“Yes. Feel free. I would love to know how on earth you thought this was a good idea, if you had an inkling.”
“I was being honest when we met,” she said. “I really am planning to go to Cabria. I don’t care about dancing with you, much less marrying you.”
“Forgive me if I find that hard to believe. Everyone wants to marry me.”
“I mean it,” she said. “I don’t want to live with high elves anymore. I’ve been treated so cruelly by my stepmother and stepsisters that I am very happy to say goodbye to Wyndyr forever. Any good memories I might have had of my father’s world have long since been stomped on in the years since his death. I want to start a new life. Maybe go to my mother’s people, eventually.”
“If that’s true, then…how did we get here?” I wasn’t looking at her, but was paging through the book quickly, struggling to fend off the magic that demanded I do anything to her but talk.
“So…first, my father’s old business partner came from Cabria to tell me I had an inheritance there. And I planned to leave with him tonight. But while I was waiting for his man to show, my goblin aunt turned up unexpectedly. She was the one who said I should go to the ball before I left. Not so I could marry you, but just so my stepsisters could see me looking beautiful and having a dance with you.”
“Your stepsisters,” I said. “You’re an orphan, then, I take it? And you don’t get along with your stepfamily.”
“No reasonable person could get along with my stepfamily! They’re the worst. My father was a very wealthy merchant, and as soon as he died they took everything from me. All the things he ever bought me, my bedroom, my bed itself. They treat me like the lowest of servants and I’m not even allowed to leave because they’re ashamed that I have goblin blood. Well, I don’t know if you care. I guess you probably don’t like goblins either.”
I looked up from the book. “They have a reputation.”
“I haven’t done anything wrong,” she said, crossing her arms.
“Except that your godmother cast a spell on the prince of the realm and ruined the entire ball,” I said. “Do you realize she could be hanged for such a thing?”
Her face went ashen. “Oh, no,” she said. “You wouldn’t do that, would you? It was an accident. Or—maybe it wasn’t, but…she meant well, I think.”
“I don’t think such a spell could possibly mean well. She wanted to force me into marrying you, a girl who offers me no sort of productive alliance.”
“Well, what about me? I’m being forced the same as you are.”
“But you’re getting a prince out of it.”
“And you’re getting an heiress.”
“How much are you worth?”
“Well—I’m not sure—yet. It’s complicated.” I think she realized she was in over her head, but was reluctant to admit it. I kept trying to look at the book but my eyes wanted to adhere themselves to her. She finally sat down, atop my bed mattress, only she didn’t so much sit as she lounged. Her dress was made of some slinky fabric that clung to her small body, giving her a very different air from all the stiff, primped women I had left behind in the ballroom.
I found myself staring at the way her collarbone led to the curve of her shoulder, with one messy dark curl falling across it. There was something insolent about her pose, slouching on my bed. My cock had been as hard as a rock from the moment we touched and it only seemed to get worse as time went on.
It’s only the magic.
But I’d been thinking about her even before the magic hit me. I think that made it worse.
Even if it wasn’t the magic, I couldn’t marry a girl like this. A goblin girl. She would be an embarrassment.
“You were joking, weren’t you?” she asked nervously.
“About the hanging? Probably. But it isn’t a joke. If I were to skip my own ball and indulge in congress with you instead, I would be bound to you forever. I am not the sort of man who sleeps around. So, it is out of the question. We have to lift the spell and forget this ever happened.”
“Fine with me. Have you found anything?”
“Not yet.”
After a moment, she slid off the bed, onto her feet, and padded over to peer at my book. “Is it true that you know dark magic?” she asked.
“We won’t get into that.”
“It is true…,” she murmured.
“I never said it was.”
“But you would deny it immediately, if it wasn’t true.” She paused. “Do you ever talk to the dead? Have seances?”
I shook my head. I could feel her presence, so close to mine. I had found a spell that might work to lift this compulsion. There was an illustration of two bodies standing, skin to skin, and I wished she wasn’t looking over my shoulder as I read the description.
“I suppose that’s not really how it works,” she said. “A prince wouldn’t really have a seance. Too dangerous, probably.”
“No, I have had seances before,” I said, despite my better judgment.
She had no idea what she was asking about. I knew I should never have tried to contact the dead. The feeling was as elusive as a drug. I always thought, This will be the last time, the time I have closure.
And I always came back again, drawing the curtains and lighting the candles, turning back the veil between worlds in the middle of the night when no one was the wiser. Why did I do it? I told myself it was always with the hope of hearing their voices again.
But I knew that it had become more than that, long ago.
I sighed. “It’s better not to dabble in those things.”
“But you’ve done it? Did you talk to the dead?”
“I have.”
She paused. “Do you think I could ever talk to my parents?”
“It isn’t wise.”
“Then why did you do it?”
“I suppose I’m not a wise man.” I rubbed my fingers along the bridge of my nose. “Do you have a question for them? Or do you just miss them?”
“I do have a question,” she said. “I want to know if my stepmother poisoned my father, or if it was just a heart attack like the coroner said.”
“That is quite a question,” I said. “Is your stepmother that bad?”
“Every bit as bad, and worse.”
I clapped the book shut, releasing enough dust that I sneezed. “We’re lifting this spell,” I insisted.
“Do we need to stand together like that picture?” she asked. “So close?”
“Yes,” I said.
Her little tongue grazed along her fangs. I’m not sure she realized she had even made the gesture, but it made my cock throb painfully. It would have been so easy to give in. A part of me wanted that release far more than I wanted to retain my honor or hers. A tempting voice within me whispered, Who cares if it’s only a spell? Wouldn’t it be better to succumb to a spell, succumb to exquisite pleasure with an intriguing girl than marry a woman solely for her money?
I shoved my chair back and approached her.
Chapter Ten
Ellara
I looked up at him. I think he was taller than my father. It was hard to remember. All I knew was that it had been a very long time since I was so close to a man. I hadn’t realized how much I yearned for the comforting strength of a male presence, yearned to indulge in the dream that this prince cared about protecting me.
He put his hands to my waist and urged me closer, until our bodies were touching, my nose rubbing his jacket, my head tucked under his chin. He held out his arms, his palms facing mine, and found my fingers. He laced them with mine. My body was starting to respond to him as it had before, as if my fingers were more sensitive than they had ever been before. Just weaving them between his felt potent and exciting. I arched into him, pressing my stomach into his cock.
He made a sharp exhalation. He was starting to unwind for me, I thought. The spell was getting to him. And a part of me wanted it to get to him, wanted magic to crack him open for me. I wanted to know all the mysteries that
went on between a man and a woman, and I wanted to know them with him.
I forced my thoughts away from the heady physical sensations and remembered the spice farm and Cabria. I had to leave this place. I didn’t want to stay in this land where I had known nothing but pain and ostracism for the past six years. What I felt now was just a lie.
He cleared his throat.
“I’m going to say the words to break the spell,” he said. “Repeat them after me. But the most important thing is our will to break the spell. If you married me, you would be the only goblin in court, and you would never fit in. We would both be miserable, I’m sure. Think of that, and ignore this feeling that is trying to trick us.”
“Yes,” I said firmly. “I had the same thought. I’m ready.”
He started to speak the spell words, and I had never heard this sort of proper spell-work before. It was beautiful, like poetry with an edge of something dangerous. His voice edged louder, and I followed suit. Our skin was growing very hot.
“Aloora omor amorus!” he called, with finality, and I repeated after him. The heat was still building. He gripped my hands tight.
I felt more aroused than ever.
He was quiet, looking into my eyes.
Then he craned his neck down toward me. His lips parted. My mouth opened eagerly to meet him.
I wanted to ask if we had managed to break the spell, but I quickly realized that this was my answer.
He led me backwards to the bed and pushed me down onto it as his tongue carefully dipped between my fangs, teasing my own tongue—and then, not just teasing, but shoving deeper, thrusting against mine as if in a preview of what else he might do. He tasted delicious. Whatever rational sense I might have had left was struggling to keep above water. I opened my legs to let his body come closer to mine. His weight settled on me a little heavier. My legs dangled off the bed.
Through my skirts, I felt his rigid manhood slide upward against my pelvis, stirring my senses, turning me to jelly. I moaned. He shoved up my skirts, finding bare skin underneath. The rod under his trousers, the rough wool fabric, slowly ground against my bare seam. My desire was rising quickly. His hand went to my hair—and met one of the horns concealed by my hairstyle.
He stopped kissing me, like this had snapped him back to reality. I went stiff beneath him now. Yes, that’s right, you’re still just a goblin.
“The antidote spell didn’t work,” he said.
“No…”
“Someone must have not really wanted it to work.”
I didn’t like his accusatory tone. “Well, it wasn’t me!” I said. “I was thinking about how much I wanted to escape this place, how I’m tired of being treated like dirt, just because my mother was a goblin.”
“It certainly wasn’t me,” he insisted.
“Are you completely sure?”
“Of course I am.”
“Who’s to say you’re not the one enjoying an excuse to escape from that ball?”
“You are very presumptuous to your future king,” he said, drawing out the words with royal entitlement.
Ohh. Maddeningly, the way he called himself ‘my future king’ made me wet. “You will not be my king,” I said. “I told you; I’m leaving Wyndyr. I think you’re the one who wants something forbidden tonight.”
“You know, I think my brother has already fucked half the kingdom,” he said. “Maybe I should just fuck you and damn the consequences, if that’s what you want.”
I had never actually said it was what I wanted, but…
I didn’t exactly correct him either.
He shoved the light, voluminous fabric of my skirts up higher across my chest and pushed my knees up toward my head, putting my wet sex on graceless display for him. That aroused me as much as the ‘my king’ business. I don’t know why. I should have been ashamed that the prince of the realm was getting a good look at my most intimate parts. I tried to master myself and then I wondered, was it so bad if I just gave in to this magic? But then what if I got pregnant? I didn’t even know how long it would take a ship to sail to Cabria, or how I would be treated when I got there, not as I was now, and certainly not if I had the elf prince’s bastard. It couldn’t possibly be a good idea.
What if Cabria is no better than here?
He looked at my legs and his expression softened. “What happened here? Your legs are covered in welts…”
“I forgot all about that. My stepmother was furious at me…”
“She beat you? This badly?”
“I told you she’s awful.”
“‘Awful’ is an understatement. It must hurt…” He sounded slightly impressed that I hadn’t mentioned it. He brushed a hand against my bottom, which had also felt the lash. “How far does this go? How often does she beat you like this?”
“This was a little worse than usual… I don’t really want to talk about it.” His grip slackened on my legs, and I lowered them again, pushing down my skirts. “Maybe I did ruin our attempt to lift the spell,” I said. “I didn’t mean to. Truly I didn’t. But…it was so nice to feel, for a moment, like I belonged to someone. Since my parents died, I’ve belonged to no one at all.”
He took my hand and pulled me up so I was sitting on the edge of the bed again. Then he cupped my face between his hands. “Ellara…”
Someone pounded on the door. Then the handle jiggled against the lock. “Ithrin! Are you in here? What are you doing? These girls are going to riot!”
“I’ll be there in a moment!” he called. He grimaced. “My brother. I knew I’d be interrupted before long. Ellara…I won’t harm you or your aunt. But we can’t go on like this.”
“N—no, I agree. Let’s try again.”
Now he drew me to my feet. I liked when he took my hands, and the way my skirts fluffed around me before settling down. I felt like a flower caught in the wind. I wasn’t used to feeling delicate and pretty anymore, although I dimly remembered being pleased with pretty dresses as a child. We stood together again, and recited the spell words.
I felt something knock my breath out of my chest for a moment, as if a hand had smacked against my breastbone. He clearly felt it too. We both stepped back. It was over quickly, leaving a faint ringing in my ears.
“Oh,” I gasped. “That must be it. We did it.”
He rubbed his hands. “Yes.” His dark eyes had turned unreadable. I don’t know what he was thinking.
“I am really sorry about this whole thing. But—it’s good we didn’t do anything we’d regret. And you can get back to your dances. I know you have a lot to do. All those girls. I don’t envy you, that’s for sure. You’ll have to waltz in double-time to get them all done.” I laughed faintly. I was babbling now. I knew the spell must have worked, but…I can’t say I really felt that different about him. I had thought he was beautiful even before the spell. Once my body had been awakened for him, I don’t know if it could be put to bed. But the intense, magically induced arousal had made me bold. Now that this was gone, I was nervous and flustered but just as attracted to him as ever. It made me want to push him away.
“Good night, Ellara. Tell your aunt to never use magic on any member of the high elf court again.” He left abruptly, leaving me standing in his bedroom all alone.
Chapter Eleven
Ellara
A moment later, another man peered in the doorway. He resembled Ithrin, but his face was more angular and lightly tanned, his eyes bright blue and alert. This must be Prince Wrindel, the playboy prince. Everyone gossiped about Wrindel. The brothers made me think of the moon and sun: one made for darkness and mystery, one for sunshine and pleasure.
“That was rude, wasn’t it?” Wrindel said, gesturing toward the hall where Ithrin must have just walked by. “Sorry, darling. He has no manners.” He took in the wrinkled state of my skirt. “Wait a minute…”
“We didn’t do anything,” I said. “It was actually my fault. My aunt cast a love spell on the two of us and we had to break the spell. Which we did. Easily
.” I didn’t want to make any more trouble for Ithrin by stirring his brother to suspicion. I curtseyed, unsure what else to do. “So I’ll be going.”
Wrindel stuck to my side as I tried to leave. “A love spell on my brother? He must have been furious. He’s insistent that you can’t fall in love in one evening.”
“I’m sure he’s right…”
“You’re a goblin?”
“Half-goblin.”
“How did you end up here?”
“My mother married an elf. Pretty simple.”
He paused, catching my shoulder. “Can I see those teeth?”
“Why?”
“You’re right. That was rude,” he said. “Just not many goblins around here.”
I sort of grimaced at him briefly. I was pretty self-conscious of my teeth. Goblins didn’t even have neat little cat fangs. No, my teeth were all the same length like human or elf teeth, only sharp, and narrower, so that I had more of them.
“I know I’m not suitable for your court,” I said. “I never meant for anything to happen. I’ll be leaving now.”
“Oh, no need for that. Who said you’re not suitable for our court? Did Ithrin tell you that?”
“No, I don’t need anyone to tell me. I know how elves feel about goblins.”
“You know how some elves feel about goblins,” he said. “Come on.” He took my hand. “If we have a reputation for hostility against goblins, then we had better remedy it now.”
Wrindel gave me some champagne—which I had never tasted before—and managed to coerce me into a dance. He was very persuasive. Almost too persuasive, I thought. I could see how he had such a reputation for charm, and I wasn’t sure I would enjoy it for very long. After all, my stepmother had been fairly charming when my father first brought her home. However, I thought my stepsisters would lose their minds to see me dancing with yet another prince, although I couldn’t spot them in the crowd.
My eyes still kept roving toward Ithrin. There he was, brushing by one moment, dancing with another girl, looking as cold as ever. He was much more graceful when he danced with girls who actually knew how to dance, but there was no joy in it, or so I told myself.
The Goblin Cinderella Page 6
