Except… I tried to reveal my wings, just to make sure I could before I plunged to my death through a narrow window. Good thing I did because my wings didn’t appear. In fact, I couldn’t even feel them. Even hidden, I’d always been able to sense the appendages. Right now the only thing I felt was the agony of my injured arm. Which I couldn’t seem to heal.
What the fuck was going on? Was it something in those arrows, or something about this place? I didn’t have long to contemplate my plight before the heavy wooden door swung open and three guards entered, dressed in matching white outfits and pointing crossbows at me. They needn’t have bothered. From what I could gather the worst I could do was bitch slap them right now.
After the guards came some dude dressed in purple velvet and furs. The guy had more bling on him than a rapper. I folded my arms across my chest – well, the arm that hadn’t been shot with an arrow – and glared. “Why am I here? I demand that you let me go right now or I’ll rip the soul out of your body and torture you for all eternity. Or devour you. Either one. I haven’t decided which idea I like best.”
Bling McBlingerson ignored my threats as did his guards. “This isn’t the same woman. Why isn’t this the same woman? And why is she wearing a man’s clothing.”
Misogynistic asshole. I weighed the satisfaction I’d get out of punching him with the likelihood of another arrow wound.
“Your Highness, the woman we were following vanished into thin air and this woman appeared in her place. She must have the same magic as the other one, in spite of her odd choice of clothing. Maybe she changed her appearance to trick us into thinking she was a different person.”
Maybe these guards were lying out of their asses so they didn’t get killed. I wondered for a moment what the other woman had done to deserve being chased down and shot? Was I going to be executed for another woman’s crimes, or spend the rest of my days in a straw-filled prison?
Bling King narrowed his eyes at the guards, then turned to me. “Your father told me of your talents. Spin this straw into gold by sunrise or I’ll chop off your head.”
With that the man whirled around and left, the guards following him. The huge wooden door shut with a heavy slam and I heard the rasp of a metal lock sliding into place.
He knew my father? How the hell was that possible? I didn’t know which demons contributed their genetic material to my birth. I’d been formed, dropped off at a dwarven foster home with a sizable trust fund, and left to my own devices. This guy couldn’t possibly know my “father”. There must be an imposter somewhere running his mouth about me and claiming to be a relative.
The one thing he did get right was the spinning hay into gold thing. I couldn’t spin, but I was a demon and transmutation was our thing. I could break down anything in this tower to its base atomic structure, shift particles around and ‘create’ gold. There might be some leftover shit that blew up the tower or filled it with chlorine gas, but oh well. Can’t have everything.
I reached out with my energy to grab the straw and…nothing. In fact, I didn’t even have any energy to summon. No wings. No healing. No energy. My arm hurt. I was actually cold.
I was so losing my head tomorrow morning. And unlike the other times I’d lost my head, I got the feeling there wouldn’t be any coming back from this decapitation. Feeling scared for the first time in ages, I sat on the cold stone floor and contemplated my situation. Could I braid the hay into a long rope and climb down from the tower? Could I use the spinning wheel as a battering ram to bust through the door? Could I offer to give Bling King a blow job in exchange for my freedom?
“Pssst. Hey. You. Over here.”
I turned slowly, wary of being shot with yet another arrow, and saw a diminutive man appear from behind one of the bales of straw. Oh thank the fates. Maybe Bling King would execute this guy instead of me.
“I believe you might need some help here.”
Ya think? “Why yes. Can you turn all this straw into gold, then figure out a way for me to escape, heal my arrow wound, oh and while you’re at it, I could use a martini. Actually just get me a bottle of vodka.”
“I can turn this straw into gold for you, but I’ll need something in return.”
Of course. I was a demon. I’d done this type of bargaining all of my life. “In return I will grant you a favor of your choosing, so long as that favor does not conflict with any other vow I have made.”
Standard terms and conditions, but the little guy shook his head. “No. If the king returns to find you’ve spun this straw into gold, he will marry you and make you his queen.”
The guy with the velvet bathrobe and gold sauce pan around his neck? There was no fucking way I was going to marry that guy. Blow job, yes. Marriage, no.
“Since you’re the one actually doing the spinning, it would be deceptive of me to take the credit. Why don’t you marry him instead of me? I totally approve of you being his queen. I’m all about marriage equality and all that. Go right ahead and pick out that dress, dude, because the king is all yours.”
The small man wrinkled his nose. “I don’t want to marry the king. I want your first born child.”
Riiiight. Last time I checked, blow jobs didn’t lead to pregnancy. “And if I don’t have a child? What if the king is infertile? What if I’m infertile? What if our sexual contact consists solely of oral? Or anal?”
He smiled smugly. Very smugly. “Oh you will have offspring. And I want you to give me your firstborn.”
Whatever. “Sure. You get the first child I have. Deal.” It’s not like I wanted kids anyway. Even if the impossible happened and I found myself playing hide-the-sausage with Bling King, this guy was welcome to any offspring we had. Besides, giving away an unborn, and pretty unlikely, kid was preferable to having my head chopped off.
The man clapped his hands together and sat down at the spinning wheel, grabbing a handful of straw. Now I’m pretty ignorant when it comes to fiber arts, but I was sure the straw he was stuffing into one end of the spindle wasn’t supposed to come out as a thread of pure gold. The man’s hands flew until, just as the sun’s first rays hit the horizon, nothing remained in the room beyond the spinning wheel and spool after spool of gold wire. I gaped. The man bowed. And then he was gone.
Wow. Guess I was going to keep my head.
I didn’t have to wait long before the guards came back along with Bling King, this time he was wearing a crimson red bathrobe with a necklace that looked like a hubcap.
“Ta Da!” I announced, waving my hand about as if I were Vanna White.
The king’s jaw dropped. Then he quickly recovered his composure and ushered in a group of men who dragged the heavy spools of gold from the room.
“See? Now we had a deal. I keep my head, and I get to leave, while you get all the gold I was busy spinning all night long. Adios, motherfucker. It’s been real.”
The guards stopped me. Bling King rubbed his hands together, nearly peeing himself with excitement while the group of men returned, filling the room once more with straw.
“There is no way I’m going to let you go. I’ve got a better idea - if you spin this straw into gold by sunrise tomorrow, I’ll make you my queen.”
Oh, the honor. “Can I just leave instead?”
“No. Queen or you lose your head.”
Guess I was going to be a queen. Although I had no idea what I was going to promise the little guy this time in exchange for spinning the straw into gold. A kidney, maybe?
I’ll give Bling King credit, he did feed me, although the steak was a bit tough and the carrots underdone. I could have used some more butter too. Overall, it was an excruciatingly boring day until a rock came flying through my window.
At first I thought it was a fluke, but when a second one came through, I decided to get up and investigate. Imagine my surprise when I looked out the window and saw my very own angel, Gregory, on the ground below.
“Cockroach!” he shouted at me. “Quit fooling around and come down here.”
“I can’t,” I shouted back. “I’ll splat on the ground and die. Something is wrong with me. I can’t heal, can’t transmute, can’t even manage to summon my sword or reveal my wings. Some kingly guy has me locked up, forcing me to turn straw into gold for him. And he’s not even paying me minimum wage.”
“My wings won’t appear either,” he yelled. “Let down your hair and I’ll climb up to you.”
Like hell he would. Having my hair support some muscle-bound angel didn’t sound like something I’d want to try, even if my tresses were long enough.
“Sorry, no can do. The king says he’s going to marry me tomorrow, so maybe I’ll see you at the wedding?”
That got him moving. The angel leapt, digging his fingers into the chinks in the mortar, slowly he made his way up, traversing back and forth across the tower to find hand and foot holds as he climbed. The whole time I held my breath, worried that he’d fall. Normally the sight of my angel tumbling ten stories to the hard ground would make me laugh, but given the weirdness of this place I was legitimately afraid that he’d not survive a fall.
Once Gregory made it to the window we discovered another problem. The slits were narrow and he wasn’t. I chipped at the stone with the metal edge of one of the spindles while he squeezed his way through an inch at a time. At the end of it all he stood before me, his clothing torn, his skin scratched, and the window opening looking like someone had attacked it with a dull pen knife.
His clothes. His skin. He couldn’t heal himself, or create new clothing. Or reveal his wings. He was in the same predicament as me. Which begged the question – how the hell were we going to escape?
“So what’s your plan, big guy?” I asked. “You sling me over your shoulders and carry me down the side of the tower?”
“I don’t think I can do that going back down, especially carrying you. Plus, I seriously doubt I could get back through that window again.”
I eyed the door. “So we rush the king and his guards when they come through the door?”
Gregory glared at the door. Honestly his expression was so foreboding that I expected the thing to just fly open on its own. “I’ll happily rush the king. When is he due to come back?”
“Morning.” Which meant we had a long evening ahead of us. I wasn’t sure if the little spinning guy would return, if our deal was a one-time only thing. Hopefully he’d realize that there hadn’t been a wedding today and pop back to check on me, otherwise we’d just wait until morning then try a surprise attack on the king and his guards. Even without his powers, Gregory was pretty awe-inspiring. I was sure he could take three or four of the guards. I’d bash Bling King over the head with the spinning wheel, then throw bales of straw at any guards who remained. Yeah. That was my plan.
The angel’s stomach rumbled and he looked down in shock, as if one of those aliens was about to burst through his abdomen. “I’m hungry?”
“Yep. That’s what happens when you’re deprived of your angel-ness. You get hungry. You get cold. Your stupid fucking arrow wound hurts. And you’ll need to pee and poop, too. Over in that corner there. That’s the designated latrine, just so you know.”
“You’re hurt?” Gregory was by my side in two strides, gently taking my arm in his hands. His eyes darkened as he saw the wound. Then he gathered me into his arms and kissed me.
I get that he was trying to heal me as he’d done so many times before, but I was scared and so very glad to see him, my anchor in all this madness, that I kissed him back. Passionately. With lots of tongue.
He pulled back and looked at my arm in dismay. “It didn’t work.”
“No.” I wrapped my arms around him, squashing my face against his chest. He smelled different, more like a human and less like an angel.
He hugged me back, resting his cheek on the top of my head. “I can’t feel you.”
I knew what he meant. Gregory was always reaching out with his spirit-self to touch mine. Yes, we had angel-sex, where our spirit-selves merged into one, but this touching was more than that. It was a constant connection between us that transcended the flesh. And now it was gone.
I rubbed my hands up his back, feeling his skin through the torn shirt. I didn’t want to admit it to him, but I was worried. My powerful angel was a whole lot less powerful. I felt helpless, weak. There was a stupid asshole of a king who wanted to either marry me or chop off my head, and an equally stupid short man who, for some inexplicable reason, wanted my firstborn child. And probably a kidney. But as worried as I was, I wasn’t alone. Having Gregory here made all the difference in the world. He’d followed me through the gateway. He’d climbed up the side of a tower for me. I knew he’d risk his life for me. I lifted my head to look him in the eyes.
“I love you.”
“I love you too, my little Cockroach.”
Then he kissed me, and this time it had nothing to do with healing my arm. This kiss was all about what we felt for each other. His lips were soft and gentle on mine, then suddenly the spark between us kindled and burst into flame. He flattened his palm against my back, pressing me against him as his other hand reached up to brush along my jaw and cheek before digging through my hair to grip the back of my skull.
I fell into him. Everything dissolved into the feel of his lips on mine, of his tongue licking into my mouth. He tasted like coffee and chocolate, like something unique that was my very own angel.
We kissed until I felt like I could no longer breathe, then he pulled his mouth from mine, crushing me tight against his chest, my head on his shoulder. His breath was warm against my cheek, his palm resting on my back shifted lower, moving over the curve of my ass.
My heart was pounding. This was…different. Gregory had always wanted me, but in a spirit-self, angel-sex sort of way. He’d indulged my need for physical pleasure, but this was the first time I felt him desire me – the flesh and blood me.
I pulled away, removing myself completely from his arms. “Is this okay? I mean, do you really want this?”
I’d like to think I’d just jump his bones and worry about the repercussions later, but I didn’t want Gregory to do something he’d regret if – when – we got out of this mess.
He gestured at the rather noticeable bulge in his pants. “This body wants you. This body really wants you. Now I understand what your fallen angel Nils was talking about. The thing really does have a mind of its own.”
That wasn’t the right thing to say. I took a step backward and shook my head, fighting the urge to rip my clothes off and throw myself into his arms. “But do you want this? The you inside that physical form? Because I can’t just make love to a body. I need to know that all of you is on board with this.”
He tilted his head, regarding me with an inscrutable smile. “With you, Cockroach, I’m always all on board, whether I want to be or not. This time I’m on board, and I truly want to be.”
The distance between us suddenly vanished, and once again he pulled my lips up to his, soft and slow, exploring my mouth as if it were the first time he’d ever kissed me, ever truly tasted me. My fingers worked their way through the tears in his shirt, feeling the warm skin of his back, tracing the muscles and sliding down the column of his spine to hook in the waistband of his pants. His mouth left mine to trail down along my neck.
“You have way too many clothes on,” I gasped. “I have way too many clothes on. Why do we have these clothes on?”
“Because we have to remove them as opposed to just making them vanish,” he murmured against my neck. Was I going to have a hickey? Oh please let me have a hickey.
Suddenly he lifted his head and pushed me backwards until my back hit the stone of the wall. Then he yanked the tattered shirt over his head. I stared, devouring him with my eyes. The hard muscles, the flat, defined stomach, the light dusting of curly hair… He reached down to snap the button free on his jeans, slowly easing the zipper downward.
“Are you going to take your clothes off, or are you just going to stand there?” He h
ad a little smirk on his face.
“I’m just going to stand here. You keep going with that zipper.”
Yep. Smirk. The zipper eased down with agonizing slowness, then he hooked his thumbs in the waistband of his jeans and pulled them over his hips.
Commando. And shame on me for all the Ken-doll jokes I’d made in the last two years, because he was damned near perfect. I looked my fill, then did my own strip-tease, mine far more frantic with lots of cursing as I struggled out of my many garments with an injured arm. Gregory didn’t offer to help, his dark eyes watching me intently.
I turned him on. Me. An imp. I turned on an archangel. And it wasn’t just my spirit-self he desired, but this human body I’d chosen. Even the awkward, non-sexy shedding of the clothing I’d just done hadn’t dulled that desire.
“You’re perfect, Cockroach. You make me whole.”
That brought tears to my eyes. Me. An imp. Getting all sentimental and mushy. What was it with this place?
In two strides he was on me, lifting me so I fit perfectly against him. I felt him press against me and he shifted my hips to move me into position.
“Are you sure?” I whispered. This seemed to be a monumental event between us, a bridge that once crossed would be forever burned.
He slid into me fast and deep. “I’m sure.”
I let myself go at his reassurance, and something wild took hold of me. My fingers dug into his shoulders as he crashed into me, rocking his hips until we were like animals in our passion. My legs wrapped tight around his hips and I bit down on his shoulder, feeling the pleasure ripple through me as he drove deeper. Every muscle in my body clenched, contracted, then released as I came. He threw back his head, a groan tearing from his throat as he followed, shuddering with the release.
We held there, motionless. I stared into his dark eyes, then lifted a hand from his shoulder to brush my fingers across his bottom lip. I’d bit him there as well as on his shoulder, and who knows what else I’d done to him in the throes of my passion. I was a demon. Sex and violence went hand-in-hand with us, but this was different. It was so very different.
Once Upon A Kiss: Seventeen Romantic Faerie Tales Page 28