Read Jinni's Wish, Book 4 Kingdom Series for Free Online Page B

starflower.”
    Refusing to rise to the bait, she ignored
him. “You’re not mad at me. You’re mad at yourself. Mad at what you
did. What you allowed to happen.”
    Each uttered phrase was worse than a blow to
his heart. Jinni couldn’t help but flinch, nostrils flaring as the
horrible truth clawed at his skull. He did not know Betty. How
could she have such insight into his psyche? Just who were these
women Danika had found for them?
    Who was Paz?
    His soul thumped as if it were the fluttering
beat of a skipping heart.
    Danika nodded. “Your silence is answer
enough. She is correct.”
    Jinni turned his face aside as the memories,
those awful, hated memories, tried to break free of the darkness
he’d stuffed them in the night he’d been banished from his Eastern
realms.
    A cool ripple of power brushed against his
cheek. He turned to look at Danika, allowing his plea, his pain,
his grief, but mostly his fear, to reflect in his gaze.
    “Betty is a doctor of the mind.
Feelings.”
    It was hard for him to refrain from snorting,
but Gerard’s Belle had exposed him. Somehow, she’d exposed him
without ever meeting him.
    “She said you have to let the girl in.”
    He closed his eyes. The girl. Paz. The
dark-haired, dark-skinned beauty who shimmered with a pearlescent
splendor. How was it that being in her presence could bring him
such fear and excitement?
    In centuries he hadn’t felt much of anything.
Then he saw her, a strange woman in a strange land, and something
terrible inside him quaked. A demon he thought he’d buried long
ago.
    “How can you say that to me?” he whispered.
“You, who knows why I was ousted. I cannot trust again, Danika. I
cannot allow her close. The last one cost me everything,” the last
tailed off in a whisper so low he wasn’t sure he’d spoken it
aloud.
    He felt raw, like a jagged exposed nerve.
Part of him wanted to rail and roar, demand his way. But another
part, a shameful one, wanted to roll up into a ball in the corner
and die. Jerking out of her reach, he once again paced the length
of his cavernous chamber. If he continued to look her in the eye,
continued to see the sorrow in her bright blue gaze, he’d do one or
both.
    “I will not go back to her. I will not go
down this path again.”
    Danika flitted in front of him, halting him
with her hand. He didn’t have to stop. He could phase right through
her now.
    “You must. She is dying, Jinni.”
    “Why? Tell me why? I am not a good man,
Danika. You know my past. You know why I am here. Why subject her
to me? Let her die. There is peace in death. I only envy that she
can feel it so quickly.”
    Her eyes were like cleavers, ripping through
his words and exposing them for the wicked lie they were. To think
of Paz dead, to think of that beautiful smile forever gone, made
his insides hurt. He didn’t know her, but already he felt
something. Curiosity, pleasure…
    “A mortal ghost is like a delicate bloom.
They need a tether, a reason for being, or else they vanish. I
cannot bring her back if she does, your only hope for salvation and
for meaning in this life is through her.”
    “A woman cannot give me meaning.” The words
were hollow and bitter, dripping with scorn.
    He’d believed like Danika once. Believed he’d
found his purpose within the arms of a doe-eyed temptress whose
seductive ways had blinded him to her ruthless thirst for power and
greedy ambition. He’d betrayed all he’d ever been, all he’d known
for passion, only to discover in the end that her honeyed tongue
had spun nothing but a silken web of lies.
    Though his words spoke scorn, in his head he
chanted for Danika to save him. To show him truth, purpose, life,
to give him hope. He bit his lip, ache filling his throat with
quiet despair.
    She sighed. “She is your soul mate, of that I
have no doubt. She will bring you back, but the choice is yours.
She fades quickly, Jinni. Time is short, so you must choose.”
    “Why is that golem there?” he