The Goblin King

Heather Killough-Walden Reading List

The Lost Angels series:

Always Angel (eBook-only introductory novella)

Avenger's Angel

Messenger's Angel

Death's Angel

Warrior's Angel (release date TBA)

Samael (release date TBA)

The October Trilogy:

Sam I Am

Secretly Sam

Suddenly Sam (October
, 2013)

Neverland Trilogy:

Forever Neverland

Beyond Neverland (release date TBA)

Never Neverland (release date TBA)

The Big Bad Wolf series:

The Heat (no longer available separately - purchase in the Big Bad Wolf Romance Compilation)

The Strip (no longer available separately - purchase in the Big Bad Wolf Romance Compilation)

The Spell

The Hunt

The Big Bad Wolf Romance Compilation (all four books together, in proper chronological order)

The Kings - A Big Bad Wolf spinoff series:

The Vampire King

The Phantom King

The Warlock King

The Goblin King

(future The Kings books TBA; at least 13 total)

The Chosen Soul Trilogy:

The Chosen Soul

Drake of Tanith

Queen of Abaddon (release date TBA; 2013)

Redeemer
 (stand-alone)

Hell Bent 
(stand-alone)

Vampire, Vampire
 (stand-alone)

A Sinister Game
 (stand-alone)

The Third Kiss series:

Dorian's Dream (
November, 2013)

Aleksei's Dream (release date TBA)

(future The Third Kiss books TBA; open-ended series)

Note: The Lost Angels series (not including Always Angel) is available in print and eBook format. All other HKW books are currently eBook-only.

The Goblin King

By Heather Killough-Walden

Sequel to The Vampire King, The Phantom King, and The Warlock King

Book four in the BBW spinoff series, The Kings

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In Memory of

Diana Cook

1972 - 2005

Fourth grade bathroom buddy,

Blood sister,

The girl who could heal everyone but herself.

The Goblin King

“Chess is, above all, a fight.”

– Emanuel Lasker

Prologue

“What can my brother offer you that I cannot?” he asked her softly, his smooth voice caressing her skin. He leaned back in his massive gilt chair and placed his elbow on the armrest. His expression was thoughtful and looked, for all the world, as if he were honestly curious.

Sanity
, Evie thought at once. But she kept the word to herself, locked firmly away behind the mental walls she’d erected to help keep him out of her soul. The walls didn’t work, not fully. But she liked to think they helped.

His deep, resonant chuckle echoed through the numerous halls of his underground world. Evie imagined that his servants, huddled where they may be
in shadows here and there, glanced up at the passing sound. Perhaps shivering.

“Does he offer you protection, my queen?”

Clearly not
, came his next words, spoken directly into her mind – probably in order to demonstrate to her that he had access to her thoughts no matter how she attempted to hide them.

“And what of your family, Evelynne?” he asked next, this time drawing her gaze to his. Evie held her breath, feeling a new dread unfurl within her. “Does he protect them too?
” he asked. “Your parents?” His smile was all fang, beautiful and deadly. “Your brother?”

“What do you want from me?” There was no helping it. He was holding all the cards and it was time to lay this game to rest.

“I want
you
, Evie. I want you body and soul, and I want Roman to suffer the loss that comes with your sacrifice to me.”

Evie digested that, feeling tendrils of fear snake through her abdomen like poisonous, demonic octopus arms.
How can he hate him so much?
she wondered. But even as she asked herself the question, she had its answer: They were brothers.

No one could hurt you quite like a family member.

Roman had never mentioned ever having a brother. Strife and bitterness were wedges that nothing could quite drive home the way family could. Estrangement was enough to keep a name from ever leaving your tongue. You couldn’t choose your family. Most of the time, if you could, you’d go with something completely different.

In the end
the truth was, it wasn’t all that difficult to hate your brother.

She wondered what had happen
ed.

“It’s a long story,” he told her suddenly, breaking through her thoughts with such crystal clari
ty, she may as well have been thinking them out loud. He spoke as if weary, the change in his tone so sudden and so stark, Evie found herself taken aback by it.

“I would love to share it with you,” he
continued, rising from his seat to pace slowly in the opposite direction. As Roman so often did, his brother casually clasped his hands behind his back. He, too, wore a suit. And it was expertly tailored, each expensive inch hugging the tall, built aspects of his body to perfection.

They seemed to have a lot in common.

Evie caught movement in the corner of her vision and turned to see Ophelia shift slightly where she stood silently in the shadows.

And
not
so much in common
, Evie thought. For though it would seem they’d both taken an interest in the same women, the fact was, Roman would never torture one.

The master vampire
stopped in his tracks, the sound of his leather soles on the cavern floor drawing Evie’s attention.

He glanced back at her over his broad s
houlder. His raven black hair curled over his collar – and red eyes flashed. He smiled. “We shall have dinner together, young Evelynne.” He turned back around and strode slowly, confidently toward the cavern’s exit. It was flanked by a vampire guard on either side. “And I will tell you then what your precious husband is guilty of.”

With that, he disappeared
down the hall.

A thousand thoughts rushed through Evie’s mind. She realized that she didn’t know exactly what he meant by
“dinner,” as he was a vampire, and she also didn’t
want
to know. She wondered what she was supposed to do now, or where she was supposed to go. And she realized… she hadn’t yet even learned his name.

“I’ll show you to your room,” came a female voice from behind Evie.

She turned to find that Ophelia had approached her. The other vampire’s expression was guarded, and she refused to make eye contact.

Evie considered her options. There were half a dozen guards in the room and there appeared to be only one exit. Transportation magic was no good. And no matter how strong the 13 Queens were supposed to be, Evie was fairly sure she coul
d not possibly take down everyone only to have to find her way out of this underground maze afterward. Especially not before Roman’s brother found her.

So, instead, she decided to bide her time.

Ophelia passed her by, heading for the same stone-carved archway that her master had exited through. Evie reluctantly followed.

Chapter One

It was never-ending, of course. It was what the Court had in mind when they’d exiled him to his to watch over these
creatures
. The trouble was never ending, and he never stopped working.

Damon Chroi, King of the Goblins, pulled the sword from its scabbard at his back. The sound was ominously loud in the dark and quiet space of the woman’s bedroom.

The creature standing over the sleeping woman turned at the sound – and then straightened, coming to his full 10-foot height. Glowing eyes peered through the darkness at the king, surprised at first, but then clearly sizing him up.

“Step away from her,” Damon commanded calmly.

“Your majesty,” said the goblin. It smiled a terrible sharp-toothed smile, its red eyes pulsing with wicked magic. Its voice dripped with malignancy, with saccharin respect that barely disguised its underlying loathing. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“I’ve no patience tonight, Lucretius. Return to our realm and leave the mortal be.”

“If you continue to stop us like this,
my lord
,” he tipped the last word over his long forked tongue as if it were a pithy spot in an otherwise good apple, “we will wither and die as a race.”

Damon couldn’t help it. That made him laugh. He threw back his head, the sound echoing off the bedroom walls. Magic kept the woman on the bed in a deep sleep. “The day I allow you to pass on your tainted and befouled genes, Lucretius, will be the day I take up doily crochet as a hobby and begin enjoying the taste of eggplant. It isn’t going to happen.”

Lucretius Dagon was the worst kind of goblin. He was a bully of a beast, filled with more magic than he knew what to do with and rightfully should have possessed. He was charismatic and mean and had a taste for beautiful, helpless women.

Like almost any creature, goblins needed to mate in order to produce children and continue their species. As their king, Damon accepted this. But most goblins chose to mate with certain fae who accepted them, such as centaurs and orks. Others chose to be with very special mortals who also accepted them, such as Akyri or warlocks. Very rarely did they choose a human. Those humans had to demonstrate understanding and willingness to mate, and even then Damon was careful about which goblins he allowed such a privilege.

As long as Damon lived, Luc would not be amongst the lucky bucks. With goblins, it was not only physical trait that was passed on to the next generation, it was also temperament. And Dagon’s was absolutely foul.

“Last warning, Luc. Get the hell out of this realm.”

This time, Damon allowed just a touch of the incredible power that had cursed him to this job to show. It sucked the air out of the room. It dropped the temperature, icing over the windows. A wind picked up outside. And Damon’s eyes went from green to red to a flickering, telltale orange like fire.