His lashes fluttered, and a look of sorrowful regret passed over his tight features. “You have no idea how sorry I am for it. I’ll regret that decision every day of my life. But I am...”
“You are Demone,” I whispered, “and that is just how you’re built. No?”
I could see that he wanted to deny it, but I knew one thing about the Demone. They were a class of people who seemed to take their responses to failure and rejection to an extreme degree. I knew this because of my interactions with Rumpel.
Euralis was his spitting image. If my Prince could stay away out of sheer stubborn willfulness, what was to say that in the end Rumpel wouldn’t choose to take the very same path?
Nothing at all.
A dull ache spread through my belly. Maybe this was the real reason Mama and Papa had fought for so long to keep me away: to spare me this pain. Maybe they’d known the Demone temperament better than I’d thought.
“If I may be forward,” Euralis spoke slowly, pulling me away from my thoughts.
I nodded at him to keep speaking when the silence went on for several more seconds. “Yes?”
“Do you think, that is to say, would you be able to ever forgive me?” he asked softly, and I heard the anxiety in his words. The strain of his fears rang out clearly to me.
I wanted to comfort him, to take him in my arms and hug his fears away, as a mother would. “I am a woman now, Euralis, and the pain of losing my beloved pet is not near as sharp as it once was. I think I can find it in my heart to let it go, so long as you promise not to run away this time.”
A swift smile curled his lips and his eyes blazed with unfettered joy. “Then, may I ask, do you still... care for me?” He leaned forward on the balls of his feet, looking as though he would take flight right before my very eyes as he waited with bated breath to hear my response.
The boy seemed sweet, and so very different from the abrasive sternness of his father. I liked him very much. I picked at a seam in my skirt, feeling weirdly nervous. “I do.”
A smile blazed like fire upon his darkly handsome face, and that same spark spread through me too. My toes tingled, and I found myself taking just a tiny step forward.
“C-c-can we perhaps meet up each day?” I fumbled the request, sounding stupidly nervous, but forcing myself to be brave all the same. “For tea, or food, or a stroll through—”
“The meadow,” he nodded. “I’m very fond of the meadow.”
“The meadow? What meadow? There is nothing but darkness outside, and one lone trail I walked to get to here.”
He laughed, and the sound of it was youthful and carefree. “It is only because you see what you think is there, not what is really there.”
“Is it beautiful?” I asked with a soft smile.
His eyes took on a serious glint. “The most beautiful meadow in all the worlds.”
This conversation was pure silly fun and nonsense, but I loved it all the same. “And do you run free, little wolf?”
“Aye. And I fly too, heart of my heart.”
I shivered when he said that, feeling the trueness of his words reach deep inside of me. I was safe with the boy, just as I’d been safe with the beast. And I was rather excited at the prospect of having someone to speak with during the long, lonely days. “Tomorrow then,” I said softly, “at noon.”
His chin dipped and he whispered, “Aye. Noon.”
Then the heat of transformation wavered upon his form, and the boy was gone, displaced by the beast I’d loved so well. I smiled at him and he gave me a wolfy grin before slinking off into the shadows of darkness.
I stood there for a moment in stunned silence.
What just happened? Is it all a dream? My Prince returning to me, telling me he wasn’t a dog but a boy, and not just any boy but my own?
“My boy,” I whispered, voice scratchy and gruff.
“Aye,” Rumpel’s whiskey-coated voice rumbled behind me.
But I didn’t startle. I’d suspected he would show soon. Turning slowly, I looked upon the man.
Tall. Blue eyes. Blond hair. Princely features. The words came out of me before I even thought through them. “Show me your true self, Demone male.”
Chapter 15
Shayera
I didn’t want to see the mirage, I wanted the truth. That’s what I’d gone there for.
My request didn’t seem to startle or even surprise him. His look was unflinching and beautifully haughty. I saw the wheels of his mind move and knew he was asking himself why he should do it, reminding himself of the cost, telling himself that he’d promised me he’d try.
I knew this man.
Intimately.
We were strangers.
But we weren’t. Not at all. I squared my shoulders, eyeing him back just as sternly. He would not deny me, not anymore. And I silently reminded him of that.
Finally, he sighed, and I knew I’d won the battle. His gorgeous lips twitched. “You do not fight fair, female.”
I snorted and crossed my arms, tapping my foot impatiently. “And here I thought you already knew that about me.”
A look passed between us then, one that was hot and scorching and full of unspoken promises.
I shivered, swallowed hard, and felt a thrum of power suddenly roll through me. It was just a tiny spark, a little flame, and nothing more. It was my siren’s charms. I’d told him last night that I came alive around him, and I hadn’t lied. It was stronger than it had been the night before. I wanted to slip off my ring and blast him with my power. I wanted him to taste the depths of the burning desire that he built in my very bones. But I wouldn’t. Never again. Not unless he was the one to ask me to.
I would never again betray his trust in that way.
“You are determined, Siren.”
I shrugged. “Call me Shayera. Or Carrots even. Call me something that matters, Rumpel. Don’t push me away anymore. One week. You promised. So give me your best.”
A visible tremor rolled through him. “Gods above,” he mumbled under his breath.
I laughed, realizing I was torturing him and reveling in that fact. I doubted there were many in all the worlds that could elicit the type of reaction from Rumpel I could with just a few simple words.
He was a beast. The king of the jungle. It was a heady thought to know I could unnerve him so. I licked my lips, and his eyes zoomed in immediately.
A pained groan rumbled through his thick chest. “I’ll never survive this week,” he said.
I grinned. “Change.”
Instantly, I heard the locks in the thick library doors turn, echoing loudly through the eerily silent room. I jerked at the deafening booming noise, but never tore my eyes off him as a thick veil of gray smoke enveloped him, obscuring my sight of him for just a moment.
When the fog lifted, there he was. The real man. Not the mirage. Not the pretty Prince that the rest of the world knew him as.
But the monster. The beast. My Demone male.
He was taller than in his human form, with skin black as night and long, silver-tipped hair that fell past his waist. Blood-red eyes gleamed like ruby ash in flame. He had a Patrician nose, a strong jaw line, high cheekbones, and two deliciously curved horns atop the crown of his head.
His body was strong, mighty, and powerful looking, rippling with smooth, lean muscle. His legs were thick and spread wide, tapering into fur at the bottom and ending in dark cloven hooves. A forked tail flicked behind him. He spread his arms. “Seen your fill?”
My stomach fluttered and my legs ached, desire coiling like a serpent inside of me. The suppressed powers of my charms burned through me like acid, making me feel hot and dizzy and needful. I squeezed my eyes shut and fought to regain my focus.
“That hideous?” he asked, his voice a deep and terrible rumble that did exciting things to me.
I flicked my eyes open, glancing immediately at him. “Is that really what you think? That I find you hideous?”
“Most would.”
I lo
ved the silky strength of his voice in this body. He sounded like a meld of man and beast, and it did wonderful, erotic things to me. I bit the corner of my lips hard. “I’m not most. So tell me, Rumpel, why are you here now? I thought you wouldn’t meet me until tonight. “His nostrils flared, and for just a second I thought he meant to charge me. I licked my lips, wanting him to. I wanted him to take the decision completely out of my hands. I still didn’t know him, but my body remembered what my fractured mind clearly could not. The beast was mine—mine to tame, and mine to claim.
He grunted. “I scent your need, woman.”
My lips curved. “I will not deny it.”
He grunted again, and gods above, I had to grip the corner of the chair beside me just to stay on my feet. How the bloody blazes can he stand this? Why isn’t he racing to me? Doesn’t he want me anymore? Is that the problem?
“Leave your ring on,” he said in a sharp growl, confirming my suspicions and making me feel suddenly mortified by my own desires.
I shook, and glanced away.
“Dammit it all to the Underworld,” he snapped.
That was all the warning I got before I was suddenly and swiftly caught up in a pair of powerfully thick arms and pinned against the shelf of the nearest bookcase.
The sharp burst of pain from the movement hurt a little, but it mostly felt thrillingly delicious. I gazed, enraptured, into ruby-red eyes.
“I know what you’re thinking. I can practically hear your thoughts, they’re so loud.” He sounded angry. Angry and something more.
My chest heaved, feeling as though I couldn’t take a proper breath. All I could smell was cherries and cloves, and all I could see was him.
“I do want you, bloody hell, Shayera. I want you. I bloody want you.”
“Then what’s stopping you?” I hissed, trying to turn my pinned wrist toward him so I could clutch onto him.
But his grip was unyielding and absolute. It thrilled me to no end how powerful and deadly my beast was. “Honor, woman. Honor. There isn’t a hell of a lot in this world that would ever have me considering such a foolish notion.”
“Except?” I asked, needing to hear him say it.
His angry eyes narrowed. “You, damn it, siren. Only ever you. You don’t know me. You don’t know the monster I am. The monster I can be.”
“I don’t care—”
“But you should,” he barked, large chest rising and falling with his heavy breaths and scraping against my hardened nipples. It made me hungry for more. So, so much more.
“She would,” he said. “She cared. She cared that I was good and kind and—”
I gulped, searching his eyes and seeing the pain, but also the unyielding man behind it, the one who was determined I see his flaws, the one who was determined I quit this foolish notion of falling in love with a beast. The one who thought I still had a choice.
But I didn’t. Not from the second I’d walked through those castle doors. The next time I rolled my wrist to free myself of his grip, he let me. He didn’t stop me when I framed his smooth cheek with my tiny, cold hand. “It’s too late, king of beasts, far too late for me. I do not fear your monsters, because I have my own.”
“Hhh,” he breathed deeply, trembling so hard that I felt him move all the way through me. “Shayera, you are so young. I feared your loving me before, what it would do to you, the life I would lead you on.”
“And yet you took me. Made me yours.”
He growled. “Because I was a selfish bastard, don’t you see, I’m trying to do right by y—”
“Stop, you idiot. You want me to know you, fine. I won’t think about lying with you every second of every day. Won’t think about what rests beneath your trousers, or how beautiful you are in your true form, or the way you kiss, like you wish to steal the very soul from my body. You want me to stop, then fine, I’ll stop. You want me to learn you, then show me who you are. Open up to me, Rumpel, as I am willing to open up to you.”
His eyes were closed, but his forehead rested heavily against my own and he was sweating as though he’d run miles. I was so tiny compared to him, but when I wrapped my arms around his waist, it was he who sank into me with a desperate groan, and it was he whose body was wracked by silent tears.
I held him, because that was the only thing I knew to do and the only thing I wanted to do. It didn’t matter to me if we stood here for hours, or days. He was with me now. And I felt complete again. I would learn him. And I would not push him in this way again.
I kissed his cheek and he sucked in a sharp breath. “Look at me,” I whispered against his warm mouth.
He gazed at me with broken, shattered eyes.
I leaned in and kissed his other cheek.
His fingers tightened on my waist, digging in so hard it was nearly painful, but it was also real. So very real.
“I’m here, Rumpel. I’m right here. You want me to see what you did, you want me to know who you are, then open yourself to me and show me. Show me the real you.”
He gulped, and the expression of tortured pain shading his features was one I knew I would never forget in my life. He was absolutely broken. I smiled softly and warmly, letting the love I knew I shouldn’t feel but already did blaze through my body. He inhaled sharply and shook his head. “You shouldn’t... You should stop from feeling—”
“It’s far too late for that, stubborn Demone. Now show me your life when I wasn’t in it.”
“You’ll hate me,” he whispered.
“Never. Not ever.”
Then gently, like a brushstroke, I touched my mouth to his. I wanted to take him, to consume him, to seal my soul to his, to climb inside his body and remain there with him forever.
I’d lost the most vital part of me and now I had it back. I’d felt the promise of it way back at the birthday ball, when he’d kissed me. I’d known he was mine even then. I was through fighting this, and somehow I was going to convince him of that, no matter what it took.
His touch was tender and gentle when he framed my face in his large, callused hands. “Look into my eyes then, my Carrots, and see what became of me when you left.”
Rumpel
IT ALWAYS TOOK A SECOND for my conscious mind to surrender its grip on reality when I first sank into a memory. There was a slight feeling of resistance, like stretching a rubber band to its maximum state of tension just before it ripped.
I felt the tug, and then I tumbled through. But I wasn’t alone anymore, as I’d been so many times before this. I was with her.
Her. My angel. My wild rose. The purity of her mind and soul twined with my dark and fractured one, binding me and keeping me together.
I felt her question as though she’d spoken the words aloud: Why are we still in darkness?
Because I was afraid of what she’d see and what she’d know about me. But a promise made was a promise kept. Stilling the heaviness of my mind, I allowed the memories to start pouring through.
They were small and insubstantial at first, just fleeting glimpses of scattered colors here and there. After my time with the Spider, I’d lost much of my power, and though I was slowly rebuilding it, it would take centuries to get back to where I was.
It was hard to remain focused. Where before I’d been able to extract whatever memories I’d wanted with precision, now I was trying to keep my memories from overwhelming and drowning us. They poured in, like water through a sieve.
Lights and colors and voices clattered around, all of it jumbled and nonsensical in its lack of balance. I growled. It was easy for me to look at my own memories, but not so easy anymore to allow anyone else entrance to them.
I tried to grab hold of one, but it flowed through my fingers like a grain of sand, and then another would take its place, and another and another still.
Then she was there. Her golden light slid against my metaphysical palm, and she clutched on tight.
Focus on just one thing, Rumpel. Only one. Focus on that...
I trembled. I was the
sorcerer, and yet she had always understood me and knew how to bring out the very best in me. That had not changed.
Taking in a ragged breath, I clung to sweet warmth and nodded. I was overwhelmed, burdened by the memories of countless days and nights without her. I remembered my agony, how I would scream out into the darkness, how I would threaten and rage against that which had taken her and our children from me.
Turning toward her light, I enveloped her tenderly, with reverence. She sank into my touch and her flame—our flame—burst like wildfire all around us. I felt my power and my focus strengthening. And without thinking, images began to form. Reels of my memories from a time long before I’d ever even stepped foot on Kingdom played in my mind, and I let them. I wanted her to know all of me and all the sides of me.
I held onto her light, but she did not look at me. Instead, she stared at the images, and I felt her flame quiver with wonder at my first cries.
Prince Rumpelstiltskin. Delirium had roared with zealotry and passion at my birth. I’d been marked by birth to be the strongest and most powerful of the royal lineage. I would bring honor, death, and victory to my Demone brethren.
I grew into a young and scholarly man.
My hair was longer then, trailing down around my ankles. My body was slight and lean, but full of the promise of budding strength. My trainers despaired of my fighting abilities, whispering behind my family’s back that I wasn’t what prophecy had said I was. But my tutors had adored my quick and sharp mind.
From there, the scene shifted yet again, going through all the stages of my youth until the day I reached manhood. I became strong, and a powerful practitioner of the dark arts.
What I lacked in brawn and physical power, I made up for in cunning and a quick-witted and devious mind. Prophecy had been fulfilled in me. I was the strongest mage Delirium had ever seen. And with my power, I began to conquer the realms, taking it all, bit by bit and clan by clan.
Money. Women. Sex. Whatever I wanted and whenever I wanted it, it was all mine. I grew up cocky, arrogant, and full of hubris. I sparred with my parents, until finally I overthrew my own father and took the crown and scepter as my own. My control was absolute. My parents were royals in name only, because I controlled Delirium, I controlled it all. I married for power, never for love.
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