Keeping the Genie (Genie's Love, Book 3) Read Online Free PDF

chest.
    Alaric shakes his head. “This crown wasn’t always here. Once Sorenten took my magic from me, he took the throne from me as well. This crown disappeared and I was a regular Ortarian. The king used me as his adviser.”
    “Why not kill you?” I ask.
    “To rub it in my face. To make me feel what I was missing. He knew I had been on the human world and I begged him to allow me to return, but he wouldn’t. Ortarians can’t survive on Earth, unless you’re of royal blood. Since Sorenten stole my royal magic, I wouldn’t have been able to survive on Earth. Unless my brother granted me the ability.”
    “He can do that to anyone?” Sebastian asks.
    Alaric shakes his head. “It would consume a large amount of his magic. Magic he wouldn’t be able to get back. He would be less powerful.”
    “Why is your crown tattoo glowing now?” I ask.
    Alaric is quiet for a second or two. “I was the king’s adviser—which is just a fancy way of saying I was in the king’s eye all the time. He would ask my opinion on a law he wanted to pass. When I told him a positive, he changed it into a negative. For example, when he wanted to pass a new law to levy more tax, I told him to give the Inferiors a break. That only caused him to make things more difficult for them. Over the years, the king grew confident in his own abilities and had no need for me. I was stuck in the palace under his watchful eye, but I had more freedom. Now Sorenten is so self-absorbed with himself that he pays less attention to me. That’s why I’m able to come and go as I please, but I still need to be careful.”
    “Okay, but what does this have to do with that?” I once again point to his glowing crown.
    His gaze flits to Sebastian. “Sebastian returned to Ortarus and sought me out. When he told me everything that happened, that he had been a genie, met you, Lily Richards, that you absolved him of his crime and sent Sebastian back here, I knew it wasn’t a coincidence. What are the odds that Sebastian, an Ortarian, had met and fallen in love with my daughter? I didn’t tell him who I was or who you were. I knew it was a sign that things were about to change. My crown started to glow, which was another sign, telling me that I needed to get Sebastian back to you, Lily. The revolution was about to begin.”
    “Why me?”
    His eyes are intense as they bore into mine. “Because you are the key to everything.”

Chapter Five
     
    “Key to everything? What are you talking about?”
    Sebastian looks just as confused as me.
    Alaric says, “I couldn’t bear the way Sorenten was running Ortarus and I needed to do something and save my people. But being that I barely have any magic, I was weak and helpless. I, along with Renaya and Sebastian, started to plan a rebellion—”
    “I don’t remember such a thing,” Sebastian says.
    Alaric holds up his hand. “Please let me continue. We wished to kill both King Sorenten and Prince Soren, because assassinating the king and not the prince would get us nowhere. Renaya was Soren’s personal maid and was able to gather information about him and his father. We had only just begun to plan the assassinations when Renaya suddenly murdered the prince.”
    “It was self-defense.” Her eyes and mouth are hard.
    “I couldn’t allow Renaya to be killed, so I helped her fake her death. We started gathering more Ortarians to join us. We didn’t know exactly how we were going to take down the king, but we weren’t going to allow our doubts to hinder us. Then one day, after Renaya’s ‘death’, Sebastian seemed to change. He had been here all along, but there was something different about him. He told me everything that had happened—that he was the one who murdered the prince originally and as punishment he was sent to Earth as a genie. Then he was absolved of his crime and returned to Ortarus.”
    “I don’t understand,” I say. “Sebastian suddenly changed?”
    “When Sebastian was absolved of his