Denial (Goblin's Kiss Series Book One)

by Cyndi Goodgame

  Katelyn took me to the same large room where the table was before, a private dwelling area for the king himself and a few chosen onlookers for show. All female. Food was covered all over it like before. Mostly fruit and breads and cheeses. I noted the glass being poured by none other than the man himself as he looked up to see me pranced in like a seventeenth century supermodel with a Lady Gaga painted on face.

  Upon inspection of the room five steps in, it was empty of people save me...and him. I turned stiffly in the painted on dress to see if Katelyn still stood to my right side as she had on the way here, but the doors were shut and we were most assuredly...alone.

  “A drink?”

  Is it poisoned? Measuring my steps, I clicked my heels purposefully over to the table making sure I landed far enough from him I could retreat at arm’s length. He could easily do whatever in a locked room where no one could hear me scream and that scared me more than anything.

  The drink he poured was red wine. It had a nice fruity scent that wafted under my nose making me crinkle it up giving him cause to comment.

  “To your liking?”

  Please! “I wouldn’t know.” I liked it even as I sipped it, but I wouldn’t tell him. “I haven’t tasted much before.”

  He chuckled making him come across as desirous in appearance, but the mirth underneath seeped out too easily. “That will change over time.”

  We’ll see, buddy! I studied the table instead of him. “So will the table have this much food all the time?”

  “It was served in honor of your return. We will overlook your last exit since you will be staying permanently with us. Everyone is anxious to formally meet you.” He took a slow drink and I knew his watchful eyes were tracking me like a bounty hunter who found his million dollar prize.

  Did he really doubt that Ames would just sit this out and leave me here? Would he...leave me here?

  A surge of doubt edged up into my heart instantly making Joshlin’s head jerk towards me. Uh! Oh! He could read me too.

  “There is no need to be afraid. Not one in my realm is unhappy living here once they find their proper place. You will be showered with gifts, freedoms once you prove trustworthy, and you’ve already met your personal servants Katelyn and Ellen.”

  Ellen had disappeared fast. Would he “fire” her when he learned of that? I was suddenly scared for her.

  “Thank you for the attention and I do appreciate the private room,” I forged a smile to slide open hoping my compliance would get what I needed for Katelyn to get her foot in the next door. I wondered why Joshlin didn’t comment on the possible reason for my fear.

  I tried the emotion connection thing again with thoughts of Ames and our moment on the back porch. It was the only thing I could think of. I felt my heart race at the thought of him ever kissing me. After letting a minute pass, Joshlin seemed unaffected. With the pictures playing in my mind, it would have sent him into a murderous rage. He can’t read me. I needed to watch my facial reactions.

  “The room is yours and only I and your servants can enter.” He carefully narrowed his eyes at me in a singular direction that made me read the double meaning in his words. Oh, no he wouldn’t!

  Unable to find a response to his comment, I keep my eyes on the grapes centered on the table in a giant earth worn pottery bowl. It was the same set up on the table as last time and gave a welcome distraction for me to remain passive.

  I wanted to know any of the times he might show up in my room since I wanted to be gone by then, but how to ask a question like that. Well, he beat me too it.

  “I will let you have time to yourself for now...let us get to know each other.”

  My shoulders had to have visibly dropped. I didn’t think he noticed until he inched around the table, took my drink from my trembling hands, and pinned me against the table with, “I feel you easing off from that statement. I assure you, as your king, you will come to me on your own. I can be very...convincing.”

  I swallowed dry air at the bizarre exchange of sentiment...or lack thereof. My throat felt like a baseball was lodged in it. Again, I was at a loss for words as he leaned in like he might kiss me. This is time to myself?

  “For now, I will allow you to visit the courtyard with Katelyn or Ellen and remain in your room with the exception of meal times. The wedding will be a week from today as already decided so I suggest you warm up to me sooner than later.” His mouth was so close. He wasn’t exactly repulsive in the looks department so in my head it felt like Satan leaning over trying to entice me with a trip to the Underworld as a honeymoon.

  Satan can’t be ugly. He gets what he wants too much. And he must be pretty persuasive in his methods since he wins more often than he should be allowed. This dude was the wicked step-child or something since he couldn’t seem to accomplish waving a magic wand over me and have my every second of time.

  Yep! Son of Satan was a fashionable nickname at best.

  We ate in chairs adjacent to each other as he made polite conversation that somehow made him seem a bit more civilized. I couldn’t figure his aim on being “nice” to me as it wouldn’t gain him anything, but maybe he was warped enough to think it would. He did think he was oh.so.hot enough that I would jump him like a monkey.

  The farce called dinner ended and he walked me to my room stating that Katelyn or Ellen would be there shortly to escort me to the courtyard. I wanted to ask when I would have to see him again but figured that might get construed as eager and that was the last thing I wanted.

  Besides, I knew now what he did in his disgusting free time and it only made his little act all the more despicable.

  The courtyard was booming. The best part was no one cared about who I was, which was odd to me. Katelyn explained how much they hated me for being another thorn in the sidecar of Joshlin’s Harley. Well, she didn’t quite say it that way.

  After much discussion on what the next day would probably look like we decided we needed a hand and face gesture sign language.

  And we needed a signal for his prompt appearances. Hey! I know. “S.O.S.”

  Her puzzled look was fixed across her mouth.

  “Son of Satan is a sort of nickname I gave him since he told me I would have no choice but to marry the dude, live in his prison, and make gorgeous little jaded goblin babies and live very hauntingly ever after.”

  Katelyn laughed out loud for the first time ever. “I am going to like you, Jem. You are the brightest star in this gloomy sky since my mother died.”

  I froze. “Your mother died.”

  She straightened her back from the laughter and turned serious. “She died in childbirth. Joshlin moved me into his quarters at ten and I’ve been there ever since. He saw it as kind, I saw it as punishment. My father is a guard. He stays on the outside mostly, so I only see him three or four times in a year.” She said his home is within the haze, but remains outside the immediate boundary. That could be worthy to ponder. She bent closer like she had a secret, “I see him more though, just no one knows.”

  “When do you expect to see him next?”

  Her face fell pretending to keep cool by keeping her lips pressed out instead of her usual habit to draw it in. “I just did. He came in the day you came, but when you left so...well badly, he was sent to stay in the trees. He will most likely not be back for a while.”

  I was sad for her, but my own heart leapt at the possibilities. I needed to know something else. “Is he a Joshlin fan or just a worker bee?”

  Her brow rose telling me my analogy was lost on her.

  “Does he side with Joshlin or us?”

  Katelyn’s face beamed like a light bulb. “Us! He just doesn’t see another way. I told you, you’re the first I’ve seen that has ever presented a possible way out. Many of us had our hope in Ames when he came of age, but he renounced his claim.”

  I wasn’t supposed to know, but should I lie to her? She was trying to trust me and had already entrusted me with too much. “Joshlin made me overhear a conversation b
etween him and Ames allowing me to know what Ames is and what he could be.”

  She saw right through my words. “Does Ames know about this?”

  I wide-eyed her, “No way. I want that to be a private conversation where he tells me himself. I won’t let Joshlin interfere with our relationship.”

  Trying to get information from Ames was like trying to get oil from a water hose.

  It was her turn for the shock reaction. “Relationship? You and Ames. I couldn’t see that coming.” She dipped her head and stifled a giggle. “Ah, it’s great really. We both know you and Cahn have a thing...for strange. You two are definitely perfect together.” Her words indicated more than one simple statement. She was hinting that Cahn and I were together. Were we?

  I blushed ten shades summer. “Um...yes. Kind of!”

  “Kind of?”

  “Well, it seems to stay at the below first base stage of attraction, but we kind of bound ourselves to each other or something.”

  Her coughing sputter alerted others in the garden area around us that we were not just seat ornaments. Several looked our way as if we were being distasteful. Didn’t anyone laugh around here? The more I thought about it, they didn’t because of whom kept them on his unbreakable chain of command. I’m hoping to change that.

  Not that I really know how.

  AMES

  Wicker came back to me with a flicker of excitement in his face which could be called strange for him. I was instantly ready for his report.

  “There is a house just around the corner that we missed. It was all lights, but no one inside. Hot coffee brews, but no one near. However, the guard in the tree hovers only twenty feet from it. It is the young blonde’s father from Joshlin’s up and coming crew who used to sneak me food.”

  This was the most energy ever exerted from Wicker that wasn’t aimed at battle ready formation or video games.

  “Katelyn?”

  “Did something happen to her?” Wicker’s face alarmed.

  “No, man. She helped me more than once get word to Brooks when I needed it. That’s her father in the tree?"

  Wicker knew this, he was just testing me.

  He blushed, but relaxed. “Too young, but she is beautiful.”

  “Year or two she will be of age,” I offered him hope. It was nice to see him want something.

  “Yeah, I tell myself that too every time she smiles at me like I’m the only male in existence.”

  My man had it bad. “Well, hold on to that. She may even be the very one to put up with the likes of you.”

  “Not if that jerkface gets to her first. She will be in his grabbing distance soon and I only hoped by coming with you that I could get her out in time.”

  Well, well, well! The motive rises. “I will see to it personally that she does.”

  “In second to a certain princess I know, but thank you. That is, if she will have me,” Wicker rubbed his hand over his chin. I’ve never known this side of the guy. His face looked happy. I knew he always held in the back of his mind the slow undeniable torture he had planned for Joshlin. Not only for his fear of what could happen to Katelyn, I know now, but the past. The haunting past that never left his mind when Joshlin was around.

  His family was broken from his less than kingly actions. Joshlin would rue the day he ever hurt them.

  For once, I would do the right thing the very first time before any hesitation came over me and stopped me with cowardice. I couldn’t have her to myself, but I could make her have the life she deserved.

  The conversation turned dark. Wicker and Trigger both didn’t waste any time. “I vow to you both that this will end. I will not let him win.”

  Trigger finally offered his flavoring opinion. “I believe you believe that, but I don’t believe you can do this without us. Whatever you do, don’t go all commando and expect to make it happen. You will need inside allies and I can make it happen with you. Two of my buddies will be with us once they know I’m there and that you don't intend to take no for an answer this time.”

  This time. Terror replaced my predicted scenarios. ”You told others you were leaving?”

  Trigger took a step back seeing my advance on his attempt to get farther from me. I took hold of his guard’s jacket that he still wore and carved the tree out with his backside.

  “Who.did.you.tell?”

  He didn’t even look scared. “Would you chill your ride? I told Jones and Seth. You know we’ve been plotting fake takeovers since we were old enough to make pipe bombs. We made a pact years ago that if one of us ever got out that the others would be ready for a war if it came to it. I want freedom as much as the rest and so does the rest of the realm. If humans wouldn’t be so repulsed by what we are, all three of us would have jumped ship long ago and housed it up in the bars of loose women and human liquor.”

  Honesty was always in Trigger’s trademark even if they were ineloquent and messy. He meant what he said and it was better than the alternative. Either way, I now knew Trigger’s motives.

  We all had our agendas in place. Now it was time to “misplace” our current leader.

  “You see me as this hero, but you know full well that I’m far from it. I intend to redeem that reputation so that you can adhere to a king who will not command his people, but work as a team to make life not a crime to exist. And to make good on a long awaited debt for the torture of your father.”

  I’ve never said aloud that I would rectify the kidnapping of Wicker’s father for being one of the men to save Emma as a baby from the rubble that day. His family was silenced and only a handful of other elders knew what Joshlin later. He may have been young, but he was evil even then. The worst was finding out that Paul was the young boy whose father was tortured for taking Emma and that he thought the girl to be dead. He was told Joshlin killed her. All this came to light one day when Paul and I were still too young to do anything about it. But that was the day before I met her. At ten, I wasn’t anything but a selfish boy who wanted to best my evil stepbrother for hurting my friend. Now that Emma was part of the deal, the debt was larger than Joshlin could handle.

  Wicker circled around the tree and faced me again, “I will hold you to that. And your promise to Katelyn.”

  He didn’t call me out on the hows of replacing Joshlin, just the promise that it would happen.

  “But you need to know you’re stronger than you make yourself out to be. You can’t go around playing tough guy with the things you lapdog out for Joshlin and not claim you are capable of taking the guy out. You could command a whole damn army to take out the human population if you had a good reason. Man, they would probably do it anyway. Quit moping and make it happen already.”

  I knew he was right even as I joked it off with, “Didn’t I just say I would.”

  Wicker knew what I needed and when even if it was a tough pill to swallow.

  EMMA

  Katelyn retired into a room that was directly across from mine and significantly smaller. I didn’t care for the uncomfortable feeling that gave me since, in my opinion, we were on equal playing fields. But I also didn’t want to jeopardize the progress we’ve made in so many hours.

  I hoped, as I lay down in a soft gown and curled under the blanket, that it would all be over soon and someone would be here to rescue me. I anticipated it would be Ames, but at this point I’ll accept any savior.

  I didn’t sleep much, but it was enough to have me refreshed and ready for hopefully the day I would leave.

  Katelyn came in early saying I had breakfast and then a short showing to the realm that I was indeed there and not a mirage.

  Paraded out in a different dress of the same caliber, I never once looked at evil man Joshlin. He addressed me only as a future queen Jem and then sat on his little throne not even being a gentleman and allowing me to sit first. Don’t these people, goblins, see him for what he is? No, they didn’t fit the typical goblin stereotype and were mostly human looking with a better than average appeal for good looks and a tid
bit of magic. They had slightly paler skin than most humans unless they actually lived among them and saw the sun more. But they couldn’t be that bamboozled?

  Either way, they couldn’t see this goblin king for what he was...a cockroach.

  Arrogant and full of himself, Joshlin strutted around the room for a while before taking my hand and leading me to the table for breakfast. He made polite small talk in front of others and even smiled genuine for them. He really could pull off the fake look.

  A few laughed and smiled around the table helping me pay attention to the good humored ones. I analyzed each of them curious if they were related, worker bees, or painted picture toadies for the others to see when the king was upset.

  A very unhurried hour passed by and Joshlin stood saying he would retire for an hour and return. I stiffened knowing his side agendas and felt disgusted even more when he kneeled before me and kissed my hand and my cheek. I was forced to comply as I watched Katelyn’s eyes follow him out with mine. Her nod was so slight no one would have noticed. She dipped out the door and was gone.

  I circled the room to pass time actually wanting to know everyone a little better and find out if they were followers or survivors.

  From the temper change of the room when he vamoosed, it was the later. Shoulders lowered, laughter grew, and bodies moved around more. I confirmed at least that the group before me would back my decision to attempt a kingly removal. I also considered the idea of Ames taking over, but from what I can concur, he didn’t want it. He might not have a choice.

  Upon returning, Katelyn made her way to me pretending to see if I needed anything. At least, I think she was pretending. I didn’t consider that I might be the first queen the younger generation had known and that maybe making it up as I went wasn’t too odd. Or following Joshlin orders. They had only known a male leader.

  Speaking of the S.O.S., in he walked. He didn’t have to force his devil smiles in every direction. He just liked to throw them out. All imitated their adoration to him like a masquerade of lies. Their postures stiffened back into their practiced act of dancing around a man they hated. Conversations lowered and the fake smiles turned into sad ones, but he never noticed...or cared.