Page 17 of The Elves and the Shoemaker (The GriMM Tales #4)
“The Queen can’t know about us being here,” Henrik practically whispered.
“When we escaped, we were travelling to our new owner, two dozen of us,” Elias explained, and the direction this conversation was heading already made a tight fist around Johan’s heart.
The slave trade as a whole made Johan sick to his stomach, but whenever he had to face the fact that Elias and Henrik had been stripped of their freedom and treated like replaceable cogs in a machine, anger would burn through him like a furnace.
As he always did, he swallowed the feeling down, but it was bitter on his tongue.
Henrik continued on from Elias, “The person who had bought us… was the Queen. If she knows about us, it won’t be hard for her to connect that we are her slaves who escaped.
It… might not be safe for us here anymore.
” Henrik looked as devastated as Johan felt at the idea of the two elves not being here anymore.
Johan shook his head. “No. I’ll… I’ll… I’ll make sure.
Safe.” And Johan meant it. He didn’t know how, but he meant it.
Johan knew with every fibre of his being that he would die before he let anyone take Elias and Henrik back into captivity.
They might not be his. But they were his to protect.
And he’d be damned if anyone harmed even a strand of long white hair on their perfect heads.
L
ater that night, Johan was lying in bed, wide awake as he tried to come up with possible solutions for keeping Elias and Henrik away from prying eyes and getting them to safety.
A permanent kind of safety. He was shivering because the gales from earlier that day had turned into a full-blown storm with the temperature dropping significantly.
Wrapping himself in the blanket, he scrubbed his hand over his face before trudging over to the fireplace; he wasn’t going to be able to get a wink of sleep without heating the place up a little.
He hoped Elias and Henrik were okay downstairs, the workshop could get bitterly cold in winter, and there was no way to heat that room.
Maybe he could make them some hot tea, that might warm them up?
Just as Johan had placed a pot of water onto the now-blazing fire to boil, he heard the soft pad of feet coming up the stairs.
He got up and headed for the door, opening it before they even had a chance to knock.
They were standing with the blanket wrapped around their shoulders, shivering violently, and Johan ushered them inside and towards the fire.
“We’re… s-s-s-sorry. It got… t-t-t-too c-c-cold downstairs,” Elias stammered out.
Johan grabbed the other blanket and wrapped it around them both until only their heads were poking out.
“W-w-w-we tr-tried to use m-m-magic to stay warm. But n-n-no energy left,” Henrik explained. They both looked quite drained, and Johan was concerned that they might put themselves at risk if they kept burning through magic for things like this.
With the hot water boiled, Johan took three teacups from the cupboard and began straining the water through the tea leaves.
He hadn’t needed all three teacups in so long, and the action which was once so familiar made his chest ache.
Especially for his warm, kind mother, whom he missed every day.
She had often made the three of them tea on cold nights like this, when they’d huddle in front of the fire.
Elias and Henrik thanked him when he passed them the tea, and they were shivering far less now.
Once the room had warmed up enough that Johan thought he’d be able to sleep, he took himself to bed.
Only, he’d given his blanket to the elves.
He felt bad trying to take it back, so he curled up on the mattress without it.
After only a few minutes with his eyes closed, Johan felt the weight of the thick wool being draped over him, and he smiled.
Just when he was about to try and sleep again, though, he was abruptly sandwiched between two little bodies.
His eyes flashed open to find Elias curled in front of him, his back flush with Johan’s chest, leaving him to deduce that it was Henrik pressed into his back.
Johan wasn’t sure what to do. It had been cold, yes, but with the fire going, the room was now warmer than usual. And Johan wasn’t entirely sure why the two of them wouldn’t just cuddle up together instead of on either side of him.
It took him a few minutes to try and relax again, but then Elias wriggled, pressing his bottom into Johan’s groin, and he was fairly certain that his heart had stopped for a moment and he suddenly had too much saliva in his mouth.
Johan held his breath, willing himself not to harden and give himself away.
He wasn’t sure why Elias seemed to be trying to torture him to sleep, but he was just about panicked enough by what was happening to only stiffen halfway.
Johan’s next predicament was his arm. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do with it, and it was beginning to ache holding it straight down his side.
This was not conducive to getting any sleep.
Eventually, with Henrik’s face pressed between his shoulder blades and two sets of heavy, even breathing on either side of him, Johan risked draping his arm over Elias and, by some miracle, Johan finally drifted off to sleep.