Free Jinni's Wish, Book 4 Kingdom Series by Marie Hall Page A

ever regret it?”
    Paz stood, and paced in front of the table.
“Sometimes. Sometimes I wonder if he was the one and I was
just expecting too much.”
    She stopped then and looked at Jinni. A
perfect stranger. His large brown eyes made her feel slightly dizzy
and breathless. He might be blue, but she’d painted him as he’d
been. Dark and olive toned, with a proud nose and sensual lips. Her
body pulsed, literally beginning to glow brighter. She frowned.
    “It means you are experiencing great
emotion,” he said gently.
    “How come you don’t pulse?”
    Jinni stared up at the ceiling, but she knew
he wasn’t looking at it, he was looking beyond it. Seeing something
she couldn’t. “Because the longer you stay in this form, the more
deadened you become.”
    The bitterness in his voice made her
ache.
    The euphoria of earlier began to fade slowly
away. Paz glided to a corner window, pressing her nose against the
glass. Or at least attempting to, the moment she touched it, she
felt a subtle shift in pressure and then her face was sinking
through. Like pushing her head through a gentle fall of water.
    Jinni’s head poked out a moment later. She
sighed bitterly.
    “When I was little I used to love pressing my
nose against the glass. Feeling the cold shiver up my nose and
settle in my cheeks. It made me feel alive. Mom, hated it though,
said I was staining her clean glass.”
    Crazy, the things she remembered now. Things
that’d seemed so insignificant and meaningless before now mattered
so much.
    He tipped his head.
    Again that feeling of needing to get away, of
wishing she could go, slowly crept back into her conscious mind.
Outside the manicured lawn glinted with the first silvery drops of
dew, a gentle breeze stirred through her. The parking lot was vast
and completely empty. Streetlamps, with their orangey glow
distracted from the surreal beauty of the full golden moon. Stars,
too many to count, filled the black sky like a shower of silver
glitter.
    But gazing at the beauty of the still night
couldn’t detract from the knowledge that behind them a warm and
inviting golden tunnel waited for her. A tunnel that she knew would
bring her a measure of peace.
    “I want to go.”
    “Where?”
    “Away. Out of this hospital,” she glanced at
him, at the proud lines of his jaw and sharp slash of cheekbone,
and wished again she’d met him before, “I hate it here.”
    “Where would you go if you could?”
    She glanced up at the sky. The sky her
brother had been so obsessed with growing up. Richard had always
wanted to find life on different stars. He’d spun magical tales of
aliens and monsters. She’d never wanted to see the creatures, but
Paz had fallen in love with the murky blue unknown of the
universe.
    “The stars,” she whispered, “I want to dance
on a star.”
     

Chapter 9
     
    Jinni didn’t have much magic left to him, and
what he did, came with a price. But it was a price he’d be willing
to pay, if only to see her smile again.
    “Do you want to see where I was born?”
    Brown, soulful eyes studied him. Then she
nodded slowly. “Yes.”
    “I can show you. But first, you need to take
my hand.”
    She slipped her hand into his, but it fell
through. “Paz, I am not strong enough to hold you. You have to
focus, like I taught you. Concentrate all your energy, and then
hang on to me. Can you do that?”
    She nibbled on her lower lip and not for the
first time he wished he was more of a man than what he was. That he
hadn’t spent so many decades lamenting his fate; that he’d at least
fought to remain corporeal. If he’d known in the future he’d meet
her, he’d have fought tooth and nail to overcome the misery of the
last decades. But he hadn’t known, so he’d let himself slowly die
inside, a little every day, and now he was a shell of a man who
couldn’t even grasp her hand.
    “I’ll try.”
    She closed her eyes and his body hummed,
willing her to do it this time.
    Her energy pulsed again, a