Page 30 of Rumpelstilzchen

The thought that his Boy had achieved his climax without Rumple having so much as breathed on his cock drove him harder. He felt his control slip away, and it became as if he had left his corporeal form and was watching from somewhere above.

He stood tall, towered over Boy’s sprawled body, as he delivered the last few thrusts.

Finally, and on a deep, heartfelt groan, he came. Rumple’s body quaked from the force of his orgasm, and his head rang with overwhelming pleasure—he’d never come so hard in his life. It flooded him and drowned out every thought and feeling. In his loss of control, his shadows too had slipped free, and now cloaked them both in their magick.

Rumple pulled out of Boy’s body with slow deliberations, releasing his legs and allowing them to dangle from the edge of the table. Boy lay boneless and spent—each hard breath caused his still-open hole to glisten in the candlelight. The shadows caressed Boy as if they too had claimed him.

Boy’s blinks were slow and long, and he smiled in contentment when Rumple flattened his palm over his Heart. Over their Heart.

Their ragged breaths panted out as one, and Boy placed his hand over the top of Rumple’s. With a thoroughly sated expression etched onto his face, Boy asked him, “Stay?”

Rumple smiled indulgently and stroked the side of Boy’s face. He opened his mouth to respond, to tell him that he’d always stay because Boy owned his Heart, when the first of the sudden lancing pains in his chest struck.

Rumple gritted his teeth and reflexively threw a dense layer of shadows over both the gilt framed looking glass above the fireplace of the throne room, and the smaller one abandoned on the table. She couldn’t find him here—not with his Boy.

He staggered a few steps back as the next searing barb tugged at the space where his Heart should have been.

“Mirror, mirror. Show me my Shadow.” Queen Schön’s disembodied voice echoed under the high-arched ceiling.

Boy sobered from his pleasure-drunk state in an instant, eyes wide as he pushed up to a seated position. He winced as he slipped from the edge of the table, and Rumple held up his hand to stop him from coming closer. The look of hurt on his face at the rejection burned hotter than the Queen’s summons, and Rumple hated her anew for putting it there.

Another stronger, more savage spear of unwanted black magick drilled so deep through Rumple’s body that he could no longer remain upright. Whatever had her calling was urgent—but so was his predicament. He bit back his roar of frustration and pain as he was forced to his knees.

Ignoring his previous warning, Boy knelt beside him, those beautiful brown eyes awash with tears as he took advantage of Rumple’s distracted state. His shadow-infused necklace clung to his sweaty skin, and Rumple fought through his pain to place his hand possessively over it.

“I can’t stop her from summoning me,” he panted through a wave of roiling nausea. “But my shadows will always protect you.”

Rumple’s form wavered in and out of existence under the onslaught of her magick, but he saw the confusion on Boy’s face as plain as day. He didn’t understand, and Rumple didn’t have time to explain. He needed to leave.

“What do you n-need?” Boy’s voice broke on a sob, but the hand that gently squeezed over his where he white-knuckled the floor was sure and confident.

“I need,” Rumple inhaled a heavy breath as another all-consuming wave of pain stole his vision. “My Heart.”

And with that, he dematerialised and stole away, safe behind his impenetrable wall of shadow.

seventeen

Rumple

Rumple bled out of the looking glass in the cupola an agitated and fractured black mess. The hot stabs of pain made his movements jerky and disjointed, even in his noncorporeal form. More shadows still tumbled down the bare wall and spilled across the cold stone floor.

“Mirror, mirror. Show me my Shadow!” The Queen’s tone brooked no nonsense. She would not be kept waiting.

Another sharp yank on the black magick that infected him ricocheted through his form and temporarily scattered his thoughts of Boy. His Boy.

Despite his pain, Rumple wouldn’t respond to her summons until he was sure that enough of his shadows remained in the throne room to hide Boy from her view. He couldn’t risk the Queen discovering their connection.

But it was one thing to infuse a length of simple golden thread with a small amount of magick, and another to cleave himself almost in two.

Steeling himself, Rumple ripped through his shadows as they slowly poured through the looking glass, sealing both the throne room and the cupola closed. He commanded the shadows that remained to embed themselves alongside the magick already in the collar and protect his Heart, but no sooner had he issued the directive than another lancing pain split through his diminished being.

Half formed, Rumple writhed in agony, and his shadows clawed at the cracks in the stones in desperation. Queen Schön couldn’t kill him, but he was defenceless against the layer of black magick that she wielded as a weapon. His shadows vibrated with impotent rage and he roared out his pain. Together, they shook the walls of the Tower until dust fell from the mortar.

Slowly, reluctantly, and with hatred clouding his mind, Rumple coalesced before the looking glass. His chest heaved with the exertion of denying the Queen’s repeated summons. The shadows where his skin should have been smoked in agitated wisps. Heavy black-leather riding boots bound his feet, and he pushed down into the soles. Magick wrapped his legs in the finest damask breeches, and just as the golden skull buckle of his belt clasped shut, Her Majesty’s disembodied voice rang out, leaving him no choice but to address her half naked.

“Where have you been, Pet?” Her saccharine tone was too high-pitched. Rumple knew it well. Reflexively, he braced. “Did I interrupt your business in one of my whorehouses?”

His eyes lifted from their fixed gaze on the floor to meet hers directly. Immediately, he knew his mistake. Impossibly blue eyes bore into him—and then narrowed.