Page 23 of Drown Me Gently (Flipped Fairytales)

It was the first time Auren saw the Kraken at a loss for words. For once, the weight of centuries offered him no answer. And in that pause, Auren saw not the Court Sorcerer, not the Kraken, not the legend… but a man who suddenly didn’t know what to say.

Ulric stomped heavily to the edge of the bed and sat hard, head falling into his hands.

“I thought I was protecting you. That I was following orders. The Queen wanted you close, and I… I wanted that too. I told myself it was duty. But I would be lying if I said there weren’t other motives. It was selfish.”

Auren leaned forward, crawling closer until he was within reach. He brushed a lock of dark hair from Ulric’s face.

“You were doing your job,” he said. “And I was being stupid.”

“There were other ways to serve the Queen,” Ulric muttered, not looking at him. “But I didn’t take them. Because I wanted to keep you close. I wanted to pull you into the deep…”

His voice dropped to a whisper.

“…with me.”

Auren’s heart stumbled in his chest.

Ulric couldn’t be saying what… what Auren thought he was saying.

He rested a tentative hand on Ulric’s knee, the heat of his palm settling them both. Ulric exhaled slowly. His hand dragged through his dark hair, shoulders hunched forward.

“I’ve pushed you away for years,” he said finally. “Watched you from the shadows but never let myself get close.”

He hesitated, fingers curling into the fabric of his trousers. A tremor ghosted through his knuckles.

“When I saw you begin to drift from me,” Ulric continued, not looking at him, “when I thought I was losing you…”

He rubbed at his mouth with the back of his hand, as though trying to smother the admission. His foot tapped against the wood floor, restless.

“I panicked. I tried tying you to me. Tried dragging you down into the black deep. Into the only world I’ve ever known how to exist in.”

His eyes lifted then, meeting Auren’s with raw and bottomless vulnerability.

“I should’ve realized… I couldn’t harness someone as brilliant as the sun, and never expect them to look to the sky.”

Ulric clasped his hands together, his head dropping to them as though in prayer.

“Forgive me, Auren. This… your pain. It’s my fault. If I’d been more forthcoming, if I’d revealed what I knew of the surface world, this all could have been avoided.”

The silence that followed was thick with everything unspoken. The steady pulse of the sea beyond the window. The crackle of the fire. And the aching beat of Auren’s heart. The rapid rush of blood in his veins.

He moved without thinking. Sidling across the mattress, his knee brushing Ulric’s thigh, eyes never leaving the older man’s face. He was trembling—not from fear, not this time. From want. From everything that was buried for so long, it took root in his bones.

“I thought for the longest time I’d only be the ‘young prince’ to you,” Auren whispered. “That you’d never see me. Never see me for who I am.” His cheeks flushed. Heat crept up his neck, but he didn’t stop. “I wanted you to see me so badly.”

Ulric didn’t move, the tips of his thumbs pressing into his brow as his eyes closed tight as though he were in pain.

“I saw you, Auren,” Ulric whispered. “I’ve always seen you.” His voice fractured like sea glass underfoot. “And in four centuries, nobody has ever tempted me to break my vow?—”

He stopped short, jaw tightening.

Ulric sat up on a gasp, reaching out, cupping Auren’s cheek in his palm. His thumb brushed along the ridge of Auren’s cheekbone, feather-light. He tipped his face up with a tenderness that made Auren’s breath hitch.

“Nobody has ever left me so utterly helpless. So completely at their mercy as you have, Auren. My spriteling.”

Auren’s breath caught. He searched Ulric’s face, saw the war behind his dark eyes. Guilt battling desire.

“I let duty keep me from you,” Ulric said at last. “Then I let my own selfishness shackle you to the seafloor.”

His forehead touched Auren’s.

“I’m so sorry.”

Auren pulled back—just enough to search those eyes. Those fathomless, storm-dark eyes that saw too much. He searched for regret. For restraint. For the glimmer of warning that usually came when Ulric got too close.

But there was nothing.

No push. No rejection.

Just Ulric, watching him with an intensity that made the world quiet.

Auren’s breath stuttered. “Kiss me,” he whispered.

The shock in Ulric’s gaze made Auren think he’d said the wrong thing. That, once again, he was going to be pushed away. But that only lasted a second. And, as though waiting for permission, Ulric closed the space between them until their mouths met.

It started slow—lips brushing lips, breaths mingling—but the moment they touched, something inside Auren broke open.

A dam. A floodgate. A lifetime of need.

Tears sprang to his eyes and ran down either side of his face.

Overcome by the sheer relief of it. The crashing, soul-deep relief of being wanted —openly, freely, without rules or shame.

Every breath he hadn’t allowed himself to take, every whisper of longing he’d tried to drown, surged to the surface in that one, trembling second.

Ulric let out a sigh, and it was as though the seafloor itself had fractured.

Auren held that sigh in his mouth, and it tasted like years.

Years of restraint.

Of aching denial.

Of loneliness wrapped in duty, now unraveling in the warmth of Auren’s lips.

And gods help him, Auren let it all in.

A kiss written in tears. Ulric’s hand tangled in his hair, the other holding him firm, and Auren gasped against his mouth, reeling. He didn’t know a kiss could feel like this. Like forgiveness. Like gravity. Like coming home.

The glide of Ulric’s lips, the gentle brush of his tongue, asking permission to taste. To explore.

To love.

Ulric guided Auren back onto the bed, lowering him to the cushions.

The Kraken settled his weight over him, not heavy but enough that Auren’s body was on fire with the weight of the man on top of him.

Their mouths met again in a greedy kiss, tasting, taking, giving.

Auren’s hands roamed upward, slipping beneath Ulric’s tunic, tracing along his broad back, over the contours of muscle and damp skin.

Ulric’s fingers ghosted over Auren’s waist, his ribs, the place where scale had once met flesh.

With every touch, they grew braver.

Fingertips to palms. Lips to throat. Breath to breath.

And then, Ulric pulled back, just enough to rest their foreheads together. Both of them were panting, chests rising and falling in sync. The air between them thick with exhales and sweat.

“Never…” Ulric murmured, voice hoarse, “In all my years has anyone… anything… made me…”

He trailed off, shaking his head. Damp strands of his dark hair fell forward, brushing Auren’s cheek. But there was a smile there. Shy and a little stunned. Like it wasn’t meant to exist but had broken through anyway.

“I do not know myself like this,” Ulric admitted.

Auren reached up, pushing the hair from Ulric’s face. His fingers were deliberate as he cupped the side of his jaw, searching those ink-dark eyes—and finding something new.

Not sorrow.

Not shame.

But joy. Quiet and nervous, tucked behind thick lashes.

“I want to know you like this,” Auren said softly. “In all the ways you exist. All the things you hide. I want… you.”

Ulric’s hand came to rest on his cheek, the pad of his thumb stroking beneath Auren’s eye. He leaned in, pressing a kiss there, then another at the corner of his mouth.

“My spriteling…” he murmured. “You don’t know this. But you’ve had me all this time.” He sighed, breath heavy on Auren’s neck, voice tight. “Until now, I couldn’t allow myself to feel this. Have this.”

Auren squeezed his eyes shut, overwhelmed.

“My pride blinded me,” he whispered. “I kept trying to prove I was strong enough. That I knew what I was doing. I was a fool.” Auren opened his eyes, and when he did, found Ulric already staring at him.

“But… if I’m broken, if I’m stubborn and cut up and used… will you still have me, Kraken?”

Ulric looked down at him like the sea itself had parted to show him something divine. He lowered himself until their bodies touched chest to chest, hand slipping behind Auren’s neck to hold him steady.

“For all my time in this realm,” Ulric said, voice barely more than a breath, “I am yours.”

Auren wrapped his arms around Ulric’s ribs and whispered into the space between their mouths:

“Then I am yours.”

They lay like that, wrapped in warmth, the last flickers of firelight dimming around them.

Ulric’s lips pressed a lingering kiss to Auren’s temple, then to his hair.

And that was the last thing Auren remembered.

Falling asleep in arms that didn’t let go.

Held through the hush of night. Kissed into a peace he had never known.