Wintersong(96)

“Yes,” I said. “You do.”

“I’m glad one of us finds the other amusing,” he fumed. “Because I am wroth with you.”

“I know, and I am sorry,” I said. “But I don’t regret it.”

The truth dropped between us like a stone, surprising the both of us. The Goblin King went livid, an ashen-gray color. But I … I was flush with life and fervor again. I did not need to look at a mirror to know that the pink had returned to my cheeks, or that a sparkle had returned to my eyes. I could feel it in the singing of my blood. I had set foot in the world above … and returned.

And the Goblin King was angry. His shoulders were heaving, his eyes alight, his lips tight. I felt his fury roll off him in waves, heating the air between us. He had once said he could no longer feel the intensity of emotion, but I knew that anger boiled his blood, and he held himself tight to contain it. My breath came quicker.

“What, mein Herr,” I said, “did you think I would say otherwise?”

I watched the pupils of those mismatched eyes contract and dilate. His fingers curled into claws. The wolf inside him was thrashing and shaking to get loose.

Come, I thought. Come and get me.

“Perhaps I was foolish enough to think that the consequences of your actions would have at least caused you some concern.”

I remembered the sky returning to cloudless blue, the leaves greening. I remembered tears in those pale eyes as the world around us returned to summer.

“Have I condemned the world to eternal winter?”

I could see the truth in the Goblin King’s mouth. His jaw tightened and his lips thinned with the effort of holding it back.

“No.”

“Have I set the denizens of the Underground loose upon the world?”

A furious pause. “No.”

“Then there’s been no harm done.”

Insouciant, impertinent, impudent. A coquette’s arsenal of flirtation, and I was reckless with it. He was so close to breaking, so close to grabbing me by the shoulders and punishing me. I wanted it. I wanted the pain and the pleasure, and the reminder that I was still alive.

“No harm done!” He grabbed a statue from the mantel and hurled it against the far wall. “What if I hadn’t heard you? What if I couldn’t bring you back? What if—” He stopped himself, but I heard the rest of that sentence, hanging in the air between us.

What if you didn’t want to come back?

I got up from the bed. With each step forward, the Goblin King retreated, but when I had his back pressed against the wall, he could run no farther from me. I placed my hands on his chest, a light touch, and rose up onto my toes to whisper in his ear.

“I came back,” I murmured. “Of my own free will.”

His hands shot out and gripped me about my shoulders, but whether to push me away or pull me close, I wasn’t sure. His fingers dug into the flesh about my upper arms.

“Don’t you ever, ever do that again.” Each word was a dart to my heart, deliberate and sure. “Ever.”

I felt both his anger and his fear in his grip. Every bit of him was strung with tension, balanced between wanting to put me in my place and wanting to let me go. His trembles traveled all the way down my body, like his passion was the finger that plucked the string connecting us, reverberations and resonance pooling deep within me.

So I kissed him.

The Goblin King was startled, but I grabbed his shirt and pulled him closer. I clung to him like a drowning man clings to a lifeline; he was my lifeline. He returned my kiss with desperation, over and over and over again, each one sloppier and rougher than the last. His arms tightened about me, his hands grasping at the back of my dress, while my own hands found the hem of his shirt and slid them against his bare skin.

It was like coming home.

“Don’t,” he whispered against my lips, fierce and urgent. “Don’t. Don’t. Don’t.”

Don’t touch me. Don’t tempt me. Don’t ever try to leave the Underground again. I did not understand what he was protesting, but it did not matter. We were two juggernauts on a collision course, and this joining had been a long time in the making.

“I won’t, I won’t, I won’t,” I said, but I did not know what I was promising. I did not care. My flesh leaped at his touch, erasing all conscious thought.

He tangled his fingers in my hair then, yanking me away from his lips. I struggled to kiss him again, but his grip was strong. He grabbed my chin with his other hand, forcing me to meet his gaze.

Those eyes. So pale, so startling, so different. His breath was hot against my face, and we stared at each other. I was stunned to see I was looking into the face of the austere young man, not Der Erlk?nig, not the wolf, and suddenly I understood what he had been pleading.

Don’t leave me.

A warmth spread from my center, turning my limbs liquid. But when that warmth reached my heart, it turned into pain.

“Never,” I breathed.

At my word, his eyes transformed. Hardening into jewels, the mask of Der Erlk?nig returned. He lowered his mouth to the column of my neck, a light touch of teeth, his hand moving to rest lightly against my collarbone.

“Good,” he growled.

And then with one swift motion, he tore the fabric of my dress from the neck down.

*

We are rough and reverent. We fall onto my bed together, a twisted, tangled knot of torn clothing and exposed limbs, a pair of wrestling wolves.