Magic Gone Wild (12 page)

At last he collapsed partly on top of her, the majority of his weight sinking into the mattress beside her, his breath warm on her shoulder.

She turned her head. His blue eyes were barely open, the smile barely on his lips.

But it was there.

He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her against him, placing soft kisses along the curve of her shoulder until he couldn’t reach farther.

She tilted her head and smiled when he kissed her cheek before burrowing into the curve of her neck. “I could stay like this forever,” he whispered.

So could she.

She stiffened. She actually
could
stay like this forever, but Zane… He had fifty, maybe sixty more years at best, but for her, eternity yawned out in an endless line. An eternity without this.

Without him.

The thought plagued her throughout the night in the sweet aftermath of each time they made love. She’d tried to forget it, tried to rationalize that it was just the sex talking, but every time he took her out of herself, every time they rode the wave together or they tried something new/different/exciting/poignant, Vana knew that what she felt with Zane was way beyond what she’d ever thought she’d feel with and for anyone. The ramifications of that scared her.

Forever
.

With Zane’s soft snore and warm breath on her cheek, Vana stared at the one candle still burning.

She brushed her fingertips over the arm he’d wrapped around her, too softly to wake him but enough to feel the texture of his skin. Zane wasn’t like other people, mortal or otherwise. He’d held her hand when the fire had gotten out of control. He’d calmed her panic and, in doing so, had given her the means to get her magic back in sync. He’d
noticed
her and listened to her and had cared enough to help her. He’d thought about her. Had considered her feelings and given her a gift merely because it had meant something to her. He’d wanted her, and that all was a dangerous mix.

She could get used to this. Get used to falling asleep next to him. Making love with him. Waking up with him for the rest of his days.

But every day would bring her one day closer to losing him. One day closer to being alone with only the memories. One day closer to feeling that emotion she shouldn’t.

But how in the stars was she going to prevent it? She knew herself; he’d gotten under her defenses as much as he’d gotten under her skin. She could put on a smile and pretend all she wanted that there wasn’t some deeper emotion fluttering around her heart, but she couldn’t lie to herself. He was so different from any of her other masters or men she’d met through the centuries that it wouldn’t take much to tip what she was feeling to the side of something she shouldn’t. And once that happened, well, she’d never been able to mask her feelings, a failing numerous masters had pointed out to her. And if she couldn’t hide it, he’d know, and then…

And then she’d lose everything: her powers, her life, her family.

All genies knew it was a risk to become involved with their masters. It was such an intimate relationship, being able to fill another’s deepest desires, and this had been the most intimate of all.

She shouldn’t have let tonight happen. Regardless of wanting to prove herself to him, she should never have invited him back here. And she certainly shouldn’t have done
this
to the inside of her bottle. What had she been thinking?

Okay, it was obvious what she’d been thinking, but that had been her subconscious. Which made this attraction way too dangerous if her subconscious could override her common sense and self-preservation.

If only she could turn back the clock and make it so that it’d never happened—well, to him. She would always remember, but it would just be a reminder of what couldn’t happen.

But, the irony was, she couldn’t turn back time. Not for this. Because a genie could do something to her master’s person only with his express wish. He’d never agree to her wiping this from his memory, and what was the point of undoing it if she didn’t undo the memory as well?

He murmured something, his breath tickling her, and Vana scooted away from him. It wasn’t the best idea to stay snuggled up in his warmth, surrounded by his scent, his breath, his touch. It brought on too many “what if” thoughts. Too many dreams and wishes she shouldn’t have.

With a pit in her stomach, Vana slid farther away from him until she was perched on the edge of the mattress. There had to be
some
way out of this predicament. She couldn’t be the only genie who’d fallen for her master—

There, she admitted it. She was falling for him. But she couldn’t be the only one. If only she knew what those others had done about it, but she couldn’t very well go on the Djinn Network and spout out that question or ask DeeDee. Oh, her sister would answer her; that wasn’t the problem. The problem was, she didn’t
want
to ask DeeDee about this. She didn’t want to have to go crawling to her sister yet again. DeeDee had always been there for her, helping, teaching, catching her when she metaphorically fell… But this kind of falling? No, Vana couldn’t ask DeeDee how to prevent becoming more of a failure in their parents’ eyes than she was right now.

Besides, DeeDee was away at a study retreat, preparing for the biggest test of her life. So she’d have to consult the next best thing: DeeDee’s
Djinnoire
.

Vana slid out from under the sheet and tucked it around Zane. His fingers clenched the spot where she’d just been, and she held her breath to see if he’d wake up.

He didn’t. His fingers released and went slack. Just as well.

Maybe.

With one last lingering look, she pulled on her robe and tiptoed to the desk tucked in front of the palm trees that had replaced the windows ringing the changeable interior of her bottle. She opened the top drawer and removed the griffin-hide-bound tome.

Calligraphic artistry decorated each page in a move right out of a monks’ school of publishing. The book was a work of art in so many ways, and Vana acknowledged a tug of pride that her sister was the author. DeeDee had never made a big deal about it; it’d just been one more sign that her sister had excelled where Vana had failed.

She touched the ivory-framed picture of DeeDee on her desk before turning it around. The portrait had comforted Vana during the time she’d been shut up in her bottle, but researching solutions for falling in love with her master while her twin looked over her shoulder was anything but comfortable. Her family had had such high hopes for her; a discussion of this sort would end those more completely than all of her magical mishaps combined.

She opened to the Table of Contents. Written in Phoenician, those little squiggly drawings were tough to tell apart and Vana had to concentrate to make out the words. She’d never gotten the hang of the language, merely one of the many reasons she’d hated school.

She read each chapter heading, knowing she wouldn’t find one entitled, “How
Not
to Fall in Love with Your Master and What to Do If You Do,” but the one titled, “Explanations of the Master-Djinni Relationship” looked promising.

The drawing of a big red scythe adorning the upper left corner of the page, however, did not.

Phrases and familiar passages of the Genie 101 mumbo-jumbo (a term borrowed from the Witches’ Ruling Coven) jumped out at her: the logic behind sealing each djinni’s bottle or lantern (transferring from the magical realm to the mortal one required a large expenditure of magic that could do great damage to the mortal realm unless it was released one djinni at a time); how the seal was broken (hope was always a big factor, but mostly it was dumb luck—those Fates liked to give Karma a run for her dirhams); how often a djinni could change masters (every time someone opened the bottle; theoretically meaning that a genie could have one person as a sequential master for as long as that mortal lived); what to say upon meeting one’s master (a mantra every genie knew by heart after the first day of school); and what qualified a master to be a master.

Vana was about to skip that section when one sentence caught her eye.

The
master-djinni relationship begins when the djinni materializes from smoke in front of the master
.

Vana reread it twice—and then a third time—letting the implications sink in.

She hadn’t materialized in front of Zane at any point. He’d shown up in her bottle. Then, when they’d smoked out of it, she’d gone first, leading him out. That was why he’d broken his leg in the first place; she hadn’t thought to hold on to him for the landing. And even at the hospital, she’d materialized first.

Which could mean…

Vana’s knees gave out. Luckily, she thought quickly enough to air-kiss a chair beneath her. And luckily, Zane’s kisses were still working their magic on hers.

She wasn’t in Service to Zane.

He wasn’t her master.

And that meant that she actually
could
time travel with him back to before they’d made love and, if she didn’t give him the ability to remember it, he’d never know. It would be as if it had never happened.

Very few things could kill a djinni, but she had no doubt that a broken heart was on that list.

Her fingers fiddled with the papyrus pages, but she’d look for that list later. When tears weren’t threatening to make reading impossible.

Zane wasn’t her master.

Vana took a deep breath and tried to figure out what to do next because, with no one laying claim to her magic, she could now go wherever and do whatever she wanted.

The irony was that she wanted to stay right here with him. Whether or not it was a good idea.

Vana closed the book and stood on her own two legs, literally and figuratively. She was going to stay. She owed it to Peter and the children, but most of all, she owed it to herself. Just because Zane wouldn’t remember tonight didn’t mean she had to forget. She would carry the memory with her for the rest of her immortal life, but she didn’t have to deprive herself of being with him in the interim. And if her feelings for him ever did become a problem, she could always leave.

Though it might kill her to do so.

Vana inhaled. She was a djinni, first and foremost. She had a duty to her people, her family, and herself. Zane was just a momentary respite in the vast expanse of her life.

A couple thousand years and she’d come to believe that…

Before she lost her resolve, Vana walked back into the bedroom, drinking in the sight of Zane in her bed. This would be the last time she’d ever see him there. The last time anything could happen between them.

She walked over to the bed and leaned as softly as she could across it. She drew in a deep breath, her lips so close to Zane’s.

And kissed them back to 7:52 that evening.

12

Vana preceded Zane into the kitchen and, for the second time that evening, fixed the hinges on the kitchen door and the cuckoo clock on the wall. The hour and minute hands circled around to land at seven-fifty-two, that one-minute difference keeping Zane from running into himself and giving the whole thing away.

Zane handed her the salt shaker again and she felt that same frisson of awareness sizzle through her. Only this time, she knew how much hotter it could become.

She led the way into the front parlor, put her ego on hold when he brought up the radar and satellite info, and skipped the invitation into her bottle. She only had so much self-control.

“Zane, why don’t you get your things out of your car? You’ve been through a lot today.” More than he knew, and that secret weighed heavy on her heart.

“Yeah, okay, but I’d like to talk. Hang out for a few minutes, okay?”

Her heart broke as she changed their future. And their past—the one only she could remember. “Can we do it in the morning, Zane? After all of…
that
… well, I’m rather worn out.” She couldn’t even look at him as she headed toward the stairs and began climbing them.

Worn
out
was one way of putting it.

“Vana.”

She stopped two steps from the top. So close. “Yes?”

“Does your bottle have to stay upstairs? Can you bring it down here and keep me company?”

Her heart broke a little more. He thought he was her master, and it’d be best to keep that charade going. “Is that what you wish?”

“It is.”

Which only dug the knife a little deeper. She really should have brought them back before the kiss in the garden and stopped it from ever happening. Or better yet, she should have just started their whole time together over.

Except… she was selfish enough to want him to have
some
memory of her. “I’ll meet you here in five, how’s that?”

“Sounds good.”

It sure did.

***

She was inside her bottle on the mantel when he returned. Close enough to hear (and want) him, yet far enough to keep temptation at bay.