Zacarias smiles, and then grasps my hip and flips me over onto my belly. He draws the gossamer fabric of my dressing gown up to reveal my behind. “I can’t strap the woman who is carrying my child, but I can spank her till her ass glows red.”
He squeezes my ass, first one cheek, and then the other; hungry, greedy squeezes. “I get to have mi niñita every night like this?” He lifts his hand and spanks my flesh, and I squeal. “I can love her and punish her and do all the sweet and nasty things I want to her?”
I wriggle my legs open on his lap and feel myself smile against the blankets. “Yes, daddy. All yours.”
He spanks me again and again, making my flesh glow hot and sensitive. When he pulls my underwear off and plunges his fingers into me I arch my back and moan. The man I love, and I’m going to have his baby. The castillo is filled with so much love at last, and I cry out loudly as he makes me come over and over again on his fingers.
Zacarias turns me onto my back and sheaths his cock deep inside me. I look up for the first time into my beloved’s face as he thrusts into me. My beloved’s handsome face. Smiling, I reach up and twine my arms around him as he climaxes deep inside me.
Zacarias groans and wraps his arms and legs tight around me. “My Little Lo. Te quiero. Te amo con todo mi corazón.”
“I love you with all my heart, too, Zacarias. All of you, with all of me.”
A while later I get up and wrap my robe around my body once more and head out onto the balcony. I gaze around at the moonlit night. The vines are still. The sloping hill down to the village is silent. Not a creature stirs in the silver light. Zacarias joins me.
“Do you think Mama was possessed by the evil queen all these years, or just recently?” I ask him.
“I don’t know. Your mother wasn’t an evil person, though she could be cold and jealous, and so perhaps she was susceptible to be used for the queen’s purposes.”
I remember all the times she was cruel to me over the years and my heart feels wretched. The way she convinced others I would lie about anything. I think maybe he’s right. “But why was she jealous?”
My love smooths my hair back and kisses my forehead. “Because you are clever and beautiful, two things that she should have been proud you inherited from her. But instead of being proud, she resented you.”
I take a deep breath. “Did you…ever love her?”
He shakes his head. “No, mi niñita. I never loved her. I’m ashamed to say I thought of her as an opportunity. If I didn’t love the woman I married, I couldn’t fall prey to the curse. I didn’t realize that the curse was steering me toward you all along.”
What a cruel curse it is. I wonder how many other good men have spent their lives in torment because of it. I think about how my mother’s eyes flashed green and her face became terrible and mottled for a moment. I think that will haunt my dreams forever.
“What should we do now?” I ask him, gnawing worriedly at my nail. “Where shall we go?”
Zacarias wraps his arms around me and turns me toward him. “We shall stay here.”
“But are we safe here?”
He smiles, and the fear in my heart finally melts as I gaze into his warm brown eyes. “The curse is broken, and we have nothing to fear from her. We shall make this place our home.”
“Just you and me?”
Zacarias kisses me. “Yes. You and me. The Black Fox, his woman, and all our little foxes.”
Epilogue
Zacarias
A cool rain has freshened the vines, and the scent of clean earth wafts through the open windows. Lolita is sitting in a rocking chair by the open terrace doors, smiling down at the baby in her arms. Little Izabella’s chubby hands wave in the air.
I come forward and ho
ld out my hands for the child, and Lolita places her into my arms. She’s so small, just two days old. My Lolita looks tired, but happy, as she gazes up at us.
“Papa loves his beautiful girls,” I tell her, kissing the baby and then Lolita.
“And we love daddy,” she tells me with a smile. It fades slowly as she studies my face. “You’ve had news. I know you have.”
I can’t hide anything from Lolita. Sometimes I wish I could still wear a mask, to protect her. “Yes, I’ve had news.”
“About Mama?”