And yet, when she cried out, my soul sang in tandem. It was almost as though I knew her words before she even said them.
I shivered as the sound of it felt like it would soon peak to a crescendo.
“You hear Harpy’s song too?” Rumpel asked in the devilish drawl that made my bones ache and my blood turn hot.
I snapped my eyes open. Because I was sitting so close, I could see how tortured he was too. His eyes were bloodshot, and purple marks laced the bottoms of them, as though he’d not slept well in ages. But I knew he hadn’t, because he’d shown me that last night.
His skin looked pale and washed out. There was a hint of a bearded shadow framing his chiseled jaw. I clutched at my breast, wanting so badly to touch him, to pull him to me and tell him that he was going to be all right now, that the nightmare had ended, and we could begin again. We could start over. But what if the truth is that he doesn’t really want to anymore?
I’d seen a vision of the other man, the swagger and drawl and hot looks he’d given to his other Shayera. That man and the one before me weren’t even close to being the same. This one was harder, isolated, sullen, and serious. The curse had so radically altered him too, and I wasn’t even sure if he knew that.
I swallowed hard. “Doesn’t everybody?”
He shook his head. I shuddered as the breeze kicked up and caused me to inhale a wash of his scent deep into my lungs. Dear gods above and below... That scent wrapped all through me. Like a serpent around my heel, it dragged me under, and my lashes fluttered spastically upon the tops of my cheeks.
I’d always loved his smell, from the first moment I’d laid eyes on him in the other time. I remembered the scent, which had remained with me all through childhood, well. Whenever Papa had smoked his occasional pipe full of cherry-scented tobacco all I’d ever wanted to do was sit by his knee and let it roll all the way through my body. I’d not known or understood why then.
Deep inside of me, in a place unable to be fully wiped clean, Rumpel lived. It was the twin flame, the other piece of him. That flame had been my compass, and it’d brought me back to him. It infected me, lived deep in the darkest parts of me. His scent was the smell of home and steadiness, of danger and recklessness.
It was heaven. It was hell. It was all things. It was everything.
I clenched my fingers tight, digging them into my skirt. My skin felt alive, electrified. I wanted to lean over and sniff him, wanted to saturate my senses with him, wanted to pull him in deeper and see if maybe, maybe I could remember more.
That flicker within me grew.
I felt his look. Hard and probing and penetrating.
I nibbled on a corner of my lip. What would the other Shayera have done? Feeling lost, and a little scared, I glanced at him from the corner of my eye.
Rumpel was looking at me like he was waiting for something, but I didn’t know what. I bit my back teeth together.
A soft growl rumbled from his chest, and he turned to look out at the woods from which I’d just strolled in.
I wanted to cry. I felt as though I’d let an opportunity slide through my fingers. What would she have done? I squeezed my eyes shut, begging my subconscious to open up and make me remember the way she’d been. Who had she been? But there was nothing inside of me but an empty stretch of darkness. No shadows. No memories. No more words. Just his smell.
“Thank you for walking with my son,” he said, voice so low I had to strain to hear him.
“Oh,” I said breathily. “I... Um... I enjoyed my time with him.”
He looked at me again, and there was a flicker of flame in his mesmerizing blue eyes. “Truly? The boy doesn’t speak much. He never really has. Not in this time, anyway.” He sighed, and the sound felt like it came from deep within him. “I blame myself.”
I blinked. I wanted to comfort him but suspected that he wouldn’t want my touch.
Harpy cried out again.
I rubbed my chest. “How is that not everyone can hear her song? It pains me. It’s as if she speaks the words of my own soul.”
His eyes roved my face slowly and deliberately.
Feathers of heat curled through my body and I sizzled everywhere. One look from him, and I felt a beast awaken inside of me. Whenever I was with him, I felt like the best version of myself. Perhaps it was the twin flame—I didn’t know. All I knew with any kind of certainty was that I wanted so much more of it.
“She sings out in agony. Day and night. Heard only by those who remember.”
I frowned. “Remember what? The time before the curse?”
He paused for a moment, looking confused, as if he wasn’t even sure why he was there and suddenly doubting why he’d come at all.
Terrified that he meant to leave me, I did what I’d just told myself not to do. I reached for him, grabbed his wrist, and held on tight. “Don’t... Don’t go. Don’t leave me. Not yet. A week, Rumpel. You promised. You promised.” I’d been ready to leave that morning, but now I was begging for him to stay.
Why doesn’t he want me? Am I not enough?
His long lashes feathered along the tops of his cheeks as he shook his head, a look of pained agony on his face. “It was a mistake. This was a mistake.”
“What?”
“You shouldn’t hear her song, Shayera. You don’t remember. You don’t know. So few of us in this damned bloody castle can hear her, and now you can. Why?”
His words cracked, and something within me broke. Tears that never seemed that far from the surface slid down my cheeks. “You are mad at me.”
His blue eyes glittered, alive with pain as he glared at me. “You wear her face. You smell of her. I built a library to rival that of a king, and yet you do not scurry from shelf to shelf. You’d rather look at the paintings, as though there is some secret to be had from them.” He shuddered. “You... You hate soup and stew and...” He growled. “You are not her. You are not my bride.”
“Soup?” My angry laughter was full of incredulity and hurt. “You don’t like me because I don’t like soup?”
He winced. “This is so damn hard. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. This wasn’t supposed to be this way, I just, I don’t—”
Slashing the air with my hand, I cut him off midstream, unable to bear hearing another thing. His words cut me to the very quick, made me ache, made me hurt. I curved an arm around my waist and swallowed the bile threatening to work its way up my throat. “Tell me to go then,” I whispered. “Tell me to go, and I will leave.”
He blinked fast and he looked away, but not before I saw him surreptitiously scrub at his cheeks.
He didn’t want me here. And I was fool to remain. I knew it. He knew it. I was a proud woman, and he a proud man. He wouldn’t hurt me, but he didn’t want me. That was clear. I’d coerced him into giving me a week, but maybe it had been a mistake.
“Bloody hell.” I grunted and shoved to my feet, clenching my hands into fists.
He looked up at me wearing a startled expression.
“I get it. I’m a damn fool, but I’m not stupid. You don’t want me here, so I will go. But know this, Rumpelstiltskin, Man in Black, Dark Prince, Dark One, whatever the bloody hell you wish to be called, you did this,” I snapped. “You brought me back. You made me want you this way. You did all of this. Not me. You told me last night you just needed me to see you and to know the real you, and then I wouldn’t want you anymore. Well, guess what? You showed me, and I still want you. You know what you are, Rumpelstiltskin? You’re a coward.”
He growled, but I was sick of hiding the truth from him. No more.
“A weak coward. I’m here. I’m right here.” I spread my arms. “But, you’re right, I am not her. And if we’re being honest now, well, I don’t even think that’s the real issue for you.”
“Oh, no!” He scoffed, looking furious.
I hated that even now I wanted him. I bloody wanted every inch of that infuriating, maddening beast of a man. I glowered right back at him. “You’re afraid. Adm
it it. It’s not that I’m not her, it’s that you lost me once and you’re running scared at the thought of it happening again. Tell me the truth, dammit! Say it! Admit it!”
He glowered. “You don’t know anything about me. I’m not a coward. Everything I’ve done—everything—all of it’s been for you! Everything! But you’re—”
I laughed, but there was nothing funny about that moment. “You know what? It doesn’t even matter anymore. I’m through.”
He chortled, but I caught a glint of pain in his eyes before he turned away.
“At my core,” I said softly, feeling spent and exhausted all of a sudden, “I only want the very best for you. And if that means leaving, then it’s what I’ll do. But I will never let you break the twin flame.” I shook my head, knowing how truly awful I must look with my swollen, red nose and inflamed eyes, but I didn’t care.
“You couldn’t stop me, Shayera. I would do it for you, to give you your choice back. To give you your freedom.”
I became so violently angry that I shook from it, and I didn’t stop to think as I leaned forward, grabbed him by his lapel, and shoved my face to within inches of his. I felt alive, like a flame crackling and roaring, seeking to punish and destroy all that crossed its path.
It was my siren’s call. I’d awakened the beast in my soul. But I would not hurt him. I would never hurt him, even as mad as I was at him. My Veritas stone blazed the truth bright as the sun. I was in love with the beast.
I kept the ring on my hand.
He sucked in a sharp breath. But he did not touch me back.
I knew how strong he was. He could have shoved me off him if he really cared to. But he sat perfectly still, staring at me with something very different in his eyes. I was too angry to think further about it.
“I know what tearing that flame would do to you. If you do it—if you sever our connection—I will never, ever forgive you. And maybe that means nothing to you in this world, but it should. Because someday you’ll wake up and you’ll see that you let the best damn thing you’ll ever know in this time slip right through your fingers.”
The urge to kiss him, to slam my mouth over his and force him to touch me and to feel the fire and the fury within my bones consumed my heart, but that was not me. The beast of the monster was chained and released only at my decree and not the other way around. I would never again lose myself to the wicked fire of pain.
“Goodbye, Rumpelstiltskin,” I whispered, knowing this time it was for good. Much as the thought shredded me into ribbons of hurt, I had to let him go. It was the only way to preserve my sanity.
I released him, looked at him, and silently begged him to stop me. If I left Never, that was it. I would not come and seek him out again. He and I would be over, forever. I could not endure his silent treatment and his hurtful words anymore. I had too much pride, and deep down I knew he’d never respect anyone who didn’t.
But the longer I stood there and he said nothing, the more my heart cracked and fissured and bled.
He didn’t want me. His fingers curled into the bench. The knuckles were bone white and his shoulders were strained. He looked as though he waged war within himself. He said nothing.
A weird sound, half hiccup and half sob, spilled off my tongue, and I turned on my heel and ran. I would leave.
No more of this.
No more.
Chapter 17
Rumpel
Get her! My brain screamed it at me. Bring her back!
But my legs wouldn’t move. My body was held fast on that bench and my mind at war with itself.
I’d seen her. That fire. That old spark in the she-devil who’d gone toe-to-toe with me when I was being an ass. Shayera had never let me get away with anything. She’d been the only one who’d ever been defiantly determined that I would not be that kind of a deplorable for the rest of my life.
Am I a coward? No sooner had I thought it, I knew she was right. That’s exactly what I’d become, a weak, sniveling, whimpering coward, and I hated myself. What I felt then was unmitigated and horrific shame at myself.
I’d just been with her mother, confessing my great love for her daughter, but there I was, back in that same damn spot, pushing her away from me and telling myself repeatedly that she would be better off without me in her life. I’d do anything to convince myself that I knew best and that I knew her better than she knew her own heart.
I was falling for that woman, for that different, strange, wonderful, soulful creature, and I hated that it felt like a betrayal, because it hadn’t just happened to me. It had been happening all along, from the moment I’d spied the fiery beauty outside my keep, and even before then.
It began the moment I’d smelled her, held her, touched her, and rode the lightning of her kiss. Gods above, I loved her with everything within me.
I was a coward, but it was more than that. I felt a sense of betrayal, to my other one and her ghost, to which I’d clung for so long. I’d half convinced myself that their differences were enough to keep me away. I’d been telling myself that because it wasn’t really the same her, she couldn’t be mine.
But she is mine. She is all bloody mine.
She will leave me. She will call Danika’s travel tunnel to her, and she will leave, and I will have no one to blame but myself. A cold chill washed over me, zipping down my spine and turning my blood to rivers of ice in my veins.
I’d promised her I would try, and instead I’d screwed it all up to hell. I felt the disturbance of powerful magic rippling down my flesh like a tidal wave, pulsing and pressing in on me on all sides. She’d called to Danika. Horror clawed at my throat.
“No,” I whispered. “No,” I said more forcefully. Then I shouted it: “No!” I tore open a time portal, racing through its starlit path, moving faster than I’d moved in a long, long time.
I got to her room just as she’d stepped one foot through the portal.
“No!” I roared. “You will not leave me. You will not leave me!”
I rushed to her, grabbed her elbow, and yanked her out with so much force that she cried out and tripped into me. I cradled her beloved form tight to me even as we fell, trembling all over with the thought of how very close I’d come to losing her.
Twisting, I took the brunt of the fall, and we crashed together on the cold stone floor.
She was gasping, staring at me with wide, beautiful blue eyes. “Rumpel, what is th—”
“You cannot leave me, Carrots. Never. Not ever. I won’t allow it. You’re mine, female. All mine. Now. Forever. For always.”
She melted into me, even as her words sounded sharp and angry to my ears. “How can I trust you? How can I—”
With a sound like a hungry lion, I took her mouth with mine, silencing her words. She was right. Damn my dark soul, she was right. I’d done everything wrong. Everything. But I loved her. I’d always loved her, and I always would.
No matter what form she returned to me in, I would always want her and always need her. And the fear of losing her again would always be with me. But that was on me to overcome. I couldn’t expect her to understand it, but she was here in this moment, dammit. She was here, and I’d very nearly let her get away.
Mine.
All mine.
Crashing teeth and tongues, we fused our mouths together until we weren’t separate, but one. She gasped, sighing into me, turning soft and pliant, and her moan rivaled my own.
She was my woman, different or no. She was all bloody mine, and I was done fighting those demons alone.
“Mine. Mine. Mine,” I mouthed against her lips, incapable of speaking anything else.
“Yours. Yours. Yours,” she whispered right back.
My violent desire rode me too hard. I would scare her—or worse, hurt her. I told myself to release her, to let her go, but my skin was darkening. The Demone in me had awakened. My nails were turning black, and my vision, red.
I stopped moving, shaking all over, fighting it. “Can’t hurt you,” I croake
d.
But she was grabbing hold of my face. “Look at me, Rumpel.” Her voice was soft, husky, and hypnotic.
I groaned, too weak to fight her anymore. I clutched at her tiny, fragile wrists, clinging for dear life, afraid that if I so much as blinked, I would drift away from her forever. I would snap and forget who I was, forget it all. Shayera was my tether to this world and to my sanity.
Her eyes were cornflower blue, patient and gentle and tender. “I love you,” she whispered.
I moaned.
“I love you,” she said again, that time with more conviction.
I shook, feeling the tears coming, ashamed of my weakness.
But she shook her head, and her thumbs scraped my cheeks. “Oh, Rumpel my truest and only love. I love you.”
I saw her moving, saw her lift her ring finger up and gently, slowly twist off the ring. I sucked in a sharp, rattling breath as the strength of her full siren’s power blasted into me. But unlike before, I wasn’t burned by her need. Instead, I was caressed by it, held by it, embraced and loved by it.
Her touch burned through me like fire and washed away the illusion of the man, instead bringing forth the animal, the beast. The Demone male came to the fore.
She purred.
I could not move or breathe as she slowly disrobed, peeling off her gown with steady fingers. The first glimpse of her pale pink nipples turned my body to flame.
She stood, not moving back, but instead shimmying the gown down over her trim hips.
“Perfection,” I breathed, my memories of how I’d undressed her in the forests behind my castle for the very first time surging forth. I remembered how I’d gone down on her then, tasting her, suckling the sweet nectar from her body.
She smiled, and the memory and the present merged seamlessly into one. Shayera spread her thighs, revealing the creamy expanse of her flesh, but also the bright pink jewel of her feminine desire. I swallowed hard, staring up at her from my knees. I would do anything and be anything for her in that moment. I was through fighting my female. And she was mine.