Page 27 of Goblin Candy

“Argh. It pleases me to the bones, it does.” My attempt at speaking pirate seems to delight my mate because she lets out a laugh.

Then she snaps her fingers and drags us to a halt. “Oh, wait, I almost forgot!”

I lift an eyebrow and watch her hustle back into her apartment, but my eyes widen when she returns a moment later with a large bucket overflowing with candies. Instinctively, I take a step toward them, lured by the rich decadence I can smell from the accumulation of chocolate, but she flattens her hands against my chest to push me back from them.

“I don’t think so. Those are for the trick or treaters,” she chides.

“Surely they won’t miss one,” I protest.

Candy gives me a sidelong look and fishes a couple of mini chocolate bars out of her purse and hands them to me with an impish look.

“Here. I really can’t resist either and have a small supply on me. I’ll share.”

I touch a hand to my chest in delight. “You will share your treasures with me, wench?”

“That’s mistress demon wench to you, pirate,” she chuckles as she takes my arm once more.

I pop a chocolate into my mouth and grin down at her. “I stand corrected, my dark temptress. Shall we go?”

“Let’s.”

The party is only a short drive from the apartment building in what Candy calls a Community Center that has been rented out. I can hear the vigorous beat of the music from the parking lot as we get out of the car, and already my tail is swishing in excitement to the rhythm. Once we step inside, however, the music is almost intolerable with how loud it is, and I’m forced to close my inner ear canal to dim the volume as I look around with fascination.

The entire large room that the door opens into is awash in all kinds of orange and black décor resembling spiders and giant pumpkins. There are even long paper streamers of the same colors hanging from the ceiling above us. Nearby a long table piled with all manner of sweets catches my eye, but I barely have a moment to appreciate it when a familiar, unwelcome smell hits my nose, and a growl rolls up my throat as I turn to glare at my human would-be rival.

Kyle.

The loathsomeness of his very name claws at me as my eyes track his movement as he pushes his way toward us through the crowd.I want to stuff him full of chocolate like a turkey and hang him from a tree above a fire ant mound to slowly be devoured. I want to pull off his arms and beat him with them. I want to…My thoughts flee as Candy squeezes my arm and presses close to me, comforting me with the reminder that she has chosen me over him already. There is no rival or fight to be won.

“Fuck. Not this again,” she groans at my side, and I can feel her fingers dig slightly into my arm.

I make a comforting noise in the back of my throat as I narrow my eyes on the male as he draws closer. Of course he just has to be dressed like a pirate as well. I flatter myself to think my costume is better made and far less tacky, but it still annoys me to see him there with his dark scruff of beard trying to out-pirate me. The fact that he had no way of knowing that I too was coming as a pirate is inconsequential. Logic doesn’t play well with instinctive things such as rivalry.

Thankfully, my mate’s touch keeps me grounded, and although her carefully blanked face gives little away, the way she grips me as she pushes a little in front of me to meet him communicates her impatience. My sweet Candy is a formidable goddess personified as she glowers at the human, so I decide that I’m content to watch her handle things. I’m here to back her up if he needs further convincing… and it will truly be my pleasure.

To my delight, the male’s face sours the moment his eyes fall on me, his expression darkening as he notes my superior pirate ensemble that flatters my decadent temptress. His nostrils flare as twin splotches of pink stain his cheeks that are nowhere near as flattering on him as they are on my Candy when she blushes. He turns away from me and pins my mate with a hard look that tempts me to break him if she didn’t straighten aggressively to face him so fearlessly. A soft purr escapes me as I gaze admiringly upon my female as she sighs and faces off with her previous—far inferior—male.

“Good evening, Kyle. Great party, huh? I assume with all this fun going on that there’s a reason you’ve come barreling up us like this other than just to try and ruin our evening.” She raises an eyebrow impatiently at him.

His cheeks brighten further and his jaw hardens, jutting his weak nub of a chin out so that it makes it a perfectly hittable target. I stare intently at it and smile as his eyes begin to shift warily toward me before snapping back to my female.

“I just thought we could talk, Candy. Halloween is over and I know it’s probably been a wild ride for you, but I figure with November second just around the bend and the return to the real world—like your job—coming up that you would have a bit more circumspect now and be willing to put aside whatever silliness you have going on with this creature.”

I blink. Did he just call me a creature?

“Creature?” my mate hisses, incised. “Silliness?First, Grimsal is not a creature, he’s a wonderful male who makes me laugh and shares the same interests and pleasures that I do.” She smirks as she adds, “And he’s the best fuck I’ve ever had.”

I grin at that and brush my hand down my vest. Vulgar but true, and that is the best combination as far as I’m concerned. I wink at my mate as she quickly blows a kiss in my direction to indicate that she means it with all love—which I already know. Even better, the look he turns on me is growing irater by the minute.

“Second, this ‘silliness’ has been hands down the best Halloween I’ve ever had. Shit, the best week I’ve ever had.Ever,” she enunciates slowly. “So you want to talk. Okay, talk. Tell me why you think I should even entertain giving all that up for someone who hates being over at my place, who expects me to look like a hot succubus twenty-four-seven—which, don’t get me wrong, is fun sometimes,” she assures me before returning her glare to him, “but not how I endeavor to spend every waking moment. You hate my music and generally anything that I enjoy that doesn’t directly benefit you. I stupidly tolerated it because you can be sweet when you want to and I know that my passions aren’t for everyone, but you dumped me and I’ve moved on to someone better.” Her expression softens minutely as she shakes her head. “I’m not going to stop being me, and I deserve to be with someone who likes all of this. The whole package.”

“Not just like. Love. Adore, Worship,” I add, wrapping my tail possessively around her as I lift my eyes above her head and pin the human male with my gaze. Silently daring him to do anything stupid.

He stares at us for a long moment, his jaw working, and he takes a step back from us as he brushes his blonde hair out of his brown eyes. A bitter laugh escapes him as he sneers at my mate.

“Your loss, Candy. I figured we would hook up again tonight and I would let you go wild with your Halloween crazies. I could deal with it for one day for you. I didn’t even bring a date because it’s all you one hundred percent. Shit is hot between us aside from all this oogie boogie bullshit, but I was willing to let you have your time to do your thing despite it. If you prefer some…monsterover me then you’re sicker in the head than I thought. Guess my parents were right,” he adds, an obvious dig by the way my mate’s face tightens, throwing more fuel onto my anger.

Thankfully, my Candy doesn’t cry. Instead, she lets out a humorless snort and gives him a hard smile. “I feel like such a loser now for valuing myself and finding someone who treats me well rather than taking back a guy who dumped me for a couple of weeks to go fuck every girl in his zip code. And if Grimsal is a monster, monsters sure as hell do it better.”

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