Denial (Goblin's Kiss Series Book One)

by Cyndi Goodgame

  “I want to go home now.”

  I perked up. “You can’t.” I had to stick with the plan.

  “I can. And I will. I’m not marrying some pompous idiot who doesn’t even know me or care about me even if he is hot.”

  I stiffened not intending too. She said he was hot. That freckhead had enough girls he tortured with his too good looks of persuasion. He could leave this one alone. Only, this was the one prize that would ensure his reign for a very long time.

  And Emma didn’t even know half of it. King Joshlin didn’t know the full extent of her power yet. That was step two of the plan.

  “I will not let him have you. Stick with the plan of making him think you aren’t powerful at all and would make him work for it. He hates work.”

  She hated it, but she trusted me for some reason.

  It took too long. Five brain-numbing minutes passed before he showed up for dinner. With a girl. That would be the icing on the cake to push her away from him.

  I reminded Emma before we left the small closet room that she needed to harness her power and appear weak. She didn’t like it, but said she would do it to get out of here. I realized at the door leaving just how small the closet had been.

  EMMA

  In the small broom closet-like space Ames crashed me into, I felt the immediate fire that burned inside me when he was close. This kind of reaction never happened with my ex. Rick was sweet and attentive in the beginning, but kind of Joshlin-like in the end.

  But Ames was under my skin. I was scared to death about what he might tell me and when he did—I laughed. I felt so mean. He was crushed by it too. I was too far gone in the Ames Cahn world whatever he was. We looked the same. From the same kind of...people. But he’d said we were different because of his dark history and my lack thereof. I disagreed but had nothing to back that observation aside some physical features, magic, and emotional pull. My skin was pale and his dark from the sun in a glorious tan that any human guy would kill for. We were the same no matter if we descended from different places. His piercing eyes of intense depth just kept me coming back for more even if he hated being here with me. His speech was not convincing on the "I want you, not the powers" part. Something in him made him stay, I just didn’t know what.

  The insulting part was the king. He had an agenda. I did wonder if Ames had his own agenda, but decided it was better to trust someone. He seemed to have my best interest at hand so I would follow what he asked to get me out of here. Coming had been a mistake.

  “Well, here we are again,” Joshlin drawled out his voice with a buttery sweetness. I wasn’t falling for it this time. I sat at the table pulled up without any intentions of eating anything. I crossed my arms on the table and watched him enter with the same girl from before. She looked nice and I wondered then why she would hang out with the king. Maybe she was one of my cousins or something.

  The girl stood at the corner of the room and didn’t join us. Mr. King Joshlin came and sat right beside me. I eyed Ames and saw his returning stoic look of non-interest. At least I knew what was behind the poker face now. He was collectively cross and nervous all in one. I’d have to start asking if he could sense the same in me.

  We stood silent while Joshlin retreated from me and made his way around the room talking to various people, introducing me as he went. Minutes turned into half an hour before he came back to me. I wasn’t sure if I saw it as an honor or a terror. Definitely a terror.

  “Now, has Officer Cahn schooled you in the facts you seek?”

  He wasn’t after a bride. He needed a gopher girl. If Ames was right, he didn't seem the loving, thoughtful kind.

  “Yes he has.” I didn’t know how to answer him without burning holes in his head.

  I scratched my palms stifling the anger boiling up.

  He clapped his hands like this was a business proposition. “Good. Good. I will announce our engagement tonight and the wedding will be next week.” He reached for a strawberry and fed himself. The whole scene was too comical to retell anywhere. No one would believe me. No one would care. Was that why I was easy to take?

  Oh, I was beyond boiling point. I was five hundred degrees and climbing. How did I ever get caught up in the web of his hotness? He didn’t even appear so good looking now. His arrogant wave of hair was just annoying and his swagger as he walked looked like a cowboy just off his horse. Yeah, his eyes were still sexy, but they were full of lies. He was just horrible.

  I stood feeling the power increase. I was so wrapped up in that anger of his self-absorbed lie to marry me based on who I was I forgot what Ames needed me to do. On occasion, I have been known to lose control of it. Come to think about it, the tree incident by the school probably put me on the radar. Rick was following me on my run that day.

  My hands tingled. It was close.

  AMES

  I didn’t know what to do. She wasn’t holding back what I told her to do. She couldn’t control it. The man was a jerk to her and he deserved her weapon of destruction to land straight across his face, but he would use it. That is, once he recovered. I couldn’t let her.

  I leapt to the stage he kept himself on the second her hand started to raise. I grabbed it into my own and the second it did, the feeling was gone. Like that. As if I made it go back away or something. Her face told me she knew what had happened but didn’t understand it either.

  Now I had to deal with the whys. I snatched a strawberry from the table behind her back and his. I twisted my fingers to bruise it profusely and held it up between her face and the king’s.

  “Bruised and all. She is too perfect to eat such uncared for food.” I knew what he would do.

  “Cate.” Joshlin called over his shoulder. I feared I’d screwed up things for Cate, but she would recover. Emma wouldn’t.

  “Take the crop of strawberries back through the kitchen and next time check them more carefully. Another mess like this and you will be replaced.”

  She whimpered low and bowed backwards all the way out the door. I hated him in that moment more than I ever had. Not because I didn’t know what he was already capable of, but because he showed all of it in his glory to this girl. Emma was better than him and he would use her as a decorated fancy cake on display.

  Emma’s hand still in mine, the dirtbag King turned back to us. I dropped it the second he registered it was there. If he thought anything at all, he didn’t show it.

  “It was fine. You didn’t have to berate her,” Emma snarked off at him.

  “Yes, I did. And you will not question me in my realm.”

  I knew it before it surfaced.

  Damn. How will I cover this one? The surge built inside of her. I moved behind her situating my hand on her back hoping for the same reaction. It didn’t work this time. I was baffled.

  Worse. It was growing this time.

  “Take the princess to her rooms. If she sees fit to have her manners back, she may return.”

  She would blow the whole plan in about ten seconds. I had to get her out of there.

  One step. Three steps down. Five to the door. The hallway. The stairs. Courtyard.

  My hand was still on her back. As a guard I generally kept hands off, but with her...

  She took the longest breath ever when the fresh air hit her. She turned fast, exhaled, and belted out with, “That man is horrid.” And the worst was yet to come.

  EMMA

  “We haven’t much time. He will check on you in precisely one hour,” Ames told me.

  “How do you know?”

  He looked uncomfortable. “I just know how he does things. He is always gone one hour at a time.”

  I took that for truth and let it go. The less I knew about Joshlin the king of the world I didn’t belong in, the better.

  “I didn’t hide it very well,” I confessed.

  He shrugged keeping his eyes all over the place but me. “I was glad I could help.”

  “Yeah, about that. What exactly did you do?”

  He sh
ifted his feet, rubbed his chin.

  My eyes must have sparked with the sound of his fingers rubbing the day old unshaven face because his brow lifted and he did it again. I blushed just like I knew my face would.

  He smiled one tiny length of time and then said, “It didn’t work when I touched your back but I have a theory. We will test it when it is safe to practice. For now, I just want to get you to safety.” His face changed completely. A slow serious survey like the secret service. “Emma, I have to ask you something,” he checked all around us. “If you go with me right now, we can’t come back.”

  “At all.”

  He nodded.

  “Home?”

  “Not today. In days maybe to see them, but it won’t be safe.”

  He was telling me something. “If I stay, he will lock me up, right?”

  He nodded slowly and caressed my cheek. I craved his touch.

  “If I go home they will come find me?” Before he could answer, I asked something that had to be asked. “Then why did you bring me here?”

  He looked as torn as I felt. “Emma, I’m sorry. I knew this morning this was a mistake. I couldn’t just take you and hide you. It would be just like him. He has forced me to do things...things I’m not proud of. But you, well...I searched for two days on how to save you, keep you from him.”

  “And what did you decide?” I swallowed the lump in my throat.

  “That I couldn’t save you until you saw what he was first. What I am. If you found all the truths outside of me, you would hate me at the very least. I didn’t want you to have to see him or at his worst, but there it is. There are still things you don’t know and I will tell them to you. But if you go with me now, it is on the run. It will be the only way to escape him.”

  He just admitted my regular, somewhat normal life was over days ago when he first showed up. That he’d have to take me regardless and have to leave me unless he could hatch a mock exit for the two of us to survive.

  I was scared. But I couldn’t go home. In a way, I didn’t want to. I felt my fingers tingle with warmth. I was fuming that I went with him. I didn’t dare look his way for he might see how furious I was. So when I did, his face was sad. I didn’t expect that. Or that he was probably thinking the same thing. He’d said that I would have been taken regardless. Maybe this wasn’t entirely his fault. He was trying to save me from this. He didn’t lie.

  “Emma. We can get through this. When you run into a wall, you push through it. It you hit another, you find a way around it.” He paused then said, “We will get you out of this.”

  AMES

  I have heard the phrase, “Bit off more than you could chew”? I was feeling the repercussions of it right now. And at the point when I thought I couldn’t do what it was I was promising, this girl handed me her complete trust once again. She had no idea what it meant to use caution when dealing with danger.

  “Okay. I’ll go with you.”

  She was willing to give up everything at a moment’s notice. Well, mostly everything for now. Her body spoke to me showing that all of her alarm bells were singing, but her eyes were begging me to make sure she could trust me. My heart galloped like a race horse at the thought of proving it to her. I wasn’t sure I knew how.

  And I was sure she’d say no, huff off towards home, and force me to protect her with my body splayed across the front of her when the boogie man came calling.

  “But I have one question,” she shifted her feet and watched them move on the ground. I left my lookout position to her now softly lidded eyes. The fierce strength she so often held was gone from her face.

  “If you hate me so much, why are you doing this?” I started to correct her when she added, “And don’t try any of that man shark smooth talking on me when you don’t mean it.”

  I can’t believe I never found her before. She was a fire I couldn’t control and didn’t want to. She was perfect the way she was. When her hand lifted to her hip and she leaned sideways, I wanted to do all kinds of things to her I shouldn’t.

  “I won’t talk you into anything.” Now was not the time to tell her I was absolutely nuts for her. Besides, it would just come out wrong.

  I took her hand and headed out the courtyard door and back to the entrance without delay. No one questioned me, the head officer of the guard for the king. I had a good hour, maybe even two before all heck would break loose.

  Time.to.go.

  A head nod to Jones told him the plan was a go. He would see me when he sees me, so to speak. I didn’t think all this through as clearly as I should. Here I was sneaking away the only girl I’ve ever done anything for from my own people, but if I stopped and thought about it too long, I might have backed out. My heart clinched when I thought about her being touched by that monster.

  Once outside, I hurried back to the practice grounds where the oblivious Wicker would be waiting for an inquiry. I was in no such mood.

  Bypassing the grounds, I took her through the higher brush making it difficult for me to shield every limb that hit her body. I didn’t want any harm to a single part of her precious skin.

  “You’re going around to avoid Wicker?”

  She figured me out. Smart girl.

  “Yup!” No sense hiding it. I said I wouldn’t lie. Not to her at least. There are some things I’m giving up for her. Things that would hurt her. If something caused her pain or put her in danger, then all bets were off.

  “We have a goal in mind?” she quizzed.

  Did she think me daft? Of course I would have a plan. I told her I did. “Got it covered.”

  I smiled at the thought of my plan actually coming to fruition.

  “Care to share this great and awesome plan?” She went on.

  Didn’t she trust me?

  Just then, lady luck threw another monkey wrench in my face.

  “Where do you two think you are going?”

  I high-tailed it around to block her from him. He wasn’t supposed to be here. I could see this wouldn’t be easy.

  “Stay out of this and you’ll be just fine.”

  Wicker’s eyes shot to hers. “What is she doing here?”

  Emma stiffened, hands on hips. This is her standard ticked off look. I liked it more than I should. “Look, buddy. He told you to stay out of our bizz-ness. Find someone else who can float your boat.”

  I blinked at her blazon attitude. She hadn’t shown much in the way of shyness other than when I made her blush, but her confidence made others stand up and take notice. She was all tiger.

  I took her arm. She was full of...passion. She wanted what she wanted and wouldn’t relent even if her enemy could tell she was a soft kitten. That could be very dangerous since inside she could take down a grown man with the flick of her tiny wrist.

  “Emma. Let me take care of this.”

  She huffed.

  EMMA

  Ames “took” care of it all right.

  “You’re going nowhere with her, Cahn.”

  Ames growled at Wicker and started pulling me through the trees again. His body was blocking mine forcing heat to rise in me. Stepping in unison to keep up with me instead of vice versa, my heart began to pulse rapidly from his nearness and not the rush of unwanted exercise. I was a runner for goodness sakes.

  “If you take one foot away right from where you’re at, I am coming with you.” Wicker flashed a toothy grin unlike himself.

  Ames stance loosened a little, but not completely. Like a ragdoll, I waited on. “What will you do, Paul?”

  Paul? Thought his name was just Wicker. Dummy me.

  “I know what you’re doing. I saw it in your eyes the day you brought her here. You care for this girl and I admire what you’re doing. But if you choose this, there is no going back.”

  “Don’t you think I know this, Wicker?” Ames, the ticking time bomb, switched back to the other name with the same force in his voice the other guy held when they said each other’s names. Was it Wicker Paul or Paul Wicker? Both sounded funny.<
br />
  “Just saying, Ames. Is she worth it?” His hand squeezed around mine. First names aside, why was this conversation so intense?

  Ames tilted his head to me with his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat and only halfway diffused from his large breathes of air he kept taking. His voice shook just a little, “More than you could ever know.”

  I didn’t know what to say. Was it because I was the next contestant on the Joshlin list, or because he might actually care what happens to me? Was he risking more than he might be telling me?

  “Then I will come with.” Wicker was now reaching back for various weapons that he seemed to pull out of nowhere.

  “NO! You can’t risk it.”

  “Like you are man. I may not have the chick, but it doesn’t mean I don’t back your cause. This little hot number packs quite a punch.”

  The growl resurfaced.

  Wicker’s hands flew to the air. “Just saying, bro. Her power is lethal. Once Joshlin gets wind of it, you’re dead meat. You’re going to need back up.”

  Now they were “bro”. Names were weapons to them.

  “I’m in too.” A voice from behind the practice camp area came up close to us. There stood the one he called Trigger earlier clad out in armor and weapons I’d never seen before.

  “Ah, crap guys. Don’t make me take you down with me.”

  AMES

  Her hand jerked out of mine sending cold chills down my spine. She wasn’t the only one who craved a calming touch. “What do you mean, take down? You never made this to be a kamikaze type thing.”

  What did she think this “thing” was? The current goblin king wants her for un-exclusive power that could drop a building to the bottom floor, use her like a tool in all manner of ways, and make her an idol. Didn’t she see the danger?

  “Your guy there is the prince-y boy. Straight from the top. Nothing is gonna happen to you girlie with Ames around. And if it did, I’m standing behind you first and foremost. I saw what your body can do,” Trigger shouted his mouth off telling her too much information. What’s with all my buddies spilling stuff she didn’t need to know yet?