( psst…also, you might wanna run by Laurie’s blog…Dianne Castell is having a blog party on 3/13 & 3/14 and I do believe prizes were mentioned)

From A Wish, A Kiss, A Dream,an anthology featuring stories from Yours Truly, as well as Lora Leigh and Mary Wine.

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 arched 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.

The only thing he hated was not being completely free to roam this wondrous world with no one to answer to. No master but himself.

Staring at the brush strokes of the masterpieces he knew as well as he knew his own hand, Tam let the silence and peace soak into his soul, quieting his rioting mind.

“You have an obsession with this place,” Jay said quietly.

He shrugged. “We all have them.” He pushed away from the door and paid for himself and Jay, narrowing his eyes at her when she made a move to just go through without paying. Of course, since Djinn were only seen when they wanted to be, nobody would have raised an alarm. The pretty lady with green eyes would have just faded out of sight, and Djinn magick kept people from thinking about it, wondering what they’d seen.

As they moved inside, he said quietly, “They have cameras here, pet. Your magick works well on humans but do we want to test it against electronic security equipment?”

She wrinkled her nose at him, sighing. “Modern civilization can take all the fun out of being Djinn,” she said melodramatically as she slowed to a stop in front of a canvas that was almost as tall she. Cocking her head, she studied it, and then shrugged. “I don’t understand what you see in this place.”

Glancing up at her, he smiled a little. “I see everything,” he murmured.

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  • Each day, you get a new chance to win one ebook from my backlist. I’ll post an excerpt from one of my ebooks. To enter, just respond in comments to each new daily excerpt and you’re entered.
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  • The contest is open to anybody, even if you’ve won something from me before. (excluding the ‘ebook-a-day’ contest). The prize is for an ebook, you can take your pick from my backlist, but I won’t be substituting a print book for an ebook. ;) Trying to promote ebooks and all….

And…I won’t just draw one name. I’ll draw 3 each day. So that’s 21 chances to win.

And the floor is now open…

Winners have been drawn and posted.  In order to avoid confusion, this post is now closed.