Chapter Fifteen

Roam

I was floating in the vast emptiness of unconsciousness, completely disembodied. Whatever the enchantress had injected me with was keeping me drugged and confused.

Pain flickered like lightning through the darkness enveloping me. I was in my lamp, which meant I couldn't feel pain. But if the pain didn't belong to me… where did it come from?

I hope the love of your life gets stuck in a condom.

The feminine voice was defiant.

This time, when the pain crackled through the darkness, it brought the taste of blood.

My frustration grew as I tried to sort through the fog of my confusion. Djinn couldn't experience pain inside the safety of our lamps, and we didn't know what was going on outside our lamps until summoned.

Wait. That wasn't completely true. Or was it?

No, I'd felt something—someone—outside of the lamp before.

The soft stumbling of my heart beginning to beat echoed in the darkness. It was yet one more thing I shouldn't be experiencing in the empty. I had no need for a heart when I didn't have a body.

Something touched the lamp, and my purple magic glowed in response. Was I being summoned?

Roam loves me and you'll never get to experience how incredible it is to have him as a lover.

The fog vanished in the blink of an eye.

Genie.My joy at hearing her voice quickly turned to an all-consuming rage. If that was Genie's voice I was hearing, was it her pain I felt, and her blood I tasted?

My magic expanded and contracted like a living, breathing thing. But it was useless; I couldn't escape the confines of the lamp.

Had the enchantress been smart enough to cast a spell that trapped me in the lamp until summoned? That was the only thing that made sense.

Someone rubbed the lamp harder, and my magic swirled in response, preparing to fulfil the only purpose I had: granting wishes.

No, that wasn't true. I had a purpose that fulfilled me more than granting thousands of wishes ever had.

Cuddling Genie, learning to cook for her, finding new ways to make her moan, and figuring out what made her eyes sparkle.

I existed to love her, and that wasn't her touch trying to summon me. Recoiling from the foreign touch, I used the strength of the love Genie had showered me with to ignore the summons—something that should have been impossible for a djinn.

There was nothing I wanted more than to be free from the lamp, but if I answered the summons, I would be at the new owner's whims. My magic, my body, and my heart belonged to Genie. I'd die rather than allow someone to force us apart.

You have it all wrong. It's Roam who owns me.

I bellowed in anguish and fury. Genie was scared and in pain, yet she was declaring to the world that she was owned by a djinn. It went against the world's belief that djinn weren't like other species and our only reason for being was to serve.

It wasn't just fear and pain I sensed through our tenuous connection. She was proud to be mine.

Whoever was trying to summon me became frantic, and the swirling magic rushed to answer. The command may have been strong, but my love for Genie was stronger.

Closing my eyes, I listened for the soft beat of my heart and began spinning the magic tighter and tighter around it. I strained against the will of whoever was trying to force me out.

Just when I thought I might not have the strength to resist, I felt Genie through the bond. She was reaching for the love we shared with a desperation that terrified me. It gave me the strength I needed to keep fighting.

Fine, I'll tell you how.

Her words signaled defeat, but I could still sense the determination. What was she planning?

The rubbing ceased.

I forgot I don't explain myself to idiots.

Unexpected laughter bubbled from me. That's my girl.

Whoever had the lamp must have dropped it, because my world began flipping end over end.

For a heartbreakingly brief second, Genie touched the interior of the lamp, banishing the darkness and bathing me in the warmth of her love.

Then she was gone.

NO!I screamed, my world plunging back into miserable darkness.

Magic blasted the outside of the lamp. It wasn't dark magic, nor was it more powerful than my magic when I was free. But trapped inside the lamp, there was little I could do but throw my magic against the walls trapping me inside as I tried to get to Genie. Whatever spell had been used to keep me from using her original summons to escape held firm.

As the ancient djinn etchings melted away, my swirling magic flickered and dimmed. My heartbeat slowed until it finally beat its last.

The lamp was being destroyed, and a djinn couldn't exist without that anchor. Maybe I should have let Genie wish for me to become human, but I liked being a djinn and didn't want to change.

It had been freeing to have a woman who showed me every day that she loved me exactly how I was. For the first time in my very long life, I'd gotten to be me and it had felt amazing.

I'd gotten a taste of what it was like to be alive, and now I was dying.

The only thing I wished was that I'd gotten the chance to tell her I loved her one last time.

As the blast of magic vanished, my magic drifted across the earth, useless as ash. I couldn't see anything, but I felt the cool night air, which confirmed what I already knew. I was no longer inside my lamp.

Clinging to the last fading sparks of the magic that had made me what I was, I strained to hear her voice just one more time.

Something brushed against the last flickering ember of magic.

Genie.

Her tears broke me. I'd promised I wouldn't hurt her, but now she was sobbing over a broken heart.

"All those times you wanted to grant a wish for me, and now that I finally want to make a wish, you're gone."

She was right; I'd wanted to grant a wish for her. I couldn't help it, granting wishes was woven into the fiber of what I was, and using my abilities to please her was exciting.

I longed to grant this wish for her and the ember of magic my consciousness was clinging to flared in response, but I was too weak. Tears continued raining down around me. I knew what this was. She was telling me goodbye.

"Roam, I wish you were with me. I told you I was going to cling to you like an octopus and never let you get away. I wish that was possible in the real world—not the octopus part—but the being tied together for the rest of my life."

The ember flared again, reaching for her. And when she collapsed on top of my fallen ash, the tiny spark was caught up in the air. It drifted down to land against her skin, where it glowed to life.

The dust touching that single ember began to glow. Then, like dominos, the light spread from spark to spark.

I realized too late what was happening.

Genie had found a loophole, and I wasn't sure how she was going to feel about it.