by Shona Husk
“I think he’s speaking Latin.” As she said it aloud it didn’t seem possible. Maybe she was wrong and he was speaking an obscure dialect of…of what? Not Italian. Breton? She glanced at the dust-covered man again. What was he covered in?
“Who the hell speaks Latin?”
“No one.” Nadine frowned. “It’s a dead language.” And the man speaking it looked like he should be dead, but had refused to quit.
His gaze lingered on her, gray and endless. There was something about him…a half-hidden nightmare glided through the back of her mind. The child began wailing in a higher pitch. The man shook as if he couldn’t bear the sound, tears pooled in his eyes, and he hung his head as if to hide them, repeating the same line about the baby over and over.
“The baby.” She turned to the cop who had come up to the counter. “Take the woman and baby up to triage and get them seen. They shouldn’t be waiting.”
Nadine touched the man’s shoulder to get his attention. He lifted his head as if expecting reproach. She smiled and softened her voice from the orders she’d given the cop.
“Look. The baby is getting help.” She pointed at the mother and child, now getting fast tracked through emergency. “Can I take a look at your head?” She pointed to his head, not sure how much he understood, but he didn’t seem disorientated or confused. He just didn’t comprehend the language.
He watched the woman with the baby be taken behind the doors. He blinked, but his tears had already tracked a line through the gray dust covering his face. Once they were gone, he nodded.
If he spoke no English, it was no wonder he was having an episode when the cops dragged him in. He had no idea what they were saying or where they were taking him. Yet he’d had enough compassion to ask that the baby be seen first. That said more about the man than anything else.
“Uncuff him and I’ll bring him through to the ward for a proper examination.” The cop gave a visible sigh and freed the man. He looked at her, smiled, and said something that had the tone of gratitude.
He rubbed his wrists and she noted the fresh grazes and cuts, but they didn’t bother her as much as the gray coating on his skin and possible damage to his irritated eyes or his lack of regular language. She noticed a gold broach securing his cloak around broad shoulders. It was a beautiful piece, two wolves chasing each other in an endless circle. If he’d been living on the streets, that would’ve been stolen. And he’d been picked up carrying a sword. Nothing about this man was adding up.
She shook her head. “Who are you?”
***
The woman in front of Meryn smiled. Her teeth were white against the honey color of her skin and around her neck was a gold necklace. A crucifix. A man was forever dying at her throat. He flinched at the symbol of Roman punishment, and her friendly smile faltered. She spoke, a question in the other language. Not that it mattered. He didn’t understand her.
Without the crying of the child he could almost think. He could almost shove the memories that tore at his mind away. Lock them back behind the walls he’d constructed when he’d become goblin.
The woman’s soft hands touched his and flexed his fingers, checking the cuts made when he’d fled the tower in the Shadowlands. The things his hands had done. So much blood. So much battle. So many things he hadn’t recalled while he’d been goblin. As if a goblin’s mind couldn’t hold all the horror. Now he remembered.
And he couldn’t live with the weight of his past.
He’d failed his wife and his children.
He’d failed his tribe.
He’d failed his king. Finding the traitor had been his responsibility. The pain he’d locked away when he’d surrendered to the goblin curse sucked him under, tore at his heart, and the screams of his family echoed in his head. This was the reason he had given up being human to run with the goblins and devote his life to the endless need for gold.
The play of light on the woman’s gold necklace held his gaze for a moment too long. The chain and cross hung just out of reach. It didn’t tempt him the way it had when he’d been goblin, but it offered salvation. In taking gold he could once again be goblin and free of the deaths his failure had caused. Gold didn’t hurt and cry and scream.
He glanced from the gold necklace to the green-brown eyes of the woman trying to help him. He tried to place the words that made no sense, but his mind was crowded with the memories.
He wanted the silence of being goblin. He wanted the pain crushing his chest to ease.
The crucifix swung in his vision as the bronze-skinned woman probed the wound on his head. Her hands were gentle on his tender skin. He wanted a piece of her calm and kindness.
In the Shadowlands there had been stillness. He’d known a measure of mindless peace. He didn’t understand the Fixed Realm anymore. It had changed beyond his understanding. He wanted to be goblin again. He understood the rules of the Shadowlands.
Gods, he was weak for wanting to go back.
What had happened to the man who’d raised an army for his king against the Romans? Not once, but twice? What had happened to the man who’d sworn to the rebellion and promised to free the Decangli from the Roman stranglehold?
That man had died the night his wife and children were murdered. The body had kept going because it didn’t know how to stop even after his heart was gone. Now he was a husk full of unwanted memories with no reason to go on.
The cross was in reach.
His gaze darted to the humans in blue uniforms, but they weren’t watching him. Then back to the woman. Could he steal from her? He needed the screaming in his head to stop. The necklace swung closer and with a flick of his fingers the gold came away in his hand. The woman didn’t notice. Her gold burned his palm. He waited for the swell of desire, the pleasure of holding wealth, the rising need for more, but it didn’t come.
Instead there was silence. The screaming stopped and for a moment he glimpsed clarity of mind he’d thought lost. Then it was wiped away as a slippery sense of disquiet took hold of his gut. Taking gold had never caused him discomfort before. He tried to push aside the unease and regain the calm, but it slid through his fingers. Goblins didn’t have feelings. They had urges. He couldn’t allow himself to feel. If he did, he would drown in despair.
He imagined gold, piles of it, the cold metal in his hands and a hunger that couldn’t be sated. But his skin didn’t change, his joints didn’t thicken into goblin form.
He remained stubbornly human.
The Goblin King
by Shona Husk
Once upon a time…
A man was cursed to the Shadowlands, his heart replaced with a cold lump of gold. In legends, he became known as
The Goblin King.
For a favored few he will grant a wish. Yet, desperately clinging to his waning human soul, his one own desire remains unfulfilled:
A willing queen.
But who would consent to move from the modern-day world into the realm of nightmares? No matter how intoxicating his touch, no matter how deep his valor, loving him is dangerous. And the one woman who might dare to try could also
Destroy him forever.
“Shona Husk put together an amazing story about loss, love, redemption, and discovery…”
—Night Owl Reviews Reviewer Top Pick
For more Shona Husk, visit:
www.sourcebooks.com
Enraptured
by Elisabeth Naughton
ORPHEUS—To most he’s an enigma, a devil-may-care rogue who does whatever he pleases whenever he wants. Now this loose cannon is part of the Eternal Guardians—elite warriors assigned to protect the human realm—whether he likes it or not.
Orpheus has just one goal: to rescue his brother from the Underworld. He’s not expecting a woman to get in the way. Especially not a Siren as gorgeous as Skyla. He has no idea she’s an assassin sent by Zeus to seduce, entrap, and ultimately destroy him.
Yet Skyla herself might have the most to lose. There’s a reason Orpheus feels so
familiar to her, a reason her body seems to crave him. Perhaps he’s not the man everyone thinks…The truth could reveal a deadly secret as old as the Eternal Guardians themselves.
“Filled with sizzling romance, heartbreaking drama, and a cast of multifaceted characters, this powerful and unusual retelling of the Orpheus and Eurydice story is Naughton’s best book yet.”
—Publishers Weekly
For more of the Eternal Guardians series, visit:
www.sourcebooks.com
The Danger That Is Damion
by Lisa Renee Jones
Lethally passionate, wickedly dangerous…
Renegade warrior Damion Browne is a soldier of soldiers, an enforcer of the code of honor. With ruthless precision, he calculates risks as deliberately as he does his lover’s satisfaction. Now it’s up to him to defeat a new generation of female Super Soldiers, including the one woman perfectly programmed to be his downfall.
His enemy…or his soul mate?
Lara Martin has never felt powerful, until she’s brainwashed to destroy the one man who can help her find the answers she so desperately seeks. Alone and embroiled in lies, Lara must turn to Damion for the key to the truth…
Praise for The Legend of Michael:
“A thrill ride of nonstop action, intricate suspense, and scorching love scenes!”
—Stephanie Tyler, New York Times bestselling author of Hold on Tight
For more Lisa Renee Jones, visit:
www.sourcebooks.com
Acknowledgments
I couldn’t have written this book without the ongoing support of my husband. He’s gotten used to my random questions and odd tangents. Brigit’s treatments developed from conversations with my sister who has an interest in reiki and alternative therapies. The Winkgirls read and commented on the very first draft of the story. My editor, Leah, pointed me in the right direction when I’d wandered off the path. Thanks to Danielle and the Sourcebooks team. And to the readers who thought goblins could be heroes. Thank you for making my dream possible.
About the Author
A civil designer by day and an author by night, Shona Husk lives in Western Australia at the edge of the Indian Ocean. Blessed with a lively imagination, she spent most of her childhood making up stories. As an adult, she discovered romance novels and hasn’t looked back. Drawing on history and myth, she writes about heroes who are armed and dangerous but have a heart of gold—sometimes literally.
Table of Contents
Front Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
An excerpt from For the Love of a Goblin Warrior
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Back Cover
