Greta and the Goblin King

by Chloe Jacobs

  His smoky breaths floated away like little clouds in the cold air. “Okay by me,” he said with an evil smile as he turned to Sloane. “Take advantage of the extra rest buddy, because tomorrow you’re my sparring partner.”

  Sloane looked horrified. “Well, then I guess I’ll see you both in the morning.”

  Greta almost felt sorry for him, but Sloane was going to come up against much worse than Ray in just a few days, and it was her job to make sure he lived through it. No coddling allowed. “Bright and early,” she added.

  She watched as the brave kid sauntered off in the direction of his tent. Only fourteen years old, she thought, and he was far from the youngest of them.

  Dealing with humans was a strange experience. Different from Mylean species, humanity relied deeply on emotion. Greta had almost forgotten that. She’d gotten so used to pushing aside emotion to make way for expedience, practicality, survival. This was a motley little group, each one of them with more guts and strength of character than she could ever hope to match, and they tested her boundaries.

  “Why don’t I run a quick perimeter check?”

  Ray stepped in her path as she made to go by him. “Answer something for me,” he said, voice low so as not to disturb anyone’s sleep.

  She was surprised he wanted to chat. Even if his frosty contempt for her had thawed during the long day spent sparring with one another, they weren’t exactly friends. She waited as he seemed to be trying for the right words.

  “How have you been able to stand it here so long?”

  Greta could taste Ray’s anxious desperation. Having lost a brother to this place, he must hate it here more than the others. They all ached to see their families, but at least the younger boys had been blessed to some extent, with forgetfulness. They could also feel confident in the knowledge that their loved ones were safe at home, maybe still waiting for them to return one day. Ray, though, he knew that even if he somehow made it back, his brother would still be lost forever, a casualty of Mylena.

  “I guess I didn’t have much choice, but I was also very lucky.” She sighed, realizing just how true that was…although maybe her luck was finally running out. “I kept my brother from being tossed into that fire, even if I couldn’t save myself. And it was luck that I didn’t end up a prisoner of Agramon like you. Luck that I found someone willing to protect me and teach me to survive here.”

  “But you do want to leave, don’t you?”

  Startled by the question, she swallowed hard. “What do you mean?”

  “You’ve built a life here and everything. I just thought maybe you’d given up on going home. Maybe you like it here now, or you don’t think there would be anything to go back to anymore.”

  “I didn’t give up.” You so did. Greta frowned. “I searched. For years, I searched for a portal. But I also owed a debt to the sprite who took me in. I couldn’t just leave him.” For the first time, that reasoning sounded like an excuse. She shook her head. “Not that it matters now.”

  “There’s nothing holding you to this place, right?”

  Glancing from Ray’s speculative expression into the dark of the surrounding bushes, she was surprised that the memory of Isaac’s glowering face stood in the way of a simple agreement. She clenched her hands into fists at her side. “Why do you ask, Ray?”

  “Would you stay? I mean, if we aren’t able to pull this off and you knew some of the others would be stuck here, would you still go if you could, or would you…stay?”

  Greta thought about her brother Drew, about how she might feel if he’d been dragged through the portal along with her and died here. If the opportunity came, how could she go back to the family they left behind and explain that only one of their children was ever coming home? How would she explain why she had lived and Drew had died? Could she look into her parents’ face and be the cause of their horror and disappointment?

  Her chest tightened. Ray’s young face was shadowed deeply by the night, but she recognized the torment in his glistening eyes.

  “That’s a hard question. Maybe impossible to answer,” she whispered. “I’m not sure anyone could make a decision like that unless the choice was forced on them.” She put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed gently. “And you shouldn’t have to make that decision now either. Let’s take this journey one step at a time, okay?”

  “It’s just…I was thinking…” He paused. “If it comes down to it and we can’t get everyone through the portal, I’m the one who has nobody. Wyatt would be against it because he thinks he has to protect everyone, but I think maybe I should be the one who stays to take care of the boys that don’t make it through.”

  Greta took a leaf from Luke’s book, steeling her expression and her tone to show no sympathy, since that wouldn’t help anyone. “This was your crazy idea, Ray. Don’t you dare fail us before we’ve even started. We haven’t found a portal yet anyway, but if we do, you’re damn well going through it.” No way was she going to let it go down any other way.

  He looked unconvinced and stared back at her for a long moment. Was he searching for assurances in her face? Would she fail him in the end like she had failed Luke?

  “Why don’t you go on to bed.”

  He shook his head. “I should—”

  “Forget it. Wyatt will be up in another hour. I wouldn’t mind some time alone until then.”

  He considered it and nodded. “Ok, then. I’m actually pretty beat.”

  Greta didn’t doubt it. The boy had taken hit after hit from her all day long. His sigh was much less antagonistic than normal, as if he didn’t have the energy to keep hating her just on principle.

  He turned to go, but stopped and looked back over his shoulder. “Thanks.”

  She shook her head and waved him on. She couldn’t possibly accept thanks for her pep talk, or anything else she had done in this camp today, not when she knew her words were meaningless, her gestures worthless.

  It wasn’t going to matter how much they all wanted this plan to succeed, or how much training she gave them in the next twenty-four hours. She had a feeling it was all too little, too late. Odds were, people would die before the dilemma of whether to stay or go even became an issue.

  She swallowed against the steel shavings lining her throat. Tears welled up and there wasn’t anything she could do to stop them. They ran hot and fast down her cheeks, already cold as they fell off the edge of her chin. She glared into the inky black sky and cursed both God and the Great Mother—and everyone else who might be up there looking down on them.

  What the hell happened to the warrior Luke had spent years training? If there was ever a time when she needed to be strong and maintain her stolid detachment, it was now.

  “Greta? Are you okay?”

  Swiping both hands across her cheeks, she kept her face averted so Wyatt wouldn’t see her weeping. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  His footsteps crunched in the snow as he came up behind her and turned her around by the shoulders to face him. “You don’t look fine. Do you want to talk about it?”

  She groaned. “What are you, my counselor now?” His eyes dulled with disappointment and she felt about three inches tall. “I’m sorry. I’m just not used to this, you know?”

  “Used to what?”

  “All of it. I’ve faced danger before. The critical, never-going-to-get-out-of-this-one-alive kind. As a human playing at being a bounty hunter, that’s just the way it was—the way it is. The only way to survive.” She sniffed. “But, God. Recently, I… I don’t know what’s happening to me. I’m falling apart.”

  His fingers were cold as he took her hand, his touch hesitant and gentle. She blinked up at him through a pathetic sheen of tears. “Maybe you just figured out you still have something to lose. If it were me, I’d probably be scared shitless.”

  She searched his face, marveling that his features had become so dear to her so quickly. She thought of all the people counting on her suddenly. All of those new connections had the capacity to brin
g her pain.

  One connection in particular came to mind. She didn’t want to think Isaac was important enough to hurt her, or admit there was anything between them for her to lose. But it was time to stop lying to herself. He was part of this. Whatever they had was shaky and thin…but it was more than just a dream.

  And surprisingly, it was precious to her.

  Too bad it was destined to break. If the eclipse didn’t do the job, the decisions and promises she’d made today were going to. Her chest ached, like it was something she’d already lost.

  She couldn’t see Wyatt’s face before his lips pressed against her forehead. She felt the rhythmic in and out of his chest as he breathed, and the warmth of his arms coming around her like a wide blanket.

  His embrace was almost timid. He didn’t crush her to him like Isaac would have. He didn’t consume her senses and threaten to swallow her whole. He treated her as if she were made of something treasured and breakable.

  Greta opened her eyes and looked up into the smooth chocolate of his gaze. “Wyatt, I don’t think—”

  “Shh. You think so much,” he chided, tapping her temple with the second knuckle of his forefinger.

  In his own way, Wyatt had crept up on her with as much stealth and premeditation as Isaac. She was surprised by how twisted-up and confusing her feelings had already gotten. As if one impossible relationship weren’t already complicating her life enough.

  The moonlight played with the shadows, giving him deeper hollows in his cheeks and hiding his eyes. He dragged his thumb lightly over her bottom lip, continuing up the slope of her jaw. His hand shook a little bit, but his touch made her feel as if she were being welcomed home after a long absence, as if every good memory of being human was wrapped up in him.

  Isaac was so different. Fierce and bold and commanding. Daring her to embrace the future and forget about the past. But she reminded herself that half of what she’d felt with him had been fabricated—all in her head. And that the part which had been real was also dangerous and self-destructive. This was real. Wyatt was real, and he was here with her now in the flesh.

  Being with him wasn’t a violent explosion attacking all her senses at once, but true intimacy—the kind she could trust—needed time to grow.

  Didn’t it?

  A cough from inside one of the tents brought her to her senses and she jerked back. “I should probably run a patrol.”

  “Wyatt? Greta?”

  Alarmed by the sound of Jacob’s call, she turned and raced to the open flap of his tent. He stood there shivering but smiling up at her.

  Wyatt followed with considerably less urgency. “What’s the matter, Jake?”

  Jacob looked up at her and down at the ground, his face a mask of undisguised longing that put all new cracks in Greta’s armor. “I…I can’t sleep.”

  Feeling uncertain about her place in what was, in essence, a kind of family, she went down on one knee so they would be at eye level with each other and rubbed her hands briskly up and down his arms to help warm him from the harsh night air.

  “I couldn’t sleep either,” she admitted, glancing up at Wyatt with a raised brow. He nodded, understanding what she was asking. “It’s pretty dark, and I think maybe I need some company. Do you want to come and share my tent?”

  “Yes. Yeah, sure!”

  The young boy grabbed her hand so quickly Wyatt chuckled softly behind her. “Go on then, you sly devil. Tomorrow is a big day and you both need your sleep.”

  Jacob waved at Wyatt and started dragging her away. “Good night Wyatt.”

  Greta looked over her shoulder, a rush of warmth flooding her. “Good night Wyatt,” she whispered.

  Chapter Fifteen

  After tucking Jacob into the coverlet beside her, Greta listened to his excited chatter for several minutes. The boy had too much energy for his own good. He seemed to think having Greta all to himself was some kind of treat, and chattered like a little magpie, telling stories about the other boys.

  Jack had apparently caught his first hare last week, but Jacob thought it tasted yucky. Once, Charlie and Niall both got sick with ugly red dots all over their faces, and almost died. Ray always gave him all the seeds whenever they found a mocker nut bush. And Sloane cried in his sleep sometimes, but he didn’t want anyone to know.

  Even when the little motor mouth started to wind down, he refused to close his twinkling eyes, almost as if he were afraid she would be gone when he woke up.

  “Oh, and—”

  “Magpie, shh,” she whispered, testing the baby fine strands of hair at his temples with her fingertip. “Go to sleep now. You can tell me more in the morning, I promise.”

  As soon as he stopped talking, a huge yawn erupted out of him. He tried to fight it, but another few minutes and his eyes fluttered closed and he was asleep, just like that. Greta lay back, listening as his breathing evened out and his little body slumped bonelessly into the curve of her arm.

  After rethinking everything that could go wrong tomorrow and coming up with all new complications but no alternatives, Greta herself fell asleep a long time later, feeling more confused, terrified, and unsettled than ever.

  The dream started almost immediately, taking her deep into the dark forest. There was no preamble this time, no muddiness, and Greta wasn’t surprised. She’d been expecting him, knew what was happening and exactly where they were—the magical circle near Luke’s house.

  Although she wasn’t the least bit cold, a heavy, wet snow fell softly. Mylena’s two moons peeked from behind a layer of clouds. She noticed they were almost in line with one another, proving that she was worrying about the eclipse all the time now, even in her dreams.

  He stepped out of the darkness in front of her dressed in black, and Greta couldn’t stifle the thrill that shot all the way through her. As soon as their eyes met, she was thinking about that kiss. Pressing her spine hard against the trunk of a tree was the only way she could keep herself from running to him.

  A stricken look flashed across his face as he noted her hesitation, but it was gone so quickly she probably imagined it.

  “Why are we here?” She crossed her arms in impatience, ignoring the flip-flop of her stomach. “What is it you want from me now?” Her tone was harsher than she’d intended, but it was better this way. Less chance they would end up kissing if both of them were too busy being defensive.

  “Tell me where you’re hiding, Greta. I’ve narrowed it down, but I can’t find you.”

  Grateful for small favors, she thought of the tiny body cozied next to her back in the real world, and shook her head. “You know I can’t.”

  “You still don’t trust me.”

  “Should I?”

  His lip curled. “If you knew what I’ve been through to keep Agramon’s gnomes and the legion of bounty hunters out of my county and off your trail…”

  Greta stepped forward. Truthfully, she did trust him—to a certain extent. And she believed he felt something for her. But as much as she cherished that, she had to consider the lives of Wyatt, Ray, Sloane, Jacob, and the others now.

  “Why would you continue to put yourself and your people at risk for me?”

  His gaze fell to her mouth. “You know why.”

  She shoved her trembling hands behind her back. Damn him. This was his dirtiest game yet. A few days ago, she would have given anything to find someone who knew that she was human and still wanted her, but it was too late. Now, even if she survived, she and Isaac could never bridge the gap out there in the real world. They could never have anything between them but this dream. “I’m not one of you. I don’t belong here.”

  “Who says you’re not one of us?”

  “Please,” she said. “I’m human, as much as you may have decided to ignore that fact. You hate humans.”

  “I haven’t ignored anything. I know who and what you are.” Exasperation colored his tone. “And I’ve already told you it doesn’t make any difference. Why can’t you accept that this is your
home?”

  Home. No, Greta refused. Damned if she would ever call this frozen wilderness home, even if she lived out the rest of her life here. It was her prison, not her home. “If I’m such a perfect fit for Mylena, why is everyone out to kill me?”

  “Your gracious personality?”

  She gave him the look of death.

  His teasing smile faded. “Greta, be reasonable. If you let go of your monumental stubbornness, I can take care of the price on your head. And if you tell me where you are, I can keep you safe through the turbulence of the eclipse.”

  “Even if I could trust your motives, I don’t need your help.”

  “Just because you don’t want it, doesn’t mean you don’t need it.”

  She squared her shoulders. “Did you worm your way into my subconscious just to be an argumentative, overbearing ass? Because I’ve got better things to spend my time dreaming about—”

  “You can’t pretend with me. Not anymore.” He stopped in front of her with a smoky, purposeful look. “We both know I would be in your dreams whether you had asked me here or not.”

  Isaac would be the subject of her fantasies for as long as she drew breath into her body, but she would never let him know it. “Asked?” she choked. “Shall we revisit the process by which you manipulated your way into the so-called ‘invitation’?”

  He swung away, throwing his hands in the air before turning back to her with a snarl. “Don’t refuse what I can give you. Don’t reject my protection. Don’t try and force me out. The stakes are too high now.”

  “I can’t do this anymore,” she whispered.

  His frustration vibrated between them. “Even if I could leave you, should I promise to stay out of your mind when it’s the only way I have of knowing you’re safe?”

  “Since when has my safety become your concern anyway?”

  “Around the same time you set yourself on the path of personal destruction.” His voice was filled with desperation now, as if he were fighting for his life…or hers.