Page 9 of Rumpelstilzchen

The corner of Rumple’s mouth curled upward, and he added extra weight to the blanket of shadows that still draped around the boy’s shoulders. Being able to control their density gave him an advantage; mothers had used swaddling clothes since the dawn of mankind to help unsettled babes feel more secure, and Rumple wasn’t above applying that same technique here.

What he wasn’t prepared to examine any closer was his desire to bring the boy comfort. Rumple was a shadow geist: he didn’t nurture, he maimed.

Instead, he chalked his unusual behaviour up to the overwhelming experience of having possibly discovered his Heart in the palace cells. That he wasn’t consoling the boy so much as he was reassuring himself before he made what would be the toughest decision of his life. Because if this boy was his Heart, then claiming him would also mean taking a stand against the Queen, and with her black magick infecting the space where his Heart would go, he wasn’t sure he was ready—or able—to risk her wrath just yet.

In desperate need of a distraction, Rumple ventured, “Have you ever eaten strawberries?”

The boy nodded, but didn’t speak.

“Wild strawberries, yes. I imagine you have. They grew well in your region before the famine. But imagine tasting one of the Queen’s Garden strawberries.” He leaned forward, lowering his voice once more in an attempt to draw the boy into the conversation. “Can you already feel their sweet and sticky juices coating your tongue?”

The boy’s cheeks flushed, and his pupils dilated further. His small pink tongue darted out to lick across his lower lip, and if Rumple were a betting man, he’d wager that the boy didn’t even realise he’d done it.

Rumple positioned the strawberry in the centre of his gloved palm, and rested his hand on his knee, as close to the boy as he could position it without moving from his seat. He wasn’t blind to the power he held over the boy. The young man had lived in famine and poverty, he was set to die in the morning, and Rumple was shamelessly using those disadvantages against him.

As he teased more of his weighted shadows up through the boy’s golden waves and massaged his scalp—rewarding, cajoling, encouraging—Rumple told himself that this was all for the boy’s benefit.

So when the boy fully lowered his knees to the ground and leaned forward from his hips, Rumple’s excitement got the better of him. “The Queen will never know.”

Despite the impulsive nature of the promise, Rumple meant every word. The Queen could never find out just how special this particular human was.

The boy hesitated for the briefest moment, then braced his palms flat on the wet stones beneath him and pushed up. His heart pounded in his chest—Rumple knew because his shadows could feel every beat as if it were their own.

“Here, now, there’s only you and me. No one can see or hear what happens inside my shadows if I don’t want them to.” Rumple didn’t think for too long about why it was important for the boy to know he could trust him, that he was safe with him, but it was.

Rumple held out his free hand, palm upturned. “Come,” he commanded.

The request was simple, and Rumple kept his voice low so as not to lose the tentative dominion he held, and the boy submitted beautifully. He placed his smaller hand squarely in the centre of Rumple’s and looked up at him through long lashes.

The boy wanted, and Rumple needed.

six

Boy

The weight of the Queen’s Shadow’s command pressed down on him like a physical force.

“Come.”

There was no doubt whatsoever in Boy’s mind that the consequences for disobedience would be severe, and his shallow breath hitched in his throat.

He was a prisoner in the palace and yet the shadow geist’s intense presence held him more captive than the small cell did. It wasn’t just the table he had conjured, beset with mouthwatering food, nor was it the dominant way he sat upon the chair and filled nearly all the available space. No. It was the shadows themselves that, all the while the man spoke and asked questions, had never left Boy’s body. They roamed up his spine, over his hips, around his waist and across his chest, leaving trails of fire in their wake.

“Come,” he had been commanded, and Boy—as if enchanted—did as he was told.

“Good boy,” the Queen’s Shadow murmured, satisfaction evident in his voice. An unexpected shiver trilled up Boy’s spine at the term. Praise had never been something he’d experienced before.

“Kneel.”

This close, the lowly whispered instruction ghosted across the sensitive skin of his wrist and he swayed in place. Boy told himself he was lightheaded with hunger.

Since the shadow geist had conjured the platter of foods, he hadn’t taken his eyes off the prize. That strawberry was easily the size of a chicken egg, and Boy felt no shame in wanting to taste it.

Boy had always preferred clear and simple orders over the responsibility of taking initiative, so of course he dutifully knelt. The cold damp from the stone floor soaked through the patched wool of his breeches, and as he carefully eased back to rest on his heels, he came face to face with a pair of pristine black leather riding boots, criss-crossed with multiple thick straps and big silver buckles.

The man had said he wasn’t there to kill him, and Boy was surprised to discover that he believed him. Still, the geist had used his magick to conjure all this sumptuous food, and had shared it so generously… Surely he wanted something in exchange? The fearful cautions from the woman whom Boy had befriended on the journey rang loud in his mind. This was the Queen’s Shadow, after all; acts of kindness were not his legacy. So, if not Boy’s life, then… Boy blushed and dropped his gaze.

Could he do that? Did he want to? There was no denying the geist was far more handsome than Boy had ever considered. More benevolent too. Those shadows others feared, the ones that were rumoured to have parted men from their flesh in the blink of an eye, had bestowed nothing but gentle caresses over Boy’s skin since they first filtered under the cell door, and the heated yearning they inspired rivalled his desire for that strawberry.