Page 26 of Goldilocks (Salt and Starlight #2)

Jasper, the long-tailed guard, was waiting on the dock as they entered the cove. His sword was strapped to his hip, with his palm resting on the pommel. Laurence stood facing the settlement across the bay. “Is that a castle up the top?”

“Looks like one.” Sam tossed his ropes onto the dock and, without prompting, Jasper bent to tie them.

As Jasper straightened, the movement must have caught Laurence’s eye because he turned to him. Sam watched Laurence’s eyes widen to saucers. With a nimble jump, he hopped from the boat to the dock. “You have a tail!” he exclaimed. “That is so so so cool! Sam, did you see his tail?” He bent his head, staring hard. Jasper’s tail lashed, and a note of excitement rose in Laurence’s throat. “It moves like a cat’s! Would it be weird if I touched it? Is that normal? That’s probably not normal, right?” He lifted his hand, his fingers motioning as if he’d just run his hand over the tail.

Jasper’s nose scrunched. His tail lashed again, quick as a whip. Out. Then up. Laurence yelped, jumping high in the air as the tail cracked against his thigh.

Sam flinched at the sound, jumping quickly onto the dock. “Hey,” he barked, putting himself in front of Laurence. “What the hell was that?”

The growl in Jasper’s throat died, his eyes flashing to Sam’s face. A symphony of ow ow ow’s sounded from behind him, and he heard Laurence jumping around. Sam winced in sympathy. He knew from the sound of the impact he’d just been hit hard.

Goldilocks, on board changing into clothes, stepped out from the cabin. At the same time, Bee and Dew lifted half out of the water, both snarling at Jasper. Jasper’s gaze jumped from them to Goldilocks, his eyes slowly widening in fear. Goldilocks spoke in a language Sam didn’t understand, and Sam watched as the colour drained from Jasper’s face. His tail abruptly ceased lashing and curled tightly around his own leg.

Jasper bowed his head, and with his tail trembling, he stepped forward. Sam watched him closely, but from the way the mermen were glaring at him, he knew Laurence wasn’t in danger of another strike. Laurence stiffened as the guard stepped up to him. He murmured a few words that Sam didn’t understand, and he very gently leaned in, nuzzling Laurence’s cheek.

Sam frowned when that nuzzle included a lick. He stayed close, ready to intervene, but watched as Laurence rubbed a confused hand over his other cheek, wiping away a few tears. “I wasn’t going to grab your tail,” he said, a tremor in his voice.

Jasper answered in his own language. He glanced down, took both of Laurence’s hands and guided his fingers open. He unfurled his tail and placed it atop Laurence’s palms. That was all it took for all of Laurence’s upset to vanish. Laurence blinked, cast one uncertain look at Jasper’s face, and then let his fingers run over the length of tail delivered into his hands.

“It’s warm,” Laurence said. “And soft.” He ran his hands all the way to the end, where the slim tail ended in feathered tufts.

“Shall I tear it off?” Bee asked. He glared at Jasper still, and Sam saw the tremble in Jasper’s body. He leaned in, nuzzling Laurence’s cheek once more, and a low note of fear hummed from him.

“No!” Laurence sounded horrified. “Why would you do that?”

Bee snorted and dropped into the water. Dew glared at the trembling guard before following after him. The tip of the guard’s tail lashed in Laurence’s loose grip. He spoke against his cheek.

“What is he saying?” Sam asked Goldilocks.

“He is apologising for striking Laurence,” Goldilocks translated. “He did not realise who he was.”

“You mean he didn’t realise there were two mermen ready to drown him for it?” Sam surmised.

“Yes,” Goldilocks said. “Come. We will tend the lash.”

Goldilocks led Sam, and he paused to make sure Laurence came as well. Jasper walked next to Laurence, tail constantly reaching out to feather against the back of Laurence’s calves. When Laurence cast the guard a smile, he leaned in to quickly nuzzle Laurence’s cheek.

“Are you okay?” Sam asked, noticing his slight limp.

Laurence rubbed his thigh, casting Sam a smile. “I’m okay. It just hurts a little. I wasn’t going to grab his tail,” he added. “I didn’t mean to scare him. Or offend him. Or for Bee to threaten to tear it off.” Laurence’s smile faded as he looked to the ocean.

“It was nice of me to let him keep it,” Goldilocks pointed out.

Sam cast him a look. “Are you going to bring it up every time you’re slightly nice? And just to be clear, I don’t consider you deciding not to rip someone’s limb off nice. That’s more like…” Sam struggled to find the right word. “I don’t even know what that is, actually.”

“Nice,” Goldilocks supplied. “Kind. Merciful.”

Laurence snickered, and Sam levelled an exasperated look at Goldilocks. And he knew, plainly, from the puzzled look that Goldilocks returned to him, that he didn’t understand why Sam wasn’t impressed by his kind gesture.

“Do you often tear off people’s tails?” Sam asked. Maybe before he considered dating Goldilocks, he should first determine if he was jumping into bed with a bloodthirsty creature.

“No,” Goldilocks answered as they stepped off the pier onto the front step. “It is never necessary.” And he tilted his head, his eyes flicking to Jasper and Laurence. “Jasper is a skilled fighter. It would be a shame for him to lose his tail. His brother works for the city; he manages the Order, and his sister works at the castle, organising its guard. An impressive warrior in her own right, though she does not fight often anymore.”

“I see,” Sam said. He wouldn’t say that it didn’t make much sense to him, but he listened. He often talked to Goldilocks about his own life – had been doing so long before Goldilocks could answer him – and Goldilocks had always listened attentively. Focusing on Sam with interest in his eyes. And they’d argued too, Sam with words, Goldilocks with snarls and hisses. He still used the glares.

Goldilocks strode inside the open entrance way. “We will be in our rooms. Laurence, Jasper will show you to the gardens. Bee and Dew will meet you there. They prefer to take the tunnels.”

Laurence was already crouched down, examining the pool cut into the middle of the floor. “This leads to the ocean?” he asked. “That’s cool. I wonder, could we build one of these in our house? Adonis always has a hard time keeping his legs.”

Goldilocks’s huff was, to Sam’s ear, derogatory. “He struggles with many things.”

“This is the same Adonis who can heal stab wounds,” Sam pointed out.

Goldilocks’s top lip twitched. “All others in his line were far more skilled. Though they may have lacked his brute strength, they were instead graced with manners.”

Sam pressed his lips together hard. Laurence giggled by the pool. “Nick’s always making comments about Adonis’s manners too. I like him tons though, even if he’s kind of a dick to me most of the time. He’s always trying to chase me off when he thinks Connor isn’t looking.” Laurence straightened up, his eyes shining. “ And he thinks that Connor is my dad, no matter how many times we try to explain it to him.”

“He still thinks that?” Sam asked in surprise.

Laurence shrugged. “I’ve given up correcting him. What does it matter anyway? I’m going to look around. Is there anywhere I can’t go?”

“You may explore as you like,” Goldilocks said. “Sam, this way.”

Sam watched Laurence trot off through a doorway with Jasper on his heels. He glanced at Goldilocks. “It’s okay for him to just explore? It isn’t even your house, right? It’s Vi’s. Though she’s married – sorry, mated – to your sister?” Sam didn’t prompt him for an explanation about Goldilocks’s sister. He hadn’t asked, nor had it been said outright, but he was sure, based on their last visit, that Goldilocks’s sister wasn’t around anymore.

“It is okay,” Goldilocks confirmed. “Jasper will keep him from where he should not go.”

Sam followed Goldilocks to the bedroom from before. “Sit here.” Goldilocks gestured to a table and chair. They were set up just before the open doors leading to a balcony. A stone barrier that came to waist height blocked off a short drop to the ground below. The light was fading from the sky already, and a hot, dry breeze drifted in. The balmy warmth was already too much for Sam’s sweater.

Sam shrugged it off, folding and placing it onto the bed before sitting at the table. He turned up his palm and watched as Goldilocks carefully unravelled the bandage. Angry red skin was slowly revealed on the inside of Sam’s hand. The cuts across his palm were shallow but numerous. And clearly, from the colour of the surrounding skin, a darker red than what he’d seen first thing that morning when wrapping his hand, it was infected.

“I definitely need to go to the doctor,” Sam said to himself.

“I am bringing the doctor,” Goldilocks reminded him. He dropped the dirty bandages into a tub on the ground and very gently took hold of Sam’s hand, examining the injury.

“I know, but one of my doctors too.”

Goldilocks flicked his gaze up, meeting Sam’s eyes. “Are your doctors skilled?”

Sam didn’t want to judge, but honestly? This world didn’t exactly seem particularly advanced. Their ships were all using sails, and there wasn’t a hint of anything electric in this home. “I mean…maybe? I don’t mean this as an insult, but I think my world might be a little more advanced technology-wise.”

Goldilocks didn’t say anything.

Sam cringed, hoping he hadn’t just insulted him. “That doesn’t make you mad at me, does it?”

“I live in the ocean,” Goldilocks pointed out. “And your oceans are the same as mine.”

“Untrue. Yours have scary worms in them.” Sam leaned back, wincing as Goldilocks guided his hand towards the table. “Although, I suppose now ours do too.”

“I will find the rest,” Goldilocks promised. “So that your oceans remain safe.”

There was a knock, and Goldilocks called out in his own language. A woman approached them, pushing a trolley. She bowed her head to Goldilocks and said a few words before she turned on her heel and quickly left.

“Vi is on her way,” Goldilocks answered Sam’s questioning look. “I told her to prepare her materials. There are herbs in here that will disinfect and numb.” He took a cloth from the trolley and dipped it into the steaming water. He wrung out the excess water and gently placed it onto Sam’s palm. Sam winced, the contact stinging, but he held still. Goldilocks leaned in, butting his forehead gently against Sam’s. “You are a brave mate,” he praised.

Sam shut his eyes, Goldilocks’s face too close to focus on. “When have I ever done anything brave?” he questioned.

“Most fear me; you do not.”

Sam chuckled. “Being afraid of you would probably be smart?” At the very least, ‘wary’ would be smart. But that was hard to do. Sam had gotten to know Goldilocks as the impatient creature who would fuss about Sam not paying attention to him, and even though he saw now just how powerful Goldilocks really was, it wasn’t enough to dislodge the first impression already imprinted on Sam’s mind. Seeing for himself what Goldilocks could do didn’t erase the months of company that Goldilocks had given him on the water, especially when Sam had been – and he was willing to admit this now, if only to himself – incredibly lonely. Before Goldilocks, his days had begun to blur together. Not meaningless, but…unremarkable. Flat. Uninteresting.

Goldilocks moved, tilting sideways so he could press his mouth over Sam’s. His hand rose to cup Sam’s cheek, and he stroked his skin with a soothing touch. Sam leaned into the soft kiss, enjoying the caress, the plump lips that sucked gently on his bottom lip. Unbidden, a soft groan hummed from his throat, and Goldilocks swallowed that sound with a pleased hum of his own.

Goldilocks withdrew and Sam followed, wanting to extend the kiss a few moments longer. “We will mate,” Goldilocks stated bluntly, as he’d done many times now. “If Vi says you are well.”

Sam pulled back enough to meet Goldilocks’s eyes. The golden iris shone brightly, and something in the way he stared made Sam’s throat dry and forced him to swallow. Unable to keep eye contact, he averted his gaze toward the larger-than-life bed in the room. Sam had already almost gone along with this mounting thing twice, and both times had been before Goldilocks had joined him at the bar and told Mary matter-of-factly that he was Sam’s boyfriend. And there was the fact that seconds ago, he’d called Sam his mate, and Sam would be an idiot to think he meant it as English slang for friend.

“You want to top, right?” Sam murmured, feeling his skin heating. His lack of boyfriends the past few years meant having a conversation like this made him feel squirmy and uncomfortable inside.

“Top?” Goldilocks repeated.

Sam’s face burned hotter. There would be no vague illusions here to spare himself from actually saying anything embarrassing. “You want to enter me. Put your cock in.” He chanced the quickest of peeks at Goldilocks’s expression. His top lip was doing that thing. That twitch, which meant he wanted to snarl, but despite that usually indicating Goldilocks was somehow irritated, the shape of his eyes was undoubtedly amused.

“Does having seed to spill confuse you?” Goldilocks asked, and that amusement Sam saw in his eyes made it to his voice.

“Don’t be a jerk,” Sam said. “Our species are totally different. You clearly have this whole – dominance thing in yours…that…that…” Sam struggled to find his words.

“Have you tried to mount others before?” Goldilocks asked with mirth. “You are a very sweet mate.” He cupped Sam’s cheek and kissed him again, and midway through the kiss, he began to chuckle. “How amusing. Perhaps you may try to mount me?” Goldilocks kissed Sam’s cheek and then the corner of his jaw. “If you try very hard, I may let you mount my mouth. Would you like that?”

Sam’s awareness of the skin under Goldilocks’s mouth was torturous. Warm prickles spread over his skin, and his cock stirred in his trousers. Breath altered, Sam’s eyelids weighed down to half-lids, and despite the fact that Goldilocks was kind of being a dick, his entire body leaned toward Goldilocks wanting more. Sam could insist that this was a species thing. Another one of their misunderstandings. But a warm hand slid up Sam’s thigh, and his eyes shut entirely.

Sam groaned, lust overwhelming his senses.

Goldilocks chuckled. “And you think you should mount others? You are too sweet for words.”

Irritated and aroused, Sam reached for Goldilocks’s face to pull him into a kiss.

A sudden band of pressure clamped down on his wrist and stopped him dead. Sam reeled back in surprise. Goldilocks’s eyes flashed a warning as Sam retreated enough to meet them, and Sam tore his gaze from that warning to his wrist in a hard grip. He wasn’t hurting Sam, but a small tug showed him that his arm was stuck fast in Goldilocks’s fist.

“What?” Sam asked.

“You forget yourself,” Goldilocks told him. There was a note of censure in his voice, though he lacked any real bite.

Sam frowned. “What?”

Goldilocks moved his gaze from Sam’s eyes to his hand. He grunted. “We will continue later.” His gaze roamed the hand he had locked in his grip, and Sam watched mutely as Goldilocks guided it back to the table. He dipped and wrung out a fresh rag. The one that had been placed over Sam’s injury moments ago was now on the ground, displaced by Sam when he’d moved.

“ Oh. ” A bolt of understanding shot through Sam. His injury. His hand. That was the reason Goldilocks had caught his wrist just now and stopped him. He’d prevented Sam from grabbing his hair like an idiot and probably prevented him from worsening an already infected cut.

“Do not be upset,” Goldilocks said. “I enjoy your forwardness greatly, but we must treat this before we enjoy each other.”

Sudden fear, followed by sharp relief, left Sam mentally unprepared for Goldilocks to keep talking like he did. Sam angled his face away, trying to hide that the almost condescending way Goldilocks had just spoken to Sam honestly relieved him. Sam was inexperienced in everything to do with relationships, and being told that he hadn’t just embarrassed himself by giving into the feelings that had been swelling within him was frankly a comfort.

“Do not worry,” Goldilocks insisted. He nudged Sam’s chin toward him and pressed a kiss to his lips again. “You have not displeased me.”

Sam huffed. The extent of his relief at the reassurances had quickly been met. “You know, you keep saying stuff like that, as if my top priority should be pleasing you.”

“You are naturally very talented at doing so,” Goldilocks told him in a tone of total reassurance. “Do not worry about your inexperience; it is no barrier.”

Sam blinked in surprise. A self-conscious thought darted through his mind, a worry about how, despite Sam having never mentioned his experience level, Goldilocks could tell it was minimal. But then the next thought was about how practically nobody in the world had experience getting physical with a merman, and he didn’t feel quite so worried anymore.

A knock at the door drew Sam from his thoughts.

“Enter,” Goldilocks called.

Vi stepped into the room in a full-length dark-red dress, this one made from a billowy and light fabric, with a white apron like a cook’s uniform tied to her front. At her side trotted in the woman who had brought them the trolley, now carrying a tray of vials.

Vi inclined her head toward Sam. “Goldilocks told me what happened.” She strode forward. Goldilocks stood from the chair, and Vi slid into his place. She removed the rag from Sam’s hand, examining the angry red skin.

She indicated for Sam to show her his other arm, and she examined the small puncture wound on his wrist. At least, she looked where there used to be a puncture wound; now there was nothing.

“Goldilocks mentioned you studied ghouls?” Sam asked.

“Yes, and I have experience with ghoul wounds. I’m the one who tended Goldilocks back to health, and his injuries were far more severe. This one” – she squeezed his unblemished right hand – “is where it would have tried to feed from you. Those injuries never infect and disappear within hours.”

Sam looked at Goldilocks in surprise. “You were injured by ghouls?”

A glance showed no trace of any injury on him, so the injuries were probably before Sam had known him. Unless someone had healed him the way Adonis could. Goldilocks had made that remark about Adonis’s line and others sharing the same gift of healing. But even as Sam considered, it seemed unreal that something like that could manage to hurt Goldilocks. A worm? Something that had left his own skin shredded and Goldilocks’s unblemished?

Vi studied Goldilocks’s expression before she nodded. “In the past, yes. A well-fed and powerful ghoul preyed upon him.” There was a hard note in her voice. “They can be very sly. Dangerously intelligent. And depending on what they eat, incredibly powerful. Look at me, Sam. Let me see your eyes. You recall the entirety of the attack?”

“It’s not something that I’ll forget in a hurry.”

Sam itched to cast his gaze aside but held still as Vi stared into his eyes. “One of their nastier tricks leaves their victim with no memory of an attack even occurring,” Vi said. “It must not have had enough time to properly feed on you.”

Sam broke eye contact to look at the smooth skin of his wrist. He didn’t like the sound of feed on you one bit. It didn’t sound like she meant ‘eat’. “Feed on what part of me, exactly?”

“Everything it can. They erode the mind, the spirit, and eventually, the body. If they do not kill their victims outright, they are left as empty husks.” Vi stood, and the other woman stepped forward, opening the top lid of the case she held. Vi’s nails clinked over sea-green glass bottles nestled in among cloth. “There’s discolouration in your pupils and agitation around the rim of your eyes. I’ve studied extensively to always recognise even the smallest of signs. It may not have stolen your memory of the attack, but it took something from you. Drink this today. This one tomorrow, and this one the day after. Your case isn’t severe, so this will be enough to restore your energies.”

Sam took the bottles he was handed without complaint. She was saying that the worm fed on him? But Sam didn’t feel lacking in ‘energies’. If anything, he was feeling good, despite the drama at his house. He’d slept well the past two nights on the boat with Goldilocks. And he’d woken today without even the glimmer of a headache in sight, simply an ache in his hand.

Sam tuned back into the conversation at his name leaving Goldilocks’s lips. “Sam’s sire requires a guard to search his property inland. I will be taking Jasper.”

Vi nodded her approval. “He is more than up to the task and eager for the chance to see more action than guarding a house that a merman frequents can provide. And I have nurses here to be interviewed if you have time before you depart. I have begun instructing them in English so that they can properly tend to your mate’s sire when he arrives.” Vi inclined her head toward Sam. “Keep the bandages clean on that hand. The wound isn’t deep enough for stitches, and I’ve provided the balms needed to keep the infection at bay. And,” she hesitated, “I am glad you are unscathed.” Despite her brisk manner, there was genuine warmth in her voice.

“Thank you, Vi,” Sam said.

“Goldilocks.” Her attention moved quickly back to the merman. “I have what you requested. I will fetch it after greeting our guest. Food will be served in the garden shortly.”

Vi and the woman left, and Sam turned his attention to the glass vials in his hand. He set them down on the table and held down a feeling of revulsion to see that the liquid inside was thick like honey. “Today was the first time you suggested my dad move here, so why are there already nurses?” He couldn’t have sent a message ahead. Not when they’d come together right after Sam told him about the intruder.

“I requested Vi find some after your last visit,” he answered, “when you told me of your difficulty in finding suitable help in caring for him.” Goldilocks picked up the vial Vi had instructed he drink today and uncapped the top. He placed the small cork on the table and poured the syrupy liquid into a glass. Sam’s revulsion grew as a sickly sweet scent reached his nose. He scrunched it and leaned back. Even outside the sea-green glass vial, the medicine was still a ghastly shade of green.

Sam didn’t reach for the glass.

“You were hurt in the past?” Sam watched Goldilocks’s expression carefully as he asked, ready to change the course of the conversation if he didn’t want to talk about it.

That muscle in his jaw said he didn’t wish to discuss it, but Goldilocks nodded and slid into the chair opposite Sam. “When I was a child. I was fed upon and weakened. I was not tricked, more so trapped. I was swimming along the coast, and I felt the presence of my parents up an estuary. I followed the feeling through the wider parts of a river, then through many branches. I reached a point where there was a house, in from the river. Resting against the door was a piece of canvas. Drawn and painted the way my mother used to do; I could sense her touch on it. I waited, and I watched, but not for long. I did not have patience then. I took on legs and approached.”

A measure of anxiety filled Sam, despite this being a story from Goldilocks’s childhood and well in the past.

“As soon as I stepped upon the wooden boards of the house, they collapsed beneath my feet, and I fell into a deep and dark pit. Great weights of chains fell upon my back, and that beast fell upon me with them.”

Sam reached for Goldilocks’s hand and squeezed it. Goldilocks’s jaw remained tense, but as he spoke, rather than afraid, he seemed angry. Or perhaps disgusted?

Goldilocks’s gaze flicked up. “Do not fear,” he said. “I am a child no longer, and I can fell any ghoul that crosses my path with ease. Drink,” Goldilocks prompted. “I will show you what they can become.”

Sam looked at the medicine. If Goldilocks could open up and talk about being assaulted as a child, then Sam would suck it up and drink this without a word of complaint. He tilted back his head and downed it all.

The drink was horrendous. He jammed a hand to his mouth to stop himself from spitting it out. When he finally swallowed, Goldilocks offered him a glass of sparkling wine, and Sam downed the entire thing at once to chase the taste of the sickeningly sweet and bitter concoction away.

Goldilocks repacked his cuts with a salve and wrapped them tidily in white bandages.

“Come.” Goldilocks stood. They took a route Sam didn’t know, going deeper into the villa through open courtyards and long halls. People Goldilocks identified as ‘servants’ when Sam asked rushed here and there and greenery invaded from the outside, but when they stepped into a certain room, a sudden chill surrounded Sam from all sides. He could see his own breaths in the air beneath his nose and shivers prickled up his arms, leaving him wishing for the sweater he’d left behind in the bedroom. Sam glanced at Goldilocks, but he seemed unaffected by the cold. His golden eyes were fixed ahead, and Sam followed his gaze.

A strange mural hung on the wall in an otherwise empty room. They were completely indoors, yet there was no pool of water for a merman to gain entry, and dim blue lighting came from shell-shaped sconces that lined the walls.

Goldilocks advanced, his body a rigid line of tension, and Sam slowly followed. Red brick became a strange greenish colour with the blue light cast upon it, making the entire room seem murky and dark. As they approached the tapestry, the vague figure of a merman appeared, but Sam’s eyes adjusted to the dim lighting and he realised the edges of the tapestry were not fabric but instead wood. The figure in the middle was not woven artfully with thread but stood in relief from the wooden board it was against.

Wires jutted from the board. Twisted copper wrapped around the figure, supporting an upright position, holding the thing off the ground. Sam stopped walking, realising with a wash of chills he was looking at a corpse. And a hideous corpse, at that.

It had a tail like a merman, only very small and misshaped, with dull brown and black scales. Its torso was mottled all over, as if its very skin was diseased, with pustules of the ugliest red crowding greyish skin. Its face was incredibly damaged. One side caved in entirely, and the side that wasn’t crushed had long slashes marring the skin. Four deep marks that cut right to the bone.

Sam’s heart beat faster the longer he looked, horror and disgust rising within him.

“The Brothers gifted the body to Vi,” Goldilocks said, his voice echoing as if they were in a church or a crypt. The coldness made sense, Sam realised. A freezer to keep the corpse from decomposing. “After it killed Belle.”