Denial (Goblin's Kiss Series Book One) Read online

  Light green eyes the shade of faded money stood a foot taller than me and bore straight into my very soul as I stood like a moron and dropped my mouth two inches wide. They matched my own in the weirdness factor. The eyes, that is. They said things to me. He was as sure of himself as he appeared. Everything else in my view showed a mocking, arrogant smirk with some hidden purpose I didn’t want to know about. But I couldn’t look away.

  I showed my clutzy side by running into his feet and had to grab onto him to avoid falling sprawled eagle in front of him. Feeling warmer than the temperature outside all of the sudden, I let go immediately not liking what my brain was shouting inside. A second later, I swear I felt his fear. But how could I feel fear?

  “I see you found our new meat,” Christina giggled like the rest of the skirted hens. “He is in need of someone to get him to his next class, but none of us have it with him and he refuses to be a bother on us, or so he says. I don’t even know where a Creative Writing class would be held in this school.”

  He looked me up and down, so I did the same. I was no coward... as long as the pain didn’t last long. And not against guys. If they had the audacity to make me feel uncomfortable, then I could do it right back. I’d had enough of their sexist comments last year and not one of them was good enough to consider now.

  Then my brain caught up with what Christina just said.

  Uh oh! On one plane of my existence I heard her say he needed help getting to class. On the other time warp plane of my so-called life I was stuck in a sudden black hole. Two of them. An endless set of eyes that seemed to say things and never speak at all.

  Christina nudged me, “Ah, Emma. Earth to Emma. Ames here needs your wordy nerdy assistance, not a stare down. Can you hike him to class already?” She leaned into him now and pressed herself against him right here in front of me. Her cheer skirt rode a little high and I almost gagged at the picture before me. I couldn’t believe I thought cheer was ever cool.

  He let her press and she pushed the envelope even farther, but when her fingers grazed the side of his bare-armed very toned biceps, I cringed and heard a soft whimper leave my lips.

  As if he’d heard my reaction, he pulled his body back taking his foot from under mine with the rest of him. What made me do that? Why would I be upset at this girl ogling and pawing all over a strange green-eyed guy I’d never met?

  He bit back a small smile, but my sleuthy self caught it. His gaze never leaving mine, he nodded to Christina and held out a muscled arm in my direction. Me?

  “Emma here will take me to my destination. Please excuse us ladies. I look forward to our next...chat.”

  Christina and her counterparts looked none too happy that I was taking their fresh catch. If I know her, she’ll quickly make me harbor the day I ever crossed her when I yelled the “I quit” statement to the squad. The tricky part was walking away from the girls hoping they would not call out any embarrassing former nicknames or such to this guy.

  “Yeah, lucky you. Always lucky you. Maybe you could share this one with us sometime Emma, unlike the last one. Some girls gotta do what they gotta do.” Erin was beside Christina goading me on as his hand took mine and dragged me outside the circle. Her jabs didn’t work on me anymore, but his hand on mine did.

  His closer to emerald green more than the grassy color I’d seen at first glance snapped to mine as I jerked to own my own space. They danced with something secretive I couldn’t read. Two green beacons signaling me.

  I stopped his ardent stride two feet from the girls and turned back ignoring him. They would do something if I didn’t first. “You can keep him. I’m done with guys.”

  “Oh, I could so come back with something clever with that Emma, but for the sake of our new man on campus, I’ll save the details. Ames here will find out how taken you are all.too.soon.” Christina laughed a little too hearty for a girl and told the cheer groupies to head on to class. Their backsides were all I saw as I turned to an empty hallway and the dark creature that stood before me. He screamed bad! I didn’t need that again, so taking stock of his points of interest only made it all too real and easier to move on. He was distributively alluring to the eye. Determined mouth. Very easy on the eyes and off limits in my book. I needed space from guys altogether.

  But ogling a hot guy was easy morning work. I could handle it.

  Ring!

  Great! I was late.

  AMES

  The longest errand in history. Emma Steele. I was to find her, bind her, and return her to my home where the creatures that ruled my world would have her as their queen.

  She thought she was human. And she was part. But the other part was something sinister and dark. She was the Goblin King’s daughter. Well, the dead one’s daughter all grown up. And boy was she all grown up. I’d seen her once, when she was seven. I was ten. Not the same.

  I remember that day though. It was weird for me. I just felt compelled to see her, not leave her. It was that way every time I checked on her for Joshlin, the successor for King Ares, over the years. I’d stand outside her bedroom on the front lawn, check for a pulse, and leave. I never once saw her until days ago. Yet, somehow I’d always had her coming destination in the back of my brain when I’d near her area for retrievals for my current king. I always shook it off as her being one of us and ignored what my gut told me.

  King Warren started this war when he lost his human wife. Greed set in for a means of revenge against the sister realm of our area. When he thought his daughter was dead in the battle, he took his own life. But he was mistaken. Jem didn’t die that day. A left for dead member of the guard allied to King Ares found her and hid her away for all enemies to assume she was dead. Until now.

  A new, very young king was appointed and she was hidden somewhere safe with his supposed appointed special guards posts. When he found her, she was older though. Years had passed since the war. Six to be exact. He didn’t find her as a toddler with the death of her parents, but as a young girl. That’s when I met her first. I went as an apprentice to the guard to see about her when a friend told me of her fate.

  Jem, or Emma, was alive and well in an average Tennessee area not far from our realm living in a small suburb with adoptive human parents who loved her like humans do. Sickening really.

  All I knew about this girl was that she was the lost daughter of the man who ruined my family. Her family originated out west in the Rockies before her human mother showed up in our business. Her mother was insistent on the daughter’s doomed existence because some fortune teller seer said so. And she was one prized possession to be captured even though she wasn’t really a true heir. She was only half goblin. I know all about half breeds. I was one too.

  I did my research on her, but I was still in denial that she could be that important or that some seer could really predict a person’s whole existence.

  Not a single human knew we existed outside our realms and returned to the human world. So it wasn’t by chance one entered.

  Our powers were well guarded and so was our land. The world was full of creatures that resembled humans, but with better resources and without a democracy. That tem seemed like a bad word to my people. The way it is...is the way we have always done it. It’s the law we live by.

  I was sent to find her and bring her back. I didn’t know how my king knew she was more powerful than the rest of us, but he wanted her immensely. She gave her identity away to the wrong side just a week ago. One of the goblin scouts of the other realm was out searching for wayward spies when he happened upon her out in the open using her powers. Word got out, I was sent in. She didn’t know why or how they were growing, but she was trying them out on helpless pine trees. Trees that are known for falling at the slightest shiver of wind. I was furious they sent me. All she did was remind me of what I’ve lost.

  The drive into the parking lot was as easy as the monotonous record keeping changes I made to the high school files. Been there, done that.

  Powers within me since be
fore I knew what they were. Illusions were my favorite play toy as a child. My father taught me most of it, though he couldn’t do it himself. What he didn’t, I grew into. Others in my realm obsessed over my “extra” abilities. They would remind me that my father never had that much “put out” ability and that I would be more powerful than him. I ignored the idiots in the weapons area who watched me too close and said things like that. They worried me.

  I pulled into the parking space with my acquired side vehicle of maximum security, a 1990 hot Tennessee black Jeep Wrangler that was the one and only sexy girl in my life worth getting to know any better. It wasn’t the color for even this time of year in the heart of the mountain air weather, but she was mine.

  I’ve been here many times during different times of the year and this was just too hot for November. My world was closer to cooler from the inside out.

  I tucked my keys in my pocket and headed in the front doors of high school doom and gloom. Immediately, a group of human girls attacked gathering around me, touching me. To the human females my abilities zoned out and begged to be acted upon if I didn’t keep it under control. I assumed it was a goblin king thing.

  I pulled in my power and they backed off. Mostly. One of them asked me if I was new. Duh! Another asked me what my first class was. Whatever Jem had listed. Another asked if I had a girlfriend. Blunt, ever?

  Human girls were too damn forward nowadays and lacked self-respect. Their parents should teach them that a man wants a girl who respects herself, not flaunting it out. But what did I care, a long-term girl wasn’t in the picture for something like me. It only got in the way.

  Besides, one would scream and run once they knew what I was.

  I climbed the stairs and left them in the large open main hall. The mapped out trail I’d traced the night before in my boredom of being here in the first place served its purpose at the moment. I held the spiral notebook and pencil in my hand and drifted into the math classroom and Johnson City High School hell.

  Ring!

  Class ended. Not horrible. I at least took classes I cared for. Luckily the girl took some of the same. (Since I made it that way) I’d never allude to liking the pick of subjects she had, but it is what is.

  The groupie girls found me again too easily. They were standing outside my room at the bell. Great!

  I smiled to appease their pinning attention. Still holding back my power, I found this all too weird to have a dozen females following me around like a bull with a love potion sign on its rear. I checked. My power was zoned in. They were following me on their own accord. Hmm!

  I let them get me to the next hallway feigning lost puppy and kind of enjoyed the attention once I saw the glares some of the other males threw in my direction. A guy named Scott fist bumped me in the stairway and grinned, “Alright, my man. First day and chicks are all on ya. Dig it now, ask it later.”

  I asked him where the English hall was and he told me though I knew. The groupies stood behind us giggling like squirrels as we talked. After Scott introduced himself and invited me to hang at lunch, I veered off in the direction of class.

  I let the girls crowd around cuz’ well...I was a guy. They were each telling me their names.

  When I turned to the sound of one talking about another girl approaching, there she was.

  If l could have prepared myself for what I would be confronted with, I’d have never believed it. My body shook at seeing her, feeling her burning energy. The last time I saw her she was seven, but up close and made into a woman now...

  Almost dropping my notebook, I stopped for a brief second before continuing my stride in her direction. The closer I came, the stronger it got. At some point it became so strong that I planted my feet to the ground and waited for her to ascend upon me rather than get any closer.

  She kept on. Closer. Two feet. The tips of her shoes knocked mine. Her hand clamped down on my arm. Heat flooded me, grounding me to the floor.

  The groupie cheerleader named Christina barked something at her I didn’t quite hear since my insides were barbequing and roasting to a good 100° above even the unusual scorching Tennessee heat. The girl taunted her with her words finding it seriously easy to downgrade her self esteem in front of me. Were these human girls even more evil than I? I doubted it, but it was a close second.

  Jem was toying with the girls as her emotions were doing a flip-flop motion with a combination of anger and and desire.

  I don’t even know how I know how she was feeling it. It’s a power I’ve never held.

  She actually liked me. I didn’t know how to compute this information. She wasn’t repulsed by me and she didn’t siphon anything from my own emotions to help herself. Processing this was beyond jacked up much more than the fact that I was even feeling her emotions in the first place. All of this was just wrong.

  After the initial shock that she didn’t use any of her own pain inducing powers on me, I decided to let go of my own and see how it fared. She didn’t seem to be the queen of evil I’d expected of her. She didn’t have an ounce of malice in her body at the moment. But I did have an overwhelming urge to search her body for scars and other distinguishing differences that would make me know her better than any other man on this earth.

  The girls stepped up their fowardness. They pressed even closer in as I moved towards Jem. She had the same piercing eyes that matched my own as she did years ago. Her blue to my odd green. Girls have always dug it. Human ones. My own kind counted me as the odd man out more so than even the humans.

  Jem’s hair was long and had shiny waves of golden brown even in the florescent light. Not really a guy thing to notice, but I did. She was cute and beautiful all in the same way. She bit her bottom lip as if nervous, but tossed her hair back in confidence. She was fun to watch.

  During the initial greeting, the Christina girl leaned against Jem’s body and I suddenly went ape. She was too close to her. I reined it in and held my fists to my clawing body. If it wasn’t for the fact that she was of my own people, I would have to wonder why I felt the urgent need to protect her. It wasn’t healthy for dang sure.

  It gave me the same disgusting feeling it always did. Human girls were cold, clammy.

  Jem didn’t like the groupie girl doing what she did. Interesting.

  Groupie girl pressed in more and I let it be to see what Jem’s next reaction would be. I was fascinated to say the least but I hated it too. I had a job to do.

  When the girl ran her fingers up and down my arm Jem visibly scrunched up her face and a soft whimper left her lips. Was she in pain?

  I stepped away from both of them wanting this girl’s inhuman pain to disappear. I didn’t want her to hurt. Yes, I did. No, I didn’t.

  I bit back a small smile, but she saw it. Not able to take my eyes off her, I nodded to groupie girl and held out a hand to Jem unable to control what I was doing. I swallowed back the bile that my throat caught from wasting energy on the bubbly cackling chatter behind me now. If they weren’t following due to the magic within me before, they were now.

  This girl, I got nothing. It was like she cut it off. She didn’t give an ounce of emotion over to me on purpose though I was trying like everything to get it.

  Groupie girl Christina barked a comeback and then said my name, “...Ames here will find out how taken you are all too soon.”

  Taken? Did that mean she was already claimed? By a filthy human? I shook my head enough she didn’t catch it. I didn’t care if she were claimed or not. It only made it harder if she were attached to someone to have to embrace this new world she would have no choice in turning to.

  Christina laughed a little like a guy on steroids and took her little fawning guy traps away from us.

  Ring!

  Great! I was alone. With her.

  EMMA

  Afraid to look like an idiot, I stopped staring and held my hand out then changed my mind. But not before my finger skimmed across his fingertips making me feel complete. There was that thought again. I
don’t know where it surfaced from. I warmed at his touch feeling pretty sure the temperature in the air just went up by ten degrees. What was that about? I’d just met the boy. A boy who belonged in romance books, not high school. He was too hot. His face and body spelled certain D.A.N.G.E.R.

  “Emma. Our class...is this way,” I introduced myself and pointed to the direction needed sipping the last of my tea with the other. I circled my hand in front of my face to show that we were alone in the hall, hence the tardiness and reminded him we were late.

  Confusion skimmed my brain as I fought with the battling feeling to draw closer to him and get away from him. He was like a magnetic force that was drawing me and repelling me at the same time. Ack!

  As if in a cloud of thought, he pulled up a lazy grin that made his eyes dance. His hair stuck up in all directions. I had caught him pulling on it a couple of times like it might be a habit of his. I shouldn’t have even noticed all this facial movement but something about the way his lips curled in and his eyes sparkled at me made my stomach lurch with the drunken butterfly effect.

  “Sure thing sweetness,” he beamed a laser smile even wider down at my five foot nine self. He was a good head taller than me, the tall girl, and moving close. Closer. Too close. Again, his hair caught my eye. His dark almond shelled hair fell loosely to the side of his face shielding half his eyebrow, but not his intense eyes from me. He had the whole sexy mess of hair and in the eye affect down well. The same grass green eyes from before that gave me the feeling that I shouldn’t meet them too long. I should’ve looked away.

  Blech!

  I scoffed at his buttery words. He better not think he can smooth talk me the way he probably did the idiot squad. He chuckled under his breath at my nose turned snuff from his sugarcoated sweet talk. I marched away leaving him standing in the hall.