AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Have you picked a consort candidate?”
“No.”How could she ask someone to put their life on the line by traveling to the goblin realm?Such a tempting offer, said no one ever.“Perhaps I’ll copy the original goblin queen’s power move and match myself with a witch consort.”
Alexei gave a grunt that could mean so many things.“Low blow, cousin.”
“Sorry.I didn’t think.”Shame sent a wave of prickling heat over her.Alys.The witch Senate had stolen Alexei’s sister.Her disappearance was the reason he read every tabloid, every newspaper, every gossip site, searching for clues.“I shouldn’t have mentioned witches.I know how much you hate them.”
“Supremacist hags.”He blasted her with his you’re-lucky-you’re-family glare.“I’ll blame the fact you had to witness a goblin rip apart a car like tin foil and hatchet a man with his own arm.Enjoy your spa day.”
Nothing she could say would fix this.The embarrassment and fear stayed with her through the drive and at the spa, twisting her gut into knots and tightening her face into harsh lines no matter how much the esthetician pinched and poked.
Her phone rang.A no-no in the eucalyptus-scented retreat, but a rule she was allowed to break.A perk of fame.The name of the witch who’d recovered an amethyst for her flashed across the screen.Vori waved off the staff.
“Yes?”She didn’t bother with small talk.Diego was a friend.But he was an interrupting-her-spa-day friend.
“Where did you get the clippings?”he asked.
The newspaper articles she’d found in Alexei’s collection to replace some Diego had lost.“I told you they were copies.I stole nothing.”Not this time anyway.“No one will come looking for them.”
“Are there more?”Ocean waves crashing behind him underscored the gravity of his voice.
She paused, hoping he read the “yes, but” in her silence.“There are, but you won’t like where they are kept.”Diego and her cousin had not had a good first meeting.
“Alexei’s warehouse.”He sounded as grumbly as a bear shifter.
“You guessed it.”
“Can you get me in?”
She needed something to get her mind off last night.Helping Diego access the woo-woo collection would be easy enough.
Hours later, he flipped through article after article while she researched the lackluster lead she had on the amethyst in Paris.Diego was famous for his tracking skills.She kicked at his chair.“When you’re searching for something, what’s your secret?”
“I call to it.”He said it like anyone could do it, no big freakin’ powers deal.Such a witch answer.“I concentrate on what I really want to find and wish it to me.But you have to know what you want first.”
“Freedom.”
“From what?You’re living the glam celebrity life.”
“From some blood vows I shouldn’t have made.”
Diego snapped his gaze to hers.“Iknewyou weren’t human.What are you?Part elf?”
“Elves don’t exist.”She implied theduh.Anything other than admitting that she was a goblin princess because those didn’t exist in this realm either.
“Oh, come on.You have to tell me.”
“No.What do they say?Nosy cats end up eaten?”
He shot her a look—disturbed, disgust, doubtful.“We need to talk about who you hang around if you think that’s the saying.”
“We were talking blood vows.”She stressed the last two words to keep him from concentrating on species.
He turned another page in the biggest book of weird.“Who’d you promise?”
“Baba Yaga.”
Diego’s stare hit her like a ton of goblin gold.“Damn.”The word carried the weight of the excruciating hexes that would happen if she didn’t deliver on the vows.“There’s no wishing your way out of those.”
