Three Wishes by Jenny Schwartz Page B

him—there was good in his soul. Miriam had found it and brought it to life.
    The hard shell of revenge that protected Cali’s heart suffered a terminal crack. Her hands flattened against the cold window glass, holding her steady as the pattern of her life fissured. Revenge had been an easy survival strategy. How was she to survive Solomon’s curse if she opened herself up to caring? She wasn’t free to care.
    She looked at David, supported by Miriam’s arm around his waist and the loving concern in her face.
    He stared back at her, his body angled protectively between her and Miriam, and tipped his head in challenge. He’d fight for Miriam.
    “Don’t worry.” Cali was infinitely tired. “I don’t hurt innocents and she loves you.” The words hurt. She was giving a master what she couldn’t have: freedom to live and love. “I won’t kill you.”
    David glanced from her to Andrew, then nodded. It was an acknowledgement, not thanks. He believed her, perhaps because of her weariness or because of the satisfaction and pride that underlay Andrew’s smile.
    She turned away.
    “Be happy together,” Andrew said.
    Pain screamed through Cali. He was blessing David and Miriam, wishing the couple what she craved and was cursed never to embrace. She couldn’t give herself to Andrew because she was already trapped. She’d not hold him to share her prison or wait decades between masters till she could emerge again from her bottle to serve another master and steal some precious time with Andrew.
    “Cali love.” He touched her face as the other couple departed. The room shimmered. In a heartbeat they were standing on the top of the castle, the cool sea wind stirring her hair.
    She widened her eyes and let the wind dry her incipient tears. She pushed aside grief and encouraged the rage that filled her emptiness and spilled out in a torrent of frustration. “We can’t have their happy ending. They’re going to bed, kisses and cuddles and whispered secrets. I’m still cursed, still bound to the bottle.”
    “We can make our own happy ending.” He sounded so sure.
    “No.” She looked away from him, out across the sea.
    He pulled her back against his body, denying the loneliness of her stance. He wrapped his arms beneath her breasts. His warm breath touched her ear. “Let me love you.”
    “There’s no future in it.” She covered his hands with hers, holding his arms against her belly and pressing herself back into his body, unable to deny herself these memories. Resentment made her crude. “Unless you want a quick screw?”
    “I want you, all of you.”
    “I can’t give myself! I can’t. I’m cursed, bound. Scared.”
    “Cali.” He turned her to face him.
    It hurt so much. He was everything she wanted and everything she feared.
    “Go away, Andrew. Go away.”
    He flinched. The entreaty in his face closed to remote sternness.
    It was the final agony. All she could give those she loved was pain.
    “Go away,” she screamed.
    He went.

Chapter Twelve
    Snow roared down the Hindu Kush mountainside. It gathered rocks and tumbled the deadly avalanche straight for the huddle of wooden buildings clustered at the pass.
    Andrew cursed and flung himself at the cold violence, caught, held it and directed it away from the sleeping humans. It was his fault, his anger, that had triggered the lethal force. He hadn’t known how to release the fury in him. It still rode him even in this remote place.
    Cali had rejected him.
    He stood thigh deep in the snow and shuddered under the force of his grief. He’d wanted Cali and her passion because she brought his emotions alive. With her, there was no passive acceptance of fate. He respected her, trusted her. She’d survived centuries of enslavement by virtue of her strong spirit. She fought for what was important to her.
    But she wasn’t willing to fight for him.
    “We could be together.” He hated the curse that bound Cali, but whatever it took to work around it, to steal