Rumpel's Prize (7 page)

Dalia’s hand was gentle on her shoulder. “Ye look fine, miss, and as I said last night, none will bother you. Master keeps them all away.”

Making sure to mute as much of her charm as humanly possible, Shayera gave a tight grimace. She wondered whether Dalia was aware that her gentle pat was now turning into fluttering fingers.

Inching out of her grasp, she stood. Dalia must have finally realized what she’d been about, for her dark onyx skin gleamed brightly as if it were now her turn to blush. “I’m… I’m…”

“No, don’t.” Shayera’s smile was tight. “You can’t help yourself, seeing my reflection was a shock and I didn’t block my charms as I should. My fault completely. Let’s go then.” Forcing a cheery disposition, she pointed at the door.

Dalia didn’t speak again after that, leading her straightaway to the same room in which she’d had supper with Rumpel last night. He was seated at the head of the table again. This time, rather than wearing the jeans and snug shirt she’d found so alluring on him, he was now dressed in a formfitting plum-colored shirt and gray slacks.

If it was possible, he looked even better than she’d remembered. He still had a bit of scruff around his face and his long hair was loose, as seemed to be his custom.

But it was the smoldering look he gave her, the one that said he was mentally undressing every square inch of her body, that threatened to make her knees give out. Curls of heat and fire spun out of control deep in her belly and she had to lay a palm to her middle to keep from making a fool of herself.

“You look rested,” he said in that deep, sexy voice of his. “Cook has made breakfast.” And when he pointed, a silver-domed platter appeared before where she’d been seated the previous night.

The aroma of fried bacon fat, coddled eggs, and toast smeared in sweet jelly teased her senses, making her feel suddenly ravenous even though she’d eaten like a pig the night before.

“Thank you, Dalia,” he said, never taking his eyes of Shayera. “You may leave us now.”

Shayera felt her maid’s reluctance as she glanced between the two of them before finally vanishing in a plume of black smoke.

“Sit.” He pointed.

Reminding herself that she wasn’t here to massage her own ego but to prevent her father from having to kill himself, she swallowed her pride and sat.

“Eat.”

“Do you enjoy ordering me around, imp?” she snapped, forgetting her promise of just a second ago.

“I enjoy a great many things, Carrot, most of them quite wicked.” His long, tapered fingers drummed the gleaming wood and her stomach dropped to her knees. The dress that’d been so comfortable a second ago now felt too tight and constricting as she imagined the feel and slide of those fingers upon her flesh.

It was a dangerous thought, one she’d never indulged in before. Being a siren didn’t mean she didn’t want touch, it just meant she never trusted that a man’s desire to be with her wasn’t because of what she was rather than who she was.

The gleam in his liquid amber eyes made it feel like she could hardly take a steady breath. Stories of this man, of his cruel nature and the things he did to those who signed their souls into his keeping, ran in perpetual motion through her mind. Dalia had warned her to keep far away from Rumpel and she knew she should, suspected that if she had any hope of getting back to her family safely, then entangling herself with him was a bad, bad idea.

She cleared her throat and lifted the silver dome in front of her. Reaching for a slice of thick, maple-scented bacon, she bit down. Sweet and smoky and crunchy, just like her father would make it; it was perfect and delicious and a good way to give herself time to think while she chewed.

Why was he dragging this thing out? All she wanted at this point was to get to the task, see what exactly it was that he had in store for her. Instead he was plying her with food and talk, why? What was his motive, his endgame? There had to be one.

“No retort on that silky tongue of yours?” He grinned and then drank from a glass of orange juice.

Grabbing a knife and fork, she scooped at the eggs pretending he’d not said anything about her tongue.

“Or perhaps you’d prefer to slide that tongue of yours along my—”

The utensils clattered from her fingers as she glared at him. “What is your problem?”

His lips twitched and she hated that she was so viscerally aware of the man that it was easy to note he had a lower lip slightly fuller than his top one. That there was a slight cleft to his chin and that somehow he’d shaved but still managed to have that shadow of stubble that made her fingers itch to trace the length of his jaw. Grabbing hold of the edge of the table, she glowered.

“What’s the matter?” he asked. “Never had a man make you feel as I do?”

Food forgotten, she got to her feet. “I’m done here. Take me to the challenge, please.”

He licked his front teeth, eyeing her hard before finally giving a nonchalant shrug. “As you wish, though you’ll want to eat, trust me.”

“I’m not hungry.”

And it was true; what little she’d managed to consume now sat like a stone in her gut. She was a mass of nerves, and being so close to him wasn’t helping at all.

An immediate transformation overcame him then. No more was he dripping that sexual magnetism—now he was deadly serious. His features were stern, cold even.

With a snap of his fingers, the food disappeared as it had last night. “Come with me.”

Turning on his heel, he didn’t glance back to see if she followed. He led her through a winding maze of corridor after corridor and each step only increased her anxiety. Her heart was racing, her palms so sweaty she had to continually rub them down the front of her dress. Again, just as every other time, there was no one lingering about the castle. It was vast and eerily empty. Rows of tall glass cases—easily as tall as Rumpel himself—lined the walls, each one holding some item. In one was a knight’s suit of armor, in another a marble stand with a jade vase resting atop it, in a third was a stand with a crystal skull. On and on and on it went, treasures beyond imagining filling each case.

Everywhere she turned, she was surrounded by wealth, by jewels and gold and the smell of lemony wax and the rich scent of myrrh. Flickering lanterns swinging from hooks was the only light they had.

The carpet beneath their feet was so thick it completely muted their footsteps and it seemed almost like a soundless dream. Shayera went from looking at wonders to staring at his back, at the broad width of his shoulders, the long length of his hair. He was a study in opposites—snarling in one breath, laughing in another. He rode a magicked steed and dressed in leather and jeans, and now he looked as princely as Dalia had claimed he was.

Huffing, she turned her eyes. The last thing she needed was to wonder too much about him; wondering led to curiosity, curiosity led to emotion, emotion led to bad, bad things.

She’d been curious once before and had very nearly died because of it. Hamish had been crazed. She’d thought him her friend, had never expected he’d turn on her as he had. If her father hadn’t heard her screams, she dreaded to think where she’d be now.

Shivering, she hugged her arms to her chest and that’s when she noticed another case. It wasn’t so much the case that caught her eye but the contents of it.

Mostly because everything else had been so grand: dragons prepared by a taxidermist with jewels embedded in their scales; swirling metallic ash that she had no doubt was some form of destructive agent; genie lamps; golden apples; ancient-looking tomes that, even encased within glass as they were, almost seemed to pulse with some sort of dark power; and then an ecru-colored, moth-bitten shawl that in no way appeared special.

Frowning, she stopped in front of it. “What is this, Rumpel?” she asked, curious enough to finally break the thick silence.

At first she thought that maybe he wouldn’t stop or might pretend he hadn’t heard her.

But he turned, and not looking at her, shook his head. “It is nothing.” His deep voice echoed down the vastness of the stone walls.

But she hadn’t missed the clenching of his fingers and the tensing of a muscle in his cheek.

“Are you dragging your heels, Carrot?” he growled, finally turning his gimlet eye on her. “Wasn’t it you who said let us hurry?”

Twisting her lips and realizing she’d struck a nerve—and likely a very deep one based on the condescension he now threw at her—she gestured for him to continue leading her. “Yes.”

“Good, because we’re here.”

And suddenly the massive dimensions of the castle shifted, and where before there’d been endless miles of hall, now they stood within an absolutely empty chamber. There was nothing on the walls, floor, or ceiling. It was stone and nothing more.

She had to wonder if his leading her down the hall had been little more than a ruse meant to increase her anxiety. If so, the man was a master manipulator, not surprising considering who he was.

“Clever, troll.” She laughed.

And his eyes widened before quickly thinning. Again he was clenching his fists. “Thus begins your first test. Whatever you do, make sure to pass, or the consequences will be dire.”

With those parting words, he vanished.

Rumpel stood on the other side of a wall that worked in many ways like a two-way mirror. To Shayera it would seem as though she was in a room of stone, but he could see everything she did.

Sitting on his throne of gold-plated horned skulls, he glowered. She was walking about the room, tracing long-boned, delicate fingers along the wall, curiosity burning bright in her clear gaze.

Looking high and low, she bent over to study the floor, revealing a long expanse of impossibly fine-honed and supple thighs so ivory white that they appeared to gleam with a natural luminescence.

Something about the woman unnerved him: his reactions to her every slightest gesture, her imperial manner, and how she seemed determined to ignore his baiting. She was beautiful, yes, but he’d seen beauty aplenty, had helped create some of the most beautiful objects in the whole of the galaxies. There was an intellect that burned brightly behind the striking façade and that intrigued him. His desire to touch her, to trace the delicate flesh of her body, increased with each meeting.

Then she’d asked about Caratina’s shawl and he’d snapped. He never snapped, not because someone was curious.

“She is a fine one to look upon, massster.” Giles’s smoky form materialized beside him.

“Yes.”

Ruby-red eyes shone brightly as they stared at Shayera through the demarcation.

“You do not touch her,” Rumpel said with a definite growl in his voice.

Giles was handsome, as were all demone. He had an angularity about his features, which were both sharp and birdlike, but that gave him an exotic appeal to the fairer sex, and normally Rumpel did not care what his demone did with his wards. So long as the acts were consensual, it was no matter to him.

For reasons beyond him, this time it did matter.

Quirking a thick brow, his valet quickly assessed the warning and nodded. “As you wish. Would you rather I fetch another, sir?”

Clenching his jaw when Shayera exposed even more of her shapely form, he shook his head. “You know the rules of the game better than the rest—it is you or no one.”

A delicate frown tipped Shayera’s brows as she turned around in a slow circle, looking completely perplexed by the mystery of the empty room.

“Judge her hard,” Rumpel said. Then, with a flick of his fingers, the game well and truly began.

Suddenly the world was alive with chaos and noise. Shayera gasped, twirling on her heel as she stared at a world completely foreign and alien to her own. She was in a city center, but there were sights and sounds she’d never actually seen in her real life.

Giant monolithic structures that moved on wheels roared past her. She knew them to be buses because mother had often told her stories of Earth, had read her books from her previous world.

Yellow, smaller vehicles that she assumed to be cabs sped past on the befouled streets. Pedestrians moved in random, shifting patterns around her. Some even barreled into her shoulders, glaring at her when she gasped in surprise at their rudeness.

Latching on to her throbbing shoulder, she stared at the man in the brown suit and thick glasses who was glaring at her.

“Watch it!” he said in a loud, strange accent before disappearing into the thick crowd.

“Move!” a girl called and then hands shoved into her back.

And then there were more hands and more yelling and Shayera had never been more terrified than she was of the horrific sounds which were accompanied by a putrid smell, the mixture of excrement and urine and the rot of fish. Buildings towered as high as the eye could see and her bare feet were bloody from stepping on sharp stones and glass. She had no shoes on. Where had they gone?

Tears streamed from the corners of her eyes, and the only safe place she could see was a tiny knoll of grass a few paces back. Wiping her eyes, she ran for the grass, for the peace and quiet that she desperately needed in order to understand what’d just happened to her.