The Goblin King (13 page)

Stunned silence followed as if she’d asked for a blood sacrifice.

“Steven is allergic to seafood.” Donna spoke slowly as if Eliza didn’t know her own fiancé.

“I know, but he can eat the vegetarian option.” The boat started to sink. He would never eat the vegetarian option. Steve was a
real
man.

“He was very specific in his instructions, Ms. Coulter.”

Eliza stood up. “Well I’m being specific in mine. Who do you think is paying your fee?”

“Vegetarian and prawns. Anything else, Ms. Coulter?”

“That’s all. Thank you, Donna.” Eliza ended the call. Adrenaline tightened her skin. She shivered. Temporary insanity. Maybe she’d banged her head harder than the doctors thought.

The alarm went off and a rock song punched through the room. She let it play as she went into the bathroom to see the damage done by the dye.

***

Steven watched the cab pull up. A woman with shoulder-length, light auburn hair got out, her arms laden with shopping bags. He clenched his teeth not wanting her to turn and prove him right. She closed the cab door and he saw her face. Eliza.

His fingers curled. How could she do this to him? How would the wedding photos look? He’d have a brassy bawd on his arm at the biggest wedding in town.

Steven unlocked the front door and let Eliza in. She smiled with her lips pressed tight. He leaned in to kiss her, but she turned her head so he caught her cheek. Anger buzzed inside him. Her defiance had gone on long enough.

He snatched her hand, so she was forced to face him. He saw the burst of fear in her eyes, quickly blanketed in calm. Her lips moved in a silent prayer.

“Been shopping, dear?”

“Got some clothes for the honeymoon.” She lifted her chin daring a challenge.

“You know you can’t shop alone.” The clothes Eliza liked lacked the styling and branding that reflected their place in society. At first he hadn’t cared, he’d thought she’d grow up and become smart and sophisticated like her mother. But that hadn’t happened.

“I managed.”

This new Eliza was rebelling, and he didn’t like it. Rebellion was dangerous, and he had too much riding on her compliance.

“What happened to your hair? You look like a cheap whore.”

A door slammed upstairs. The both glanced upwards.

Eliza tried to pull her hand away. “What did you want, an expensive one?”

He gripped tighter. “You can’t play me and win, Eliza.”

“I want more than being your blow-up wife.”

He laughed. “Is that where you went for three days? Got a lover? Found someone who says he loves you? Says he can help you?”

She gasped. The private detective may have found nothing, but that simple breath told him everything.

“When I find him, I’ll make sure he won’t want anything to do with you.”

The classical music that had filled the house fell silent. Around him the walls cracked and seemed to laugh. The noise from the neighbor’s wind chimes filtered into the house, even though all the windows were closed. The hair on his arms dug into Steven’s skin, needling his bones. He released Eliza.

She backed away, heading for the stairs, her eyes on him. “I’m sleeping in the guest room.” She retreated upstairs with her head held high.

Steven let her go. He knew when to choose his battles. And soon enough he would have the perfect family.

Mozart came back on, but a brittle chill had settled over the house. Eliza was slipping through his fingers and the tighter he grasped the less he held. His threats were no longer working. He straightened his tie. The PI was going to have to dig harder. Whoever this person was, giving Eliza hope, he could be paid off. Everyone had a price.

***

Eliza closed the bedroom door with a thump that rattled the windows. She turned the privacy lock and leaned against the door, waiting for Steve to follow. To argue. She held her breath as she listened. The lock could easily be opened from the other side. It offered only the illusion of security. Her pulse pounded in her ears and the burn in her lungs increased. Nothing. No footsteps followed her and the handle didn’t turn. Eliza let out the breath and glanced around the room. The shadows swelled and sighed. She wasn’t alone.

“Roan? Are you here?” She hadn’t called him. Was he watching over her?

His presence was the faintest brush against her skin. He was in the aching darkness she couldn’t touch.

“Why won’t you speak to me? Why can’t I see you?” Her breathing rubbed over the silence, scratching away the surface until it was raw.

She swallowed and sniffed. “You keep sending me away. Now you follow me. What do you want from me?”

The shadows growled and grew, expanding to consume the room. Eliza put her hand on the light switch to fight the darkness that had terrified her as a child. The bulbs blew before she could turn them on. She flattened her back to the door. Her hair lifted as the jangle of beads swept past her. She turned her head to follow the noise, then the darkness was gone.

Pale sunset splashed on the floral quilt. In the middle of the bed was a piece of paper. Eliza walked over and picked up the thick, cream paper edged in gold, never-ending Celtic knots. The invitation looked like wedding stationary. On the paper were three words in elegant gold scrawl.

Be my queen.

She dropped the paper but never saw it hit the floor. It vanished, taken by the shadow cast by the bed.

“I can’t.” The words were almost silent. She couldn’t live in the perpetual nightmare of the Shadowlands as queen. Yet she couldn’t live without seeing Roan. To see Roan she had to sleep.

She dressed with care, one ear listening for Steve, but her mind was already on Roan and the way he’d smiled at her in the sunlight. The beads in his hair shining. It was hard to believe he was a goblin with a heart of gold when he looked so human. Her lips curved as she settled into the guest bed. When she blinked, she opened her eyes in the Summerland.

The grass was an ocean of green, banked by trees. Exactly the same as last time, as every time she’d waited for him as a teenager. Try as she might Eliza couldn’t change the setting. Above her clouds hovered in the distance, like a bruise on the blue dream sky.

Roan appeared in front of her. Arms crossed. The grass cringed away from his touch.

“I didn’t think you’d come.” She smiled but didn’t get one back.

“I have to answer
all
summons. Even dream ones now.”

The bitterness in his voice held her in place. “I’m not summoning you. I’m just thinking of you.” Dreaming of him…except he was really here. “If this is just a dream, why can’t I change where we are?”

“This is the Summerland. Dreams start here—they don’t stay here.” Roan caught the end of a dreadlock and worked it through his fingers with his arms still folded. “Most people don’t know of this place. They pass through and move on to the dream.”

“But you know of it.” The white sundress swished around her knees. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, but the shorter hairstyle refused to be tamed and it flicked free again.

“Dreams and nightmares can’t exist without each other but can’t exist together. I shouldn’t be here.” He tossed the beads to his back in a melody that was all Roan’s. “You shouldn’t be here, waiting for me.”

Eliza stepped toward him, unable to resist. “But I want you here in my dream.”

“You have to stop calling me.” He watched with eyes bluer than the sky but less forgiving. The dry aching heat sucked at her soul.

Her tongue moistened her lip. “I call because you watch.”

His mouth quirked up on one side. “I watch because you call.”

“I needed to see you. To talk to you.” She felt like was seventeen again with her first boyfriend. No boyfriend had ever been able to match up to the man she’d imagined the Goblin King to be. “How about a picnic? Stay awhile with me.” A red and white checked rug and wicker basket appeared on the grass at their feet as soon as she’d thought it.

Roan looked at the spread of food, and then at Eliza. He shook his head yet sat. She sat next to him. Her pale legs stretched out next to his black-clad and booted ones as if they were enjoying a summer picnic. Next to him she felt safer than she had in a long time.

“I’m here as you desired. What did you want to talk about?” He leaned back in a pose that on another man would have passed for relaxation.

Her smile faltered. He was playing along for her, not because he wanted to. “I don’t mean to command you.”

“No?” He lifted an eyebrow. “Then what is it you want from me?”

She glanced at him under her lashes. What did she want? A friend? A protector? Her cheeks warmed under the sun. A lover? “I…I don’t know.”

Roan kissed her. His lips moved gently over her mouth. She yielded to his questing tongue and let herself be lowered to the picnic rug.

“You cut your hair.” He nuzzled against her neck.

“I wanted a change,” she said too fast, defending herself from the coming attack.

“And changed the color.” His hand traced around the neckline of her dress. “It suits you.”

He soothed her surprise with a kiss. Her nipple peaked as his fingers circled her breast. The dress gave her no protection, but with Roan she didn’t need any. Her back arched, pressing her body closer.

“You’re not wearing underwear.” His hand stilled and the cool of his palm seeped through the thin fabric. The sun haloed his head with dazzling pure light.

And Eliza knew why she’d called him, why she had to see him. The need for Roan burned in every cell of her body, cold and bright. “I want you.”

She’d wanted him for years.

He closed his eyes and groaned as if she’d stabbed him. “Then be my queen.”

Eliza cupped his face. “I don’t want to be queen in the Shadowlands. I just want you.”

Roan gazed at her for an eternity before moving. He shifted to lie over her, his weight stealing her breath. The kiss that followed was rough and hard like a warrior taking no prisoners. Eliza surrendered to his touch. Then the world turned black, became airless, and spun.

She gasped and found herself on the spare bed in her house. The room glowed yellow with an unnatural light that left no shadows to hide the goblin that knelt over her, trapping her hands. Her eyes widened but her voice was lost, left in the dream. She couldn’t scream as the nightmare became real and seized control.

Round, yellow cat’s eyes glowed from gray skin stretched tight over his skull. In contrast, his lips were wide and fleshy. Long, pointed ears that curled over at the top were almost hidden by his hair—the only part of him she recognized. The beaded dreadlocks could only be Roan’s.

The goblin didn’t move. “Is this what you want?” His voice rasped like a file over rust-riddled iron. “Is this what you want to see every time you summon me?” He released her hand. His knotted fingers traced her cheek. As a man the gesture had been kind, now his hand only promised cruelty.

A tremor started deep in her body, rattling the breath in her lungs. The scent of leaves left to wither on the forest floor filled the room.

He placed his lips on her cheek and whispered in her ear. “Is this what you want to lie with? Do you want these hands on your skin?”

She didn’t fight and didn’t push him away. Her limbs wouldn’t move. This wasn’t the man she knew. “This isn’t you.”

“This
is
what I am. I am the Goblin King.” Despair and anger swept the room. “Not a forgotten warrior, not a dream-lover, not a man.” He stared down at her, stripping her emotions bare, laying open every fear for him to see. “Without you as my queen this is what I become. Forever. I want to keep my soul, Eliza.”

She gasped, understanding why he’d brought her back. Not because he didn’t want her, but because he wanted her so much it would cost him his soul. The realization made her dizzy.

“You’re a man. I’ve seen you.” The words tore her throat.

“Not in the Fixed Realm.” His voice lowered. “Not in your world.”

He was truly a goblin. The man she’d seen was nothing but a mask worn in the Shadowlands to lure her into being his queen. An eternity as the goblin’s bride, warming his bed.

“No.” Tears burned her eyes. She shook her head as if she could remove the sight of the goblin. Like denial could make the horror go away.

He released her and stood at the foot of the bed. “Think hard before calling me again. Next time there will be no choice. I will take the summons as your acceptance. You will be mine.” The shadows coalesced around the Goblin King. “Marry your fiancé, Eliza. At least he is human.”

Chapter 8

The dust beneath his feet surged and writhed as if a million ants sought their way to the surface. Shadowlands magic flowed through him dark, slick, tempting. An ice-cold oblivion from the constant fight to remain human.

Was it worth the fight?

Was being human really so grand?

He had the power of every fear ever thought at his fingertips. He could control nightmares. He could make them reality, so every moment became a delicate hell that would never end. But it had only taken one look at his face to reduce Eliza to tears and to ensure that he would never again be included in her dreams.