Page 30 of The Elves and the Shoemaker (The GriMM Tales #4)

Twenty-Three

Henrik

T

hose two better come back made up or be ready to duel because I’m sick of this, Henrik lamented to himself.

He was optimistic, though. As long as Elias didn’t manage to put his foot in his mouth—which now he thought about it, was a considerably high possibility—he was certain the two of them would make amends so they could all move on.

A noise outside distracted Henrik from where he was sweeping the floor of their little cabin. He looked out the window to see if Johan and Elias were smiling or crying, hoping to get an indication of how their conversation had gone.

But it wasn’t Johan and Elias.

Two men were hovering by the tree line, and Henrik’s heart sped faster than a rabbit’s. Henrik had only spotted one of them at first, his flame-coloured hair standing out in the shaded forest, but there was a second man with hair as dark as night to his side, wielding a knife.

Suddenly painfully aware of how small and defenceless he was without Johan and Elias, Henrik grabbed the wool blanket off the bed to cover the table and hid underneath it.

As the sound of footsteps approached, Henrik’s pulse pounded in his ears like the drums they would sometimes use to keep the elves working long into the night back at the mills.

Henrik held his breath when the door swung open, and he could see two sets of boots walk by him from the small gap under the blanket.

“Well, it’s certainly being lived in,” one of the men said to the other.

“They appear to either be cobblers or own more shoes than the Queen.”

The two men wandered around the cabin, and Henrik prayed for them to leave before Elias and Johan returned, but luck was not on their side.

“Rik? Rik! I must tell you all about this bird I saw,” Elias yelled as he approached. Henrik cursed under his breath.

“It seems we have company,” one of the men muttered just before Elias burst through the door.

Henrik peered out from behind the blanket only to see Elias launch himself at the red-haired man shouting, “What have you done to Henrik?!”

Pandemonium broke out then. The dark-haired man plucked Elias off his friend and held a knife to his throat while Johan stood in the doorway with his hands raised defensively, unable to speak.

What an unmitigated disaster.

Henrik crawled out from underneath the table and ran for Johan, who tucked him behind him protectively.

“Where did you come from?” the red-haired man asked, sounding more amused than anything.

“I-I-I heard you c-coming and hid. W-we don’t want any trouble,” Henrik said, even as his whole body trembled in fear.

“Your friend here seems like he might want some trouble.”

“In my defence, I thought you’d eaten my friend,” Elias spoke as though having a knife held to his throat wasn’t an especially new experience for him.

“I would never eat… your friend.” He smirked in an incredibly unnerving manner.

“Now that we’ve established you didn’t hurt my friend, could we be a bit more civilised and drop the knife?” Elias asked.

The two strangers looked at each other and shrugged before the dark-haired man lowered the knife, and Elias slowly backed away until he was standing with Johan and Henrik in the doorway.

“What do you want?” Henrik asked.

“It’s always good to know who one’s neighbours are. What if we run out of honey for our tea?”

Elias’ entire demeanour changed to one Henrik had never seen, the lightness of his tone before gone in an instant. “We don’t have any honey,” he said. “Please leave our home.”

Surprisingly, they were met with looks from the men that held more curiosity than animosity.

“You are running from someone?” the one with the knife asked.

“If we were, it would be unwise to discuss that with strangers who could give away our location. I’m sure you understand.” Elias’ jaw was clenched hard enough Henrik feared he might crack a tooth.

“Strangers? I am Hansel,” the red-haired man said. “And this is my… brother Gerhardt. Now we aren’t strangers. We’re friends.”

“You have a low bar for friendship,” Henrik muttered, momentarily forgetting that being snarky to knife-wielding, probable outlaws, was not a good idea.

As if reading Henrik’s mind, Gerhardt threw his knife into the air before catching it again by the handle.

“Nobody lives this deep in the forest who isn’t hiding something. You never know when you might need an ally, elf.” Gerhardt somehow made it sound more of a threat than an offer, but there was no malice in the strange man’s expression, so Henrik dipped his chin in deference.

“Consider us acquainted,” Henrik replied.

“Indeed,” Gerhardt said as the three of them stepped away from the doorway to let the two men past.

“Farewell… for now,” Hansel added.

When they left, Johan shut the door behind them, and they all watched through the sash window until they were no longer visible in the dense, dark trees.

“Will we ever really be safe?” Elias whispered, and dread pooled in Henrik’s stomach.

Was he destined to forever look over his shoulder? To never sleep peacefully again?

Johan put his arm around Elias and kissed the top of his head, the gesture reminding Henrik of why the two of them had been gone in the first place.

“For now,” Henrik said. “We’ll need to sleep in shifts again to keep a lookout.”

“I hate that,” Elias replied.

“I really thought… we’d be okay here.” Johan sounded bereft almost.

Henrik shuffled in closer, wrapping his arms around both Elias and Johan and took a deep breath to centre himself.

“Gods! You two had sex without me.” He scowled up at Johan before pinching Elias on his upper arm.

“More crucially, though, we have made amends, Rik.”

That was a relief, at least, although Henrik was a little bitter that he’d gone weeks without sex only for them to finally do it without him.

“We’ll make it up to you,” Johan said, tilting Henrik’s head up by his chin for a kiss. Most of his annoyance left him at the press of Johan’s soft lips against his own followed by Elias crowding him from behind and nibbling on his ear.

“You better,” he grumbled anyway.