Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter
Twenty-Six
Cian
“What is it?” I sit in the kitchen looking at the
small, flat cake-thing my wife has been working on for days now. Meg has been
working on other things as well, but this odd bit of food seems to be her labor
of love.
I’ve spent the last few days working in the fields that feed
our village. I’ve been perfecting the irrigation system with the gnomes. At
night, I entertain the Fae who come from all over the plane to welcome the new
queen. Large tents have been set up around the village as though a great fair
has come to town. I’m happy with the coin that is now flowing around the
village as visitors spend money and trade goods with the locals. It’s been a
long time since my people had anything resembling prosperity.
My wife seems to think she has something to trade, too—this
odd-looking thing she’s prepared to force on me. She looks so cute with an
apron over her day clothes and flour in her hair. She looks good enough to eat,
and the now familiar ache starts in my groin.
I’m going to die if she doesn’t say yes soon.
“It’s a cookie,” my wife proclaims as though the word should
mean something.
I’m rapidly discovering that even with the bond, my mind
still wanders. It’s my wife’s fault. She has a smile that tends to melt my
insides. I force myself to concentrate on her words and not how creamy her skin
looks.
“I had to figure out how to substitute honey for sugar, but
I think I have it,” Meg continues. “It’s an oatmeal cookie. It’s better with
chocolate chips, but we don’t have any. Try one.”
That isn’t what I want to try. I want to get my mouth on her
breasts and that sweet, soft pussy of hers, but I’m playing a long game. Still,
I can’t disappoint her. I take the “cookie” and pray it tastes better than the
other meals she’s attempted to cook. My bride is beautiful and possesses a
sharp mind, but cooking is not a talent of hers. I’ve had to choke down dinner
all week and smile and tell her how edible it is. Flanna is attempting to teach
her a few tricks to Fae cooking. So far, it’s not working.
Her hand is on her hip, and there’s an offended look on her
pretty face. “It’s not going to kill you, Ci.”
I’m pretty sure it won’t. I quickly calculate my odds of
surviving Meg’s cookie experiment. I’m confident, when applying the laws of
rational deduction, that my odds are in the 99.783% range. Her foot taps
impatiently on the floor. I have a 100% chance of pissing off my wife if I
don’t eat the damn thing and manage to smile. I shove the cookie in my mouth
and gamely chew.
It’s not half bad. “It’s good.”
A wry smile quirks up her lips. “You don’t have to sound so
surprised. I never was a very good cook, but I always could bake. I didn’t get
these hips from following a low carb diet.”
I would ask her what she means, but I’m eating a second
cookie. It’s not good. It’s delicious. I’ve never really liked oats. They taste
like paper, but Meggie’s cookie is soft and sweet. I reach for a third.
She pulls the platter back. “Hey, I need those for the
goblins. Flanna says they’ve set up camp on the other side of the village in
the caves.”
Oh, I know all about the goblins. It was not a surprise when
they showed up. In a way, it’s a good thing. They bring trade. The goblins live
on the plane and choose to do business with the village, but they’re not here
to pay court to the kings and their queen. They are Unseelie. They are
potentially very dangerous. “You aren’t meeting the goblins, my lover.”
“Why not? I’ve met everyone else,” Meg points out with a
breezy lack of concern.
It’s a huge change from the worried girl I met a few days
ago. Meg has settled in nicely. She’s growing in confidence and proving herself
a good partner. She’s polite when she needs to be, and she has good instincts
as to when a small show of temper is required. Patience and gentleness works
with the brownies and gnomes, but I was proud when Meg slapped one of the cave
dwarves silly. The dwarf was downright rude about humans being a bit lacking in
the brain department. She smacked his hard little head. Sorry, she
said with an innocent smile. I’m not smart enough to control my impulses.
The dwarves have all watched their tongues since. It’s now
being said that the queen can be viciously brutal when she wants to be. It’s a
compliment coming from the dwarves.
I watch the cookies go into a basket. It’s a whole lot of
cookies. The goblins might not even like them. My wife certainly won’t be
wandering into a goblin cave with her pretty smile and basket of treats. The
goblins will just as likely eat her. “The goblins aren’t here to meet you. They
come because of all the trade that goes on at gatherings like this.”
Meg looks thoughtful for a moment. “What would goblins
trade?”
I love her questions. She’s the most curious woman I’ve ever
met. “All manner of things. They tend to scavenge, so you can bet they have
items from other planes. If we had anything to trade, I’m sure we could find
something to intrigue you. The only thing they make themselves is a strange
form of liquor. It’s a brown drink they brew from beans they find in the
mountains. It gets goblins drunk, but it just makes me jittery.”
“Because, of course, you have to try goblin moonshine,” Meg
says with an affectionate laugh.
I shrug. “If someone tells me it’s liquor, I’ll try it. I
didn’t like this stuff, though. It smelled lovely but tasted bitter.”
Her hazel eyes flare and she’s very serious all of the
sudden. “Beans from the mountains? Makes you jittery? Would you say it’s an
acquired taste?”
“I don’t know who would want to acquire it.” I shake my head
as I think about that drink. It’s very bitter and acidic, and the goblins serve
it at a scalding temperature. “It makes you jittery if you drink too much, and
then it’s like you’re addicted. If you don’t get it, you have a headache.”
“Like the one I’ve had for a freaking week and a half,” Meg
snarls. She takes me by the shirt, fisting the fabric in her hands to draw me
close. “You will take me to the coffee.”
I feel my eyes widen, and for a moment I wonder if the
dwarves haven’t hit it on the head. My queen does, indeed, look a bit vicious.
“They don’t call it coffee.”
“I don’t care what they call it,” Meg swears. “I want it.
I’m a pot-a-day coffee drinker who’s been without it for weeks now. You will
get me that coffee. Do you understand?”
“It’s become my new quest, wife.” I never argue with a woman
when she gets that look in her eyes.
Meg backs off and smiles. “Excellent. We can trade the
cookies for the coffee.”
She places a cloth over the full basket and smooths down her
new skirts. Some of the women of the village held a small sewing party to make
the queen a functional wardrobe. Meg was effusive in her praise of the three
dresses, two pairs of pants, two shirts, and some nice undergarments. She made
the women promise to teach her what they know. Her gracious acceptance of their
rather plain garments endeared her to the women of the village. It’s the kind
of thing that Beck would have turned down, fearing he was taking advantage of
his subjects.
What Beck doesn’t—won’t—understand is that people need to be
needed. Those women enjoyed giving their queen a gift she appreciates. Beck
holds himself apart. While the people love him for his loyal defense of their
lives and property, they rarely speak to him beyond saying hello. They rarely
ask his counsel or wonder about his health. Meg is going to change some of
that.
If she survives meeting the goblins.
“Are you ready?”
“No.” I don’t particularly want to go meet the goblins
without Beck at my back.
“Good,” she replies as though I had cheerfully said yes.
She picks up her basket and walks straight out the door.
Where did my day go wrong? I planned it all out. I worked
hard all week so I would be able to spend this afternoon seducing my wife, and
now I have to follow her into a goblin cave where she intends to talk them into
exchanging their precious liquor for sweetened oat cakes.
I’ve gone down the wrong road.
I slide off my stool and run to catch up with my wife. Her
hips sway invitingly in her pretty skirt. She turns and winks as she walks down
the lane. I jog the last of the distance between us and slip my hand into hers.
She’s talking and moving with a sweet feminine energy that has me sighing.
I might be going down the wrong road, but it’s the one she
picked. I will never let her walk alone.