Page 10 of Jasmine's Enchanted Genie

“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.”

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