Shayera

I didn’t want to see the mirage, I wanted the truth. That’s what I’d gone there for.

My request didn’t seem to startle or even surprise him. His look was unflinching and beautifully haughty. I saw the wheels of his mind move and knew he was asking himself why he should do it, reminding himself of the cost, telling himself that he’d promised me he’d try.

I knew this man.

Intimately.

We were strangers.

But we weren’t. Not at all. I squared my shoulders, eyeing him back just as sternly. He would not deny me, not anymore. And I silently reminded him of that.

Finally, he sighed, and I knew I’d won the battle. His gorgeous lips twitched. “You do not fight fair, female.”

I snorted and crossed my arms, tapping my foot impatiently. “And here I thought you already knew that about me.”

A look passed between us then, one that was hot and scorching and full of unspoken promises.

I shivered, swallowed hard, and felt a thrum of power suddenly roll through me. It was just a tiny spark, a little flame, and nothing more. It was my siren’s charms. I’d told him last night that I came alive around him, and I hadn’t lied. It was stronger than it had been the night before. I wanted to slip off my ring and blast him with my power. I wanted him to taste the depths of the burning desire that he built in my very bones. But I wouldn’t. Never again. Not unless he was the one to ask me to.

I would never again betray his trust in that way.

“You are determined, Siren.”

I shrugged. “Call me Shayera. Or Carrots even. Call me something that matters, Rumpel. Don’t push me away anymore. One week. You promised. So give me your best.”

A visible tremor rolled through him. “Gods above,” he mumbled under his breath.

I laughed, realizing I was torturing him and reveling in that fact. I doubted there were many in all the worlds that could elicit the type of reaction from Rumpel I could with just a few simple words.

He was a beast. The king of the jungle. It was a heady thought to know I could unnerve him so. I licked my lips, and his eyes zoomed in immediately.

A pained groan rumbled through his thick chest. “I’ll never survive this week,” he said.

I grinned. “Change.”

Instantly, I heard the locks in the thick library doors turn, echoing loudly through the eerily silent room. I jerked at the deafening booming noise, but never tore my eyes off him as a thick veil of gray smoke enveloped him, obscuring my sight of him for just a moment.

When the fog lifted, there he was. The real man. Not the mirage. Not the pretty Prince that the rest of the world knew him as.

But the monster. The beast. My Demone male.

He was taller than in his human form, with skin black as night and long, silver-tipped hair that fell past his waist. Blood-red eyes gleamed like ruby ash in flame. He had a Patrician nose, a strong jaw line, high cheekbones, and two deliciously curved horns atop the crown of his head.

His body was strong, mighty, and powerful looking, rippling with smooth, lean muscle. His legs were thick and spread wide, tapering into fur at the bottom and ending in dark cloven hooves. A forked tail flicked behind him. He spread his arms. “Seen your fill?”

My stomach fluttered and my legs ached, desire coiling like a serpent inside of me. The suppressed powers of my charms burned through me like acid, making me feel hot and dizzy and needful. I squeezed my eyes shut and fought to regain my focus.

“That hideous?” he asked, his voice a deep and terrible rumble that did exciting things to me.

I flicked my eyes open, glancing immediately at him. “Is that really what you think? That I find you hideous?”

“Most would.”

I loved the silky strength of his voice in this body. He sounded like a meld of man and beast, and it did wonderful, erotic things to me. I bit the corner of my lips hard. “I’m not most. So tell me, Rumpel, why are you here now? I thought you wouldn’t meet me until tonight. “His nostrils flared, and for just a second I thought he meant to charge me. I licked my lips, wanting him to. I wanted him to take the decision completely out of my hands. I still didn’t know him, but my body remembered what my fractured mind clearly could not. The beast was mine—mine to tame, and mine to claim.

He grunted. “I scent your need, woman.”

My lips curved. “I will not deny it.”

He grunted again, and gods above, I had to grip the corner of the chair beside me just to stay on my feet. How the bloody blazes can he stand this? Why isn’t he racing to me? Doesn’t he want me anymore? Is that the problem?

“Leave your ring on,” he said in a sharp growl, confirming my suspicions and making me feel suddenly mortified by my own desires.

I shook, and glanced away.

“Dammit it all to the Underworld,” he snapped.

That was all the warning I got before I was suddenly and swiftly caught up in a pair of powerfully thick arms and pinned against the shelf of the nearest bookcase.

The sharp burst of pain from the movement hurt a little, but it mostly felt thrillingly delicious. I gazed, enraptured, into ruby-red eyes.

“I know what you’re thinking. I can practically hear your thoughts, they’re so loud.” He sounded angry. Angry and something more.

My chest heaved, feeling as though I couldn’t take a proper breath. All I could smell was cherries and cloves, and all I could see was him.

“I do want you, bloody hell, Shayera. I want you. I bloody want you.”

“Then what’s stopping you?” I hissed, trying to turn my pinned wrist toward him so I could clutch onto him.

But his grip was unyielding and absolute. It thrilled me to no end how powerful and deadly my beast was. “Honor, woman. Honor. There isn’t a hell of a lot in this world that would ever have me considering such a foolish notion.”

“Except?” I asked, needing to hear him say it.

His angry eyes narrowed. “You, damn it, siren. Only ever you. You don’t know me. You don’t know the monster I am. The monster I can be.”

“I don’t care—”

“But you should,” he barked, large chest rising and falling with his heavy breaths and scraping against my hardened nipples. It made me hungry for more. So, so much more.

“She would,” he said. “She cared. She cared that I was good and kind and—”

I gulped, searching his eyes and seeing the pain, but also the unyielding man behind it, the one who was determined I see his flaws, the one who was determined I quit this foolish notion of falling in love with a beast. The one who thought I still had a choice.

But I didn’t. Not from the second I’d walked through those castle doors. The next time I rolled my wrist to free myself of his grip, he let me. He didn’t stop me when I framed his smooth cheek with my tiny, cold hand. “It’s too late, king of beasts, far too late for me. I do not fear your monsters, because I have my own.”

“Hhh,” he breathed deeply, trembling so hard that I felt him move all the way through me. “Shayera, you are so young. I feared your loving me before, what it would do to you, the life I would lead you on.”

“And yet you took me. Made me yours.”

He growled. “Because I was a selfish bastard, don’t you see, I’m trying to do right by y—”

“Stop, you idiot. You want me to know you, fine. I won’t think about lying with you every second of every day. Won’t think about what rests beneath your trousers, or how beautiful you are in your true form, or the way you kiss, like you wish to steal the very soul from my body. You want me to stop, then fine, I’ll stop. You want me to learn you, then show me who you are. Open up to me, Rumpel, as I am willing to open up to you.”

His eyes were closed, but his forehead rested heavily against my own and he was sweating as though he’d run miles. I was so tiny compared to him, but when I wrapped my arms around his waist, it was he who sank into me with a desperate groan, and it was he whose body was wracked by silent tears.

I held him, because that was the only thing I knew to do and the only thing I wanted to do. It didn’t matter to me if we stood here for hours, or days. He was with me now. And I felt complete again. I would learn him. And I would not push him in this way again.

I kissed his cheek and he sucked in a sharp breath. “Look at me,” I whispered against his warm mouth.

He gazed at me with broken, shattered eyes.

I leaned in and kissed his other cheek.

His fingers tightened on my waist, digging in so hard it was nearly painful, but it was also real. So very real.

“I’m here, Rumpel. I’m right here. You want me to see what you did, you want me to know who you are, then open yourself to me and show me. Show me the real you.”

He gulped, and the expression of tortured pain shading his features was one I knew I would never forget in my life. He was absolutely broken. I smiled softly and warmly, letting the love I knew I shouldn’t feel but already did blaze through my body. He inhaled sharply and shook his head. “You shouldn’t... You should stop from feeling—”

“It’s far too late for that, stubborn Demone. Now show me your life when I wasn’t in it.”

“You’ll hate me,” he whispered.

“Never. Not ever.”

Then gently, like a brushstroke, I touched my mouth to his. I wanted to take him, to consume him, to seal my soul to his, to climb inside his body and remain there with him forever.

I’d lost the most vital part of me and now I had it back. I’d felt the promise of it way back at the birthday ball, when he’d kissed me. I’d known he was mine even then. I was through fighting this, and somehow I was going to convince him of that, no matter what it took.

His touch was tender and gentle when he framed my face in his large, callused hands. “Look into my eyes then, my Carrots, and see what became of me when you left.”

~*~

Rumpel

IT ALWAYS TOOK A SECOND for my conscious mind to surrender its grip on reality when I first sank into a memory. There was a slight feeling of resistance, like stretching a rubber band to its maximum state of tension just before it ripped.

I felt the tug, and then I tumbled through. But I wasn’t alone anymore, as I’d been so many times before this. I was with her.

Her. My angel. My wild rose. The purity of her mind and soul twined with my dark and fractured one, binding me and keeping me together.

I felt her question as though she’d spoken the words aloud: Why are we still in darkness?

Because I was afraid of what she’d see and what she’d know about me. But a promise made was a promise kept. Stilling the heaviness of my mind, I allowed the memories to start pouring through.

They were small and insubstantial at first, just fleeting glimpses of scattered colors here and there. After my time with the Spider, I’d lost much of my power, and though I was slowly rebuilding it, it would take centuries to get back to where I was.

It was hard to remain focused. Where before I’d been able to extract whatever memories I’d wanted with precision, now I was trying to keep my memories from overwhelming and drowning us. They poured in, like water through a sieve.

Lights and colors and voices clattered around, all of it jumbled and nonsensical in its lack of balance. I growled. It was easy for me to look at my own memories, but not so easy anymore to allow anyone else entrance to them.

I tried to grab hold of one, but it flowed through my fingers like a grain of sand, and then another would take its place, and another and another still.

Then she was there. Her golden light slid against my metaphysical palm, and she clutched on tight.

Focus on just one thing, Rumpel. Only one. Focus on that...

I trembled. I was the sorcerer, and yet she had always understood me and knew how to bring out the very best in me. That had not changed.

Taking in a ragged breath, I clung to sweet warmth and nodded. I was overwhelmed, burdened by the memories of countless days and nights without her. I remembered my agony, how I would scream out into the darkness, how I would threaten and rage against that which had taken her and our children from me.

Turning toward her light, I enveloped her tenderly, with reverence. She sank into my touch and her flame—our flame—burst like wildfire all around us. I felt my power and my focus strengthening. And without thinking, images began to form. Reels of my memories from a time long before I’d ever even stepped foot on Kingdom played in my mind, and I let them. I wanted her to know all of me and all the sides of me.

I held onto her light, but she did not look at me. Instead, she stared at the images, and I felt her flame quiver with wonder at my first cries.

Prince Rumpelstiltskin. Delirium had roared with zealotry and passion at my birth. I’d been marked by birth to be the strongest and most powerful of the royal lineage. I would bring honor, death, and victory to my Demone brethren.

I grew into a young and scholarly man.

My hair was longer then, trailing down around my ankles. My body was slight and lean, but full of the promise of budding strength. My trainers despaired of my fighting abilities, whispering behind my family’s back that I wasn’t what prophecy had said I was. But my tutors had adored my quick and sharp mind.

From there, the scene shifted yet again, going through all the stages of my youth until the day I reached manhood. I became strong, and a powerful practitioner of the dark arts.

What I lacked in brawn and physical power, I made up for in cunning and a quick-witted and devious mind. Prophecy had been fulfilled in me. I was the strongest mage Delirium had ever seen. And with my power, I began to conquer the realms, taking it all, bit by bit and clan by clan.

Money. Women. Sex. Whatever I wanted and whenever I wanted it, it was all mine. I grew up cocky, arrogant, and full of hubris. I sparred with my parents, until finally I overthrew my own father and took the crown and scepter as my own. My control was absolute. My parents were royals in name only, because I controlled Delirium, I controlled it all. I married for power, never for love.

I felt the tremors of Shayera’s light course all the way through me. I sensed her confusion and her fear.

The smirking, arrogant male toasting at the head of the table and feasting on the choicest cuts of meat was a cruel vindictive warrior, drenched in the blood of innocents.

Shame filled my body, my bones, and I closed my eyes, not wanting to see any more of that man and not wanting to admit that at one point that inhuman psychopath had been me.

Trembling fire, I clung tighter to my Carrots, silently pleading to the gods above and below that she would not leave me. I wanted her to stay, as she had once before. I needed for her to choose me again, but I knew she could not honestly do so unless she knew it all. So on and on the darkness went, until finally the day came that’d changed my life forever. Her.

She was dark of skin and full of breast. Her long hair was pinned high above her head with blood-red flowers. Her eyes were an unusual shade of twilight steel. Caratina had been her name. She was a serf, a servant. And up until I’d meet my Shayera, the greatest love of my life, I’d wooed Caratina, pursuing her with single-minded obsession. My wife, Queen Delanore, hadn’t cared, for she had her own gaggle of lovers.

Demone people were cruel, vicious, and blood-thirsty, the entire lot of them. Caratina had been a welcome breath of fresh air. She’d taught me not only true passion, but an entirely different way of being.

She’d been my blessing and my curse, and in the end, she’d been my downfall too. I’d sacrificed it all—my crown and my people—to be with her. I did all of it for her. Few of my guards and a couple of my servants had chosen to follow us into exile.

Caratina had born me a son, Euralis, and then she breathed her last. Our beautiful bastard child wasn’t royal enough to take the throne—my father would have killed him. I had no choice but to seek sanctuary in a world far removed from my own.

I showed Shayera everything, including those first hellacious years when I’d lost my mind, focused solely on saving my dying boy’s life. I’d fallen back into my old ways, bringing the worst of Delirium with me into my new life.

I’d played too many games to find a sacrifice—I had to feed to my child to give him the soul he’d needed to survive the loss of his mother. In Delirium, a child’s soul was half of the mother’s, but Caratina had died before she could give Euralis hers. The sickness had been slow and brutal on my child.

He’d turned wild, keeping only to his animal forms, which was a sign that he was of low birth. But I’d loved him desperately, as he’d been my last link to the only thing I’d ever learned to truly love. In trying to save Euralis, I’d destroyed countless others.

I grimaced at the memory, at my shame, at the depths of my depravity and the things I’d been more than willing to do if it meant saving his life.

Shayera’s flame was growing cold in my arms. She was not pleased with me.

And yet I could not blame her. I’d always been a monster.

Finally, she saw herself and her fire flickered, recognizing the face of the other, of my bride. That Shayera had been fiery, temperamental, and so bloody innocent. She’d intrigued me, enflamed my passions, brought me slowly back to life. So different from my gentle Caratina, Shayera had sparked fire back in my veins.

I watched myself pushing her away, never wanting her to get too close, knowing I’d lost myself from the very moment I’d spied the blue-eyed sprite peeking at me from within shadow in her parents’ kitchen.

Her flame slowly grew brighter and warmer. I felt her laughter shiver over my skin at her adorably naïve attempts at seduction. And then I felt her shudder when she witnessed our scene in the library.

That’d been the catalyst for me, the moment I could no longer deny my need for her. She’d consumed me with her siren’s flame, and I’d gone willingly to the sacrifice. Madness, need, and desire had been incited in me. There’d been no going back for either of us then.

We’d begun our sexual relationship even as we both tried to deny our mounting ardor. I’d known then that being with Shayera was more than just good sex, but I’d been so damn afraid. After Caratina, and the way a Demone’s feelings consumed them, I hadn’t known whether I could handle falling in love again. But I’d been unable to resist, unable to withstand her innocent charms.

I stared down at the spot of glowing gold in my arms. Shayera was still with me. A different version maybe, but so similar too.

I was a fool, just as I’d been then, to think I had any choice in the matter. If she left me now, I would wither and perish. I loved this female more than I loved myself and more than I’d ever loved Caratina. In whatever form she came to me, I would always need her and always want her. Even if she’d returned to me as a male, I wouldn’t have cared. I would still feel this burning, overwhelming desire for her and only her.

On and on, our life together played, and though Shayera was enraptured by our past, I could not focus on anything other than my present.

Why do I always fight her? Even then, I’d fought her.

Because I don’t feel worthy? Because she makes me feel things so fearfully wonderful that it is literally pain to me? Because I am a coward?

I was starting to think that maybe it was all of the above. She was here. She’d come here for one thing, to rediscover and remember herself. But there was no her without me, and there was no me without her. It was really that simple.

And if a curse comes through again? What then?

As I thought it, I glanced over at our memories and saw that very thing happen. I saw my last vivid memory of holding my first Shayera in my arms, and then she vanished like vapor and was gone to me forever.

Shayera’s flame trembled, and sorrow pierced my body like a dagger. But it wasn’t my own this time—it was hers. I frowned at the dimness of her light.

Should I stop this? Is it too much?

Her flame moved in toward me and I heard her sweet voice in my head whisper, don’t stop this, Rumpel. I need to see it. I need to remember.

Do you remember, Carrots? Do you remember me at all?

She didn’t answer me, only looked toward the reel, but her warmth flowed through my body like living waters, healing me, stitching me up, and giving me of herself just as she’d always done before.

I banded my arms tighter around her fire, caging her in and keeping her safe in my arms. I had another chance. I knew it. I felt it. She still loved me.

I sensed her warmth and her truth. It was there, beating as strongly as ever.

In the memories, I was a madman, raving at the sun and the moon and the stars. My face contorted with fury and madness as I stomped up and down the corridors of my castle. I saw myself sobbing, crying out, and hurting so badly that I thought I would finally die from the pain.

I saw myself bent over a desk, scribbling those ridiculous letters to my ghost of a wife, pouring my grieving soul out onto the pages as I tried to drink myself into oblivion.

I saw Giles and my servants come to me, asking me if I was all right. I didn’t recall throwing books and paperweights at them, but apparently I had. The only one spared from my wrath had been Euralis. But even so, I’d not been there much for him in the beginning. I’d been too lost to my grief, consumed by the weight of those emotions. A Demone male without his compass was a lost one. Only the love of Euralis had kept me from that darkness.

Little by little, I pulled out of that, but then shifted my focus to other things, such as creating Shayera’s dampening charm, watching over her as she grew, and chasing off anyone who might ever attempt to harm her.

I saw myself at that cave with the siren thief. Saw myself break his neck and rip his throat out.

The flame in my arms flickered and a plethora of her emotions slammed into me. I tasted her shock, which was a bright burst of sourness on my tongue, followed closely by disbelief and then many other emotions that I was sure I couldn’t possibly be reading correctly.

I blinked and looked down at my flame.

She was absolutely still, enthralled and mesmerized by my story.

In the memories I moved to the Dark Queen’s castle, where I sat at the table, brooding and contemplating my next step. I remembered that day vividly, because it was the day I’d decided that there was only one way to bring her back, and that had been through her parents.

I wished I could turn off the visions here, so she’d never have to witness what I’d done to her parents in order to make it so. I winced when I was forced to give a part of my powers to the Spider, and then how I viciously attacked her father.

On and on, the memories rolled, until I stood in the center of her low-lit room. She was only a babe, and I held her tightly. I’d never once looked at that memory. I’d never wanted to see my face, because the emotions of what I’d felt that night haunted me still. I suffered in emptiness and in the feeling that somehow I would still lose her. I knew that she was too good for that life, for that world, for me.

I did not look at the flame in my arms to see her reaction. Instead, I saw myself for the first time—a broken, desperate man who isolated himself from the rest of the world because of the actions he’d willfully chosen to commit in order to bring her back.

Suddenly, a trail of warmth framed my jaw, and I shivered, glancing down at the glowing circle of flame in my arms. That’s when I felt it, crushing, overwhelming, all-consuming love. But it was not my own. It was hers. And I shook. I didn’t know what to do with myself or my emotions.

“I... can’t,” I croaked, and then I cut off the memories. I stepped out of her arms as though burnt, and I fled. I left her alone in that room because I really was a coward.

She loves me.

I collapsed into my couch and stared off into space with unseeing eyes. She loves me. She loves me.

In that heavy moment, there was one person that suddenly came to the front of my mind. I didn’t know why, other than the fact that she was the one I’d always shared a piece of my true self with before. I was lost. I felt scared. I needed her guidance and her counsel.

But would she understand that, or would she send me away? Dare I try? Dare I go to her?

My heart raced like wild stallions in my chest, and I stopped thinking. I simply closed my eyes and raced through the shifting tunnels of light.

When I arrived at the cottage, the lights were low and the world was silent. I stared at the cherry-red front door, wondering whether I’d been a fool to go there. The air smelled thickly of flowers—of roses.

A shadow moved to my left. When I looked up, there she was. I’d not seen Betty until now, because she was so small, sitting on the stoop and steeped in shadow. Her beautiful face was brooding, contemplative.

“I had a feeling you might show up tonight,” she said softly.

I frowned. I’d not even thought of going there until moments ago. But then again, Betty and I had always had a strange sort of symbiosis in the past. Without saying a word, I joined her on the stoop, keeping an arm’s length between us. I didn’t look at her, and she didn’t look at me.

I clasped my hands together, just listening to the sounds of crickets and night creatures, feeling a lulling peace beginning to sweep over me. Some silences are terrible to hear, but this was not one of those. Betty and I spoke, we just didn’t always need words to do it.

I still hated what she’d done to me—to Shayera and me—but I’d always understood her motivation for it too.

“Is she safe?” Her gentle whisper sounded like a cannon in the thick silence of night.

I glanced at her from the corner of my eye. “Aye. She will always be safe with me, Betty.”

She continued to look straight ahead. She sighed, and finally she looked at me. That’s when I noticed the bright sheen of tears spilling unchecked down her cheeks.

I saw so much of her daughter in her face. Maybe that was why I’d always loved Betty, no matter how strained things had gotten between us. She was the mother of the woman I loved more than any other in all the worlds.

“I know, Rumpel. I know.” She sniffed, rubbing at the bridge of her nose with the back of her wrist. “Did you know that she lost her front tooth playing baseball one year?”

I frowned, wondering why she’d told me this, but couldn’t keep the smile from tugging at the corners of my lips. “What?”

“Yes. Wild, willful, crazy girl. Always running off to her next adventure. Gerard and I thought she would be the end of us one day. She’s broken I don’t know how many bones, shattered at least three adult teeth—all of which required Danika’s magic wand to heal. She beat up at least a dozen boys...”

I smiled. And then I laughed, and I didn’t stop laughing as Betty poured her heart out to me and showed me through her words all that I’d missed. We spent hours on that stoop together that night, sometimes talking and sometimes not. Neither of us moved, not even when the sun began its slow crest over the horizon.

“I love her.” I said it slowly, definitively.

She nodded. “I think deep down we’ve always known that.”

I studied her profile. “So why fight so hard to keep us apart? Why twenty-one, Betty? Why?”

I didn’t tell her that that kind of separation had cost us both dearly, didn’t tell her that I still grappled with my wants and desires versus what I thought I should do. She didn’t need to hear it, because I knew she knew it. My shoulders heaved, and my voice cracked. Tonight, it hadn’t been about the hurt, but about healing. About learning that maybe, just maybe, it was possible to forgive and forget.

I’d needed to speak to my friend, and she’d been there for me, just as she’d always been before. I was still terrified by the depth of my awareness and need for Shayera, and by that terrible sense of infidelity that still crept over me whenever I dared to examine the intensity of my desire for a female who wasn’t an exact carbon copy of my bride. I’d needed Betty that night, and she’d been here for me. That gift meant a great deal to me, whether she ever knew it or not.

“I wasn’t ready to lose her yet,” she finally said, shrugging and looking broken by that confession. “And I knew the second she saw you that I would. I would lose her all over again, and I just wasn’t ready yet.”

This time, when she cried it was I that held her. I wrapped her up and gave strength to another. I didn’t take—I gave. She clutched at my back as her sobs wracked her body.

It was done for me, the resentment and the pain. I would never again think poorly of Betty or even of Gerard, for they loved her as fiercely as I did. I could never blame them for caring that much. I kissed the top of Betty’s head, smelling that same smell of home—flowers and spices and chimney smoke—that I always remembered whenever I was around the Carons.

“Are you together again?” she asked after her tears had dried.

My chest ached at her question because the answer wasn’t a simple one. It should have been. Gods above, it should have been. I had Shayera back, and yet I didn’t know how to let go of the past, either. “I don’t know,” I told her honestly. “But I will never stop loving her. She is safe, Betty. For however long she deigns to stay with me, she will never come to harm again. I vow it to you. I vow it with all my soul.”

She nodded, and while she wasn’t looking I reached into the pocket of my vest and pulled out the worn and ancient leather-bound journal I’d written in through the years.

I heard the sharp inhalation of her breath. “Are those... letters? Did you write me letters again, Rumpel?”

I rubbed my fingers along the supple smoothness of the cover. Years of handling it had nearly rubbed all the color off the leather. It made my heart glad that Betty remembered the letters from before. I’d only ever given one person letters, and it had been her. I’d trusted Betty with my heart then, and I was choosing to trust her with my heart again.

“This journal,” I said slowly, “saved my life. The writing is dark in places. It’s also hard to read. But it contains my truths and the reality of the life I was forced to live without her. I wrote it all down, every unvarnished and raw part of it. Read it, or don’t, but I thought that maybe it would help you to finally understand. To finally see me for who I really am.”

She grabbed my hand and squeezed gently. “I do see you, Rumpel. I do.”

I took a deep breath. “What do you see, Betty? Who do you see?”

“A good man. A man who put up with far too much, a man who endured Hell all on his own. I’m sorry for every part I played in it. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

I hugged her again, so tightly that I thought her bones might break, but she didn’t move. Instead, she sighed and hugged me back just as hard. We’d finally turned the page. Healing had begun, and I was glad of it. It would take time to get back to where we’d been, but I knew we would again.

I needed to return to the castle and get my mind and thoughts in order. I needed to see Shayera again, even though seeing her was as much pain as it was pleasure. I started to move, but Betty clutched at my shirt. “Just promise me that once you can, you’ll bring her home for a visit. I need to see her again, Dark Prince. I need to feel her and touch her and know that—”

“I vow it.”

She trembled and sighed.

Whether Shayera stayed with me or not, I would return her to her family. That was a vow sealed in honor for me.

Betty patted my cheek. “Good. Be well, Rumpel.”

“And you too, Betty Caron,” I whispered before taking up her hand and laying a firm kiss to her knuckles. “You too.”