Denial (Goblin's Kiss Series Book One)

by Cyndi Goodgame

  My eyelids felt like weights. I felt myself fade again from lack of sleep and knew I needed to get out.

  The air on my face was freeing. Cooped up for so long, I missed the earth. Going to the goblin realm hadn’t been an appropriate outing.

  I remained in a circular pattern on the grounds around the cabin. I even tried to follow the traps telling myself I was being helpful. Still, it was nice unwrapping the tight muscles that were wound up from too much stress.

  I thought back to the comment I’d made about his violent nature.

  A barrage of images folded out in my brain at what he’d probably done in his past. It mattered in the sense that he’d seen pain and even caused it. What didn’t matter was if he felt that being a leader included such behavior or even to protect loved ones. If he felt the only solution to every problem was violence, then I’d have to let him go on his own. I couldn’t live within that kind of world. It hurt all the way to my heart to think about being away from him, but I would if I had too.

  And then, he answered it like he’d heard me. His sole purpose wasn’t to first hurt others, but to keep them from pain. I should have caught that image instead when I’d first seen his little knives, but all I saw then was the danger he could cause. I guess being deadly isn’t a crime, but how you use it.

  I passed a trap that was half closed and wondered aloud if it was supposed to be that way. No one but the trees heard my complaint, so I moved on at a jogging pace. Around my third rotation, I bunged my feet into the dirt just past the same trap that was now completely closed not four to five minutes after I’d just seen it half open.

  I searched for unknown footprints, shady spots of disheveled patches of earth, things like that. I’d watched all three guys do the same and even begged them to explain how their intuitive natures caught on to such things. I was far from trained, but I’d paid attention.

  I bent down to examine the trap careful to keep my fingers far from any eliciting tricky springs. Something blurred in my side vision making me look left and as I hurdled up to standing. Someone grabbed my elbow and yanked. My mouth covered from screams, I was dragged backward into the woods as I heard the sound of every trap snap simultaneously. A fear rose in my heart, but a hope hid there too. I just knew that one of them would have heard the traps.

  “You will not scream when I let your mouth go or I will kill him the instant he comes near you.” Joshlin’s voice was dead with poison. Would he really kill his own? Yes, I think he would if he was willing to do the other things he'd intended. Just not on his own.

  His hand was sticky against my mouth and the seal broke with a smack making me forcibly wipe my mouth clean, but not clean enough. “How are you here? I thought you always had others to do your dirty work?” I felt the sweat run down my forehead and off my nose. I wasn’t dressed properly for my last uncomfortable situation. Gawd, what I wouldn’t give to go back to last night instead of the present circumstances.

  Joshlin didn’t answer me.

  “Did you make the traps do that?” I asked him still facing away.

  “Technicality. Calling card if you will. Either way, my brother will give you up if he wants you alive.” I was spun around to face him feeling his hand walk down my arm causing prickles of disgust.

  “You admit aloud he is your brother?”

  “Not by blood. But, of course, you only know this my little princess because of your nosy ears that were led by my doing.”

  “You set me up!” I yelled at him. And it so happens I'd already guessed it.

  “You needed to know what a liar my little brother can be. He hasn’t always done the nicest things in his lifetime. Maybe you should reconsider his commitment to you once I fill you in on a few family secrets.” Joshlin was dressed down for his norm in what anyone would call “normal” human clothes. He resembled the classic bad boy charm with the oozing smile that to me said evil, but I was sure would come across as swoon worthy to others. Black leather pants and jacket with his regular boots, he looked like a biker without the tats.

  He was too tarnished to be considered worthy of his good looks.

  “You done gawking princess. Ames might not like you looking at other men.”

  “It would if he knew what my thoughts lingered around when it comes to you,” I spat back at him.

  “Watch it. Anger me and I’ll have to use this.” He pulled out a roll of duct tape. Not the most inventive item I’d have guessed the magical goblin king to use against his foe.

  Yet, he was kidnapping me to keep me. Some enemy. I couldn’t help but think back to my fast read internet research of kidnapping goblins and what the history might have right. I tried really hard to ignore the facts.

  AMES

  She was gone. GONE! The second I heard the traps I knew it inside. Not even the cold feeling that ached stronger and stronger made me doubt it.

  Wicker flew through the front door and screamed in a far from respectful tone, “She friggin’ left you worthless dip. Why did you let her leave?” He cursed under his breath with words unsuited for remembering and continued his flight all the way to the back door.

  “You know Caydon will take her the second Joshlin is alone. Joshlin is a putz and Caydon will have her claimed, marked, and whatever else he can do to make her unwanted just to spite you.”

  I permeated my face into his with my next less than thought out statement, “It will not make her unwanted.”

  Wicker swallowed making his neck twitch and nodded sending the unsaid return of what he understood in the small, but powerful statement.

  “He will brand her with his mark to be sure.”

  Disgusting way of describing a wedding night. I was appalled at myself for even thinking about it myself.

  “No, he will not. I won’t let him.”

  Not another word from Wicker, but his back to the door.

  After my initial shocked reaction I was right behind him. Scouring the perimeter for which traps were affected, I found my prediction correct.

  Wicker was faster with his long legs and deft amount of tracking skills. He had the grounds covered and was back to the spot where she was taken as I bent down to examine the tracks myself. She was dragged.

  Bile rose in my throat. My unfiltered mind made the huge mistake to picture him hurting her and it only filed me as a murderous raving lunatic if I acted on it. Knowing he did it made it all the worse.

  I knew his way of things even if he’d never stepped out of our realm before. He was navigated here, but he took her all by himself.

  Either way, I had to have a plan with a level head. Joshlin would pay for this. Yeah, I knew what could happen, but sometimes when real events hit your own reality, they force you into corners you claimed you’d never enter. I would save Emma. And I would take down Joshlin in the process.

  EMMA

  “Inside now!” Joshlin pointed into a lavish room decorated much like the fancy sitting area that had been my prison of eye-opening discoveries.

  “Could you try being nice to me if I have to be stuck with you?” I wanted some small win. I wanted to buy time. It was like I was being locked up in the tower and stored away for a later date. I just hoped that fate didn’t include sacrificial virgins or waiting for the beheading cart to be wheeled in. That would be my luck.

  “Like you were nice when you knocked me out with your voodoo!” he sneered shaking the door at me like it might make me move faster. Think again.

  “I didn’t mean to do that,” I gritted my teeth. “Remember, you guys chose to keep me in the dark for, I don’t know, eighteen years. Besides, if I could, it would have been a lot stronger.”

  A hiss emerged like dragon fire as he shoved me in the door yelling that the “serves” would be there soon to bath and dress me. Great, I’m not even dressing myself while I’m here. And I have a bad feeling he might just burn my jeans since I haven’t seen a single girl without a long busty gown around here unless they were servants, or excuse me, “serves”. Talk about livi
ng in the dark ages.

  The door slammed shut and I was alone.

  The bed was showered with red lace coverings from the ceiling to the floor. Red velvet walls, red pillows with red lace. Someone has a compulsive like for the color red.

  The dresser to my left had a gold shimmery box left open on the top of it. Inside, I found a ruby pendant on a chain and a note.

  Please accept this.

  Affectionately yours,

  King Joshlin

  The idea of him ever being very affectionate was a laugh.

  There was a bathroom attached. I proceeded to use the facilities when a knock came on the door outside. I hurried my business and zoomed back into the room.

  Ten minutes or so had passed since the illustrious leader left me to my supposed peace and quiet.

  Behind the door were two girls way too young to be dressing me up in doll clothes. They should be in school or something. I tried to act cordial knowing this was not their fault and I succeeded until the long blonde named Katelyn brought up that I was the newest slave girl but with a royal title. She said it deliberately to get a reaction out of me, but for the life of me, I didn’t know why.

  “Do you think I want to be here?” I asked incredulously eyeing her beauty. She was very pretty with large brown eyes and a pretty dress for a servant but who was I to base judgments off of fairy tales.

  “Not anymore than the rest of us,” Katelyn snipped back. She was quite sassy for what looked like a sixteen or seventeen year old, not that anyone should be a slave to another no matter what age.

  “I didn’t choose this. I’ve been told a lie my whole life and now this horrible man says I have to be his little queen and love slave at the same time.”

  “It sounds like a sad story, but I’m not dishing out sympathy to anyone who will end up just like him.” Katelyn was dropping rose petals into the warm steamy bathtub meant for five. It was huge!

  “I.will.not.end.up.like.him,” I didn’t stop the hostility in my voice. I hated that man. “That loathsome man can eat lead for all I care.”

  “Glad to hear it. But words around here are like warm snowflakes and your man is like drone male ant meant to eat and mate.”

  “Thanks for the science lesson, but I would have to agree with you. So what can we do to get him ousted?”

  Her face was priceless, but the second she flashed surprise she turned it straight to doubt. “You think I will help you?”

  She kept to her tasks.

  “I know you still see me as the bad guy, but I’m not. I want Mr. Sexy but Creepy to eat sushi and die like the rest of you, but I need help. If you want my word I can give it, but you seem like you might doubt anything I say. I would too if I’d been locked up in this prison like everyone here. So for now, I will assume we can be secret pals. If there is information I need to know about his weaknesses, times in the day or night when he is out of commission, ways I can get around him to get information about taking him down that would be great. Anything helps. You can do that and it won’t hurt you. Just information. I am going to assume Ames will come save me soon so help is on the way. He will think he’s just here to break me out of this prison, but it will come to more than that if we play our cards right.”

  I sounded like a true spy out of a Bourne movie. Reverse psychology and all that jazz. I just hope the show I put own was believable and she wasn’t a double agent.

  I dipped into the water and dunked my head under.

  Biting her bottom lip and then her top, Katelyn said with a head bob, “Okay. If you rat me out, I will make sure your first night with him is pure h-e-double-l.”

  “Whoa! There will not be a first night. Let’s get that clear. I—Wait a minute. “Have...you...”

  “Oh no!” Katelyn flew her hands in the air. “Not me. He at least has the decency, if you can call it that, to make it older girls. I just can’t stand knowing my friends have no choice. He is evil.”

  She gave me a look that indicated for me to get busy with the washing process and was so glad I at least had that privacy, so I complied.

  “I agreem Katelyn. And the only way we are ever going to save your friends is to take him out of the equation. I can’t do that being an outsider. I need your help.” I held my breath in hope.

  “Okay. I will help.”

  My breath released and so did the immediate attention.

  Before she let me bathe, I had to ask someone a burning question. “Do you have freckles?”

  “What?”

  “Freckles. Little moles of sunspots on your skin.”

  “Not that I’m aware of. Why would you ask?” She curled her nose up.

  “Well, I don’t either. Neither does Ames. I was just curious because humans all have them. Born with them and usually gain more from being in the sun.”

  “You’ve seen Ames naked?”

  Oh, gawd. “Absolutely not! I asked him.” My stuttering heart matched my words.

  Katelyn giggled, reminding me she was a girl at heart. “You might want to check on his honesty one day. He is an honorable man no matter what he thinks of himself, Miss Jem.”

  “Emma.”

  She smiled at me once more. “Might want to give him a chance if what the rumors I’m hearing are true. Ames has never once paid this much attention to one girl.”

  I rolled my eyes and closed the door. She stood outside the bathroom until I was dressed in my undergarments and some form of camisole that went down to my knees. The other girl had disappeared and I only just realized it when I walked out of the bathroom.

  Next came the dress though she told me my hair and face would have to be made up first before soiling the dress. Make up your mind folks.

  A half hour later I was covered in more makeup than I’d worn in my life, hairpins and curls that would outdo a poodle, and heels the height of a super model. This was not me.

  Adjusting the dress several more times, I was told not to fidget with it in front of him, sit without crossing my legs, keep my hands in my lap, and to bow my head at his first entrance.

  I huffed at the last order and Katelyn informed me that it would be wise to keep him happy at the time if she was going to be snooping around. If he was suspicious, he would watch more. I told her he’d not expect me to be completely compliant and that would raise more suspicion. She agreed, but told me to limit it to maybe just word fights and not in front of others. Apparently, he had habit of punishing those who acted out in front of him. Lovely! I was going to be Suzy Q wife in disguise. I just pray my scene one is short and scene two never makes the cut.

  AMES

  It was near dusk when we finally reached a plan that wasn’t instant death and might actually work if all went according to plan. I had it in my head to kill my brother if he’d hurt her in any way, but the best case scenario was to get her out and run. I just didn’t mention my side mission to them in fear they might not help me. That wasn’t a good option because I needed them to be able to get back out.

  Wicker’s tracking abilities led us to where he stashed her for some amount of time before he moved on. It was midnight now and we’d somehow gathered all the supplies we needed except one item.

  The way in.

  They convinced me to do surveillance first and know if Joshlin had added guards or any scouts around the hazed boundary of the realm. These mountains are very easy to get around if you know where you’re going and Joshlin knew his people could maneuver it well, but could he? He never left. In fact, knowing he was there to get her only made my fight harder because I knew he was aiming to unsettle me into making a mistake. His presence was easy to detect when he left his footprints the size of a Sasquatch. He'd done it on purpose to rub it in our faces. Or mine at least.

  Silent like the night air was around me, I felt Trigger’s energy near me telling me he’d check the entire “to the left” part of the boundaries. Wicker would come from the right in about thirty seconds if the coast was clear.

  He didn’t.

 
Fifteen minutes later he was there making my disconcerted nerves ready to burst.

  He’d tallied three new bodies just outside the boundary including one guard hidden in the treetops and two scouts moving in a constant pattern. Why nothing to the left?

  I sent Trigger back through for a second scan.

  The guard in the tree would be easy. The scouts would be easy as long as they continued the same pattern. Joshlin just wasn’t the guardsman I was. Without me, the men would obey him.

  The whole thing was a joke! We had this made.

  The night progressed and eager wasn’t the half of it. We watched the day ritual to learn if the patterns changed. Sadly no, but good for us. Once again, this ought to be easy.

  Psyching myself up was the making of a replay in my mind the moment I found her safe in my arms. It was the hope I had to cling too knowing the jerk was near her. I don’t believe he would hurt her in the span we’ve been apart. He would have locked her up and dressed up like his harem, but not hurt her...yet.

  He approached me from behind with a bird whistle I didn’t recognize but I did know his distinct calls without a glance back.

  “What of the left side, Trigger?”

  “Same. Joshlin’s deficiency in protection detail makes this a bit easier.”

  “My thoughts exactly.”

  We stood together in silence watching the main entry, both keeping our thoughts to ourselves. I wondered if he recognized Seth, the current entry guard. Seth was only sixteen and has never once used a weapon on another unless in the sparring ring practice square I kept in the back of the realm. I kept that part of the guard’s skills hidden from our king’s clutches.

  EMMA