Read Online Jinni's Wish, Book 4 Kingdom Series by Marie Hall - Free Book Online

behind a large potted
fern.
    There was only one way to ensure Aria’s
reputation stay intact. Jinni withdrew his hooked cutlass.
    “ I will not tell.”
    Jinni sucked in a harsh breath, the voice
reminded him of velvet-- all soft and luxurious, and so
tantalizingly familiar. He narrowed his eyes. “Who are you?”
    Then she stepped out of the shadow and his
eyes widened.
    She was beautiful.
    As any Queen would be.
    Her hair gleamed like rich oil in moonlight,
her skin was a dusky hue and bronzed golden by the fierce sun.
Piercing green eyes held his and fire burned a hot trail down his
spine.
    “ Queen Nala,” his voice came out choked as
he quickly thrust the cutlass back in its sheath. Jinni bowed low.
“Forgive me, Queen.”
    “ Arise, Jinni. There is no need for
formality around me. Not now.” Her words were soft and coaxing, but
the shiver that raced across his skin and the heat that burned in
his gut was anything but soft.
    His gaze roamed slowly up her bare feet,
along the peek-a-boo bit of ankle and then up the long expanse of
legs and waist. To the ripe fullness of her breasts (and here he
swallowed harder), before he finally came to rest on the beauty of
her face.
    King Abdullah’s newest acquisition held a
whisper of a smile on her lips. Younger than the King by a good
decade, if not more, she was the epitome of sensuality and verve.
Married only two weeks ago, the Queen had kept to herself.
    Until now.
    “ I came to see the girl, though I see,”
she cocked her head, “she was not alone.”
    The husky tenor of her voice rocked through
Jinni’s core and made his legs tremble. “I should not have gone to
her. But she is lonely and considers me--”
    “ A friend?” She stepped forward, her
emerald green robes crinkling slightly with her movement.
    The rich scent of nightshade and sage
perfumed the air between them as she lifted up on tiptoe. Then her
finger was pressed against his mouth and he knew he was drowning in
her kohl-rimmed gaze.
    “ She needs a friend,” she whispered, “we
all do.”
    Then she turned on her heels and walked
away. Jinni stood by, as if deaf and dumb, watching long after her
shadow had fled.
     
    ***
     
    Paz lowered her arms, and her gaze hooked
his.
    “You loved her,” she said, and it wasn’t a
question. But Paz didn’t sound angry, or sad. Merely, stating a
plain truth.
    “It was forbidden.”
    Her look was tender as she glanced over her
shoulder at their newest painting. Him, in the traditional garb of
genie, and Nala slightly disheveled, hair mussed (as if she’d just
woken up), and a secret smile playing on her luscious lips.
    But Paz had painted Nala too perfect. He
walked up to the picture and with a swipe of his hand altered the
scene, put a tiny cleft in her chin, and small gap between her two
front teeth. He brushed her hair back (the Queen had never looked
mussed), though the bare feet and ankles peeking out from below the
gown were exactly right.
    “Forbidden doesn’t mean you didn’t love her.
It just means it ended tragically.”
    Jinni stilled his hand, letting her words
sink in. She didn’t know the rest of the story, and yet she didn’t
have to. He turned on his heels, putting his back to Nala and all
that she represented.
    “Wise words for one so young,” he said.
    She shrugged and glided toward the golem on
the bed. Jinni had nearly forgotten where they’d been, retelling
his story felt so real. So alive, and seeing her paint the pictures
in front of his eyes, made the reality of the hospital seem
dreamlike and ephemeral.
    “Who is he?” she asked, switching
subjects.
    “Just a man,” he said, eyeing the piece of
formed clay lying prone on the bed. If he didn’t know better, if he
didn’t know the magic at work within that shell, he’d never suspect
it to be anything other than human. It breathed, it grew hair and
nails, it seemed so human. Except for its lack of a soul.
    “But you know him?” she continued, tracing
her pale blue