The Goblin King (15 page)

Diana opened her eyes. Damon stood before her, his gentle but firm hold on her arms steadying her. They were no longer in her house. Selene was gone, as was the other tall, dark and be-fanged stranger. The spiders were gone. The monsters with the animal heads. The vampires….

All of it.

All of it, that was, except for the man who called himself Damon Chroi. The Goblin King.

He smiled
a beautiful, comforting smile. “Sorry about that,” he said. “It’s usually a much smoother ride.”

D
iana pulled her arms away. She tried not to stumble when she did; she was shaking and could feel the unease in her legs settling in around her knees. But she needed space just then, needed to stand on her own two feet.

“
Do you know that’s the fourth time you’ve said ‘sorry’ to me?” she said. “You’re off your game, aren’t you Goblin King?” She wasn’t particularly fond of the acidic hint to her tone, but she was pleased with the fact that she could speak at all, and with some force at that.

Damon
considered her a long, silent moment, and she wished she knew what was going on in his head.

Finally, he turned away from her, putti
ng distance between them. Now she was able to take a look at her surroundings. She was in an enormous great room, its walls ancient, weathered stone hung with heavy, detailed tapestries. One of the tapestries depicted a coat of arms with a crescent moon on top and two lone towers on what appeared to be islands down below.

A fantas
tic chandelier cascaded from a vaulted ceiling what felt like miles above her, its crystalline lights giving the chamber a warm but ancient feel. The architecture was unfamiliar and grand, some kind of cross between Saxon and decorated gothic. A fire crackled merrily in a massive stone hearth against one wall. A few couches, love seats, and a settee rested atop rugs of varying sizes and color, all of them appearing authentically and expensively medieval.

“
Nothing about this night has gone the way I would have chosen,” he told her frankly as he shrugged off the straps and scabbard he had across his back and gently laid the sword down on a shining end table. Next came his jacket.

As he shrugge
d that off as well, all of the muscles that Diana had been imagining beneath its thick leather were exposed. Her mouth went try – and then it began to water. He was that perfect amount of sculpted beauty that rested on that impossible pedestal for so many hard-working steroid addicts and skinny teenagers who dreamed of beefing up overnight. This was the kind of man that put others to shame.

Shame on him
, she thought – as she placed her hand to her stomach and bit her bottom lip.

And then she
blinked.
What the fuck am I doing?

“Where are we?” she asked, brutally shoving her mind away from his body and back to more important matters. Like where he’d taken her.

He turned back around to face her. “You’re at my castle,” he told her, gesturing to the room around them and probably to what lay beyond. “In the Goblin Kingdom.”

Thunder rolled through the skies overhead.
The fire in the hearth jumped and popped.

Diana didn’t say another word. Instead, she walked over to the nearest window. It looked as though it were made of lead glass, the
upper bits colored brilliantly and framed by stone carvings depicting creatures that shouldn’t exist.

She stood at the window, braced her arms against i
ts edges, and peered out.

The moon above was full and actually tinted blue. It shed so brightly on the land, Diana could make out everything as if it were simply a cloudy day.
For nearly as far as her eye could see, forest stretched. It was thick, dark wood, cut through here and there with foot trails and occasionally dotted with what looked like round fields and rings of stone. Some of the taller trees had structures built around and through their branches, like an Ewok village – or an elven city.

At the far edge of the forest stretched the gray-blue darkness of a deep and troubled sea. Clouds hung low in the sky overhead,
blocking out everything but that moon, instead forming a kind of blue-ringed halo around its massive, white body. Lightning crisscrossed the remaining darkness.

“Where’s the labyrinth?” Diana
asked. The acidic note was still there, but was now softened by her tone of bewildered awe.

From behind came a soft chuckle.

She spun to find herself
between hard stone and the stone-hard body of a man who was making more of an impression on her with each passing second. There was about a foot and a half of heated space between them, and it was only growing warmer.

“
When that movie came out, I thought about putting one in.”

Diana actually had the urge to
smile at that comment. But his nearness was making her think about things that were anything but funny.

Damon cocked his head a little to the side,
his gaze sliding to the windows. “It’s not raining.”

Diana’s brow raised. “And that’s bad?”

He looked back down at her, studying her closely.
Too
closely, for her tastes. “It’s… unusual.”

After a moment, he
took a deep breath. “I think you and I should sit down, enjoy some hot tea, and have a long talk.”

“You mean about what the hell those things were outside my house, who the man with the fangs was, what he did with my best friend, and why this is all happening to me tonight?”

“To start,” he said, turning a little to gesture to the couches at the center of the room and the tea tray that had just appeared there, covered in tea sandwiches, biscuits, and a steaming teapot and porcelain mugs. “Please have a seat.”

“I can’t stay here, you know,” she said, not moving from where she was standing.

Damon’s brow raised.

“I have to work tomorrow. People need me. Animals need me.” She tried to swallow past the lump that had been in her throat since she’d first met Damon Chroi and his magnificence in that dark alley with the goblin. “I… can’t stay.”

“For the moment, I’m afraid you haven’t much of a choice,” he told her frankly – but softly. “And if you’ll have a seat, I’ll explain why.”

Diana looked from him to the tea and hugged herself.

Something popped and fizzed in the fireplace. Damon glanced in its direction, a small smile at the corner of his lips.

Finally, Diana let out a breath. “
Why not?” she asked. Nothing made sense anyway. What was another few minutes in a massive stone castle at the center of a Goblin Kingdom going to hurt? She moved toward the couches. “Cream, no sugar please.”

Chapter Seventeen

Roman had only wanted to find her home address so that he could safely return her, but when he’d delved into Selene Trystaine’s mind, he was met with something that slowed his transportation spell nearly to a halt and alerted all of his senses.

It had been difficult to start the spell to begin with. As soon as he pulled the woman into his arms and cast the magic
that would put her in his sway and take them out of the Goblin Queen’s house, he was met with resistance. He’d had to exert quite a bit more force than usual to silence and still the woman, and he understood what had been giving Damon a hard time. There was something about the girl that made her hard to magically control.

But he’d managed the spell
s just as every other window in the house shattered inward and Bookas began to pour inside. He took Selene Trystaine through the transportation portal and into that neither-here-nor-there place in-between transportation locations. As they’d moved through space and time, he searched her memories for her home address.

And that was when he felt it.
It was like slamming on the brakes to barely miss the car in front of you and hearing the tires behind you squeal to a near-miss stop. Or like successfully playing Russian roulette only to find that every chamber but one was actually full.

It felt as though he’d had a brush with something very, very dangerous. Something deadly.

There was a power in Selene Trystaine that he was betting even she did not know she possessed. He was fortunate that her very recent memories were at the top of her subconscious and he didn’t have to delve any deeper to find her home address.

As he pulled back out of her mind, he wondered…
. what she was.

The world re-solidified in the dining room of Selene Trystaine’s house. Roman kept hold of the woman as he quickly scanned their surroundings to be certain they were alone and safe.

The house was small and old, a late nineteenth century two-story with rooms the size of closets. Roman extended his mental feelers to the second floor, detecting five small hard-wood rooms, a wireless router, a laptop computer that hummed quietly, a mini-fridge that hummed not-so-quietly, and no life forms.

Down on the first floor,
the smell of fresh art supplies gently permeated the air, along with cherry bark and almond, which Roman had also scented on Selene herself. It must have been in her soap, shampoo or lotion. There were two rooms on the first floor not including the dining room, living room, bathroom and kitchen. One was obviously her art studio, its walls splattered with the occasional drop of paint, its floors covered in protective canvases. The other appeared to be a guest room.

Paintings on the walls included a Rembrandt reproduction –
Bathsheba At Her Bath
– and a reproduction of
The Last Supper
. The couches were velvet, the throws cashmere. On one of the side tables was a single framed photograph of Selene Trystaine with another woman who appeared the same age. The other woman looked like a photo negative of Selene, with white hair and eyes of the darkest blue. Both women were smiling happily.

Selene Trystaine’s décor was simple, but tasteful.
Roman pulled back in his magic and returned his attention to the woman. He liked her. She had class.

“Now if only I knew what you were.”

Was she perhaps a warlock who hadn’t yet come into her power? Some other sort of thing, such as a remnant Dormant from the times before the werewolf curse had been broken? She didn’t feel like a dragon, and dragons always knew what they were anyway. She wasn’t an Akyri; if she had been, she’d have been drained and lifeless.
Unless she’s an original, like Chloe Septeran?
he wondered.

He shook his head.
No
. She had a completely different feel to her.

A fae?

Roman blinked. That was an interesting thought.
A changeling….

They were more than rare these days. They were supposed to be non-existent. The fae kings had outlawed the practice among the people of their kingdoms as soon as they’d taken the
ir thrones thousands of years ago. And yet, Roman had outlawed turning humans into vampires, and there’d been those who disobeyed his decree. With gusto.

So, i
t was a possibility.

But he mentally shrugged. If she was
a changeling, it was not his right to deal with the issue. It would be difficult and she would need to be handled with care and experience. He would notify the Sidhe Kings of the possibility later. They would take care of her.

Right now, he needed to at least settle her most recent me
mories into the disguise of dreams and get back to Evie before his brother struck again.

Roman concentrated his efforts and delved very carefully back into Selene’s mind. At once, he was met with that thin-ice sensation, but he treaded lightly, taking every precaution. He closed his eyes.

As he did, he saw Selene in her car, driving back from Diana Piper’s home. He heard her thoughts – worries for Diana’s well being, fears that Diana was skirting on the edges of depression and shouldn’t be alone. He watched her come to a decision, pull the car over, turn it around, and head back in the direction from which she came.

But when she got to Diana’s house, the lights were off.

For some reason, rather than assume Diana had gone to sleep, Selene’s worry ratcheted up a few notches. As if she knew something was not right.

She got out of the car and headed to the front door, knocking gently. When there was no answer, she found the key she knew was hidden in the
weathered hole in the trunk of the front yard’s oak tree, and let herself in.

No one was home.

Now Selene figured her best friend was either out saving children at the hospital again, risking life and limb to do so – or she’d gone for a walk alone in the middle of the night – risking life and limb to do so. Either way, it wasn’t good.

She dropped her heavy, oversized handbag on the couch and pulled her cell phone out of it. She tapped Diana’s number and
stepped out onto the front porch at the same time, thinking to gaze up and down the street while she waited.

Tha
t was when an Offspring appeared. Of course, Selene hadn’t known what the man was – he’d simply appeared before her as if materializing out of thin air, a tall and relatively handsome man with white-blonde hair and red, glowing eyes.