by Shona Husk
“I don’t know.”
“Bullshit. Were you ever going to give it back or was it some kind of sick trophy?” She gasped as fear fisted her heart. She didn’t know this man at all. “Where are the pictures of your wife and children?” Everything he’d told her was some kind of lie to get close to her. “Why do you have letters written in Latin? What the hell is going on? How many women do you suck in with your sob story?”
Oh God, oh God. She’d had unprotected sex. Shit. Meryn hadn’t moved, but she’d seen him fight. “Are you some kind of serial killer? Are you going to kill me?”
“I would never hurt you.”
“Too bloody late.”
“I took the cross because it was gold and I had no choice. I never expected to see you again. Then I didn’t know how to give it back.”
The gold in her palm pressed into her flesh. Gold. He’s taken gold like a goblin. She glanced at him again. Her dream was still fresh in her memory, snagging on her thoughts and tangling them until they made no sense.
“What do you mean you had no choice?”
He jaw tensed. “I needed it. I thought it would block out the pain the way it had before.”
His words didn’t make sense. None of this was making sense. She shook her head. Her blood was sharp, like razors in her veins, cutting and shredding her heart.
“Before when?” But in her mind she was seeing him as she had the first night, covered in gray dust. It hadn’t been concrete; it had been something much, much worse. Shadowlands dust. Except the Shadowlands only existed in her mother’s story—it wasn’t a real place.
She looked at the naked man in the doorway. In her dream, she’d watched him turn goblin. He’d been with her in her castle surrounded by the Shadowlands. He was going to kidnap her and take her back to the Shadowlands.
Meryn was a goblin.
No, goblins weren’t real.
“Who are you?”
“Meryn Knight.”
Was it his name? It was someone’s name, but there’d been no photos.
“And the letters? Why are they in Latin?” She flung her hand out and pointed to the papers.
“My cousin wrote the letters in Latin because Decangli was never a written language.”
“Nobody speaks Latin.” She didn’t even know what Decangli was.
“I speak it.”
“What the hell kind of Special Forces are you? What did you do in the army?”
“I planned battles for the king.”
“What king? I thought you grew up in Wales.”
“The king of the Decangli.”
“I’ve never heard of the Decangli.”
Meryn rubbed his hand over his hair, then over his jaw. “Do you want the truth or a fight? Do you want to run or to understand?”
Run. She should run. But her feet remained glued to the carpet.
“How do I know I’ll get the truth?” she demanded.
“I am not a liar.” Then he softened his voice. “But I left out pieces.”
“Lying by omission.”
His face hardened. “Just go. Run like you always do.”
Nadine stared. How dare he? He knew nothing about her. And she knew nothing about him. If he’d been a casual date, it wouldn’t have mattered, but her stupid heart had gotten involved in what could have been good sex and someone to talk to.
“I want to know whose bed I was in.” She crossed her arms. She wasn’t going to turn tail and run from Meryn. Her blood was pumping and she wanted a fight—a fight so they could break up whatever had started and she could walk away knowing she’d done the right thing in leaving.
Chapter 18
Meryn flexed his fingers and forced out a breath. He didn’t want Nadine to know who he was. He didn’t want to see fear in her eyes every time she looked at him, but he was her nightmare. He was the goblin who’d stood by and watched her mother kill herself after being taken during the solstice. However he was also remembering what it meant to be a man, and that meant being honest with those he loved. Starting with Nadine—even if that cost him her love. What they had would never be real if she didn’t know who he was.
“Fine. But let me speak.”
“Fine. Don’t trip over your lies.”
“I speak Latin and Decangli because they are the languages that were spoken when I was born. My wife and children were killed by Roman Legionnaires. There are no pictures because there were no cameras. All I have left are my memories. The happy ones cut as deeply as the bad ones.” He took a breath and studied Nadine’s face. She didn’t believe him. One eyebrow was raised and her arms were crossed. “I was cursed to the Shadowlands with my king.”
Meryn let his words settle like the fine gray dust of the Shadowlands. They coated everything and sucked out the life and joy. Her eyes widened and her lips parted, but she didn’t speak, so he took a step forward into the living room.
Maybe he should’ve told her sooner. Maybe he shouldn’t have let her poke around his things, but he didn’t want to hide his past. He didn’t want to spend his second chance at life living Dai’s cleverly created lie. He wanted to be himself and to be known for what he did, even though it had all happened so long ago.
“I know the story of The Goblin King because I lived it. I spent nearly two thousand years trapped in the Shadowlands.”
“You’re a goblin.”
“I have lived as a goblin. After I was made to watch Idella’s murder, I gave in to the curse. It was easier to want nothing but gold than to remember her screaming at the sight of me in a body that wasn’t mine.” He glanced at his hands. Even now they seemed strange, like they belonged to a man who had lived another life. In a way they did, because he would never be that man again. Too much had happened.
“You stole gold like a goblin.”
“That was a mistake.”
“The mistake was mine. I should’ve known better.” She picked up her bag and slung it over her shoulder.
“Nadine, please.”
“No. I don’t want to hear it. There is nothing you can say that will change my mind. Were you ever going to tell me you’re a goblin?”
“Would you have believed me if I’d told you? I told you what I could about my life and tried to protect you from the rest.”
“You lied to me about everything.”
“No. Do you really want to know about everything I’ve seen and done? Do you want to know how hard I fought to keep the Decangli free? How many people I saw die? Do want to know how brutal goblins are when they see a speck of gold? I live with these memories every day. You don’t have to.”
“I have a right to know who I’m sleeping with.”
“And now you know. Does it make you happy?”
“You’re a goblin.”
“I was born a man and will die a man, becoming goblin was a twist of fate.” And while not one he’d want to repeat, it had enabled him to meet Nadine and experience a life so far from anything he could’ve imagined. “If I hadn’t become goblin, we wouldn’t be standing here talking. I’d be long dead. I’ve gotten a second chance at living.”
She shook her head. Her eyes were hard, like her tears had frozen and left only ice. She hated him, hated what he was, hated that he’d hidden the truth.
“Goblins don’t get a second chance.” She opened the door.
Meryn took a couple of steps toward her.
“Stay away from me.”
“There’s something else you should know.”
“Oh yeah? What?” She spat out the words.
“While I was in the Shadowlands, I saw a woman who’d been taken by the goblins at solstice.”
“Was I next on your list?”
“No.” He frowned. For a moment he considered staying silent, but knew if he did, it would just be another lie he was keeping from her. She should know the truth. “Your mother disappeared on the winter solstice.” He paused, letting the words settle.
Nadine didn’t move. Her fingers whitened against the doo
r handle.
“Your mother was taken by goblins. Your father is innocent,” Meryn finished.
She stepped back. “You don’t know that.”
“I see the resemblance every time I look at you.”
Nadine shook her head. “You bastard.” Then she left and slammed the door after herself. The room echoed, but the tension remained.
Meryn sank to the floor and leaned his head against the wall. His fragile heart cracked again as the screaming filled his skull. This time there was no ice-cold curse to take away the pain. There was no way out. He was trapped in his own nightmare. His nails dug into his scalp. But nothing stopped the ragged edges from cutting through the hurt and dragging him down. He closed his eyes, and tears clogged his eyelashes.
Sunlight crept across the floor. He grew cold. But he was used to that. He was also used to the hunger that followed. He knew he had to move, but he didn’t know how. What did he do now? The screaming continued. He tried to smother it, to silence it. He should never have gotten involved with Nadine. He should’ve remained faithful to his wife. But it wasn’t his wife his heart ached for. She was long dead. The woman who’d just been in his bed and in his arms was the one he wanted. Nadine gave his second chance meaning when the world around him made no sense.
Meryn scrubbed his hand over his face. He’d told her love was worth the hurt and he couldn’t live up to his own words. It was much easier to believe them when standing at the top, instead of stranded at the bottom. His hands fell to his side. The house was silent, waiting for him to do something.
If this were a battle, how would he win her back?
***
Nadine turned her face to the window of the nearly empty train, but she didn’t see the city passing by. She sniffed and tried to swallow the ache in her throat.
Lying bastard. Everything she thought they had was a goblin lie.
The points of the cross dug into her palm. She wished she’d never found it. Then she could’ve ignored all the things that weren’t quite right about Meryn. There were so many of them, and yet there’d been so many things that she’d liked about him. She’d liked him because he was different. He was different because he was a goblin and every word had been a lie.
Her eyes brimmed and tears crept down her cheeks. She swiped them away. She didn’t cry. Not now, not ever. Certainly not for a man who claimed to have lived the fairy tale of The Goblin King.
He was either a goblin or insane…no matter how much she’d rather Meryn be crazy, she knew that wasn’t true. Which meant he’d spent a couple of millennia as a goblin hoarding gold and fighting and stealing women.
Yet he’d never hurt her. He’d saved her from the thieves. And when she’d left, he hadn’t tried to stop her—because he was goblin, so why would he care? But she’d seen the pain in his eyes. Old or new it didn’t matter; he’d laid open his past for her to see and she hadn’t believed him. Her heart clenched like it would never beat again.
The memory of Meryn wild and covered in gray dust rose like a rotting corpse in a stream. Only now it made sense. He’d come straight from the Shadowlands. When he said he’d lived rough for a while, he’d meant in the Shadowlands. When he’d said he was numb, it was because he’d been goblin.
Her body shook as she tried to hold back the tide that threatened to drown her. His words echoed in her ears.
You father is innocent.
Nadine opened her fist. For days after her mother’s disappearance she’d refused to open her hand. When they’d finally pried it open, the cross was coated in blood. If Meryn were telling the truth, he’d seen her mother die and done nothing to save her from the goblins.
She couldn’t put the cross back in his apartment and forget finding it any more than she could un-hear the truth or un-know the monster hiding in the man. But all she wanted was his arms around her, making her feel safe again. She hated herself for that weakness. For falling for him and needing him. Until Meryn, she’d never needed any one and had never risked her heart on something as dangerous as love.
The train stopped at her station and she got off, knowing people were staring at the crying woman. They could all go to hell.
Her shins and back ached from the attack. But between her thighs ached for a very different reason—one she wouldn’t forget in a hurry. She sucked in air like it would be her last breath. She’d broken up with men before and it had never felt like she was dying. Meryn wasn’t a man. He was goblin and he’d stolen the cross and her heart.
Had he taken her mother?
He’d said he had seen a woman in the Shadowlands, not that he’d taken her—but he could be lying about that too. Is that what her father had been hiding?
She unlocked her front door, her memories and nightmares colliding with everything her father and Meryn had said. It had been midwinter when her mother disappeared.
No. It was a fairy tale, nothing more. Goblins weren’t real. They were a myth to scare children into behaving and not being greedy. But Meryn had known the story—a different version of it. Had he really lived it? She opened her hand and looked at the cross. In the bathroom she looked at the torque he’d given her.
A gift from another life. A life where it had been more than jewelry and a sign of rank. His clothes, the claim that he’d been waving a sword, and his lack of language. The ill feeling in her stomach swelled and crashed against her lungs.
What he wanted her to believe was impossible. He couldn’t be a Celtic warrior returned from the Shadowlands. It was easier to believe in goblins than that.
She changed clothes, the skin on her palms tender and raw. But she remembered the touch of his lips on her flesh, the way he’d stepped in and defended her from the thugs without hesitation. She wanted to believe him. She wanted to be able to trust him. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to push down the hurt, but it wouldn’t go.
There was only one person who could answer her questions about goblins, who knew almost as much about them as her mother. And who had always pleaded not guilty to her murder—her father.
Maybe he wasn’t guilty. She had to know if the secrets he was hiding were about goblins too. Had goblins taken her mother on the winter solstice like Meryn claimed? But why serve time for a crime he never committed, why never tell her that he was innocent and goblins were to blame?
And if they had taken her mother to the Shadowlands, what did that mean? Did that mean Meryn really knew the Goblin King? Had the curse really been broken? Was he really a man with a second chance?
Her father was the only person who would be able to prove Meryn’s story. She snatched up her car keys, not sure if the truth would make what Meryn had told her better or worse. Could she love a man who’d been goblin?
Chapter 19
Meryn had walked the paths of Kings Park without seeing. He half started down the road to the hospital where Nadine worked, then turned back and headed home. He needed a better plan than just turning up and asking for a second chance.
He was everything she hated. Goblins had ruined her life as a child and so far he wasn’t doing a great job of proving that he was any better. Would there have ever been a good way to tell her?
To tell anyone? He sank onto a chair at the dining table and cradled his head in his hands. No matter what he did, he would always have the same problem. No one would ever know who he was and he’d be stuck. A man without a past was a man without a future.
There were only two people he could talk to who would understand—his cousins. But that would mean admitting he told Nadine about the curse and goblins. He sat without moving, staring at Dai’s Latin lettering without being able to read a word of it. He picked up the bracelet and felt the weight of it in his hand before putting it on. The words unscrambled and became clear. If only the answer was as easy to see. Once, he’d have never sat alone, dwelling on a problem; he’d have discussed it with Roan. He wanted his tribe back; he wanted a family again. He wanted Nadine.
He rang Dai, and within moments, his cous
in was standing in the living room.
Dai glanced around and seemed to sense this wasn’t a social call. “What’s wrong?”
Meryn drew in a breath. How did he explain that he’d screwed up everything? “I need some advice.”
Dai raised his eyebrows as if waiting for the rest of the story.
“I think I should tell you and Roan at the same time.” Because whatever he said wasn’t going to go down well.
“Right. Everyone is at my place.” Dai held out his hand.
“Everyone?”
“Eliza, Amanda, Brigit…now you. You can meet the family.” Dai smiled.
Great, the last thing he wanted was to be admitting his failures in front of everyone. “Maybe I shouldn’t have rung.”
“Meryn, they want to meet you. Whatever the problem, it’s not going to get any worse if you stop for dinner.” Dai turned the things Meryn had once said back on him. He’d once been the one reminding Dai to take a breath. Maybe some of things he’d said had made a difference and had helped Dai…maybe Roan and Dai would now be able to help him.
“Very well, but I need to act tonight.” Meryn gripped Dai’s hand, and the lurch and jolt of translocation followed. This time when he opened his eyes he was back in the tower he’d escaped from. The tower was actually a very nice apartment, furnished very sparsely but filled with people who all turned. They weren’t looking at Dai, who’d just appeared out of nothing; they were looking at him. Meryn forced a smile.
“Meryn, so glad you came.” Roan clasped Meryn’s forearm in greeting. “You met Eliza.” Eliza nodded. “This is Amanda and her daughter Brigit.”
Amanda ran her gaze over him and made a quick assessment before smiling. Brigit narrowed her eyes and took a step forward. “Were you a goblin?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes lit up. “Did you steal lots of gold?”
“Brigit, help me set an extra place at the table.” Amanda steered Brigit into the kitchen.
“I won’t stay; you’re obviously in the middle of something.” Why had Dai brought him here? This was a bad idea.
“Don’t be silly.” Eliza glanced at Roan. Whatever the message she was trying to convey, Roan seemed to understand.