Flickering firelight danced across the finely wrought sidhe dagger as Mair lifted it from the pile of weapons scavenged from the corpses left in the wake of that morning's battle. He turned it back and forth in his hands, feeling the weight and balance. The hilt was silver and gold, studded with emeralds, the blade silver and bearing several nicks and scratches. That was one drawback to being unable to wield iron; sidhe blades were prone to damage.

Turning to the anvil, he braced the hilt against the block and picked up his hammer. One swift blow snapped the blade clean off, the room ringing with a clear, sweet note. Mair picked up the silver blade and tossed it into a bin with several others, and then sat down at his worktable and began to pry the gems loose from their settings. The stones would be crated up and shipped to Debringmas, sold to a dealer who would most likely sell them back to the same sidhe tribe that made these elaborate, but ultimately useless, weapons.

Dropping the emeralds into a open barrel of vinegar to soak the blood off, Mair moved back to the pile, kicking aside a broken poleax and picking up another ornamental silver dagger, this one etched with the delicate wings of a butterfly. Mair rolled his shoulders, feeling his knobby wing ridges rub against the inside of his shirt. Scowling, he cleaved the blade from its hilt. Faeries had wings; goblins did not.

As he sat down at his table, a sound in the corridor drew his attention and he turned in his chair as Shuruk, the King's steward, strode into the room. Mair's eyes were drawn to the heavy, curled horns growing out of Shuruk's head and curving behind his large, pendulous ears, the tips sweeping up alongside his heavy jaw, ending at the corners of his mottled green and black lips. The horns had ancient goblin writing burned into them, denoting Shuruk's position of power. Mair had no horns, a fact that Shuruk never let him forget, the goblin steward's large, moss green eyes roving over Mair's bare head before dropping to meet his gaze.

"The King is dead," Shuruk said, his greenish-gray skin pale and damp with sweat, making him look remarkably like a gaunt toad. "He succumbed to injuries sustained in battle today and died screaming almost an hour ago."

"I'm glad," Mair said. "May his soul raise hell on the Eternal Battlefield." He turned away and picked up his shiny steel pick, careful to keep his fingers on the worn wooden handle. Cold iron didn't burn him like it would a true sidhe, but it stung and left welts. He pried at a large opal, waiting for Shuruk to leave, but the steward stepped farther into the room instead.

"What?" Mair asked, his tone short. "If my mother thinks that pig deserves more honor than that from me, she can come down here and drag me to his corpse herself." He shifted his feet under the table, feeling a pulling through the ugly scar upon his thigh where his uncle, the king, had tried to eat him when he was three. Only the fact that Mair's mother was also the king's sister saved him. That and a heavy iron candlestick upside the head.

"I also bring news of your cousin, King-to-be Roult--"

"Oh, right," Mair said and he sighed. "Convey my delight at his good fortune and tell him I'll be up to personally beg for my life later. I'm in the middle of something."

"Roult is also dead," Shuruk said, and Mair's hand slipped, the opal flying free of its setting and shattering against the stone wall.

"How?" Mair asked, turning to look at the steward once again.

"His brother, King-to-be Drung, slit his throat--"

"Naturally," Mair muttered, but Shuruk wasn't finished.

"Drung received a dagger between the ribs, but not before he stabbed King-to-be Loragg in the gut. Loragg died moments ago."

Mair groaned and rubbed a grimy hand over his face.

"Stupid, greedy assholes," he said. "I don't have that many more cousins."

"Huk, and he's only eleven." Now it was Shuruk's turn to sigh. "Which makes you the next King-to-be. Congratulations, King Culmair. Your mother--"

"Wait," Mair said, rising to his feet. "What did you say? I'm King?"

"Yes," Shuruk said, looking like he'd swallowed a bad piece of meat. "As the eldest living male descendant of the Gartuk bloodline, you are the new king of the Ang Mountain goblin horde...assuming you live long enough to be crowned, of course."

Mair shot him a dirty look.

"What were you going to say about my mother?" he asked. His skin felt cold and his stomach rolled like he'd swallowed a nest of eels. He tried to focus on what Shuruk was saying.

"You mother is overseeing the removal of your personal effects to the royal chambers. As it is my sworn duty to advise my king, I would suggest you get you ass behind those doors before the horde hears what has happened. I doubt they will willing accept sidhe spawn as their king."

Mair straightened up, his gut clenching into a queasy knot as he stepped toward Shuruk. He stood nearly a head taller than the bony goblin--freakishly tall--his arms and legs too long, too thin, his hands tiny, his skin an abnormal mottled slate, steel, and cream, just like his wings, his damned faerie wings--

"I am not a sidhe," he hissed through his teeth. "I am a goblin, and I will gladly cut your heart out if you ever need reminded of that fact." Before Shuruk could respond, Mair stormed out of the workshop, rage boiling inside him. He could feel his wing ridges tingling, his anger making the accursed faerie glamour impossible to control. Light danced over the shadowed walls of the underground passages, shining through the loose weave of his shirt, flecks of blue, silver, green, and cream flitting about him like excited gnats, betraying the truth.

***

Mair had calmed himself by the time he reached the inner recesses of the hive-like caverns, the heavy oak doors to the royal chambers standing open as a half-dozen of his mother's own servants bustled in and out, thick, muscular arms loaded with boxes and crates filled haphazardly with his things. He stepped inside and grimaced, watching as a squat goblin maid dumped a box of books on the floor next to the wide, dark fireplace.

"Those don't go there," he snapped. "Put them back on the shelves." He glanced around the huge, bare room, the black stone walls glistening in the light of a few smoky torches, patches of star moss glowing softly on the ceiling. The floor was covered with musty-smelling animal skins and a single large, rough-hewn stone table sat at the far end, a single wooden chair sitting beside it. He turned to the goblin maid. "I want all of my things treated with care. Have the shelves put against that wall." He pointed just to the left of the fireplace. The heat would keep his books from molding...he hoped.

At the far end of the first chamber stood another open door, the doorway filled with flickering golden light. Mair stopped in the doorway, surveying the vast bedchamber. It was cold and airy, even with a large fire roaring in the grate. The massive bed was being fitted with new drapes--sheer cream beneath heavy, slate blue velvet--and the wardrobe was being emptied, the late King Warumek's clothes being wadded up and tossed in the fire.

"Hello, my son." Mair hadn't noticed his mother standing just inside the doorway, her thick, curved horns blackened by soot to honor the death of her brother. She stepped toward him and took his soft, delicate hand in her own gnarled one. Mair stared down at their clasped hands for a moment, a familiar pain in his chest. She was the only one who didn't draw away from his touch, his disgusting sidhe hands.

"I can't do this, mother," he said, his voice barely louder than a whisper. "They'll never let a sidhe rule them."

"You are not a sidhe," she said, the firelight playing over the long, curved canines in her lower jaw. "You are my son, and as fine a goblin as has ever sat upon that throne. They will see that, or they will die."

"Mother, I'll never even get to look upon the throne," Mair insisted. "They will kill me."

"You've already lived longer than any of your cousins did once they became King-to-be," she with a faint smile.

"Actually, I'm surprised Huk hasn't made an attempt, even if he is only a child."

"I had him taken care of," Mair's mother said. "You are now the sole heir to Gartuk's throne." Mair drew his hand out of hers and turned away. "Don't go soft on me, Culmair," she said, her voice sharp. "He would not have hesitated to slit your throat."

"I know," Mair said, but it didn't change the empty feeling in the pit of his stomach. "I don't care about Huk. I should have killed him myself. I just...I'm the goblin king, mother. Me! I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around that fact."

"Well, get over it," she said. "Your coronation is in seven days and you had better start acting like a king long before that. In fact, you can start right now." He turned to find her looking through the doorway out into the other chamber. "Shuruk has brought you something. Don't embarrass me."

Mair didn't know why he would, until he followed her through the doorway and found Shuruk holding the end of a long silver chain.

"A gift for His Majesty," Shuruk said, his voice laced with contempt. He jerked on the chain and the "gift" stumbled forward, feet hobbled by a short rope, hands bound behind his back, a silver collar around his throat. The sidhe captive was easily a head taller than Mair, his shoulders broad, body lean and muscular. He was naked, wearing only bruises and mud, and Mair's gaze lingered on the faerie's manhood, the short, white curls surrounding the limp, fleshy organ, loose skin lying in soft folds...just like his own.

Mair clenched his fists and raised his eyes to the faerie's face, anger rising inside him as he recognized faerie features from his own reflection--the small nose, the shell-like ears, the smooth skin, the narrow mouth--The faerie stared at him, dark, dark eyes shadowed by ragged, dirty white hair. He had easily seen forty winters, though Mair could tell that his hair was not white from age.

"What manner of gift is this?" Mair asked, his lips barely moving.

"Young, virile male goblins have needs," Shuruk said. "Until you take a wife, it is customary for the king to let a slave see to those needs. Unless, of course, you don't feel those particular...urges."

"Could you have found a larger faerie?" Mair asked, ignoring Shuruk's insinuation. "If I didn't know better, I'd think you were hoping he'd murder me."

"Certainly not, Your Majesty," Shuruk said with a slight bow of his head. "Your predecessor was fond of breaking the strong ones; I didn't consider that your tastes might differ. I will find weak, mewly sidhe for you. I seem to recall a boy...though he might have starved to death by now--"

"I don't need a boy," Mair said. "I'm not afraid of this filth." He stepped up to the captive and grabbed him by the hair, twisting his head and pulling him down until their faces were even. "What is your name, slave?"

"He doesn't speak," Shuruk said, but Mair reached up, running hand along the faerie's cheek.

"He'll speak to me," Mair said, his voice low. "He'll speak, he'll beg, he'll scream, or I'll send him to a slow, lingering death."

Shuruk stepped over, pushing down on the silver collar, the metal digging into the faerie's flesh and making him draw a sharp breath.

"I meant, Your Majesty, that he can't speak." A thick, jagged scar ran across the front of the sidhe's throat. Mair stepped back, regarding the mute faerie.

"Put him in the bedchamber," Mair said finally. "I like the idea of a slave who can't say no."

Shuruk bowed his head again.

"As you command, Your Majesty," he said, and started to move toward the other room, but paused and turned to Mair. "Perhaps there is more goblin in you than I first thought." Mair nodded, his jaw set but his stomach churning, and watched his steward lead the captive away.

Author's Note: If you enjoyed this excerpt, please visit my Profile page for information on how to purchase Slave to the Crown and others. (And if nothing else, follow the links to see the beautiful covers my publisher created for my books!) Thanks for your support!