Page 10 of The Frog Prince (The GriMM Tales #6)

Five

Otto

S ensing 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 steady drip, drip, drip to 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 sag under the extra weight, depressions forming on either side of his calves, then higher, to his knees, his hips.

Cold breath hit his cock through thin cotton, making his back arch and his eyes widen. His fingers grasped the mattress, sure the fabric was about to rip as the prince lingered.

Fingers slipped under his smallclothes and pushed higher, smearing something viscous over his skin and making it tingle. Those fingers were so long they were able to reach the inside of his sensitive thighs, and there they stuck, suctioning to the skin like limpets on a rock.

His hips shifted against his will, his manhood filling out and pressing against wide lips that were braced to take him.

“Prince,” he gasped, shaking his head in denial as his eyes fluttered shut.

A long tongue unfurled to wet the fabric, curling around the length of his hardness until his whole lap was damp and sticky.

His hips undulated into the sensation without his permission.

Seeking friction. Seeking sensation. Moans filled the empty, cold night with heat as he chased that tongue and mouth.

His stomach tightened with every suck on his thighs from amphibian fingers, his hips and legs falling open and allowing the Frog Prince to push deeper into him. Otto plummeted into it without putting up any kind of fight, sure he must have been bewitched or drugged.

When he felt like he was about to tip over the edge, the prince pulled back, crawling the rest of the way on top of him, plastering their bodies together from head to toe, trapping him, stifling his breathing with that earthy, watery scent.

The drag of sensation against his pulsing cock was enough to make Otto’s knees squeeze those narrow hips, needy and begging.

And then that monstrous face broke from under the covers and hovered over his, hands pressed to the mattress on either side of his head.

“You reek of pleasure.”

Otto shook his head in denial. “No.”

Still, his knees couldn’t give up their grip on the prince, his cheeks flaming in shame as his hips started to roll again. The prince thrust down to meet him, rocking him into the bed and making it creak. Otto whined, fingers scrabbling above his head, searching for purchase.

His shirt was ripped open again, exposing his flushed, heaving chest. A single fingertip pressed to his pink nipple, latching on hungrily.

Otto’s eyes rolled in his head, his mouth hanging open and nothing but moans pouring out of it as he undulated his hips wildly, his cock so hard it hurt. The suction didn’t break, the seal perking the nipple up to a tight peak that stung with pleasure.

“Such a beautiful bride,” the Frog Prince purred, a single droplet of water rolling down green skin to fall directly into Otto’s open mouth, splashing against his tongue.

Otto rolled out of bed and hit the floor with a painful thump, a phantom taste flooding his mouth and pleasure shaking his bones.

He tried to orient himself as he rolled to sit up, frantically checking the room.

It was empty.

“A dream,” he murmured. “It was just a dream.”

“Otto?” Gisela called to him through the closed door. “Is everything all right?”

“Yes,” he said, wincing at how rough his voice sounded. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Yes, I am all right. Just tripped getting out of bed.”

“That will be the thud I heard then.”

“Yes.” He curled on the floor, terror still rattling his bones.

The wet spot on his smallclothes taunted him. He bit his lip and screwed his eyes shut in shame at the way his body had reacted to the dream. A dream about a monster touching him. Pleasing him.

How could he reconcile his reactions?

He shouldn’t have liked it. Oh but he had. And the evidence was right there, sticking to his skin, matting the hair on his groin and making him scared of his own body.

“Come out,” Gisela called. “I’ve made breakfast!”

The words cut through the self-loathing, and he took a deep breath to clear his mind and find a way to appreciate what he’d gotten in exchange for this breakdown he was going through.

His precious sister.

She felt healthy and strong enough to get out of bed and make them food.

She was back to joking and talking back to him and he couldn’t have been happier about it.

He’d take the bloodcurdling fear. He’d take the dreams and the potential loss of who he thought he was just to see and hear her like that.

He cleaned himself up at his basin, forcing himself not to think of the phantom fingers and tongue on his skin.

Pulling on a simple white shirt and breeches, he slipped his braces over his wide shoulders, each item making him feel more secure.

Dark woolen socks and shoes on, he walked to the small kitchen and found Gisela sitting at the table with her hair tied back and an apron over her blue dress.

She was repairing an old shirt of his that had torn, her needle pausing when she spotted him. “Did you lose your comb again, Brother?”

Otto patted at the unruly strands that were no doubt standing on end from all his tossing and turning. He should have dunked his head in the basin. Maybe that would have helped clear some of this fog.

“Did that fall knock all your wits out of your head?” she teased.

“I think it did,” he mumbled as he took a seat.

She placed the needlework aside and got up, walking to the pot bubbling over the fireplace and portioning out some of the gruel she had made.

“What are your plans for the day?” she asked him, setting the chipped bowl and spoon in front of him.

Anything but going back there.

“I have some unfinished tasks to complete for Henne. He was kind enough to allow me a few days off to go look for your remedy.” He tried not to sound bitter that his healer mentor hadn’t so much allowed him to go as challenged him to find a cure that didn’t exist. He’d sneered at Otto’s blooming hope, taunting him with his naivete and shaking his head when Otto said he had to try for his sister.

He was a thorn in Otto’s side, and Otto had realized that it was better not to say exactly what his plan was.

He didn’t need the ugliness Henne could bring when he was putting all his hope into the Frog Prince.

Henne wouldn’t understand it. If there was no money or potential for glory involved, he didn’t care.

“Is he terminally ill too?” she asked. “Seems late in life for him to realize he actually has a soul.”

“That is a bit rude,” Otto said, the reply almost instinctual.

“I am not a child anymore, Otto,” she said. “You have done your job trying to show me that all the people in the world are kind. I appreciate it. But I know Henne. He is many things, but kind isn’t one of them. He takes advantage of you.”

“Just steer clear of him until I come back,” Otto said. “He will have questions about your recovery, and I don’t want him bothering you for answers you don’t have.”

“Speaking of answers I don’t have.” She tilted her head. “Are you ever going to tell me how you got that remedy for me?”

“Not unless I have to, Gisela.” He let out a heavy sigh.

She looked at him with those eyes of hers that knew far too much, had seen far too much for her age. “It wasn’t anything… illegal? Or dangerous? I don’t want you taken from me. We are of his blood, but we don’t need to follow in his footsteps, Otto!”

“No.” He reassured her by putting his hand over her smaller one to calm her ire and fear. “It wasn’t illegal, I promise you. I—”

A croak interrupted him before he could find a way to avoid saying whether what he had done was dangerous. He froze at the sound of it, turning his head toward the window.

“Otto?” she questioned.