I picked up my pace. I just had to get my friends out of here, that was what I needed to focus on.

Robert bumped my shoulder with his. “Friend.”

And just like that, the hurt slid away a little—enough that I could pull my head up. I snapped my fingers at Alan and his jaw snapped shut. Good enough for now. I would deal with him later.

As in exorcise him right out of my life.

The door behind the long black and silver sparkling curtains was unlocked, and I turned the handle, stepping through into the inky darkness. I dug around in the bag at my hip and found a flashlight. Only I wasn’t quick enough.

A sharp point pressed against my belly and hands gripped me from both sides.

“We got her now.”

24

A light blinked on above my head and my eyes slammed shut. Probably not the best response when I had a sharp, pointy object digging into my belly and several hands restraining me.

Robert gave a low growl.

“Hang tight,” I said. The hands tried to drag me forward, but there was very little weight behind them. I forced my watering eyes open and found myself looking at female versions of Grimm with big bat ears, bigger eyes, and lipstick that was about ten shades too neon for their incredibly pale skin.

“Oh, the king will be so giving us so many pleases! This is the one he wants, he showses us her pictures!” said the one in front of me, the one holding a damn nail file at my belly.

They tugged on me and I dug my heels in. One of the goblin women moved behind me, so I just sat right on top of her.

“Hey, get your big butt off me!” she screeched as she started shoving. The nail file got pushed a little harder and I jerked a hand around, smacking it out of the lead goblin lady’s clammy hands.

“Knock that off,” I snapped and pushed upward onto my feet, deliberately putting extra oomph into the push on the goblin under my butt. The women—four of them, to be exact—stepped a little away from me.

“You can have the prisoners. He be wanting you the most.” The lead bitch lifted her chin and looked down her nose at me. Impressive considering how short she was. The thing was, I couldn’t have them running off and getting help, but I also didn’t really want to kill them. I mean . . . even I wasn’t that cold.

So I went for a little reverse psychology.

I smiled at the lead bitch. “I’ll make you a deal. You run to tell the king I’m here—I’m sure he’ll appreciate that you were too afraid to fight me and will reward you for not even trying—and I’ll run to get my friends out before you get back.”

Before they could so much as shake my hand, I took off as fast as I could, doing my best to ignore the throbbing in my knees, following the natural curves of the back halls. “Eric, Feish, Suzy, Kink!”

The screech of the goblin girls behind me told me that they weren’t running to the king, so I’d bought us a little time.

Robert hurried along but kept trying to turn around. “No, don’t hurt them. They aren’t really that dangerous,” I said.

“Oh, she did not say we weren’t dangerous, did she?” one of the goblin strippers caterwauled, and then something hit me in the back of the neck.

The nail file. And it stuck. “Son of a bitch!” I yelped and pulled it out of my neck, a little trickle of blood running down my shirt. “That was not nice. You are not ladies!”

“Get her!” one of the others screamed.

Robert grumbled, but he kept pace with me, and then I heard a shout of a familiar voice ahead of us. “That sounded like Suzy.”

I picked up speed—okay, hobbled a little faster—and rounded the next corner. There was one door, and someone was drumming on it from the inside.

“Back up! Robert, keep the goblins busy but don’t hurt them,” I yelled as I took out my knife and cut through the deadbolt—better than trying to kick it down from my side. If Eric and Suzy hadn’t been able to do it, then there was no way I’d manage. A tiny explosion of purple and green sparkles poofed into the air around the blade of the knife, and a sudden boom of thunder shattered the insides of the building. I wanted to clap my hands over my ears, but figured the damage was already done.

I’d tripped the alarm, and now it was a race against time to get everyone out of Goblin Town.

I opened the door, and Feish fell out and into my arms. “You found me again!”

I hugged her quickly, made eye contact with Suzy, who gave me a nod, and Eric, who followed suit.

“Where is Kinkly?” I asked.

Suzy held out her hands. Kink lay in her palm. “I’m here, but the shitheads broke my wings.” I reached for her, but she shook her head. “No fussing our britches now. We have to go, that boom will bring them down on us.”

I turned as a body of a tiny goblin stripper went flying over our heads, clothing flapping open and her tits and bits bared to the world as she screeched, reaching for us one last time.

Robert laughed. “Not friends.”

The other three lady stripper goblins cowered away from him. “Let’s go.”

We ran through the building, past the poles, and into the street, where one quick glance proved that Kinkly was all too correct.

The goblins were coming in a wave of bodies, all but trampling over top of one another, the king somewhere behind them. There was no way we’d all make it out without some sort of distraction.

“Robert, show them the way out.” I shoved my friends, but their feet stuttered, and I knew they weren’t going to just leave me unless I gave them a good reason. “Go,” I said. “Tell Crash to come get me, he’s waiting outside the wall.”

That got them moving. Of course, I didn’t tell them that Crash was currently passed out from some spell Karissa had laid on him.

Tomato, tomaaato. The thing was, running from anything was no fun. I’d done it before. I didn’t plan on doing it again. I stood in the middle of the street with my arms crossed as I waited for the goblins to reach me. As if I didn’t give one teeny tiny poop that they looked like a veritable tsunami of limbs and bodies.

A wash of air rolled toward me ahead of them, and I couldn’t help my nose from wrinkling.

“Bums and feet,” I muttered. To my right, Alan appeared.

“Shouldn’t you be running? I don’t want you to die, you know,” he said.

For just a moment, a small bit of hope for his personality peeked through the clouds of his asshole behavior. But he kept speaking, as was so often the problem with Alan. “I mean. If you die, then we could be really stuck together in death, you know? That would suck.”

I glared at him. “It sucks now, you dumbass.”

The goblins slowed in front of me and I gave them a jaunty salute. “Where’s your king? Hard to tell as he’s not on the throne now, and you’re all pretty damn short. Like a sea of toddlers with giant ears.”

A low muttering rolled through the crowd along with some serious giggles. If they liked insults, I’d be free and clear in no time. But this wasn’t a crowd of giants, easily swayed by bad language and salty phrases.

Goblins had at least twice the brain capacity of giants.

A figure pushed his way to the front of the crowd. Over his head, I could easily see Davin headed our way too, and a set of guards smacked a path through the other goblins as they dragged Grimm forward.

“Three days,” Grimm yelled at me. “Three days and you couldn’t even do that! So much for your reputation!”

The goblin king stopped about six feet in front of me. His deep green skin made his brilliant eyes pop, and his ears were tufted with black fur. Or maybe it was feathers, hard to tell. He wore a hell of a lot of gold around his neck and across his hands. And his clothing was tailored to his extra small body. A little too tight around the crotch.

“You were with Roderick and the council members in the hotel that morning,” I said, certain he was the goblin I’d seen. “Also, a word of advice: you need to let that inseam out, or you’re going to have trouble with motility,” I said, my mouth working before any sort of a filter kicked in.

He was almost close enough for me to kick him if I took a half step. And I really wanted to kick his smug, patronizing face as he looked me up and down. “You don’t look like much. Not really the killer they make you out to be. Though you did escape me in the swamp. I’d have killed you then if I could have and taken back what was mine. But you were too slippery. Not that it matters, this works having you here too.”

So he was the reptilian creature that had tried to attack me.

It fit.

I shrugged. “Appearances can be deceiving amongst the fae, can’t they? Like you and your big ears.”

The crowd gasped and took a visible step back as if I’d thrown a bag of dog poop at them.

Davin was close enough now that I really, really wanted to take a swing at him. “Alan, why don’t you pester him?” I said softly. But Alan had slid to the side and was bent at the waist as he inspected a goblin.

“Are these real? Are we on a movie set?”

Jaysus, what a help he was going to be.

The king was talking and I forced myself to listen to what he was saying. “You will hand over the spell book. Immediately.”

“Eh.” I shrugged. “Tell me what you want it for.” His ears perked up, and I knew he’d picked up on the fact that I hadn’t outright said no. “I mean, maybe you want to make it worth my while.”

Grimm struggled against the ropes holding him. “No, you can’t! You can’t do it!”

Another shrug from me. “Everyone wants it, but no one wants to say why. I mean, what’s so important about this spell book?”

Yes, I knew exactly why they wanted it, but they didn’t know I knew.

I put my hand on the bag against my hip. The king’s eyes rested on my hand. “A way for us to be . . . more human,” he said softly. The crowd sighed, which only intensified the cheesy smell around them. I swallowed hard and fought the gag reflex.