Page 51 of Gumiho Kiss
“You ...”She whipped forward and brought her sword tip to the short man’s neck before he could defend himself.She ripped the mask off his face, noting his foreign features with a sinking dread.“Did Hong send you?”she demanded.
The short man lowered his weapon, glancing nervously between her and his companion.“He?—”
The broad-chested man pulled a dagger from his clothes and flung it at his associate’s heart.Chin Sun stepped back as the short man collapsed with a grunt, but when she turned to the other thug, he was already fleeing toward the gate.
She threw a dagger of her own, but the shot went wayward when something sliced her leg.An arrow.
Chin Sun yelped and dropped to the ground, narrowly avoiding two more arrows that sailed through the air.Her head swiveled in all directions before homing in on her newest adversary.
A lone archer crouched atop the main pavilion, beady eyes menacing in the moonlight.He nocked another arrow and took aim.
Chin Sun zoomed forward, throwing herself under the shelter of the pavilion’s eaves.She listened for footsteps on the tiles above.
A nearby thump told her the archer had dropped to the ground.She gripped her sword against her chest, blood trickling from her leg.Her heart spiked with a heady mixture of fear and adrenaline.Maybe coming here hadn’t been a good idea, after all.
The man’s dark form appeared at the edge of her vision.She took a deep breath and turned, ready to take on this new assailant.
She froze mid-step.
His hwando was glowing with fire.Blue fire.Chin Sun lifted her eyes, meeting a pair of dark orbs that were all too familiar.
“It’s so good to see you again, little fox.”The figure approached her slowly, haughtily, as if he had all the time in the world.He swung the long, decorative sword in a wide sweep.
“You’re—you’re the goblin from the forest.”
He laughed, sending a chill down to the marrow of her bones.“Did you think you wouldn’t be seeing me again?How amusing you are.”
“But the last goblin I fought?—”
“Got caught by a grim reaper?He was stupid enough to attack in broad daylight.Though I do understand”—he licked his lips—“his eagerness.It isn’t every day a power such as yours is right there in front of us, ripe for the taking.You’ve done well to keep your human close.”He took another step, leaving only a short distance between them.“But you never should have underestimated us goblins.We may have lost one, but our cause is too great to abandon.”
Chin Sun gulped, the temptation to flee growing stronger by the second.“What cause?And what does my bead have to do with it?”
The goblin laughed again.“Beat me, and I’ll tell you.”His sword slammed against hers, sending scorching heat up Chin Sun’s arm.
She let out a high-pitched shriek, blade falling from her hand.The burning sensation in her arm vanished, but the goblin kicked away her hwando before she could retrieve it.
“Not so powerful without your abilities, are you?You gumiho always were too confident in yourselves.”He clicked his tongue.“Even now, when your numbers are so few.”
Chin Sun’s eyes flicked to Kim Min Joon for help, but her friend was still engaged in a fight on the other side of the courtyard.She was on her own.
“Why come after me when I don’t have the bead?”she asked, hoping to stall him long enough to find an escape.“You certainly seem powerful enough to overcome my—my human on your own.”Heat rushed to her cheeks.Calling Mr.Park hers felt so wrong—yet why did it send a thrill through her blood?
The goblin scoffed.“Like I said, you’ve hardly let it out of your sight, and you know making a spectacle of ourselves will bring those grim reapers to the human realm faster than I could get away.Your protectiveness has forced my hand.”
He waved his palm, and a swath of blue fire flew toward her.
Chin Sun dove out of the way, the flames soaring past before disintegrating midair.
A spectacle would draw grim reapers?That was a wonderful tidbit to know.She didn’t want that one from before to find out she still hadn’t retrieved her bead, but if it meant scaring the goblin off ...
She turned and shouted to the others in the courtyard, “Help!It’s a goblin!There’s a goblin here!”
An officer rounded the corner of another pavilion and rushed over, spear in hand.“What is it?”
Chin Sun grabbed her sword off the ground and directed it at the goblin?—
But she found herself pointing at an empty space.She let out a ragged sigh of relief, then glanced down.Good.Now to make sure everyone else was all right.
