Page 33 of Wicked Little Tricks

I held my wine glass close to my chest. “Oh yeah? In exchange for what?”

He lifted one shoulder in the most graceful shrug I had ever seen. “Simple dinner conversation. Gabriel is not a goblin of many words.”

I sipped my wine. Damn, it was delicious. “Are you the only two living here?”

“In this estate, yes. In the Citadel, no. There are many others.”

Seeing that Ringo wasn’t keeling over, I finally decided to fill my plate. I went for the cheesy thing, which ended up being some sort of flat pie, like a giant tart. I plopped a slice onto my plate and took a bite. The buttery crust melted in my mouth. There was fruit inside, maybe pears? I would never have thought to pair them with the melted cheese, but it was absolutely divine.

“No more questions?”

I looked at Mistral. He still hadn’t eaten anything. “Not hungry?”

“It is proper to see that guests are well fed before the host has his share.”

I took another bite of the pie, giving him a quizzical look. The goblins I was most familiar with would snatch any food you gave them.

“We are not all chittering creatures living in the muck,” he continued. His eyes lowered to Ringo who was licking long strokes across his empty bowl on the chair beside me.

I glared at Mistral and lifted a finger to my lips, warning him to not insult my little friend.

His eyes danced with amusement, making their pure gray seem a little less cold. “In truth, we are not far off from the fey. In fact, our peoples are originally from near realms.”

I lowered the bite that was halfway to my mouth. It wasn’t often that the older creatures talked about their original realms. They still existed, but as the creatures remained in the land and bred with humans, their magic faded, and most of them were pretty bitter about that. Most realms had near realms, like earth and the hells, but both the fae and goblin lands were far realms.

Now, those far realms were little more to them than a distant memory. The best they could do was bring a bit of their magic to a place here, beyond a boundary.

“Fey use the magic of the land,” I said stupidly, considering how goblins might be similar to fairies.

“Oh, so you do knowsomething,” he quipped. “Fey use the magic of the earth. Goblins use the magic of the sky and air.” He tilted his head. “Perhaps it would be easiest to think of us as somewhere between fey and celestials.”

“Then why do so many of you look—” I cut myself off, realizing I was about to be horribly rude. The wine was getting to my head.

“Like trolls?”

I slumped my shoulders. “Um, yeah.”

He finally took a slice of the same pie I had gone for, ignoring the rest of the food. “Goblins do love their curses.”

The idea curled my stomach. I would do my best to never get cursed by a goblin. Although, here I was in a bargain with one. “Are any of these curses a result of bargains?”

He gave me a wicked smile. “Yes, some. Though it is different when a bargain is struck with someone with no goblin blood.”

I only had a moment to feel relieved before he continued, “When a bargain with such a mortal is struck, the price of going back on it is that the mortal will have to live in goblin lands forever. They can never leave again.”

I dropped my fork onto my plate with a loud clatter. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as taking my soul, but the Bogswere not a place I would choose to live. The Citadel didn’t seem too bad, but still. I valued my freedom. It was something I had worked hard to maintain.

I took another swill of wine, choosing my words. “But as long as I tell you what Sebastian has me do, I’m good, right?”

“Yes, quite.”

He maintained eye contact long enough that my cheeks flushed. I set down my wine. I needed to stop if I was going to keep my wits about me. It was bad enough to make bargains with goblins. Probably even worse to do anythingelsewith them.

The tension between us broke as Ringo started snoring in his chair.

Mistral looked past me down at the little creature. “Perhaps we should take your friend to bed.”

I was surprisingly reluctant to end the evening, but I nodded my agreement. For some reason, a devil was interested in me, and so were a bunch of vampires. Not to mention the angelics. It might have been flattering if I wasn’t worried about getting killed. Just as Mistral’s attention might have been flattering under other circumstances, but as things stood, I knew there were ulterior motives behind it.

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