Page 20 of Goblin Candy

“Me too,” she whispers as a soft rumble starts from a short distance ahead, and her fingers tighten at the human scream coming from that direction.

Not bad at all if they are making humans scream moments after entering. The environment in here does have a lot going for it.

The rickety interior of the haunted house reminds me of an old troll keep—one that is crumbling and in disuse, abandoned in one of their far-flung forests. The wood creaks and lies broken among loose stones all around us. Every surface has a thick layer of dust, cobwebs and debris coating it, the shadows in the dark corners shifting as if something within them are alive and drawing closer. Just a bit of goblin magic. I recognize it easily enough, but hearing the gasps from the couple just head brings a smile to my lips.

Candy doesn’t gasp but makes a soft humming sound in her throat as she peers around us. There is only a slight tension in her fingers that demonstrates her awareness of the magic at work even if she doesn’t give in to it.

We are kept spread out just enough that we eventually become separated from the humans in front of us, leaving us alone in the dimming interior. Thick webs flutter with an errant wind that springs up out of nowhere, and a goblin hidden all except for the faintest glow of his narrowly slit eyes releases a long angry hiss. I’m tempted to point him out so that my female won’t be nervous—except that along with her fear I smell the delectable scent of her desire kindling. I bite my tongue, staying the words.

We take a few more steps and goblin false light rolls through the air, its faint, long fingers dragging out as it circles in closer around us like pale apparitions. Then it wavers, turns, and barrels toward Candy with a shocking speed. The goblin throws his voice in a terrible scream, as he stretches the light until it takes on a more ghostly form. She recoils as it reaches for her, but there is no escape with its superior speed. It leaps upon her like a predator, drawing the smallest yelp from my mate only to break across her skin and scatter with a glimmer of light, dispersing as quickly as it came. My female, now wound tighter that a top-knot, lets out a startled laugh and the tension drains a bit from her body.

“Shit,” she whispers before sharing a quick grin with me. “That wasn’t expected.”

“False light,” I whisper cheerfully. “A useful goblin trick to flush out prey.”

“I could imagine it doing that very well,” she admits and nestles closer to me, the perfume of thickening scent going to straight to my head—both of them.

I swallow back a groan, but as we pass the goblin, I give him a brief gesture of approval with the hooked twist of my first two fingers that brings a smile to his face. He winks and waves me on.

Each room is better than the last, filling our ears with screams as we draw closer. Like Candy’s haunted library aisles, each “room” within the haunted house has a distinct link as we go through a great hall lined with groaning fairy armor with their distinctive spiked helmets that howl as they step down from their podiums with their blades swinging.. The subterranean beetle plates look genuine enough with their shiny black surface, and the spines on the helmet appear exactly like the spines and horns harvested from the same creatures. Smaller spines push up along the back of the shoulders to form a defensive barrier against damage to their wings when lowered.

I’m impressed. What fairy did they wrangle those from? They appear as dark and dangerous as any fairy on the hunt would look, and it is understandable that my mate instinctively jumps with a startled cry when they attack out of nowhere. Even the howls are accurate, creating the illusion down to the last detail.

Not a troll’s keep then, but a fairy burrow.

It is the very thing to terrify the human mind, even if they do not know it. Somewhere within all of them, my mate included, lies that ancestral memory that knows exactly what this is and what terrors—and pleasures, depending on the fairy in question—they can meet there.

I admit that even I feel uneasy with all of this. It wasn’t too long ago that I witnessed firsthand the efforts of a fairy hunt for a precious unicorn’s mare. That this gives the illusion that it is my mate being hunted makes my skin prickle unpleasantly, though I try to push the feeling away as I repeat the gesture of approval and appreciation to the performers as we exit the room into the next.

This new room makes my blood run cold and it’s I who stops, dragging my female to a halt by my side. There is a long golden table filled with food, and all around it are waxen figures of fairies posed in different positions, but among them are human skeletons and smashed skulls that litter the table and the floor around their feet. A mannequin resembling a half-mauled human female lay across the lap of a fairy female drinking deeply from her cup. The feast itself is all prop food, but the enchantment makes it glow with an ethereal light similar to what they use to tempt humans they wish to keep as mates or breeders into remaining with them forever.

From the corner of my eye, I see Candy turn toward it like a moth to the flame, her lips parting in wonder. I curl my fingers around her wrist and tighten the grip of my tail around her waist, but it is not enough to stop her from taking several half-stumbling steps toward the table, her hand reaching out for the reddest apple I’ve ever seen. She cries out in anger when I refuse to let her get any closer, but that seems to be all that is needed for the performers to begin their work.

The fairy prince at the head of the table turns his eyes toward her from over his goblet. He sets it down slowly and stands as every head turns toward her. The human draped across the fairy’s lap falls to the floor as she stands, the illusions of her wings raising with eagerness. Candy draws back at the sight, and the fairies’ features sharpen, curved claws extended and sharp teeth baring as they hiss.

“Grimsal?” she chokes out.

I drag her back against my chest, grateful when she offers no resistance. The one nearest to us strikes out with their claws, and though it is performance timed so that there wouldn’t be an injury, I instinctively snarl as I spin her away from him, my tail snaking from around her to slap at the male. It is only the smallest reprieve before the fairies are charging us, herding us toward the exit where the prince is closing in on us. He grins cruelly, extending his hand as if to grab Candy as we pass, and her shriek rings in my ears so loudly that I nearly eviscerate him as I instinctively lunge. Only the real shock and fear in the eyes of the goblin behind the illusion makes me withdraw at the last moment and push Candy into the next room ahead of me.

I shout when my mate is nearly swept away from me among the numerous dancing figures filling the room along the sides of the path. I drag her close to me as the dancers watch us as they move, some drawing closer, their masks becoming more frightful in appearance as they edge nearer. We hurry through as a howl echoes behind, and along the back edge of the wall the prince with his guard is heading toward us. His hunt! I know that this is yet another goblin disguised to resemble the same fairy character, but my mind feels wrapped in gauze, a fuzziness dulling my thoughts as my instincts shout to protect my mate.

The crowd parts for him as his shout rings out over them, clawed hands reaching for her to slow her for the chase. We dive from them and rush into the next room, which is a broken nightmare of darkness without more than the barest light to be seen. The fairy lights are getting brighter, the howls louder as the hunt descends. The trees act as if to grapple with us, working against us as they would in a true hunt. Candy screams and I pick her up, running with her in my arms out of the room and straight into the lights set up around the exit of the haunted house with Candy’s shrieks still ringing in my ears.

It is only then that I realize that her shrieks are not entirely those of fear. They are mingled with another sound that becomes clearer when she throws her head back and laughs as she clutches me closer to her in an enthusiastic hug, dragging me from the shadows of my own mind still grappling with the very real fear I felt in a construct set up by other goblins.

It was surreal—it was perfect!

I laugh as I return her hug, my entire body bubbling with the release tension that has me soaring high. Both of us actually, if her reaction is anything to go by. We are a pair of laughing lunatics and neither of us cares about the looks that we attract from those of the pale humans still lingering nearby after their own fraught journey through. At length they smile and relax before drifting away with their own stories to recount to their friends and families.

For only a moment, Candy and I are alone, our bodies trembling together with terror’s release, our instincts and desires singing to each other until my cock grows hard. Reluctantly, I lower her to her feet, noting that the fair is otherwise closed and the humans are leaving. This night of the hunt is over, and although it wasn’t entirely how I imagined it would be—coddling my frightened mate and giving her an extra chill here and there to spice the moment—it is one that is marked forever in my mind the true terror that comes with a mate. A precious gift that I shall remember forever.

“That was fucking great!” she shouts to the sky as her feet finally touch the ground.

I couldn’t agree more. But now—it is time to take her home, no matter how I hate to be parted from her.

CHAPTER14

CANDY

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