Page 66 of Fae Crown

Continuing to clutch his blade like he might still use it, he sat back atop the stool at my bedside, staring at me with those big, dark eyes.

“Shit, I thought maybe there’d be some way since you’re related,” I said, feeling oddly defeated at failing to win over the goblin, even when he was threatening me.

Those wide nostrils of his twitched. Then he sniffed the air. His brow scrunched. His eyes widened so that the light from the window on the other side of the room gleamed across them. He stood when I was just starting to enjoy the scant distance he’d put between us to lean over me. Again, he smelled the air.

His brow shot toward his hairline, and then he was sniffing my neck, my shoulder, my arm.Sniff, sniff. The inside of my elbow, where he paused to deeply smell the pulse point.Sniff, sniff, sniff.

He yanked thecovers off to run his nose along my forearm, to my wrist. He flipped over my hand without warning or caution, causing me to yelp at the jolt that raced up my arm.

“Dragonfire! Be careful, dammit. Can’t you see I’m…”

He wasn’t listening. And he already knew how hurt I was, must enjoy my pain.

His nose pressed into the palm of my hand, scenting until surely there could be nothing left to scent. It was the hand I’d sliced, the one Pru had pressed her own cut hand to.

It was the point where our blood had mingled—red and green.

His fingers clamped around mine, pulling them flat against the bed while he sniffed and sniffed and fucking sniffed. Even holding my fingers straight hurt. By blazing fire, how would I recover from this level of damage?

My eyes had lost focus when he finally dropped my hand and studied me as he claimed his seat on the stool. He went on gaping until eventually he said, “I smell her on ye. My gran’gobbler.”

I waited for more.

“Her blood … ‘tis mixed in with yers.”

“Yep.” I barely held back myI told you so. “LikeI told you.” Never mind.

“But…” He shook his big head. Sheathed his big knife. “How? Why?”

“Because we’refriends. Again,like I told you.”

“But … goblins and ladies are never friends. It’s not allowed.”

“And are you telling me you always abide by the rules?” For however little I knew of the goblin, it was easy enough to guess he was about as fond of following rules as I was. Especially when said rules were largely pointless and decided by someone patently unworthy of deciding anything that governed anyone.

He frowned. “But how?”

“Pru,” I started, “Primrose, I mean, of course. I call her Pru, so don’t threaten to kill me just ‘cause I’ve got a nickname for her.”

“A nickname.”

“Yes. I was at the court, at the palace. She was the goblin assigned to attend to me.”

Granddoody sneered. “A noble, then.”

“Nope, no noble.” I grimaced but it hurt. “Okay. Yes, I guess I am a noble, as it turns out. But I had no idea. I wasn’t raised that way. I was raised with the dragons.”

He snorted. “The dragons. Whaddye take me for?”

“I assume you don’t actually want an answer to that question, though I am tempted to give it…”

He snorted again. “All the dragons are dead.”

“And there’s no way your grandgobbler would’ve done a blood oath with me either.”

He harrumphed.

“Exactly,” I said. “The queen has a whole bunch of dragons locked up beneath the palace dungeons. She’sbeen experimenting on them. Taking their magic for herself too, I think.”

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