White Stag (Permafrost #1)(13)

“Perhaps someone should take care of her—and him as well. I remember how he took down C?rus and the coup that followed. It was unnatural. And the girl—she’s not natural either.”

I racked my brain for the identity of the speaking goblin, but couldn’t. Despite his status as one of the more powerful goblin lords, Soren didn’t keep a very big court and found no need to. The few score of goblins in his control tended to be spread across the Permafrost as his eyes and ears. I couldn’t pinpoint who this one was, but it was easy to tell he didn’t like me and, from the sound of it, he wasn’t so fond of Soren either. He wants to kill him. I froze. He wants to kill Soren.

I had to stop it. If Soren died, no matter his wishes, the bind spells cast upon me would revert me back to Lydian’s ownership. He’d made sure of that when he threw me at Soren’s feet all those years ago. Lydian might not have the end goal of turning me into a monster, but he did want to make me suffer in ways that still gave me nightmares. He would draw it out, keep me hanging on to life by a thread while I endured his torture endlessly. He wouldn’t kill me; he had far too much pride for that and he wouldn’t want to lose his toy so quickly. He wanted me to suffer.

I might’ve hated what Soren wanted me to become, but I’d rather join him on a hunt where I could possibly escape than take my chances with Lydian.

The footsteps started to pick up, and I dared to stretch my senses further to the inhuman. Everything had power, an energy force that flowed through it, but for goblins and other inhuman creatures, power could be used, manipulated like a weapon. For a lesser being, it laid dormant while they lived and died. A goblin’s power decided everything: who ruled and who bowed, who lived and who died. It hovered over them like an aura. I was human with no power to call my own, but after a hundred years I’d begun to feel the power of others.

Another way my body has evolved. I shook the thought off.

There was the she-goblin’s, Helka’s, power, thick enough for me to count her as a serious threat, while Franz’s was too thinned and frayed. The mystery brute plotting against Soren was strong, but nothing I hadn’t taken on before.

I waited until the moment when our senses mingled, when he felt the prey reaching out to his drive with open arms. His hunger, his need to kill, his desire to do things beyond nightmares, grew bigger, as if he were a dog slobbering for meat. Before I knew it, he’d hung back and let the rest go without him. Watching. Waiting to get the drop on me.

I sprang from the crevice with the grace of a big cat and landed on the brute’s back before he had any idea what was happening.

What sloppy guard. Even I, a human, could do better. I just had.

That thought jolted through me like ice, letting him get the upper hand.

“I thought I smelled you.” He laughed. “Now I really get to have fun.”

I was still on his shoulders and answered his statement by driving his head into the rocks. He spat and grabbed at me, forcing us both down on the ground. He had at least seventy pounds on me, and I wasn’t even going to factor in the insane strength and speed he possessed. I couldn’t if I tried. One thought dominated everything: Fight. Kill. Win.

Grappling with a man twice my size always put me at worse odds, but I’d learned a long time ago how to turn those odds in my favor. I let him get on top of me, pushing down the submissive fear it induced. I am not a wolf. I am not an animal. He cannot have me. No one can have me. Those words gave me strength as I waited, playing dead.

He was too busy trying to pull at the new clothes Soren had gifted me, salivating at whatever gruesome act he was thinking of doing next, to pay any mind to me and my actions.

I built pressure in my hips, then dug my hands as hard as I could beneath his elbows. My knees bunched together. For the first time, we saw each other evenly, crazed blue eyes staring into dark green. Then I followed through and flipped him over me, into the chasm below.

My breath pounded against my chest, the fiery feeling in my lungs turning to ash. Nothing stung or otherwise hurt, though the neckline of my tunic was as good as ruined.

I sat there, trying to quiet my heart, watching as the light from the skylights changed from orange, to red, to purple, to dusky gray. My body should’ve been tired, but the adrenaline pumping through me was enough to keep me going indefinitely—and I didn’t know what else I could do now. Going back to my chambers wasn’t an option; the man’s companions could be close by. I still didn’t even know his name.

The nail had rolled into a crack in the ground when I’d dropped from the crevice. I picked it up, twirling it around my fingers. I just killed someone, and I didn’t even know his name.

I tried to make myself feel something other than the numb cloud beginning to settle over me, but found I couldn’t. It wasn’t the first time I’d killed to survive. Closing my eyes, I rubbed my temples to get the vision of dead men out of my head, but I only managed to make it stronger.

Killing someone would happen sooner or later on the Hunt. If I wanted to escape, I had to accept that I would take lives to save my own. Even here, in the Erlking’s palace, the Hunt had begun. I couldn’t be bogged down with guilt, but I wouldn’t feel the joyous high goblins reveled in when they killed. It was a fine line, and so far I hadn’t crossed it; the iron nail I twirled with ease told me that much. Remember what you are, Janneke. The cadence of my father’s voice faded each day.