The Goblin King (10 page)

As he very gently smiled, that scar that ran through his upper lip turned the smile into something beautifully wicked. It made every last butterfly nesting in her stomach suddenly take to frenzied, frantic flight.

“Must I?” he asked softly.

Diana’s inner desire shook its head.

The stranger’s
smile broadened. “What is your name, raven one?”

“What?”

He chuckled softly. “I want to know the name of the woman who can not only see through the fae glamour otherwise disguising my goblin, but would attempt to come to its aid, even against the wishes of its king.”

Okay,
thought Diana.
I don’t understand a goddamned thing he just said.

“
Why did you call me a raven? And… did you say king?” she asked anyway, as if she totally
did
understand it.

His smile never wavered.

“And that animal is a
goblin
?”

“The term ‘raven’ refers to great beauty among my people,” he told her while he
continued to gaze down at her, his burning green eyes moving over her face. It was like he was memorizing every inch of it, every freckle, every quiver of her lips. “And yes, I’m a king. And yes,” he finished as he re-locked gazes with her, “that is a goblin.”

“I thought goblins were tiny little things that couldn’t be fed after midnight and
that couldn’t get wet.”

“You’re thinking of gremlins,” the stranger said. “And th
at’s not at all what gremlins look like, either.”

Diana
’s fingers and toes felt tingly. Her chest was starting to feel a little too tight and a little too warm, and her stomach was churning. His eyes were doing strange things to her. Not to mention his voice, a rich baritone rumble with an accent that she couldn’t place.

And he smelled good. Like leather and
wood smoke and her absolute favorite scent in the world – freshly fallen rain.

“What is
your
name?” she asked.

“Names hold a good deal of power,” he told
her. “But I will tell you what I’m called if you’ll give me yours.”

“
Diana,” she responded. What could it hurt? “Diana Piper.”

He went still as something flared in his eyes, a brief spark that was there one moment and gone in the next.

“Diana,” he repeated, speaking the name as if it were a magic spell. “Goddess of the moon.” It rolled off his tongue and poured from his lips in a way she’d never before heard. She liked the way it sounded when he said it. She liked it a lot.

“I’m Damon,” he told her then.
He scooted back a bit and his gaze moved down her body. “Damon Chroi, king of the goblins. And that beast you are so determined to help behind me is known as a xenobe goblin, the most deadly variety of the most dangerous species known to the fae world.”

Chapter Eleven

“Now then,” continued the stranger as if he hadn’t just told her that he was a goblin king or something insane like that. “What happened that has left you with severely bruised ribs,” he gestured to her chest, and then held up her left hand, “and an injured wrist?”

He asked the question as if he had a right to know. As
if the fact that she was hurt actually
concerned
him. Furthermore, he asked the question as if he could see the bruises on her ribs, right through the material of her shirt.

She tried to sit up, and he moved back a bi
t, affording her room. Once she was upright, she pinned him with a hard gaze. “Let the…” she almost choked on the word, but managed to get it out, “
goblin
down from the wall. He’s hurting.”

The man who called himself Damon studied her closely for several long, heart-pounding moments. Then he stood, tower
ing over her like a drop-dead gorgeous giant, and turned to face the beast.

The goblin let out another mewling, pathetic sound, which seemed to draw the stranger up short.
He looked back down at her, confusion plain on his handsome features. Then, his eyes burning uncomfortable, hot holes through her, the stranger Damon Chroi offered her his hand. “Very well,” he said. “On two condition. One, you stay behind me until and
unless
I think it’s safe to do otherwise.” He paused, and added, “And two, you’ll have dinner with me.”

Diana was not so proud that she was one to scoff help when it was offered to her, so she took his hand. She wasn’t cast into some vision-seeing oblivion when she touched him this time, but her hand tingled and h
er arm grew warm… as did other places on her body.

She let go quickly as she regained her feet, though she had to admit that she was a touch dizzy and her body was beginning to ache.

“Make it coffee and it’s a deal,” she told him.

Damon smiled that deadly smile of his and
waved his left hand at the goblin. His right hand, he used to grasp the hilt of the sword he had clearly re-sheathed during her strange vision attack. He unsheathed it again as the goblin dropped to the ground, its long claws scraping up sparks on the wet pavement as it hit.

Damon faced the goblin, turning his back to her
. “Even if you’re right,” he addressed her over his shoulder, “I’m not sure what you think you’re going to be able to do for him.”

Diana didn’t bother responding. Instead, she concentrated on the beast. It looked at her, terrifying with its Great White maw and its
burning red eyes. She concentrated. It whimpered. She concentrated.

Time slowed down. She zeroed in on the goblin’s eyes, noticing that they did not literally burn as Damon Chroi’s seemed to have burned. Instead, they were tri-
colored. The inner circle was red, the next orange, and the outer yellow. They were also very brightly lit, and this combination gave them the illusion of flame. The teeth were not sharp – but broken. They’d grown in so plentiful and crooked, they’d smashed against one another and chipped, giving the illusion of razor-edges.

She zeroed in on its claws next. In essence, they were nails, not claws, but were simply thicker and stronger than a human’s. They obviously grew very quickly, and just as obviously, no one had considered trimming them for the goblin. As a result, the xenobe could not even trim them himself. The nails scraped and bumped against eve
rything the beast passed. Just as she knew she would, when Diana checked the animal’s nail beds, she found blood and scabs and swollen fingertips. They’d been put through endless blunt force trauma.

The goblin was most definitely in pain.

“I’ve never seen a xenobe just stand there like that,” said Damon softly, his deep voice touched with awe. “What are you doing back there?” he asked, apparently afraid to take his eyes off the animal for too long.

“Nothing,” she told him. “Just looking.”

She tried to step past him, but Damon’s hand shot out, blocking her way.

Before he could say anything, she spoke up. “You have to let me help him,” she insisted. “
And that means getting close to him – even touching him. He isn’t going to hurt me.”

Damon looked from her to the goblin and back again several times. Finally, he dropped his hand. “Anyone else, anywhere else, I wouldn’
t believe it.” He lowered his sword arm as well. “But I think this time, I actually do.”

Diana nodded and moved toward the goblin. The beast’s eyes bored into her, making her feel small.
So
small.

You can do this, Diana
, she told herself.
Just pull some strength from somewhere inside. Believe in what you’re seeing and believe in what you’re doing.

There was a gentle bump at her ankle and she glanced down. The cat she’d rescued earlier had moved up alongside her. It peered up at her now through beautiful blue eyes. They reminded her of what she was capable.

I’m a healer.

With that, Diana raised her right hand and placed it to the beast’s furry chest. It whined, but did not move back. She could swear that there was
hope in its tri-colored gaze. There was
trust
.

Diana closed her eyes and imagined.
She saw the goblin with fewer teeth, straight teeth, and gums that were not torn up and bleeding, but whole. She saw shorter nails and mended fingertips. She saw magic move from her and into the xenobe like warm and sparkling pixie dust, healing him from the inside out.

When she felt her palm begin to heat up, her confidence that this would work was bolstered. The heat left her, infused the matted red-brown fur beneath her palm, and the goblin’s whine quieted. He took a deep breath beneath her touch
, his massive chest moving slowly and evenly.

A few moments later, Diana felt the drain that meant she’d successfully expended the magic. The dizziness that had swept through her earlier came back full-force and she swayed.

A strong arm slid around her middle, pulling her securely up against a hard body. The scent of clean, fresh rain brushed through her senses. A wash of heat instantly chased away the dizziness as the stranger leaned over her. Gently accented words spoke softly into her ear. “Never in my very long life have I seen anything like what you just did.”

Diana opened her eyes and looked up.

The xenobe goblin had been transformed. His once obscenely long claws were now short and well-trimmed nails, appearing for all the world as if he’d just come from a manicure.

The maw of shark teeth he’d sported only
moments ago was now a mouth with teeth that were straight and rounded and had been reduced to two simple rows, top and bottom.

There were no wounds in the gums or nail beds
; there was no blood.

Diana exhaled, feeling suddenly light as air.

And as she watched through wide, proud eyes, the xenobe goblin very slowly smiled.

Chapter Twelve

My queen.

The thought had been floating like an incandescent, barely legible string of words through his mind from the moment he’d laid eyes on
her in that alley. But now the words coalesced and solidified and shone blindingly bright, shutting out all other thoughts as they formed what felt like the one and only solid truth he’d ever learned in his entire existence.

Diana Piper was the Goblin Queen.

Now all he had to do was convince her of as much.

“Thank you,” Damon
told the barista as he took both to-go cups of coffee and left the counter. Outside the window, something small and gray shifted where it sat on the window’s ledge. Diana’s small cat companion. He studied it for a moment and then made his way toward his table.

Earlier, h
e’d transported the Atrox Ferrum back to the weapons room at his castle. He’d sent the xenobe goblin next, shielding him in a disguise of invisibility beforehand so that the beast would not be attacked by any of his own kind. He was the exception among the xenobes now, a monster with clipped claws so to speak. But with any luck, and if Damon had his way, he would not be the exception for long.

Damon looked up at the wo
man seated at the table by the window. The night buzzed and thrived beyond the glass, all rain streaks and traffic lights. Diana’s long locks had been curled by the humidity, framing her features like a classic cameo. His eyes grazed over the line of her chin, her nose, her neck. He swallowed hard, feeling strange.

She didn’t slouch in her seat, but sat up straight… almost on edge. As if at any moment, she would have to react, to defend, and fight for her life. She reminded him a little of Lara Croft just then. A true lady, tough as nails, and in disguise.

She was also a healer. As far as Damon was aware, there was only one healer known to the supernatural world, and that was Dannai Caige, the daughter of the god Amon Re. But Damon had stood there and watched in silent awe as Diana Piper performed the very same magic on a monster three times her size, easing it out of a pain Damon hadn’t even known it had been suffering. She’d
changed
the xenobe, taking it away from its suffering, mangled up husk and transforming it into what it was always meant to be.

Making it smile.

In the thousands of endless years that Damon had worn the crown of the Goblin King, it seemed he’d never done anything but rule by force. He’d been attacked – he’d even been scarred. His relationship with the creatures of his kingdom had been adversarial from the start.

Never in his wildest dreams would he have thought it possible for a xenobe to treat a human the way one of them had tonight. It had looked upon Diana Piper with silent, desperate hope.

And she’d saved it.

She could save
all
of them.

“Triple shot, two pump sugar free soy mocha,” Damon said as he gently set the steaming cup down in front of Diana.

She smiled a little shyly and a touch more color entered her cheeks. “It’s a mouth full,” she admitted. “Thanks.”

“So tell me,” Damon began, “If you can heal, why are you still sporting a sprained wrist?” he sat down across from her. “And how did you get it in the first place?”