by Shona Husk
“What of your queen?”
“There will be no queen.” Roan traced the edge of the goblet. The glass returned to sand. Water splashed over his fingers, and he let it spill onto the desk, washing the diamonds that would stop him from using the magic that was claiming his soul. “She knows me for what I am.”
***
Sleep wouldn’t come. Eliza sat on the bed with her knees drawn up to her chin. The bedside light’s glow left half the room in shadows. She checked the clock again. One o’clock in the morning. Hours remained of the night. It wasn’t fear of Steve that prevented sleep. Every time her head lolled and her eyes closed, luminous yellow eyes appeared in her mind. She could almost convince herself they weren’t human. But the lust and pain that raged behind the surface were too familiar. She’d seen them in the clear blue eyes of a Celtic king.
She had to stop thinking of him. She didn’t want to summon him by accident. In frustration she threw back the covers and gave up on sleep. Eliza opened the guest room door and peered out. The house was silent. She padded down the hallway, placed her hand on a door handle, then hesitated. Would going back to where it had started answer any of her questions or breed more ugly, unwanted questions?
There was only one way to find out. She pushed open the door and turned on the light. Forgotten treasures of her childhood lined the shelves. Certificates hung on the walls. The bed was made. The white and rose quilt was pulled tight with disuse. A doll and a stuffed lion were propped on the pillow, waiting for the child to return. She touched the lion’s ear. He had been her nighttime protector. Her cheeks tightened in a sad semblance of a smile. No monsters would dare come near her while she slept with Ruff at her side. Now her faith was too damaged to believe. She pulled her hand away and her fingers came away dusty. The room needed airing.
Across the hall was Matt’s room. Untouched since the day of his death. Her father had just closed the door, unable to pack up the room. Her father may not have agreed with Matt’s choice to shun the four-generation-old family business and study medicine, but he wasn’t cruel enough to cut him or his unscheduled wife and child out of the trust.
When Steve had moved in three months after her father’s death, their first fight had been over where to sleep. In the end he’d bought a new bedroom suite for the master bedroom and she’d given in. The first of many fights barely fought and too easily lost. Now he wanted to turn her old room into a home gym. It was a constant sore. A reminder that this was her house and would always be hers, not his. The pale pink roses should’ve been updated years ago, but her mother had picked the colors, and Eliza had never had the strength to erase what little remained of her mother.
She glanced at the photo on the bedside table. Her mother’s perfect smile and easy elegance captured as she placed a kiss on a twelve-year-old Eliza’s head. Too gangly to have grace, and the braces a hindrance to beauty, her mother had decided that Eliza should concentrate on her studies. The stage was not for her. Her mother had been right. Eliza was more than happy to drop the drama club and step away from the limelight.
With her mother’s death, her father had shrunk. Work had become his sole passion. Eliza closed her eyes. The day she’d been accepted into law school was the first time he hadn’t looked through her in search of his wife. The acceptance letter was still pinned to the corkboard. She opened her eyes and ripped down the letter. Once it had filled her with pride, now it was worthless. She scrunched the paper and let it fall to the floor.
It had been five years since she’d studied law. Her shoulders sagged.
She’d be lying if she’d said she missed it. But working as a legal secretary at the family firm, the half-hidden looks of pity from the other lawyers, rankled.
Had law ever been her dream? Or just a cry for attention?
If she’d never summoned the Goblin King the first time, where would she be now?
The same place.
Alone. Roan had given her a chance to change, to take charge of her life, and she’d thrown it away. She’d worn his bead as a reminder but hadn’t learned from the lesson. She’d remained the girl everyone expected her to be. She’d never grown up and become who she was supposed to be. Who was that?
Her life was her fault, every decision she’d avoided making had led her here—to the point where she was facing jail or being married to a man she didn’t love while longing for a man she couldn’t have. With no one to blame, the reality was harder to swallow. Nausea rose, thickening at the back of her throat. She sucked in a few deep breaths and swiped at the tears forming in her eyes.
Law had taught her one thing. The power of research. In among the books of fairy tales was a slim, plain brown volume on goblins. She’d bought it on a whim shortly after her mother’s funeral, hoping to keep tales of her childhood alive. After her first meeting with the Goblin King, she’d read it again cover to cover, desperate to find evidence that would prove her encounter and reveal something about the warrior who ruled the Shadowlands.
She traced down the spine. The book’s details she’d forgotten with time, only the skin-tingling rush of fear remained. Some people feared vampires or ghosts, but the monsters in her dreams were goblins.
Eliza pulled Goblins: Myth or Truth? from the shelf. She moved the doll and lion and sat on the bed. This time she knew goblins were real. So what other pieces of lore could be true? Now that she was looking at the stories in a whole new light, she might be able to get some answers.
***
Roan couldn’t stay away. His body ached and he wanted to sleep even though he didn’t need to. But closing his eyes provided no rest. Eliza filled his thoughts even if he didn’t disturb hers. In the last few hours before dawn he gave in and went to her. To the woman who now feared him more than death.
She’d moved rooms, unable to sleep with the memory of the Goblin King on her bed. She leaned against the headboard of a single bed. Her head rested against a pillow and a book lay limp in her hands. Barely asleep, the light on. He’d made her afraid of the dark. He couldn’t touch her, not with these hands, not now. His nails curled into his palms. Watching Eliza sleep was more painful than parting with gold.
He tore himself away and went back to the bedroom where he’d pressed his gray body to hers. Her scent permeated every corner of the room and haunted his life. Roan hung his head. She would never be his—he should have never granted her ill-thought-through wish. From the corner of his eyes he saw a slip of paper poking out from under the bed. His gilded invitation lay on the floor forgotten.
Better he was forgotten.
Better Eliza never looked on his face again.
He drew the shadows to him ready to leave, but another presence lived in the house. Roan paused. The fiancé. It would be easier to leave Eliza if he knew she would be safe and loved. He glided through the darkness to the room where Eliza had summoned him before passing out. The same room she’d summoned him to years ago. This time there was no youth hunting her, only her sleeping fiancé. The temptation to stalk him was too great. He could climb through his dreams and convince himself that this man was worthy of Eliza despite what he’d seen in her mind.
Roan dipped into his thoughts. Dreams of celebrity and pomp and splendor. Self-obsession. Steve stirred as Roan dug deeper, peeling back layers of thoughts. He wanted to find substance, a man who could be trusted to care for Eliza. Anything that would free him of the delusion that she would come to him willingly.
He failed.
Beneath the surface lurked a goblin in a man’s skin. Obsessive and driven. Hungry for only one thing—power.
White-hot bitterness flooded Roan’s veins. He wanted to wake the bastard and hear him scream as the goblin squeezed his throat until his eyes burst and his voice was a broken croak. But that was too fast. No. This man needed something that would make him restless every night for the rest of his life.
With a whisper in his ear Roan took away everything. He conjured every fear and balled them into a nightmare. Then he watched
as the man tossed, clenching the sheets in white-knuckled hands. His cries were muffled by sleep. Roan would have traded his soul to be this Steve. To take his place by Eliza’s side. To have a wife and not a queen.
The man reached out, seeking help. Roan didn’t have the heart to ease the man’s suffering, nor the stomach to watch anymore. He’d done enough damage for one night. Tomorrow he would do more. The call of the Wild Ride already sung in his blood.
Winter solstice was almost here.
***
Eliza stared at the golden-haired stranger in the wedding dress. White lace and beads frothed around her, smothering her will to live.
“Get it off me.” She tore at the tiny buttons at the back.
They bounced to the floor in a hollow mockery of the music of Roan’s beads. Her skin quivered at the reminder of his cold, gray hands. She’d sat up all night until exhaustion had claimed her. She was too scared to sleep in case the Goblin King returned and she agreed to his demands. The goblin she saw wasn’t the man she knew, yet she couldn’t have one without the other. She knew that now and still she wanted him.
“Get it off me, now.”
The shop assistant rushed to help before she ripped the dress that cost as much as a family car.
“Eliza, stop.” Amanda grabbed her hands. “What is wrong?”
Eliza pressed her lips together to stop herself from screaming and revealing the madness that was taking over. That would never do, the new wife of prominent lawyer Steven Slade paying a visit to Graylands Mental Hospital. She could see the tabloid headlines already. She swallowed, fighting the urge to be sick. She didn’t need the Shadowlands. She was living the nightmare. She was marrying Steve. Steve was human. He wouldn’t crawl out of the darkness with kisses, threats, and magic, demanding her soul. He did all of that in daylight.
The assistant peeled the dress away and she could breathe again.
“It’s the dress,” she said through her teeth. In her heart she knew it was the man.
Amanda’s eyebrows pinched together, but she said nothing.
“I want a different dress.” The idea rolled over her tongue and tasted good. “This one isn’t me.”
“But the wedding is next week.” The assistant, who could pass through a sieve without touching the sides, hovered, confused by the sudden change.
Amanda rounded on the woman. “Plenty of time. Show us some new dresses.”
“But the groom, the bridesmaids, nothing will match.” The woman stepped back.
“It doesn’t matter. Bring us what you have.” Amanda closed the door to the changing room, then turned and faced Eliza. “It’s not the dress. You’ve been different since you came back.”
Eliza sat in her white bridal underwear. The thought of Steve undressing her spun her stomach. She ran her hands through her hair. “How did you know Matt was the one?”
“He was going to be a doctor. I got knocked up. We eloped. Case closed.” Amanda shrugged like losing Matt hadn’t nearly cost her the baby as well.
“Seriously.”
Amanda sat on the floor of the changing room. For a moment her eyes were seeing something else. A memory kept close. “I just knew there would never be anyone else.”
“Not even now?” Eliza lifted her head.
Amanda removed her sunglasses from their perch on top of her head, folded the arms, and placed them in her handbag. “I’ve never met anyone who comes close. It’s hard to live in a dead man’s shadow.” She looked up at Eliza. “Steve’s not the one, is he?”
Eliza bit her lip and shook her head.
“You can’t marry Steve if he’s not the one.”
“Why not? Maybe not everyone gets that feeling when they just know. When nothing else matters as long as they are there.” Roan would never be there because he didn’t really exist. Only the Goblin King existed. That was how she had to think of him, unless she wanted to become a goblin queen…would that even save him?
There had been no hints in the book—only a confusing array of stories that contradicted each other as many times as they agreed. There was no one legend of the Goblin King. It was like Roan’s story had fractured and each part had taken on a life of its own. In some he was a hero, in others a villain, in her mother’s he’d granted wishes, in another he scared greedy children into behaving. All failed to recognize his struggle to hold on to his humanity.
“You met someone.”
Eliza ran a finger along her lower eyelid before her mascara could run and smudge.
“I thought…” There’d been something, something in the way Roan had looked at her, touched her, but it had died when the goblin had held her hands. She shook off the ache that lurked beneath her skin. “Pre-wedding jitters.”
Eliza stood. The Goblin King made Steve look like an angel.
There was a tentative tap on the door. “What kind of dress, Ms. Coulter?”
“Something simple,” Eliza said. She held out her hand to Amanda and helped her up.
They went through the shop, guided by the assistant to racks of dresses from arctic-white to rich-buttery-cream and every shade in between. Some had splashes of color, a peacock ribbon, a crimson train, a hot pink bodice.
She pulled out a simple A-line dress. No frills or trains that went for yards, just a small amount of beading. What she’d wanted all along. Even the color was perfect, a silken shade of pale cream.
The dress looked better on her than it had on the hanger.
“That’s a beautiful dress. It suits you.” Amanda nodded as she spoke.
“The wedding is black and white. We can make this one in time, in white to match.” The wafer-thin assistant smiled encouragingly.
Eliza sighed. Steve and his lack of imagination, that and Wedding Prima Donna telling him black and white was super chic. She should’ve been involved instead of running away. She’d made her choice years ago, and instead of going to the police when she found out about the fraud she wore his ring. She looked at herself in the mirror. How had it come to this?
“Ms. Coulter?”
The dress had to match the rest of the bridal party. It would have to be white. White like the sundress she wore to see Roan in the Summerland.
Eliza shook her head. She couldn’t do it. There was one other option. “Black. I want it in black.”
Everyone gasped as if she’d blasphemed in church.
“You can’t wear black.” The assistant’s eyebrows hit her hairline and kept crawling.
Eliza shrugged. “Everyone else is.” She’d worn black when Roan had granted her wish and saved her from Steve. Maybe it would bring her luck if not joy.
“Are you sure, Eliza?” Amanda touched her arm.
“It’s not done. It can’t be done.” The assistant reached for a fabric sample book. The page fell open to a lustrous black satin.
Eliza touched the square of cloth, and calm wrapped its arms around her, soothing away her worries. Her lips twitched. The answer was staring at her as it had been all along. She may have to marry Steve, but it would be done her way. She would take control of her life, one piece at a time.
“It is now.”
Five hours later Eliza had put thoughts into action. She finished stuffing the last designer label shirt into an oversized orange trash bag and tied it up. Then she placed it next to one full of shoes and paused to admire her afternoon’s efforts for a second before she dragged the bags downstairs, the bundles making a satisfying schlump as they bounced down each step.
She placed them outside on the veranda by the front door next to the box of classical CDs. In the front yard darkness bloomed under every tree and shrub. She peered into the night, fearful and hopeful of what she would see. She closed her eyes to listen better for the chime of beads.
Nothing stirred the leaves except for the wind that bubbled off the gathering storm clouds. She ran her teeth over her lip. She hadn’t called Roan, and he hadn’t visited to watch her from the shadows. She straightened her back and tried to convince her
self she didn’t need him or his curse. Wishing to be taken away didn’t fix anything. She had her own problems in her real life that only she could deal with. Throwing out Steve’s things was just the start of reclaiming her space and removing her curse.
She pulled the two dollar coin from her pocket and threw it on to the lawn. It had been many years since she’d left gold out for the goblins that were allowed to roam the world during the winter solstice. She’d grown up and forgotten about them, but her fear of the dark had remained. She didn’t feel like tempting fate tonight. She’d already done enough.
Steve’s red BMW swung into the driveway. The headlights on high beam burned away the darkness. The car slid into her garage. He would have seen her standing by the open door. Her stomach rolled over, but it was too late to back down. She touched the back pocket of her jeans. The papers that would secure her newfound independence were tucked inside.
Eliza closed the front door and waited, listening for Steve as he made his entrance. The car door slammed. The internal door between the house and garage opened. His keys landed on the sideboard. She waited, knowing he would march into the foyer to confront her. He didn’t disappoint. His face was tight, ready for a fight.
This time, so was she. She’d learned to play the game his way. Eliza smiled, part nerves, part excitement, and crossed her arms. She leaned against the door as if she threw out his belongings every day of the week.
Steve’s eyes narrowed. His lips didn’t move, but she knew he was thinking about what to say. Start the argument right and win at all costs. She fired the first shot.
“I took the liberty of packing your clothes. You won’t be staying here anymore.” Eliza’s voice was a thousand times more steady than she felt. Her hands sweated against her arms, and her stomach was clenched so tight it would be days before she would be able to force it to take food.
He swallowed, digesting the turn of events. “We will be married next week. It’s hardly worth me moving out.”
“Married. We don’t have to live together.”
