. “So if that’s the case, why not print this story?”
“Because I have a duty to protect them. I can’t let this story put Alec or others like him in danger. There are hunters, people who would track jinn down and use them for their own purposes. I can’t risk giving out information that would benefit those people, or worse, create more of them.”
Lindsay sat down in her chair. “Okay. Fine. You’re one of my best reporters, and I don’t really want to fire you, so consider this your one big freebie, but if you ever pull this again, you will be fired.”
Nina blinked. “You mean I’m not?”
“No, but you’re going to be pulling some pretty crap assignments for the next few weeks.”
Nina grinned, even though she was sure Lindsay probably meant crap almost literally, such as was the case with the pig farm. Still, she was ridiculously pleased not to have been fired. If nothing else, she still had two wishes, and a little more time with Alec.
“Can I ask one question?” Lindsay said as she turned to the door.
“What’s that?”
“Is this guy living with you? Something a little more personal than the average genie-reporter relationship going on here?”
Nina knew her face had turned red. “He’s been staying at my home, but I don’t know where he goes when he’s not with me. I never even thought to ask. I suppose he’s always around somewhere.”
“Well, enjoy it while you can, kiddo. And I expect to see you here bright and early on Monday.”
“Absolutely.”
Nina walked out of the office, closing the door quietly behind her and fighting the urge to rest back on it, her knees shaking.
But there was cause to celebrate. She had Alec in her life right now. She had won an argument based on her strongest principles, and she kept her job.
Smiling, she hurried from the office, planning the evening ahead. So far, Alec had been serving her every need, showering her with magic and offering her anything any woman could want. She was going to serve him for a change, making a perfect dinner, setting the stage for a seduction that he would never forget for another millennium. If she was going to have to lose him sooner or later, she was going to make sure he never forgot their time together.
She ticked off a list in her mind, what she needed to buy, how much time she’d need to make a special meal, pick up a good bottle of wine and treat herself to the expensive lingerie set she’d seen in the window of a local shop. When she’d seen it, she was still mourning Peter, and couldn’t imagine wearing the sexy set for anyone else.
Now, she couldn’t wait to see Alec’s face when he found her in it—and when he took it off.
8
DINNER WAS DONE and simmering, the expensive cut of lamb keeping warm in the oven, but Nina wasn’t sure how long it could sit there and not be ruined.
She felt foolish, sitting at the smartly set d
ining-room table, a half-spent candle softly illuminating an untouched bottle of wine. Sheer scarlet chiffon draped over her limbs, completely transparent but for the scraps of satin that served to cover her breasts and panty line. She’d bought a pretty faux diamond to wear in her navel piercing, which she hadn’t bothered with in months.
Staying barefoot, she’d applied her makeup to resemble an exotic harem girl, ready to serve her master. The fantasies she’d cooked up while setting the stage for her seduction of Alec had teased her for hours…but now it was getting late, and there was no Alec. Her fantasies ran cold and she wrapped her arms around her middle, shivering.
Maybe he was out looking for Joe. Maybe he was trying to get some distance. He had no idea she was doing this for him, so it was ridiculous to take it personally. Although tears threatened when she caught her reflection in the dining-room mirror.
Blowing out the candles that adorned the table and putting the food in the fridge, she walked to her room, deciding it was just too late. Yanking her jeans off the back of the chair, she sighed, wondering what she’d been thinking. Alec had probably been seduced by real harems, given his long lifespan. Maybe it was lucky he’d been late, saving her embarrassment.
Grabbing her laptop, she crawled up on her bed, alone, and surfed the Net, not feeling like doing anything else. The mindless action eventually lulled her to sleep, which she only realized when she woke up, staring at the clock.
Two o’clock in the morning.
No Alec, not in her dreams, not in her bed.
Something was very wrong.
Heart hammering, she sat up, calling out.
“Alec? Are you there? Alec!” She stood, yelling out into the empty room, “Come to me!” and knowing she must be losing her mind, but fear took over. Alec was bound to her. He’d said so himself. If she summoned him, he would hear.
Unless what had happened to his friend had also happened to Alec.
Blazing Bedtime Stories, Volume IV Page 15
