The Goblin King (9 page)

“Don’t feel sorry for me.” He had more than enough to go around. The battle fell back into the ground, no more than a memory dusted off for a special occasion.

“You had to kill one of your own.”

Roan stood and spun in one move. “I’ve turned so goblin that I’m not sad about Anfri. I’m running out of time.” He snatched up his sword, sheathed it with a snap. Anfri’s death was a reminder of how close he was to the end. He’d lost a friend to a curse none of them should have worn.

“That’s not true. I saw—”

“You don’t know what you saw. If I’d have looked at the gold and not you, I would have lost my soul. Do you understand? Without a soul I become Hoard.” He stepped forward intending to scare her off, send her fleeing back to the dubious safety of the cave, but she stood her ground. “I become like the ones I just killed.”

“You kept your vow to Anfri. That took courage.” She took his hand in hers offering support. “You don’t have to fight alone.”

Roan looked down at their hands. She’d touched him, willingly. Her thumb rubbed against his palm. The contact sparked the tightly packed lust. It caught like tinder and spread, filling his chest, warming the gold of his heart. For the first time in centuries he was warm.

The gold in her eyes softened as if she could see past the curse and understand his pain. He let himself respond. His mouth touched hers in thanks. Chaste. He intended no harm and would take no more than she offered. He would take her back before he faded. She was only on loan from the Fixed Realm.

Then she kissed him as a woman kisses a man. Her tongue glided over his lip as her body moved against his. The warmth became heat that surged, tearing through his body. His hand lifted to cup her face. He pulled Eliza to him, and her body melded to his. Her lips parted, allowing him the taste of humanity he’d been denied for too long and he couldn’t resist.

Rain fell from the smoke-filled sky. Fat acid drops burned his skin. The shadows rose at his command, wrapping around them to move them to safety. He had barely thought the location and then they were there. His chamber.

His fingers raked through her hair, tangling the pale, silken strands. Her dress was fisted in his hand. He needed to feel every inch of her. To remember every curve of her body and the way she rolled her hips as he cupped her butt.

Her arms wrapped around his neck as he lifted her and took her to his bed. He laid her down and rested over her. His hips cradled by hers. The ache in his chest was dwarfed by the heat surging in his blood. She brushed her lips against his, seeking him out. Where her fingers traced up his arms and over his shoulders, lines of fire followed. He shivered, anticipating the next touch. Her fingers crept under his shirt. Flesh seeking flesh.

She paused, her hands stilled on his skin, her gaze locked with his. “I shouldn’t be doing this. I’m engaged.”

“You’re with me. My queen.” He moved to kiss her again, hungry for something he hadn’t felt in too long surging inside him. He wanted Eliza more than he’d ever wanted any piece of gold.

Her hands didn’t move, preventing him from closing the gap. She shook her head. “No.”

“No?” Eliza wasn’t agreeing to be his. He could kiss her, embrace her, but never truly have her. She would always be yearning to be somewhere else.

Roan realized what he was doing. He’d taken a woman from the Fixed Realm, already claimed her as his to his men—and was willing to fight them for her—the only thing he hadn’t done was have her. Her fingers remained on his skin, but all he felt was the claws of the curse digging deeper as he became more goblin. And he was more than tempted to surrender his soul for a moment in her arms.

Lying with her would only hasten his fading and he didn’t want to steal a queen who would take his soul when he claimed her. He needed a queen who would ground him and help him fight. Eliza wasn’t that woman. Lust had blinded him to the reality he didn’t want to see. She was temptation—not salvation.

And always had been. He’d wanted to possess her from the moment she gazed at him with awe in the Summerland. A pretty trap, different but no less damaging than the need for gold that filled his heart. But the knowledge did nothing to dampen the raw lust that threatened to incinerate everything but the metal lodged in his chest.

She gazed up at him, her eyes darkened with desire. “You haven’t even told me your name. I won’t call you king.”

He eased away, his teeth clenched, fighting for control. He wanted her and like a greedy goblin he’d do anything, give up everything, to have her. He’d made a mistake in bringing her here. The same mistake he’d made years ago by taking her to the Summerland. He couldn’t help himself around Eliza.

“Roan,” he said as he called the shadows to take her home. At least she would know his name this time. “If you were mine, you would call me Roan.”

The world lurched as he landed on his feet. He released Eliza and melted into the night before she could realize what he’d done. The imprint of her body against his still warmed his skin.

The need to grasp her and take her back to the Shadowlands gouged his metal heart.

She couldn’t see him like this. Gray and twisted. Goblin.

Eliza turned. “Roan?” She spun the other way, and then placed her hand on the tree for support. “Roan!”

He bit his tongue so it wouldn’t betray him and answer. When it came to Eliza, he couldn’t be trusted. He would convince himself she was willing, that she wanted to be there, until it was too late for both of them. He looked up at the stars. So few now shone, dimmed by the city lights. He was doing the right thing. She belonged here in the Fixed Realm with the living.

He should never have taken her. The urge to possess her rattled in every unsatisfied fiber of his being. Eliza had replaced the lust for gold. Both were fatal to his soul.

Her breath caught like she was about to cry. One hand covered her heart as if it were breaking.

Roan hung his head unable to feel her pain, but wishing he could share it. He could remove the ache in her heart if he took her back and replaced it with something worse. The lack of hope. He fisted his gray hand. He wouldn’t do that to the woman who’d once seen him as he’d been. A warrior, not a goblin. A man worth dreaming about. He doubted she’d dream of him now.

“Are you all right, ma’am?” A man in uniform, police, swung his flashlight over her.

She sniffed, then nodded and blinked as if noticing her surroundings. He’d brought her home, to where she would be safe. Back to the fiancé. Roan shook his head. Stealing another man’s promised. Eliza brought out the worst in him and raised the goblin to new, dangerous lows.

“That’s my house.” She pointed to the house surrounded by yellow crime scene tape. A police van was parked out front.

Time had passed in her absence. Roan wasn’t sure how long, minutes, weeks, years. To him it was all the same. He waited, not feeling the cold of the night settle on his gray flesh. Eliza would forget him, and once again he would become little more than a nightmare brushed aside like a cobweb in the daylight.

“And you would be?” the policeman asked.

“Eliza Coulter.”

Eliza Coulter.
Roan let her name form on his lips. He had never forgotten the child who had reminded him to be human. He wouldn’t forget the woman who had reminded him what it was to be a man, if only for a moment. Maybe he would’ve been a better man if he hadn’t been king.

Chapter 6

Eliza eased back on the flat pillow. The bed was too firm, designed to throw the hospital’s patients out sooner, rather than later. Her body refused to rest. Her eyes darted to every shadow, searching for a movement that didn’t belong or a darkness that couldn’t be explained. She could bring him here, but the words wouldn’t form on her tongue to breathe the nightmare into life.

She’d lied to police. Claimed she had no recollection of where she’d been for three days. They’d scraped under her nails, taken her clothes, taken blood, taken photos. There was no glass in her feet. The cuts on the soles were too well healed for only three days’ absence. But she hadn’t spent even one day with Roan.

Already her memories of him were fraying around the edges. Each time she tried to find a detail it became harder to grab the thread. She closed her eyes. Her skin remembered his touch, cool skin, palms roughened from the sword. The way his lips crushed hers and the way his body pressed hard against hers.

She bit her lip. In those few minutes she’d been more alive than she’d been in years. Since Steve had put the ring on her finger. She gritted her teeth and tried to force sleep, staring up at the ceiling, knowing that the real nightmare would begin soon. Her stomach became heavy and her first meal in three days sat like a sunken ship, listing with the currents but going nowhere. Steve would visit and make sure she paid for every inconvenience her absence had caused. No one could save her from the trap he had made. After all, she’d filed the paperwork and she’d signed off on his embezzlement, not that she’d known it at the time. If she didn’t go through with the wedding, Steve would make sure she went to jail.

With Roan she had tasted freedom, and the edge of excitement, sharper than a sword, had pierced her heart. She wanted to feel it again—kiss Roan again.

Her eyes flicked open, her body rigid with fear. What if he’d become goblin? Would kissing turn him goblin? Wasn’t a kiss supposed to break the curse? Or was that a lie created by fairy tales because they’d kissed and nothing had changed? Her mouth opened to call for him so she could make sure he was okay. She stopped, the words caught in her throat. She hadn’t abandoned him. He had thrown her out of his world, out of the Shadowlands.

A lucky escape that felt more like a farewell to a friend and an ache that wouldn’t dull as time passed. She shouldn’t care. Roan was a heartless goblin, a monster who wore the skin of a man when it suited him. So how did he burn with such intensity that she couldn’t touch him without catching alight?

It had been so easy to get swept up and believe he was more than goblin. To her he’d always been more than goblin. He’d been the warrior who’d saved her. And for a moment she’d thought she could return the favor and set him free. She touched her lips. She was a fool. He didn’t want her. He wanted a queen.

He’d returned her, and she should be grateful she had escaped unscathed. But the fate of the Goblin King consumed her thoughts. A breeze lifted her hair, when none should stir in the sterile room. Eliza sat up. Were the shadows a little darker in one corner? She squinted, sure something or someone moved.

“Roan?”

The sound of tinkling beads echoed through the room. Then the darkness lifted, leaving her alone with her heart, longing for the shadows.

***

Light and color blurred with more hues than Roan remembered the world ever having. He put his boots up on the seat in front of him. The theater in Mumbai was almost empty. The few patrons he shared with stayed clear of the back row of seats without knowing why. To them the dark was best avoided.

The actors broke into song. Love and duty. Should the girl marry the man her father approved of, or take the chance and run away with her true love? That question was older than Roan and would never be answered in a ninety-minute film. The characters danced around. The women’s brilliant saris bled across the screen. Their gold jewelry was usually an untouchable torture that didn’t bother him today.

Today, Bollywood didn’t fill the gap left by his departing humanity. It rubbed salt on the wound and then washed it clear with bitter wine. He couldn’t find enjoyment in others’ happiness. In laughter, or song, or light. He wanted to be happy. He’d never just lived. He’d been raised to be king from his first breath. With his father’s untimely death, he had stepped up as expected. He was killing before kids these days could drive. King before they could vote. Cursed before they could drink. His twenty-first celebrated in goblin blood.

Roan chewed on the heavily buttered popcorn. It didn’t matter, none of it did. His life was ancient history that no one knew or cared about. The world had all but forgotten his tribe. Mercifully, most of them had forgotten about goblins too. The summons and commands died out as the centuries slid past in a blood-edged, golden blur.

He sunk farther into the seat. He should’ve stayed in Texas and watched the shoot’em-up-cop-chase film. But in life, good never won. Evil was rewarded. Honor vanquished. Movies lied. Joyous chatter erupted as the young woman picked her suitor and made wedding plans. Popcorn stuck to his tongue like tasteless balls of polystyrene. The blackness that clung to him wasn’t just the normal dusting of shadows that eased his transition between realms as he slid through people’s nightmares.

Eliza was getting married. To Steve. He shouldn’t have given a damn. She should’ve been his. His queen. If he closed his eyes, he could feel her presence like a hint of summer. A warmth he could almost touch. Her light followed him across the world not lessened by distance, as if she called to him with a constant beckon he couldn’t be free of. And one he wanted to answer. It was still night where she lived. He could watch her sleep. Watch her dream. Watch her wake to the face of a monster leaning over her bed.

Soul be damned.

Roan crushed the popcorn container. Exploded kernels rained onto the floor. It was easier to crave gold than a woman. Both would ruin him. But gold he could have. Gold would never leave. Gold didn’t care whether he looked goblin or man. Eliza did. He could never be the man she wanted, and she would never be the queen he needed.