For the Love of a Goblin Warrior (Shadowlands) (5 page)

Now he questioned everything.

He took one last glance at Nadine before going with the young man and doing as he was told. She raised her hand in farewell and he returned the gesture. He almost turned around and walked back to her. He didn’t want to go somewhere new without her; she’d made him feel human. He was pathetic. Had the curse stolen his spine as well as his heart and soul?

The screaming in his mind echoed as if there was nothing left of him except this walking body. What was a man without heart and soul? Without king and kin?

Maybe he had died, the goblins had gotten to him and this was the death he had to face—an eternity of never being understood and of never having a peaceful night’s sleep. To be endlessly followed by a past he couldn’t change. To be a no one. Would the gods be that cruel?

With measured paces, he followed to wherever the young man was leading. They went into a box that moved and then opened somewhere else by magic. No matter how far he walked Nadine’s touch lingered on his skin, the concern in her eyes chafed his aching heart, and her golden cross became heavier with each step.

The man took him to a new room. The differences in this room were that there were only four beds and Nadine wasn’t here. He was alone…except for the two other people in the room, but they were sleeping. He knew that was what was expected of him. Until when? How long did he have to stay here? Until he could speak the language? Was this some kind of house for the sick and feeble minded?

Maybe this is where he belonged.

Meryn lay down. The bed was well above the ground and narrow, exactly the same as the other one. He fingered the sheets, feeling the fineness of the fabric then pulled them over himself. He wasn’t ill and infirm, nor an old man in need of care. Yet his body ached as if the goblin spears from his dreams had pierced him and beaten him down. He was tired as if he’d been fighting all night, confronting an enemy he couldn’t defeat. As he lay in the quiet, his head pulsed, the pain radiating around his skull and down his neck. He closed his eyes and sighed as if he could expel the ache with a breath. Sleep tried to catch him, but each time he caught himself and jerked awake. He couldn’t rest; he didn’t want to relive the deaths of his family. He tried to make plans, but his mind couldn’t pin down a thought.

Then he blinked but didn’t wake; instead, he was in the Shadowlands.

Goblins
skulked
through
his
sleep. They fought each other, drawing thick, black blood. Their weapons gleamed as bright as their eyes. He crept closer to see what they were willing to die for. A dark-haired woman was being held by the goblin currently claiming kingship. A spike of gold threaded through his nose; gold rings hung in his ears. He swung his sword with one hand and kept the woman in his grasp with the other. This was the prize they’d brought back from the Fixed Realm on the Wild Ride.

She
saw
him
and
cried
out, in one language and then another. Pleading. In his ears the words sounded the same.
Help me.

She
didn’t want to be a goblin queen. She fought back, kicking and scratching any goblin who tried to grab her. Even the king of the troop hadn’t been able to hold on to her. But when the other goblins had swarmed around, she’d understood her fate.

He’d watched. Not because he didn’t care, but because he hadn’t known what to do. He didn’t want to hurt her, but he didn’t know how to help her. Help was a concept that his goblin mind couldn’t grasp.

Around
him, the goblins squabbled and smaller fights broke out over the gathered gold and who would claim the woman. He understood everything, yet no one used the same language. The words off their tongues were languages he’d never heard before living in the Shadowlands, yet everything made sense. He’d never questioned how goblins knew Decangli…somehow he’d forgotten that was what he’d spoken, as if his goblin mind was too concerned with gold and fighting to think beyond and reason like a man. He stood watching and listening and absorbing.

He
recognized
the
languages
the
woman
used
as
the
two
Nadine
had
used—the one that everyone around him spoke and the other one, the one that was like an echo of Latin too distorted for him to comprehend.

The
woman
grabbed
a
knife
from
the
closest
goblin, desperation in her eyes. He knew that look—he’d seen it in his wife’s eyes just before she’d died. Meryn looked away, unable to watch what happened next. Red blood stained the gray dust. But the goblins still fought, blaming the others for the loss of their prize.

He’d always known he was different from other goblins, that something was wrong with him, but until that moment, he’d been able to deny it and pretend he was the same.

Now
he
knew
why
he
was
different. He hadn’t yet completely surrendered his human soul.

He
glanced
at
the
woman. She lay unseeing on the gray dust—the curve of her lips and cheek now strangely familiar.

Chapter 4

Nadine peeked through the window into the room. Meryn was sleeping, but it didn’t appear to be restful; his hands gripped the sheets too tight. What was he dreaming? The same nightmare that had made him call out in her ward? Was it some kind of post-traumatic stress? She bit her lower lip. Something about him wasn’t adding up. He could draw a detailed map of Europe but didn’t seem to recognize Australia. His reactions had all been normal. And if he was from Wales, shouldn’t be able to speak English?

She lingered, watching him for a little longer. There was always something wrong with the really good-looking ones.

She shook her head and turned away. Like she could judge.

In the changing room, Nadine toed off her shoes, stripped off her scrubs, and dropped them on the floor. From her locker she pulled out her running gear, leggings and a long-sleeved T-shirt. After the shift she’d had, she needed to get out and stretch her legs before crashing for a few hours.

She dressed and tied up her sneakers. As she stood, there was no familiar bounce when her necklace should’ve hit her chest. Nothing. She traced the length of gold chain, but there was nothing hanging from it. Her mother’s cross was gone.

“Shit.” Panic shot through her system like a drug.

She shook out her scrubs, hoping the cross would drop out like it had last time. She’d pinched the clasp together a number of times with pliers, always swearing she’d take it to the jeweler to get fixed, yet never wanting to part with it to get it mended. When the cross didn’t fall out of the fabric, she ran her hands over the cloth, double-checking. Her hands trembled as she kept searching, and her stomach liquefied. It wasn’t there.

“Damn it.”

Where could it be?

She couldn’t have lost it. She’d worn it for twenty years. Her social worker had said that, when they found her, she’d refused to let go of the broken necklace. Her first foster mother had bought her a new chain so she could wear it. Since then she had never taken it off. It was all she had left of a mother she could hardly remember.

How could she have been so careless? If she’d gotten it fixed, she wouldn’t be in this mess. Nadine scowled at the scrubs on the floor. Maybe it had gotten stuck in her civvies. She pulled the clothes she’d worn to work out of her locker, waiting for the telltale tinkle of gold hitting the linoleum. Nothing.

The contents of her locker followed the clothes onto the floor. Had she been wearing it when she came to work? Maybe it was at home in the shower or on the bedroom floor? She closed her eyes and tried to think when she’d last felt its weight around her neck but couldn’t remember. She was so used to it being there that she paid it no attention. Her left hand curled into a fist as if she could feel the cross’s weight and shape in her palm.

She didn’t get that lucky. It wouldn’t be at home. It would’ve come off while she was working. Tears welled, but she swallowed and forced them back. She didn’t cry. And she wasn’t going to start now. If someone found it, maybe they’d hand it in.

Yeah. Like that was going to happen. People didn’t hand in lost jewelry. They either kept it or pawned it. She unclenched her hand. She wasn’t a child clinging to hope anymore. For too long as a child, she’d imagined her mother and father would find her and take her back. Eventually she’d been forced to face the truth. Her mother was dead and her father was doing time for her murder.

What she couldn’t remember she’d researched in old newspapers as a teenager. At the time it had been quite a scandal.

French
immigrant
killed
by
Sudanese
husband.

Five-year-old daughter the only witness, too traumatized to speak.

No
remorse. Husband pleads not guilty.

Wife-killer repeatedly refused parole for refusing to tell police where the body is.

Despite everything she’d read, she still didn’t recall a thing about that night. All she had were nightmares that left her terrified of the dark but offered no answers. During the horror of being assessed and bundled off into foster care, her maternal grandmother had done nothing. She’d refused to get the granddaughter she’d never wanted and take her home to France—she didn’t want the embarrassment of a brown-skinned child in the family. It was no wonder her mother had left Lyon and come to Australia. How different would her life have been if her parents had stayed in France?

She shook her head. That was another fantasy she refused to dwell on. Her father had taken away everything, and now he was free. As if a twenty-year sentence could make what he’d done all right. And now her mother’s cross was gone. It was just going to be one of those days…maybe one of those weeks. Ever since he’d been released, she’d been on edge, waiting for something to happen.

Nadine folded up the clothes and packed them into the small backpack she wore when running. She cast her gaze once more over the floor but no gold glinted. With a heart weighed down by loss, she bundled up the scrubs and dropped them in the laundry. Then she scribbled a note and pinned it to the staff notice board, just in case by some miracle someone found the cross her grandmother had given her mother for her confirmation.

But she wasn’t going to hold her breath waiting.

For the benefit of anyone who saw her, she pasted on a smile. She’d learned a long time ago that looking sad drew attention and questions that people then wanted answered. It was much easier to look happy and be left alone.

She slung her backpack over her shoulders and adjusted the straps so it wouldn’t move around. At least while she was running she wasn’t thinking about anything except her next step. She braced herself for the early morning chill as she left the hospital. The days were getting warmer, lighter, and longer. Spring was in the air even though it wasn’t September yet. Just the idea that the winter solstice was behind her was reason enough to celebrate. It would be nearly another year until the anniversary of her mother’s death came around.

As she warmed up from a walk to a jog to a run, the chain around her neck bounced without weight. Every step was a reminder of what was missing. She ran along the river without seeing it, up the stairs that connected the city of Perth to Kings Park, through the park, and to the City West train station down the hill. Her lungs burned but she didn’t relent. She didn’t want to be able to think.

Her feet hit the platform, and there was nowhere else for her to run to. But she didn’t stand still even though it was ten minutes until the train arrived. Instead, she paced and calmed her breathing. She’d pushed herself hard and still didn’t feel any better. Her hand touched the empty chain, as if she expected the cross to reappear by magic.

This early in the morning, there was hardly anyone on the train, and those who were got off in the city ready to start their days. She didn’t miss the early morning crush. It had been hard enough to conform to what everyone called normal hours while she was studying. Having to attend classes during the day and attempting to sleep at night was awful. As a child she’d sleep as soon as she came home from school, wake up for dinner, and then play or read silently until dawn, the lights burning to keep away the creatures that crawled in the shadows and haunted her nightmares. Then she’d sleep until she was dragged out of bed by yet another foster parent who couldn’t understand why she was being difficult.