He kissed me again, his claws raking gently down my back. He could have hurt me, but he didn’t and I knew he never would.
But when he took me, there on one of the benches, he was as rough as he’d ever been, ravenous with waiting. I didn’t want to admit it, but in some ways I would miss his curse if it was broken. Oh, I knew it would certainly get tiresome eventually, but in this moment, I was deeply aroused by the idea that he was forced to fuck me, that he could not deny himself and I could not have denied him if I tried. Surely I was wicked enough to be a goblin for that alone, because I certainly was too wicked to be a human anymore.
His subjects started to shuffle back to the caverns, some of them not quickly enough, I thought.
“We are not leaving anything to the imagination if I was to be your bride someday,” I said.
“Goblins and the fair folk have different views of these things,” he said. “In some kingdoms the marriage of a king and his queen must be consummated in view of the court. We will not be doing that, at least.”
“We’ve already done it!”
He chuckled.
Chapter Eight
Sabela was destined to be my bride. I was beginning to believe it might truly be so.
The final nights spent with her were moments I would treasure forever.
In the past, there had been women who came to my door and passed the test of the rose. Others had followed Sabela’s path and plucked the rose, thus setting the clock ticking, but they didn’t cross the river. That is to say, Sabela was not the first to make it this far.
But she was the first one that I was so comfortable around.
“What do you do with your idle hours?” I asked her.
“My favorite thing is to read,” she said.
“Do you read aloud?”
“Oh, yes, I love to read aloud. But usually no one likes to listen.”
“I would enjoy it,” I said. “It’s been so long since I’ve heard another voice for any length of time.”
“Of course!” She took my hand, almost tugging me toward the library, clearly excited. I loved seeing how eager she was. It made me want to give her something to be eager about every day, forever.
“What would you like me to read?” she asked, skimming the shelves with her fingers and eyes at once. She gravitated toward the novels. They would make for better reading aloud. The only trouble was my accursed body. The sight of her darting from shelf to shelf, her slim hands, the nape of her neck bared by her short hair…I was already getting hard again.
She glanced at my face and then at my trousers. “I’ll bet you have a hard time concentrating,” she said.
“You’re probably right about that.”
“What if we get in bed, and I read you something naughty, and when it gets to be too much, you can do what you have to do. But—“ She held up a hand. “You have to wait as long as you can stand it. At least I’ll know we aren’t wasting a perfectly good story on you right now.”
I snorted, but inside I realized she was very understanding, like no other girl I had ever met. She grasped like no other woman had that the curse forced me into thinking of nothing but sex, and so she indulged me as if this was simply the way it was and would always be, without shaming me. Rather than resisting the curse, she flowed with it. She let everything simply be about sex, and in the process, it became easier and easier to open up to her, and let it be more.
We talked, we joked, we shared stories of our lives. We had feasts that were almost as magnificent as the old days, albeit on a smaller scale, because even my kitchen staff seemed encouraged by our affection for each other. She sat on my lap and let me feed berries into her willing little mouth.
I could fuck her every hour and she was always willing. If she wasn’t quite ready for me, I would stroke and lick her until she was, which never took long. With every other woman, I had held back, barely sating the curse. This was the first time I had known satisfaction in ten years.
I’m sure the witch who cursed me assumed that no true connection could ever be made between two hearts and minds when such desire was in the way, but I could imagine still loving Sabela when we were old and wizened. The concern and compassionate she showed to me and my people, her inquisitiveness and good humor, would suit her well to me until the day we died, I was sure.
But she still had one more test to pass, and that was the one where every other girl had failed, even the ones who managed the first two. I was forbidden from warning her. As the petals on her rose began to wither and fall, my dread increased.
Soon, I would sleep without knowing whether she would be the one to wake me.
Chapter Nine
The rose was dying. Nyar said that there was nothing I could do but wait. We had spent one week together, one perfect week.
I stayed up nights now, with Nyar, but he had to sleep as soon as the sun rose. I stayed up a little longer.
Before I went to sleep, I looked at the rose. It was so much worse than the last time I had checked it! Half its petals had fallen and the remaining ones were turning brown, and I knew in that moment that we wouldn’t have another night.
I was glad he slept. I cried and cried until tears stung my eyes. The goblins hovered a distance away, clearly concerned.
I wiped my face with the hem of my dress. “I hope I haven’t made a complete fool out of myself just now,” I told them. “I don’t know if goblin maidens sob like that. But I’m just…scared.”
The butter dish hopped over to me, and gave it a little pat. (It was hard to know how to interact with inanimate objects in such a way, especially when I imagined some of them might turn into fierce goblin warriors when the curse was lifted.)
More of the goblins clustered around me, and I suppose they didn’t know how to comfort me either.
Then, the grandfather clock chimed, and I knew I had to sleep.
I thought I would toss and turn with worry, but in fact, I fell asleep quickly, only to slip into a very vivid dream.
The beautiful young faery maiden had just come of age, but her strict mother still refused to let her leave the safety of their hamlet in Pony’s Brook. Never was the girl allowed to have any fun.
Keely had always been an obedient daughter, but she was beginning to find obedience unbearable, especially at the festival of Beltane. On this night, the humans would leave offerings out for the fair folk. The young faeries would travel from holding to holding across the countryside, in merry bands, taking the offerings, and if they were insufficient, they played tricks. Nothing too harmful, as no one wanted wars to erupt between clans, but little things. Stealing a chicken or a tool from the farm shed, pissing in the well bucket, burning a wall with a brand that meant “fools!” or “stingy!”