Page 11 of Hansel and Gerhardt (The GriMM Tales #3)

Hansel was Wrong

“ T hen what are you going to eat?” Gerhardt spat. “Leaves? They’re probably fucking poisoned magical forest leaves. Is that what you want to eat? Magic fucking poison leaves?”

“No, I don’t want to eat magicalfucking poison leaves!”Hansel yelled back.

“Yethere we are in the magical fucking forest, fuckingstarving. Soit’s fresh meat orthe magical fucking forest leavesfor you, matey.

”Gerhardt dropped his end of the carcass,reeling dramatically away from Hansel, turning to lean against a tree.

“I can’t go on. I can’t! Hansel, I’m fuckingworn out.

” Gathering what little energy he had, he raised a shaking hand towards thedeadanimal.

“Just how long do you think a man can survive without food?”

Hansel, still gripping the hind hooves, lowered his head. “I’m trying to keep you safe.”

The anger in Gerhardt’s eyescutHansel likea razorblade.Hanselwas starving, too. But they were so close to salvation, and he wasn’t about to let Gerhardt sate himself on raw meat just to watch him die a slow death of food poisoning a few days later.

Gerhardt pressed his forehead into the rough bark, his frustrationtightening the rest of his body. “We’ve been searching for dry sticks for hours. There aren’t any. It’s autumn, and unless youhave an axe handy to crack some old branches open…”

Hansel walked to him, taking a tentative hand to his shoulder. YetGerhardtdidn’t move. He stayed right where he was, breathing heavily from the effort of dragging the carcassgod knew how many miles.

“Please stay strong,” said Hansel. “Don’t give in.”

“I’m so hungry.” Gerhardt’s voice was a pained cry.He was too tired to find the energy for tears. But he didn’t fight Hansel. He didn’t shove him aside and dig his teeth into the dead flesh. He might have had Hansel not been there. For what would the pointofsurvival even have been in that case?

After several hours of walking and deep into the afternoon, he had begun to think maybe they would not make it out after all.

They’d not seen one other animal, not even heard a bird sing.

They’d kept to the stream, as close as they could, and maybe that was why…

Who knew?But he’dfoundno sign of life,andno sign of hope.

Hansel, who’d been scanning the trees looming overhead as he tried to comfort Gerhardt, asked, “Do you remember what the hare said? That it had seen someone it called ‘the red one’?”

Gerhardt swivelled around, smacking his back against the tree in dejection. “So what?”

“So there’s someone else in the forest, somewhere. The red one. As well as whoever killed this boar.”

“Unless they’re the same person. And that wolf ate them already.” But even as he said it, he was standing a little taller, paying attention.

“This boar was warm this morning,” Hansel countered. “Either it’s two different people, or the wolf hadn’t caught the red one by then.”

Gerhardt’s brow wrinkled in consideration. “And… Did you hear what it said? About your thighs?”

“I… Um…” Hansel turned beet red. “I don’t know why it liked my thighs.”

Gerhardt couldn’t help but take another look.

Hansel’s breeches were still wet, and Gerhardt had teased him relentlessly for letting them fall into the river by accident.

He didn’t mind, of course. The material clinging the way it did showed off all the muscular roundness of those big thighs, and more still.

Gerhardt hadn’t ever seen Hansel’s dick erect, but judging by that bulge, it would be something to hold—

Be hold!

Something to behold !

Then he realised he was staring at his stepbrother’s dick.And that his own dick was stirring at the thought of it, so to throw him off,toprevent any chance of Hansel thinking he was coveting his dick in some way,which he absolutely wasn’t, Gerhardt said, “Your thighs are wonderful!”

“They’re… um…” The wide eyes gaped at him. “You think they’re wonderful?”

“They’re… uh…” Panic, blinding himto everything but Hansel’s dick and thighs so that he slapped two hands over his eyes, “To a wolf! A wolf! A wolf might think those thighs… Well, I’d sink my teeth into them.”

“You’d…” The gorgeous mouth dropped wide open.

Fuck . That mouth was really gorgeous.

And round and hot and… Fuck ! “If I was a wolf… If-ifI was a wolf, and a hungry wolf. Um.” He strode over to the boar, his back to Hansel and his voiceunusually high-pitched.

“I’m just saying that if I was a wolf, and if I was hungry, I would definitely eat your thighs. And there’s nothing weird about that!”

“I didn’t say there was.”

“There’s not. That’s normal. We’re all meat out here,after all.”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“But that wasn’t my point, anyway.”He scraped a palm over his face, giving himself the opportunity to take a deep breath and try to reset.“It was what the wolf said. He said someone else said yourthighs were nice.”

Hansel clicked his fingers. “He did too!”

“Yes!” Gerhardt threw a finger out at him in great relief they were off his thighs. “Yes, there was someone else he mentioned.Someonewho might still be out there somewhere.”

“This is my very point,” said Hansel,comingcloser.

“This place might be crawling with people, only we don’t know it because they’re trying every bit as hard as we are to avoid being found.

But those people, they need to eat, and they need to keep warm, so it’s my suggestion that we climb high up into one of these trees and see if we can’t find a wisp of smoke somewhere out there that willlet us cook this boar. ”

“You’re so smart, Hansel!” Vigorously energised, Gerhardtmissed Hansel’s blush as hemade for the closest tree that leaned down comparatively low branches. “Give me a boost.”

Hansel was more than happy to help. He clasped fingers together to receive Gerhardt’s boot.

Gerhardt was up in a second, grasping the branch that was still high over his head. “I’ve got a hand around it. Just a little more…”

Hansel wrapped arms around Gerhardt’s thighs,his face pressed into his pert ass, which he was not inclined to complain about that day.Though his body trembled with the effort, he found the strength to lift him.

Once he’dachieved the branch, Gerhardt moved like a squirrel.

There had been very little to doaroundtheir miserable home beyond climbing trees, so both were expert, but Gerhardt’s lighter frame made him nimble with it.

Heskippedfrom branch to branch, higher and higher, until it began to make Hansel’s head spin to watch him.

Until visions of Gerhardt’s precious form smashingdownthroughbranch after branch, landing atHansel’sfeet a bloody pulp, catapultedHanselinto a frantic paceof the forest floor. “Careful, Gerhardt!” he called up.

If Gerhardt heard him, he showed no sign of it. He worked his way through the canopy, to the tallest pine tree, and to the very tip. And there he stopped, silent, searching.

Silent for so long.

Too long.

And Hansel began to lose heart.

This was all the plan he had. All the means of preventing Gerhardtfromtearing into the dirty and ageing meat.

He couldn’t keep stopping him. He simply did not have the heart to see thatcavitycarved out where a plump belly should have been.

To see the lost, ravenous lookinGerhardt’s eyes.

To see that look of anger.Not ever again.

Gerhardt began to make his way down, and Hansel’s heart shrivelled in his chest. Down and down he came,no call of victory, only a long and careful descent.

He jumpedto the groundfrom the final branch,Hanselraised reluctant eyes, and he found the wide and beautiful grin he’d come to adore. “About two miles deadsouth. We should make it by nightfall.”