The Goblin King (6 page)

Roan’s jaw tightened. The child who had once thanked him now wanted to command him like a slave. Like every other summoner. But she was different. Eliza tested his humanity. While the goblin in him wanted to possess her, the man desired her. The child she’d once been was still there, full of fight she didn’t know how to direct effectively. But in the woman it lit her eyes with a fire that gold couldn’t match. She might have stopped dreaming of him, but he hadn’t stopped thinking of her and wondering what had happened to her—the girl who’d treated him like a person and not a monster.

Now he knew. And he wanted her to look at him like that again. To see him as the man he once was and not the Goblin King. Wanting Eliza was all that kept him from fading and becoming a Hoard goblin, one of the many tribes of true goblins that roamed the Shadowlands. He couldn’t fail. He would win Eliza. She would be his.

“No, I’m not.”

She pointed the sword at his heart.

He tapped the point down. “My heart was replaced with gold long ago.” Driving the sword into his chest would have no effect. It had been tried. Gold didn’t bleed.

The twin blades wavered. “How do you live without a heart?”

The golden flecks in her hazel eyes gleamed, drawing him closer. Roan ran his finger along one lethal edge.

“Shadowlands magic,” he whispered as he stepped behind her.

Eliza straightened her back, stiffening at his nearness. She grew by all of a hairbreadth. He pried her fingers from the hilt and adjusted her grip, his hands over hers. Her perfume had worn away, but her skin remained sweet and uncontaminated by the Shadowlands. He couldn’t help but breathe in her scent as he swung the sword, carving the infinity symbol into the air.

“Be one with the sword.”

His hips moved against hers, until gradually her muscles loosened and her arms became fluid. They moved as one. Her hair rubbed against his cheek and her body melded to his. If all he had to do was this for eternity, he would be happy. There were worse fates than the subtle torture of a woman’s body. Without the sword they could almost be lovers.

The ice-burn of the metal in his chest spread its fingers. Cold tendrils crawled through his blood. She was already his, she was here, and he could take her. Even this he couldn’t enjoy without destroying the moment and seeking to own it forever.

Roan spun away to face her. “Never take your eyes off an opponent.” He growled. He should walk away, but he had to have her. His need for Eliza was like his lust for gold. Undeniable.

She raised the points to his neck. “Take me home.”

“This is your home.”

Her face creased and she shook her head.

“I want a queen.” The goblin in him spoke; the words coming out before he could think them through. Only goblins stole queens. But the man he still pretended to be was intrigued by the woman who dared challenge a king with his own sword.

Roan looked at the woman wearing the black evening dress and waving the weapon. He’d taken her—the deal was halfway done. No goblin bride went willingly. Kidnap was the first date, the engagement, the foreplay. Eliza was bringing out the worst in him yet at the same time raising the human. Before her summon he’d been ready to surrender and die just to be free of the curse. Now, his fingers caressed the hilt of the sword hanging at his side. He wanted to fight until the curse turned his eyes yellow with greed.

Both her eyebrows lifted. “You’re holding me hostage. You don’t want a queen…you want a ransom. Gold.”

He laughed, deep under his breath. “A good idea, but then I’d have to give you back.”

At this moment, gold wasn’t close to what he wanted. He had more gold than he could spend if he lived forever. Goblins didn’t live forever and they never spent their gold.

Still the unavoidable lust for more made him ask. “Besides, who’d pay?”

Hope softened her gaze. “Steve. My fiancé.”

“Ah, yes. That charming man who banged on the door while
I
granted your wish.” Roan stepped closer so the tip of the blades were a whisper from his skin. “Tell me, what has
he
done for you?”

“You’re deranged. Take me home.” The blades shook as her arms began to tire.

Her elbows bent, granting him more breathing space.

“What’s in it for me? Here, you are mine.” He closed the gap.

She had the weapon, but he was gaining ground. The end of the sword skimmed the front of his black T-shirt as Eliza dropped the point to his groin. She’d noticed his interest.

“If you were going to take me, you would’ve done it by now.”

“Would I?” He pinched the tip of the sword, sidestepped, and pulled her closer. “Don’t you find the anticipation exciting?”

The moment right before the battle cry sounded, the air was always the clearest. Mind sharp. Nerves tight. Release only heartbeats away. Life could only be that raw when death was asking for a kiss.

They turned together in a dance as old as time and more lethal than the sword. Their gazes locked, neither willing to back down. Her tongue slid over her lip, but she remained silent. She hadn’t said no. That was almost a yes.

“Here you can have everything you ever dreamed of. Riches beyond your wildest dream. Rule beside me.” If she came willingly, it would ease his soul and he could enjoy being human for longer. If he forced her, he would become goblin. It would be a better fate to throw himself on the sword and end the magic that had bound his men and the druid for two millennia.

“Rule what? A desert built of nightmares. Population three?” Her head tilted as she mocked him.

He gritted his teeth. “You forget who you talk with, Eliza. There are others, Hoard goblins. True goblins who would flay your flesh for fun then dance to your screams while they all took turns.”

Her skin paled, but her voice still taunted. “What are you then?”

“We were human once. Once there were more. A curse placed us here.”

Her eyebrows raised in a move so small he almost missed it. Doubt? Confusion? What did she trust? If she were smart, not him.

“If I were queen, there is one thing you could never give me.”

Roan pulled her closer. The blade between them became sharper. The danger of walking the edge of attraction swept over his skin in a rush he hadn’t felt in too long. The slide of metal and scabbard. The battle had started. Eliza was considering his offer. The first kiss of conquest was within reach. He could give her anything she named.

He lowered his voice. “What else could you possibly want?”

“Love.” She smiled as she trapped him.

Roan snorted. He tugged on the sword, so she was forced to lift her chin to look at him. “Love? Do you love Steve?”

Her mouth opened, but no words followed. First blood claimed. He’d found the weakness in her armor, and he pressed the advantage home.

“Would you die for him? If you swear on your life that you love him, I will take you back to his arms now.”

***

The hilt of the sword clanged on the rock floor as Eliza dropped it. Her eyes were wide as her own words closed around her. She couldn’t lie to escape when the Goblin King saw the truth.

“You would marry a man you don’t love? You would be a wife but not a queen?” He flicked the sword up, tossing it into his palm.

Armed, the Goblin King went from dangerous to deadly. The sword was held lose in his hand, the point ready to strike, like the metal was an extension of his body or a missing limb now found. He’d probably been born with a blade in his hand and cut his way out of his mother’s womb.

“It’s not that simple.” Her words were nothing more than a dry whisper. How could she explain the ties that bound her Steve? An engagement could be broken…but blackmail and lies bound her more securely than love.

“It’s always that simple.” He snagged the scabbard off the floor with one of the twin points. “One warning. If you kill me, you kill my men.” He sheathed the sword and replaced it between the mattress and the headboard. He smiled and faced her. “Then you really will be stuck here forever.”

Eliza stepped back to let him pass. How long would she last before she gave in and became his queen to make for an easy life?

“Wait,” she called.

He stopped in the entrance but didn’t turn.

She softened the order. Ordering him had achieved nothing. “Please.”

The king turned. All that wild, barely contained fire was directed at her again. She stepped closer to the warmth, basking in the heat, while she searched for something to say that wouldn’t antagonize or open the unhealed wounds he thought he hid. She needed to know more about the man who’d helped her years ago, the Goblin King.

“How long have you been here?”

“One thousand nine hundred and fifty-one years.”

The response was so fast she thought he knew to the day. “Alone?”

This time he seemed to weigh his answer before speaking. “My men were cursed with me. But that’s not what you wanted to know, is it?”

Eliza bit her lip. She wasn’t sure what she was asking, or why she couldn’t let him walk away, only that around him she felt different, like she was awake for the first time in years. Like she could breathe. Like all her wishes had been answered, but she didn’t understand what do to.

“For the most part, yes, alone.”

No friends or family or lovers. He just existed. It made her life look full, complete, and it was unless you stood in the middle and heard the echo. For a time her memory of him had filled that gap and she hadn’t felt lonely, because she’d known he was only a wish away. Even though his warning had kept her from ever calling him, the knowledge had been a comfort.

She placed her hand over his chest where his heart should’ve been. She hoped something still hid there and that he would want more than the empty promise she had settled for with Steve. “You would take a queen who doesn’t love you. A queen you do not love?”

His fingers clasped hers and he slid her hand beneath his shirt. Her palm rested against his skin. No heartbeat under her touch. No murmur of life teased her fingers.

“You see? Nothing.” He crushed her hand against him. “I am incapable of loving anything but gold, my eternally unsatisfied mistress.”

Eliza tugged on her hand, but he held her there trapped against him. Warm hands, no heart.

How could this be the same man who’d helped her all those years ago? “Why me? Any woman could be your queen.” But she already knew the answer. She’d known him since she was a teenager. She’d seen the good he could do. She knew that despite his heart of gold he was capable of kindness…or had been. Now he was cold and selfish like a goblin should be.

“You make me remember what it was to be human. I would rather die than become Hoard.”

The king touched her face. His thumb brushed her cheek. Toe to toe, eye to eye, she held a hurricane by the hand. For a man with no heart, life ebbed around him in a constant swirl of energy that drew her in. She wanted to test the depth and strength of the current, but she knew once in she would never be able to step out.

She was more alive here than she had ever been at home. At home, Steve sucked the joy out of living. Here, each second she still breathed was precious.

“You will get used to life here. After a couple of hundred years maybe you will come to like me.” One finger traced her lip. “I need a queen. My mistress is a cold companion in bed.” He moved closer as if to kiss her.

Eliza turned her head breaking the spell. “So am I.”

“We’ll see.” He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her fingertips.

Her breath caught at the grace of the simple movement. A smile fluttered over her lips. She was getting charmed by the snake.

Warning bells sounded in her ears, ringing off the walls.

The king dropped her hand and reached for his sword and then his gun. The noise wasn’t bells. It was the clash of metal on metal ricocheting off the rock walls. He turned from her and went towards the fight. She started to follow him down the tunnel, but he waved her back.

She hesitated, unsure if she should obey or ignore him. Was he an enemy or just a desperate man, hoping she was his last chance at breaking the curse? Either way, if anything happened to him, she was in serious trouble. Right now he was her best shot at getting home. And at least he didn’t seem like he was going to hurt her. The Hoard goblins, on the other hand, would. She went after him. As she drew nearer she heard each scrape of metal, the grunts of the men fighting, and the high-pitched, inhumane hiss of something else. The sound slithered through her body and coiled around her heart.

As if she were in a bad horror movie, she went on, knowing it would be wiser to run back to the bedroom and hide under the bed. The tunnel began to glow with a brilliant yellow sheen and she glimpsed the king disappearing into a cavern. Eliza cautiously peeked around the corner.

Gold.

A cavern big enough to fit a hotel in was piled with gold from pale to red to yellow. The room shone like a sun had crashed in the center of a mountain to give light to the creatures that hid in the shadows. Eliza squinted. The floor appeared to be tiled with coins. One wall was covered in carved amber panels. They were the only break in the endless gleam of gold. The king was bathed in the glow, and for a moment he stopped, as if transfixed by the sight of so much wealth in one location.