The Goblin King (The Kings) Read online

  FRIEND ME ON FACEBOOK FOR FRONT ROW SEATS TO

  DELICIOUS TEASERS, BREAKING RELEASE NEWS,

  AND INCREDIBLE CONTESTS AND GIVEAWAYS!

  http://www.facebook.com/killoughwalden

  I LOVE MY READERS!

  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

  Visit Heather’s Facebook pages at:

  http://www.facebook.com/killoughwalden

  and

  http://www.facebook.com/pages/Heather-Killough-Walden/204947809542189

  for paranormal romance news, teasers, updates, contests, and giveaways!

  Also follow Heather on Twitter at:

  @killoughwalden

  Visit Heather’s website and sign up for her newsletter to receive all the latest at: www.killough-walden.com

  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 happened.

  “It’s a long story,” he told her suddenly, breaking through her thoughts with such crystal clarity, 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 shoulder. 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 could 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.

  Lucretius Dagon hesitated. His doubt hiccupped through the room, almost a tangible thing. At last, he bowed low, his massive horns scraping the floor as was customary. “At once, your majesty.”

  He rose again, and his form began to ripple. A moment later, it vanished, pulled back into the Goblin Kingdom by an ancient spring-rope kind of magic that kept all of the Goblin Kingdom’s inhabitants returning. They were trapped there.

  Damon sheathed his sword, took a deep breath in through his nose and out through his mouth, and tried to regain some semblance of peace with himself. It had been a long night. The kingdom had become restless. They could sense something changing, like a moving of summer into fall. Trouble was coming.

  Animals could tell when danger was on the way, and no animal reflected trouble like a goblin.

  Damon made his way to the woman’s bed, looked down at her sleeping form, and waved a hand over it. The magic that Dagon had placed her under was instantly lifted.

  A second later, Damon himself transported away.

  Once he was back in his private chambers in his lone castle in his perpetually stormy exiled kingdom, the Goblin King removed his weapons, shrugged off his leather jacket, and sank into his sofa to stare into the crackling fire.

  The flames and their warmth helped balance the tumult of the storm that consistently played outside the castle’s massive windows. It almost never stopped raining in the goblin kingdom. Fortunately for Damon, his powers kept him immune to the damp, to the mud, and to the mess that would drive a normal, sun-loving human mad. Instead, the Goblin King took a certain amount of comfort in the powerful echo of thunder, and a certain amount of pleasure in the flash of electricity that was lightning. It was a part of him – so much so that, apparently, it had never stormed in the goblin kingdom before he’d taken over as its sovereign.

  Damon even smelled like rain. Freshly fallen.

  Now he sighed. As he stared into the fire, a face formed there, small and pixie-like with eyes that were smoke rings embedded in the fire, ears like candle flames, and a mouth filled with what looked like tiny burning charcoal squares. The face smiled a friendly smile. “Good evening your majesty!” he exclaimed, his voice a high-pitched crackling sort of thing that naturally felt warm.

  Damon tried not to smile. It didn’t do to encourage fire elementals. “Evening, Pi.”

  Pi squinted a bit as if considering him. “Long night then?”

  Damon made an affirmative sound, leaning back to stretch out his long legs and cross them at his booted ankles. He thought of the meeting of the 13, the battle with the doubles, and the uncertain future of the entire supernatural universe. “You could say that.”

  “It’s bad, isn’t it?” asked Pi curiously, almost timidly.

  Damon frowned. He thought he’d hidden it well enough. “Why would you ask that, Pi?”

  “The Fire Elders are even talking about it. There’s a force rising, they say. One that threatens the entire magical world.” Pi hesitated, crackling away in silent, flaming thought. “Even us.”

  Damon placed his fingers to his lips thoughtfully. He listened to a raven caw menacingly outside. And then he sat up and leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees and lacing his fingers together. “The 13 Kings are working together to protect our worlds, Pi. You can take that news to your elders and tell them to rest easy.” The last thing they needed was a bunch of nervous elementals causing environmental catastrophes in the mortal realm.

  Pi jumped around a bit, perhaps from happiness-inducing relief, perhaps from agitated excitement at the thought of having good news for his elders. But whatever it was, it was short-lived before he settled down again and Damon could perceive him actually nodding. “Will do, chief. Oh – and a word of warning. The Duqar are playing with bad ideas again. They’re heading into the mortal realm tonight.”

  Pi vanished. It was a sort of poof, a cloud of smoke, and a popping sound, and the fire in the hearth was suddenly a lot less animated.

  Damon frowned. He’d been hoping to take the rest of the night off. But apparently the Duqar had other plans for him. They were nothing more than a racist and ruthless band of goblins that hated humans and loved wreaking havoc on the mortal world. Damon was growing very weary of them.

  Most likely they’d hatched their latest insidious plan around a blazing fire bin, and hence Pi had come about the knowledge with ease. The king had informants like Pi everywhere. When you ruled over something as entropic and primally wild as goblins, extra measures of governance were not only a good idea, they were necessary.

  The Goblin King sighed. He ran a hand through his thick dark hair and closed his eyes. They hurt. They literally burned with fire at times, the power inside of him was so strong, and when this happened, they naturally grew hot. They got sore.

  Damon Chroi was too strong for his own good.

  A very long time ago, so long ago that it predated human history, Damon had been banished here to this realm by the Fae Court. It had been a coup of g
rand proportions. Every last royal blooded fae in existence had gathered together, joined forces, and exiled him. Why?

  Because they feared him.

  Damon Chroi had been born with enormous power. This power, this magic that pulsed through him, stifling and unsettling, scared those around him. Some pretended to befriend Damon, choosing to side themselves with the thing they feared. Others outwardly distrusted him, shunned him, and gathered behind his back, scheming and planning.

  Damon was well aware of it all. He knew what they thought of him, what they felt toward him. He’d never lifted a finger against any of them and had never given them any physical proof of a reason to believe that he would betray his leaders or his kind. But it didn’t matter. No one was willing to take any chances where he was concerned.

  And so they murdered the former king of the goblins, and Damon was sent to the Goblin Kingdom to rule over a race so powerful, the Fae Court assumed Damon would be too busy trying to maintain control over it to return and rise against those who’d banished him.

  They were right.

  What they hadn’t counted on however, was that there would be another uprising altogether, one from within their own ranks.

  A thousand years after Damon’s exile, twin brothers were born to the fae kingdom. They bore no royal blood between them, but grew into young men of such charisma and power, they earned the nickname “the princes.” Despite their very different appearances and preferences, they were nearly inseparable.

  They were also apparently much better at hiding the immense amount of inherent power they possessed, because unlike Damon, they were not exiled. More than a thousand years after their birth, “the princes” overthrew the Fae Court, killing every single member among their tainted bureaucratic ranks.