Read For the Love of a Goblin Warrior (Shadowlands) for Free Online Page B

mother for her confirmation.
    But she wasn’t going to hold her breath waiting.
    For the benefit of anyone who saw her, she pasted on a smile. She’d learned a long time ago that looking sad drew attention and questions that people then wanted answered. It was much easier to look happy and be left alone.
    She slung her backpack over her shoulders and adjusted the straps so it wouldn’t move around. At least while she was running she wasn’t thinking about anything except her next step. She braced herself for the early morning chill as she left the hospital. The days were getting warmer, lighter, and longer. Spring was in the air even though it wasn’t September yet. Just the idea that the winter solstice was behind her was reason enough to celebrate. It would be nearly another year until the anniversary of her mother’s death came around.
    As she warmed up from a walk to a jog to a run, the chain around her neck bounced without weight. Every step was a reminder of what was missing. She ran along the river without seeing it, up the stairs that connected the city of Perth to Kings Park, through the park, and to the City West train station down the hill. Her lungs burned but she didn’t relent. She didn’t want to be able to think.
    Her feet hit the platform, and there was nowhere else for her to run to. But she didn’t stand still even though it was ten minutes until the train arrived. Instead, she paced and calmed her breathing. She’d pushed herself hard and still didn’t feel any better. Her hand touched the empty chain, as if she expected the cross to reappear by magic.
    This early in the morning, there was hardly anyone on the train, and those who were got off in the city ready to start their days. She didn’t miss the early morning crush. It had been hard enough to conform to what everyone called normal hours while she was studying. Having to attend classes during the day and attempting to sleep at night was awful. As a child she’d sleep as soon as she came home from school, wake up for dinner, and then play or read silently until dawn, the lights burning to keep away the creatures that crawled in the shadows and haunted her nightmares. Then she’d sleep until she was dragged out of bed by yet another foster parent who couldn’t understand why she was being difficult.
    By the time she got off the train and was walking the last couple of blocks home, she’d almost convinced herself the cross was at home, tangled in her bed sheets. The loop had never been quite right since it had been pulled off at school by a child who’d decided to make her suffer for being different. She’d pushed him off the jungle gym and broken his arm in retaliation.
    In hindsight, she could’ve killed him. Maybe murder ran in her blood.
    The two kids at the bus stop across the road waved. Their mother would have gone to work already and left them to get themselves to school. At least she’d never had to do that. She’d always had breakfast made for her and someone to send her off each day. Nadine waved back as always. They knew that if there were ever any problems after school, they could knock on her door. So far there’d only been a couple of Band-Aid emergencies.
    When she got inside, the house was silent. Gina was having an extra-long weekend away with her just-returned army boyfriend. For today the place was hers. The stillness echoed around her and she breathed it in, searching for peace and trying to rein in the hope that lingered in her belly—her cross was here, it had to be. She dropped her bag by the door and went to her bedroom. The bed was unmade, as she’d left it.
    She rummaged through the sheets, then stripped the bed, shook the sheets, and searched the floor. Then she went into the bathroom. The cross wasn’t there either and it was too big to go down the drain. She worried her lip between her teeth.
    It had been two decades since she’d slept without it and before then her mother had been alive and had