Chapter 35 Olivia
THIRTY-FIVE
Olivia
Iwas so furious with myself, I could scream. One little mistruth had felt so innocent, a simple introduction, nothing more.
The fact that the goblin elder was now refusing us the one thing we needed to save basically all of us?
Forget screaming, I wanted to have a cry. A good, long, hard one. With a tear-jerker movie and ice cream and my favorite blankets that were softer than butter piled around me in a great big nest.
But I couldn’t have any of that—hadn’t had any of that in a long time. I had to keep my shit together and try to fix my screwup. That was my responsibility since I’d messed this up so royally.
And to do that, I had to get my head back in the game.
We were ushered to a pair of larger tables, clearly specially made with taller visitors in mind, though the table was already dotted with goblins, all of them excited to be seated with the visitors.
I paused a few feet away, hesitating as I struggled to pick a spot to sit, when one of the younger goblins stood on the bench, waving his arm madly. “Witch, witch! Sit next to me!”
Fiona arched an eyebrow my way but didn’t comment as she and Reed were waved toward the other end of the long picnic-style table.
“I can scent your stress. It’s all going to work out,” Lucien leaned in and whispered, his lips nothing more than a hint of a caress against my skin, but it still made me quiver.
His large hand spanned the small of my back as we walked the last few feet to the table, and he waited until I was seated directly across from the goblin who’d hailed me before sitting at my side.
In the beginning, I’d never have guessed what a gentleman he could be, but I was learning more and more about him as time went on. And the more I learned, the more there was to love, no matter how hard I tried to rein in my heart.
“Welcome to Wrenchet. Have you enjoyed your visit so far, witch?” The little guy practically bounced in his seat as he spoke, as if the enthusiasm was trying to vibrate its way right out of him.
His hair was short, spiky, and neon green, instead of the more common lavender and darker green tones the rest of the clan were sporting.
He reminded me of the little naked dolls with the crazy hair I’d had as a kid, except his skin was also light green.
“You can call me Olivia,” I said, smiling warmly at his enthusiasm. “What’s your name?”
“I am the Grand Inventor Rivetsky!” He executed a twirl and a bow, grinning up at us with an expectant tilt to his chin.
“Well, we are very honored to be seated with such an important goblin for this feast,” Lucien said, cutting in smoothly and smiling.
“Indeed. I am nearly famous making.” Rivetsky’s chest puffed proudly as he resumed sitting, just in time for the…
unique dishes to be brought to our table.
Unlike the centaur’s stately spreads, the goblins worked in swarms, four or more of them carrying each handmade tray, chattering—sometimes fighting—as they loaded the table slap full with steaming food.
Some of it was familiar—I was sure I spotted a tray of fried chicken at the other end of the table that looked amazing—but most of it was just plain interesting.
We weren’t given time to overthink about what to choose, though. The second the table was too full to hold another tray, the servers began plopping food onto our plates with their spoons. Sometimes they told us the name of the dish, sometimes they didn’t.
By the time they’d all swarmed away from our long table off to the next, the copious mound of food piled on my oval, Thanksgiving-sized plate was actually overflowing a bit onto the table.
Steeling myself to eat whatever I’d been served with a gracious smile, I lifted my fork. “I hope you won’t be offended if I don’t clean my plate. I’m a lower rank than most of the others, and I often have a small appetite.”
Rivetsky beamed. “It is our great honor to feed you full and have excess.”
His enthusiasm was catching. While the goblins were all a little odd by wolf standards, I’d never met a more genuine supernatural race, or one more open and welcoming. The centaurs had rolled out the red carpet, but the goblins?
They extended friendship as easily as breathing. It was a wonderful surprise, as were most of the strange-looking foods on my plate.
“Olivia-witch, if you don’t mind an inventor’s curiosity, what else can you do with your witch magic?” Rivetsky saved the question until I was nearly a quarter of the way through some sort of sweet-potato mash with crunchy nuts mixed through it.
“Well… this is all pretty new to me, but so far, I can identify plant species and their uses. A mentor I met recently told me I could identify poisons and their antidotes, as well.” I shrugged, not sure what else to say.
He nodded gravely, as if this was the most serious news he’d heard in a week.
Lucien squeezed my knee supportively under the table, then traced his fingers up my inner thigh, causing me to clench my legs together and resist the urge to swat him away.
I was trying to be friendly here, and the shameless alpha was distracting me.
Small circles over my inner thigh, trailing lazily up and down over my thin hiking pants as if there wasn’t a single other thing happening.
“You also make them grow, no?”
Lucien inched his way closer to my pussy, and I let out an unintended squeak, dropping my hand over his and yanking his questing fingers back to my knee as I scrambled for an answer. “Yes! Yes. Umm, you’re right. I can make an existing plant grow faster than usual as well.”
“Would you consider visiting our gardens? Some of our crops have not done well this year, and our stores run short. I have been inventing and inventing, but nothing makes our crops more plentiful.”
There were small creases around his eyes when he looked down at his plate, as if he was truly distressed, and suddenly, I felt incredibly guilty and humbled that we were eating up their limited food stores.
I made a mental note to make sure the pack sent them gifts of food to replace all they’d shared, once things settled down and it was safe to do so.
“It would be my honor to be given a tour of Wrenchet’s gardens with their most famous inventor. I don’t know a thing about building, but perhaps I can sense what the plants need, and you can come up with a way to provide it? I think we’d make an excellent team.”
His grin stretched wide, and he was once more bouncing in the seat. Lucien’s fingers began to wander again, and I shot him a warning look, but he just grinned at me shamelessly, as if daring me to complain in front of our goblin hosts.
Two can play at that game, alpha of mine.
I left his hand to roam and leaned in closer, placing my own hand on his inner thigh and squeezing.
He froze as if stunned I’d been willing to fight fire with fire, and suddenly, I was the one smug as I trailed my fingertips up his muscular thigh, stopping just shy of where he wanted me to caress.
His scent sharpened, the heady aroma of warm almonds intensifying in the air around us as his own interest was piqued.
Take that, I thought as I moved his hand from my leg to his own.
Before our secret repartee could escalate to an inappropriate level, a burst of unease hit me square in the chest.
Lucien picked up on it immediately, his lascivious grin turning to concern in half a second flat. “Hellcat? What’s wrong? What happened?”
His hands were on my shoulders, running down my arms as if he could spot a physical injury.
“I don’t know. I just got this intense feeling that something’s very wrong. I don’t know where it’s coming from.”
“Green witch.” Rivetsky breathed the words with awe, staring at me as if I were a circus freak.
“No, I don’t think it’s from the plants, although—”
A shock wave shook the clearing, goblins screaming as the platters and glasses on the tables shook as if there was an earthquake.
Lucien’s arms locked around me before I registered what was happening, hauling me out of the seat and toward the rest of the pack with alpha wolf speed. We formed up in a loose circle, goblins screaming and weaving between us as they bolted for the trees in every direction.
“What’s happening?” Lucien asked, his wolf’s influence making his words sharp, like a bark. A second impact rocked us, the ground trembling beneath our feet so violently, I had to hang on to Lucien’s arm to stay upright.
“Attaaaaack on the barrier! Battle stations!” a stout goblin screamed, running in the direction the second percussion had come from.
“What are the chances it’s unrelated to our visit?” Leigh asked, wincing and holding her belly.
“Zero. It’s got to be the ODL,” Gael answered her, eyes piercing as they glowed toward the center of Wrenchet, almost as if he could see the attackers despite the obstacles in the way. “We’ve got to get the females to safety. Once we’re in the air again, they’ll be safe.”
“No! We can’t just abandon the goblins after we dropped trouble on their doorstep,” I argued, immediately regretting it when all those alpha-dominant eyes landed on me.
“She’s right.” Kane shocked the hell out of me by agreeing. “If we have any chance of proving to the goblins we aren’t the same as our ancestors, we’ve got to stay and help them. They’re not as equipped as the Kodiak bears were to fight off an attack of this magnitude.”
Relief flooded me, even as fear clouded my thoughts. I wasn’t excited to fight, not by a mile, but it was the right thing to do.
“So what do we do?” Reed asked. “It’s chaos.”
And it was. Some goblins were running toward the fray, but most were still screaming and hightailing it toward the relative safety of the forest.
“Batten!” Lucien half roared, snagging our guide’s attention from a little distance away. She turned and spotted us, anger tightening her features as she scooped up the goblin child she’d been directing and ran our way, dodging her clan mates every step of the way.
“Just go! You don’t need my permission.” She threw up a hand in disgust and made to turn away.
“Wait! We’re staying to help. Where is everyone going?” I grabbed her shoulder, then quickly snatched my hand away when she glared at me.
“The fighters are gathering the catapults. The rest… They need to go to the caves, but most are too terrified to think straight.”
“Where are the caves? We’ll help you get everyone to safety,” I offered, my healer instincts kicking in as I noticed the sheer number of panicked children running into danger.
“The women can help get people to safety. The men will help the fighters.” Kane turned to Elodie and Galyna with a thunderous expression that promised trouble. “I am entrusting you with my mate’s life. If a single hair on her head, or any female under my protection, is harmed—”
“We will protect them with our lives, High Alpha,” Galyna said, drawing her sword and saluting.
Lucien turned to me, his face a mask of torture. “I don’t want to leave you. You could get hurt or killed if the ODL is really here.”
I cupped his cheek in my hand and let my wolf shine through my eyes, trusting her strength to speak to his. “We’re all going to be just fine, and they deserve an ass kicking for hunting us when we’ve done nothing wrong.”
He bared his teeth in agreement. “If you’re sure. If anything changes, promise me you’ll tell one of the others to call for me with their bond.”
Despite the chaos all around us, his sincerity melted something inside me that had been frozen from his avoidance the last two weeks. He cared, he just didn’t know how to show it. Didn’t feel like he deserved to show it.
“I promise.”
He threaded his fingers through my hair and captured my lips in a domineering kiss that left my knees jelly and my thoughts scattered.
When he stepped away and started shucking off his clothes so he could shift, my brain whirred back into working order. We had a crisis to manage and kids to save. The other mates had also said their farewells, and Batten had turned away, pointing and giving orders to every goblin who ran past.
“Batten, what do you need?” I stepped up beside her, the rest of the pack females forming into a semicircle around her, with Galyna and Elodie bracketing us, butterfly swords in hand.
Before she could answer me, though, a wave of alpha dominance washed over the clearing with so much power, it knocked me to my knees in the dirt.
No, not just me… Every creature save Brielle.
I looked back in the direction it had come from to see a large midnight wolf standing head and shoulders above the rest, his bright green eyes glowing with unfettered rage as the rest of his pack mates shifted.
As one, the males ran toward the battle, as fluid as water in a stream, but a thousand times more deadly.
For the first time since I’d been with the pack, the high alpha had shifted. And nothing but death followed in his wake.