Page 24 of The Frog Prince

Their home wasn’t much—larger than most, but mostly bare due to circumstance. An empty inheritance from their useless father. Still, it was a roof that didn’t leak and timbered walls that blocked the cold, and Otto was grateful every day for what they did have.

He did a once-over of the house to make sure everything was as they’d left it days ago. Other than a light layer of dust all was as it should be. Gisela insisted he head straight to bed, promising she would do the same as she felt herself getting tired again. She assured him she felt healthy, just deprived of quality sleep, and he chose to believe her.

He secretly watched her retire to her room, the urge to sit at her bedside again to make sure she didn’t relapse difficult to ignore.

Sighing, he headed to his own room and got ready for bed as quickly as he could as the sun slowly set, forcing him to light a small candle. Taking the chamberstick with him, he walked barefoot toward his bed and was about to dive under his cover when he stepped in something wet and cold.

He jumped away, looking down at his feet and finding nothing but his worn wooden floor.

His foot looked dry.

Ducking down, he peered under the bed frame, finding nothing but dust when he moved the candle closer.

“You’re going mad,” he told himself.

Back on his feet, he draped a blanket around his shoulders, gaze moving to the small window that faced east toward the forest. The curtain hadn’t been drawn yet. Shivering, he stepped carefully over, keeping himself mostly out of view.

He peered out into the darkness, searching so intently that his eyes began to strain.

“Even if you’re there, you won’t come out,” he whispered, as if the Frog Prince was listening. “And I won’t ever go back.”

He blew out the candle and drew the curtain sharply.

Five

Otto

Sensing something, Otto frowned and peeled his eyes open to the darkness of his bedroom. He looked at the door first, which remained closed, then the window, which was now ajar. The curtains rustled with a slight breeze, and the room was freezing. He shivered in his smallclothes, clutching the blanket closer as he searched for the reason for its opening.

Perhaps the wind?

He strained his ears for any peculiar sounds. There was nothing. The night was undisturbed and empty, only a steadydrip, drip, dripto be heard.

Rain? Only…it didn’t seem to be coming from outside the window, but from somewhere in the room.

He looked up to check the roof and then froze in terror.

There, above the wardrobe, an unnatural shape perched, knees braced wide and hands held between its legs. Water dripped from its large head to the floor, every splash making his heart stop. Round, ephemeral green eyes bored into him, unblinking as they pinned him in place.

The Frog Prince was here.

“I waited for you, young master.”

The words filled the air, coating Otto like a second blanket. Otto couldn’t move he was so terrified, even as the Frog Prince slipped gracefully down from his spot.

He moved closer, out of the shadow of the wardrobe and into the sliver of moonlight pouring through the window. It painted him in silver, reflections bouncing off his wet skin and marking him as otherworldly.

“Why did you not come to me?” he whispered, his voice a silken caress.

Otto, like before, couldn’t find the words to speak. He was breathless, faint, shuddering sounds slipping past his lips, the pounding of his heart the loudest thing in the room.

The wet footfalls slowly came closer to the foot of the bed, the Frog Prince’s looming height casting Otto in shadow. They didn’t break eye contact once, the prince holding him captive as if the most powerful magic resided in his gaze.

“You promised to be mine, young master. Now I’ve come to take what I am owed.”

Otto whimpered in response to both the words and the feeling of the Frog Prince taking the end of the blanket between his webbed fingers. He rubbed his thighs together, not understanding his own reactions, before the monster slipped underneath.

All Otto could do was gasp out loud as he looked at the mound under the blanket moving closer. He felt the mattress sagunder the extra weight, depressions forming on either side of his calves, then higher, to his knees, his hips.