A Kiss of Shadows – Chapter 31: Introducing King Kurag of the goblins and his tiny parasitic penis

Chapter 31 begins with Merry coming to after passing out due to blood loss as thirty or so of the queen’s and prince’s guard surrounds her. Goblins had also begun to flood into the room. Fflur, a sidhe woman who probably has jaundice (she has yellow skin), is leaning over Merry. Fflur speaks in ye olde english – she had been one of the sidhe who had not ever embraced their lives in the US of A and instead clung to her dark ages roots. She apparently was an artist, who had several tapestries hung in the St. Louis Art Museum and had write-ups on her in notable art magazines, but she’d never grant interviews or even bother leaving the faerie sithen to go view her art or any modern art. She’s also a healer.

The queen is also kneeling next to Merry. She is intrigued that the roses have sprang to life with a taste of Merry’s blood. Andais seems glad, but then presses her leather gloved hand deep into Merry’s wounded wrist. Merry gasps in pain, and the queen lets her go, telling her that once her wounds are tended to, Merry is to join Andais at her side in the throne room. She then leaves Merry and exits the room. 

As soon as the queen leaves, a small goblin kneels next to Merry, getting as close as it could to Merry’s bleeding wrist. This goblin had many eyes surrounding its head, which means it is considered handsome to the other goblins. Having extra appendages/eyes/whatever are considered a mark of beauty to the goblins, apparently. Merry realizes that she is in a precarious position to possibly trick the goblins into becoming her allies, and she takes it.

She moves her wrist ever so close to the goblin, who is sniffing at it. The goblin cannot help himself and licks his rough little tongue at the wound. Galen and Fflur try to shove the goblin away from Merry, but she stops them, demanding recompense for the goblin’s abuse – taking blood without permission is strictly forbidden. Fflur tells Merry that she needs to bind her wounds, but Merry will not let her and instead asks for Doyle. She demands Doyle bring her Kurag, the goblin king. Doyle sends a few of his guardsmen to fetch Kurag, and moments later the crowd surrounding Merry and co parts, allowing Kurag and his queen to come closer.

Kurag’s queen is clinging to his side. She is covered in eyes and her lipless mouth carries a large set of fangs, both considered to be the height of beauty to the goblins. The presence of fangs makes Merry suspect that the queen may be venomous. The queen also has multiple arms sticking out of her body, however she only has two normal legs. Extra legs are considered the rarest beauty among the goblins, apparently. All of the queen’s arms are grasping and caressing the king’s body, however two of those arms are quite busy with their hands stroking and fondling the king’s manhood over his tight, thin pants. Merry realizes the queen is doing so because she considers Merry a sexual rival.

Ughhhhh.

Merry knows quite a bit about the goblins as when she was growing up her father took her to Kurag’s court plenty of times. He explained to her that the goblins were the backbone of the courts, and when the courts went to war, the goblins did the majority of the fighting. Essus made Merry become quite familiar with the goblins and their court particulars. Kurag had at one point asked Essus for Merry’s hand as a consort, as he valued sidhe blood among the goblins, but luckily Merry’s engagement to Griffin kept that from happening.

Kurag was not tall for a goblin, but he was quite massive and his yellow skin was covered in warts and lumps. One large lump on his shoulder contained a third eye. Just below that eye was a small, but full, mouth that could breathe but could not talk. Kurag also had a second set of small, useless limbs that hung from his body beneath the eye and mouth. Growing up, Merry thought it was neat that Kurag could concentrate on two things at once, as when he was in deep discussions with Essus, those second set of arms could maintain a card game with young Merry. 

Before Kurag had offered Essus his hand in marriage for Merry, Kurag had undressed in front of her, revealing two sets of fully functioning genitals, and Merry then discovered that those extra limbs and genitals were not merely an extension of Kurag, but a parasitic twin stuck in Kurag’s body. From that moment on, Merry greeted both Kurag and his twin, Flesh of Kurag. Merry was the solitary sidhe who greeted them both. 

As Kurag greets Merry, the goblin queen starts fondling him even harder, reaching for that second set of genitals as well. Kurag tries hard to ignore her, but Merry can tell that he’s close to orgasm. Kurag asks her why she is holding of of his goblins captive, and Merry tells him how the goblin drank her blood without her permission. That she wants recompense for the stolen blood. He asks her what she wants in return – she wants his blood for hers.

This angers Kurag and he pushes the queen off of him. Sharing blood is special among the goblins, it means that they would be bonded and allied for an entire moon span. The queen gets angry at this, telling Merry she could just kill her now so that Kurag wouldn’t have to share blood. This pisses Kurag off even more, and he begins beating his queen to within inches of her life. He cracks her skull, forcing an eye or two to fall out of their sockets and hang uselessly against her face. She pulls a knife on him and slashes at his arm, opening it. Kurag continues his assualt, and finally, he stops, and the queen lies unconscious on the floor, spilling blood and other stuff all over the stone ground. He orders a few of his goblins to take her back to their hill and tend to her wounds, telling them that if she dies, their heads will be shoved on a pike above the hill. 

Merry then offers Kurag her wrist, and he begins lapping at her wound. When he finishes, he offers Merry his wounded arm. She begins to playfully lap at his wound like a kitten lapping up milk. She then puts her entire mouth over the wound to drink deep. When she finishes, Kurag then announces to the entire room that for the next moon’s span they are allies, her enemies are his and vice versa, if…

Merry then stops him. “What to you mean by if?” she asks. Kurag then tells her that since Merry is without a consort, it is within his rights to ask for a second thing to complete their alliance – the right of flesh. Frost gets pissed off at this, announcing to Merry that Kurag played her, knowing full well Merry will not have sex with him to complete their alliance. Since Kurag is married to his queen, Merry cannot even legally have sex with him anyway, as adultery is illegal among the sidhe. Not among the goblins, as Kurag so helpfully points out, but Doyle then tells him that their laws prohibit sidhe sleeping with a married goblin. Kurag invokes the right of flesh anyway. He will not complete their alliance without it. Frost calls him a coward, telling Merry that Kurag fears her enemies. Kurag tells them that if he cannot have sex with Merry, he would rather not honor their alliance, however if he does not honor their alliance, all the courts would know Kurag to be an honorless coward, never again to be trusted by either sidhe court. 

Kurag finally tells Merry that since she cannot legally share flesh with him, if she shares flesh with a goblin of his choosing, their alliance would be complete. Galen and Doyle begin arguing about this – Galen does not want Merry to have sex with a goblin, he feels it is beneath her standing, but Doyle realizes that an alliance with the goblins would help to keep Merry protected – it was a smart political move on her part. Merry, her wounds finally tended to and bound, steps away from her guards and agrees to Kurag’s terms, much to Galen’s dismay. She asks Kurag whose flesh she will be sharing.

Kurag leaves the group, and shortly comes back with a smaller, sidhe-esque goblin. He has pale skin and only stands four feet tall. His face was triangular with large, almond shaped sapphire blue eyes. He wore nothing but a tiny loincloth, and Merry realizes that down his back are a trail of iridescent scales, like glittering snake scales. Kurag introduces him as Kitto. Kitto’s mother was a sidhe lady raped by a goblin in the last goblin wars, nearly two thousand years ago. Merry greets Kitto, and Kitto very timidly greets her back, slurring his ‘s’s. Merry realizes he is a snake goblin, one of the very venomous goblins whose bite could kill her. 

Merry agrees to share flesh with Kitto, but Rhys steps forward, urging Merry to not do this. He tells Merry that his facial scars, his missing eye, were caused by one of the snake goblins during sex. He warns Merry of what a goblin considers sex, he warns Merry that she could be hurt as bad or even as worse as he had been hurt. Merry pats Rhys’s face, tell him that she fully understands what she is deciding by doing this, and for him not to worry. She again agrees to Kurag’s terms: sharing flesh with Kitto. She agrees, under one condition.

She desires their alliance to be for an entire season long, eleven months. Kurag tells her absolutely not. He will agree to two months. Merry bargains for ten. He says three. They eventually talk it down to six months of alliance for Merry taking Kitto’s flesh into her body. Merry then announces it to all in the room, that Merry and the goblins are allied, her enemies are theirs and their enemies are hers for six entire months. 

She then turns on Kurag and tells him that his own cowardice and lust brought them to this, and warns him to think strongly on ever trying to trick her into his bed again. He calls her a bitch, because, you know, bitch is the best come-back anyone can ever give when a woman outsmarts a man. *rolls eyes*

Merry’s guards escort her and Kitto out of the room and away from the throng of goblins. Merry is basically being dragged out by her guards. The chapter ends with Merry deciding she would need to share flesh with Kitto soon to solidify their alliance, and by share flesh she means that very literally. 

Characters Introduced:

Fflur – sidhe healer, stuck in the dark ages.

Kurag – King of the Goblins. Had once asked for Merry’s hand in marriage and still lusts after her. Has a parasitic twin stuck inside his body. Now Merry’s ally for six months.

Goblin queen – not named, many eyes/arms, nearly dead. Hates Merry.

Kitto – Kurag’s goblin inside Merry’s guard. Must share flesh with Merry to complete their alliance. Very small, 4′, with pearly white skin. Scales down spine. A snake goblin with a venomous bite. Very timid and shy. 

Themes Introduced: 

Merry and the goblins have an alliance for six months.

Sex: some over-clothes groping by the queen of goblins

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