by Vivian Arend
Sighing, she looked down and immediately an image formed. Just like last time, it was black that quickly coalesced into a knot of color, gray and red and dark blues.
But that image quickly shifted like fog over a moor, reforming and reshaping, and it was no longer a wolf staring back at her but a little boy with hair of ebony, snow-white skin, and lips as red as blood. He sat within a cage, holding its bars and staring out into darkness. Eyes the shade of heated magma glowed into the night and a lump formed in the back of her throat.
Shayera reached for him, forgetting this was only a mirage. The moment her finger touched the water, he was gone.
“No, little boy, who are you?” She gripped the edge of the bowl, silently pleading for his image to return. She’d never seen the boy before in her life, but it was the defeated, sorrowful look about him that tore at her soul.
Another image was forming. Stairs, a spiraling staircase that led up from the boy’s dungeon and out into a larder she’d seen before.
“Can this be?” She licked her lips as her pulse sped in the vein at her throat. Was Rumpel holding a captive in his dungeon? A demone boy?
And if so, why?
The images were gone now, the water was just water, but it didn’t matter because she’d seen all she needed to see.
Who was the boy? If he really did exist, if this wasn’t just a magic mirror that showed nothing, then who was he? Why was he kept so secluded, so apart from the rest of this world?
Was he a danger to himself, to others? To Rumpel?
Did the boy have anything to do with the games?
The moment she thought it, she knew it had to be. Because the child might be caged, but he was clean. Fed. Well cared for, all signs that he mattered, he was of some value to Rumpelstiltskin, but how?
Why?
She glanced back down at the bowl; there would be no more help from that direction. She couldn’t very well go exploring the castle. Rumpel was too powerful, and though she couldn’t see them, there were servants everywhere. If there really was a boy hidden deep within the bowels of this place, she’d never get close enough on her own.
But maybe, just maybe, she could find out the truth someplace else.
Gathering her skirts, she ran from the study and back to her room. She was within the last hundred pages of the final tome. She’d never sleep tonight anyway, not with the kind of adrenaline pumping through her.
The thrill of discovery, of at least fitting the pieces together, gave her energy. Turning down the corridor, she sped to her room and breathlessly shoved the door open the second her hand landed on the knob.
Jumping onto the center of the bed, she latched on to the book, trembling fingers practically tearing it open, and she began to read.
It was in the last fifty pages that she finally discovered the truth.
“In the year 9 BC, King Dionysis devised the games. A demone male is extraordinarily vulnerable in their first year of life, especially those born of royal parentage.” She flipped the page with fingers grown numb from cold. “It is only through the feeding of the mother’s soul to her kin that the male child will develop a sliver of soul and conscience. Demone are a warring and brooding race, but without souls, they would utterly destroy themselves. Legend states that King Dionysis’s own mother was brutally slaughtered before he reached the age of one. Knowing of his affliction early on, he believed that by inhaling the soul of a pure creature, he could attain that which was denied him.”
Her stomach ached, suddenly hurt as the awful, terrible truth of what she was reading made itself known. Swallowing hard, she looked up at the room which she’d grown to love. At the brilliantly painted clouds on the ceiling, the enormous bay window that let her stare into the heavens, the four-poster bed she’d dreamed of Rumpel taking her on night after night.
“This is why I’m here. Why you brought me here. Oh my gods…” Touching her cheek, she thought about every challenge, the warnings Dalia had given her over and over to lose.
But she was losing, right? That tiny sliver of hope was all she had. She’d not won one game yet. Not that she really understood what he was testing her on, but the baby had died, and her father had been cross, surely she’d failed. And if she failed she was not pure enough.
“Oh gods.” She began hyperventilating. But like watching a catastrophe unfold in front of her eyes—knowing she should look away, but unable to—she finished the book.
The book went on to highlight in great detail the king’s spiraling madness as none within demone was pure enough, why all believed in the end that that was the true reason why he called down war on the lands. To try to find his cure.
“…the sad fact is, there is no clear evidence of a soul being devoured curing our species. It’s not been done yet, and I, Atarxerxes the V, author of this great book of Delerium, do not believe in the tale’s veracity. Rumors abound of a cure in truth. A chalice buried deep in the heart of Boiling Mountain. It is said that a single drop of blood drank from the golden cup would cure the infection of the soul. But, as with all legends, the chalice of hope is steeped in half-truths and pure lies. I fear that should the king not find his soul, we are all doomed to the eternal pit.”
And that was how it ended. A horrible bedtime story if ever there was one.
Cold to her core, Shayera lay down on the bed and gazed up at the twinkling lights threaded all about, reminding her of fairy light.
Fat tears rolled unchecked from the corners of her eyes. He’d never out-and-out lied to her, but he might as well have. Because the pain of his betrayal was just the same.
“I was so stupid,” she sobbed. “So unbelievably stupid.”
In that room, a siren’s heart shattered.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Shayera never once turned to Rumpel as they headed toward the room where the final game was to begin. She’d not eaten this morning, hadn’t slept last night, had refused to allow Dalia to pretty her up.
She’d come out of her room with a sense of purpose. She would fail this test and she would go home and to hell with love.
A poisonous, terrible lie. Love was the fairy tale, not her.
Rumpel looked at her and his golden eyes were hooded. “Carrot, are you ready?”
I hate you. So much. I hate you so, so much. She thought the words, but they wouldn’t come. Nodding mutely, she let herself into the room, never looking back at him.
How he must be laughing at her. Mocking her in his cold, dark heart. Why had he left Delerium? He was no different than the rest of them. He was mercenary, cold, vile… she swallowed the ache in her throat and turned her face into her hands. She would not cry again, not anymore. She’d done it all last night, she’d shed her final tear for that man and she was through.
“Should I enter now, sir?”
Giles looked at Rumpel, but unlike every other time when he’d been sitting on his throne watching her, he was pacing, growling, staring at her, down at his feet, back and forth.
Back and forth.
“No.” Rumpel spun on his heel, staring down at his man with all the disdain and princely power he could muster. He’d come to a conclusion. All night he’d wrestled with what to do and now he knew.
One look at her this morning and it’d been obvious she’d finished the books. He vacillated between wishing he’d never given her the damn things to feeling relief that she now knew. But would she understand?
“I will enter the game this time, Giles.”
“Sir?” He sounded astonished, brows dipping. “But it is improper for royalty to—”
“To what?” He glowered, thrusting out his hand at her. She was huddled into herself, obviously trying not to cry.
Once a game was begun there was no power in the above or below that could stop it. But he could change it. He’d left Delerium because he’d understood then how wrong it was, and here he was doing the very same.
“To befoul my hands with a game of my own creation? Hmm.” He scrubbed his jaw, then tos
sed his hands up. “I messed everything up. Everything.”
“You could not know what she would mean to you, sir.”
“What does it matter? You warned me, you all warned me. Told me over and over to not do it, and for centuries I’ve refused to listen. So obsessed with finding the impossible cure, and what have I done?” He roared.
“There is much a father would do for his child, sir. I do not envy your decision.”
“There is no alternative, and no excuse. I must rectify this. There is no choice, and if she never forgives me then it’s the price I must pay, but I will not let her die. She will fail this test.”
“But, sir, she’s already failed two of the three, has she not? The babe died, her father was not avenged… She cannot pass the game.”
“She’s not failed, Giles, not a single test. Not a one, but I will be damned if she passes this one. You are to leave.” He began shrugging out of his T-shirt. “Let no one pass down these halls, no one can see what will happen. Do you hear me? Guard this place, Black Death, and your reward will be great.”
Tossing the shirt to the ground, he jerked at the buttons of his jeans. Giles stood staring at him with a dumbstruck expression.
“Go!” he snapped, pointing at the door. “Now.”
The moment his man was gone, Rumpel dropped his pants. Letting his hair go free, he stood nude and turned to her. “You will go home, my little siren,” he whispered. “Trust in me now, and all will be well.”
The room shifted into a blinding blur of colors: smoky-pearl fabric hanging from rafters, magenta-hued walls, bronze chandeliers, thick rugs spun from the finest spider silk glinting like a thousand prisms of rainbow light with each step she took. The room smelled of sandalwood and myrrh, practically dripped luxury and sex.
Shayera twirled as the sound of a lute played a hypnotic, lulling song.
And this time Rumpel was there. He lay on a pile of pillows, nude, his long hair down and staring at her with the same burning intensity that raced through her soul.
“What is this?” Somehow she found her voice.
Stretching an arm above his head, he did not answer her. But the move was a call to act, to look upon him and marvel at the beauty of something so perfect.
He was all sloping grace and tight muscles. His arms, his legs, his stomach, all perfect, all symmetrical. But hard. Man. Wild.
Her fingers clenched as the charms she tried so hard to control began to buzz inside her with the chaotic knowledge that before her lay a feast. She wet her lips, and because she was so weak, she looked between his legs, and her breath caught on a hitch.
Her body tingled at the sight of his thick shaft and how it jutted out from between his thighs. His hand crept low on his belly.
Rumpel wasn’t furry, but he wasn’t smooth either. His fingers followed the dark trail that led straight to his cock. The very one she’d had in her mouth, the one she dreamed of every night, wondering what other glories could be had from it.
Nipples going hard and tight, her hand itched to touch the wetness between her legs.
“Where is my game? You should go.” She tried again, but her voice was too breathy, too kittenish to be believed as any sort of threat. A whimper escaped her tight lips and she hated herself, hated that he could still affect her this way, that her siren parts could still want, still ache for something that wasn’t even real.
He touched himself, rubbing his hand up and down, so very, very slowly. Lids half-closed, he gazed at her. His desire that she join him was so evident it felt inevitable to her.
“Come. Here.” His voice wasn’t soft or cajoling, this was lust. Raw and primal and explosive.
She bit down on her lip, refusing to rise to the bait. The corset pinning her breasts felt too constrictive, she could hardly breathe, and the room was definitely spinning.
“No.”
She smiled because she’d been able to resist.
“Then if you won’t come to me…”
He was gone, a depression on the pillows was the only clue that he’d ever actually been there. Shocked, desperate, she turned and there he was. Right behind her. Smelling of whisky and smoky cherries, and it was like she was caught in the sights of a killer.
She was a cobra, he the mongoose. She should not have been taken down. She was the siren, able to bend any knee her way, and yet it was he breaking her apart.
“…I shall have to come to you.”
Then he kissed her and she forgot that it wouldn’t hurt. She flinched, waiting for the pain, but it didn’t come.
“I’ve waited for you long enough, Shayera Caron.”
His words were a rumble upon her flesh and suddenly she was aware that they were skin to skin, that at some point he’d taken her clothes off.
“You will be mine.”
She would step out of his arms, she would forget him. She would.
“How is this possible? Why can I touch inside these games?”
His leg was suddenly, impossibly, between her own and her head was swimming because Rumpel was touching her, his hand was sliding up her rib cage and the movement of his thigh created a delicious, delirious friction in her aching center.
“Tell me you do not want me.”
“I… do not… want you.” She moaned and clawed at his back, making him bow into her nails and hiss.
Amber eyes gleamed. “You do, little siren. I feel it in your every touch, your every move. The whisper of your flesh against mine, it all screams that you belong to me.”
And then he shifted just an inch to the left, and oh dear gods!
Grunting, she dropped her head upon his chest as his cock massaged between the slippery folds of her desire.
His breath was at her ear, his teeth nipping at her lobe. “Let me in, Carrot, tell me yes.”
Yes. Yes. Yes. “No.”
“Shayera, say yes. Do it now!”
The cadence of his voice snapped her from her sexual fog. Jerking, she slapped him. His eyes were wide, his jaw clenched.
“No,” she said again. “No.” This time with more power. “You lied to me.”
“Shayera, you do not understand. Please, you have less than a minute, you must agree. Please, my love.” He held out a hand and she cringed.
“What a fool I’ve been. Who do you think I am? This is the game?”
“No.” He raked his fingers through his hair, pulling the ends so hard she knew it had to sting. “This is no game. I am breaking my own rule, Shayera, you have to believe me. Ten seconds. Say yes. Goddess, woman, say yes!”
“NO!” She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him. “No. No. No.”
“Rumpel, my love,” another voice cooed. The voice was so sultry, so feminine and hypnotic that Shayera spun around.
A woman stood where none had been before and she was Lust personified. As nude as the both of them, she was perfection. The other half of him. Her skin was pale, her hair ebony, and her full, heart-shaped lips as red as blood.
The analogy rattled loose the memory of the boy and Shayera gasped, covering her mouth with her hands.
“Yes.” The woman smirked. “So now you know.”
Turning toward Rumpel, who was glowering at the vision before them, she stuck out an accusing finger. “I saw the boy last night. I read about the games, she is his mother. Your wife. Am I right?” she spat out, desperate that he should deny it. Desperate he tell her no, that he refute what was so unbelievably obvious to her. “Tell me, Rumpelstiltskin, am I right!”
“Yes,” he growled. “Yes!”
The room spun out of focus—the smells, the sights, the timbrels and lutes, everything was gone. Even the woman.
They were back in the cold, gray room, and they were both dressed and she’d be damned if even one tear spilled out in front of him.
“Demone can’t lie, and yet you lied to me all along.” She hurled the words at him, grateful when he grimaced.
Hugging her arms to her chest, she shook her head.
&
nbsp; “I did not know you then.”
“And I suppose that should make this all right?”
“No.” He snarled and clamped his hands behind his back as he paced like a caged tiger before her. “Give me a chance to explain.”
“There is nothing you can say to make this right. Absolutely nothing.”
Desperation glittered in the depths of his golden-amber eyes. “The book only told you half the story, Shayera. Not all of it.”
“Oh please.” She waved a hand at him. “Then by all means, explain. Make this right.”
Stopping, he turned toward her. “Euralis is my child, the boy of my heart.”
“You’re married. Where is she? Back on Delerium still? How dare you touch me. Do your vows mean so—”
“My wife,” he spat, “is still on Delerium. She is a soul-sucking succubus who cared nothing for me. Her name was Delanore and she married me because it was the will of our parents.”
“What?” Because that was not the name she’d read of in the book. “Caratina?”
“Was my mistress. In the retinue of Delanore’s personal maids, she was an aberration like myself. More humane, they called it.”
“Humane.” She scoffed. “I’ve seen very little of that since being here.”
He looked down. “I wasn’t always as I am, Shayera. Circumstances have turned me into the very monster I hated.”
“Your father.”
“Yes.” His face was sad and she ached to go to him, but her feet were firmly rooted.
She’d fallen for his lies too many times. She was no fool and wouldn’t be again.
He shook his head. “Shayera, I broke faith with him because I did not believe in his obsession.”
“And yet,” she said, narrowing her eyes, “here you are doing the same. How long have you been running these games, Rumpel?”
He snorted, closed his eyes, and then sighed. “Thousands of years. But you have to understand, I wouldn’t do it for me.” His look was pleading. “My son is dying. Caratina died when he was only five months old, and he didn’t have enough time to absorb part of her soul; without it, he’s going mad.”