The Goblin King (5 page)

Anything to wake up and leave this crazy kingdom.

A chandelier of candles was chained to the rock ceiling. Candelabras rose from the floor, every candle forever burning without ever being spent. Even they were not permitted to sputter and die and thus be free of the Shadowlands. Three large swords hung from the wall pointing down like a cross. The round table with seats for six was only set for four. Golden cutlery, plates, and goblets.

The tension in her shoulders eased. At least they ate like men. But where were they?

A water cooler sat against one wall with
Evian
plastered across the extra large bottle. Relief washed through her at the sight of something safe and familiar. While no one was watching, she walked over and took a plastic cup and drank, filling her stomach with clear spring water until it cramped. Cold fisted her gut and left her breathless. Her stomach twisted, breaking the ice and forcing it up. She brought her hand to her mouth. The water could be another goblin trick.

“It’s safe.” The shadows parted and the king appeared, leaning in his chair.

More goblin magic. She was starting to think of him as goblin. Breathing the air of the Shadowlands was making her crazy.

“I bet getting a repairman out here is a pain in the ass,” she said, remembering she was supposed to be fearless.

He grunted and his lips twisted in an almost smile. “Fixed Realm objects are unaffected by Shadowlands magic.”

“Huh? Fixed Realm?” The question came out before she could think twice about engaging him in conversation. She didn’t want to be a part of this—she wanted to go home.

Empty Eyes appeared out of the shadows and dropped a platter of roast lamb and vegetables on the table. The scent of the food coiled around her, teasing her waterlogged stomach.

Long Hair dropped into a seat. “The cooler was pinched from an office in London. It’s clean for the moment.”

Eliza saw the look, which should have withered flesh, that the king gave him. Long Hair acted like he didn’t notice. For kidnappers they were being very civil. Their behavior was unsettling—almost like she was a guest and not a hostage. She forced a weak smile and sat at the only other set place. They all looked at her like she’d sprouted wings and a halo.

“Wrong seat?” She half stood. Maybe she wasn’t supposed to eat with them.

“It’s fine.” The king sliced the roast. He served her first, then the others in silence.

Eliza poked the meat with her fork. It didn’t change or try to run away. It lay there like a good roast should, yet she couldn’t bring herself to put some in her mouth. The memory of the foul water was still too fresh. She knew she would have to eat sooner or later or die, but for the moment she could survive without eating.

The men ate without conversation or enjoyment. Empty Eyes watched her. His pale eyes glazed in the candle light. She cut up some meat and moved it around the plate, feigning interest in her dinner. His eyes tracked the movement of her knife. She laid the cutlery down and his eyes followed. He didn’t want her here anymore than she wanted to be here.

She picked up the goblet, the gold rim was delicately carved in an endless knot, then she grasped the jug hoping for wine. Maybe if she got drunk again, she’d wake up at home. It held more water.

“Can’t you turn water into wine?”

“I’m a goblin. Not Jesus.” He held out his hand. A wine bottle formed out of the shadow in his palm. He set it on the table and ran his fingers around the neck. The cork plopped onto the table. “There you go.”

Eliza closed her mouth. She shouldn’t be shocked by his open display of the impossible. She poured the ten-year-old cabernet into her goblet but couldn’t drink the wine. It couldn’t be real. It had appeared out of nothing. No, not nothing, out of shadows. The Goblin King commanded the darkness she had always feared. She didn’t belong here with him.

Eliza looked at the king. “I want to go home.”

The words froze the room, even the candles held their breath, not daring to flicker as they waited for the king’s answer.

“No.” He spoke without glancing at her, his attention consumed by the food on his plate.

She pressed her lips together. He had no right to keep her here. “I command you to take me home.”

Long Hair winced.

The king put down his fork. Then his knife. His blue eyes held her still. “You command no one.”

“I have a life, a fiancé. I summoned
you
.” She stood, knocking the chair over. The floor seemed to move as if she’d drunk too much wine. She put her hand on the table. She was giddy like she’d stepped off an amusement ride or spun around too many times.

The king looked up at her and shook his head. Beads bounced around his biceps. “No, you didn’t. You wished yourself away. A wish I was happy to fulfill.”

What had she said?

Her mind raced in pointless circles as if it could avoid the truth. The answer was to awful to voice. The words were the same as she had used nine years ago. The wish that was supposed to help her escape had instead handed her to the Goblin King.

I wish the Goblin King would get me away from here.

The rock floor rippled beneath her feet. Eliza swayed and gripped the table more firmly. “What was so different this time?”

His eyes narrowed a fraction as he assessed her, his captive. The dry desert heat touched her skin and pushed deeper. A fireball in her belly. Last time she had been barely sixteen, wanting to grow up too fast. Now…now she was an adult. Her lips parted in a silent
oh
. Obviously he had some standards.

A small smile passed over his lips. “You got what you wanted.”

“This isn’t what I wanted.”

“No? It’s the second time you called to me with the exact same words. Yes, Eliza.” The king stood. “I remember.”

Eliza stepped back and nearly fell over the chair legs. “I wish to go home. I wish the Goblin King would take me home.” At home she knew what she was getting. She knew Steve and understood his unquenchable need for power and money. Once his drive had been attractive, but by the time it had become all-consuming it was too late. She was trapped in his fraud. Here nothing was as it was supposed to be.

The other two goblin-men looked at their king. He folded his arms in a stance that was both casual and threatening. His face was tight as if she’d wounded the creature.

“Looks like I’m done granting wishes.” The tight control that held him back seemed ready to snap. “How about you grant one of mine?”

The heat of lust in his summer blue eyes made her step backwards. Without taking her eyes off him Eliza inched away. One wrong move and she was the next item on the menu. A dessert fit for a king. Her heart pounded so loud it echoed in her ears. The king watched her retreat yet made no move to chase. She didn’t breathe until the wall of the tunnel hid her from view. But out of sight didn’t mean out of mind. She knew he would hunt her at his leisure and there would be no escape.

***

The druid’s summon filled the rock, resonating at a frequency only Roan could hear. Roan’s hand dropped to the hilt of his sword as he watched Eliza flee down the hallway. His fingers tightened, but he resisted the urge to follow her the same way he ignored the druid’s call to arms. Fighting the druid would take more of his soul than he was prepared to use. Chasing Eliza would not change the way she looked at him. Part fear, part uncertainty. He should never have taken her. What had he been thinking?

That he wanted her, and he’d been unable to help himself. But she wasn’t a gold coin to be collected. She was a woman. The young woman he’d met once had grown up and stopped believing in goblins. In him.

To her he was a creature to be feared. Maybe she was right. He should stop playing human and get on with dying or giving into the curse.

A tremor ran through the floor of the cave system. He ignored the vibrations shaking the rock and the way the Shadowlands magic pulled at his body as if to draw him outside piece by piece. At least here he wasn’t compelled to answer.

Dai spoke when the rock had finished grumbling. “You should’ve taken the opportunity.”

Their ancient language rolled lightly around the room. A language assumed dead, now spoken only by three damned men. It was because of his brother he still clung onto his soul like a drowning man to a piece of wood, hoping someone would throw him a lifeline.

“I didn’t want a cold meal.” Roan sat and ate without tasting to reinforce the point. He didn’t need to eat and they both knew he could’ve been to the Fixed Realm and back in less than a breath.

His brother was right, keeping Eliza here was wrong. But she’d asked, and he couldn’t bring himself to take her back. Not to the man who’d let her be taken. He knew darkness when it bled into the soul. That man was born with it lining his veins and thickening his blood. Protective custody.

Eliza was here for her own good.

“What are you proving by keeping her here?” The wine bottle danced as the table shook to the druid’s call. Dai lifted up the bottle before it could spill and poured himself a goblet. “Nice choice.”

Roan couldn’t tell Dai that he was so close to giving into the burn for gold that he would trade his soul for more. That with every breath he fought the curse, and that every time his drew on the power of the Shadowlands he paid with a piece of his soul. Sliding between realms on people’s nightmares was the one thing he could do without cost, and it kept him sane. Escaping to the Fixed Realm wasn’t a solution, but it was all he had to keep him going. If he faded, then Anfri and Dai faded with him. He couldn’t condemn them to an eternity of being soulless goblins.

“That I’m a nice goblin and a terrible human.” Fighting the lust for a woman was good. It meant he still had enough of a soul to want something other than gold. Keeping her was keeping him human.

Eliza was here for his good.

Dai sighed and flicked his gaze at Anfri. “A terrible human is still human.”

Anfri admired the sheen of candlelight on his gold knife. Mesmerized by the play of the flames, the gold reflected in his eyes. Was his skin duller? His finger joints more swollen? His ears a little longer?

Roan checked his own hands for signs of becoming goblin. They were all running out of time. Unable to find a cure for the curse, their only choices were now death or fading. He knew he would have to take Eliza home before he reached that point. He let a smile form. Until then he would enjoy her company.

Chapter 4

Eliza knelt on the floor of the cave that served as his bedroom. In front of her was the old cardboard box that she’d pulled out from under his bed. Roan watched as her fingers traced the letters scrawled in black marker on the flap. He curled his hand. His fingers had traced the same path, those same eight letters countless times.
Thank you
.

In nearly two thousand years only one person had ever thanked him for answering a summon. He’d defeated armies, killed princes, stolen treasure, yet his greatest achievement had been breaking up a teenager’s out-of-control party and saving Eliza from unwanted attention. In that night he had been more human than he’d been in five hundred years. It wasn’t the words of her wish that had drawn him, but the desperation in the young woman’s voice to do something. That girl, now grown, turned.

Eliza jumped up. “That night really happened.”

Roan looked at the box, the bedsheets pulled back and the open chest. Only his clothing in the drawers remained untouched by her hand. She’d been through his things, pawed through his personal belongings like a scavenger looking for scraps on a carcass.

“You always knew it happened. You never wanted to believe.” He kicked the box back under the bed. The two bronze torques inside clanged together with the hollow ring of his failure to save the men who’d worn them.

Roan slid his hand between the mattress and the headboard. He held up a sheathed, short, double-bladed sword. “This what you’re looking for?”

He tossed the sword to Eliza. Weapons were the first thing he’d looked for when he’d woken up in the Shadowlands.

She caught the sword and held it awkwardly. “I was hoping for a gun.”

He pressed his lips together to hide the smile. He doubted she could use either weapon, yet she was willing to fight him to get home. He’d been that desperate to escape once, taking on the druid, searching for cures that didn’t exist. Over the years resignation had taken hold. The only reason he fought on was because of his brother, but the death of each man made it harder to hold the gray at bay.

Roan tapped the Colt on his side. “Too bad.”

He drew the scabbard off the sword. The twin blades, separated by a finger width, were liquid in the candlelight. He couldn’t remember whose it had been. A summoner chancing his luck only to have it fail? Payment for murder and mayhem? Or treasure taken from a tomb?

Eliza gripped the sword. Her knuckles whitened as if grasping could control the blade. She lifted the point and aimed at his belly.

“Now what? You going to try to decorate my blade with my guts?” A slow death even for a goblin.

“You’re going to take me home.” Her voice didn’t waver. Her gaze didn’t lower.