White Stag (Permafrost #1)(55)

He looked down at me. His eyes were soft. “I’ll be all right,” he said. “I have to be.”

“I thought goblins couldn’t lie to themselves,” I said.

“Well,” Seppo pointed out, “he’s lying to you. You’re not the one with a built-in lie detector, sweetheart. He has a couple hours at least, maybe a day or two. The power he absorbed should keep the venom from killing him for a while. We might be able to figure something out.”

“We?” I asked. “Who is we?”

Seppo blinked, taken aback by the hostility in my tone. “Well, you, Soren, and I. I had an idea. Besides, it’s not like I’m going to run after Lydian while he licks his wounds. I did just save your lives.”

I bristled. Even if he was sincere, he abandoned Lydian the moment he judged him weak. Who was to say he wouldn’t do the same to us? “How do you know there’s a way to cure him? Lindworm venom is fatal; there’s no antivenom.”

Seppo rolled his eyes. “If there was only one solution to every problem, the world would be insanely dull, don’t you think, sweetheart?”

I gritted my teeth. “Do not call me sweetheart.”

“I know you don’t like me, and I understand it,” Seppo continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “But I would ask you to trust me, if you can.”

“How could you understand?” I took a step forward, the stiletto in my hand out and ready to strike. “You’ve worked for that—that monster—and suddenly decide to betray him? Is this a trick? Do you think we’re stupid enough to fall for it? I know the games he likes to play, or has he forgotten that? He’s half-mad, after all.”

The rage and hatred inside me threatened to spill like poison from my mouth. Soren was dying. Lydian was up to something. This halfling was shoving himself into our business when he had no place there at all. The feelings of security and peace that had calmed me like a drug when I kissed Soren in the cavern had disappeared without a trace. I’d lost it. I’d lost what I loved. Again.

Soren’s hand brushed against my shoulder, rubbing my arms in a soothing circular motion. “Calm down, Janneke.”

I turned on Soren. “Calm down? How in Hel can I do that? You’re going to die! You’re going to die and leave me here, and we both know what happens if you die! We both know!”

I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t. I would never be Lydian’s again. I would never feel that man’s touch on my skin. The fear built up in me, and I sucked in my breaths quicker and quicker until I was hyperventilating. I stumbled forward, and Soren caught me in his arms.

“I’ll never let him touch you,” he whispered.

“And I had just decided I wanted to live too.”

“And you will.” His breath tickled my ear.

Soren didn’t let me go as he addressed Seppo. “Satu is still alive, isn’t she? Why isn’t she on the Hunt? Why were you with Lydian and not her?”

“Well,” Seppo said, kicking at a bone, “I never really intended to win. It just sounded fun. So, she gave me permission and here I am. As to why I was with Lydian, well…” He paused. “We both know the reason for that.”

Soren grunted. “There doesn’t seem like there’s a reason for it anymore.”

I detached myself from Soren, breathing deeply to draw out the shame spreading through my body. I shouldn’t lose control like that; it would never serve me well. I straightened my bow on my shoulder, put the stiletto in the now-empty sheath on my hip, and let my face fall into a mask.

“What do you both mean?” I asked. I certainly didn’t know the reason Seppo joined Lydian or why it mattered to Soren now. For Odin’s sake, I didn’t know why anyone would want to join up with Lydian.

“Do you remember when the stag ran?” Soren asked. “What happened right before it?”

“Yes, you both were throwing power around like mad, and the floor split and—” I stopped, having answered my own question. “Lydian’s and your power were the strongest in the room that day. When you both released it, the stag recognized it and ran. Lydian and you are the two most likely candidates to be the next Erlking.”

Soren nodded. “Yes, exactly. You don’t know how many alliances I shot down before we went off.” He shook his head. “Sometimes my fellow goblins are little more than vultures.”

“Why, though? Why didn’t you tell me?”

He sighed. “Do you think, at the time, you would have hated me any less?”

He had me there. Even now, picturing him on the Erlking’s throne, the most powerful predator in the Permafrost, I couldn’t help the disgust that threatened to curl my upper lip. But the idea of Lydian was worse.

Seppo looked behind him at the massive rock wall. Something shuddered, and the ground beneath us shook. “We have to keep moving. I wasn’t lying about the eggs. There should be another way out of here. I mean, the male got in from somewhere, didn’t he?”

I looked up toward the ceiling. Yes, I could see it. It was a treacherous climb with sharp points and jagged edges, black ice and loose rock, but there was a hole up top big enough for the creature to get through.

The others followed my gaze. “Let’s go,” Soren said. He let go of his wounded arm, the dark green of the puncture mark now spreading up the length of his arm. I forced back the fear. We’ll find a way.