Page 9 of The Elves and the Shoemaker (The GriMM Tales #4)

Seven

Henrik

A

tight fist closed around Henrik’s lungs, stealing his ability to breathe as he watched the door close behind Elias.

Still naked and suddenly shrouded in shame, he wrapped the blanket around himself and tried to take a breath.

Only, he was fairly certain that he must have been struck by a spontaneous, deadly illness because he couldn’t breathe!

Henrik’s heart began beating as if it was attempting to burst free from his chest, and his vision blurred. All concepts of time warped, leaving Henrik unsure of how long he’d gone without breathing.

He was sure he should have met his end when large, firm hands gripped his shoulders.

The persistent ringing noise in his ears had drowned out the sound of approaching footsteps, but the big hands shaking him were the least of his concerns.

Evidently, this deadly illness included sudden blindness as he couldn’t get his eyes to focus, and to top it off, he was no longer able to feel his legs.

Anguish held him in its clutches as he lamented over how he’d hurt his love, and he could never make things right with him because he was going to die from this; he had no doubt.

The hands persisted and cupped his face, making shushing sounds. Arms that were much too large and strong to be Elias’ wrapped around him, squeezing around his chest so tight it ought to be suffocating, but instead of making it harder to breathe, they somehow made it easier.

When the familiar scent of leather and musk broke through the haze of panic, Henrik deduced that it was Johan who was holding him and rocking him from side to side.

Instead of Death coming for him, only Johan had.

And Johan seemed to have some kind of connection to magic himself because as he rocked Henrik like you might a babe, he found that the fist around his lungs loosened its grip slightly, allowing him to finally fill his lungs, and as he calmed, his vision slowly came back into focus.

Eventually, Johan relaxed his arms from around Henrik.

Shame and embarrassment almost threatened to send him spiralling back into panic as he absorbed what Johan had just witnessed.

What he’d thought was some kind of sudden illness was clearly a ludicrous response to his argument with Elias.

He shuffled away from Johan then, trying to hide within the thick wool blanket as though that would make him appear less foolish, or at the very least, protect Henrik from seeing what must be a look of judgement on the shoemaker’s face.

It wasn’t successful because Johan patted his back through the blanket until Henrik eventually gave in and poked his head out.

“Is Elias…?” was all he could get out, his voice raw from his hysterics.

Johan nodded his head and pointed up the stairs to where he lived. Henrik had assumed as much, given Elias didn’t really have anywhere else to go.

Henrik was grateful that Johan didn’t press for more.

He just sat next to him on the mattress, patting his back occasionally, but his presence was like having a calm, immovable rock nearby that made all of Henrik’s fears seem a little less scary, and the judgemental expression he’d been expecting was nowhere to be found.

After a while, Henrik found he did, in fact, desperately need someone to talk to.

“I said something hurtful to Elias that I didn’t mean,” he confessed, barely above a whisper.

Johan merely nodded in a way that suggested this was not new information to him.

“I was worried that Elias was only with me because we had been trapped together, but what I said made it sound instead like that was why I was with him. I doubt I will ever understand why Elias cares for me—”

Johan cut him off there with a derisive snort that Henrik chose to ignore.

“But Elias is easy to love. He’s like the sun in the sky, and I am the rain. The rain is wet and miserable. Nobody with any sense likes the rain,” Henrik said mournfully.

There was a beat of silence, and then Johan rasped, “Plants do.”

Henrik let out a wet laugh at that and wiped under his eyes with the back of his hand. “You’re a good listener, thank you.”

Johan chuckled sardonically.

“I don’t mean because you hardly speak.” Henrik gave him a scornful look. “I mean, you are able to say a lot, even without your words. It’s a gift few men possess, in my experience. I can’t claim it’s a strength of either Elias or myself,” Henrik added dryly.

Johan’s smile was warm, and Henrik felt less like the miserable rain. He pondered that maybe Johan was an umbrella, well equipped for the relentless drizzle that poured from Henrik’s soul.

Standing, Johan reached out a hand for Henrik.

Only, when Henrik stood, the blanket fell off him, leaving him naked.

Johan stared for a moment at Henrik’s exposed body before blushing and quickly turning away.

Henrik wasn’t ashamed of his body; there was no room to be shy of it working in the mill, but he was rather embarrassed when he remembered that his stomach and now-soft cock, still contained the evidence of his and Elias’ earlier release.

Henrik grabbed his nightclothes and hastily changed before wrapping the blanket back around himself and following Johan up the stairs.

Johan led the way into a sparsely decorated home, which was unsurprising to Henrik. The place had what Johan needed and was taken care of, though.

In the far corner of the room, Henrik could see a lump under a blanket, and he gulped.

He was suddenly not so sure of how he was supposed to make things right with Elias, and waking him from his sleep didn’t seem like an excellent start, but Johan nudged him forward and indicated to Elias with his chin.

Henrik slowly approached the lump on the bed as if one wrong move might lead to him having a limb bitten off. He took a steadying breath before lying down on his side to face his love.

“Eli?” he whispered.

Fierce amber eyes shot open and glared back at him in the dim room. Henrik bit his lip.

“I’m sorry,” he began, but Elias stubbornly turned to face the other way.

Unsure of how to proceed, Henrik looked back over to where Johan stood, begging him with his eyes for help. Johan sighed but came over and gently shook Elias’ foot to get his attention. Once Elias glanced his way, Johan pointed at him, then tugged on his ear and then pointed at Henrik.

“No,” Elias replied before returning to his spot facing the wall. Henrik sighed in defeat, but Johan had clearly had enough of the elves’ antics that night and grabbed a damp washcloth from where it was drying on the back of a chair and—very accurately—launched the cloth at Elias’ face.

Elias sat up angrily at that, throwing the cloth onto the floor.

“This is abuse,” he squawked indignantly.

Johan just rolled his eyes before once more pointing at Elias, tugging his ear, then pointing at Henrik and making a talking motion with his hand.

With that, Johan left them to it and busied himself over in the kitchen, clearly clattering around to give them the illusion of privacy.

Henrik tried again. “I didn’t mean what I said. I’m so sorry, Eli. I think there’s something wrong with me where I just spoil things. I’m like a poison, and you deserve better than me.” Henrik nervously worried his fingers.

Elias huffed. “Why did you say it, then?”

“I… I worried that was why you were with me. Like with everything else, you were stuck with me, so you made the best of it. And now that we could go our separate ways if we wanted to, I thought you might. Like… like if I pushed you away first, it might hurt less when you left me,” Henrik confessed with a degree of vulnerability he’d never before offered to a single soul in his life.

But if anyone deserved the raw honesty, it was Eli.

“You are an imbecile,” Elias responded to Henrik, exposing his tattered heart.

“I am. But... I… I do love you, Elias. There is not a day of this life I don’t wish to spend with you, and that’s quite terrifying,” Henrik admitted.

At that, Elias finally turned to face him, and most of the anger had melted from his expression. “Do you really?”

“Love you?”

Elias nodded.

“Like I’ve never loved anyone.” Henrik swallowed the lump in his throat.

“Such an imbecile,” Elias muttered again, only this time, he pressed his lips to Henrik’s for a gentle kiss.

The gesture was as familiar to Henrik as breathing.

He adored the feel of those soft lips that so often stretched to blind him with his favourite smile in the world.

The smile he couldn’t live without and that would have haunted him forever if he’d really destroyed what they had.

He loved the little puff of air that Elias let out after they kissed and treasured it now, breathing it in and keeping it safe in his heart.

He hadn’t ruined everything after all, and the relief almost brought him to his knees. They still had each other, and they would be okay.

Elias lifted the blanket he was wrapped in, inviting Henrik to join him. Henrik didn’t hesitate, snuggling in as close as he could get and kissing Elias on his neck where he smelled divine, the perfect combination of masculine and feminine that was so perfectly him.

Exhaustion weighed heavily on Henrik now that the turbulent events of the evening were resolved, and keeping his eyes open was a struggle, but he needed to look into Elias’ eyes once more to be reassured that his affection remained there. Glittering amber eyes gazed softly back at him.

“I love you, too, Rik,” Elias whispered, pecking another kiss to the tip of Henrik’s nose.