The Genie's Witch (Dirty Djinn) by Lyn Brittan

up in the arms of a woman smart enough to know a good thing when it bit her in the ass.
    Please, don’t let him be biting someone else’s ass right now. She needed his shoulder to cry on for a good long while. She considered flying to Vegas, but she knew she’d never find him.  If he hadn’t answered her calls, he surely wouldn’t be answering her wishes. In Galveston, though, she’d plead her case and make him listen.
    “Flip.”
    Dinah sighed and rolled over. Instead of a djinn, an old frau with questionable facial hair brutally massaged her feet. While Helga smashed her toes, Dinah picked up her phone and called the airline to confirm her overnight flight.
    “You leave soon?”
    “Tonight.”
    “Bad or good?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Make it good then.” The mustachioed Helga had a point.  Dinah popped up, patted the woman’s prickly face and ran to her room. She’d get to the airport early. Maybe she’d get lucky. The universe owed her that. Packing involved little more than throwing everything together, unfolded and still dirty. Her time to and in the airport was a blur, punctuated by the shrieks and laughter of others.
    Full flights delayed her joy.
    There were no open seats and she waited it out on an uncomfortable chair, nee torture device, watching plane after plane leave without her. Soon, she was too mentally and emotionally drained to care. She only started noticing things again when the departure sign blinked her city in green lights. Dinah hobbled aboard, found her seat and let her mind wander.
    She would never be able to disassociate planes from sex again. Or Demetrius.
    Oh, Tig. If they headed in the same direction of love, what was the harm if he got there first?
    Trapped between memories sublime and horrific, sleeping wasn’t an option. She tapped her fingers on the armrests until the flight landed.
    The power of being in her city lightened her steps when she got off the plane. Or maybe that was hope. Whatever it was, it had her doggone sailing through the airport. She had a plan now and nothing could break her stride.
    Nothing except for seeing Tig waltz out of a cab with some redheaded heifer.
    The bastard! I wish you could see my face right now.
    Tig’s head whipped around in her direction.
    I wish I could give you a piece of my mind.
    ::Hamdullah! Get in the lamp.::
    “Tig? How are you—”
    ::Piece of your mind. Kinda. Listen, trouble. You. Lamp. Now!::
    Tig hadn’t stopped and his head was quickly disappearing in the crowd. In another few feet, she wouldn’t be able to see him at all. She sped up and pushed her way through, earning pissed off looks each time her luggage rolled over someone’s feet.
    ::Get in the lamp!::
    How the hell was she supposed to do that?
    ::You’d better not be asking how.::
    Right. I wish I were in the lamp.
    And so, she was.
    *****
    H is theory worked. Of course his mate’s wish would send her there alone. The lamp was hers as much as his. She didn’t need him for entry at all.
    ::I need you to wish my servitude over.::
    He felt the wish, along with Dinah’s shock and the rage that accompanied it. The pull was there too, that compulsion to act, but he couldn’t break the bind between himself and a now glaring Karlin. “What did you do,” she asked.
    ::No dice. Talk later.::
    “Nothing.”
    Karlin’s eyes narrowed and she started digging around in her purse. Whatever it was that she found, slapped a lopsided grin on her face. She gave it a reassuring pat before glancing back up at him. “My crystal is getting warm.”
    “Is that a euphemism for something?”
    “You don’t want to play with me. I could wish you dead,” she said, face twisting as she spat out the words. She hadn’t been the first to threaten their kind with that, but he saw no need to tell her djinn can’t be forced to do anything to hurt themselves.
    “Or I can wish dead someone you know.”
    That, however, was a possibility to terrible to count. His breath labored