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“Get out of there, cousin.”
The creature dragged the mogul from the car, past the one burning headlight.Green skin as soft and lustrous as emerald silk spilled over curves.A slim silver band with a thread of gold circled the goblin’s forehead in the same place where a giant gold one would be if Vori slipped her skin.
“She’s a goblin royal like me.But that’s impossible.”
“Go now.”Alexei used his commander-of-demon-hordes tone.“For once in your life, don’t argue.Run.”
Vori had run before.So much faster than the goblin guards chasing her.So long ago.In another place, another realm.Her home.Kradnovtl.
“I need the amethyst for Baba.”She could shed this supermodel skin and fight without losing control, without becoming the berserker her father had wanted her to be.Maybe.
The goblin shook the mogul as if he were a toy, a shiny distraction to play with, to terrify.His cries morphed into pleading.
Alexei snapped his fingers and shouted quick orders in Russian.Heavy footsteps thumped fast over the connection.He was probably sending guards after her.“Go, now.”
“I have to try for the amethyst.”
“No.There will be witnesses, phones, cameras.Leave.”
He was right.Damn it, the man was always right.Though the street was deserted, humans could have surveillance anywhere.But she couldn’t give up this easily.She straightened her shoulders and rode forward, choking on her need to run away.
The goblin’s happy howl sent shivers down her spine.Shivers colder than her home realm’s deepest mine.But those shivers doubled, tripled when the other goblin ripped the mogul’s arm off.
Bile burned Vori’s tongue worse than a witch’s hellfire hex.Rolling to a fast stop, she stared.She wasn’t this vicious monster.Was she?
With a yank, the goblin tore off the man’s hand, the one with the ring, with the amethyst.Vori’s vision swam, her breath bursting forth in shallow pants as quick as her racing heart.
The goblin shoved the mogul’s own bones into his chest.His agonizing scream ended in a wet gagging sound.
Vori swallowed the sickness stuck in her throat but gasped on a strangled breath when the goblin’s gaze met hers—not the searching glance of someone looking to hide.No, this screamed the knowing look of someone who’d been well aware she had an audience all along.She—because this royal’s curves left no doubt—curled her lips into a gruesome grin of sharp teeth.
“Vori.”
Dread licked over Vori’s skin.Cold dread.Crushing dread.Dread she hadn’t felt since leaving Kradnovtl.
This goblin knew her name.
But how?It’d been more than a decade since Vori’s mother had pushed her through the goblin glass to the human realm.
Fear gripped her, paralyzed her.She had to focus on now, not the past, to make sure she had a future.
The goblin laughed and ran away.Her footsteps faded into distant horns and traffic.The metallic smell of blood blended with burned rubber and chemicals.Vori shook with the need to run.Not after the goblin and the amethyst as she should.But as far from her problems as possible.
“Come home now.”Alexei’s booming order from the phone snapped her out of her daze.“So I can see that you’re okay.”
Home.To her demon-hybrid cousin’s house.Not to the empty palatial penthouse she rented.“On my way.”She rode away as fast as she could and didn’t look back.
She blasted along the grooved concrete and striped lanes of the empty freeways from Hollywood to Long Beach.She parked the Ducati in her adopted family’s guarded compound and took the front steps two at a time.She hadn’t made it to the top when Alexei yanked the door open and pulled her inside.He set protective wards on the house.
She went upstairs and tried to sleep in the bed hertetyakept ready for her, but the gruesome murder haunted her all night.How had another goblin crossed to this realm?
A goblin who knew her name.
A goblin with her amethyst.
A goblin royal who should be dead.
Hours later, she stumbled downstairs.
