Chapter 1
There were only forty-six of his kind left.
Tearach Bruce paced the floor of his cottage and ran a shaking hand through his hair. For eight years, he’d racked his brain for a way out of this catastrophic dilemma. As leader of the goblins, it fell to him to find a way to save his people. But how? It had been suggested that mating outside their own race, with willing Order denizens, might be the answer. Not only had it proved futile, but it had resulted in tragedy. Within the last month, another goblin woman had died while attempting to give birth and three goblin children had been stillborn.
For eight years, the same sad tale repeated itself over and over. Some of the babies had lived the length of a day, but those instances had been rare.
He couldn’t order his people to quit mating or take precautions to keep from bearing children. They believed one child might survive and if that one babe lived, so might others. But the deaths were taking a toll on morale. He might very well be the last leader of a race that was thousands of years old.
He slammed his fist into a table. It threatened to collapse from the force of the blow. “There has to be a way,” he angrily muttered. “I won’t let this be the end.”
He walked to the door of his cottage, pulled it open and strode toward the center of the nearby forest. The Druid sorceress might have news regarding the latest physical tests run on him and his people. And if there wasn’t anything in those examinations, he’d have their physicians run more. As long as he breathed, he’d never give up.
As he approached the castle where the Sorceress of the Ancients resided with her staff, he heard a noise behind him and stopped.
He sensed that another of his kind was near and waited several moments for the person to step forward and make their presence known. When they didn’t do so, he lost patience and quickly turned toward whoever was hiding.
“Come out,” he tersely ordered, “and be quick about it.” He watched as a lovely, slender woman moved out of the bushes, toward him. She did so in such a way that she was almost invisible. Such was the stealth of his people.
“Tearach, I-I wanted to see you again,” she half-sobbed.
He held out his arms and welcomed the goblin woman into his friendly embrace. “Mabb, what is it? Why are you so upset?”
She gazed up into his face, and he didn’t miss the unasked-for adoration exhibited there.
“The sorceress has ordered me away from the Order. I don’t know where I’ll be sent, but she told me her command had something to do with you.” She shook her head in misery. “Why would she do such a thing?”
Stupefied, Tearach couldn’t answer. He simply held her close and tried to come up with a response to this newest outrage.
“You k-know how I feel about you. Did you ask the sorceress to s-send me away? Why w-would you do such a thing?” she asked.
“Mabb, I can assure you, I’ve done no such thing. I don’t know what this is about, but I was on my way to see the sorceress. I’ll get an explanation.”
“The guards are to escort me away tonight.” She wiped the tears from her face. “I don’t understand.”
He pushed her long black hair off her lovely green face and shook his head. “It must be some mistake. Shayla’s never sent anyone away from the Order without good reason, but you’ve done nothing wrong.”
“Except to love you,” she murmured, and laid her cheek against his broad chest.
Tearach gently pushed her away. “Mabb, I’ve told you dozens of time, I can’t return your feelings. All my energy and time must be devoted to a solution of our problems. I don’t have it in me to think about matters of the heart. Not now. Our people are dying and that outweighs anything else in my mind.”
“I know. But must our love die with our race?”
He sighed and shook his head in frustration. “I’ve never uttered any words of love. If I’ve led you to believe my feelings were more than the concern of a friend and leader, I beg your forgiveness with all that’s in me.” He’d told her these same words many times, but she refused to listen.
She sniffed and moved a few inches away. “If this damned curse weren’t on us, I know you’d be in my arms. I know you could love me.”
“I-I don’t know how to respond. I don’t know what I would or wouldn’t feel because it’s been so long since the horror of Exmoor. Please believe me when I tell you that…some days my heart seems empty. I don’t think I even know how to love anymore.”
“Don’t say that. You’re just confused and feeling the weight of this tragedy. That’s the mark of a great leader. I know you can love and I know I could fill the emptiness in your heart. I think the sorceress does, too. She must feel I’m a distraction and that’s why she’s sending me away.”
He ran his hands over her hair. “I’ll get to the bottom of that right now. As for your feelings, please don’t put hope in me. I’ve done nothing to deserve it. For now, do as the sorceress says.”
“I can’t stand being away from you for even a few hours. I’ll go mad, Tearach.”
Upset that her feelings were so deep, after never reciprocating them, all he could do was gently kiss her forehead and offer what words of comfort he could. “Go now. I’ll confront Shayla. I can’t believe she’d give a command to have you removed from the Order and not so much as offer me an explanation.”
Mabb hugged him hard. Then she turned to go but stopped and glanced back over her shoulder. “I’ll never love anyone but you.”
As she walked away, Tearach felt the last strands of his patience being torn asunder.
Shayla Gallagher, as current Sorceress of the Ancients, had no right to send one of his people away from the group. The only comfort they found nowadays was in each other’s presence and it was far safer to keep Mabb and the other goblins within the confines of the Order. Added to the pain of this latest edict, Mabb still harbored a deep desire for the two of them to be together and it worried him. He couldn’t see to his own happiness when all his people suffered.
He angrily stalked toward the castle. Sorceress or not, Shayla had some serious explaining to do.
***
“Come in, Tearach, I’ve been expecting you.” Shayla Gallagher motioned him inside the expansive library.
Tearach glanced at the shelves of books lining all four walls, at the oak floors and the Gothic chandeliers. This particular room held no appeal for a woodland creature such as himself. In his current mood, nothing held any appeal.
He stiffly walked to the center of the library and stopped. “Why is Mabb being sent away? What wrong has she done?” he angrily asked. “And if it isn’t too much trouble, I want to know if there’s any word on the latest blood tests.”
“Tearach, I see the rage on your face. I’ve heard it in your voice for the last eight years. Every muscle you have looks coiled, as though you mean to attack. Take care with your words and your actions. You are not speaking to one of you clan.”
He unclenched his hands and tersely nodded.
“As to why Mabb is leaving,” the sorceress continued, “you’ll find out in a few minutes. I have my reasons for having her elsewhere and won’t have them questioned. And yes, the blood tests have come back. By the way…hello to you too,” she sarcastically added.
He took a steadying breath and willed himself to be patient. It would do no good to anger the powerful sorceress. “I’m sorry if I seem impatient. Surely, the fact that my people are running out of time will excuse my demeanor?” he growled out.
“If you think my interest has been elsewhere, you’re mistaken. I’ve been worrying over the problem as much as you. So have the leaders of the other clans. With their advice, I’ve come to a decision.”
He watched the sorceress walk to the fireplace.
She held out her elegant hands and the logs burst into flames.
He was used to watching the Druids command power over elements such as fire. But perhaps his imagination was working overtime, or his anxiety was causing him to see other things. For a moment, he thought he’d seen reluctance in her silver gaze. He watched her smooth her long, gray hair with one hand and then turn to face him again. Something in her expression warned him that what he’d hear would not be to his liking.
“Perhaps you’d better sit down,” Shayla instructed.
“I’ll stand, if you don’t mind.”
Once again, the look on the sorceress’s face caused something in his chest to tighten ominously.
“Very well.” She walked toward him. “When our physicians compiled all the physical data, they found nothing genetically or generally wrong with any of your people. You’re all as healthy as can be. But there’s another element to your population’s status which can’t be so easily quantified.”
“Go on,” he encouraged.
“A great many of our physicians have been working very hard. Every medical test known has been secretly conducted so outsiders don’t find out about our existence. Working under such conditions takes time. The results of all these tests have led our doctors, the clan leaders…and me…to one conclusion.”
“Which is?”
“We believe that new blood is in order.”
He shook his head. “What do you mean?”
“Simply put…a combination of stress and the complete hopelessness of your situation may be killing your newly born children.”
“Stress caused by the murders in Exmoor?” he angrily questioned.
She nodded. “Yes. It’s believed that the events from eight years ago are the cause of today’s problems. It’s a simple conclusion born of psychological evidence.”
Tearach raised his hand in a frustrated gesture. “And how do you propose to introduce this new blood? You know we’ve tried breeding with other races in the Order and nothing works. And what, by the name of the Goddess, does Mabb have to do with all of this? Her being ordered to leave is connected to your findings, is it not?”
“I’ll explain my actions with Mabb after I’ve fully explained our course of action. So…back to the point…outsiders caused this problem, and I believe their influence is necessary to resolve it.”
Tearach stared at her for a long moment, and his heart began to pound. The conversation had taken a decidedly repulsive turn. “What exactly are you suggesting?”
She expelled a loud, frustrated breath and threw her arms up. “Very well, man. I’ll get to the point. One of your people will have to attempt mating with an outsider. We believe that if that mating is successful, it will end this terrible hatred your people have over those in the outside world. And once that hatred and fear is gone, the goblins can begin to put their lives back in order. They can start to live for the future and not dwell on the past.”
“You can’t be serious!” He ran his hands through his hair and stalked to an open set of French doors. The woods outside those doors were green and calming. It took every ounce of willpower he had not to bolt from the room.
“I’m quite serious! Your people are so afraid of the outside world that they’re unable to exist with it. And, if they won’t exist with it, they’ll perish. Do you understand?”
“This is too abhorrent to even consider. There’s got to be another way. There has to be.”
“No, I’m afraid not.” She paused. “The decision has been made. As leader, I know you’d never ask one of your people to do something you were unwilling to do yourself.”
The full impact of her words struck him. He slowly turned away from the doors and stared at her. Bile rose in his throat. “You want me to…to mate with…” He shook his head.
“It is my command.”
He began to pace, suddenly realizing why Mabb was being sent away. Her romantic feelings for him might hinder the sorceress’s plans. As Shayla’s so-called solution began to sink in, he couldn’t utter a single word.
Fury invaded every cell in his body.
Eight years before, a pool of water considered sacred by the goblins—and which was used for their most profound ceremonies—was poisoned by outsiders.
Men from the outside world, driving trucks filled with toxic chemicals, had found the little, isolated pond and had dumped their half-sealed barrels of waste into the water. They’d done this to avoid paying exorbitant fees to have that waste properly recycled.
A few groups of goblins had arrived early one evening, to drink the water as part of their ceremonial spring celebration.
All who drank from the poisoned pond died horrifically. There were hundreds of dead including women and children.
Nothing had been right with his people since. Goblin children born since that day didn’t survive.
Now the sorceress expected him to lie with one of those murderous, outsider savages and get her with child.
Dispatching Mabb to some far off spot—the one goblin woman who might be perceived as complicating matters where his heart was concerned—was Shayla’s first step toward that goal. The entire scenario was too nauseating to even contemplate.
“Even if I could stomach such a thing, how do you propose to get an outsider here?” he spat out. “Placing one of those butchers among us would endanger every magical creature still in existence. It also violates the very law you, as Sorceress of the Ancients, enforce.”
“You’re conveniently forgetting that we have had outsiders among us for some time. Need I remind you that you killed one of your own goblin warriors so that one of them might remain safe—”
“I know what I did!” he swiftly and angrily shot back.
“And have you forgotten that outsiders were poisoned when the waste was dumped into your sacred pools at Exmoor…that the putrid water seeped into village drinking sources were outsiders consumed it? Perhaps I should remind you that most of those villagers affected by the poison were children, whose immune systems were not sufficiently developed to fight off the effects of the toxins—”
“I remember it,” he whispered, then bowed his head. The information that he’d been shown in that regard was still in his brain. He recalled seeing articles where the sick children’s faces were clearly posted.
Despite them being outsiders, he ached for those little ones.
No goblin ever subscribed to harming any child anywhere. The fairytales told by outsiders, concerning goblins, were and always had been so very wrong. Before Exmoor, his people were the most peaceable, loving race to ever walk the earth. They valued life in all its forms, from the smallest to the largest. They worshipped Mother Nature as a goddess, and never took her bounty or the inhabitants of her realm for granted.
“I’ve had those children’s situation monitored and it isn’t getting any better,” Shayla softly advised. “Can you so easily forget all but your own sorrow?”
Along with all the other memories the sorceress brought back, he couldn’t dispel the awful recollection of once having to kill a dear friend to keep an outsider safe. But that woman had been different. She was now magical herself and had as much to lose from being discovered as the rest of the Order.
Still, none of those terrible memories could diminish the pain he felt for his people. As he saw it, outsiders were solely to blame for all these problems.
“The clan leaders have agreed that bringing an outsider here…someone who will not be changed by any use of magic…may be the only way to save your race. So, I’m making an exception to the original laws, as I have in the past and which is my right.”
“And what if this backfires and the child from such a union still dies? Then what?”
“You’d better pray to Herne this does work, Tearach. There’s no medical reason for your children to die.” She pointed to his chest. “The problem lies in here…in your heart. If one more baby perishes, I’ll hold you responsible for not helping your people relinquish their hatred. They should have done so long ago. It’s poisoning them as horribly as that water ever did. The fear from this situation has pushed Mabb to the point that she would never allow an outsider near you—and she isn’t even living in reality most days. She speaks of having a child with you when I know you’ve tried to tactfully dismiss her feelings on numerous occasions. She has told others that she’s planning your handfasting and has expressed a hatred for outsiders that’s quite dangerous.” Shayla sadly shook her head. “The entire outside world is not responsible for the deaths of your friends and family. It was three men—”
“Who will never hurt anyone else!” he declared.
“No. You killed them, and your revenge should have stopped there. But you and your people insist on keeping the incident an open, festering wound,” she admonished. “The wound in your combined souls is killing your future.”
“Should we turn the other cheek?” he sarcastically responded.
“I’d have thought you’d realize how very precious life is, that each day should be celebrated. For you, every sunrise brings the goblin race one step closer to extinction. That’s the way you see it, so that’s the way things are. And your babies die because the adults have no hope. This mating must take place. It’s a new chance.”
He glared at her, clenched his hands into tight fists and spoke using a low tone, “You of all people know how vulnerable my race is when we mate. You’re aware of what happens to us and yet you’d still expose that secret to an outsider who could use the knowledge to their advantage? Is such a highly personal moment to be exploited at your whim, in hopes that this insane idea will actually work? How much indignity must my people suffer? With so few of us here, why send one more away?” He dragged his hands through his hair, wanting to scream.
“Your anger is almost tangible. It is even infecting other members of the Order and I want it over. As for Mabb, sending her away is for the best. The girl has a romantic obsession for you. It will be difficult enough to control your behavior in this situation, never mind a love-sick goblin woman.”
Finally, Tearach dropped his head and closed briefly his eyes. There was no use trying to keep the disbelief and outrage from his voice. “You’ve commanded me to do this and I will obey. But I’ll never forgive you, Sorceress. Never! I can only hope we don’t live to regret this decision.”
***
“Uncle Tearach, one of the fairies brought these from Shayla.”
Tearach watched as his niece, Cairna, placed a stack of files on his kitchen table. He ignored them and continued to sharpen the blade of his boot knife.
“Aren’t you even going to look at them?” she asked.
“No, Cairna, I’m not.”
She was silent for a moment. He watched guardedly as she dragged a slender finger across the top file.
“I’ll bet these are the women from which you’re supposed to choose.”
By now, everyone in the Order was aware of Shayla’s edict. They’d expressed every emotion from absolute revulsion and pity to congenial acceptance and encouragement.
For some odd reason his niece fell into the latter group, and that infuriated him. He loved the eighteen-year-old girl with all his heart but her own parents had died in Exmoor eight years ago. How she could contemplate such a union was beyond his reckoning.
“Will you hand me that other knife?” He waited for her to retrieve it from the farthest end of the table, while still ignoring the files.
“At least Shayla is giving you a choice,” Cairna pointed out, as she smiled at him and handed him the blade.
Tearach remained silent, refusing to be drawn into a discussion about the hateful subject. Cairna paced up and down the length of the table, staring at the files as she did so.
“Sit down, girl. You’ll wear a hole in the floor,” he ordered. But the command lacked bite. He always kept his tone soft when speaking to her. Cairna was the one, good thing in his life. He wouldn’t ever forget that she was all he had left.
She complied by pulling a chair to where the cursed files were stacked, which was almost directly in front of him. He wearily sighed and shook his head.
Cairna’s father—his older brother—had the same annoying habits. If there was a subject about which they disagreed, Traed would provoke him by staring straight at him. That usually resulted in a fight. He almost smiled at the memories surrounding some of their silly boyhood arguments. How he wished his older brother was alive again.
Then there had been Furlon and Tressa, his younger brother and sister. The twins were never far from each other and had always been in trouble. It had been a great source of amusement to watch his parents’ attempts at figuring out which of them had committed some minor offense.
His mother and father had loved all their children with fierce devotion. But they had all died on the same horrible day. His heart had been so badly broken that he lost the ability to love anyone. Anyone but little Cairna.
She was only ten when her world collapsed. She’d cried for days, wanting her parents back. But they were gone, and he hadn’t known how to explain what the outside world had done. There had been no time to learn to become a parent.
He watched her finger the edge of the top file and tried to continue being annoyed with her. As usual, he couldn’t. The girl had him firmly wrapped around her little finger. That was the depth of his love for her.
He stood, walked across the room and placed a pot of water in the fireplace. “Would you like some tea?”
She shook her head and looked down at the documents in front of her.
He realized that his only living family, would one day be a beauty like her mother.
Long black hair framed an elfin face, and her eyes were dark as midnight. Fairy and goblin men already vied for her hand. Sometimes, two would come calling on the same day and he’d have to separate the suitors before a fight broke out.
Whenever she finally decided to take a mate, Cairna deserved more than to watch her newborn children die. If there was any chance that this foul scheme could work, he had to try. Moreover, he’d been given orders that he could not disobey.
The sorceress was the keeper of all things magical. She had powers that no one dare test. Though her predictions were sometimes wrong, she was still right much of the time. While he personally believed this was one of the times due to sad and even sick failure, he still must submit. At least while his patience could be controlled. For all these reasons, but mostly for love of his niece and her future, he finally relented.
He sighed and motioned toward the files. “Hand me those damned things!”
Cairna grinned, jumped up and brought the entire stack to him. “It’ll be all right, Uncle Tearach. Shayla believes with all her heart that this can work. And maybe one of these women will be different from most outsiders.”
“They’re all the same, Cairna. I’ve tried to understand them, but I always come back to one conclusion. They’re careless, insensitive beings who’ll do anything to get what they want. Be it animal, plant or child, the adults among them hurt whatever gets in their way. They even kill each other. They treat their own elders like trash to be thrown away and forgotten. They have no honor in them.”
She placed a consoling hand on his arm. “Surely, not all of them are like that. Shayla wouldn’t give you a choice of women who were so terrible. I simply can’t believe every one of them is evil.”
He looked down at the files for a long moment and remembered his dead family. “If you think that, why don’t you choose one for me? It doesn’t matter which.” He handed her the stack and walked toward the cottage door.
As he left, Cairna replied in a whisper. “All right, then. I will. And it will be someone who’ll make you smile again.”
She placed the folders on the table, sat down and began to read.
He left with no idea where he was going, and not caring.
***
“This is your choice, Tearach?” Shayla asked as she placed the file on her desk, sat and perused the contents.
He shrugged, unwilling to admit that he hadn’t even looked at the papers. Cairna had given him a file last night, informing him the woman described within it was ‘perfect’. Ecstatic, his niece had begged him to look at the woman’s information and picture, but he’d steadfastly refused. It was enough that he was giving up his freedom and pride to lie with this outsider, forced to breed like a prized bull. And there wasn’t a remote chance that this sick experiment would even work. If it didn’t, what would they do with the outsider among them?
He glanced around the library, wishing he were anyplace else in the world. “How did you plan on getting this woman here? Since their kind doesn’t even know about us, I assume you have a scheme of some sort?”
For the moment, Shayla ignored him and smiled as she read the file. Eventually, she rendered her judgement on what she believed to be his choice of outsider women.
“I must say, this female is a marvelous prospect. Outstanding, really! Our researchers have outdone themselves. I must remember to reward them properly.”
“Shayla?”
“Yes?” she said as she finally looked up.
“I was asking, how you plan to get this woman here? And what makes you think she’ll go through with this, especially when she sees me? Or had you remotely thought of that?”
Her gaze scanned his frame. “Why? What’s wrong with your looks, man? A number of women, myself included, believe you’re quite…acceptable.”
He stared pointedly at her. “I’m green!”
“What possible difference does that make?”
The sorceress wasn’t fooling him. The woman was far too intelligent not to have given this entire matter some very serious thought.
The safety of an entire compliment of magical creatures was at stake. Nothing quite like this had ever been attempted, and the consequences could be devastating.
“When she sees me, she’ll run from this forest screaming. Every farmer, shopkeeper and law enforcement officer from here to Scotland will know about us. Now, I’ll ask again. What is your plan?”
She stood and stared at him for a long moment before responding. “The women we chose as possible mates all had a number of things in common. First, they were all near your age and in excellent physical condition. Second, they’ve no one in the entire world who’ll come looking for them if they went, shall we say…missing. Finally, they all have some skill or ability that will be useful to the Order, as well as the temperament to handle a challenge. I don’t think the particular woman who was chosen would run away screaming, as you put it, unless she felt very threatened. Her personality profile indicates otherwise.” She walked around the desk to stand in front of him. “If you’d read the damned file, you’d have known that.” She threw the documents in question on the surface of her desk.
He didn’t bother addressing that particular accusation. “Your researchers had better be very sure about their facts. We could end up on the front page of every major newspaper in the world. Never mind the internet.” He turned to leave but stopped to face her again, when another thought occurred to him. “By the way, what did you mean by no one will come looking for her if she goes missing?”
“You’re going to bring her here.”
He felt his jaw sag and then he recovered enough to speak. “How am I supposed to do that?”
“During their daily lives, people often fall into a routine. We’re going to find out what hers is and…intercept her.”
“Herne’s blood! You want me to…to kidnap the woman?”
She waved her hand dismissively. “Kidnap is such a harsh word. I prefer to look at it as…as an assisted change of environment.”
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