Kiss of the Goblin Prince by Shona Husk Page A

educated in all of Rome’s vices. At first their sister, Mave, was too young to be of any use to the invaders. If the Decangli hadn’t tried to rebel, she would have married a Roman and they all would have died in a quiet corner of Wales centuries ago. Who would they have been reborn as if that had happened?
    Amanda’s daughter lingered in his mind. “Have you noticed how much Brigit looks like Mave?” he asked.
    Roan shrugged. “I guess, a little.” He lifted his gaze and looked at Dai. “You’re not thinking she’s come back?”
    Dai looked at his hands. The first life he took had never left him and still haunted his dreams. Maybe it was his guilty conscience searching for soothing. As if through knowing his sister had been reborn and was happy, he’d be forgiven. “She would’ve had many lives in between then and now.”
    “You still believe.” Roan frowned as if he couldn’t understand Dai’s faith in the old religion.
    Dai nodded. He did, even though it clashed with so many others. He held on to the belief that everyone got another chance to have a better life. He had to. It was all he had. He wanted the chance to have what every man wanted. He wanted a life untainted by the poison of the past.
    But Brigit wasn’t free. Her father had drowned before she was born and she suffered from a breathing condition. He’d researched asthma and was now interested in whether the illness would show up in the weave of Brigit’s body. If it did, he might be able to heal her, and Amanda would no longer have so much worry. He liked it when Amanda smiled. He’d like it even more if she were smiling at him for healing her daughter. The breeze rustled the leaves in the tree so they whispered in his ear, mocking his desires. If he couldn’t fix himself, how was he going to help someone else?
    “So do you. You didn’t want to kill the druid.”
    “I didn’t want more bad luck.” Roan stared at the dirt as if he didn’t want to admit he still clung to the old beliefs after centuries of existence. “I hope Brac and Fane had better lives the next time around.”
    They, too, would’ve had many lives since escaping the Shadowlands in death. Anfri wouldn’t be reborn for a while. And who knew what would happen to Meryn, a goblin who was damned to run the Shadowlands? If he died, would he get the chance to live again as a man or was he damned forever?
    But their ritual wasn’t about the lives they could be living, but about the lives they had led. Fierce and fearless. They were half wild at first, as if the Shadowlands made them mad just by breathing the air. Brac’s death forced them to reevaluate how they were living and how they were going to survive.
    Roan took the shovel and backfilled the hole. “It doesn’t feel like two thousand years, does it?”
    No, it felt like four thousand or more. It was hard to quantify that amount of time even after living it. Months and years bled to one gray, amorphous mass.
    His brother stuck the rosebush in the much smaller hole and pushed dirt in around the bush. “It wasn’t all bad. There were good times.”
    Dai closed his eyes. There was a time when they were able to fight the commands, travel to the Fixed Realm at will, but still had a grip on their souls and were safe in their castle. Yet even then he’d never had peace. He couldn’t let his guard down and let the truth slip out. When Roan brought women back, eager for a silver slice of goblin wealth, it had been easy enough to pay them off and talk like the others. But he could never bring himself to let another touch him, or see the scars. His fingers curled as he remembered the touch of Amanda’s hand. She was making him want the impossible.
    The candles guttered, casting the names of the other four men in darkness. But he knew them and would never forget them. Without his poking and prompts, the rebellion would never have taken place. His thirst for revenge resulted in the slaughter of his tribe, and the general