“Too dangerous for you.”
I sit in darkness, not understanding. I reach up to tear the blindfold off, but his hands catch mine.
“Niñita, you promised.”
“But why would it be dangerous for me?”
He sighs regretfully and pulls me into his arms, cuddling me on his lap as he sits on the edge of the bed. The warm night air caresses our naked bodies. “Because I’m cursed.”
I stare at the place I think his eyes must be. “What curse? Don’t be ridiculous! There’s no such thing as curses.”
“I used to think the same thing, but I know it to be true now. Ever since I…laid eyes on something precious. The most precious thing in the world to me.”
He sounds so sad. So bleak. “Black Fox, I don’t understand.”
He strokes my hair back from my face, and I know he’s gazing down at me. “When I was a very young man, a fortune teller called out to me in the street saying that I must hear what she had to tell me. My friends thought it was funny, and made me sit down while she gazed into her crystal ball. If I hoped to hear that my future would be filled with riches and happiness, I was sorely disappointed. She told me that I’m cursed, and that if I ever fell in love, I would die for love.”
I listen carefully to his voice, because it’s all I have to gauge his emotions. He speaks with utmost gravity. “And you believed her?”
“I think I must have. I became the Black Fox, and left everyone behind. I never felt one stirring of love, and I was glad. Until now.”
I bite my lip, wondering if he means that he’s felt the stirrings of love at last. “But, Black Fox. There’s no such thing as—”
He kisses me softly, halting my protests. For a moment I become lost in his kiss and the feel of his arms around me. My heart beats hard despite his strange words. Is this his way of telling me he’s falling in love with me, despite everything that divides us? He lives in the night, in the shadows, and I live in the day, in this cruel, unfeeling castillo.
“I want what is good and right, Black Fox,” I whisper, when my lips break from his. “I want you.”
His fingertip runs down my nose. “I know you do, mi niñita. Your heart is pure and good, and it beats so sweetly against mine, which is rotten with corruption.”
I open my mouth to protest, but he castigates me. “Listen to me, Lolita. I am telling the truth. I am cursed. It was a wicked queen with strange powers who did it. She was jilted a long ago by her hero, and ever since then she has been cursing men down the ages, and they must pay the ultimate price for love. I don’t need you to believe me, but you must understand that I believe this.” He takes a horrified, shuddering breath. “I can feel her close to me when I am happiest. Right now, she’s whispering hateful things into my ear because you’re in my arms. I dream about the queen. An evil, green-eyed witch, and she’s laughing at me. She’s wildly jealous of you. If I take you with me, we will both perish. Even this is dangerous, but for the moment I’m able to…for the moment you are safe.”
I think rapidly, trying to understand. “She cursed you because you’re a hero, like the man she thought she was going to marry? But you didn’t do anything! How unfair that is.”
When I touch his face, I feel that there’s a sweet, sad smile touching his lips. “I’ve never told anyone this before. I’ve been alone for so long that I’ve forgotten what it’s like when someone truly sees you.”
He says that even though I’m blindfolded. But it’s true. I do see him. “Black Fox, I will break your curse.”
He goes on smiling that sad smile. “Lolita, will you sleep in my arms? I want to hold you tonight.”
We lay down together on the bed and he wraps his arms tightly around me. My mind races with everything he’s told me. If he allows himself to fall deeply in love with me, he’ll die. My eyes fill with tears behind the blindfold again. What a cruel paradox. The more I hold him and kiss him, the closer death will creep. If I look upon his face and tell him I love him, I’ll seal his death warrant.
There must be a way to break the curse, but if there is, it eludes me. Exhaustion and despair overtake me, and I fall asleep.
When I awake I feel around the bed, but I’m alone. I rip the mask off, half hoping, half afraid that I’ll see his face. I blink away the blurriness, and see only sunshine, cream carpet, and my empty room.