The Goblin King (3 page)

Around her wrist was a plain gold bangle. On the bangle was a bead.

One amber bead.

Identical to the hundreds in his hair, the carved pattern was unmistakable.

If he’d had a beating heart, it would’ve stilled. He’d removed a bead only once and given it to the young woman who’d called on him for help. He glanced at the face of the woman beneath him. Her eyes gleamed golden-hazel. The same eyes that had gazed at him when he’d taken the girl to the Summerland so she could see him as a warrior and not a goblin.

Surely so many years couldn’t have passed?

Time had no correlation between the Shadowlands and the Fixed Realm, but still this woman couldn’t be the same girl. Eliza lay acquiescent beneath him, his hips hard against hers. No. It wasn’t possible. He’d warned her not to summon him again. There had to be another explanation.

His fingers gripped the bangle. He tried to tug it off, but it was tight, too small to work over her hand. As if it had been put on before she’d finished growing. Her eyes, his amber bead. Why did it have to be her? Of all the women in the world who could have summoned him, it was the one he knew he would be helpless to resist and powerless to release. After all these years she was finally his. Cold crawled through his veins, smothering the heat of lust.

“Where did you get this?” He forced calm into his voice, but he felt like a strand of wire pulled too tight, his control held by the flimsiest thread.

She pressed her lips together and refused to meet his gaze as if she was a queen refusing to entertain the pleas of a servant.

His grip tightened. White bloomed on her skin under his fingers. “Where?” He knew the answer. Wished he didn’t. He’d left it for her, a token to a child he shouldn’t have bothered to help.

“I was given it.” Her voice broke, but no tears glassed her eyes. She lifted her chin and met his gaze without blinking, her gold-flecked eyes glinting like polished stone.

“By who?” He shook her hand, holding the gold bangle, wishing he could tear it off and forget the child so he could enjoy the woman in his bed.

Her eyes flicked from his face to his shoulders and then back to meet his gaze. She shrank into the bed away from him. Her eyebrows drew together in puzzlement.

“It’s yours.” The words hung in the air. Her gaze darted around the cave masquerading as a bedroom. “Where am I?”

“Where you wanted to be.” He released the gold bangle, but he couldn’t pull away.

Eliza lay still, her breathing shallow, but she made no effort to escape. If she had, he may have let her leave the Shadowlands.

Her frown deepened and her eyes lost their focus. “I…I called…” She looked back at him as if seeing him for the first time and realizing who he was. “You’re him…but you don’t…don’t look like a goblin.” Her voice steadied as she tried to rationalize his existence.

“Looks are deceiving.” He should have recognized her straight away. Maybe if her eyes had been open, he would have…or maybe he would’ve been sucked in the golden gleam and taken her anyway. Eliza was no longer a child who didn’t know what she was asking. She was a woman who should know better.

“You’re the Goblin King.” Disbelief tainted her voice. She could have been calling him the tooth fairy.

Roan moved his hips against hers. “At your service.”

***

Eliza drew in a breath, and her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. She needed a drink. She needed to get him off her. She needed to keep the crazy man talking long enough to get away.

“Where did you get my bead?” The nutcase who thought he was the Goblin King lay over her, speaking through clenched teeth as if he was the one being inconvenienced.

Eliza had never told anyone about the night she’d called the Goblin King. Yet beaded-crazy-man knew, and she was just as crazy for wanting to believe in childish nonsense. Goblins. The indulgence of a terrified child. Yet her heart refused to believe her head.

There was something about this man, something just beyond her memory, trapped in a dream she’d never forgotten but couldn’t quite remember. Summer skies and the warrior who’d helped her. No matter how hard she’d tried to hold on to what he looked like, his image had faded so only the outline remained. Was this really the same man? Where was the smiling warrior who’d handed her the bead and fixed her torn top?

She twisted her wrist, trying to free her hand without success. Her body was expertly pinned down by a man who looked like a cross between a Special Forces operative and a rock star. Dreadlocks filled with gold and amber beads that glinted in the candlelight and rustled musically with each movement. The sound was so distinctive and so familiar—heard only once and then repeated ever after in her dreams—that she shivered.

The man who called himself the Goblin King waited for an answer.

Keep him talking, make a bond, and he’ll be less likely to kill me.

She swallowed and played along with his delusion, not wanting this man to be the kind warrior she could barely remember from a dream brought on by too much beer. Her mother had given warnings about being greedy and ending up like the man who’d longed for gold and been given a heart of gold instead. Cursed to be a goblin, he was compelled to answer other people’s wishes.

Nine years ago she’d tested the story and summoned the Goblin King.

Eliza stared into his eyes. Aching blue. How could she forget? “You gave it to me when I was a teenager.”

His face went blank. Her heart skipped, then raced. The unchecked lust was less terrifying than this new, unreadable expression. At least she’d known what he wanted. Now…

She let the words spill out before he could shut her up for good. “I called you, you broke up the party. Do you remember? You sent the boys running.” The lights had gone out and goblin howls had filled the house. For a few minutes she’d lived in a nightmare full of screams and darkness. She’d never told her brother it was she who’d called the monsters. She’d never told him why, or what his friend had done.

“You protected me. I put the leftover beer outside to thank you. Do you remember?”

She remembered him. The faded dream grew stronger and the features of the man who’d saved her nine years ago became the features of the man above her. The full lips, straight nose, and blue eyes that would always be hungry. This man was the Goblin King.

“You took me to the Summerland and gave me the bead.” He’d given her the bead to make sure she didn’t forget. Had he? “Do you remember?” She willed him to remember.

The man didn’t blink. His eyes burned into her soul as if he was searching for a lie that didn’t exist. She’d gone to the Summerland many times in her dreams as a teenager waiting to see if she’d see him again. Not sure if she’d dreamed him into existence, but too scared to directly summon him and find out.

Eliza sucked in a breath but couldn’t release it. Panic swelled until her chest hurt. “This is a dream.”

It had to be a dream, but he had never been in her dreams no matter how much she thought of him. If not for his bead, it would have been easier to think she’d imagined the whole thing. But he hadn’t allowed her that illusion. And she hadn’t been able to let go of the memory. Now the warrior she’d dreamed of was made flesh.

“Why did you call me?” he demanded.

She squeezed her eyes shut. Steve. The party. The woman. The suits. The wine. Oh God. She had called him. She had called the Goblin King.

Again.

“Why?” He released her hands but still caged her body. He was a prison made of flesh, and he demanded answers like a lawyer cross-examining a witness. “I warned you.”

She hadn’t thought of his warning at the time, but the words echoed through her mind now:
Next time I may not return you.

She looked up at the man she’d often thought of before life had gotten in the way and she’d given up on childish fantasies and fairy tales. His gaze was hot, the lust simmering behind the frown that scarred his brow.

“I wanted to escape.” It was the only answer she had. Living with Steve and his lies was like suffocating—it was only a matter of time until she died.

“Then you got your wish.” His mouth closed hard over hers, stealing the air from her lungs.

She pushed against him, fighting the kiss. The first time she’d called him, he’d protected her. That’s what she longed for—someone to make her feel safe, to care about her and listen to her. Not another man to use her for whatever he wanted. She hiccupped on a strangled sob. How could she have messed this up so much?

He jerked away as if her tears burned his skin. Freed, she lurched to her feet and ran. Ran because the memories couldn’t be real, ran because she wanted to wake up, ran not caring where she went. Her memories didn’t mesh with reality. Her warrior had been caring, where this man was harsh and dangerous. Eliza passed another man in black and gray camo. He reached for her and she twisted away.

“Let her go,” the king called out, his voice ringing down the rock halls.

She ran through candlelit tunnels. Her lungs ached, her head pounded, but then she saw the cave opening and ran faster. This was just another crazy dream, the dangerous imaginings of a desperate woman.

Fifteen feet beyond the cave Eliza stopped. He hadn’t brought her to the Summerland. This place was empty. There was no sun. No stars. No moon. Just a gray twilight that was both oppressive and endless. Twisted trees grew out of gray dust, their limbs a tangle of blackened fingers. An oily river snaked into the distance. She squinted. Did it move, or was that an illusion?

As she stood there staring at the bleak scenery, her feet and legs became heavy and cold, as if the ground was sucking the warmth from her body and making her muscles sluggish. She looked down. The gray dust that was the ground stained the white bandages on her feet. Someone had tended to her, yet she couldn’t remember hurting herself.

Eliza turned around. The entrance to the cave was nothing more than a crack in the face of a sheer cliff that rose with no end. There were no clouds to hide its harsh lines and no plants to soften the angles. Her beaded captor leaned against the rock, his arms folded, as impassive as the rock he had made his home.

“What is this place?” Her voice echoed in the empty world.

“The Shadowlands.” His voice didn’t echo. It dropped like a weight and was absorbed into the ground as if he were part of the strange landscape.

The Shadowlands.
The name should mean something to her. She shook her head, unable to find the thought.

“This is a dream.” It had to be. She would wake up with a hangover at home with Steve.

“No.” His lips turned into a smile that cut her to the bone. “A nightmare.”

Eliza’s breath slid from her body and threatened to never return. She did know this place. So alien, yet so familiar. Every nightmare she’d ever had was created here, sired by goblins. The screeching and yells that had broken up the party had haunted her sleep, but it was a nightmare she’d thought she’d grown out of, the same way she’d put aside her dreams.

She glanced at the Goblin King. The first time she’d called him, someone had died. Her brother’s friend Ben, the boy she’d been so desperate to escape, had fled the party in fright. He ended up wrapping his car around a tree on the way home. Whether it was the Goblin King directly, booze, or just reckless driving, she couldn’t help feeling that her wish had caused his death.

Without sound or warning, the dust beneath her feet bubbled and swelled and grew. Eliza stumbled backward. Out of the blister burst Ben.

“You killed me,” Ben accused.

Eliza stepped back again. “This isn’t real.” Yet he looked real. The same as he had on the night of the party—leering and drunk. “None of this is real. It’s a nightmare.”

All she had to do was wake up and all of this would be gone…including the Goblin King. She’d forgotten about him once before. Could she do it again?

She glanced at the warrior leaning against the rock. The memory of his touch lingered on her skin, cool and firm.

Ben moved closer as if he was stalking her once again.

Eliza covered her mouth and shook her head. No. No. No. Not possible. This was a nightmare created by the Shadowlands to torment her. To awaken the guilt she’d thought long buried over Ben’s death.

“It was a car accident. It wasn’t my fault.” She’d never believed those words before, even though she’d wanted to. The old guilt hadn’t gone. It had grown stronger with time.

Ben reached out, almost close enough to touch her. His hands ready to paw at her the way he once had.

She forced out a breath and tried to be calm. None of this existed. It was just a nightmare more vivid than any other she’d ever had. But not real. Ben’s chant closed in around her.

“You called. He came. He killed. For you.” Ben pointed at her, his eyes lit with malice.

Had the Goblin King killed for her, to keep her safe? Or had it been for payment? It was a question she’d never gotten the chance to ask. One she wasn’t sure she wanted to have answered.

Eliza pinched her arm, twisting the skin into a bleached white peak. She didn’t wake.

Two other men joined the watching warrior as Ben drew closer, circling, closing in. There was nowhere for her to go…except back into the rock spire and the embrace of the Goblin King.