Kiss of the Goblin Prince (13 page)

He looked around.

He’d moved four feet.

He had moved.

It had worked. The spider tattooed on his chest shifted in her web. He was the spider spinning a web, altering reality to suit himself. Flickers of knowledge he’d learned centuries ago resurfaced. All he had to do was remember, and the best way to jog memories was with use. He took a swig of his beer and placed it on the floor. He’d do it properly this time, with full focus. With a thought he was in front of the fridge. Back to his beer. Picking up his empty bottle and putting it in the bin. All without taking a step. All without crossing the kitchen island.

Excitement and adrenaline pumped in his veins. He could actually do something useful. He ignored the tightening at the back of his neck and tension building in his temples. A headache was nothing; he’d lived with worse. He had to see what else he could do. He turned to the kitchen island with its polished marble top and oak doors. It wasn’t about forcing his way through; it was about flowing through the same way water changed shape to fit the container. Nothing was so solid there weren’t gaps for other threads to pass through. He threw out a thought line straight through the island to the fridge. It thickened with his will and he jumped.

Dai’s hip hit the oven. He grunted as searing pain jolted through the bone and tightened his stomach, but he ignored the agony like so many other times. He had reason to celebrate.

He’d moved through something. He ran his hands down his legs even though they felt fine and wriggled his toes. Aside from what would be an awesome purple bruise in the morning, he’d done it. He could move through solid objects.

His celebration was cut short by the pulsing in his temple as his vision blurred into a confusing mess of web and normality. He reached out a hand to steady himself, as the room spun with increasing speed and threatened to send him sprawling, and blinked to clear his vision of magic. It took two tries to see the way a man should without the tangle of threads. Magic and beer didn’t mix. He was drunk and hung over at the same time. And it really, really wasn’t good. The room canted to the side. He lowered himself to the floor and lay down on his back. One arm rested over his eyes as if he could block out the lights dancing on his eyelids as he tried to center his breathing.

It was about the same as when they’d first learned to slide through people’s nightmares into the Fixed Realm. The brain didn’t like the idea and the stomach didn’t like being taken for the ride. No…actually, this was more like being ripped out of the Shadowlands with a skin-peeling summons—the gut-wrenching loss of ground and the suffocating spin as reality shifted.

It was almost as bad as being in a car.

The slow, deep breaths didn’t help, and the room moved even without him watching, which only reinforced that he hadn’t eaten any dinner and that beer wasn’t a good substitute. He was human and he needed to eat. After not needing to eat for so long in the Shadowlands it was a hard habit to get back into. He would get food after he finished lying down.

Without magic to distract him, his thoughts wandered off and found their way back to Amanda and the way her lips curved when she smiled. His headache receded as blood was redirected. He fisted his hand, his nails digging into his palm. How could he want something that had only ever brought pain?

While he knew that wasn’t always the case, the only memories he had of Seiran’s touch were smothered with what had happened after. He knew being touched by another wasn’t supposed to be bad. But knowing it and living it were two different things, and he couldn’t separate the pain and fear that came with thinking of letting another get that close to him. If she was close enough to caress, she was close enough to kill.

He’d made himself sit up. He’d rather have the headache and dizziness. His pulse echoed in his ears like a drum. Of all the things he’d thrown into his bags, painkillers weren’t one of them. He pressed his fingers against his temple as if to reassure himself his head wasn’t about to crack open. Then with a wrench of will he stood and placed his hands on the kitchen counter for support like an old man not sure of his footing.

He’d had a concussion before…but this was something else. And it wasn’t improving.

Around him, his apartment was like an empty cell closing in and there was no end to his sentence. He needed painkillers…and family. One more night in Eliza’s study wouldn’t hurt. Could he travel that far? Could he travel that far at the moment? His head pounded in time with his heart, a throbbing beat, but the alternative of staying here alone without the prospect of pain relief was worse. And if he couldn’t get there? He’d probably be unconscious so it wouldn’t matter. He sent out a tenuous thread, the way a spider might when looking for an anchor for the web. Dai forced himself to step forward.

Green eyes flashed in his mind. A split second of distraction and his path was altered. The room he stood in wasn’t Eliza’s study. He was in a bedroom. He blinked and glanced around confused, as the room danced around him in time with the pounding inside his head. He caught himself with the wall and tried to stay upright. He’d pushed himself too far. All he wanted to do was slide onto the floor and pass out—not necessarily in that order.

A sigh that wasn’t his drew his attention to the bed in the center of the room and he knew why he was drawn here. Amanda was sleeping in the bed, curled up on her side. The blankets stirred and she stretched like she was about to wake. Her long legs, bare to mid-thigh, were revealed. Dai looked away, but the image was already embedded in his brain like shrapnel. The room turned around him like a child’s spinning top.

His gaze was drawn back to her sleeping form. He shouldn’t be there. Yet for a heartbeat, it was where he wanted to be more than anywhere else in the world. He wanted to be next to her, his body curled against hers. No bed had ever been to tempting…or so wrong.

What was he doing? Staring, creeping around like a bloody goblin instead of facing her like a man. A gray dog lifted its head off the floor at the end of the bed. It tilted its head as if deciding if Dai were real. He stared at the dog; it wouldn’t dare bark and give him away. The dog opened its mouth.

Dai didn’t have time to walk out of the bedroom—even if he could’ve walked in a straight line. All he knew was he didn’t want Amanda waking and finding him watching her. Adrenaline flooded his system and gave him a moment of clarity. People pulled stronger than places. One thought. One chance to get it right, or he was sleeping wherever he landed. His brain felt like roadkill. Killing himself by getting stuck in a brick wall was beginning to look very attractive.

Roan.

He fell along the thread, a bark echoing in his ears.

Dai landed flat on the floor on his stomach. White tiles pressed cold against his cheek. He closed his eyes and enjoyed the personal fireworks display on the inside of his eyelids complete with sound.
Ridiculous.
He needed his books. Not everything could be learned on instinct. If he kept experimenting, his head might just explode.

There were painkillers in the kitchen. Eliza kept them on the top shelf of the pantry. All he had to do was get them. What was going to be worse—getting up or bringing them to him? He groaned. He had to get up. He didn’t want Roan or Eliza finding him sprawled on the floor; explaining why he was here was already going to be hard enough. He’d use the lack of furniture as an excuse, say he caught a cab. He didn’t care.

He waited another two breaths then forced himself up and used the wall for support and balance. In the kitchen he helped himself to four tablets, two more than he should take, but he had an extra strong headache and he was pretty sure the manufacturers hadn’t taken magically induced brain implosion into account when they thought up the recommended dosage. He washed them down with a glass of milk and helped himself to bread, ham, and cheese. After his second sandwich, the vertigo was gone even if the headache wasn’t, and he was almost ready to face his brother. As he walked past the living room, he tried to look nonchalant in bare feet, like he’d walked over for a visit.

Eliza and Roan looked up from the television show.

“How’d you get here?” Roan frowned.

“Long story.” Dai didn’t stop walking, hoping Roan would let it go and let him sleep.

Dai went into the study, closed the door, and lay down on the floor. The air mattress was un-inflated in his apartment, even though Eliza had lent him the vacuum cleaner to blow it up. The study door opened.

Dai lifted his head and glared at Roan. “I’m not up for talking.”

“You can’t sleep on the floor.”

“Yes I can. Done it plenty of other times.” He closed his eyes, waiting for the painkillers to kick in. Rapid action wasn’t nearly fast enough.

The door closed, but Roan hadn’t left. “You’re using magic, aren’t you?” Roan said softly.

“Yes.” It required too much effort to deny the obvious. He didn’t walk from Perth to Peppermint Grove without shoes.

Roan made himself comfortable on the floor, so Dai forced himself to sit up. The headache lodged in his temples was like a jack pushing his skull open so his brain could be examined. He was going to have to give up beer or magic. He already knew which one had to go.

“Is it safe?” his brother asked in Decangli, the language they had always spoken with each other.

That depended on Roan’s definition of safe. Safe as in it wasn’t going to kill him instantly, or safe as in it would never harm him?

He shrugged. “Safe enough.”

“You manipulated to get your place.”

“It was for rent.”

“Not sale.”

“A simple suggestion.” He lifted his hand to stop Roan’s argument. “I’m paying top price.” But it still wouldn’t be his for another month. Settlement took longer these days; there was more than just the exchange of money involved. And it was more complicated than he’d first thought.

“With your soul.”

“No. My soul is mine. Fixed Realm magic has no price.” Not for the things he was doing anyway. And Birch hadn’t bothered him again so he was pretty confident he was sliding under their magical radar. All he had to do was convince them to give back his books, even just some of them—he didn’t need the ones for black magic and curses anymore, and he’d be set.

“There’s always a price.” Roan’s voice didn’t hide the scars of how close he’d come to losing his soul to the curse because of his use of Shadowlands magic.

“You would have me stop?”

“I can’t make you stop. But as you urged me, use caution. Do you not think there is a reason Birch still holds your books?”

They were just examining them. That’s what they said—the headache spread and slithered down his spine like a snake made of ice. “What do you mean?”

“How many people do you see using magic? When was the last time you saw real magic in the Fixed Realm? Two hundred, three hundred years ago?”

“You think they are deliberately withholding my books?” Anger rose and increased the throbbing in his brain. They were his. Amassed over centuries, they were the world’s biggest occult library.

“I don’t know. There is a lot they don’t say. Just look closely at the world. We have to fit.” Roan fixed him with a stare that would have made a loyal subject squirm. He’d seen it too many times for it to have an effect.

“We don’t fit.” Well, maybe Roan did. He didn’t.

Roan scrubbed his hand over his short hair like he was looking for a familiar dreadlock, but his fingers came away empty. “We have to try.”

“I don’t know how. Maybe I’m not even human? Maybe I’m something else that shouldn’t be here.” He was too tired to talk about it.

“You belong here. You need to find something to ground you and occupy your time.”

“Someone,” Dai corrected. He knew exactly what his brother was thinking, he’d had similar thoughts, but he didn’t need a lover to break a curse.

Roan nodded. “Without Eliza I’d be adrift.”

“Without her you’d be goblin.”

Roan got up. “I know what I was, but I also know who I want to be. Do you?”

Dai had no idea. In part because he had no idea who he was; a Decangli prince, then a slave to the general, finally a prisoner of the curse. He’d become scholar by default, a monk out of necessity, and a mage by accident. He’d learned to control his body and now, with a bit of practice, he would be able to control the world. But none of that was him; they were roles he’d been either born into or forced to play.

Dai didn’t answer. He didn’t have one Roan would like.

Roan looked away as if he were interested in the floor. “I’ll bring you a pillow and blanket.”

“Thanks.” Not that he cared. If he’d had the strength left, he would have dragged his ass home and slept on the floor there.

“Just be careful tonight. I don’t want to try explaining to Amanda why the lights come on randomly.” Roan got up and left.

Amanda? She was still here? Dai lay back down on the floor. The sight of Amanda sleeping remained. She was upstairs, so close, yet so far away. He allowed himself a weak smile. Maybe he’d see her tomorrow.

The door pushed open, and Roan tossed a collection of blankets and two pillows at him. “What are you grinning for?”

The blankets landed on top of him.

“Nothing.” Dai gave his head a small shake that he immediately regretted as his brain bounced against his skull. He started pulling the blankets around him.