Blog Tour: Greta and the Goblin King by Chloe Jacobs (Blurb + Excerpt)

Title: Greta and the Goblin King
Author: Chloe Jacobs
Publication Date: November 13th 2012
Publisher: Entangled Publishing

While trying to save her brother from a witch’s fire four years ago, Greta was thrown in herself, falling through a portal to Mylena, a dangerous world where humans are the enemy and every ogre, ghoul, and goblin has a dark side that comes out with the eclipse.

To survive, Greta has hidden her humanity and taken the job of bounty hunter—and she’s good at what she does. So good, she’s caught the attention of Mylena’s young goblin king, the darkly enticing Isaac, who invades her dreams and undermines her will to escape.

But Greta’s not the only one looking to get out of Mylena. An ancient evil knows she’s the key to opening the portal, and with the next eclipse mere days away, every bloodthirsty creature in the realm is after her—including Isaac. If Greta fails, she and the lost boys of Mylena will die. If she succeeds, no world will be safe from what follows her back...

**Excerpt**

“Greta.”

No polite “danem” this time, huh? The casual trill of her name on his lips was more than a little ironic considering what saying his name had cost her.

His voice was lower than usual, as if encouraging her to confide in him. Yeah, right. She glanced into the pitted mirror above the bar, and gasped to find him standing only a few feet behind her. When had he gotten up from his seat and crossed the room?

Probably when she was trying so hard to ignore him.

He said it again, her name. More like a whisper, actually. But closer and clearer than it should have been with all the others around them, drinking and laughing…

Except suddenly there was no one else around. She was alone with only him and the mist for company. She whirled around to face him.

“Who are you?” he asked. “Exactly where do you hail from?”

She leaned back as he pushed forward, until the edge of the bar pressed against her spine. Questions. Of course. Luke had warned here there would be questions if she allowed anyone to get too close. Thankfully, her life was a fairly solitary one. Other than Luke, she had few friends. Okay, none. Not that it bothered her. It didn’t. The risks of unwittingly revealing her human heritage far outweighed any benefits that might come from having someone to talk to.

Especially if that someone was a hot goblin with a penchant for hijacking dreams, who also just so happened to be the newly minted king.

Just thinking about that made her want to break her fist over that square chin of his, and wipe the confident smile from his lips. But this was still just a dream. It wouldn’t really be her fist flying and it wouldn’t really be his face under her knuckles.

“You know I never answer your questions. Why do you keep asking? Why waste your time in my dreams?”

“You said my name,” he answered. He reached out, taking a lock of her hair between his fingers and rolling it as if he was fascinated by its softness. When she self-consciously tugged her bottom lip between her teeth, his eyes flared and his gaze locked on her mouth.  “You invited me in. You gave me the power.”

He touched her cheek with the most feather-light caress, the pad of his thumb following the line of her bottom lip. She swatted his hand away before she did something stupid like lean into his touch. “I didn’t know what I was doing.”

“How could you not know?”

The implication went unsaid, but it was still there. She should have known because everyone knew saying Isaac’s name had consequences. Everyone who belonged in Mylena, that is.

Well, she didn’t belong in Mylena, and loneliness had gotten the better of her the night they met in Maidra’s tavern. When he approached her despite the menacing keep-away glare she alway swore to protect herself, she’d faltered in the face of his bright smile. Nobody had ever looked at her as if she were beautiful and interesting before.

They’d talked for hours and before she knew it, she’d plummeted into his trap. After she’d broken more of Luke’s rules than she thought possible and reluctantly stood up to leave, he’d asked her name. Greta had only reciprocated, thinking nothing of it.

Just call me Isaac.

So she had. Apparently, it didn’t matter if you were an ignorant human whom no one had bothered to explain the rules to. She’d been vulnerable to him. Was still vulnerable.

“It doesn’t matter why I didn’t know!” Her hands clenched into fists. “My ignorance didn’t give you the right to take advantage of me.” Closing her eyes, she tried to remember where she really was, willing her consciousness to get a clue and—

Wake. The hell. Up.

“You only wake when I’m ready to let you go.”

“Then what do you want with me?”

His smoldering look went all the way through her. Her stomach fluttered madly and she stepped back, hoping to God she wasn’t blushing. “Are you reading my mind?”

He snorted. “I’m in your mind, getting to know every part of you.”

Her face burned with embarrassment. “You’re deluding yourself if you think you can know who I am or what I want from spying on me in my dreams. Therein lies a realm of fantasy, and while it’s an interesting place to visit every once in a while, we both have to live in the real world, don’t we?”

“You can put up walls, Greta, but sooner or later, I’ll break down every last one. There won’t be any secret you can keep or any part of you I don’t know…” He leaned forward, his voice lowering to a whisper. “Intimately.”

Her knees shook at the thought. Intimacy meant weakness. Weakness that he was obviously trying to exploit. She realized it now. His appearances in her dreams…all that talk…craftily designed to subvert her defenses.

He’d implied he never wanted to be the king, but of course he wanted to be king. Who wouldn’t? He was a power-hungry goblin so full of arrogance she felt like an idiot for not seeing it before it was too late.

She would not—could not—give into the things he made her feel. That way lay disaster, even if part of her was tempted to find out exactly how intimate they could get.

Frantically, she plotted. She didn’t just need to wake up, she had to find a way to put an end to these visits once and for all before her will to resist was gone. “Why would you even want to? Trust me, I’m not the slightest bit interesting.”

“You intrigue me,” he said.

Greta huffed. She was nothing. Less than nothing. She had none of the strength of the goblins, none of the beauty of the nymphs, none of the magick of the sprites or the faeries. She downplayed her few curves beneath a hostile scowl and multiple layers of clothing to keep others from looking too closely and wondering if there was a reason why she was so spectacularly unimpressive.

No, he couldn’t know her secret. If he did, he would’ve cut her down out there in the forest by now. And if he didn’t want to get his hands dirty with it, not even Luke would be able to protect her from the lynch mob that he would send after her. “Get out of my head.”

He smiled. “But I just got here.”

“I don’t want you here.”

His hand lifted back up to her cheek. She flinched, but he only pushed her hair off her cheek. She held her breath. Even knowing his touch wasn’t real, tingles danced all the way to her toes.

After what seemed like forever, he dropped his hand, looking thoughtful. “You’re so secretive and prickly, Greta. Why is that?”

“None of your business.”

“Oh, I think it is. In fact, I think who you are and what you do is very much my business.” He stepped closer and she drew back, ready to defend herself if he decided to try “persuading” her to talk. But he only gripped her arms as if to pull her into an embrace. She tensed and put her hand between them, on his chest. His heart was pounding fast, maybe as fast as hers, and she could almost imagine that this was real. She glanced up to find him looking at her intensely. And then he did pull her closer. Close enough to press his forehead to hers as he whispered, “Reveal yourself to me, Greta. Trust in me. Tell me your secrets, and I can be lenient with you.”

She shook her head. Deny, deny, deny. That was standard operating procedure.The hard look in his eyes returned. He dropped his gaze and let her go. She expelled a long, slow breath, unsure if she was relieved or disappointed.

“We’ll discuss this again,” he promised. “Now, wake.”

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