I’d shift to the smallest form I could manage, about eight feet, walk upstairs as quietly as I could manage. I’d wait until she was asleep. I imagined finding her naked, pale flesh wrapped in my firelight as I approached.
I’d climb into her bed. Roll her onto her back. Mount her. I’d lick her lips and watch the moisture sizzle away from my heat on the next beat. Then I’d push myself inside to wake her up.
Would she scream at the intrusion? Would she fight back? Or would she be soft and pliable, my little misfortune, accepting of her ill luck?
In reality, she’d do nothing but burn. To mortals, my touch meant death. Still, it was a nice little fantasy, imagining how much of my cock she could take before she broke…
The filthy thought had me growling and the entire building groaned. Maeve’s moan turned to a gasp as I jerked her from her bliss.
“Old creepy house,” the girl grumbled after a moment. “Always fucking groaning like it’s alive.”
If it wasn’t for this spell keeping me to this goblinshite of a form, I’d be grinning like a devil.If only you knew just how alive your precious shop is, wee one.
Days passed and my interest in Maeve McCrum began to gnaw at my gut, as if I’d swallowed a rabid pixie. Her sapphire eyes were permanently burned into my mind, and I caught myself hoping she’d peek beneath my painting again, just so I could have another look at her.
As the days passed, my curiosity for the little lass with golden curls turned feral.
I hung onto her every breath, every inconsequential noise. Her phone calls with the utility companies and movers, her takeout orders. Something called kung pow pork was her favorite and, for some stupid fecking reason, I found that compelling.
Even the ridiculous baby talk she used on Gilly drew me in.
Then she started talking tome. “Bye, Gilly-Billy!” she cooed to the chubby calico perched on an old hope chest pushed beneath a window. “Bye, Balor!”
If I had a heart, it might have skipped a beat. Did this human call me by name? Did she… No. She knew the legend, but she didn’t know the dark secret of her precious store. Most of the McCrum’s hadn’t, at least not the full extent of it. That had been lost generations ago.
How long had it been since someone had spoken to me? Hundreds of years. I knew mortals were precious about their possessions and named them, sentient or not.
As the days passed, and her loneliness seemed to deepen, our one-way conversations became more complex. She’d muse about old memories, and ask me questions about the shop books as she went through old records.
She’d tell me goodbye whenever she stepped out to pick up her takeout or groceries. When she came back, the bell jingled with her return, and I caught myself hating that bell a little less.
And just like that, my curiosity for Maeve McCrum morphed into a ravenous obsession that was spreading as quickly as a medieval disease.
“Gilly, which sweater should I wear for tonight?” Maeve’s soft footsteps padded down the stairs. The cat meowed from whereshe sat on the shop counter and Maeve heaved a sigh. “You’re no help.”
After a beat of silence came the sound of scraping wood as Maeve slid a chair across the floor.
The painting lifted, and there she was.
With where she was standing, a beam of light cutting between the window tapestries lit up her pale curls like a crown on her head. Her deep blue eyes sparkled and something nearing a smile lurked at the corner of her pert lips.
“Let’s pretend you’re in there for a second, Balor. Help a girl out. Which one should I wear? This one is more green, but this is one of the new merch sweaters I ordered for the shop.”
She had a sweater clutched in each hand, one was green and the other purple, with the shop’s shamrock logo at its center.
My attention was immediately ripped from the sweaters when I realized that Maeve was completely topless. No trousers on, either. The only garment covering her was a pair of cotton panties with fabric so thin I could make out the well-groomed strip of blonde hair thatching her mound.
Her milk pale skin practically glowed in the sunlight. How could a mortal female be so fecking beautiful? If I didn’t know for a fact that the magic in her bloodline had died centuries ago, I would have thought she was using it to entrance me.
If it wasn’t for the curse, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from reaching for her.
I imagined her subtle curves covered in huge handprints, her flesh angry and blistered from my heat.
Her nipples were a rosy pink, and it must have been chilly in the shop with the way they hardened.
I didn’t have a body yet, somehow, I felt my cock thickening. I ached to bury myself inside her, regardless of how much it hurt her.
Surely her screams would be just as delicious as the rest of her.
