Kiss of the Goblin Prince

by Shona Husk

  He leaned back on his elbows and tipped his face to the sky, but his gaze slid to the woman next to him. Amanda sat cross-legged with her eyes on her daughter. Her back was straight as if she couldn’t relax. She glanced at him and caught him looking. He wanted to look away but was trapped by her gaze—he knew her sunglasses hid the heat in her eyes. But if he couldn’t see her eyes, she couldn’t see his. He tried creating a conversation that two people getting to know each other might have. He hadn’t done that in a couple of centuries and it was a well rusted skill.

  “Do you come to the beach often?”

  “Most weeks. In summer Brigit has swimming lessons. The saltwater is good for her asthma.”

  Dai nodded. He’d read a little about asthma and understood the damage he’d seen in Brigit’s body. But he also understood the cause. It was manifestation of damage done many lifetimes before. What he didn’t understand was why she held onto it. There was no reason—he glanced at the child—except him. Mave had waited for him to return to the Fixed Realm and undo the damage he caused. He shivered despite the warmth of the sun.

  “How are the treatments working?”

  She frowned. “Eliza told you?”

  “Yeah, a bit.” That was better than telling her he could see the fibers that made up her daughter and that he knew she was dabbling in things older than modern medicine.

  “Not good.” She watched Brigit add another level to the castle. “You’ve been around the world and believe in magic; you must have heard of something.”

  Dai pressed his lips together. He should know something…well he did know what needed fixing. All those loose and broken threads needed to be mended back into a tight weave. He looked at his hands. He just didn’t know how to do it. What use was magic when he couldn’t help those he needed to?

  “I don’t know.”

  Amanda stared at the sand as if he’d delivered awful news. She desperately needed hope to hold onto and he’d taken it away—he couldn’t do that to her. He knew that feeling, when grabbing at anything was better than holding nothing.

  “I’ll see what I can dig up. I’m waiting for my books, still.”

  “Thanks. I’m taking her to a new-age healer later this week. She specializes in aura cleansing.” She flicked him a grin. “You are probably thinking I’m a little crazy.”

  Dai blinked and was glad the sunglasses hid most of his surprise. “No. Many cultures believe illnesses are caused by damaged to the non-visible parts of the body.” Maybe this woman could help Brigit where he couldn’t. If she was a true healer, he wouldn’t mind going to see her and asking how she worked. And if she wasn’t…how much harm would she do? “Let me know what happens.”

  “Really?”

  “I’m curious about that kind of stuff.” He shrugged, trying to make light of it. He hoped it worked. For Brigit, for Amanda, and for himself. But if his sister had carried the wound through multiple lives, there was a bigger reason. He hated not knowing what was going on.

  From the corner of his eye he watched as Amanda dug her toes into the sand. He followed the line of her leg, the curve of her ankle as it peeked below her jeans.

  “You know the kid I was telling you about?” Her face looked strained, like she was holding onto the news, waiting to tell him.

  Dai nodded, the sun suddenly losing its warmth. He’d seen Fane, and he knew it wasn’t going to be good.

  “The police called me this morning.”

  “He turned himself in?” Dai asked, trying to hope he’d broken free and started the path to healing. Even as he spoke he knew how hollow his words were. Amanda was pale and drawn, not out of anxiety but out of sadness.

  Amanda shook her head. “His father found him in the garage. He’d used a hacksaw blade to cut his throat.” Her voice quivered as she spoke.

  Dai closed his eyes, the sun was too bright for such a dark day. The weight of every year he spent under the curse pressed hard against his chest and stole his breath. A thousand years of study and he did nothing for Fane. He should’ve done more to help him. Should he have called the police and forced him to get help? But what good would that have done when every time Fane was given a chance to be free he killed himself?

  How many times would he have to die before he changed—or succumbed?

  If Fane failed, would Dai do any better? Or was he damned to repeat his mistakes forever?

  He opened his eyes and looked at Amanda. Her mouth was turned down and her shoulders were slumped. His hand twitched, wanting to offer comfort. She’d known Fane better in this life than he had. He let his hand move so it landed lightly on her thigh.

  “There wasn’t anything more you could’ve done for him.” Fane’s mistakes were his own to fix. But that knowledge did nothing to quell the fresh loss clogging his throat. Amanda wouldn’t understand his grief, so he swallowed it down and let her indulge in hers.

  Amanda didn’t brush him away; instead she laid her hand over his, her thumb sweeping over his skin. Then she laid her head on his shoulder. “He was getting better.”

  She sniffed, and her body trembled as she drew in a breath.

  He said nothing. There was nothing to say, so he rested his cheek on her sun-warmed hair, wishing he could’ve done something to save her the pain. They sat without moving, drawing strength from each other as they watched Brigit play. Amanda’s fingers moved in a small circle against his wrist as she examined the ink on his skin.

  “That’s interesting,” she said as if looking for a distraction. Her finger touched his arm and traced the line of text that wrapped around his forearm and disappeared up his sleeve. She shifted to look up at him. “May I?”

  Dai resisted the urge to pull down his sleeve. His tattoos were personal. A testament to survival and magic long forgotten. He nodded and let her push the sleeve up farther.

  Her fingers moved over the black letters, tracing the shape, as if she could unravel the meaning, and leaving heat in their wake. “What does it say?”

  “It’s Sanskrit. Roughly forgiveness is sharper than the sword of vengeance.”

  “And is it?” Her eyebrow arched over the frame of her sunglasses. She made no move to withdraw her hand.

  Beneath her fingers, his skin was starting to burn as if her gentle touch could erase the words etched into his skin or soften their meaning—it was harder to forgive than to seek vengeance.

  “I don’t know. I was denied one and have failed at the other.”

  “Forgiveness is a process, not a state of being.” She lifted her hand off his wrist. The words were as black and sharp and as fresh as the day they’d been pressed into him.

  “That may be true, but it feels like I’m letting him off the hook,” he said through clenched teeth. He didn’t want to share that with Amanda. He didn’t want her to see how damaged he was on the inside.

  “No. Forgiving is about freeing yourself. Until you do he still holds the power.”

  He shook his head and glanced out over the ocean. “You’re right.”

  It was a conclusion he’d been in the process of drawing. He couldn’t defeat Claudius; the man didn’t exist anymore. All he could do was let go of the hate. But it had kept him warm for so long, it had become part of him. If he let go, what would be left?

  “This is about your sister.”

  “Yeah.” He glanced at Brigit now digging a moat out for the castle which was more of a pointed spire reaching for the blue sky.

  “Can I ask how she died?”

  The secret was too heavy to hold on to, so he let it fall. “Her throat was cut.”

  She closed her eyes and looked away. “I’m sorry. Roan never said.”

  “He wouldn’t.” Roan was raised to be a king, not a brother, and he pushed that part of his aside as easily as he’d shaved of his dreads. “I should’ve protected her better.”

  It didn’t matter how many times he’d thought it over; once he was cursed, there was nothing he could do to protect her. Before then he’d done everything
he could to keep her safe.

  “Were you there?”

  Was he there? How did he answer that without betraying himself?

  “Yes. I was there.” He’d never forget the feel of the sword in his hand, or the way it cut through her flesh with too little resistance, and the coppery scent of her blood. “I should have done more.”

  “You can’t change the past.” Amanda touched his hand again, her fingers lacing with his. “Only move forward.”

  The breeze stirred the feathers of the wings at his back. All he had to do was let go, forgive, and be free. And he couldn’t do it. He knew if he ran into Claudius on the street in another body, living another life, he would be hard pressed not to run him through with a blunt, rusted blade. A stupid thing to do. Then he would spend another life tied to the bastard. He didn’t want to end up like Fane, fighting without knowing why.

  Dai stood up. He’d never told the truth to anyone, and he wasn’t about to spoil the day by starting now. But if he stayed and let her pluck at the strings holding him together it would be Pandora’s Box all over again. Once seen, the horror could never be put back.

  “Brigit, would you like some water for your castle?”

  “Yes, please.” She held up both buckets.

  Dai took them and walked down to the sea. The water was sharp and cold, reminding him that it was winter and that summer was an illusion. He took some deep breaths and longer than required to fill the buckets. Being happy wouldn’t last. Nothing good came for free, and he was damn sure he couldn’t pay the penalty for falling for Amanda. He turned around. Mother and daughter were excavating a moat for the water. He blinked slowly. When he opened his eyes, Amanda was a shining sun in the weave of the world. Next to her, Brigit wanted to shine, but her light was hemorrhaging out the tears in the fabric of her being.

  Dai made himself walk up the beach. He placed the buckets down next to Amanda.

  She stood, sand clinging to her jeans. “I didn’t mean to open old scars.” She touched his hand, her fingers finding his, and this time he returned her grip. “I know what it’s like to think they are healed only to find them still raw.”

  “Maybe they never heal. We just learn to live with them.” If she could see the blood that was on his hands, she wouldn’t reach for him so readily.

  Amanda kept her gaze on him. “You’re going, aren’t you?”

  “I should.” He lifted her hand and pressed her knuckles to his lips, for longer than a gentleman would. “Thank you for inviting me.”

  She smiled, as pink flushed her skin, and glanced down at her daughter.

  He released her hand and squatted down. “That’s a great castle, Brigit.”

  She smiled as if she knew all his secrets. “It’s a goblin castle.”

  Yes it was. A miniature version of the rock spire Roan had ripped out of the Shadowlands to protect them from the goblins that roamed the dust. He nodded and stood back up, sure the thread between him and Brigit was growing stronger.

  “Mmm, and that’s the last time I let Eliza make up a bedtime story,” Amanda said in a voice low enough only Dai could hear.

  He couldn’t keep the smile from creeping over his lips. Eliza was slipping Amanda tiny bits of truth wrapped in a bedtime story suitable for a child. “You believe in magic but not in goblins?”

  Amanda laughed, then stopped when she saw he was serious. “Goblins aren’t real.”

  “Most tales have some basis in fact once upon a time.” He wanted to be able to tell her everything, but the way she was studying him, he knew that would be impossible.

  “Next you’ll be telling me dragons and fairies are also real.”

  Dai shrugged. “Every culture has dragon lore.”

  She opened her mouth as if to argue, and he was tempted to lean in and kiss her so he wouldn’t have to listen to her deny his existence. But Brigit was watching so he did nothing, and then he hated himself for still second-guessing everything he did.

  She shook her head, her hair golden in the sunlight. “True. But goblins still don’t make appropriate bedtime stories.”

  “Agreed.” While he was sure Eliza gave Brigit a highly sanitized version, goblins were quite literally the stuff nightmares were made of. “So, you’ll be back home tonight?”

  “I think so. I want to be. I’ll see you around?” Amanda asked.

  “Yeah.” He hesitated, then leaned in and kissed her cheek. For a second he felt the warm brush of her lips against his skin as she returned the kiss. “I’d like that.”

  They looked at each other a moment longer, then he turned and walked away before the moment became too much more awkward.

  He walked until he was steady enough to stop and step through the fabric into his home. His heart pounded as if he’d run the whole way. He pushed up his sleeve. Where Amanda’s hand had overlaid the words ribbons of pale gold went into his skin and slid into his body. He wanted to see her light run through his veins. To see if it felt better than the bitter blood that had fueled him for so long. He wanted his heart to be in her hands, not the grip of the eagle. He sank to his knees and held his head in his hands. Her words chased his thought. He had to free himself or Claudius would always control him. The whisper in his soul echoed in his skull.

  Let it go. Just let it go.

  Dai reached over his shoulder. He knew the wings were there and that the talons lodged in his chest were preventing him from healing. His fingers closed around air, but he tried again. In his mind, he held the glimpse of what he’d seen. His fingers touched a silken feather with no more substance than a sigh. He pulled and it came free.

  So he used both hands to rip out more, tearing at the ghost that wouldn’t let him sleep. The more feathers he ripped out the more substantial they became. Blood welled. His blood since they fed off him. He didn’t stop until the floor was coated in crimson blood and black plumage. It wasn’t enough. His hands closed over the bones of the skeletal wings that still hung from his back, their roots in his heart. He tightened his grip ready to pull them free. The muscle of his heart gave a twinge. A stab of pain. Every tug would do him damage.

  Ripping them out would kill him.

  Claudius and Rome would win. And he’d have to repeat the lesson in his next life. Once was too much.

  He released the bone. How did he forgive the man who took first blood? Tears formed but never fell. His vision wavered and the feathers vanished, invisible to the average human eye. His breathing rasped in his throat, pain burned in his chest as he fought with himself.

  He couldn’t let go.

  But he could make amends. He had to fix Mave and let Brigit breathe, and in doing so he would free himself from his past. And he would give Amanda respite from worry.

  He raised his eyes to his empty bookshelves. He had to speak to Birch Trustees. He needed to at least view his books and work out the intricacies of healing.

  ***

  “What do you mean my books are in a sealed collection?” Dai paced his living room.

  “Well, it’s a matter of content.” The voice on the other end of the line tried to soothe.

  While ringing was easier than locating the office, getting a straight answer was proving difficult. He’d been shunted around and was now being stonewalled.

  “What’s wrong with the content? All of those books originated in the Fixed Realm. I collected them and I should have the right to view them as required for my research.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. King; that’s all I have in front of me on your case.”

  Dai gritted his teeth as the speaker’s lie rubbed over his skin like wet canvas. The man didn’t believe what he was saying.

  “I need to view my books.” One specifically. Healing Brigit was his responsibility. She had suffered the curse along with her brothers, without knowing why for too many lives.

  “Ancient knowledge can’t always be reintroduced into the modern world.”

  “I’m not introducing it. They’re for private use.”

  �
��Just a moment, sir.” Before he could argue further, hold music filtered down the line.

  Dai stared at his empty bookcases. Well, they were almost empty. One book sat alone on the top shelf; the others were still out of sight. He touched the spine of the book Amanda bought for him. A gift given without the expectation of anything in return.

  “Are you there, sir?”

  “Yes.” He turned his back on the gift. Amanda did want something. She wanted him. How could he give her that when he couldn’t tell her the truth?

  “Mr. Vexion is willing to discuss your books with you, if you can come to the Birch Trustee office.” The speaker’s smirk traveled cleanly to the cell phone.

  Birch was well guarded with magic and wards that turned humans away. They only catered to clients with special needs. Banking was a real problem if one was immortal, or cursed, or couldn’t go out and mingle with the human public. There were enough beings that weren’t human to keep Birch Trustees busy.

  “When?” Not that it mattered; he hadn’t been able to find the office. He knew there were offices in all major cities, but he also knew it wouldn’t matter where he went. He would have the same problem.

  “Tomorrow at four.”

  Dai scribbled down the time. “Are you going to give me an address?”

  “No.” The line went dead.

  Chapter 14

  Meryn used the skull bowl to scoop water from the dark, slick river. In the surface rippled the face of a man. He stared, and the man in the river stared back with his dark eyebrows that were drawn together beneath shaggy dark hair.

  His fingers traced the shape of his face, his nose, and his beard-coated jaw. The reflection copied. He wasn’t just the wrong color, he was the wrong shape. His ears were too small and round, and his nose was too short, and his eyes were too flat. He looked like a man.

  A man he should recognize.