A Wish A Kiss A Dream Read online

  A WISH, A KISS, A DREAM

  An Ellora’s Cave Publication, February 2005

  Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.

  1337 Commerce Drive, #13

  Stow , OH 44224

  ISBN MS Reader (LIT) ISBN # 1-4199-0081-1

  Other available formats (no ISBNs are assigned):

  Adobe (PDF), Rocketbook (RB), Mobipocket (PRC) & HTML

  DJINN’S WISH © 2005 SHILOH WALKER

  PAYING UP © 2005 MARY WINE

  COWBOY AND THE THIEF © 2005 LORA LEIGH

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part without permission.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. They are productions of the authors’ imagination and used fictitiously.

  Edited by Pamela Campbell and Sue-Ellen Gower.

  Cover art by Syneca.

  Warning:

  The following material contains graphic sexual content meant for mature readers. A Wish, A Kiss, A Dream has been rated E–rotic by a minimum of three independent reviewers.

  Ellora’s Cave Publishing offers three levels of Romantica™ reading entertainment: S (S-ensuous), E (E-rotic), and X (X-treme).

  S-ensuous love scenes are explicit and leave nothing to the imagination.

  E-rotic love scenes are explicit, leave nothing to the imagination, and are high in volume per the overall word count. In addition, some E-rated titles might contain fantasy material that some readers find objectionable, such as bondage, submission, same sex encounters, forced seductions, and so forth. E-rated titles are the most graphic titles we carry; it is common, for instance, for an author to use words such as “fucking”, “cock”, “pussy”, and such within their work of literature.

  X-treme titles differ from E-rated titles only in plot premise and storyline execution. Unlike E-rated titles, stories designated with the letter X tend to contain controversial subject matter not for the faint of heart.

  A Wish, A Kiss, A Dream

  Djinn’s Wish

  by Shiloh Walker

  Paying Up

  by Mary Wine

  Cowboy and the Thief

  by Lora Leigh

  Djinn’s Wish

  Shiloh Walker

  Dedication

  To my friends, Mary Wine and Lora Leigh… Luv you guys.

  Trademarks Acknowledgement

  The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

  Rolex: Rolex Watch U.S.A. , Inc.

  Vanilla Musk: Coty Inc.

  Prologue

  Centuries Past…

  His name was Tamric. Young, arrogant and headstrong, Tam wanted nothing more than the excitement of walking the mortal realms, the Djinn magick that would let him grant wishes, and the prestige that came when he returned to the land of Jinari .

  Eying the rich, carved wooden urn with envy, he closed his eyes, trying to picture the mortal realms. They had mountains there. Mountains, rivers, oceans…

  The dry hot winds of the desert blew in through the window, stirring his thick hair, bringing with it the ripe scent of gesan trees and vandri, the plump purple fruits that grew from those trees.

  Tam ran a hand down the outer curve of the urn, feeling the hum of residual magick. This had been his mother’s vessel once. For three hundred years, she had been gifted with the chance to walk among mortals—three centuries. Lucky lady, he mused, shaking his head as he rubbed his thumb over the raised carving of the egasi, the symbol of Djinn magick.

  Nearing the end of her third century, she had met the mortal who had returned the urn to her, without claiming his wish, giving her leave to come back to Jinari, where she was adored and revered by all.

  His lip curled in a scowl.

  That was what he wanted. But when he had been all of fourteen, she had conscripted him into service. Sentenced—that was more like it. Enslaved for five decades.

  Bleeding sands, I don’t want to be a priest. Spinning away from the urn, he paced the room, the loose material of his pants rippling around the strong muscles in his legs, his jewel-adorned belt winking in the light that emanated from the walls.

  A priest… “I’d rather freeze in the lowest levels of hell for fifty years.”

  He wanted the power of Djinn, wanted to experience life in the mortal world, experience mortal women…and come back here a free man, out from under the shadow of his mother. Wanted to see people look at him with awe.

  He spun around, reached out his hand and cupped the urn’s curve. The urn pulsed under his touch, oddly warm. Narrowing his eyes, he stepped closer and touched it with both hands. The throb of life seemed to course through his hands as they lay against the urn. Unusual…

  He never saw the blue mist that seemed to flow up out of the floor behind him. As he ran his hands along the surface of the urn, he never realized he was being watched.

  It was the gentle clearing of a throat behind him that had him whirling around to stare into the unfathomable eyes of one of the Guardians. His jaw dropped as he sank to one knee, mouth going dry with fear, his heart slamming against his chest.

  “So, young Tamric. You wish to be Djinn?”

  A female voice cried out and Tam flinched as his mother came rushing into the sacred peace room, her amethyst eyes flashing with fury, glinting with tears. “No!” she shouted, flinging out her hand at the Guardian. “He will not be Djinn.”

  The Guardian smiled and Tam thought he looked kind of sad. “Isma, he wishes it. He has wished it for a long time.”

  “He is a fool! A child. He doesn’t know what he wants,” she insisted, shaking her head so that her long black braids danced around her shoulders.

  The Guardian slid Tamric a glance and he felt as though the being could see straight through him. “He does not wish to go into service to the temple,” the Guardian murmured, shaking his head. “Bound forever to a life of loneliness. Such a burden to place upon one who doesn’t feel that calling.”

  Isma shook her head. “No. The Temple is a fine calling. He must learn to appreciate what I can give him,” she snarled.

  “I do not want it.”

  Both of them stilled, turning to look at him. Deep black eyes and pale purple eyes stared at him with varying degrees of surprise. “You are a boy!” Isma said. “You do not know what you want.”

  Tamric glared at her, enraged. “I am not a boy. I’m twenty years old. Next year, I would have been able to leave this household and set up my own. Except you gave away my freedom. For fifty bloody years!” he snarled, his voice dropping to a low growl as he fought to contain his fury. Damn it, he knew she loved him, wanted what was best… But it had to be her definition of best.

  “I do not want a sexless existence where I do nothing but live in silence and ponder the meaning of the universe and pray until my knees bleed from kneeling so long on the floor,” Tam said coldly, shaking his head. “You see only what the priests become after servitude. I know what I must endure to ever attain what you wish for me to have. Fifty years of slaving for the priests, fifty years without the touch of a woman, fifty years of living on little more than bread and water.”

  “Those fifty years teach you control, discipline,” Isma said, her voice level, her eyes unreadable. “After that, you will have everything, your pick of lands, of brides, of everything you could ever want.”

  Tam shouted, “I do not want it!” Slashing at the empty air with his hand, he gritted out, “That is what you want for me. I’ve always done what you wanted. Now, I am doing what I want.”

  Turning his eyes to
the Guardian, he said, “What must I do?”

  The sound of his mother’s denial echoed in his ears as a funnel of blue smoke enshrouded him.

  Chapter One

  Trapped in the dream, Kat shifted restlessly on the bed, shaking her head, muttering under her breath.

  The roads didn’t seem that slick. Her eyes tracked the gentle snowflakes as they fell from the sky. Their flight left in two hours. She wondered idly if the snowfall would stop their flight to New York . She’d been so looking forward to this trip. But she couldn’t care less about the snow falling, whether the flight would be delayed—cancelled. After all, what did it matter?

  Nothing mattered anymore.

  She was living a lie. With a man who claimed he loved her. But he was fucking her best friend.

  Flipping down the visor, she looked into the lighted mirror on the reverse side, staring into her own eyes for a long moment. She couldn’t believe this was happening.

  Feeling somebody watching her, Kat shifted her eyes in the mirror and met Jenise’s reflected gaze. That dark, chocolate-brown gaze jumped away from Kat’s with a nervousness that made her belly roil. Damn it. How could they do this? But she never doubted it was less than the truth.

  Mara wouldn’t lie.

  In her mind’s eye, she could see it. The lush, textured ivory wallpaper, the gold trim, the rich, plush burgundy of the carpet. The luxurious colors made a perfect backdrop for Jenise’s dark beauty, her coffee-colored skin, her thick curls that she wore hanging loose down her back.

  And Brian—her gut clenched as she pictured them together. Not just in the hotel hallway, where Mara had seen them.

  But in the bed beyond that door. Brian’s chestnut hair—thick and wavy—secured in a tail at his neck. Those broad, strong shoulders and the muscles in his back flexing as he drove his dick inside Jenise’s toned body.

  Damn it!

  The pain inside her gut exploded into a supernova, tightening her throat, her belly clenching, the tears blinding her. Pressing her temple to the frigid glass of the window, she fought to breathe past the pain.

  Slowly, she closed her eyes against the tears that burned so badly. Forcing air past her constricted throat was agony. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t.

  With rapid blinks of her eyes, Kat cleared the tears away. She cleared her throat gently and her voice was just slightly husky as she spoke.

  Lifting her gaze, she again met Jenise’s in the mirror. Jenise licked her lips, her rich, ruby lipstick gleaming faintly. Behind her, she heard the soft whisper of silk over leather as Jenise shifted her position. With a cool, brittle smile, she shifted also, turning so she could stare at Brian.

  He flicked her a glance and smiled—that slow, warm smile that always heated her blood. Now it made her cold. That smile wasn’t for her. Wasn’t all hers.

  “So…honey,” she purred, batting her lashes as he looked at her again, a longer, lingering glance. “How long have you two been fucking each other behind my back?”

  Jenise closed her eyes. Kat saw her from the corner of her eye, but she was still focused on Brian. His eyes stared into hers for a long, unblinking second, jaw dropped in shock. “Kat…sweetie—”

  Kat turned away from him, staring out the window. The tears were back. Stinging her eyes, blinding her, so that for a long moment she couldn’t see. Brian’s startled voice was loud in her ears. She reached up, dashing away the tears.

  Just in time to see the car go flying off the road.

  Scenery flew past her eyes. Everything was spinning.

  And then there was pain, sharp, vicious pain that stole her breath.

  Kat woke up screaming from the dream. She sat up in the bed, pressing her hands to her eyes, feeling the wet tracks of tears.

  She shuddered, sobs racking her body. Distantly, she heard a soft whine and she opened her arms, unable to speak past the sobs that choked her. A warm, furred body leaped into her arms and she closed them around Zeb’s body, feeling a gentle lick on her face as he nuzzled her, trying to comfort her. She held him tighter as she gasped in air, trying to quit crying, trying to move past the dream.

  She couldn’t. Damn it, she couldn’t keep doing this.

  Long hours later, she had finally pushed the dregs of the dream aside.

  A smile lit her face as she stroked her hands down the frame of the mirror, listening to Mara talk.

  “It’s beautiful,” Mara murmured.

  Kat smiled tremulously. “I know. But where did it come from? Who sent it?”

  Bemused, Mara said, “Honey, I don’t know. There’s no card…no return address. Just this mirror.”

  * * * * *

  Djinn , with the power of granting wishes. But only to women, and only if they shared a kiss. Needless to say, Tam had been kissed by a lot of women. Once they discovered him, hiding in the shadows of the mirror, they summoned him out, kissed him well and good, and then he was gone.

  As he strolled down the crowded street in New York City , he stared at nobody, met nobody’s eyes, looked at nothing, except what was directly in front of him.

  He wasn’t imprisoned within his vessel, which was good. Some awful people had owned that mirror, and he was glad he wasn’t trapped there with nothing more to do than stare out at the activities of some the degenerates his mirror had belonged to over the years.

  No, Tam was able to walk among people, live among humans, and had for quite some time. When the mirror was activated, he was pulled back to it, but other than that, he was free.

  Since he couldn’t claim his mirror unless its bearer gave it to him, though, he preferred to stay as far away from it as possible when he could. For more than three decades, it had been stored in some vault in England and hadn’t been activated. Now, it was back in the States, in a small tourist town in Tennessee , in the hands of a woman who had the power to summon him to grant her a wish.

  After she wished, she’d try for another, although he could only grant one. Sooner or later, she’d sell it or give it away. But until she called him, he was free.

  Tam scowled. Not free. Never free. How could you be free when every time a woman kissed you, you knew it was because she wanted something? Damn it. Maybe his mother had been right. Century after century had passed, and long ago Tam had given up the hope that someday he would have his freedom, as his mother had been given hers so long ago.

  Maybe service to the Temple would have been the wiser choice.

  But the idea of five decades of servitude, of kneeling on bloody knees and praying, of serving the Elders in silence… Damn it. At least here he lived in relative comfort.

  But he was trapped in a life of servitude, nonetheless. Damned forever to grant wishes, give kisses to women he had no feelings for. And wish that someday he’d be free.

  “That’s why you never kiss them anymore,” a laughing voice said beside him.

  Tam barely glanced at Jaydie, the impish Djinn he had known for years. Her kiss granted wishes to men—and she loved every moment of it. After several centuries, many of the Djinn tired of their lives, bound in the mortal world, except for that brief time between masters and mistresses. For brief moments in time, they could return to Jinari. Or roam the mortal world unencumbered. Whatever they chose, for those hours, they had no mistress, no master. Tamric loved every moment of it.

  Jaydie, on the other hand, hated being without a man to entice, to tease, to tempt. In fact, the moment she granted his wish, she often used her magick to find her next master and took herself there, before the old master realized she was gone.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked, one brow winging up as he sidestepped somebody trying to sell him a Rolex rip-off.

  “Oh, nothing. Just in the city, sensed you were near. I’ve been looking for you for a few days,” she told him, her ink black hair floating around her shoulders as she spun around and started to walk backward in front of him, so that he could actually look at her when he talked. “I saw your mirror.”

  He arch
ed a brow. “And?”

  She shrugged. “Pretty lady, that one. Quiet. Different.”

  “None of them are different,” Tam said flatly.

  “Really? Then why didn’t I feel a wish?” she asked, her dark green eyes wide and innocent.

  Tam slowed to a stop, moving out of the middle of the crowded sidewalk, dragging Jaydie away from the flow of traffic. “She doesn’t seem to realize what she did,” he said, with a shrug. “I stood there, waiting, wanting to get back to my life, but she never even looked at me. So I left.”

  “You left? You can’t leave when you’ve been summoned,” Jaydie said, her jaw dropping, shock in her eyes.

  “Well, I did,” he said levelly, shrugging. “I went to her. As required. If she chose not to try to claim her wish, that’s her choice.”

  He moved back to the sidewalk, walking on, intent on reaching his destination. Jaydie trailed along behind him, silent, thoughtful.

  Heaven help me, he thought, sending a glance skyward. Jay is trying to think.

  The steps of the museum loomed in front of him and he jogged up them, sliding inside the door and then leaning back against it for one brief moment, smiling in pleasure. He could feel the age around him, in the masterpieces of the past, and the energy from some of the more modern pieces, their power all but crying out to him.

  “You didn’t go home this last time. Not for even a moment,” Jaydie whispered. “Don’t you miss it?”

  He slid her a narrow glance. “No. I didn’t go home. I have no desire to go there.” Jinari hadn’t been home to him in ages. Realistically, he knew that. Even though he was forced to remain in the mortal world for long stretches of time, he didn’t hate it. He wanted to be here.