Three tests the witch had set for any woman who hoped to save my life.
It was not long before I realized I would die before my kingdom was restored. No one would pass such tests, for they required, above all, a girl who was capable of seeing the good in me and loving me for it, all within the space of a week.
And rapidly, all that was once good within me was dwindling.
I tried to fight it at first. This is what she wants, I thought, stubbornly. If I give in, she will have won.
But could anyone not have crumpled under such a life? I gave my heart over to hope again and again, only to be left alone at the end, every damn time.
Soon all that was left was my carnal desires. The women, a parade of selfish of flesh, of hands reaching for their coins. I had grown exhausted by love, restraint, and even conversation. I thrust my cock into them without any concern for their pleasures; they knew what they were getting into.
I had ruined it now, my careful detachment.
I had hope again, tonight, because this girl—
Sabela…
My subjects had also long since stopped revealing themselves to my visitors, but they trusted her. She had given me so many signals of hope. Her endless questions, her curiosity, her apparent attraction to my beastly features. She was intrigued by the life of a goblin maiden! Such a statement, coming from the mouth of a human girl. I could imagine her now, with leaves in her hair and soil ground into the soles of her feet, after a night of revels, catching my hand and asking me for one more dance. She would fit in, I thought, even with her human beauty.
For the first time in a long while, I wanted to make someone happy.
I thought of all this as I strolled my moonlit grounds, where fires had once burned and feasts had once been savored under the stars. I already missed her, not just my body but my mind. But as always, after a couple of hours, the physical urge was unbearable. My cock was straining against my trousers as I practically ran to her room. I stroked it before I entered, dying for relief, but my hand was incapable of satisfying me now.
Even as desperate as I was, I hesitated before waking her. She was so beautiful, her long chestnut hair spilled across the pillow, her pink lips so kissable. I pulled the covers off her body, admiring her full breasts, her curves. She was not as wiry and nimble-looking as a goblin maiden, but rather more soft and fertile looking.
I wanted her to enjoy waking up.
I pulled the sheet away from her hips and legs, which were already slightly spread, as if she was leaving herself ready for me. Gods, it was even harder to wait when I thought of that. I laid down between her legs and gently stroked her clit with my tongue.
She stirred, just as I wished, with a soft moan.
“Nyar?” she whispered. “What are you…oh…” Her thighs fell open, and she dragged her hand across her forehead, her entire body writhing and stirring. I could hardly stand it, but I forced myself to go slow with her. The joining would be all the better when I allowed myself to have it.
Damn it, you told yourself you would never do this again.
I could feel my true self stirring, wanting to let this girl in.
And then she will be gone, like all the others.
I teased my tongue at her entrance, tasting her wetness. She smelled sweet and thick with arousal. She was so very ready for me, but if I could bring her to climax first…
Growing impatient, I thrust my tongue inside her several times, drawing small gasps from her, before returning to her swollen clit, stroking it fast.
“Oh, please,” she cried, urging me on. Her feet wrapped around my back, and then she moaned with a complete lack of abandon. Her climax pulsed under my tongue. Finally, she wriggled away from me.
I could wait no longer. I spread her thighs for me, and she resisted just a little.
“I’m so tender now. Why do you do this to me?” she groaned.
I did love to fuck her after she had already come once, when she was burning inside, her limbs as limp as a rag doll, her eyes hooded lazily and her mouth slightly open, like she was trying to look surprised and couldn’t manage it.
Her protests didn’t last. She looked into my eyes and smiled. “Nyar…” Her voice was a whisper, full of feeling.
It had been a long time since I kissed anyone. Kisses were such an intimate gesture that I had long since stopped sharing them with anyone. I wanted to kiss her now, as much as I wanted to fuck her. And it terrified me.
I was falling hard and fast. Getting careless with my heart.
Stop this now, before it gets any worse.
I looked away from her, baring my fangs in a grimace, trying to focus only on the mounting sensations that would soon lead to a release. I was getting very rough with her, and she was starting to make her incoherent little mewling sounds again, and I bit my lip until I drew blood. Don’t look at her.
When I had finished, I pulled out of her and started walking to the door as I buttoned up my trousers.
“Nyar?” Her voice held both concern and irritation now, and it was the irritation that killed me more than anything. Irritation was such a normal sort of emotion. It tricked me into believing I had a normal sort of life. “Did I do something wrong? You seem upset.”
“You have done nothing wrong, except to exist,” I said. “I’ll be back again.”
The curse was cruel in that way, too; it would force me to return to her, tempting me each time into making conversation, giving her pieces of myself. I could not storm out and be done with her.
But perhaps she understood that I was regretting how far I had gone with her already. Twice more I returned, and she never spoke my name. In the morning, I asked her the same question as before, and she answered a simple yes.
I was more relieved than usual when I was able to retire to the glass coffin where I dreamed so heavily of the life I had once had.
Chapter Seven
I slept in that morning, knowing that once the sun rose, he would not come for me anymore. My bath and breakfast waited, staying warm for me all that time. Finally, I crawled out of bed. My body ached in a way that felt so good that as soon as I got out of the bath I was wet between the legs, thinking of the way Nyar had touched me and tasted me and even the rough way he was later on.
I liked every side of him. Why should this be? Had I been waiting all my life for someone to touch me like this, and I had never known it?
Maybe I had. It felt like something forbidden, something dark and full-flowered, like reading books on topics the church didn’t like. And I had always enjoyed that.
Looking back I felt as if he had always been the focus of my most secret thoughts. The picture of him in the book—the strangeness of him— It did something to me. It was as if I could admit who I really was, now that I was here.
I had increasingly greater sympathy for the king, to be aroused all the time, because it was hard to think of anything else in that state, and already I was wishing he was here to wake me with his touch. But I must.
I changed into a fresh linen shift and another simple dress, this one a dark red wool. I liked the simplicity of the clothing here, as I had never been one to fuss over my wardrobe. I hated how long it took to get dressed and fix my hair for dinner parties, while my sisters reveled in it.
The first thing I did was to check on the rose.
I was immediately dismayed to see a slight curl at the edges of the petals.
“Oh, no,” I said. “But you have water… Is there something I can give you to help you last longer?”
I rushed to the library, tearing through books, looking for something on keeping flowers fresh.
A pitcher hopped into the room, accompanied by a cup and a knife. I stopped what I was doing. “Hello,” I said. “Can you help the rose live any longer? I don’t know what to do. At this rate I’ll probably only have one more night.”
The pitcher tipped forward into the water cup, but there was no water inside.
“You need water?”
&n
bsp; I walked forward to the pitcher, and it began to jump out of reach. It led me all the way down into the grotto. The knife followed along, but I wasn’t sure why it was here—just curious, perhaps. Or at least I thought so, until I reached the grotto, the pitcher and knife stopping on the edge of the rocks after very carefully maneuvering toward the river.
My eyes locked, once again, on the beautiful man in the coffin.
“Who is he?” I whispered. “I so wish you could give me a clue.”
I took a step closer and the knife jumped in front of me, brandishing its blade.
I held up my hands. “Okay. I’m sorry. You don’t want me to go to him, do you?”
The knife fell flat, but as it did, the entire cave shook. Pebbles and rocks fell all around me, and I covered my head with a shriek, spreading my feet out a little to keep my balance on the slippery rocks. The waters of the river churned, as if angry, sloshing my boots.
Come closer.
A voice seemed to speak to me, as if from the river itself.
Come closer, child, don’t be afraid.
“Who are you?”
I am the spirit of the river.
The voice sounded female, rich and liquid, speaking directly to my ears as if the spirit was standing beside me.
You want a closer look, don’t you? Well, come on. I won’t hurt you. Cross my waters and come see him…
To demonstrate, the current immediately slowed down. Now it was so gentle that I could have lifted my skirts without fear and walked across the riverbed, even though it would probably reach up almost the entire length of my legs.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m sorry, but…I’m not sure it feels right to me. I am here to see Nyar, not this other fellow.”
Fellow? The voice laughed. You call a prince of the fey a ‘fellow’? He is the most beautiful man you’ve ever seen, I wager. And he is waiting for you. He’ll wake up if you give him a kiss.
Last night, I had wanted so badly for Nyar to kiss me, and for a moment, I thought he might. I had opened my mouth in anticipation. In my imagination, I felt his warm mouth meet mine, tasted my sex on his tongue, felt the brush of his fangs to my lips. But it had not happened. That was when he grew distant, when his lovemaking turned back to mere rutting.
What if the man in the coffin was Nyar?
What if this was his curse, to be a beautiful fairy prince only when he slept, and a lustful goblin at night?
I could imagine the beautiful man in the coffin blinking his eyes open in wondering joy as my lips met his. Even though I did not find Nyar all that ugly, it was still tempting to imagine coming home with such a handsome fairy prince…
I shook my head, coming to my senses. Nyar was a goblin, living in a goblin cavern, with paintings of his people on the walls. The beautiful man must be an illusion or a lure of some kind. I took a step back.
Where are you going?
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m not interested.”
Not interested?
“I think you’re trying to trick me.”
The slow current immediately quickened, the waters swelling past the banks, splashing against the rocks as if throwing a temper tantrum.
The pitcher was quivering nearby and I remembered that it had led me here. I still wanted to try and get some water from the river to feed the rose.
Of course, now the water was angry at me. I grabbed the pitcher and flattened my body out across the rocks so there was no way I could slip and fall, crawling forward on my hands and knees, even though the jagged rocks hurt my knees and my clothes were getting soaked. I clutched the pitcher tight and dipped it in the water.
A huge wave of water swept forward, drenching me, and I almost lost my grip on the pitcher. I tried to scramble back, scraping my knee, as the water lashed me again, this time spraying up into my face rather than down over my head. I choked on it, the horrid sensation of water in my nostrils, and blinked it out of my eyes, edging back blindly now.
I felt something grab my hand and try to yank me toward the river. A hand, formed of water, was pulling on me.
I struggled against the grip. I didn’t want to let the pitcher go. I tried to kick the watery arm, but it had no body except the river itself, and my strikes seemed to have no effect. I heard the sound of laughter.
“You’re the witch!” I shrieked. “A water fairy! Why did you curse him?”
He tricked my daughter! Stay away, my dear, he will only break your heart as he did hers!
“I don’t believe that. It’s been ten years! Whatever lesson you wanted to teach him, I think he’s learned!”
The water splashed up into my face again. Every inch of me was soaking wet, and the arm yanked me forward so I was about to lose my position on the rocks. In a moment I would be drowning—
But then the knife flew out and struck the arm, severing it, and it lost its grip on me, turning back into a river again. The knife slipped into the water and the river caught it up in a whirlpool.
“Knife!” I cried. I wished I knew its name. It was one of my king’s subjects, and if it was lost in the river, I would never knows its name or its face… I tried to reach for the knife, but the pitcher immediately tugged me back and I realized that the knife had chosen to sacrifice itself so that I might escape.
I scrambled backward and got to my feet as the river carried the knife away. I watched it disappear beneath the rocks where the river vanished through a tunnel.
I screamed with frustration and anger. I had lost one of Nyar’s subjects. The pitcher shivered in my hand, encouraging me to get away from the river before it tried to strike at me again.
I was biting back tears now as I picked my way over the rocks. I didn’t want the river witch to hear me cry.
When I was back in the safety of the hall, I tried to wipe my face on the hem of my soaked dress. “I’ll have to tell Nyar that I lost one of you…I’m so sorry. I’m so very sorry. I thought I was doing the right thing.”
The pitcher, of course, could not really reply. It just felt heavy in my hand.
I sloshed down the hall, shivering a little. My hair, my dress, my shoes…every inch of me was sopping. But before I dried off, I had to see if the water would revive the rose. At least then I would know the loss of the knife was not in vain.
I poured the water from the pitcher into the vase.
Almost immediately, the petals uncurled, looking fresh and soft as the day they were picked. I put my hand to my heart in relief. “So that’s a few more days,” I said. “But…it will be a risk to go to the grotto again.”
I stared into the petals of the rose, willing it to live forever, but I knew its life was fleeting and fragile.
“That must be the second test,” I said. “Was it to water the rose, or resist the lure of the water?”
The pitcher rattled in response, but I didn’t know what that meant, and I already knew the enchanted objects were forbidden from giving me definitive answers.
“I suppose it doesn’t matter,” I said. “That should mean I only have one more test to face, but…I’m sure it will be the hardest one.”
As I was speaking, I heard clinking, rattling and stomping farther down the hall. A broom was leading the way, swishing along the floor. Silverware hopped along; plates rolled; the grandfather clock was slowly edging forward. All the denizens of the castle began to gather around me in the front room, as if paying their respects.
The sight was heartbreaking, and a little eerie. I had such a sense of life around me, and yet there was no speech or breath, no footsteps, just the rather distressing sounds of household objects tumbling out of their proper places in life.
I didn’t know what to do but bow to them. “I suppose you know that one of the kitchen knives sacrificed him or herself for me, then. Well, for Nyar, really, as it should be. I believe he must have been a good king to you, for you all to serve him faithfully and try to help him like this. I wish I knew Knife’s real name. I wish I knew what to say. All I can do
is promise you that I will do everything within my power to free you from this curse.” I looked at the painting of the dancing maidens. “You will see days like this again.”
One of the towels leapt up to dry my hair, and a nice dry dress flew up to hover in front of my face. Just as I started to wonder—were my clothes goblin spirits too?—I realized it was held up by two clothespins. I quickly whipped off my damp gown and replaced it with the new one. If I were ever lucky enough to be the goblin king’s bride, all his subjects would have seen me naked, but it was hard to be too self conscious when I assumed half the objects in my room had already seen a lot more…
The dress they had brought me was not from my wardrobe. It was much like the dresses in the portrait. A goblin dress, not a human dress. The skirt was shorter, for freer movement, and it had outer sleeves that went down to my elbows, but below that, just a shift that could be rolled up to bare my forearms. I had to unlace the bodice generously, because I obviously had larger breasts than most goblin women. The bodice and skirt were simple brown wool trimmed with thin gold braid, the only bit of flash.
I understood that the wardrobe had been stocked with dresses for human visitors, but the offering of this dress meant they had accepted me as one of their own. “Thank you for this,” I said. “It’s exactly how I like to dress.”
A spoon and a buttonhook were making attempts to unlace my wet boots. I took their cue and removed them, and my stockings too.
Now a pair of scissors came dancing up to me, snipping at me. It pointed at the painting and snipped, and then jumped up to my hair.
“You want to make a goblin maiden out of me, do you?” I pulled my braids loose. “Go right ahead. It’s a nuisance anyway. Just…” I eyed its vigorous motions nervously. “Be careful of my ears.”
As the towel wrapped around my shoulders, the scissors went to work, expertly shearing away hair it had taken years to grow. Should I have been horrified? Somehow I wasn’t. My head felt much lighter and when a hand mirror came dancing up to me and I had a look, I saw that my dark hair now formed fetching little curls around my neck and shoulders and a few locks tumbled across my brow in a way that looked messy but expertly planned.
Beauty and the Goblin King Page 5
