One Hot Fairy Tale

One Hot Fairy Tale (Forever Wicked)
Anne Kane
All rights reserved.
Copyright ©2018 Anne Kane

"You want me to do what?" Rhiannon stared at the representative from the Genie Council. Dressed in bright silk harem pants and a heavily sequined vest, he'd materialized in her cozy little lamp with no warning at all. Of course, she'd been waiting for an answer to her petition since the last full moon so he wasn't entirely unexpected.

"We want you to find the tooth fairy and convince him to go back to work." The genie toyed with the cord that held up his harem pants. "Seems he's gone AWOL, and the humans are starting to notice. If you can do this small task for us, the Council of the Fae may feel inclined to grant your request."

Rhiannon let out an exasperated sigh. Small task, my ass. "And how am I supposed to find a fairy? I'm a genie. Fairies live in a whole different realm, one I don't know my way around."

The representative shrugged. "You're the one with a petition in front of the Council. You solve this problem for them, and they're more likely to look favorably on it."

Rhiannon bit back a curse. That was tantamount to blackmail. Why hadn't she seen this coming? Actually, she'd expected them to turn her down outright. The last genie in a bottle had to serve the full one thousand years before she'd been reassigned to live happily ever after with some corporal in the U.S. Army. They must be desperate to find the tooth fairy if they were willing to negotiate with her.

"How long do I have to get him to reconsider? It's a male, right?"

The genie's mouth twisted in a wry smile. "Yes, he's male, and you have one week to find him and talk him into returning to work. We can cover his absence for a week, but after that people are going to start noticing. If you fail to convince him, it's back in the bottle for you."

Right. Seven days. Let's not make this an impossible task or anything. "So how long has he been missing?"

The genie raised his wrist, surveying a gaudy cartoon character watch. "Almost two hours now. Time's a wasting." He made shooing movements with his hands. "Go on. Go find him and talk some sense into him."

"Right." She could do this. Fairies were slight, kind of airy things right? If he refused to cooperate, she'd just threaten to tickle him until he peed his pants. That should bring him around. "So do you have any hints as to where I might find this tooth fairy guy?"

"If we knew that, we wouldn't need you! We'd go find him ourselves." The exasperation in the genie's voice was gratifying. "I'd suggest you hoof it over to the fairy realm and start looking. It's a big place. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a Cinderella Ball to attend tonight and I need to get my tux dry-cleaned."

"Fine. I'll get right on this." She summoned what she hoped was a convincing smile. "I take it you can see yourself out?"

"Of course. I saw myself in." With a flourish of his hand, the genie disappeared, a lingering cloud of pale green smoke the only thing to mark his passage.

Rhiannon looked around cautiously, making sure he wasn't hiding on top of one of the bookshelves or in a corner. Council representatives weren't the most trustworthy characters. She wouldn't put it past him to make a show of leaving and then hide somewhere to spy on her.

She checked the last bookshelf. Yup, he was gone. Time to get moving. First, she needed to freshen up her makeup, and put on her lucky pair of black patent leather knee-high boots. She'd find the silly tooth fairy and get him back to work. She had to. Another four hundred years in this damn bottle, and she'd be ready to kill every single member of the Council of the Fae.