For the Love of a Goblin Warrior (Shadowlands) (2 page)

She wasn’t going to get anywhere with the man while the baby was crying.

“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 faster. The crying is making him worse…and it’s a baby. She shouldn’t be waiting.”

She hated seeing children in distress. It brought back too many memories of her own childhood and the other foster children who’d been in and out of the homes she had lived in. Some of them made her odd habits seem normal, and that was saying a lot.

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 was understanding. But he didn’t seem disorientated or confused. He just didn’t understand the language.

He stared at her for a moment, then watched the woman with the baby as she was taken behind the doors. He blinked, but his tears had already tracked a line through the gray dust coating his face. Once the woman and child were gone, he nodded.

She brushed aside his hair to get a better look at the wound—and him. It was impossible to tell his age. While his skin was covered in dust, his hair was full of the gray powder and it clumped together in uneven chunks. Even his beard was full of it. Is that why his eyes had been watering? Was it concrete powder? She looked closer at his skin but saw no evidence of chemical burns where his tears had mixed with the dust.

“Where did you find him?” Nadine asked the cop.

“Adelaide Terrace.”

She nodded. There were lots of luxury apartments being built down at the east end of Perth. “Construction site?”

“No. On the street.”

“What’s he covered in?”

“No idea.”

Great.

The head injury didn’t look too bad. His skull seemed undamaged, but she couldn’t ask if he’d lost consciousness. For all she knew, his brain was bleeding and swelling. He should get a scan or be admitted for observation at a minimum. She covered his eyes with her hand, then removed it and watched to make sure his pupils reacted evenly to the light. They did. He didn’t appear drug affected, and he didn’t smell of alcohol. He smelled of nothing. Which was odd. Everyone had a smell, and given his appearance and well-worn clothes, he should have at least smelled unwashed. She sniffed again to be sure, but there wasn’t even the scent of skin. Odd.

If he spoke no English, or remembered none, 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. For a heartbeat, the two cops and Nadine all waited to see what he’d do. He looked at her, smiled, and said something that had the tone of gratitude. He might not speak the language, but he understood some of what was going on.

He rubbed his wrists and she noted the fresh grazes and cuts, but they didn’t bother her as much as the gray coating and possible damage to his eyes, or his lack of regular language. He was obviously educated. So what had happened to him to bring him here in such a state?

She noticed a gold broach holding the cloak over his 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?”

Chapter 2

The woman in front of Meryn smiled. Her teeth were white against the dark 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 any more than he understood the blue-clad soldiers. Her tone was one of concern not aggression…and yet she’d ordered the soldiers to take care of the baby, and they had obeyed. Despite the cruelty of her necklace, she appeared to be free, not a slave.

The woman’s soft hands touched his and flexed his fingers, checking the cuts made when he’d fled the tower after being torn from the Shadowlands. The things his hands had done. So much blood. So much battle. The memories flickered past, half formed, but he couldn’t quite grab hold of them.

It was only when he thought of the emptiness of the Shadowlands—the realm of the goblins—that his mind was still. The endless nothing. Gray land meeting gray sky. No sun to cast light and warmth, no stars to light the way, just nothing as far as he could see.

Except the rock spire.

It had joined sky and land, a testament to the power of the goblin king. The one goblin who had the power to cross to the human realm at will. That power had made him the envy of all other goblins. When they weren’t fighting each other for scraps of gold, they were looking for the most powerful king, hoping to steal his treasure and magic. But Meryn knew no one had ever found the goblin king and lived to tell. He’d failed to find him at all. The spire had been empty. The king gone and Meryn had been trapped. Human in a world of nightmares.

Cursed
. That’s what the man claiming to be his cousin Dai had said as he pulled Meryn out of the Shadowlands. Meryn had been human once; he knew that. He’d always been different from the other goblins of the Shadowlands without knowing why.

But what kind of man had he been?

One who needed to be locked in a tower away from everyone else?

What crime had he committed as a human to warrant such a curse and punishment?

Memories of battle and blood tore at his mind. Things he didn’t want to remember.

The woman with the beautiful smile touched his hand and spoke to him again, first in the same language the blue-clad soldiers used and then in softer, more lyrical words. He frowned, not understanding what she was saying yet wishing he could make sense of her words.

The Fixed Realm had changed in his absence. The people spoke a different language and were clothed differently. He glanced at the two identically dressed men. Only Romans stripped away individual identity. His thoughts tumbled and for a moment he was caught in the past. He needed to focus on the present.

He took a breath and grabbed on to the first piece of logic that drifted past. The men had taken his sword, bound him, and brought him here to a place full of wounded. They might have brought him here as a prisoner, but it was so he could get his injury treated. That was a good thing. Meryn pushed down on the fear that made him want to run and tried to act like he knew what was going on. He had to act like everyone else and not draw attention, the way he’d done once before. Always watching, always alert. But he knew it hadn’t helped him last time he’d been human. Somehow he’d failed and people had died.

The play of light on the woman’s gold necklace held his gaze for a moment too long, as if he wasn’t that far from turning goblin again. The chain and cross hung just out of reach. The need for gold didn’t consume him the way it once had in the Shadowlands; instead, it offered salvation. Gold didn’t hurt and cry and scream. As a goblin, he’d been numb to the memories of his life as a man. He wanted the silence of being goblin.

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. Every breath hurt his ribs and rasped over skin that the memories had stripped raw. The air was salt being rubbed into wounds that had never had a chance to heal.

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. While the curse that had bound him to the Shadowlands and eased his pain had broken and made him human again, he wanted to go back. He wanted to be goblin again. He understood the rules of the Shadowlands. He knew how goblins behaved. If he returned, maybe he could forget. He blinked as his vision blurred and his eyes burned.

Gods, he was weak for wanting to go back.

He hadn’t always been like this. He’d been a better man once. He knew that, the same way he knew that that man was gone. 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 broken. Now he was a skin full of unwanted memories with no reason to go on.

The gold around the woman’s neck gleamed with a lure that promised everything and would deliver nothing. He’d fallen for its trap before, and he knew that for a goblin there was never enough gold to satisfy, but he would try. Could he lose himself in the mindless lust and become a heartless goblin again?

It would be so easy to give in.

The cross was only finger-lengths away. He could take the gold. Take enough gold to bury all feeling. He’d find a place to hoard it, and build a castle and fight all who’d tried to steal it from him. That was what goblins did. Yet the goal that had once sustained him now lacked true desire; it was empty, as if he was trying to force himself to want when he wasn’t sure what he wanted. It would have to do. Gold would smother the other thoughts. Gold could always fix things for a goblin. But for a goblin there was nothing to fix but the need for more gold.

His gaze darted to the soldiers, but they weren’t watching him. Could he steal from her? He shouldn’t, but he needed the screaming of a thousand memories in his head to stop and gold had solved his problems for so long. The necklace swung closer and he gave in to the glittering temptation. If he took the gold, he’d become goblin and find peace. 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 the precious metal, the rising need for more, but it didn’t come.

Instead, there was silence as the screaming stopped and for a moment he glimpsed a 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 to gray, and his joints didn’t thicken. He remained stubbornly human.

How was that possible? He wanted gold. He was stealing gold. He should be goblin. He’d given in before and found peace, but this time he was denied and he knew the truth. The man who’d pulled him from the Shadowlands was right: Meryn had been cursed and was now free. He was human and couldn’t go back. The realization brought no joy, only more of the heartache he couldn’t fully explain.

The woman stood and beckoned him forward, her voice calm, her lips still curved. She hadn’t noticed his theft. He fisted his hand so the points pressed into his palm. The guilt didn’t fade. He should give the necklace back before it was too late, before she realized and labeled him a thief, but when she glanced at him, he couldn’t. The look in her eyes would change from concern to hate. Her kindness would be gone, replaced by the fear he was more used to seeing. He sat frozen, unsure what to do next. The woman spoke again.

When he didn’t move, one of the men in blue grabbed his arm and forced him to stand, then talked to the woman. She nodded as they spoke, her gaze flicking to him. And Meryn knew they were talking about him as if he were a simpleton.

He couldn’t do anything right. He slipped the cross into the folds of his tunic and tried to listen as if he could force comprehension, but the words washed over him and didn’t stick. Their language was too different and unfamiliar; they didn’t understand him either. He sighed and bit back the frustration, then followed her because that seemed to be expected.

The soldiers didn’t accompany the woman. What was going on? Where was she taking him? Should he make a run for it? He glanced over his shoulder; the men were still there, lingering by the door. Meryn forced himself to follow the woman. For the moment he would do as asked—at least until he had a better understanding of the world.

She picked up a piece of parchment and a stylus off the counter. They stood at the side near the door where the mother and children had gone. Was he about to be taken through the door? He didn’t want to go there if that was where the crying child was. He couldn’t listen to the screaming without hearing the echo of his own children. He swallowed the brittle points of anguish that lodged in his throat. Taking gold hadn’t dulled the edges. How much would he have to steal to surrender his humanity again? Would he ever be able to breathe without hurting?

“Nadine.” She pointed at her chest just below were the golden crucifix had hung, her neck now bare.

Her gold weighed heavy in his pocket. He shouldn’t have stolen it, yet how could he give it back? She would know what he’d done and she would stop being nice to him. She was the first person to care in too long, and as a human, he needed that. The guilt swelled in his stomach, but he ignored it and focused on what she was saying. Her name.