Kiss of the Goblin Prince

by Shona Husk

  “Mom?” Brigit asked.

  Amanda gasped and spun, her pulse erratic, muscles tense. Brigit had taken ten years off her life. “Shhh. Go back to bed.”

  “Why’s Sheriff barking?”

  “I’m going to find out,” Amanda said as forcefully as she could without raising her voice above a whisper.

  “Can I sleep in your bed?” Brigit rubbed her eyes as if she wasn’t fully awake.

  “Yes.” She shooed her with one hand.

  Brigit wandered, half asleep, into the bedroom.

  Sheriff was still growling at something out front of the house. The dog’s lips were pulled back in a snarl she’d never seen. Amanda swallowed, crept up to the window, and peeked out the vertical blinds, expecting to see nothing, hoping the dog was barking at a stray or the neighbor’s cat.

  He wasn’t.

  Her stomach fell to the floor and bounced. Sitting under the streetlight out front of her house was a man. She squinted. No not a man, a lanky boy with gleaming white skin.

  One of the kids she counseled found her house. She held her breath as if he’d noticed the disturbance of the blinds and seen her there watching. Maybe it wasn’t Flynn. It could be any teen loitering.

  The skin down her back prickled. How many albino teens were running around Perth? What were the odds that it would be one of them and not the one she saw on a weekly basis?

  Her grip on the flashlight tightened. Why was he there?

  How did he get her address?

  Amanda remained rooted to the floor, her body refusing to move. She was alone with only the dog for backup. They were in a pretty safe neighborhood, and she’d never had a reason to be afraid before in her own house—but she’d never had a patient stalk her either. She eased the blind back into place, then counted to ten and peeked again. He was still there, unmoving in the bluish light as if he had all night to wait. What was he waiting for?

  For her to come out?

  Never. She wasn’t stupid.

  She should call the police. Except he’d done nothing wrong…and if she did, he’d know she called them. Sheriff whined and Amanda risked another glance outside. As long as Flynn didn’t do anything but watch her house, she wouldn’t do anything either. Yet she still went around the house checking the locks on all the doors. The front, back, and laundry. Then she checked again, the windows too. As a woman and child living alone, she was very security conscious. It was why she bought Sheriff, who was lying in the front hallway, whining to be let out.

  She gave the dog a pat. “Good dog.”

  Sheriff’s tail thumped on the tiles.

  Maybe she was overreacting; if Flynn wanted to break in, he would’ve done it by now. And she couldn’t spend the rest of the night watching him. She shivered as the adrenaline left her system and the cold seeped up her legs from the floor tiles.

  On the way back to her bedroom, she picked up her cell phone. Brigit was already asleep in the middle of the bed. Amanda eased in, careful not to wake her daughter, but knowing she wouldn’t be able to find rest so easily. Brigit coughed and wheezed. Amanda waited with fingers crossed, hoping that nothing else would happen, but Brigit settled.

  Maybe she should stay with Eliza for a few days—no, Dai was there. Besides, that wasn’t a solution. She didn’t run away from her problems. She faced them head on and tackled them to the ground, yet it would be nice to have someone to do the tackling with. She didn’t like feeling vulnerable. She wished there was a man in the house, someone to make her feel safe. But it wasn’t Matt who was first in her thoughts.

  It was Dai. And that was just as unsettling as the troubled teen outside.

  Chapter 3

  Amanda’s last appointment of the day didn’t show up. Flynn couldn’t afford to skip a visit; if he did, she had to report it. Attending counseling was part of the court order that had kept him out of juvenile detention after he was caught stealing. She gave him a few more minutes, hoping he would come in with a good explanation after waiting outside her house the other night.

  A knock at the door broke her thoughts, but it wasn’t the white-skinned, white-haired Flynn. It was two cops. She swallowed and tried to suppress the rising sense of dread. This wasn’t going to be good news. What had Flynn done this time?

  “Mrs. Coulter?”

  “Yes, how can I help?” She stood up and offered her hand.

  The cop shook her hand and sat down with a nervous glance around her office. Some adults never got over the fear of being in high school. His partner hovered near the door as if expecting trouble.

  “Have you see Flynn Lloyd today?”

  Amanda shook her head. “He was due to come in.”

  “Had any problems with him?”

  “No, never. He’s polite and happy to talk most days.” Which was more than she got from half the kids. Mostly he talked about being bullied. Kids were cruel, and he looked very different. He also acted different, like he wasn’t part of the world and held himself separate.

  “Saturday night he attacked a man and took his watch.”

  That didn’t sound like Flynn; he’d never been aggressive. Flynn wasn’t a bad kid, but he had kleptomania, and it had brought him before a judge one too many times. Unlike most kleptomania sufferers, his stealing was limited—he only ever took golden-colored things. Pens, paper, coins, foil-wrapped chocolates, and lately actual gold. But he could never explain why he took it and added it to his collection. If he gathered paperclips he might have been okay, but people valued gold and as a result the police weren’t too happy with Flynn.

  “Are you sure you have the right kid?”

  “How many albinos go to this school?”

  Amanda’s heart sank. Only one. Had he come to her for help and she’d ignored him? Or had he come to her house after he’d attacked the man? The thought made her ill.

  She forced herself to speak, even though she already knew the answer. “Was the watch gold?”

  The cop frowned. “How’d you know?”

  “Flynn has kleptomania. When he sees gold he can’t help himself.” Yet he’d always been happy to pay for the things he’d stolen. It had never been about what the items were worth, only what they were made of.

  “He beat a man unconscious. He knew what he was doing. Consider him dangerous.”

  Amanda kept her face neutral thanks to years of practice. No matter what kids told her she always looked calm and caring. Flynn wasn’t violent. What had changed?

  “What’ll happen to him?”

  Flynn’s parents had bailed him out of trouble before and they’d all sat down to discuss treatment. The antidepressants were working…had he stopped taking his meds?

  “His father wants him to be taught a lesson this time. Hopes to scare him straight.”

  Amanda shook her head. “That won’t work. He needs help, not jail.”

  All the work she’d put into him would be unraveled because his father was embarrassed by his son’s looks and behavior. Going to jail wasn’t what Flynn needed. But he might be beyond her help now. She’d try his cell phone and see if she could convince him to turn himself in. Lawyers could make a psychiatric case that would keep him out of jail.

  “Sorry, ma’am. Assault is a police matter. If you see him, ring.” The cop got up.

  He’d see her calling the police as a betrayal of trust, and at the moment that was all she had. He wouldn’t hurt her; she was the only person who he confided in, and the only one who didn’t see him as freak. A word he used to describe himself. But she couldn’t let the invasion of privacy go. She had Brigit to look after.

  “He came to my house Saturday night.”

  The cop paused. “Did you speak to him?”

  Amanda shook her head. “He was just watching the house.”

  “If you see him again, ring emergency. Don’t approach him.” With the warning the two cops left.

  The door to her office was wide open, but she didn’t care who saw as she let her body sag. This was the worst part
of her job. Flynn wouldn’t be the first student to be arrested, but she thought they were making progress. Somehow she failed him when he needed her, and it was a bitter reminder she couldn’t save everyone.

  ***

  His lungs burned as he struggled for breath. Blood pounded in is ears. The only sound in the barren, gray landscape was coming from his exhausted body as he ran. Dai stumbled and fell. The gray dust of the Shadowlands clung to his skin and stained like it was trying to reclaim him. He couldn’t go on. Beneath him, the ground shook with the footsteps of the goblin army as they chased him. Hunted him. A human in the Shadowlands was a delicious target. The goblins would strip his flesh and use his bones to make weapons.

  Dai forced himself up. He had to keep running. Running where?

  There was nowhere to hide in the Shadowlands. This barren land was the birthplace of nightmares. They would burst free of his mind and become killing flesh. Every horror brought back for endless torment, a permanent reminder of what he’d done. He spun, searching for the rock spire that had been home for too many centuries. Created by Roan, it had been the fortress that had kept the goblins out and the gold in. There he’d be safe if only for a moment. He’d spent all his life on the edge of being safe, and cutting himself most times in failure.

  The gray dust plains stretched on forever, broken only by stunted twisted trees and the oily river that slithered like a snake over the ground confusing anyone who used it for guidance. In the distance, the castle rose like a needle and pierced the sky. He’d never make it. The goblins would be upon him. He’d spent two thousand years surviving—part human, part goblin—banished and cursed.

  But that was over.

  He ran on, kicking up puffs of dust. He didn’t belong back here. He was human and back where he belonged in the Fixed Realm. How did he get back to the Shadowlands? What happened? Why was he back in the hell he’d escaped?

  His leaden legs buckled. He put his hands out as he fell. Cold seeped from the ground into his skin, into his bones. The dust on his skin made it gray as if he was goblin again. He couldn’t go back. He was never going back. He was free.

  As he stared, the joints on his hands swelled and his flesh lost all pink and faded to gray. He touched his face, but it wasn’t his. It was the goblin’s face he’d worn for two millennia.

  The curse wasn’t broken.

  A rasping cry left his fleshy lips.

  He was goblin.

  ***

  Dai jerked awake and sat up in bed. His body rigid. His heart racing like he’d been running for his life. The darkness closed in around him. He slowed his breathing and blinked, calling on the magical sight. Even in the dark, the web of strings that made up reality appeared. With a tug, the lights in the study came on—all of them, desk and ceiling. He squinted against the brightness, but his hands were pink, not goblin gray.

  And he wasn’t in the Shadowlands. He was in the room filled with unused law books. The best room in the house was always filled with books, and in Eliza’s house, that room was unused for years until he took it over. He lay back down on the makeshift bed that was squeezed in between shelves and the desk and chairs, and scrubbed his hands over his face. It was his face. Not the disfigured, bulging eyes, wide mouth, and hooked nose he had been cursed to bear. A man in the Shadowlands, a goblin in the Fixed Realm and belonging nowhere.

  Slowly, his pulse settled, but he kept the lights on. The nightmare that visited him every night for the week he’d been back in the world of men was still too fresh and too close to the reality he only just escaped. What a goblin would do to a human in the Shadowlands was enough to give him nightmares for the rest of his life…even without the ones that haunted his sleep. He pushed aside the old memories. He had too many and had lived for too long. Longer than any man should.

  He stared at the ceiling. He couldn’t sleep with the lights on, and he couldn’t turn them off in case the shadows crept back in and tore apart his sleep. There were too many horrors waiting to wake him, and all were of his own creation. A litany of mistakes and misdeeds. He closed his eyes and hoped he’d be proven wrong and that sleep would come, and it would be peaceful. He counted the beats of his heart. Nothing. He was still awake.

  Another night wasted.

  Dai tossed back the covers and got off the air mattress. Borrowed furniture, borrowed room, borrowed life. He raked his fingers through his hair. Staying here in the hope that Amanda would come around and see Eliza was foolish. One dance and a tiny bit of magic and she was in every thought, if not dream. He doubted she was having a similar problem.

  He picked up the newspaper he’d bought the day before while out walking and flicked to the real estate section—the bit he’d skipped reading while trying to learn more about the world. He wasn’t sure what kind of house he was looking for, only that he needed something. He couldn’t roam Eliza’s house all night. But if he had his own place, there would be no one to disturb.

  He sat in the leather chair behind the large desk and spread out the paper. It almost felt like he was researching ways to break the curse again. It wasn’t homesickness that caught him unaware, as the Shadowlands had never been home, but he missed his library and his desk with the outdated map of the world inlaid on its surface. Maybe he should’ve stored that with Birch too—he doubted the goblins would value the antique.

  Hindsight was always perfect, but in the moment he did what he thought best, not expecting to ever have need for his books again. He’d never planned on being part of the world of men again. He’d expected to die or fade to goblin like his cousin Meryn.

  Meryn still linked Dai to the Shadowlands. Unlike his tentative, golden connection with Amanda, blood ties couldn’t be broken. He was bound to Meryn by a sickly, gray thread, a constant reminder of everything his cousin lost. A reminder of what Dai could have easily become. Goblin. A heartless, soulless beast blind to anything but gold and battle. Maybe Meryn didn’t even know what he was missing. No goblin he’d ever caught or killed seemed to be aware of anything being amiss. They were perfect in their own hideous ways. Like a dog after a bone, they lacked a mind to reason with. And yet they survived in the Shadowlands, a place more desolate than any desert or ice-coated land.

  Dai checked his hands again. He was still getting used to seeing himself as human in the Fixed Realm. He’d been goblin on the outside and human on the inside since being cursed. Although toward the end he was dangerously close to losing his soul and becoming totally goblin. He was sure the shock of being human would pass…he hoped the nightmares would as well. He vowed to catch up on the missed sleep during the day when his nightmares had less power.

  He glanced at the clock. Hours until daylight. Perhaps a beer would help him nod off, and he’d manage another hour or two of sleep.

  With a small effort of will and a slight tweak of the threads, a bottle of beer floated into his palm. Creating a beer out of nothing would’ve been true skill but would require a source of energy—there was a reason real magic users tended to be thin. Magic burned energy. He blinked and cleared the magical sight.

  The icy bottle chilled his palm. He shouldn’t be using magic for such petty purposes; he shouldn’t be playing with it at all. He had to fit in with modern society. His fingers made patterns in the dew on the glass. But he couldn’t give up magic any more than he could quit breathing. It was part of him…and for the first time in his life he had real power.

  Not a slave.

  Not a cursed man.

  He didn’t know what he was.

  Dai twisted the top off the beer and flicked it at the bin under the oversized desk. The lid rattled around the bottom before stilling. He propped his bare feet up on the edge of the table. The long-sleeved T-shirt and flannel pajama pants kept the chill off the rest of his skin. If he couldn’t sleep, he might as well do something useful like find a place to live. Come morning he’d ring Birch and start asking questions. A week should be long enough to examine his books. And as much as he liked experimenting wit
h the magic, having his texts would make things easier. He began searching the newspaper for a place big enough to store his whole library.

  The sound of birds jerked Dai awake and his feet slid off the desk. His hand reached for the knives he no longer carried as if he were readying for battle. In that second he realized where he was. He took a breath and relaxed. He’d grown so used to the silence of the Shadowlands that the usual sounds of the world had the power to startle him. He glanced out the window. Daylight stained the sky pink.

  He flexed his fingers. The weave of reality was all around him, begging to be played with. The threads, split and joined, wove around each other and tangled. So beautiful, so easy to manipulate. The window unlocked and opened at his thought. He sucked in the cold morning air. His lungs cramped and shivered like they had in the Welsh winters when mist lay heavy on the ground, and ice had lined any still water. Outside, the sun crested the roofs and moved higher just like it always had. He watched, mesmerized by its movement. There was no sun in the Shadowlands, no night, no day. No life. Only eternal gray and the knowledge that he would never be able to make the bastard Claudius pay. The muscle in his jaw tightened. Some crimes were unforgivable. He understood that too well. In his darkest nightmares, the blood was still on his hands.

  There was a knock on the door a half-second before it swung open.

  Dai pulled down his sleeves so they covered the marks on his arms. He wasn’t ready for the world to see his past. “And if I’d been naked?”

  “I would have closed my eyes.” His brother stood in the doorway. He was hardly recognizable. A man, not a goblin. A husband, not a king.

  “You’re up early.” Since the wedding a few days before, Roan and Eliza took their time getting up in the morning.

  “I saw the lights on.”

  Through the open door Dai saw the house was too well lit for early in the morning. Crap. Had he been turning on all the lights in the house every night?