Kiss of the Goblin Prince (33 page)

The knife’s handle hit his palm. Cold as ice and coated in the gray threads that bound it to the Shadowlands. He tossed the knife from hand to hand to get the feel of it again, to test the weight. The knives had always flown true, as if they were attracted to their own kind.

The knife had found him.

Like all things from the Shadowlands, it closed in on his dreams and turned them to nightmares. He turned it over in his hand. To hell with the museum. The ugly blade would remain in the Shadowlands where it belonged.

Dai rolled his shoulders. All he had to do was follow the knife’s threads back to the Shadowlands. He forced out a breath and found the calm he needed to make the step between realms.

When he closed his eyes, he could still smell Amanda. The last remains of her perfume clung to his skin. How long would the delicate scent last in the Shadowlands? He already knew the answer. Not long. Her perfume would fade before his memory of her did. The thread through his palm linking them vibrated with pain. He could follow the golden trail to her, but she didn’t want to see him. He was the cause of her hurt. Sometimes it was easier to live with a sweet lie than taste the bitter truth. He closed his fist around her light. She would guide him home. Maybe once he was back he could put things right…that was the dream he could hold onto, one the Shadowlands couldn’t take.

With the gray strand in one hand and the gold in the other he was ready to go. Cold crept up his arm, crawled down his veins, and pooled in his stomach like he’d been eating snow. He checked to see if the fine thread linking him to Meryn was still intact. It was. His cousin was alive. If Meryn died while he dawdled, he’d never forgive himself.

Before he could stall any longer he grasped the solid gray threads that joined the knife to the Shadowlands and pushed through the layers of realities, different worlds, and possibilities to the nightmare where he’d spent most of his life. The familiar jolt of dislocation was coupled with a crushing of his temples that lasted only a couple of heartbeats before fading. Around him was the Shadowlands in all its dullness. The cold sucked away his breath and left raw ice crystals in its place. Had it always been so cold and desolate?

Land met sky in a never-ending continuum of gray. The oiled snaking river slithered to his right. He turned slowly, scanning his surroundings. Where in this hell was Meryn? He stopped when he saw the rock spire thrusting out of the ground and into the sky like a bridge between hell and heaven. An eternal monument to the time they’d spent in the Shadowlands and Roan’s ability to control the dark magic.

“Home sweet home.” He words fell flat into the dust.

Chapter 20

Brigit rested, tucked into the hospital bed with a mask over her face. It wasn’t the first time Amanda had seen her daughter like that, but she wished it would be the last. While she hadn’t seen Matt die, she’d imagined his fight to breathe would’ve been like Brigit’s. Lungs burning for air, but not being able to find any. She hated it. It never got any easier or any less terrifying. The doctor had yet to examine Brigit and confirm her worst fears—that there was more damage.

If there was, she was going back to the healer; she didn’t care what Brigit said. She blinked, refusing to shed any tears. There was nothing else she could do but put her faith in a cure she only half believed in. Dai made it so easy to believe in magic and her heart cracked a little more…damn him. This was his fault. His leaving upset Brigit. Damn him for being such a beautiful liar. So smooth at deception no one knew how deep the damage ran. He lived in a world of make-believe and she lived in reality, and she’d been sucked at first glance because she was lonely and desperate. Never again.

Amanda stroked Brigit’s forehead and Brigit’s eyelids flickered open. She glared at Amanda, the fight that had caused the attack not forgotten. She picked up her daughter’s hand. She wasn’t cross with Brigit. She was angry with herself for holding onto her daughter so tightly she was suffocating her. Her baby was growing up.

“It doesn’t matter how mad you get with me, or how old you get; you will always be my baby.” Amanda gave Brigit a small smile.

The resentment drained from Brigit’s face. “I don’t hate you really.” Her words were muffled. “Will you stay?”

“I haven’t left.” Amanda kissed her cheek and Brigit moved over to make room for her on the narrow hospital bed. They lay next to each other, the way she did when Brigit was just a toddler and afraid of the doctors. Soon there wouldn’t be room on the bed for her. When had Brigit gotten so big? Where had the time gone? How much of their lives were spent in and out of doctor’s offices and hospitals? Or trying alternative therapies hoping for a cure?

What if there wasn’t one and all they had was now? She didn’t want to waste what time she had with Brigit arguing over things that didn’t matter and chasing all over for magic that didn’t work. She had to make the most of now. Amanda hugged her close, not wanting to think of the future so shrouded in shadows no amount of light could break through.

***

Dai barely had time to take in the harsh landscape before he heard the snap of a bowstring and the whistle of an arrow cutting the air. Then his leg went out from under him and he dropped to his knee. Pain scored through the muscle where the shaft protruded. Black crow feathers had guided it true. The arrow had Meryn’s fine touch all over it. Shot again by his cousin. The pain coalesced in his gut. Didn’t his cousin recognize him? How much of the man remained after being a goblin so long?

“Meryn, stop trying to kill me and we can talk.”

Nothing moved in the endless gray.

He glanced down at the shaft. His first reaction was to rip out the arrow, but it was better to leave it in his leg. Pulling it out would do more damage and would release any vessel that wanted to bleed out. He couldn’t heal himself. He dropped a knife, clenched his teeth, and snapped the shaft. A new wave of pain rolled through his nerves and hit his stomach like a fist.

Bloody Meryn. Still, if he’d meant to kill him, he’d already be dead. He tossed the broken shaft into the dust and picked up his knife, keeping one eye on the horizon, searching for his shooter. He was somewhere near the old spire. Dai squinted, trying to pick shapes out of the gray on gray. An impossible feat. Everything blended as it always had. And he was a sitting target.

A wild man charged at him, yelling the coarse battle cries of a goblin. It was enough to turn Dai’s blood to ice water. He couldn’t run, even if he wanted to. He held his ground, because it was Meryn, or what Meryn had become.

Meryn notched another arrow.

Dai pulled out the goblin knife just in case. In Decangli he called out: “Meryn. It’s Dai. Remember?”

The goblin-man slowed and stopped.

How many memories had Meryn lost? Was there even a man to save or was his mind gone?

Dai seized the delicate opening. “I’m your cousin. We grew up together. We were cursed to be goblin, but the curse broke and we’re men again.” He didn’t lower the blade pointed at the man who taught him how to swing a sword. But the knife was heavy in his hand. He didn’t want to kill Meryn. He was past living for the fight. He just wanted to live.

Meryn circled with the arrow pointed at Dai’s heart. “You speak lies. Men are not goblins. Goblins aren’t men.”

“When the curse broke, you were freed.” And he had failed to consider the impact. He should’ve known, or guessed, what would happen to Meryn. He was lucky they shared a blood connection and Meryn was able to infiltrate his nightmares. The alternative, that he may have never noticed and Meryn would’ve died there, was too awful to acknowledge.

Confusion blanked Meryn’s face. “No. I’ll find the Goblin King. He’ll take me back. Make me goblin again.”

“I can take you to the Goblin King. He now lives in the world of men.”

Dai swallowed; it was uncomfortable kneeling on the cold dust while his blood pooled beneath him, but he didn’t shift his weight. He could show no weakness or Meryn would cut him down. The weakest goblins were killed for fun when there was little else to do. And he was the weakest. He had no magic and the biggest injury.

Meryn edged to the side, and Dai watched, willing himself to still. He knew how Meryn fought. In their old life it was only for practice, never to the death. In one move Meryn dropped the bow and pounced. He pinned Dai in the dust. But Dai kept hold of the knife. They grappled. A knee connected with the broken arrow shaft, driving it deeper into the muscle and grinding against the bone. He clenched his teeth as the pain exploded up his leg. In that second Meryn slammed the back of Dai’s hand into the dirt to try and break his hold on the weapon.

Practice kept his fingers locked around the handle. “I came here to help you. To take you home,” he pleaded through gritted teeth.

“This is my home.”

Dai pressed the tip of his goblin blade against the soft piece of skin beneath Meryn’s beard.

Meryn stilled, then grabbed a spare knife out of Dai’s vest and brought the cold metal to rest against the base of Dai’s throat. A killing position.

A fight wasn’t fair when only one person was willing to kill. Dai swallowed and the blade bit deeper. Above him, Meryn stared down with eyes as gray as the Shadowlands. But his irises were free of the yellow that marked a man fading to goblin. He had a chance to recover if they got back to the Fixed Realm. With his next breath, Dai arched and pushed, throwing Meryn to the side. He scrambled upright, ignoring the shaking in his leg and the tightening of the muscle that didn’t want to support him. He hadn’t returned to the Shadowlands to die at his cousin’s hand.

“You don’t remember Roan? What about Brac, Anfri, and Fane?” He held the knife out, keeping Meryn away. He couldn’t kill him and he couldn’t leave him. The goblins would have him eventually. “Your wife? And babies?”

Meryn went for his legs. Dai brought the hilt of the knife down between Meryn’s shoulder blades. Meryn grunted, but his hands were on the arrow, and he twisted as they fell. Dai’s back hit the dust.

Stars exploded in the Shadowlands, and Dai struggled to find a breath as burning agony swept through his blood. Screw this. He grabbed a fistful of Meryn’s clothes. They could fight in the Fixed Realm and sort it out there.

Even though he couldn’t see it in the Shadowlands he knew the bright golden light of Amanda was still threaded through his hand. He pictured it as he’d last seen it and felt along it. The pull of the Fixed Realm was there. Then the thread stretched tight and snapped like a whip that cut him to the bone and shocked his heart. For a moment he couldn’t think or move. He’d never experienced pain so severe. The smarting brought tears to his eyes. He’d lost her. Really lost her. The connection was gone. Severed. Amanda didn’t want anything to do with him; she’d cut him free to die in the Shadowlands. Letting Meryn kill him would hurt less. He sucked in the cold, tasteless air that froze his lungs. Each breath got easier even if the pain didn’t lessen.

Meryn’s hand pressed against his throat, his nails biting into flesh. In the darkness of his mind he groped around, searching for a thread strong enough to draw them back to the Fixed Realm. The sky got darker and his lungs burned like he’d swallowed hot coals. He felt a connection and let himself be dragged back to the Fixed Realm, Meryn held tight in his other fist.

Dai stumbled as his feet his solid ground. The room was dim and smelled like antiseptic. Something wasn’t right. He’d expected to arrive in Eliza’s house, after being pulled back by his brother. Roan wasn’t there and yet the thread ended. He’d been dragged here for a reason. He glanced around the room and realized he was in a hospital. He stomach sank as his gaze landed on the bed. Brigit.

She had pulled him back. The girl who’d once been his sister had saved him. The wound that bound them together was strong enough to bring him back from the Shadowlands…and the last piece of the puzzle fell into place. Mave knew her brother would need to be rescued from the Shadowlands after seeing him as a goblin. But she wouldn’t have remembered why she was holding on to him in her next life—only that she couldn’t go. Her love for a brother she couldn’t remember had saved him from a slow death in the Shadowlands.

Meryn snarled and shoved him as if to continue the fight. Dai struggled to keep his balance and grip on Meryn. Brigit stirred. Dai glanced at her and saw the extent of damage in her little body. In that second of distraction Meryn slammed his knee into the wound. Dai grunted as pain spiraled through his body and burst in the pit of his stomach. He couldn’t do this here in front of Brigit. But he couldn’t leave her either. With every breath her body was unraveling. He had to do something to save her.

Meryn’s fingers dug into his arm. He couldn’t split his focus between the two of them. Meryn would have to wait—he might be damaged, but he wasn’t dying. Dai released his grip on Meryn’s tattered clothing and thrust him through the fabric of reality to his apartment.

Dai’s muscles shook as he dropped to his knees next to Brigit’s bed. Her tiny form was swathed in blankets, a mask over her face. She was falling apart as he watched.

Without a second thought he sent out delicate fibers loaded with his life energy. They brought the damaged pieces of Brigit together and sealed the rips. Once helped, her body began fixing itself. As he watched, the weave of her body strengthened and thickened, healing damage that he’d done too many lifetimes before. The connection they had wouldn’t be broken, but next time she would be free. His debt to her was settled. And her need to help her brother was completed.