by May Sage
“Jeez. She’ll never leave now.”
“That’s the plan,” he replied with a wink. “Bathroom’s there,” he pointed towards an ensuite, before adding, “kitchen downstairs, with just about everything else. Help yourself to anything, have a look around. I’ll be back before you know it.”
Aria couldn’t help the two steps forward.
“Where are you going?” she asked, hoping and failing at not sounding needy.
After the most antagonizing six hours of her life, she was finally meeting the only reason why she was standing there, perfectly sane and whole. Letting him go was not in her list of priorities.
There was a wicked glint to his eyes as he smirked.
“Back to your friends. I thought I could – I don’t know. Burn them all to the ground?”
“Oh. Well, in that case, what the hell are you still doing here?”
Chapter 5
Things took a little longer than planned, as they generally did when women were involved. It turned out, the stuff the gang had injected into their bloodstream had made them so zombie-ish they didn’t even feel his compulsion. He used at least ten spells to get them out of there.
Thankfully, playing with fire was in his nature; it didn’t count towards his ever lengthening tally.
As he watched the compound burn, he contemplated his messed up fate. A quick calculation and he estimated that he had two hundred and seventy four days left, now. Just over nine months.
How fucking unfair was that? That he’d find her, the one woman who could save him in this day and age, only too late.
Everything in Rum revolted against deceiving Aria, but what woman would agree to trying for a child with a guy she’d actually met for all of two minutes?
Besides, she could be on the pill, or simply at the wrong time to conceive – and he had one week, exactly one week – to father the child who could save him.
Not the best odds.
He was better off not returning to his home, ignore the fact that he’d ever met her and just try to enjoy the rest of his days.
Rum realized he was being a damn coward, but if he dared hope, only to lose it in the end…
He’s stood there for a while, because the sun was rising when he suddenly got up, almost panicked. Shit. Aria was alone in his home, in the middle of absolutely nowhere. What the fuck had he been thinking? He needed to bring her back to Alenia, at least.
He transported himself directly in his room; instead of calming down, his heart thumped harder against his chest when he saw her.
She was cocooned under his covers, looking peaceful, perfectly fine. Like she belonged here.
She did.
Fuck.
Tomorrow. He’d deal with it tomorrow.
The next day, he was awakened by the ungodly grumble of his stomach as his nostrils took in the smell. There were herbs and eggs involved.
Rum was by no mean a morning person, but he practically ran downstairs, barely seeing Aria as his attention focused on the food.
“Tell me there’s enough for me.”
She giggled, as though this was a joking matter.
“You find this funny? I may die of longing and desolation before time consumes what’s left of my flesh if you do not feed me this, woman!”
“Okay, that was somewhat unnecessarily dramatic. And yes, there’s plenty.”
She served him in a golden bowl and pulled the pan away. Rum stared, using everything he learned from Princess Momo, until she added another spoonful.
He would have loved to say that he ate politely, but the entire meal was punctuated by moans of delight and enthusiastic exclamations.
“It’s just eggs,” she shrugged.
What the fuck.
“I can’t cook,” he confessed, just so she understood the extent of his appreciation. “And I don’t spend too much time in your world, either. So I tend to eat fruits. And… mostly fruits.”
Her mouth just hung open for a while.
“How the heck did you get a body like that by eating fruits?”
He looked down at his large shoulders and generous musculature.
“Fays stop changing in their youth – by the thirtieth year, generally. My mother used to feed me, then.”
“How long ago was it.”
He kept his mouth shut because it was a teeny, tiny bit embarrassing.
“You need a housekeeper.”
No, he needed a wife.
The problem was, he’d needed her five years ago; hell, maybe he could have worked with two or three months…
“What is it?” she asked, her gracefully curved brows knitted together.
His expression might have darkened.
Rum tried very hard to keep his mouth shut, but she carried on staring, worry obvious in her stance.
Here goes nothing.
“The housekeeper will find herself out of a job soon, if I was to hire one. I’ll be dead by winter.”
He could have sugar coated it, but he knew that if he’d tried to elaborate, he would have changed his mind halfway through and stopped himself. Now there was no holding back.
Rum had expected the gasp, the look, but not single the silent tear falling on her cheek. Jeez, the girl was so sweet.
“As a Fay, I am practically immortal – someone could kill me, but time has very little effect on us. What does matter is energy. Every time we use the powers nature granted us – what you’d call witchcraft, spells, magic – we lose a day of life. I’ve been close to the end for a while.”
Other tears fell, although she didn’t move, or otherwise react to that. In a way, it helped him carry on.
“I’ve been looking for you for a while. Subconsciously, I’d say six or seven years,” when he’d started travelling around the continent for no reason, seeking, watching, without ever admitting what he was doing to himself, “and actively, for close to two years.”
Just spill it out, Rum!
“We Fays regain our entire inner energy when we give birth to a child. Nature’s way of insuring that the parents stay around to educate their young, I suppose. So, I was hoping to find someone I’m compatible with. Back a few centuries ago, there were a fair few potential Fay brides amongst the human race, but so many were executed for witchcraft and other nonsense, there’s barely any left.”
She stiffened.
“So I’m the only fay bride around?”
Rum shook his head. If only it was that simple.
“Not really, no. Cinderella was perfectly adequate.”
“As in our Queen Cinderella?”
“Yes; she might have done, but frankly, I didn’t even try. I also know another Fay, Maleficent… But I intend to spend eternity doting on the mother of my child, and we would have made each other quite miserable. So I chose this. I chose death. And now….”
He just waved toward her helplessly. Now, she was here. Too late.
“This – having you here – is torture. I see what might have been and I hate everything around me for it. So sweetheart, my crazy cat lady…”
He lifted his hand and pushed her away from him – the hardest thing he’d ever done.
“Goodbye.”
She was going to find him and she was going to carve him a new one.
Aria was where she’d been for the last three days – since she’d blinked and found herself in her home, with Princess Momo.
The cat hadn’t stopped meowing since, shamelessly crying out, begging Rumpelstiltskin to come back – Aria just wished she could get away with doing the same.
This wasn’t fair, none of it. Come on, what kind of person tells you, “you could save my life,” and, “I want you so much,” only to kick you out?
Fucking Fay.
The maps didn’t make sense. She clearly remembered seeing mountains from the windows, and there had been a beach, too – the house was in the middle of a thick, dense forest similar to the one they had north of Alenia and in the Woodlands.
The problem?
> There was no land of that kind anywhere.
None.
Fucking shitty Fay.
“This is pathetic.”
She nodded in agreement before turning, confused to find a woman standing behind her, in her library.
Aria was pretty sure her door was locked, and she’d pretty much ignored anything and anyone trying to distract her from the task at hand, so she knew she hadn’t let her in.
But the fact that the woman had horns sprouting out of her head, it was fair to assume that she wasn’t entirely human.
She wore black from head to toes, skintight latex catsuit, nails, lipstick and all.
“Are you referring to the fact that I’m in my PJ, or that I haven’t showered and brushed my teeth for two days now?”
“Neither. You stink, but the real tragedy here is that you’re tracking a Fay using human maps. Ever heard of Fay lands? As in, untraceable, invisible lands where Fay lived?”
Oh.
“Ehhh… No. Quite obviously I hadn’t.”
Great. What was she going to do now?
“I’ve heard both of you mopping for two days. Show some consideration and use your brains, will you?”
She tried to do so, very, very hard.
“Nope, nothing coming. Feel free to enlighten me. Who are you, by the way?”
“Maleficent – I go by Mal. Whenever there’s a story involving me, I generally end up being the bad guy,” she added proudly. “But as you can’t even fucking afford your own godmother, it seems like I’ll have to do something nice for a change.”
It looked like it was breaking her heart.
Then, she mysteriously said, “Rumford.”
Mhhh… Okay.
“Yeah, nice place, I’ve been there in the summer.”
Mal rolled her eyes.
“We all give you whatever stage name we fancy. His name. His real name is Rumford. And knowing it means owning him. You can quite literally order him around like your little bitch, as long as you start your sentence with I wish.”
Mal winked, lifted her hands, and in a pouf of dark smoke, she was gone.
Chapter 6
First things first. Her priority had been taking a long-ass shower, and getting the cobwebs off her hair. Not quite, but almost. She’d been a mess.
Aria walked around in her room, considering her options, wondering what she should say, before giving up and hiding under the covers. She’d just closed her eyes once she felt a presence she immediately recognized – it had helped that Princess Momo had immediately stopped her incessant moaning and eagerly zeroed in toward the bed.
Here he was, just next to her, looking perfect as always. How dare he! She might have forgiven him for being an ass if he’d at least looked depressed about it.
“Oh, I’m quite depressed,” he added, his usual smirk firmly in place. One of his hands moved to caress her hair and damn him, but she let him!
Mind reading assholes were the worst.
“Indeed.” Then, he stopped smiling for a while. “Why didn’t you use it? Why didn’t you use my name?”
She shrugged, and started singing the chorus of a popular song to ensure he couldn’t steal the answer from her mind.
“You’re good at that. A little training and you’ll be able to completely push me out.”
As it still didn’t exhort any words from her lips, he gave up on speaking, and asked directly in her mind.
“You have the biggest weapon you could possibly get. You could order me to give you gold, to make you queen, and you haven’t leaped on it.”
She hadn’t. There was one thing she wanted and no one could buy it. Once she’d been given the answer she’d looked for, she’d come to understand that there was no point chasing a man who didn’t want to stay. Having him against his will would be more painful than never seeing him again.
“You want me.”
He did say it like it was some sort of a question.
“You want me even though I’ll be gone, soon.”
“I don’t understand You said a child could save you – why didn’t you even ask…”
She caught the irony as soon as he lifted his eyebrow.
Good point. For the same reason she had.
“There’s a good chance…”
“Fuck chance,” she replied, rolling on top of him, slowly crawling to his lips, and capturing them under hers.
She spread her legs over his frame, grinding her hips, and he groaned, his hands climbing over her top.
“Aria…” he said softly. “Say my name, pretty girl.”
It came out breathier than she’d intended.
“Rumford.”
“Yes, my lady. Your wish is my command.”
“I wish…”
He cut her off when the warm palms travelled south, and found the edge of her top, gliding it over her head. She didn’t wear a bra, so her breasts were free, nipples standing at attention.
“You wish?” he said, before closing his lips around one of her dark nubs and sucking.
“I wish to work on that firstborn child I owe you.”
Rum stood there, feeling dumb as fuck for a full minute, although there was a hard, small, delicious nipple between his lips.
Fuck. Really. Was it simple as that?
The question was rhetoric. Yes: yes, it was.
Fuck.
How many times had he helped a woman who wished for a child? Dozens. Perhaps hundreds. He’d also leant a helping hand to the few kings who’d wanted boys back in the day yet not once had he believed that the answer was so simple.
Nature made it so Fays couldn’t cast any spell on themselves, but nothing stopped Rum from enchanting Aria.
He held one hand against her soft bare stomach and worked silently, until everything civilized in him shut down.
Right now, it was all basic, carnal. Aria, woman, Rum, man. Nothing mattered now except fucking his baby into her.
Even in his state, Rum was careful with her. Every movement was purposeful, intended to make her want him as much as he needed her; his fingers teased her, only to stop before she could come. He licked her until she screamed, but again, withdrew an orgasm from her.
“You rat bastard!” she yelled, fully aware of what he was up to.
“Shhh… You’ll come around my cock, soon enough.”
It was a promise he delivered on – many a time.
Incapable of finesse at first, he grabbed both of her legs and rested them on one of his shoulders before pushing inside her insanely tight sheath.
His thrusts were quick and deep, but so brutal it was a miracle she loved it. He’d just emptied himself when his dick, already hardening again, demanded more, so this time, he showed off, standing up, holding her slight frame effortlessly, and hearing cries of ecstasy every time he impaled her, balls deep. The third time, he thought she’d been on top, although it might actually have been the fourth…
By morning he’d come inside her so many times there was no version of this scenario where she wouldn’t end up cursing his name and yelling insanities nine months later.
Ares and Rumy, their twins, did them the favor of arriving three weeks early, and somehow, Rumford survived his children’s birth, although Aria swore she’d decapitate him the minute she was done pushing the footballs out of her pussy.
Rum was bound to Aria that year, which would prologue her life, making it as long as his.
Which was why all of them would witness The Last War.
Note from May
I hope you enjoyed this Novella!
The Last War (Troy) is due 2017, just so you know! The next fairy tale is Sleeping Beauty, out in September.
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