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Mistrals Kiss :: Гамильтон Лорел
Страница: 127 из 148Stop!”
I took advantage of the fight to reach across and unlock the door while the men fought almost on top of me. I opened the door and fell backward into the road. Charlie tried to crawl after me. Bancroft slid over the seat and on top of his partner.
I got to my feet on the icy road, huddling under the coat.
The goblins were there in the dark, just outside the headlight beams. Two faces looked at me, two nearly identical faces: Ash and Holly. The wind blew their yellow hair from their hoods. I couldn’t tell which twin was which in the uncertain light — the only difference was eye color.
“Hail, goblins,” I called.
One of them touched the other and nodded toward the dark. They began to turn and leave. I yelled, “I call on you as allies. To deny me is to be forsworn. The wild hunt is abroad, and oathbreakers are sweet meat to them.”
The twins turned back to us, and the goblins who were only dark shapes behind them shifted in the dimness. “We did not make this oath,” one of them called.
“Kurag, Goblin King, did, and you are his people. Do you call your king a liar? Are you king now among the goblins, Holly?”
I had taken a chance on that. I wasn’t certain which brother it was, but I’d guessed based on the fact that Holly had the worse attitude of the two. He bowed his head in acknowledgment. “The princess sees well in the dark.”
“She merely has good ears,” his brother said. “You complain more.”
Ash started down the side of the road, ignoring my plea, and some of the others followed. Most stayed in the shadows along the road’s edge. There had to be nearly twenty of them. It was enough to make a difference, enough, maybe, to save…my men.
I heard a car door open behind me. Frost crawled out and fell into the snow and ice of the road. I went to him but kept my gaze on the goblins.
“This is not our fight,” Holly said.
“I need your help as my allies; that makes it your fight,” I said. “Or have the goblins lost their taste for battle?”
“You do not battle the wild hunt, Princess. You run from it, you join it, you hide from it. But you don’t fight it,” Ash said. I could see his green eyes now. His hood framed a face as handsome as any at the Unseelie Court, golden-haired; only the pure, pupil-less green of his eyes and a bulkier body under the cloak betrayed his mixed heritage.
“Will you be forsworn?” I asked. I clung to Frost’s hand in the snow.
“No,” Ash said. But he was not happy about it.
I took advantage of the fight to reach across and unlock the door while the men fought almost on top of me. I opened the door and fell backward into the road. Charlie tried to crawl after me. Bancroft slid over the seat and on top of his partner.
I got to my feet on the icy road, huddling under the coat.
The goblins were there in the dark, just outside the headlight beams. Two faces looked at me, two nearly identical faces: Ash and Holly. The wind blew their yellow hair from their hoods. I couldn’t tell which twin was which in the uncertain light — the only difference was eye color.
“Hail, goblins,” I called.
One of them touched the other and nodded toward the dark. They began to turn and leave. I yelled, “I call on you as allies. To deny me is to be forsworn. The wild hunt is abroad, and oathbreakers are sweet meat to them.”
The twins turned back to us, and the goblins who were only dark shapes behind them shifted in the dimness. “We did not make this oath,” one of them called.
“Kurag, Goblin King, did, and you are his people. Do you call your king a liar? Are you king now among the goblins, Holly?”
I had taken a chance on that. I wasn’t certain which brother it was, but I’d guessed based on the fact that Holly had the worse attitude of the two. He bowed his head in acknowledgment. “The princess sees well in the dark.”
“She merely has good ears,” his brother said. “You complain more.”
Ash started down the side of the road, ignoring my plea, and some of the others followed. Most stayed in the shadows along the road’s edge. There had to be nearly twenty of them. It was enough to make a difference, enough, maybe, to save…my men.
I heard a car door open behind me. Frost crawled out and fell into the snow and ice of the road. I went to him but kept my gaze on the goblins.
“This is not our fight,” Holly said.
“I need your help as my allies; that makes it your fight,” I said. “Or have the goblins lost their taste for battle?”
“You do not battle the wild hunt, Princess. You run from it, you join it, you hide from it. But you don’t fight it,” Ash said. I could see his green eyes now. His hood framed a face as handsome as any at the Unseelie Court, golden-haired; only the pure, pupil-less green of his eyes and a bulkier body under the cloak betrayed his mixed heritage.
“Will you be forsworn?” I asked. I clung to Frost’s hand in the snow.
“No,” Ash said. But he was not happy about it.