5. Boshun

I'd been summoned while working out. There wasn't much I enjoyed about living inside the lamp, but my workouts, my bath time, and my meals were priceless.

Grumbling, I waited for my smoke to coalesce, to give me a true form once more. Once it did and my pointed-toed slippers were secure on the floor, I bowed. Nothing could make me smile, however.

One more conceited person to deal with. More paltry wishes to fill. Then I could return to my solitary existence inside the lamp.

"You have three wishes," I intoned, rubbing my fingers across my tightly clipped beard. Truly, I was tired of this. How many times had I been summoned? Oh, yes. I may have lost count of the years I'd remained trapped inside the lamp, but I knew the number assigned to this being. "You're nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine. What do you wish for first?"

"Excuse me?" a little voice squeaked.

I lifted my hand, making it glow, and the light picked out a female sitting on a bed, staring my way.

"Don't waste my time, woman. I was about to bathe and have dinner." I snarled. "State your wishes and be done with me."

"I don't understand what you're saying." Her frown lines smoothed, and she slid off the bed, standing.

The top of her head barely reached my mid-chest. When she looked up at me with what most would take for complete innocence, I felt like a minotaur kicked me in the chest. It was all I could do to breathe. To think.

I'd been taken advantage of more than once. No one would ever do that again. Remembering that brought back my wits—and my irritation.

"You rubbed the lamp. You must know the drill," I growled. "Three wishes. Spit the first out if you please, though you technically have until the end of tomorrow for the first. Your second must be named by the end of the day after that. And the final two days from now, though you're welcome to use them all at one time."

"Back up a second. I . . . collected the lamp—"

"Stole the lamp, you mean, pretty one?" She was attractive in a vague way, though her appearance didn't matter.

Color flooded her cheeks, and truly, she was adorable. Fortunately, I was long past falling for a pretty female's charms. "All right, I stole the lamp from the castle's treasure room."

"It belongs to no one and everyone."

She scowled. "That makes no sense."

"Because you're not thinking hard enough. It only belongs to someone until I've granted their three wishes. Then it no longer belongs to them, but it has the potential to belong to whoever steals it next."

"I didn't want to steal it."

"A few have said the same thing." One or two rare beings.

She stomped her tiny slipper on the floor. "I took the lamp for someone else, not myself. And let me tell you, it wasn't easy. I barely escaped the treasure room before the mist disintegrated me."

"The mist would only come for you if you touched anything else."

"I was instructed not to touch anything but the lamp."

"At least you follow directions, tiny one."

She sucked in a deep breath and shoved out a sigh. I tried not to gape at the way the tops of her breasts squished together while she did it.

"There's no need to be rude," she said.

"As I said, you're number nine hundred and ninety-nine. That's how many beings have summoned me over the ages. You'd act rudely if you were in my place as well."

"Wait. Wait. You're a genie," she breathed. "A green-skinned, giant, gorgeous genie."

Why did my heart slam around to hear her call me gorgeous? I shoved aside the heady feeling blooming inside me and bowed once more. "At your service—for wishes. Nothing else." That was why I found myself trapped in a gilded cage for the rest of my days.

Her head tilted. "How long has it taken you to grant wishes for nine hundred and ninety-eight people?"

"Too long."

"I'm sorry."

I shrugged.

"After I grabbed the lamp, I ran to my room and noted how dusty it was," she said, the words gushing out of her. "I couldn't deliver the lamp to Cordellia in such horrible shape."

"Of course you couldn't," I mocked in a deep voice. "You just so happened to decide to rub off the dust yourself."

Her dimpled chin lifted, and her amber eyes snapped with fire. "I did."

Trying to project boredom when I oddly enough wasn't feeling the emotion, I studied her frame, taking in her thick, deep brown hair that gleamed in the golden light I projected with my hand, her curvy body with wide hips and generous breasts, and her heart-shaped face I ached to stroke with my fingertips—a sentiment I wasn't at all happy about.

"Let's get on with this, shall we? What are your wishes?" I snapped. I needed to fulfill her demands before I did something foolish like dropping to my knees and kissing her palms. "Shall it be a chest full of jewels? Enough silk gowns to fill a ballroom? Diamond necklaces to string around your pretty neck?"

Her frown reappeared. "You think I'm pretty?"

"I didn't say that."

"Yes, you did. More than once."

"I didn't." I tugged on my white satin tunic and smoothed my palms on the cursed gold-trimmed harem pants I always appeared in. Within my own quarters, I wore what I chose, which was more often than not, nothing. Who did I need to dress for except myself? "It doesn't matter what I think of you. Three wishes. Name them."

Her head tilted, and she studied my face. "I can wish for whatever I want?"

"Are you asking to use one of your wishes to gain an answer to your question?"

She flopped back on the bed, grinning. "My word. It's really true. I've only vaguely heard about genies, and that was in fairy tales. Now you're going to grant me three wishes!"

I flipped my hand her way, not liking how my heart tripped over itself at her smile. "Get to it, my dear."

"You know you sound like a grandfather when you call me my dear. A creepy old grandfather."

My growl ripped out. "I'm anything but your grandfather."

"You've suggested you're very old."

"I don't age," I barked.

"No need to be snippy about it."

I huffed.

"Never fear," she said. "You're much too gorgeous for me to take you as a grandfather."

It was my turn to be stunned. "You truly think I'm gorgeous?"

"Doesn't everyone?"

I shook my head. "Stop distracting me. Three wishes. Now. Then I can get back to my workout."

"I wish for you to cure my sister, Lana."

"I'm deeply sorry, but there are rules." I ticked them off on my fingers. "No curing anyone's sickness."

Her shoulders sagged. "That's a horrible rule."

"I don't make the rules; I just abide by them." I lifted my brows. "No directly harming or killing any living being."

"That makes sense even if it's something I'd never ask for."

"No altering the course of destiny or manipulating time."

She nodded.

"No making someone fall in love with you."

"There's no one I want to make fall in love with me."

Why did that statement make my heart flip over?

"No asking for endless wealth," I said. "For example, you can ask for a chest full of coins, but it can't be a chest that constantly replaces what you take. No bringing back the dead. No wishes involving lethal weapons, meaning I can't blow up an entire continent at your command. No using a wish to free me from the lamp, though no one so far has asked to do so, I'll add."

"Lots of rules."

"I'll remind you that you can't hold onto the wishes. You need to use your first before midnight tomorrow, the second by midnight the next day, and the third wish by the end of the day after that." My sigh bled out. "And one final rule. No using one wish to ask for others. You get three, and three only, and then I'm poof, returned to the lamp to wait for the next person to call me."

"What good are wishes if they can't help my sister?" Her voice cracked. "That's all I want." She dropped onto the bed and curled into a ball. "Go away. I don't want anything else."

Sighing, I settled in the chair next to the bed.

It looked like this was going to be a very long three days.