The Goblin King

by Shona Husk

  Beads chimed in the breeze. Music she would never hear again. She turned to face him. Roan swept her up into his arms.

  “I wasn’t sure…” She kissed him. He felt real, cool against her skin, his muscles hard beneath his clothing. This time he wore no armor, just the sword and gun. He had no life left to protect.

  “I wouldn’t go without saying good-bye.” Roan set her feet down.

  Eliza stepped back still holding his hands. She raised one brow. “Is that all this is?”

  Roan smiled. “I didn’t come all this way for words.” He tugged her close. “Unless pretty words is all you want?”

  Her tongue moistened over her lip. “I want you. I’ve always wanted you.”

  The heat in his eyes burned all the way to her core. Her heart burst into flames. She would never be the same again. No other man could fill the gap that Roan would leave or fix the damage left by his passing. She tugged on his hair and caught his mouth, but he was ready. Fueling the spark.

  Their lips touched and opened. A hungry, harsh, and desperate kiss that wounded. Neither could let go. His hands gripped her bottom, pressing her close. She moved against the hard length of his shaft. Like sunburn from the inside out, every touch was too much, but too little. Roan made her burn, and only he could cool her down.

  “I’ve waited all my life to find you.” His forehead rested on hers. Kisses landed on her lips, stealing tastes.

  The fabric of her dress bunched in his hand. His cool fingers skimmed across her bottom. “You’re not wearing underwear.”

  “And you are overdressed.” Eliza pulled at his T-shirt.

  He released her just long enough to slip out of his clothing and drop his weapons on the ground. She palmed the smooth planes of his chest. The scars were a part of the cloth that made Roan who he was. She kissed the one over his heart, knowing she would never hear it beat. His heart would never race as they made love. Would never allow anything but the love of gold inside. He took her down into the grass. It bent, a soft green mattress cradling her body.

  Rain splashed on her skin, warm summer rain, not the acid of the Shadowlands. Roan glanced at the sky. Clouds had gathered in honor of the occasion, blocking out the sun. The last fling of the Goblin King was cast in shadows.

  “The land is changing.” Roan placed his hands by her shoulders.

  Beneath him she was dry. But the grass turned brown and wilted from his touch until she lay on bare dirt. “I don’t care where we are.”

  Water dripped from the end of his hair onto her face. He kissed it away, tasting the water that fell on her skin. He rocked back onto his heels and turned his face to the rain. His lips curved. When he looked back at her, it became a grin. She glanced down and saw why. The sodden dress clung to her skin, revealing more than it hid.

  His fingers traced the shape of her breast, circled the pink peak pressing against the fabric. She held her breath and waited as he undid the buttons down the front. His skin glistened in the rain. Raw and powerful. A Celtic god made mortal. Lightning streaked across the sky chased by an unseen, growling monster.

  Roan lowered his head to the newly exposed skin. His tongue lapped the water from her nipple. Her fingers threaded into his hair and became lost among the dreadlocks and beads. She tipped her head back, arching toward him. Her body tight, charged, and ready burst. His hand glided up her thigh, over her hip, lifting her.

  She worked her hands free. There was too much between them. She needed to feel his skin on her, in her. The button and zip of his camo separated between her fingers. He groaned as her knuckles brushed his shaft. So she did it again. The barest touch made him shudder. A king on his knees, between her legs, asking for more.

  They fought over his pants, shoving them away, smearing rain-slicked skin with the gray dust that had taken the place of the grass. Roan lowered his hips. She held him close, taking him into her core. The heat in his eyes warred with something else. Seeing pain and loss drawn so clearly in eyes that had always been sunny brought back the reality. Reality had no place here, this was dream. Their dream.

  Wrapped tight in Eliza’s arms, her hips moving in perfect rhythm with his, Roan tried to remember the moment when his heart would race like it would break. Searching for that perfect moment to be free. But he had been too numb for too long, with only gold fueling his desire, that he couldn’t fake being human.

  For Eliza he tried, kissing her as if he could feel desire urging his heart faster, racing the rain that beat on his back. She responded, nipping at his lip, gasping as her sex tightened around his cock. His body wasn’t immune. But he didn’t want it to be over. Because once Eliza left him there would be nothing left of him. He nuzzled into her neck. She squirmed, but he held her still, drawing out every thrust into something he could carry with him, if not in his heart, then wrapped around the withered, gold-plated muscle.

  The darkness in him retreated, backed into a corner by the bright star that now took up most of his horizon. It scorched and blinded. Knowing the familiar, cold black was behind him waiting for him to step over the edge and into the abyss was all that made him stand his ground from the new invader.

  Eliza’s nails dug into his back. He buried himself in her. She came again, taking everything from him. And he let her. Everything he had, or was, was hers and had been since he’d first seen her all those years ago. Even then she’d kept him human. Behind him the abyss screamed as it faced the light, and he saw the bone-riddled edges. The remains of those who’d jumped. It chomped at his heels, the maw of the curse that wouldn’t let him rest.

  But he rested over her. Their breath mingled as one.

  Her hand cupped his cheek. “I love you.” She blinked too fast and forced a smile. Her finger lay over his lips. “I know…you can’t.”

  His hands dug into the dirt. He wanted to respond, but he couldn’t lie to her. Roan kissed her finger. “I want you more than gold. I would trade it all if I could love you for just one breath.”

  Beneath his hand something stirred, tickled his palm. He lifted his hand, and Eliza turned her head. Pink flowers broke through the dead grass and gray dirt. The ones he had tried to create for her now grew without effort. He plucked one out of the ground and tucked it behind her ear. The petals were the same shade of pink as her mouth. Their lips barely touched in a kiss more delicate than the strange magic at work around them.

  “They were here last time.” She snapped a stem and pushed it through one of his beads.

  “You had them in your hair last night.” In his hair the flower wilted and died.

  “They only grow where you touch.”

  He pulled back. She moaned as he left her body. He stood and pulled up his camo. Eliza was right. Any place he had touched was now filled with pink flowers. Flowers that died when he touched them, even though he’d created them. Around them the world was colored but bleached, as if the rain had stripped away the bright shades of the Summerland and left the land confused. Was it a nightmare or a dream?

  “Look behind you.” Eliza sat up.

  A ghost of a rainbow colored the gray sky. Roan frowned. None of this right. The icy magic of the Shadowlands still flowed in his blood. The heat of the Summerland ran just beneath the ground but too fast and too hot for him to touch. All magic would damn him. He sat back down in the dirt next to Eliza.

  She leaned her head on his shoulder and smoothed her dress over her legs. He flicked the dirty hem up revealing more of her smooth thigh. She pushed it down, smiling, a dare in her eyes.

  “Are you tempting me?”

  “Is it working?”

  He hauled her over so she straddled his hips. He lay back on the ground. Against his back tightly packed buds broke through the ground. Each petal that unfolded tickled his skin. Her dress gaped open around her breasts. He traced the neckline, drew her down for a kiss. She lay on his chest, her heart beating for both of them.

  “Tell me about your life.” She twirled a dread around her finger. Her fingers danced over t
he beads.

  Roan smoothed her hair. “What do you need to know? What do you want to remember about me?”

  “Stay here until you’ve told me everything.”

  “If I could hide here I would. But I can’t. Dai walks ever closer to the edge, and I can’t escape my fate. I gave up too much in the search for power to kill Elryion.”

  She titled her head. “Did you have a family?”

  “One brother, one sister. Both younger.” He sighed. She wanted to remember him as a man. She wanted to know his life before the curse had taken everything from him. At one point it would have chafed, but being remembered as a man was more than he’d ever thought possible. “She didn’t survive the rebellion.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. It was too long ago for that wound to still weep.” Like everything he’d known, they were long gone. The world had spun past him in a brilliant parade of history, marred only by the shadows of the goblins that watched, wishing they could take part. Eliza would selectively excise the memory of him as a goblin. A luxury he would never have.

  “Did you have a wife?” Her voice dropped like she was afraid of being heard, or maybe she was afraid of the answer.

  He shook his head. “No. I refused to marry a Roman woman under Roman law.”

  Eliza’s pale brows drew together as if she was trying to understand, and failing.

  “Life was different. The rules were different. Men were judged differently.”

  “No regrets?”

  “Not anymore.” He’d seen more than any man should. “I couldn’t have asked for a better queen.” He lifted her hand and kissed the ring. It slid off leaving her skin unmarked. “I’m releasing you of any obligation.”

  She gasped and tried to take the ring back. “Please.”

  “I have to let you go. No ties.” Her face would be forever held in his memory. He would stand by the door to the Hall of the Gods, waiting for her to pass through on her way to her next life just to see her again.

  She gritted her teeth and sat up.

  Roan pushed himself up so she sat in his lap. “We’ve spoken about this. Please let me go.”

  “I don’t want to. I would rather be here with you than in the Fixed Realm.”

  “If you do not wake and eat, you will die. And I cannot die in peace knowing I have dragged you with me. Bad enough my brother shares my fate.”

  Eliza looked away, studying the grass. Her face was set with the pouted lip of a child not getting her way but understanding why.

  He cupped her cheek so she had to look at him. “Don’t leave in anger. Wish me well, as I wish you well.”

  She sucked in a breath and heaved it out. She was trying so hard to keep together, to not cry in front of him. Part of him was glad; already he was torn into a hundred fragments. The rest of him wanted to see her tears so he would know what his death would mean. How fast would she leave him to chase her future?

  “Grant me one final wish…if you can.”

  Roan dropped his hand. His heart ached, the gold colder and tighter as the darkness blackened, trying to erase the blot of brilliant white that had invaded his being. He fisted his hand tighter around her ring.

  “I can’t use magic.” He bit each word out. The cold current that flowed thick as blood rushed to his fingertips, pleading to be used. The heat from the star faded under the pressure of giving her what she wanted.

  She swallowed and leaned back as if sensing the rush of power that wanted to consume him. “No magic.”

  “What then?” He eased his hold on her ring.

  “Come to my house for dinner.”

  Roan opened his mouth.

  She covered it with her hand. Her eyes widened. “It can be a farewell party for you and Dai. A gift from me. Don’t die alone in the Shadowlands.” Her words poured out on top of themselves in the race to be heard.

  And he gulped down each one, water to a man dying of thirst. But the temptation of another day was tainted by the body he would wear. Her last vision of him would be as the Goblin King.

  “Say yes. Please say yes.” She slowly removed her hand and sat back.

  Even disheveled and dirty from lying on the ground with him she was still the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. When he blinked, a perfect impression of Eliza was painted on his eyelids. The sun was well risen where she lived, night had moved on. Mere hours separated them from another meeting. Would the caves hold or would they have to abandon them and the gold they contained? Could he eke a half day out of the tattered remnant of his soul? If it were just him, he would fade trying to be there. Dai would argue against any further delay. He couldn’t refuse his brother a warrior’s death.

  “I can’t promise.” He lifted his knees.

  Eliza stood. She held her hands out to him. He took the offer not because he needed help, but because he wanted to touch her again. They held hands lost somewhere between the Summerland and Shadowlands. He couldn’t spoil the night with a final farewell.

  “I will come to say good-bye if I can’t be there for dinner.”

  She nodded. “It’s time for me to wake up.”

  “I wish it wasn’t so.” He leaned down to kiss her one last time. “Dream of me.” He gently eased her into waking.

  Her sigh lingered on the breeze. He picked his belt up and refastened the weapons. Where he had lain on the ground the little pink flowers sprouted. He stepped to one side and squatted down. No flowers sprang out of his new footprints. Only the ones made with Eliza had any life. She was the key, but he had no idea how to use her to unlock the curse and no time to figure it out.

  Chapter 19

  Cold rolled off the river, even in summer. The lights from the city and boats reflected on the surface as if another city dwelled beneath her waters. Roan leaned against the bridge. His fingers worked over the dreadlocks, twisting the snakes of hair from root to tip. The habit of an unnatural lifetime. The river smelled. Polluted by rubbish and noise, but this was his home.

  Or had been.

  The ruins of his town lay buried under centuries of life. But if he closed his eyes and ignored the engines of the cars racing by overhead, time fell away. He slid back to before the Roman invasion, to his childhood. His father had taught him to fish in this river. As king he would have to feed his people as well as lead them.

  He’d fought mock battles with wooden swords and later real ones that left the river running red with blood. Roman or Decangli, the one thing he had learned was people all bled the same. All screamed the same. All died the same. A look of surprise that twisted to agony as they clutched at the wound. He’d been no different as blood poured from his chest. He’d watched the crows circle after the battle ended, but had woken with his eyes intact, his wound clean and dressed. His father was dead and he was king, handed over to the Roman general as a political prisoner. The freedom Dai had been allowed was removed, so he truly was a slave to the general.

  Roan walked a little way up the river, careful to stay in the shadows where his skin and clothing hid him from sight but not the damp in the air. Each time he came, the town had changed. The garrison was little more than preserved rubble. But he knew, even now through the maze of streets and lights, where it had once stood. An open sore on the landscape. A tumor that fed off his town, corrupting his people. Three hundred years later it was gone. The Romans, the language, and the memory of the cursed king.

  The legend of the Goblin King had lasted longer. Teenagers had dared each other to call the Goblin King. Depending on his mood he would either ignore them or scare them. Their faces white, their lips moving without sound or thought. Some ran, some fainted. At least they didn’t order him to kill as so many had done. Well, one had. Roan smiled, his wide goblin mouth flashing too many teeth. A night tied naked to a gas streetlight had sorted that young man out.

  Not all who had seen him had been so lucky. The death of one young woman was on his hands, no summoner to be blamed. She’d come for silver and paid with her life. As
a trained courtesan she’d been good company, both getting what they wanted and nothing more. Gossip and jealousy among her rivals along with her drawings, the ones he’d told her not to make, had brought her before the church. They had been less than forgiving of her profession and her dealings with demons.

  She had been the last woman before Eliza. In that five-hundred-year gap, he had lost more ground than in all the previous centuries. He sucked in a breath and released it slowly. The anger that had fueled him for so long was gone. The scales were almost balanced. Because of the curse, he’d met Eliza. For someone like him it was enough. More than he’d ever thought possible.

  Behind him the shadows rippled and tore. The hairs on the back of his neck spiked. Roan remained facing the ruins. “Greetings, brother.”

  “I thought I’d find you here longing for the past.”

  “Making peace with it.” He turned, his beads silent for the solemn occasion. The sight of Dai’s face rearranged to be goblin cut every time he saw it. He looked away. “There is little else to do. You?”

  “I am done.”

  They stood in silence as a boat glided over the inky water powered by machine, not man. He’d watched the world change in ways one man should never see. The world he knew was long gone. While he’d watched the changes, even caused a few of them, he had never been part of them. Never lived in the moment or experienced the dawning of a new era.

  “Could you step back in and join the flow of time?”

  Dai scuffed his boot in the mud. He folded his arms and shook his head. “I would try, but men like us no longer exist.”

  “Men like us are everywhere. Have you not noticed how many more goblins fill the Shadowlands? Men fight for money, not honor. War for wealth, not survival.” The world was obsessed with gold and its lightweight paper sibling. Men like they used to be no longer existed.

  “The spirit of Rome lives on.” Dai’s face was grim as he stared across the river. His eyes were seeing something else. He dropped his gaze and looked away. “You know where to find me when you’re ready.”