Your Wish Is His Command Read Online Free Page A

have a
case. Kal kept trying to beef up his magical assistance assistant’s
confidence.
    But when Dir toppled, slack-jawed, off the
weight bench at the question, Kal figured it was better to let
sleeping dogs, er, foxes, lie. No sense piling more pain on
Dirham’s bruised heart and fragile ego.
    Kal headed to the mini fridge, chucking the
towel into the basket beside the sofa, then grabbed a V-8. He’d
have to do laundry soon, and since he couldn’t use his magic even
inside his own lantern, he was going to have to do it the mortal
way.
    Luckily, the stainless stackable washer and
dryer had been magicked to contour to the curved wall, so he didn’t
have to send his clothes out. The genie laundry service always took
a while to get his stuff back. You’d think magical beings could zap
laundry to rights in an instant, but apparently there was a whole
lot of red tape to go through for demi-genies.
    Demi-genie.
    The categorization bugged the kharah out of him.
    Kal swiped the cold bottle across his forehead
to cool both his body temperature and his temper. It wasn’t his
fault he was a demi-genie. Well, all right—the demotion was a
by-product of removing the gold cuffs that had bound him into The
Service, but he’d only done it because of Faruq.
    Bile churning in his gut, Kal uncapped the
bottle and drank half. Faruq. The most vile ibn el-kalb who’d ever flown a magic carpet.
    Dirham bounced over. “So, you need anything,
Kal? Can I get you something? What about a body pillow? I hear
they’re comfortable. Or water wings? Some taffy? How about a jar of
foot cream?”
    Where did the fox come up with this
stuff?
    “ The combination to the safe would
be nice.” Or Faruq’s head on a silver platter.
    Kal shook his head and finished off the drink,
restraining himself from flipping the bottle into the air. In
centuries past—two millennia actually—the bottle would have simply
disappeared into the spectrasphere. Now, it’d shatter all over the
floor.
    He sighed and set the bottle on top of the
fridge.
    “ The combination?” One of the fox’s
bat-like ears ticked forward as he leapt onto the recliner in front
of the high-def. “Gee, Kal, that might be kind of hard.”
    “ I was just kidding, Dirt—Dirham.”
Kal shooed him out of the chair and sank onto the cool leather.
He’d have to wipe it down afterwards, but the beauty of not living
with anyone was that no one would care if he didn’t.
    That was also the curse of not living with
anyone.
    “ So what are we going to do today,
Kal?” Dirham hopped up and down like a rabbit. He was the size of a
rabbit actually.
    “ Today? Let’s see.” Kal pretended
to contemplate the vast opportunities available to him. Trouble
was, there weren’t any. He was stuck in this lantern until a master
summoned him. Bad enough he wasn’t able to move forward with his
life, having to hang out until Fate passed him around to one
thousand and one masters, but to be stuck waiting while he
was waiting… Kal hated being an alpha male in a beta role. Hated
treading water and this sentence the High Master had imposed on him
was the ultimate deep end.
    “ Want to paint rainbows in the
air?” Dirham asked, swiping his tongue over his lips. Mist-paint
was like catnip to fennecs.
    Kal shook his head. “I’m not in the mood, but
don’t let me stop you.” He pointed to the pull-down table on the
wall that he stored the supplies behind. Without altering the outer
lantern dimensions, the interior could expand to house whatever he
wanted to order through the Genie Supply System—a race track,
football field, the island of Crete, a camel —but Kal was
into minimalism. Give him his fridge, workout equipment, the
recliner, and a high-def TV, and he was good. Oh, and the remote.
Definitely needed the remote. It was the only magic he could do
these days.
    Thanks to Faruq.
    Kal gripped the leather arm rests. The prick
had stolen not only his High Master’s thesis and his magic, but
also