by Chloe Jacobs
For the first time, she remembered another reason why he shouldn’t be in her room. “When did you get back?” she asked. “I thought you would be gone at least another moon rising.” He was dressed in travel gear and smelled of sweat and those ugly Mylean horses that weren’t really horses. He must have come straight to her.
“If you had let me into your dreams last night, I would have told you of the change in my plans.”
“You don’t have to be snarky about it,” she said.
She would never be able to keep him out of her head for good, but she was intent on regaining control over her subconscious mind. Not only for privacy’s sake, but because it might be the only way to keep the darkness inside her from spilling out all over the place.
She remembered Luke, who’d found her in the snow after she got stranded in Mylena and had taught her how to fight, how to survive. He used to go to his sacred circle in the woods every evening to connect with the Great Mother, and recently, she’d decided to try meditating herself to see if that worked for her. It seemed to help where Isaac’s ability was concerned, although it hadn’t made any difference with the nightmares yet. So far nothing could keep them away.
Not that having Isaac enter her mind was still the violation she’d once considered it to be. The truth was, she could relax with him then in a way she’d never been able to relax anywhere else in Mylena. In dreams, she remembered just how young he really was. The mantle of his responsibilities as king fell away, and he let her share in all his hopes, dreams, and ideas for the future.
“So what happened out there? What did you find out?” she asked, mindful of the open door and keeping her voice low.
“Just a misunderstanding that I was able to take care of with a minimum of fuss.”
“If it was so minor, why did it require the king’s personal attendance?”
“I have been remiss in my duties since assuming my father’s throne. The people deserve to know their new king. They deserve my personal reassurances that everything is well in hand.”
She bit her lip. “But the outbursts are increasing.”
“Small skirmishes here and there are expected to arise in any kingdom, but I should have taken the time to address my people long before now. I am rectifying this so that all will be well for the both of us. You will see.” He trailed a finger down the bridge of her nose.
She opened her mouth to argue, but the sound of a door creaking open somewhere down the hall filtered into the bedroom. She grabbed his wrist and dropped her voice to a barely audible whisper. “You would tell me if all these problems were because of me? If your people were rising up in protest because their king is openly courting a human?”
Her worry made the dark thing inside her twitch and writhe. She held her breath and focused on battling it back down.
“No one would dare oppose my choice of mate.” His voice was rough and broken. “Any member of any kingdom who tries will—”
Her worry shifted. His eyes had started glowing, and his entire body threw off seething waves of fury that seemed to come from thin air. “Isaac, calm down,” she murmured.
It wasn’t the first time something like this had happened. Since the eclipse, he seemed to have more trouble controlling his moon phase. He’d shrugged aside her concerns, but she couldn’t let them go. She was worried all the time. Worried that his problems within the provinces were her fault, worried that the thing inside her might somehow be provoking the thing inside him. Worried that this little bubble of happiness they’d found since the eclipse was short-lived and soon to burst.
His raspy breathing eased as she whispered in his ear and let her hands roam over his shoulders and arms and back. She hoped it was soothing, but she’d settle for distracting.
He bent over her and kissed her again, so…distraction for the win.
She had no idea how much time passed before another sound outside her room made him look up this time. She touched her fingers to her swollen lips and swallowed hard. His eyes flared as he watched.
“You should probably go,” she said regretfully. “Someone might see.”
Undaunted, Isaac kissed her once more. A simple, quick kiss on the mouth that tempted her more than it should and made her lean after him when he pulled away and got up from the bed.
“I will have Siona attend you in the morning, to make sure you don’t bolt before the banquet. You’ll stand with me, won’t you?”
“What do you need me there for?”
“Visiting the provinces has made me realize it’s far past time I make it clear to one and all that my heart is claimed and my commitment to you is true.”
She sputtered. “Wait, what? What does that mean?”
“I want no one to doubt what you mean to me, and the sooner I make it public, the sooner everyone will have no choice but to accept you.”
Did that mean she was right and he was having trouble because of her? She curled her fingers into the tangled blankets.
“Um, are you sure that such an announcement will accomplish what you think it’s going to accomplish?” She winced, picturing a castle full of Myleans rising up against the both of them with pitchforks and torches. No wonder he thought she might bolt.
“Don’t worry,” he reassured her with all the arrogance of a true king. “It will all work out.”
Famous last words.
Chapter Two
The long, heavy skirt swished against Greta’s legs, and its hem brushed her stocking-covered ankles as she turned away from the pockmarked mirror that had probably been hung on the drafty castle wall about a million moons ago.
She looked down at the yards of rich purple-dyed wool billowing around her from the waist down with a gut-wrenching cringe, feeling like a complete fake. She pulled the skirts wide. “Why the hell did I let him talk me into this, again?”
Siona, who was also wearing a dress instead of her typical hunter’s garb, cocked her head and looked Greta up and down with a smile. “You look very…”
Greta threw up her hands. “I look like a complete idiot, that’s what.”
“You look gentle.”
“You mean genteel?”
Siona laughed. “Ah, no, my friend, not quite. But that hard, bounty-hunter edge of yours is a bit softer in this color, don’t you think?”
Greta huffed and spun away to look back into the mirror. She might have to get used to wearing these dresses. It wasn’t so bad, was it?
No, it wasn’t bad, not until she stood beside Siona and couldn’t help but compare the two of them.
Greta was no slouch in the height department, but Siona still towered over her. And Greta was tiresomely blond and pale, where Siona had those startling amethyst eyes and jet-black hair, just like her cousin the goblin king. It didn’t help that Greta was also too thin and had dark circles under her eyes from disturbed sleep. The oddly styled dress only made her feel even more like an imposter in Mylena, whereas Siona looked regal and elegant and perfect.
Siona came up from behind and met her gaze in the hazy glass.
“And why exactly is gentleness such a good thing?” Greta asked. She was becoming less convinced by the second that this was going to work. Dressing her up and parading her around in front of the masses—even if you promised them food and protection from the elements for an evening—was not going to make them forget who, or what, she was.
“It will be easier for the people of Mylena to come to accept you if you appear less defensive. You don’t make it easy for anyone to approach, you know.”
She smoothed the skirts over her hips. This was the first time she’d really noticed that she did, in fact, have hips. Her regular clothes were always strategically loose, for more than one reason…none of which had anything to do with female vanity and everything to do with survival. Before coming to the castle with Isaac, she’d spent every day worried someone would discover she was human. Survival had meant always keeping her guard up. Isaac and Siona wanted her to believe that she was safe now, sec
ure, but how could she abandon the habit that had kept her alive for so long?
She snorted. “You don’t honestly believe that a dress is going to magically change everything, do you? Everyone’s going to take one look at me in this costume and know that it doesn’t fit.”
“I was here when the seamstress took your measurements. It’s a traditional style and fits you perfectly.” Siona put a hand on Greta’s arm to test the fabric. It was finer than Greta’s regular clothes, but it would still have been considered coarse if compared to the silks and satins she remembered from once upon a time. Mylena might have varying levels of wealth, but the best quality available here was still leagues apart from the human world she’d come from.
“That’s not what I’m talking about, and you know it.” She turned away from the mirror, and Siona took a step back.
Greta mourned the loss of her other disguise. She’d been a better fake sprite than she’d ever be a goblin king’s…what? Girlfriend? She’d bet a lot of Myleans would use another word.
Thankfully, no one had used it to her face. She didn’t care what they thought about her, but she also didn’t want to be responsible for Isaac being hurt, and if he heard someone insult her, he would take it as a personal affront.
“I do understand how you feel,” Siona whispered, fingering a pleat in the skirt of her own dress.
Greta shook her head. “I seriously doubt that.” She waved to encompass the gorgeous goblin’s innate perfection. “Look at you. You’re beautiful, strong, and best of all, born of a species that happens to belong in Mylena.” Then she pointed at herself. “I can never look like you or be like you, and everyone knows it. They hate me, and they’re never going to let me forget it.”
“There are some who would say that I don’t belong here. Not here, and not anywhere.”
Greta gasped in surprise. “What? Why?”
Siona’s gaze clouded over. Greta stepped closer, shocked by the sadness and pain contorting her face.
Today was the first time Siona had ever shared something personal. She didn’t want to pry, but if Siona needed to talk, Greta wanted to be there for her. That’s what friends did…she assumed. She hadn’t actually had many.
“Do you think…I mean, if you want to tell me about it, then I would—” She heaved out a frustrated breath and shrugged. “It’s no big deal if you don’t want to talk about it, but if you need to…”
Siona looked equally as uncomfortable, but she said, “The king doesn’t speak of my mother out of respect for my wishes, but…”
Greta knew that Siona’s mother had died when she was young, but that was all. Was that because there was some secret scandal behind the circumstances surrounding her death?
“But what?” Greta placed her hand on top of Siona’s.
After a moment she said, “My father was brother to the last goblin king, but my mother was faerie.”
Greta’s breath caught in her throat, but she didn’t say anything, just squeezed her friend’s hand and urged her to go on.
“Apparently, the king had hoped that the union of my parents would mean an alliance between the goblin and faerie races, but his other brother couldn’t understand that, and eventually he amassed a following who agreed with him.”
Greta glanced at the high cheekbones and delicate features that, now that she knew, betrayed the goblin’s faerie ancestry. She’d already suspected that Siona wasn’t all goblin. But half faerie? It was hard to believe a faerie and a goblin had ever found enough common ground between one another to, well…you know.
“You’re talking about Isaac’s father and uncles?” It was no secret that one of Isaac’s uncles had been a douche bag who’d killed his own brother, but there must have been another sibling that she hadn’t heard about.
Siona nodded. “After they wed, my parents lived in the goblin court, but whenever anything went wrong, my mother was somehow to blame. A failed crop, a missing child, a bad storm. Everyone turned and pointed their fingers at the one who didn’t belong, the one whose magick was strong and foreign to the goblin people.”
“That’s horrible.” Being reviled for something you had no control over was something Greta could relate to.
Siona gave her a weak smile. “When my father’s murdered body was found in the woods, my mother was immediately accused of that, too—even though the small amount of evidence pointed to the king’s brother.”
Greta sneered. “Wow. From what I’ve heard, that guy was as bad as they come.”
“In the end, there wasn’t enough proof that he was responsible, and it was much easier for everyone to blame my mother. Only the goblin king believed her when she said she was innocent. He knew she was carrying a child. In the end, he resisted the clamor of the goblin people and allowed her to return to the faeries instead of letting them execute her.”
“I guess that must have been before the queen decided to shut the gates of the Glass Kingdom.” Greta had never cared to go beyond the Luna Pass, where the faeries were said to reside, but even if she’d wanted to, the Glass Kingdom had been off-limits for at least as long as she’d been in Mylena.
Siona’s lips pressed together tightly, and she nodded.
If these people were so quick to condemn an innocent woman just because she was different, what makes Isaac think they’ll ever accept me?
“This all happened before you were born?”
Siona nodded.
“If you were born in the faerie kingdom, why did you leave? Why come here where your mother was treated so horribly?”
“The faeries mistrusted my goblin blood as much as the goblins mistrusted my mother’s faerie blood. I was quite young when... they banished me. I tried to return, but…”
“Banished? Your mother just stood by and let that happen?”
“My mother”—she glanced away—“had already died by that time.”
To be thrown out like so much garbage. It wasn’t hard to imagine just how big a chink that would leave in a person’s self-esteem. “That’s awful.”
Siona shrugged. “The goblin king took me in and forbade anyone to harm me. At first it was…horrible,” she admitted with a grimace. “But after a while, it was less so. Thankfully, given the passage of enough time, many seemed to forget that I was part faerie.”
Greta doubted that, but now she understood a little better why this beautiful girl had become a hunter—for the same reasons as Greta; so no one would notice her. There was an independence in such a line of work that many other vocations available to Mylean women lacked. Too bad everyone knew she was human now. The independence she’d enjoyed was quickly disappearing the longer she stayed in the castle with Isaac. It should be chafing more than it actually had, but exploring their relationship had taken up a lot of her attention of late.
“The only person besides the king who truly accepted me was my cousin.”
“Isaac.”
Siona nodded. “He never questioned my heritage. Never made me ashamed of it. And when he became king, he promised me nothing would ever change. That I would always be family, always welcome in his kingdom.”
Greta held her breath. “Neither of you had many other friends growing up, did you?”
“We had each other.”
She smiled. “I’m glad for that.”
Siona’s posture stiffened as if she didn’t want to talk about it anymore, so Greta turned and walked across the large room to the wardrobe.
“What are you wearing on your feet, danem?”
She hated that Siona still called her that…and the goblin knew it. Greta stopped and looked down at her boots, crossing her arms. “I don’t care what it looks like. If you think I’m going to put those flimsy little slippers on, you can forget it.” She pointed to the pair that had been left for her along with the dress. “How am I supposed to hunt in those? Five minutes in the goblin forest and they’d be toast. I’d end up with frostbite.”
Siona sighed. “You’re not supposed to hunt in them. In fact, you�
�re not supposed to be hunting at all anymore.”
She ground her teeth. “Who’s going to do the job if not me? This place’ll be overrun by the Lost in no time.”
“That’s not your duty anymore, danem. There are other hunters in Mylena besides you,” Siona answered, hands on her hips.
“No offense to your abilities, Siona, but you can’t do it alone, and too many of the other hunters are nothing but cutthroat mercenaries. They’ll kill anything, good or bad, for the right price. Not to mention,” she continued, “how else am I going to make a living? Hunting is the only thing I know how to do in this world.” In any world, really.
“You know you don’t have to worry about that anymore.”
Greta swung her arm out. The room was bigger than Luke’s entire cottage had been. In fact, her old bed would have looked like a ratty rug tossed on the floor of her pater’s little cottage. “This? This is only temporary. It isn’t where I belong, and I can’t stay here forever, but Isaac refuses to get it into his thick skull that he won’t get his way in all things.”
“You don’t expect him to tromp through the forest with you and forget that he has duties and responsibilities here, do you?”
“Of course not.” But how could she give up her independence entirely when she didn’t know from one minute to the next if this crazy thing between them was even going to work out? When she didn’t even know what this crazy thing between them was?
He’s planning to announce to the whole kingdom that you’re important to him.
He’d said the word last night. Commitment. But what did that even mean? He might like kissing her, but kissing didn’t automatically mean they were going to spend the rest of their lives together. A king couldn’t just make decisions like that without thinking about the needs of his kingdom, and she was definitely not what Mylena needed. This announcement was probably just a way for him to ensure she would be protected.
She rubbed her forehead. “There has to be some compromise, doesn’t there?”